Intimates of James J. Hill, the transportation giant of the northwest,
say that the ambition of his life is to encircle the world with a
system of railroads and steamships, all of which shall be under his
guiding hand. He has nearly attained it. He owns the Great Northern
railway, which stretches from Seattle, Washington, to St. Paul and
Duluth, Minnesota. He is proprietor of the line of steamers which ply
between Duluth and Buffalo. He is largely interested in the Baltimore &
Ohio railroad, which covers the territory between Chicago, Philadelphia
and New York. He is organizing, in Europe, a steamship company whose
vessels shall have for their terminal ports Seattle, Washington, on the
one side, and Vladivostok, Yokohama and Hong Kong on the other. He is
now reaching out across the Pacific to Seattle, intending to connect
his Great Northern road with the Trans-Siberian road, and the man who
controls all these huge enterprises earned them from humble beginnings,
and asserts that the principle that has enabled him to reach power
and affluence is simply that of economy. When he earned five dollars
a week he saved; now that he is the owner of an income the size of
which he can hardly pass upon, he saves, not in miserly fashion, but he
detests unnecessary expenditure. Mr. Hill was born near Guelph, Upper
Canada, September 16, 1838. He was educated at Rockwood academy and
started life in a steamboat office in St. Paul, Minnesota. Hard and
continuous work brought its reward in the shape of his being made agent
for the Northwestern Packet company in 1865. Then he branched out for
himself, establishing a fuel and transportation business on his own
account. From that time on his rise was rapid. He founded the Red River
Transportation company, 1875; organized the syndicate which secured
control of the St. Paul and Pacific railroad, became the president of
the organized road and finally merged it with other lines into the
Great Northern system of which he is now president. Mr. Hill is married
and has several sons, all of whom are following the railroad business.