SHORT STORIES
By: C. D. B.

     EDITOR REGISTER. - Lawrence County has the honor of sending out into the business world a class of shrewd business men of whom she may feel proud. As your correspondent looks out over the great industrial field of the Hocking Valley with its great deposits of coal and iron, its blast furnaces and railroads, being a Lawrence Countain himself, he feels proud in boasting that the sons of old Lawrence have played a very important part in the development of this region and that in other sections of this great business world. Lawrence Countians attaining a world wide celebrity.

     From the vicinity of the little village of South Point, O., opposite the mouth of the Big Sandy river there have gone out into the business world, the Greens, Churchills, Davidsons, Johnstons and Thomases, men who have made themselves famous as far seeing, energetic business men, some of whom are reputed as possessing the finest business ability abounding in the country.

      They, as a class of men, were not by any means reared to manhood in ease and wealth. They had little else than lots of courage, ambition, and brains with which they launched out on the tide of the business world, and how well they have succeeded in their operations will be noted further along.

     The two noted men of the above class are General Sam Thomas and Commodore W. F. Davidson, the latter recently deceased at St. Paul, Minn., leaving a property estimated at three million dollars in value. Davidson started in life on the deck of an Ohio river steamboat as a roustabout, a poor boy, and at his death was at the head of one of the largest steamboat corporations in America. He was an indefatigable worker and handled his immense business until within a few hours of his death.

     General Sam Thomas started out in a business life on Raccoon Creek in Vinton County, at the old Keystone charcoal furnace, at work in the office or at anything else at which he was called on to lend a hand. In those days, the product of Keystone was carried to the Ohio in flat boats during high freshets. The stream was crooked and the current was very rapid, so the voyage to the Ohio was attended to with much danger to life and property. Of the pilots in that line of boats, young Thomas was said to be the most daring and successful in every voyage going into port with boat and cargo in good condition.

     At the outbreak of the rebellion Thomas laid aside the pen and steering oar and enlisted in the army, going in with a Lieutenancy and at near the close of the war being made Brigadier General. After the war he was associated with the Greenes and Churchills at Zanesville in the furnace and rolling mill business.

     From Zanesville he went to Columbus as the head of The Columbus Rolling Mill Co. While in Columbus he was elected a member of the City Council and showing a marked ability in financiering, was placed at the head of the Finance Committee. Being at the head of this Committee he was brought into contact with the financial world of New York and in negotiating city loans, he became acquainted with Wall Street bankers and, by his shrewd dealings, recommended himself to them with whom he has since done business to the amount of many millions on his own account.

     General Thomas's first railroad venture was in the Springfield, Jackson & Pomeroy - a narrow gauge road, built by Springfield and Waverly parties. It had hardly been completed when the two factions among its owners began to lay their plans to "do each other up." The road became involved and fell into the hands of Mr. Thomas and was made a standard gauge and sold out at a handsome profit, and is now known as the Ohio Southern, operated in the interests of the I. B. & W. The profits on the Ohio Southern gave Thomas a taste for more railway deals of the same kind, and the Ohio Central road, running from Corning to Toledo was the next to fall into the hands of Thomas and party. This road they took up in a bankrupt condition, improved it and let it go at a big profit.

     The New York, Chicago & St. Louis R. R. known as the "Nickel Plate" was begun by Thomas Syndicate which at this time had its headquarters on Wall-st., New York. This road was started to compete with the Vanderbilt line. Mr. Vanderbilt fearing the competition of the new line to his Western System of roads at once set about to negotiate the purchase of the "Nickel Plate," and got it, while it is said Gen. Thomas alone put down in his pockets a cool million on this scheme.

     After the Nickel Plate scheme, Thomas and party took another twist at the Ohio Central and extended that road from Corning to Charleston, W. Va. They let this extension go also, not loosing anything by the transaction.

      Last Spring the Lake Erie & Western, through judicial sale, fell into the hands of Thomas. It runs through the Ohio and Indiana gas belt and the Lima oil fields and terminates at Bloomington, Ill. and is a first-class connected road.

      The railroad operations of General Thomas and party in the South are very extensive. They have control of the East Tenn. Va. & Ca. road and in all, command fifteen hundred miles of road in the South, the system tapping the great iron regions of Tenn., Alabama and Georgia.

     Into the far North, they also extend their operations having recently purchased the Marquette & Mackinaw road and are building along the North shore of Lake Superior, a new line to the Atlantic at Duluth. In the West, they have opened up the Santa Fe and Northern road in New Mexico with the intention of extending it North into Colorado connecting with a system of roads they control there. They also control the Metropolitan National Bank of New York, a bank from which they used to negotiate loans before their enterprises became so stupendous as now.

     Some years ago when Geo. I. Seney of New York, reputed to be worth $20,000,000 failed it was reported that General Thomas had lost heavily by the failure, he at that time being in Europe on railroad business the report being current that he had left blank checks for Seney's use and that Seney had drawn on him for $2,000,000.

     Seney some years ago, commanded a mint of money and was the financial backer of the Thomas party in their first gigantic railroad schemes. Be the report however, true or not, the Thomas party have stood by Mr. Seney in his adversities, and his fortune is now retrieved, he being worth a couple million. Thomas is credited on Wall Street, New York, with a fortune running between fifteen and twenty million dollars, while his intimate associates in business have also acquired immense fortunes.

     Thomas has recently purchased the Summer estate of the late Henry Ward Beecher for $250,000 which is located on the Hudson near Fishkill. In my next, I will say something of other Lawrence Countians.          C. D. B.
Gore, O., July 20.