GOULD AND THE TANNERY WAR.
From the mildly humdrum life of school boy, tinker, surveyor and
bookseller, Gould’s career now changes to an intensely dramatic period.
While pursuing his avocation as a surveyor, he made the acquaintance of
Zadock Pratt, a local celebrity who lived at Prattsville not far from
Roxbury, for whom he had done some surveying. Pratt is described as
an ignorant man who had amassed what at that time and in that section
was considered an immense fortune. He was worth a hundred thousand
dollars, and had the largest tannery in the country. He had also been
to Congress, and, as is usual with such district nabobs, he was a very
vain man. How he happened to become attached to Jay Gould does not
appear. Mr. Gould himself once said: “While I was carrying on these
surveys, I met a gentleman who seemed to take a fancy to me.” Zadock
Pratt was a famous man in his days. He was not only the biggest tanner
in the country, but he was also a power in the politics in the state.
During his ten years’ service in Congress, at least one of his speeches
attracted widespread attention. He was one of the earliest advocates
of cheap postage, and he moved the establishment of the Bureau of
Statistics, which has since developed into the Department of the
Interior. He also moved the first survey of the Pacific railroad line.
When he ceased his Prattsville tannery in 1845 he estimated that in
twenty years he had used one hundred and fifty thousand cords of bark
and wood, had employed thirty thousand men, had cleared twelve thousand
acres of land and tanned over one million sides of sole leather. He
was, however, nearly seventy years old when he interested himself in
Gould. The latter was fortunate in obtaining the confidence of this
man. The history of his association with Pratt, and later with Leupp,
is not contained in legislative and law reports, as are other portions
of Gould’s career, but there are several very circumstantial accounts
extant based on the testimony of eye-witnesses, some of whom may still
be living.
One story has it that the young historian had artfully flattered Pratt
in his “History of Delaware County,” and so won his good opinion.
However this may be, certain it is that Pratt asked the young man
who had surveyed his place in Prattsville to embark with him in the
business of tanning leather. Gould agreed and immediately demonstrated
his capacity for managing the new venture by going over the Delaware
and Lackawanna railway, then recently completed, into Pennsylvania,
on a search for a site of the proposed new tannery. He found a large
tract of land growing hemlock in Lackawanna county and reported the
fact to Mr. Pratt. Soon after he started for the hemlock woods again,
and this time he made contracts of purchase with their owners. In his
next expedition into Pennsylvania he took fifty or sixty men with him
to build the tannery. The site chosen was in the midst of the forest,
fifteen miles away from the nearest village. The men took with them a
portable sawmill. Gould went in and chopped down the first tree which
was sawed up, and transferred it into a blacksmith shop, under the
roof of which Jay Gould passed the first night, sleeping on a bed of
hemlock boughs. Thus the tannery, “a very large one, the largest in the
country at that time,” to use Mr. Gould’s own words, was built. Near it
there soon sprung up a village which was called Gouldsboro, and in this
village Gould established a bank of which he elected himself director
by means of proxies obtained from relations whom he had persuaded to
take stock.
Pratt was taken with young Gould’s snap and energy and considered him
just the kind of material to use in pushing a new enterprise. Pratt
furnished all the capital and Gould conducted the active operation.
The capital of the firm was $120,000, and the tannery at Gouldsboro,
Pennsylvania, became the biggest concern of its kind in the country.
Gould threw the whole energy of his being into the enterprise. Pratt
made occasional visits to Gouldsboro, but the business was left
practically in Gould’s hands and it grew rapidly. After a while Mr.
Pratt became dissatisfied with the condition of affairs. Apparently
a rushing business was being done from which there was no adequate
return. After awhile, Mr. Pratt having invested $55,000, sent an agent
to Gouldsboro to investigate affairs.
The books seemed to be so mixed that it was quite impossible to
ascertain just how the firm stood. Gould soon saw that his partner
was becoming suspicious and determined to be ready for him. On the
growth of the business Gould had, of course, occasion to frequently
visit New York, where he became acquainted with most of the merchants
in the “Swamp,” then, as now, the center of the leather trade. Among
others, he became acquainted with Charles M. Leupp, a merchant of the
old school, honorable and correct in all his dealings. He was a man of
great refinement and of poetic temperament, and possessed many literary
and artistic tastes. He was a man of wealth and owned a fine mansion
on the corner of Madison avenue and Twenty-fifth street. This mansion
is still standing, but has been altered into an apartment house. In
Mr. Leupp’s time it was probably the handsomest and best constructed
private dwelling in the city and cost about $150,000.
It was an evil day for Mr. Leupp when Gould came to him and proposed
that he advance the money to purchase Mr. Pratt’s interest in the
tannery. That was the beginning of Mr. Leupp’s troubles, but at that
time he considered the proposition an advantageous one and he consented
to advance the cash. Gould never seems to have had at any period in his
career any difficulty in interesting the wealthiest and most powerful
men in his schemes. He has himself said that it is just as easy to
obtain the acquaintance and secure the friendship of the most powerful
as of the most insignificant if only one will set about it in the right
way. Well, Gould returned to Gouldsboro with Leupp’s backing. He found
Pratt looking over the books and puzzled by their intricacies. He
discovered that Gould had started a private bank at Stroudsburg in his
own name, and he became suspicious that the firm’s funds were used in
the bank. Pratt then demanded an explanation and finally threatened to
close up the tannery and dissolve the partnership. Gould protested that
this would ruin him, when Pratt said that he must buy or sell. This was
what Gould was waiting for, and he told Mr. Pratt to make him an offer.
Pratt gave his energetic young partner the choice of two alternatives,
either to take $10,000 for his interest in the business and retire from
the firm, or pay $40,000 for the interest of the senior partner. Gould
got ten days’ time in which to make up his mind, and at the expiration
of that period surprised Mr. Pratt by buying him out on his own terms.
Of course he drew on Leupp for the money. This made Gould a partner
of Leupp with full powers. He continued with Leupp the policy he had
begun with Pratt. He branched out in many speculations in Leupp’s
name, but without his knowledge. It is said that he bought another
tannery, attempted to get up a “corner” in hides, and in other ways
entered into many hazardous enterprises. He continued to draw on Leupp
for money and to display his incapacity as a bookkeeper until Leupp
became suspicious, just as Pratt had. Meanwhile the panic of 1857 had
swept over the country and unsettled all business operations, and when
Leupp discovered the extent in which he had been involved in Gould’s
speculations he thought that he was ruined. He went to his magnificent
home one night and, in a fit of despondency, shot himself dead. It is
not certain but that Gould’s schemes would have turned out all right,
and to Leupp’s, as well as to Gould’s advantage, but it is a fact
that Leupp’s partners and heirs have always felt very bitter against
Gould, and could not help believing that he was indirectly the cause of
Leupp’s sad and untimely end.
Mr. Leupp’s old-fashioned notions had been terribly shocked, for Gould
had gone into corners in hides and other tanneries which might and
might not have turned out well. When he found that his partner had
bought not only all the hides then in the market but all that were to
arrive in the ensuing six months, he literally lost his reason, and
his suicide occurred after a stormy interview with Gould, who remained
imperturbably cool and simply turned on his heel and left the office.
It is related that in the excitement and passion of Black Friday when
a mob surged through Wall street, a voice was heard above the tumult
shouting the awful question:
“Who killed Leupp?”
And the answer is said to have come from a hundred throats:
“Jay Gould!”
Prior to the fatal shot, Gould had arranged with Congressman Alley, of
Massachusetts, to take the works and thus relieve Luepp and Lee, who
was also a partner. But the suicide of the senior partner stopped the
final consummation of this plan, and, Gould always insisted, stopped
the way to a profitable continuance of the works.
Mr. Gould then negotiated with Leupp’s daughters for the control of
the tannery. It is stated that they demanded sixty thousand dollars,
the amount Leupp had originally advanced. Gould agreed to this, but
proposed a plan by which the payments should extend over a term of
years--ten thousand dollars cash and a like amount every year until
the entire indebtedness had been liquidated. When the papers were
drawn up it was found Gould had made no provision for paying interest.
Negotiations were broken off, and Mr. Lee, a relative and partner of
Leupp, hastened to Gouldsboro and took possession of the tannery in
the name of Leupp’s heirs, taking the precaution to hire a lot of men
to help him barricade and guard it. Gould arrived a day or two later
and determined to capture the tannery at all hazards. Gouldsboro was
a village of about three hundred inhabitants, situated some distance
from the railway station, and besides the tannery the most important
building was the hotel. Mr. Lee, who, like Mr. Leupp, is described as
an honorable, warm-hearted man, but with more courage and grit, had
the tannery guarded by about thirty or forty men whom he had hired at
Scranton.
Gould, as soon as he arrived, began active operations. He interested
nearly the entire population of the place in his behalf. They knew him
and Lee was a comparative stranger. Gould told every one he met that
he owned the tannery, that Lee and his cutthroats were endeavoring
to get the property away from him, and that if they succeeded the
business would go to wreck and ruin and the place would suffer a big
loss. He had soon an armed gang of about 150 men around him prepared
to fight for him. They were a tough looking set of men. He took them
to the hotel, where he gave them an oyster supper, and then mounting
an empty box addressed his forces, telling them to use no unnecessary
violence, but to “be sure and get the tannery.” This was probably the
first and only speech Gould ever made in all his life. Filled with
oysters and whisky, the men made a determined charge on the tannery,
Gould directing everything, but prudently keeping in the background,
for he heard that Lee had a loaded musket ready for him. The battle
was fierce but short. The barricaded doors were battered in and Lee’s
men were driven from the tannery. Two men were badly wounded. One of
Lee’s party was shot through the breast. Warrants were issued for the
arrest of all concerned. Many of the men fled from the place never to
return. Those arrested were afterward released on bail. Gould was left
in possession of the property, but it did him little good. Lee began
legal proceedings against him and Gould brought counter-suits, and
this litigation was continued until the business was destroyed and the
tannery abandoned.
In the New York _Herald_ of March 16, 1860, is given the following
account of the battle:
TANNERY INSURRECTION IN PENNSYLVANIA.
BATTLE BETWEEN THE FORCES OF THE SWAMP LEATHER
DEALERS--THE LEUPP AND LEE TANNERY, IN
GOULDSBORO, ATTACKED AND DEFENDED--SIDES
OF LEATHER USED FOR BREAST-WORKS--INSURGENTS
TWO HUNDRED
STRONG--THE TANNERY
TAKEN--FLIGHT
OF THE DEFENDERS--WOUNDED
FOUR.
About half-past ten o’clock on Tuesday morning the lock was wrenched
from the stable, the men having been concentrated into the tannery
and the stable being unguarded. A little past twelve the tannery
itself was attacked by a mob variously estimated at from one hundred
and eighty to two hundred and fifty men, armed with axes, muskets,
rifles and other weapons. Without a demand of possession or summons
to surrender, the doors were beaten in, and but a few blows had been
struck by the assailants before they began to fire ball and buckshot
through the building, raking it in every direction. As vigorous a
defense was made, by a force of fifteen men in the story attacked, with
tannery sticks, stones and four revolvers, as was possible against
such overwhelming odds. The tannery was finally carried on all sides,
and those who did not escape were violently flung from the windows and
doors, while the assailants rushed through the buildings, yelling like
Indians, pursuing the fugitives with their guns in every direction.
In the action many contusions were received and four gunshot wounds,
and had it not been for the large number of sides of leather hung up
the lofts, very few of the defending party would have escaped without
wounds.
Mr. Jay Gould, in his version of the affair, in which he endeavors to
exculpate himself, says:
“I quietly selected fifty men, commanding the reserve to keep aloof. I
divided them into two companies, one of which I despatched to the upper
end of the building, directing them to take off the boards, while I
headed the other to open a large front door. I burst open the door and
sprang in. I was immediately saluted with a shower of balls, forcing
my men to retire, and I brought them up a second and third time and
pressed them into the building, and by this time the company at the
upper end of the tannery had succeeded in effecting an entrance and the
firing now became general on all sides and the bullets were whistling
in every direction. After a hard contested struggle on both sides we
became the victors, and our opponents went flying from the tannery,
some of them making fearful leaps from the second story.”
After this depreciation of value in the tannery property, Gould’s ready
resources were so exhausted that it is related that he had to borrow
the money to pay his railroad fare to New York. It is probable that
no man in this or any other country has ever been a party to so many
lawsuits as Gould. From the time of the contest over the map business
there was scarcely a day during his whole life that he did not have
some litigation on his hands. This ends the early chapters of Gould’s
life. He now entered upon that career in the metropolis which has made
his name familiar around the globe.
It is doubtful if many young men, before the age of twenty-four years,
have passed through as many and as varied experiences as these of Jay
Gould. All his training now for several years had been in the line,
first, of competition with others in the same business as his own, and
then in direct conflict and war with those who had been his associates.
He had learned not only to conquer his enemies, but to conquer his
friends. He had thoroughly developed and made apparent to every one who
came in contact with him that spirit that remained with him through
all his life, the mania for the aggrandizement of his own fortune, no
matter whose money must be lost for him to gain it. The last chapter
of his tannery experiences was a dark one, and there is nothing in it
to be held up for admiration by any one, but rather as an example of
the first notable evil in the nature of financial wrecking of the many
that are found in a complete retrospect of his life. Gould himself
always realized the discreditability of his actions in the tannery
matter, as is evidenced by the way in which he tried to smooth it over
before the investigating committee ten years later. As a matter of
fact, he probably realized and recognized whatever else he did that
was evil in his far greater financial operations during the next three
decades, but if he did, he gave no sign nor did he ever indicate that
he had any regrets in his career.
[Illustration: GOULD’S FIRST GLIMPSE OF HIS FUTURE WIFE.]