Fifty years in Wall Street
excellent business capacity. He is one of the successful business men of
the United States.
THE JEROME BROTHERS.
Addison Jerome, who died some years ago, was a gigantic operator in his
day, and displayed great ability in the conduct of speculative
campaigns, but he went beyond his depth and disaster followed. Like many
others in Wall Street, he gained his business education in the dry goods
trade. He met with one of his greatest reverses in his attempt to corner
Lake Shore. Others followed, one after another, and the end was
financial shipwreck.
At this time his brother, Leonard W. Jerome, was one of the foremost men
of Wall Street and was a partner of Wm. R. Travers, the firm name being
Travers & Jerome. Leonard Jerome is splendidly built and nearly six feet
in height. His ancestors were Huguenots. He was born in Pompey, Onondaga
county, New York. His grandfather was a Presbyterian clergyman. At 14
Leonard was sent to Princeton College and was graduated with credit. He
then spent three years reading law in Albany, and at 22 was admitted to
the bar. He practiced law with his uncle, Judge Jerome, of Rochester.
Afterward with his brother Lawrence he established a newspaper, called
the _Rochester Native American_, and he made a good editor. President
Filmore appointed him Consul at Trieste. He came to Wall Street in 1854.
His first operation was in putting up all he could spare, about two
thousand dollars, as margin on five hundred shares of Cleveland and
Toledo stock, one of the old-time speculative favorites. He bought it on
a sure point from the treasurer of the road. He bought. The treasurer
sold. Result: The stock fell, and Jerome lost all his spare funds. He
was not discouraged. He studied Wall Street tactics, and in the end he
made the treasurer pay dearly for his former success in spearing a lamb.
He invested $500 in buying calls and made $5,000 within thirty days. He
became a partner of William R. Travers. They were very successful on the
short side of the market. He was to meet with some reverses, however. In
1862 the agent of the State of Indiana, in a manner that would have
deceived the very elect, through an unauthorized issue of Indiana 5 per
cent. bonds, swindled him out of $600,000 by the hypothecation of the
bonds. The State repudiated the acts of its agent, and as an individual
is not allowed to sue a State, Mr. Jerome was robbed of the money. Still
another reverse was met in Pacific Mail. When the capital stock was
increased to $20,000,000 he took 50,000 shares at 200. The price
advanced soon thereafter to 243, and he sold a part of his stock, but
kept a large block of it on account of his faith in its value. At the
next quarterly meeting of the Board of Directors, however, it was
decided by a majority of one, five directors being present, to reduce
the dividend from five to three per cent. The street was thunderstruck
at the audacity of this move; the market broke, and in two hours Mr.
Jerome’s stock depreciated $800,000. Still he made large gains in
Pacific Mail as well as big losses. He left Wall Street years ago with
an ample fortune. He went there with next to nothing, and in spite of
reverses, came out a substantial victor in the financial tourney. In the
war he was always enthusiastic in his devotion to the cause of the
North, and subscribed with princely liberality to aid patriotic
movements. When the first great Union meeting was held at the Academy of
Music he paid all the expenses. He was Treasurer of the Union Defense
Committee, and he likewise paid all of its incidental expenses. He was
the most liberal in his contributions and the most devoted in his
allegiance to the Government in its darkest and gloomiest hours. He was
the founder of the fund for the benefit of the families of those who
were killed or wounded in the New York riots of 1863, growing out of the
draft. His checks for $10,000 and more to aid the Union arms were
frequent; he contributed $35,000 toward the construction of the
“Meteor,” a war vessel built to destroy the famous “Alabama” of the
Confederacy. During the war Mr. Jerome purchased and held for some years
the largest interest in the _New York Times_, then edited by the great
war editor, Henry J. Raymond, an old friend of Mr. Jerome’s. Like Mr.
Travers, his early partner, Mr. Jerome has done much to encourage all
out-of-door sports, especially on the race course. He established the
Jerome Park Jockey Club, and became half owner in a famous speed horse
which cost $40,000. No one has done more to improve the breed of blooded
horses in this country than Mr. Jerome. He has also been prominent in
yachting. He first owned the “Undine”; then, with Commodore McVickar, he
bought the “Restless,” and still later, with Commodore James Gordon
Bennett, the “Dauntless.” He paid $125,000 for the steam yacht “Clara
Clarita,” which proved a failure, and since then he has not been so
enthusiastic a yachtsman as formerly. He made $45,000 on the great ocean
yacht race of 1866. He had much to do with introducing the taste for
four-in-hands in this country. He has been a liberal patron of American
art in all its branches. He paid for the musical education of a number
of well-known singers, whose voices were trained in the best Italian
schools. His social position has always been high, but it has been still
further promoted by the marriages of his beautiful daughters. The elder,
Clara, is married to Mr. Morton Frewen, a member of an old English
family which long represented their shire in Parliament. Another, Leoni,
married Mr. John Leslie of the Guards, and son and heir of Sir John
Leslie; while Jennie married Lord Randolph Churchill, the notable but
erratic statesman. Leonard W. Jerome, whose history I have followed
somewhat minutely, is one of the best-hearted men that Wall Street ever
knew. The more he made the more he gave. He was liberal to a fault. He
was never happy but when making others happy. He was a Sir Philip Sidney
of chivalry and peerless generosity—a man in whom the warmest and most
ingratiating traits of human nature were as natural as the winning
sunniness of his disposition and the courage which once made him one of
the great gladiators in the arena of Wall Street. Both he and his
brother Lawrence are old members of the Union Club. Lawrence was
formerly a stock broker. He had his ups and downs, and withdrew from
Wall Street several years ago. He sold his seat in the Stock Exchange
and placed the proceeds, about $30,000, in an annuity which insures him
about $4,000 a year for the remainder of his life. This, with his other
income, places him in easy circumstances and preserves his naturally
cheerful disposition, rendering him one of the most companionable men in
the city. He is about five feet ten inches in height, stout and of light
complexion. Since the death of his old friend, Wm. R. Travers, to whom
he was as Damon to Pythias, he stands pre-eminent among the wits of New
York. He is the prince of metropolitan wags and wits. His friends are
legion. The great, genial, warm hearted, boyish Larry Jerome, as his
friends love to call him, is literally a man without an enemy, and long
may he live to brighten society with his happy exuberance of spirits,
his scintillating humor and his brilliant wit.
ADDISON CAMMACK.
Addison Cammack is about sixty years of age and was born in
Hopkinsville, Kentucky. He was reared in comfortable but humble
circumstances. Early in life he began his business career as a clerk in
the house of J. P. Whitney & Co., then the largest ship brokers in New
Orleans. He showed decided business talent, and ultimately became a
partner in the firm. In the early part of the Civil War he was located
in Havana, but in 1863 he went to London and and engaged in business and
speculation there. He returned to this country in two years, and in 1866
embarked in the wholesale liquor business in New York with J. W. George,
the firm being J. W. George & Co. In about two years the firm was
dissolved and Mr. Cammack became a member of the Stock Exchange, having
previously formed a co-partnership with the late Chas. J. Osborn, under
the name of Osborn & Cammack. This co-partnership, after some years of
great prosperity, was dissolved, and since then Mr. Cammack has been an
operator on his own account. In this capacity he has become widely
known. He is a shrewd operator, and quickly changes his mind if he
thinks he has been wrong. He jumps from one side of the market to the
other with the greatest celerity when occasion demands it, but in the
main he seems most at home on the bear side. In bear operations he has
met with some reverses, while in this direction he has also made
millions. He seems to place great faith in Benner’s book of “Financial
Prophecies.” At times he operates on a very large scale, and he has been
known to cover fifty thousand shares of stock in a single day. He is
tall, well built, and has strong features, with keen, gray eyes. In
manners he is very democratic and candid, and occasionally somewhat
bluff; but he is a man of generous impulses, very charitable, and has
plenty of friends, both for his financial acumen and for his qualities
as a man who never deserts his friends, and who has not a few of the
characteristics of mediæval chivalry joined to the shrewd practicality
of a great stock operator of this practical epoch.
RUSSELL SAGE.
Russell Sage is one of the best known of Wall Street celebrities. He was
born seventy years ago in Oneida county, of this State. As a boy, he was
employed in a country general store, beginning life in this fashion at
14. His business aptitude early manifested itself, and at 20 he bought
out his employer in Troy, to which he had in the meantime removed. He
became later on a member of the Troy Board of Aldermen, served seven
years, and was then elected Treasurer. Still later he was elected to
Congress, serving from 1853 to 1857. He started the project of
purchasing Mount Vernon and making it a national domain, and took great
pride in the success which attended his efforts in this direction. While
in Congress he became connected with the Pacific Mail Steamship Company,
and later Vice-President of the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul, also for
a time its acting president. He is now a director in the Gould telegraph
and railroad systems, is interested in a number of trust companies and
is also said to own a large amount of stock in the Importers’ and
Traders’ Bank. He is the king of puts and calls. He has usually been
successful in writing privileges, but in the summer of 1884, when the
market broke so badly as to produce a panic, Mr. Sage met with a decided
reverse. He had sold a large number of puts, and the loss was several
million dollars. He is known as, in one sense, the largest capitalist of
Wall Street, inasmuch as he keeps the largest cash balance. It runs far
up in the millions, giving him quick resources with which to carry out
any project that may seem desirable. He is quiet and simple in his
habits, making no display. He lives on Fifth Avenue, and also has a
place at Babylon, Long Island. He is worth about twenty millions. He is
tall, light complexioned, with keen, gray eyes, and in Wall Street might
be taken for a country gentleman seeing the sights.
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW.
Chauncey M. Depew owes his rise to native abilities and the friendship
of the Vanderbilt family, which he has thoroughly merited. He made the
acquaintance of Wm. H. Vanderbilt about the year 1866 and became the