Life Stories of

Successful Men

HENRY PHIPPS

I

By HENRY M. HYDE Author of "The Buccaneers"

T was a black, blustering, rainy night in 1859. A short, slender boy of about twenty was sweeping out the office of Dilworth & Bidwell, dealers in iron spikes and gunpowder, in the thriving town of Pittsburg, Pennsylvania. His work done, the young fellow hurried home, ate his supper, and then. in the face of the driving storm, started to walk out to the ragged outskirts of the town, where on a hillside stood the little forge and blacksmith shop of Kloman & Company. There he went to work at once on the books, making the proper charges for the work done during the day, taking account of the stock on hand, and leaving, when he started home at II o'clock, a clear and complete statement of the condition of the business. At 7 o'clock the next morning, he was up and out on his way to his daily work in the office of Dilworth & Bidwell.

You need read no further to discover why the success of Henry Phipps was inevitable. The amazing and stupendous growth of the iron and steel industry in and about Pittsburg gave him, it is true, an unequaled opportunity; but it is impossible to conceive of circumstances in which the dogged determination, the unending industry, and the native ability of young Phipps would not have compelled a large success. The life stories of few successful men are more inspiring to the ambitious youth, for his contains nothing of genius, luck, early advantages, or the influence of powerful friends. Any young man who has good health, and that dauntless determination which is willing, if necessary, "to scratch its way through a mountain to success," may hope to follow in his footsteps. There is

name, never risked a cent in an uncertain enterprise. And, if authorities may be believed, he had more even than Carnegie himself to do with building up the vast fortune of the latter. Phipps was the creative force which coined iron ore and coal into gold; and Carnegie-the human sponge-absorbed a large part of it.

Henry Phipps was born in Philadelphia in 1839. His father-a shoemaker -was a man of energy and some ambition. His mother was a woman of considerable education. From one he got an aspiring disposition; from the other a taste for reading. That was all; but that was enough.

Formal education he had little. Fate or destiny sent the family to live in Pittsburg. But even before that move, young Henry had gone to work as an office boy in a Philadelphia store. He found a job of the same kind in his new home.

He

LIFE STORIES-HENRY PHIPPS-(Continued)

swept out a jewelry store, and performed similar duties in the book store of John D. Eagan. But there must have been some sort of magnetism about him, for he was inevitably attracted by iron. He saw small prospects in his present employment; and, in a fit of desperate determination, he one day borrowed a silver quarter from his older brother, and, with that money, paid for a "want ad" in the columns of a Pittsburg paper. Dilworth & Bidwell, dealers in steel spikes and gunpowder, wanted a "cub." They answered Henry Phipps's "ad," and he got a job with them.

Right then and there his career began. He did his work well. He did more. He studied at night; and presently, when the firm needed an assistant bookkeeper, he was ready to fill the place. All the time, he was saving his money. Meanwhile he made the acquaintance of Kloman & Company, the blacksmiths, who had not business enough to hire a regular bookkeeper, but were glad to get the "afterworking-hours" service of young Phipps. Kloman & Co. soon found they could use a little more capital. Henry Phipps had a little capital waiting for investment. He put it into the firm, and became a silent partner. All the while he was working for Dilworth & Bidwell. That he did this work well, and did not allow his interest in the firm of Kloman & Co. to take too much of his attention, is sufficiently proved by the fact that, when the former firm split up, Bidwell, one of its partners, was glad to take Henry Phipps into business with him under the title of Bidwell & Phipps.

Presently the Kloman enterprise grew to such an extent that it demanded all of Phipps's attention. Thomas Carnegie, elder brother of the great iron-master, came upon the scene at about this time; and he and Phipps joined forces in the building of a small iron mill. They made it pay well from the start. Then appeared Andrew Carnegie, already well started on the way to a big fortune as the result of successful speculation in sleeping-car stock and oil well property. He bought or came into possession of a larger iron mill. This mill was losing money. It bade fair to absorb the Car