The desire to work was hereditary with Mr. Vreeland. His father
incurred the displeasure of his own father and family, who were people
of large means, by refusing to lead a life of gentlemanly idleness,
and deciding, instead, to enter the ministry. The boy Herbert was the
youngest son in a family of several children, each of whom in turn
helped to support the mother and younger members after the death
of the father. At ten years of age, in his passionate desire to do
_something_, he drove a grocery wagon in Jersey City, to which his
family had moved from his birth-place in Glen, New York, and, as before
said, at thirteen years of age, he was hard at work in an ice business,
of which an elder brother was superintendent.
“I first entered the railroad business in 1875,” said Mr. Vreeland,
“shoveling gravel on one of the Long Island Railroad Company’s night
construction trains. Though this position was certainly humble enough,
it was a great thing to me then to feel myself a railroad man, with all
that that term implied; and, when, after a few months’ trial, I was
given the job of inspecting ties and roadbed at a dollar a day, I felt
that I was well on the road to the presidency.
“One day the superintendent asked the boss if he could give him a
reliable man to replace a switchman who had just made a blunder leading
to a collision, and had been discharged. The reply was: ‘Well, I’ve
got a man here named Vreeland, who will do exactly what you tell him
to.’ They called me up, and, after a few short, sharp questions from
the train-master, I went down to the dreary and desolate marsh near
Bushwick, Long Island, and took charge of a switch. For a few days I
had to camp out near that switch, in any way that might happen, but
finally the officers made up their minds that they could afford me the
luxury of a two-by-four flag house with a stove in it, and I settled
down for more railroading.”