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CHAPTER XIX. SKETCH OF THE OVERLAND STAGE PROPRIETOR.
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EN.
Holladay, the great overland stage man, had some experience
himself as a driver during his younger days, when, in the
later '30's and the '40's, he resided in western Missourl--a
considerable time at Weston, in Platte county. He was early
known as "one of the boys," and the "Overland" drivers
nearly all had a warm, even a friendly, feeling for him.
Some of them fairly worshiped him. Besides being a genial
fellow among the drivers and agents, all of the stage men
recognized that he was at the head of the stage line and
that they were his employees.
line was virtually abandoned for more than a month at one time when it otherwise would have been paying the best. Most of the army of employees, during the troubles, were doing little except drawing their pay. But it was monotonous to them; much more difficult to lie idle under the terrible suspense than it was to keep steadily at work. Most of them were anxious to be kept busily employed, and few dreamed that the embargo placed on the line by the savages would last more than a few days, or at farthest only a week or two. The long delay in the opening of the route in the summer and fall of 1864 was a severe blow to overland commerce and surprised every one. For a short time it became necessary, during this abandonment of Stage traffic, to send the overland letter mail by ocean steamer and the Isthmus from New York. This Indian trouble was therefore extremely disastrous to the noted stage man. Property amounting to several hundred thousand dollars was destroyed, while the passenger business for six weeks at one time was completely paralyzed on the entire line, as was also the mail service. For three or four weeks at another time--only a few months afterward--the Indians destroyed a vast amount of stage property in another of their disastrous raids. Ben. Holladay had a somewhat remarkable career. Few men in the country, at the time, accumulated wealth more rapidly; but he spent his money freely and was quite lavish with it, squandering vast sums when he was making it so easily. After he had accumulated a snug fortune he went to New York to live. He built one of the most magnificent residences a few miles out, on the Hudson, and called his place "Ophir Farm." Subsequently, after he was awarded several fat mail contracts,* he built an elegant mansion in Washington, opposite Franklin Square, on K street, near the residence of Hon. John Sherman. His house contained superb furniture and fittings; a large classical library of handsomely bound volumes, with fine oil paintings by celebrated masters in Europe and America; also a number of elegant bronzes and marble statuary. Among the figures of bronze were two lions which cost $6000 each. He had also many other mag- *Holladay was the sole contractor for carrying the mail on seven routes representing the "Overland" in Kansas, Nebraska, Colorado, Nevada, and Oregon, for which he received from the Government, between July 1, 1862, and June 30, 1866, the sum of $1,896,028. He was also interested--but his name did not appear--in the mail contract from Salt Lake to Placerville, constituting a part of the main line. It cost the Government $1,000,000 annually, for several years, to convey the mail on this line between the Missouri river and the California terminus. |
 BEN. HOLLADAY, Proprietor of the Overland Stage Line and the Holladay Overland Mail and Express Company. Born in Kentucky, in 1824. Died in Portland, Ore., in 1877. |
nificent and costly works of art. While holding so many important Government contracts, Mr. Holladay resided, during the sessions of Congress, in Washington, for he had vast interests at stake in the great West and he often needed important congressional legislation. In the early '60's he came into possession of the central overland California mail line, and subsequently, while operating it, serious trouble arose with the Indians along the Platte and Little Blue rivers. During 1864-'66 he was damaged to the extent of half a million dollars. Nearly all the stage stations for at least 400 miles were burned; a considerable amount of stock was run off; a number of stage-coaches, a vast amount of hay, corn, oats and much other valuable property belonging to him were destroyed. While at one time rolling in wealth--being worth millions--the tide suddenly changed, and nearly everything of the immense estate finally went. Lastly, in the spring of 1888, the Washington home, with its contents, was sold under the hammer. Mr. Holladay died at Portland, Ore., in August, 1877. While he left a large amount of property, it seems the most of it was so encumbered that his widow and children realized little from it. Some years before his death he married a Miss Campbell, of Portland, who, with two young children, survived him. His first wife was born in Kentucky, but came with her parents to Platte county, Missouri, when a child. A singular fatality followed the four children of the first marriage. The two daughters married noblemen, and both met with distressing deaths, after sad experiences. One died in a Pullman car, while on her way from Omaha to the Pacific coast; and the other was taken ill on an ocean steamer while en route to New York, and died at a hotel soon after reaching that city. He had two sons, one of whom died at a hospital in Washington. The other met with an accident and lost his life in China from the effects of dissipation. For a number of years before his death there was a bill pending in Congress for the reimbursement of Mr. Holladay to the amount of several hundred thousand dollars. This vast sum was for the losses he sustained by Indian raids on the plains while carrying the California overland mail; but after his death there was no one to look after the measure, and thus it ended. A number of stories have been told since his death about Ben Holladay having made some extraordinarily fast journeys across |
the country by his overland stage line as early as 1857. The most of these stories, however, were all the work of imagination. The fact is that no such trips were made by him in the '50's, for he did not get possession of the great stage line until December, 1861. At a later period, however, it is told that Holladay was making an effort to get an increase in the subsidy for carrying the letter mail overland to California. The schedule time from Atchison to Salt Lake was eleven days, while it took six more to get to the California terminus, at Placerville. In order to convince the post-office department that the schedule could be considerably reduced in case he was better paid, the noted stage man, while at Salt Lake, sent the division agent from there East, and it was planned to make the highest speed possible in one of his Concord stage-coaches--a trip that would astonish the authorities at Washington as well as his friends all over the country. Everything having been arranged, the millionaire stage proprietor left Salt Lake in his special coach, and was carried on extra-fast time over the Wasatch range and the Rockies, across the plains and over the rolling prairies, to Atchison, a distance of 1200 miles, in eight days and six hours. This was an unprecedented feat in overland staging, and astonished every one in Atchison when the vehicle rolled in. Such time had never before been excelled except by the pony express. The result--something without a parallel in staging--was telegraphed over the country, and naturally it made quite a sensation. especially among the post-office officials in Washington, and there was a speedy passage of the stage-man's bill, which for some time had been pending before Congress. Ben. Holladay was in many respects quite a remarkable man. He was born in 1824, in Kentucky, near the old Blue Lick battlefield. He was a son of William Holladay, and his brothers were Jesse, David, Joseph, James H. and Andrew S. Holladay. The most of his early life was spent in western Missouri and on the Plains. When a boy of seventeen he was Colonel Doniphan's courier in the far West. At the age of twenty-eight, with a train of fifty wagons loaded with merchandise, he entered Salt Lake valley, met Brigham Young, was indorsed by the Mormon prophet as being worthy of the confidence of the faithful, and this one act brought him first-class buyers for his goods. When his thirty-eighth milestone was reached he was at the head of the greatest |
stage line in the world. At the age of forty-five he was sole owner of sixteen Pacific Ocean steamers, carrying trade and passengers to Oregon, Panama, Japan, and China. The rapid construction of the Pacific railroad kept shortening his stage line. New short routes were from time to time being opened, from several points along the railroad to a number of rich mining camps that were being developed in the great Northwest, and these he stocked with his surplus animals and coaches, and did an immense business. The Union Pacific kept rapidly pushing its road westward across the Rockies, where it was to form a junction with the Central Pacific. The Central Pacific was rapidly building eastward in the later '60's, and Holladay was becoming financially embarrassed, largely in consequence of the frequent depredations committed by Indians on the Platte and Little Blue rivers. Property belonging to him aggregating hundreds of thousands of dollars was destroyed, and he thus became badly crippled. Wells, Fargo & Co., whose business throughout the mining camps in the West had then become immense and was rapidly growing, had for some time been making an effort to get possession of Holladay's great stage line. With Holladay, it seemed that now was the opportunity of his life. Under the circumstances, his only alternative was to sell, and thus the overland stage line, with its numerous feeders, passed into the hands of Wells, Fargo & Co., who later obtained control of and for many years subsequently operated nearly all the stage and express lines between the Missouri river and the Pacific ocean.* In the St. Joseph Argus, July 8, 1893, there is an article by Hon. John Doniphan that contains much about Mr. Holladay, and which we reproduce here, with his permission: "People of the present day who are hauled along from New York to San Francisco at the rate of thirty and forty miles an hour in five or six days have but little conception of the then gigantic enterprise known as the *Holladay got possession of the stage line at a price much less than the real value and original cost of the property. He afterwards spent a good deal of money for extra stock and coaches, shortening many of the drives, putting in a number of new stations, and employing a good deal of extra help. He was constantly making needed improvements on the line until he sold out to Wells, Fargo & Co., in the latter part of November, 1866. For his interest, which covered the animals, rolling-stock, stations, etc., on the main line and its branches, he received a million and a half in cash, in addition to upwards of a quarter of a million in paid-up stock of the express company. Besides this, Wells, Fargo & Co. paid him over half a million dollars in cash for the hay, grain, provisions, etc., on hand at the various stations when the transfer was made. |
overland stage. When the Government let the first contract to transfer the mails from Independence to Salt Lake, in 1850, to Samuel Woodson, of Independence, the country from the western boundary of Missouri to Utah was a wilderness, more than a thousand miles in length, and occupied by herds of buffalo and roving bands of savages. Thousands of gold seekers had passed over it in the spring of 1849, and that year left only a trail of bleached bones of men and animals. A regiment of soldiers had been sent from Fort Leavenworth in May, 1849, to build stockade forts, at Kearney,* on the Platte, near the present site of Kearney, Neb.; one at Laramie, on the North Platte, forty miles north of the city of Laramie, in Wyoming; one at Fort Hall, a Hudson Bay trading point in Idaho; and one on the Columbia river, in Oregon. These were from 300 to 1000 miles apart, and afforded but little protection outside of the parade-grounds of the posts, as they were only garrisoned each by one or two companies of soldiers and liable at any time to be besieged by the hostile Indians. It required nerve to invest capital in such an enterprise, and although assurances were made that the United States would make good all losses to the contractors, these promises were poorly kept, as claims for such losses are still pending, and are likely to prove as long-lived as the Florida war claims or the French spoliations that came to us from last century. One of these is the claim of the heirs of the celebrated Ben. Holladay, who put in a claim for a half million of dollars, suffered by his stage line in 1864 and 1865, by the burning of stations, grain, loss of stock and interruption of travel by the Indian wars of those years. "Judge Samuel H. Woodson filled his contract, from July 1, 1850, to July 1, 1854, once a month, at $19,500 per year. It was then taken by W. M. F. McGraw, of Maryland, from July 1, 1854, to July 1, 1858, at $13,500 per year for a monthly service for carrying the mail. The profit was expected to grow out of passengers, at $180 to Salt Lake and $300 to California. But McGraw found it a losing business and failed in 1856. The line was then let for the residue of the contract to a Mormon firm, Kimball & Co., who ran it until the Mormon war of 1857, when the Government rescinded the contract and Col. A. S. Johnston, who afterward became commander-in-chief of the confederate army, and was killed at Shiloh, was sent to Utah, and wintered in 1857-'58 at Fort Bridger. Up to this time the coaches were drawn by mule teams, and there were but three stations for changes of teams, the first being at Fort Kearney, 300 miles out from Independence; the second at Fort Laramie, on the North Platte, about 400 miles west of *Since the first part of this book went to press, Maj. Gen. Francis V. Greene has published a magazine article entitled "The United States Army," (Scribner, October, 1901,) in which he throws some light on the movements of Government troops between the Missouri river and California, in 1846. According to General Greene, COL. STEPHEN WATTS KEARNEY commanded one of the three grand divisions of the army in its advance on Mexico, in 1846. He says: "Kearney with eight companies of the First Dragoons and 1000 volunteers from Missouri marched about 2500 miles from Fort Leavenworth across the Plains, through the ranges of New Mexico and over the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific coast, arriving at San Diego, Cal., in less than six months." In his article General Greene quotes liberally from war department records, and uniformly spells Colonel Kearney's name KEARNEY. In this connection, read page 235, et seq., this volume. |
Kearney; and the third at Fort Bridger, about 500 miles west of Laramie and then to Salt Lake. This coach line was via the South Pass, the route taken by the first gold seekers, in 1849 and 1850. "The next contract let was after the 'Utah expedition' reached Salt Lake valley, to John M. Hockaday, of Missouri, for a weekly mail, at $190,000 per annum. In 1859 John M. Hockaday sold this contract, with the entire outfit, to Russell, Majors & Waddell, who were all Missourians. They formed the C. 0. C. & P. P. Express, and extended the line of travel by coaches to California. This company was the Central Overland Califfornia (sic) and Pike's Peak Express Company, and was run by Russell, Majors & Waddell until April, 1861, when Gen. Bela M. Hughes, of St. Joseph, was elected president and assumed the sole management of it. Russell, Majors & Waddell had transferred the starting points to Leavenworth and Atchison soon after the Hannibal railroad was completed, and from that time St. Joseph was the great shipping point from which the wagon-trains were started with supplies for the line. Trains of thirty wagons were used to haul provisions, forage and necessaries for each division of the line, as it took an immense amount of these to feed the vast army of employees and many hundred head of stock, with blacksmiths, harness-makers, carpenters, and wagon-makers. Each station had to be supplied with extra teams, to be used in case of loss from raids or other losses incident to the perils of a thousand miles of wilderness. In July, 1861 the line was run from St. Joseph to California, and the first coach left St. Joseph July 1, 1861, and reached Placerville, Cal., in eighteen days, schedule time; and on the 18th day of July, 1861, the first coach from California reached St. Joseph, carrying the first through passenger, Maj. J. W. Simonton, one of the editors of the San Francisco Bulletin. As General Hughes aptly said, it solved the problem of overland transportation and was the avant courier of the great railroad line. "The hostility of the Sioux, the difficulty of obtaining supplies and the thousand perils incident to floods, snows, Indians and road-agents rendered this one of the most stupendous enterprises of the present century, and a man of less courage, energy and capacity than General Hughes would have signally failed. In 1862 Ben. Holladay bought the C. 0. C. & P. P. and obtained an increased subsidy from the Government and added additional lines--one to Virginia City, Mont., and one to Boise City, Idaho--until the mileage of the company amounted to 3300 miles, and the main lines were made triweekly and some of them daily. The discovery of gold in Montana and Idaho was the saving of Holladay from utter ruin. The Indians and road-agents were factions which added a hundred per cent. to the expenses. The half-breed French and 'squaw men' (as whites who lived with the Indians were called) were the only settlers except at Government posts, and were constantly warring on the company by raids on its stock and supplies and pilfering to trade with the wild Indians. Scattered over the country were small bands of desperadoes from Texas, Arkansas, Kansas, etc., ostensibly hunting buffalo for their hides, but really to steal stock, rob the stages and passengers, and sometimes murder was added as a fitting pastime. The famous Slade, who had been promoted from clerk to a supply train to |
division agent at Julesburg, made war upon these men in the protection of the company's interest. They waylaid and shot him and left him for dead. When told he must die, he swore he would live for revenge, and at the end of six months he got up and proceeded to keep his oath, and actually took the lives of eleven of them. Habits of dissipation grew with his blood letting, until the company discharged him, and he went to Montana and became a road-agent, one of the characters he had been so fierce in fighting, and ended his life in the hands of Judge Lynch, at Virginia City. It was but a short stop from a trusted employee to the life of a desperado. "Holladay sold out the line in 1866 to Wells, Fargo & Co., who continued to run the main line until the Pacific railroad was finished; dropping off from station to station as the road was finished from either end, until 1869, when the completed lines met in Utah. The lines to Montana and Idaho were continued about ten years longer, until the routes were covered by railroad-tracks. Wells, Fargo & Co. still continue to run routes through the mountains, but the glamour and zest of the olden times have passed, and the heroes who made the plains awaken to the life and light of civilization are gone to hunting-grounds, mostly with their boots on. A few are peacefully passing the remnant of well-spent lives unappreciated by the great West for which they did so much. "James M. Bromley started at Weston in 1849 as stage agent, and went into the service of the 'Overland' in 1850 and continued until 1867, in about every capacity as a trusted servitor, in Utah, raising his family, and in odd months serving in the legislature of the territory, trying to formulate the blessings of law from the chaos in which he was so long a prominent actor. Mr. Doniphan published another letter, in the St. Joseph Catholic Tribune, June 22, 1895, of such value to our subject that we print it entire. Aside from information about Mr. Holladay, it is a valuable contribution to the history of the West. "In your paper of June 1 there is an article about Weston being an old town and a sketch of its palmy days. I do not desire to rush into print for notoriety, but there are several errors in it which I believe should be corrected, on account of Weston being the home of many young people who must be informed by their elders. "Weston is dear to me as the home of my youth and happiest days. It contains the ashes of my children and my good lady, and I hope to be interred in its lovely cemetery, which I did much to obtain and got in shape forty-two years since. "Weston has been the home of many distinguished men whose memories should be cherished and their characters fairly represented; among others, Gen. Andrew S. Hughes, Ben. Holladay, their relative Frank P. Blair, Gov. Peter H. Burnett, Gen. J. W. Denver, Col. J. M. Estill, Gen. B. F. Stringfellow, L. M. Lawson, and many other distinguished men, besides hundreds of good and honorable citizens, equal to the noblemen of nature in any country or clime. "The article is an excellent one in many of its recitals and contains many |
truthful incidents; but I know Mr. Howe has been misled in some facts and has left a wrong impression of many others. Weston never contained over 3200 citizens who were permanent residents. Emigrants bound for California, in 1849, settlers waiting for Kansas to open and discharged soldiers sometimes swelled the population several hundred. In 1848 there were 1700 soldiers discharged at Fort Leavenworth. Most of them flocked to Weston, but soon scattered, and but few remained longer than a few months. In 1854 several hundred families were left at Weston until homes could be prepared in Kansas. "For many years Weston was the head of navigation, and until 1849 it was the stopping-point of two-thirds of the steamboats on the Missouri. I was there in 1846, and know of people coming from St. Joseph, Council Bluffs and Savannah to take a boat at Weston. The railroad was commenced from Weston to St. Joseph in 1859, and completed April 1, 1861. "John Brown never was a prisoner at Weston, but John Doy was, in 1859. Charles A. Perry, one of the most enterprising men Weston ever had, and a liberal one, is living in St. Joseph with his children, and does not need to peddle vegetables--a sunstroke should shield him from ridicule. "The better class of people in Weston were not given to fist fights, but generally used knives or pistols, as in other parts of the West, the only exception being, as far as I can recollect in my twenty-five years' residence, was the fight between Joseph Holladay and J. F. Baker, both merchants, and which led to the fight between Ben. Holladay and George W. Dye, a few days later, as represented by Mr. Howe. I never knew a fight at a ball or between the country or town boys at any time or place, and I attended most of them for several years. The young men of Weston were examples of good morals and good behavior, as is evidenced to-day by their filling places of honor and trust from New York to the Pacific coast. I have met them in New York, Cincinnati, St. Louis, Colorado, Montana, Salt Lake, Idaho, and California, and they were always endeared to Weston and proud of her, and she may well be proud of most of them. "The rabble there did fill up on fifteen-cent whisky and have frequent and terrible fist fights, but seldom was there any one much hurt. Sometimes an unfortunate farmer who had imbibed too much got a broken head, but some doctor would plaster it up and prescribe another drink, as the hair of the dog is good for the bite. "I was present and witnessed the entire fight between Ben. Holladay and George W. Dye, and I never heard of the charge of Dye stealing ten dollars, and do not believe he ever did, or that Holladay ever said so. Both have passed the grand stand, but each have left respectable descendants. "But my chief object in writing this is to do justice to Benjamin Holladay's memory. He had his home in Weston from 1839 to 1859, and was a character of whom the city of Weston may well be proud. He was without much education. He came to Liberty, Mo., in 1837, aged sixteen years, from Nicholas county, Kentucky, was of Virginian ancestry, and was connected by blood with the famous Hughes family of that state. He had faults of disposition and education, but he was brave, strong, aggressive, talented, and generous. The history of the man reads like a fable. |
"At the age of nineteen he came to Weston to clerk in a store, but it was too slow; at twenty he married and started a hotel; at twenty-three he was postmaster, and the Hugheses helped him to start a drug-store, in 1846. His personal magnetism enabled him to get contracts at Fort Leavenworth for wagons, bacon, flour, horses, mules, etc., to start Kearney's regulars and Doniphan's regiment to Santa Fe. Time was of more importance than money, and his celerity in obtaining these things on the then frontier also enabled him to make 200 per cent. on what he supplied, and gave him the position as the favorite contractor at Fort Leavenworth during the entire war with Mexico, and at the end of the war he bought, in the fall of 1848 and the spring of 1849, a large amount of Government war material, oxen, wagons, etc., at a small price, and by this time he was known as a business man of much promise and some wealth. "In February, 1849, he and Theodore F. Warner, one of God's noblemen, formed a partnership to trade to Salt Lake. The goods were bought on Warner's credit; the wagons and oxen were mostly furnished by Holladay. They made a good deal of money by that enterprise, and Ben. Holladay never mistreated Warner in any respect. I was the attorney for both of them ten years, and for Warner twenty. "In 1855 Holladay and myself had a misunderstanding, and were never good friends afterwards; but I think I can do justice to his good traits. He did not die poor, but left about $300,000, so I have been informed, and a just claim against the Government for a half-million. He never had a mortgage on Warner's home, as I bought it in 1853 at private sale for $3200 and moved into it. When I moved into the house Warner went to California and took charge of the finances of the firm and remained nearly two years, and sold out to Holladay at about $40,000 and brought the money home in the fall of 1855, and lost it on hemp in the next five years, together with heavy security debts he had to pay for others. "I read letters from Holladay to Warner in 1867 from Salem, Ore., recalling the kindness of Warner, offering him sympathy and assistance, proposing if he would come to Oregon to join him in building the Oregon & California railroad and manage the finances, out of which he expected to realize $3,000,000, that he should have a large amount of the profits. This road proved to be Holladay's Waterloo. He opened a hotel at Salem, possessed himself of a majority of the legislature, elected his own senator, expecting to succeed to the position himself, bought ships, obtained a land grant from the legislature of thousands of acres of the best lands; he issued millions in bonds and sold them in Europe; his ships sent there failed to procure immigrants as expected; his railroad bonds ripened coupons before the lands would sell or before the immigrants arrived, and he undertook to pay the interest as it matured out of his private fortune. Sherman's bill had passed in 1869 to pay all Government debts in gold, and Holladay was paying thirty per cent. to satisfy the greed of the bondholders. It broke him. The advance of property at Portland left something at his death, after paying his debts. "He was squandering a million on a house and a thousand acres on the Hudson. His wonderful nerve and activity enabled him to struggle along -29 |
until the panic of 1873 dried up the Pactolian streams he had controlled; and, although badly handicapped with debt, in 1877, when Congress offered him $100,000 for his claim for losses by the Indians in 1864 and 1865, he rejected it, saying if the United States was not able to pay its debts he would give it his claim. He immediately left Washington and never went back. "Many anecdotes of his liberality and courage could be given by me. I wrote to him the Baptist ladies wished him to sell them at a low price the International Hotel lot that had cost him $12,000, the buildings having burned down, and, although he was a Catholic in faith, he wrote me to make out a deed, and that he would give it to them. "Uncle John Woods is mistaken about his selling Mr. Warner's home. It was years later that he sold some lots of Mr. Warner's, and then it was not for debts due Holladay. "It is due to the truth of history to correct the impression which wrongs both of these old and time-honored citizens of Weston. I regard Ben. Holladay as one of nature's gifted children. Had he been on the same theater, he was capable of playing the role of Napoleon, as I think he resembled him in many characteristics. He believed results justified means, and he trusted in his star too far. Haughty and dictatorial, he was the most companionable of men, and would always cheerfully undergo more than his share of the discomforts or personal sacrifices. "Anxious to get the best of every bargain, he would often turn it, with all the profits, to some friend or deserving man. Reckless as to his own or others' lives, he was a sympathetic nurse and grateful friend. In the early California days he was on a wrecked steamship on the Pacific and narrowly escaped with his life, and although he owned and operated sixteen steamships he would never afterwards ride on one, not so much from fear of accident as a dread of wreck; for he said he suffered a hundred deaths in seeing the terror and suffering of the lady passengers and the cowardly men on that wreck during the three days they waited for relief. "He was the first Gentile trader to the Mormons. He had a letter from Gen. A. W. Doniphan, to whom Joseph Smith and Brigham Young surrendered at Far West, in 1838, reciting that Holladay, as a boy, had been one of his orderlies at that surrender, and had then expressed sympathy for them, and had helped to render the condition of the women and children. more comfortable after the leaders had been imprisoned. "Brigham Young received him, blessed him, and stated in his sermon at the Tabernacle the following Sunday that 'Brother Holladay had a large stock of goods for sale, and could be trusted as an honorable dealer.' That speech was worth thousands of dollars to him, and it is said that he joined the Mormon church (only on probation, however). "Coming home in the fall, he started with three mules and a negro man to find a new road from Salt Lake to Fort Bridger, and wandered in the mountains for several days without food, and was saved from starvation by finding a broken-down buffalo that furnished, he said, the sweetest morsel he had ever tasted. "In 1850 he traded his goods for cattle, drove them to California, fattened them on the Sacramento bottom, and sold them to the Panama Steam- |
ship Company at a large profit. First he sold a small lot, but wished to sell more and at a larger price. The superintendent of the company sent for him, and he answered that he did not have time, but that they must come to him. They did, and made a contract for thirty cents a pound on foot. He said afterwards that he would have crawled on his knees to their office when he had refused to go, but that he had kept informed that they were short of beef and the market bare, and that if they came to him it would be worth five cents a pound. "To get his compensation increased for carrying the mail, he rode in one of his stages from Salt Lake to Atchison in eight days, the route then being estimated on the line traveled at 1300 miles. "He was opposed to his children marrying foreigners, but was gratified that his son married a country girl in California. "His life showed the elasticity of American institutions: At fifteen, laboring on a farm in the mountains of Kentucky; at forty, owned sixteen steamships, trading to every point of the Pacific; building a castle on the Hudson; children married to noblemen--all the result of his own talent and enterprise. "Amid all his exaltation he sent sums of money to relieve his many friends at Weston. He had faults, but desertion of friends was not one of them; and old settlers of Weston may well remember him as an old settler, respectable for talent and generosity. The following letter from R. M. Johnson, Esq., of Belton, Mo., the brother-in-law of Mr. Holladay, will be of interest to many of our readers:  "BELTON,
MO., April 11, 1901.William E. Connelley, Esy., Topeka, Kan. : "DEAR SIR--Your favor of the 4th inst. received, and I have noted your request in reference to giving you narratives of the life of Ben. Holladay. I cannot give you anything much in reference to his early life. I know he was born in Kentucky; I think Jessamine county. He emigrated to Missouri in a very early day, I think in 1836 or 1837, and took up his residence at Weston, Platte county, and engaged in the drug and liquor business and traded extensively with the Indians, who then occupied all the territory of Kansas, just across the river from Weston. Holladay was a man of daring, speculative turn of mind; therefore his little drug business did not claim his attention very long. He soon commenced trading with Government authorities at Fort Leavenworth, and was very soon engaged in large Government contracts for mules, oxen, etc., and made a good deal of money. "When the California gold fever broke out, he was quick to fit out large trains of merchandise, and, with his partner, Hon. Theo. F. Warner, long since dead, start across the plains. This enterprise made him large sums of money. On his arrival at Sacramento, Cal., he either built or bought several small steamboats and plied up and down the Sacramento river, trading and trafficking provisions and staple groceries and such other things as the miners in those days required. He made considerable money in his California enterprises. |
"He returned to Platte county, Missouri, some time in the '50's and commenced to invest some of his means in fine farms, and improving them. He bought a large farm--I think about 1700 acres--and a fine water-mill on Platte river, paying several thousand dollars for them, and, I think, lived on the farm about one year. It was too tame a life for him, though; he soon quit it and went to St. Louis, Mo., and commenced speculating in any big deals that presented themselves to his mind as good money--making investments. "He left St. Louis about 1859 or 1860 and purchased himself a fine brown-stone house on Fifth avenue, New York, and established an Office at 88 Wall street. Soon thereafter he bought from William H. Russell his pony express, which he was then running probably only to Salt Lake City. Holladay soon merged it into a full-fledged stage line, and from thence on conducted and managed the finest line of coaches ever run in America. This line left Atchison, Kan., and ran through to San Francisco, Cal., and made close and accurate time. Holladay had a large number of men and stock engaged in this mammoth enterprise. It was certainly a great and daring undertaking at this time, but he carried it on successfully and made large sums of money out of it. He at this time also owned and ran a line of splendid ocean steamers on the Pacific ocean, running from San Francisco, Cal., to Portland, Ore., and other points on the Pacific coast. "Holladay soon commenced buying land out in Westchester county, New York, and at the time I went to New York to live with him he owned something liked 400 acres on the renowned Bronx river, near White Plains. He soon after commenced building his celebrated castle, known then and now as 'Ophir Place' or 'Ophir Farm.' Whitelaw Reid afterward purchased and now owns and occupies the 'castle' or 'palace.' It is one of the celebrated places in New York. "Mr. Holladay married his first wife, Miss Notley Ann Calvert, in Platte county, Missouri, about the year 1842, 1 think. Her parents were very much opposed to their marriage. They eloped and were married at my father's house--Capt. Andrew Johnson--who was uncle of the bride. They were married in a log cabin, as sure as you live. Mrs. Holladay died on 'Ophir Farm' and is buried in the chapel. They had four children--two boys and two girls. Mrs. Holladay was a very ambitious women and made several voyages across the Atlantic, and spent much of her time at Paris and Berlin, and finally married her daughters off to titled gentry--one to a baron and the other to a count--and they were both no counts. Sons, Ben. and Joe, grew up to be men. Ben., the oldest, proved to be quite a business man in San Francisco and made considerable money. Joe was a miserable drunkard, and died in Hongkong, China. Mr. Holladay married his second wife in Portland, Ore., and, I think, had one child by her. She is probably living there yet. Holladay died there several years ago, comparatively poor. I knew nothing of him after his second marriage. His first wife and my wife were sisters. He has one brother, living in Chicago, Ill., Jesse Holladay, and another brother, Dr. Andrew Holladay, living in Nebraska, probably in Nebraska City. If you would communicate with either, I know they would be pleased to assist you in your history. |
"Ben. Holladay was a great man. There was nothing too big for him to undertake. Mentally he was a big man and a very creditable man. He loved to play a game of 'draw' as well as any man I ever know, but drank very little liquor. His whole soul and mind were bent on accumulating wealth. "If I can be of any further service to you please notify me what you want, and if I can supply it am at your command. Yours
respectfully, R. M. JOHNSON."
A noted Rocky Mountain mail coach. |
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© 1999, 2000, 2001 for the NEGenWeb by Pam Rietsch, Ted & Carole Miller