Fifty years in Wall Street
shares of Erie issued in ten share lots, which the operators thought
were safely secreted in London and Amsterdam. When the stock reached 60
these ten-share lots began to come out. It turned out that most of them
had never left home, but were securely had by tradesmen, mechanics,
grocers and small bankers and brokers. They were thrown on the market
with great rapidity to realize handsome profits, and the efforts of the
clique to absorb them before they got into the hands of Drew, made
serious inroads on the reserve funds of the champion operators. As
troubles never come singly, at this new juncture the banks refused to
certify their checks. Drew was, therefore, enabled to make good his
contracts at 47, but speculatively speaking, he was ruined. He came
pretty near bringing down his desperate assailants, however, in his sad
and frightful fall. The stock then fell to 42, and Erie became a drug in
the market. The victors had got the spoils, but they paid dearly for
them, and had come pretty near being destroyed in the moment of their
triumph. They had purchased their Erie at “corner” prices, and they were
obliged to carry it, for nobody wanted it. Added to this Erie was struck
from the Board for a time, and had it not been for the gullibility of
our English cousins, this stock would have ceased to be a disturbing
element in the market for a great while longer.
Although old Drew was badly treated, yet there was little sympathy for
him, since he had merely become the victim of his own avarice,
vacillation, treachery and scheming to catch others in the same net.
He could not justly complain of his former partners, and Fisk told him
so, for their methods of operation, and the immense inflation of the
Erie stock by which he was ruined had been accomplished by the machinery
which he, himself, had set in motion, only his _ci-devant_ colleagues
had improved upon it, and had received various new patents on inventions
and improvements, which they had joined to the old one invented by
“Uncle Daniel,” mating one of the best combinations for the purpose of
creating and working “corners” that had ever been devised in Wall
Street.
But the unkindest cut of all was the way in which Fisk taunted him, on
the eve of his crushing defeat, with the absurdity of his complaints
about the management of Erie matters.
“You should be the last man,” said this worthy pupil, sneeringly, to his
dear old preceptor, “that should whine over any position in which you
may be placed in Erie.”
It was a sad truth, heartlessly uttered by the generous “Jim.” Drew had
no mercy on others, and could not expect to be shown any of that “twice
blessed quality” towards himself.
The private scene in the Erie office between old Drew and Fisk and
Gould, just prior to their final and victorious charge upon him, was
deeply pathetic, yet none of the three showed more conspicuously that
they were destitute of that proverbial honor among “boodlers” than Drew
himself. He had secured Vanderbilt to assist him in the courts, and also
in the market, against the machinations of the Erie clique, and then,
turning around, he went straight to Gould. and to him betrayed his ally
and the plans he had arranged with him, expecting mercy from his old
colleague by this dastardly act of humiliation and deception.
He must have lost his head at this crisis, for he ought to have known
Gould better. He begged and pleaded with Gould and Fisk, and was ready
to throw himself at their feet. He implored them to join him, with the
remnant of his fortune, in giving the old paper mill another turn to
grind out more Erie stock, that he might be permitted to emerge from
that cruel “corner” in which he was placed like a scorpion girt by fire,
brooding over his guilty woes.
But his pupils proved that they had profited only too well by his
instructions. Just as he would have acted under similar circumstances,
they were perfectly relentless. They seemed to be a double incarnation
of Shylock personified, or two Dromios bereft of conscience and human
sympathy. Drew had no Daniel but himself, to come to judgment. There was
no fair Portia to plead his cause, and if there had been such an angelic
creature in the case, though she might have “broke up” Fisk, it is
almost certain that Gould would have successfully resisted her charms.
When Drew saw they were implacable he bade them good night, and with the
courage of despair returned to the charge in Wall Street the next
morning, with the results which have been briefly related. He lost
nearly two millions in that fatal struggle.
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CHAPTER XVII.
INTERESTING EPISODES IN DREW’S LIFE.
INCIDENTS IN THE EARLY LIFE OF DREW, AND HOW HE BEGAN TO MAKE MONEY.—HE
BORROWS MONEY FROM HENRY ASTOR, BUYS CATTLE IN OHIO AND DRIVES THEM
OVER THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS UNDER GREAT HARDSHIP AND SUFFERING.—HIS
GREAT CAREER AS A STEAMBOAT MAN, AND HIS OPPOSITION TO
VANDERBILT.—HIS MARRIAGE AND FAMILY.—HE BUILDS AND ENDOWS RELIGIOUS
AND EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS.—RETURNS TO HIS OLD HOME AFTER HIS
SPECULATIVE FALL, BUT CAN FIND NO REST SO FAR AWAY FROM WALL
STREET.—HIS HOPES, THROUGH WM. H. VANDERBILT, OF ANOTHER START IN
LIFE.—HIS BANKRUPTCY, LIABILITIES AND WARDROBE.—HIS SUDDEN BUT
PEACEFUL END.—CHARACTERISTIC STORIES OF HIS ECCENTRICITIES.
I had intended at first to give only a sketch of the salient points in
the speculative career of Drew, but, on reflection, I find that the
lives of great men all remind us that people want to know a great deal
of minutiæ concerning men who have made their mark in this world. Our
enterprising newspapers are encouraging this laudable curiosity more and
more every day. So in the case of Drew, I must try to furnish answers to
questions that may be asked about him in order that popular expectation
may not be disappointed. I shall endeavor to anticipate what the reader
may naturally want to know when he comes to the end of Drew’s great
speculative ventures. One of these questions will probably be, what kind
of a boy was Daniel Drew, and how did he begin to make money?
It goes without saying that Drew was the most unique figure that Wall
Street has ever seen, and a characteristic specimen of one kind of
American thrift, enterprise and speculation. Every side of his
many-sided and peculiar character, therefore, is of interest as the
representative of a class to the reader who sets his heart on making
money, and the majority of readers have this weakness. He is of special
interest to all speculators not only in this country, but throughout the
civilized world. These facts constitute my apology for dwelling so long
and minutely on his characteristics. I have an idea that his life and
adventures will be read with deep interest many years hence, and help to
prolong the existence and reputation of this book. They will also assist
to immortalize the man who was one of the most wonderful products of
American civilization, and who could hardly have been evolved from any
other soil or clime. Such prodigies of success cause the members of the
older social fabrics to stare with astonishment at the stupendous
capabilities of our great country.
There is nothing interests people so much as the start in life, probably
because there are so few who consider themselves able to get a good
start. So far as I can learn, in the case of Daniel Drew, the boy was
father to the man. He worked on a farm, going to school at intervals,
where he was unable to learn anything, except that he obtained a notion
of the current theological ideas of that day, until he was fifteen years
of age, when his father died, leaving him, a younger brother and their
mother to shift for themselves on a poor, small farm. His father was of
English and his mother of Scotch descent.
In his seventeenth year young Drew enlisted as a substitute in the State
Militia, which had then been called into service on account of the
second war with England.
The regiment was placed at Fort Gansevoort, on the Hudson, opposite New
York. Hostilities ceased between this country and England a few months
after his enlistment, and the regiment was mustered out. Daniel returned
home. His mother had taken charge of his substitute money, which
probably did not exceed a hundred dollars, the amount with which his
great rival, Commodore Vanderbilt commenced life, and which he earned
from his mother by ploughing and planting a field.
“I want my substitute money,” said Drew to his mother, one day shortly
after his return. “What are you going to do with it?” queried the old
woman, for being of Scotch descent, she was quite as thrifty in looking
after the pennies as her American contemporary, old Mrs. Vanderbilt.
They both had the gripping sense by nature, and to this transmissible
quality may probably be attributed, in a large degree, the financial
success of both of their sons.
“I am going to buy cattle, and sell them in New York,” replied Daniel.
“Are you sure you will not lose money by it?” rejoined his mother.
“I am sure I will make money,” he said.
He started to purchase cattle in the country and to sell them in New
York. His profits were at first very small, especially as his capital
was so limited. He soon discovered that if he could purchase his cattle
in Ohio he would be able to increase his profits largely, and he applied
to Henry Astor, a butcher in Fulton Market, and a brother of the great
millionaire, John Jacob Astor, for a loan to speculate in Ohio cattle.
Astor accommodated him, though he at first thought he was running a
considerable risk. He was mistaken, for Drew made money and soon
established his credit on a solid basis. He bought cattle throughout
Ohio, and drove them over the Alleghany mountains. He is said to have
been the first drover who attempted this daring experiment. It required
sixty days then to make the journey. He suffered great hardship and
privation, and would sometimes lose a third part of a drove of 600 or
1,000 in crossing the mountains. Yet, as cattle were very cheap in Ohio,
his profits were still very large.
One terrible night, in a terrific thunderstorm, the tree under which he
took shelter was shattered to splinters, his horse was killed under him,
and he himself was struck senseless for a time. But no hardship or
privation could deter him in the pursuit of making money. He afterwards
extended his operations to Kentucky and Illinois.
In 1829 Drew opened a cattle yard at Twenty-fourth street and Third
avenue and ran the Bull’s Head Tavern. He went into the steamboat
business in 1834. Vanderbilt had then been seventeen years in the
business. _Westchester_ and _Emerald_ were the names of his first two
boats, and they ran between New York and Albany, in opposition to the
Vanderbilt Line. Drew reduced the fare from three dollars to one, and
attempted to freeze out Vanderbilt. The war of rates became so fierce
that people were carried 100 miles between these two cities for a
shilling. Drew added the _Knickerbocker_, the _Oregon_, _George Law_,
_Isaac Newton_ and the _New World_ to his river fleet, and became quite
a formidable competitor of the Commodore.
In 1840 Isaac Newton organized the People’s Line on the Hudson, of which
Drew became the largest stockholder. The boats _St. John_, _Dean
Richmond_ and _Drew_ were built. The _Isaac Newton_ was burned and the
_New World_ was sunk.
When the Hudson River Railroad was opened, in 1852, Drew refused to sell
out his stock. “You can regulate your fares as you choose,” he said to
the President of the Railroad Company, “but the only way you can
regulate my steamboat fares is to buy the People’s Line, and this I