I START ANEW.
Immediately after my failure in the general mercantile business, I went
to Dallas to try to make some commission deal to sell farm machinery,
and called on Mitchell & Scruggs, who had just opened business with one
of the best lines of machinery in Dallas and had the State agencies on
these lines. I succeeded in making a contract with them to handle these
goods in Ellis, Navarro, Hill and Johnson Counties on a basis of five
and ten per cent. I knew nothing about machinery and had to post myself,
reading catalogues and asking questions of Mitchell & Scruggs and the
factories they represented.
Having no money I bought a few groceries on time, until I could make
something and had the tender of a horse and buggy from a Mr. Johnson,
the pastor of our Presbyterian Church. I drove over these counties, very
often without a road, especially in Hill County, visiting people who
were reported in need of cotton gin machinery, harvesters and threshers,
never making a dollar for nearly five months. I finally made my first
sale of an Ames engine, on which I had a commission of eight per cent.
For the next three months succeeding I sold a number of engines and
boilers, several threshers, a number of harvesters, etc., winding up the
first season with a net profit of about fifteen hundred dollars. After
paying my debts I had left about five hundred dollars to invest in a
home. I planned a cottage, which Meredith & Patterson agreed to build
for me for a thousand dollars, accept in part payment five hundred
dollars and the balance of five hundred dollars, payable next fall with
five per cent per month interest.
The next season’s business I wound up with a profit of twenty-eight
hundred dollars and the next season with thirty-five hundred dollars
profit and the next season with something over ten thousand dollars
profit. This put me on my feet but I needed engineering skill and was
unable to secure it, as it was scarce in Texas at the time.
Having formed the acquaintance of Colonel John G. Hunter (through his
visit to me, in the interest of the Ames Iron Works, whose engines and
boilers I was handling), I persuaded Mr. Leonard Ames the first time he
called on me in conjunction with Colonel Hunter, to let me have Hunter,
he was just the man I needed. He finally consented, provided it was
agreeable to Hunter. I made a proposition to Hunter to give him a half
interest in the profits of the business, which he accepted and after a
copartnership of two years, we both decided that our territory was too
small; our business too much circumscribed to justify the services of
both, when I advised him to go to Dallas, both realizing that it would
be the future commercial center of Texas. He decided to do this and
immediately moved to Dallas, where his ability found better compensation
and I told him that I would follow as soon as I could wind up my
business here, realizing that Waxahachie would never amount to much
until the old mossback element died out and the young men would get into
the saddle, which prediction I believe has been realized.
Before leaving Waxahachie I tried to get up the money for a cotton
compress, for which I was authorized by a friend at Jefferson, Texas,
who had a compress at that point, to subscribe for him ten thousand
dollars of about thirty-five thousand dollars needed for a good Morse
ninety-inch cylinder press. I headed the subscriptions with this man’s
ten thousand dollars and added mine for one thousand more, then called
on a number of business men, financially able, besides the two banks,
who all agreed to take stock provided a certain somebody else would take
stock. It finally resolved itself into the consent of one, John G.
Williams, who was always arbitrary and dictatorial. When I asked him to
subscribe a thousand or fifteen hundred dollars, telling him that it was
important for us to take immediate action, as Ennis was also trying to
get up a compress company and there was not sufficient business for
both, he insisted on postponing it, saying that he would let me know
when he got ready.
Already disgusted with such dilatory conduct, I told him I wanted him to
understand that I was not begging him nor others, like I used to do when
trying to build the railroad, that I had other business to attend to and
I wanted him to say right then and there what he was going to do. He
told me to take the compress and go to the devil with it. I said to him,
taking the subscription list, “Here goes,” and tore it up, leaving him
in disgust.
The town of Ennis commenced building their compress in less than three
days, but the conduct of these old mossbacks, in this case, finally
proved the straw that broke the camel’s back. I immediately resolved to
get out of there as soon as possible and move to Dallas, which I have
never had cause to regret.
After moving to Dallas I succeeded in making better contracts with the
factories whose goods I had been handling through Mitchell & Scruggs,
and had a number of contracts, which they had held, turned over to me
direct, thereby enlarging the profits of my business from fifty to one
hundred per cent and soon established one of the largest and best
businesses in my line in Dallas, except that of R. V. Tompkins, who had
large capital and more extensive factory arrangements than mine. Having
large capital he was able to employ a large corps of traveling salesmen,
besides he, himself, having a practical, thorough knowledge of
machinery.