CHAPTER XVII. INTERESTING EPISODES IN DREW'S LIFE. INCIDENTS IN THE EARLY LIFE OF DREW, AND HOW HE BEGAN TO MAKE MONEY.-HE BORROWS MONEY FROM HENRY ASTOR, BUYS CATTLE IN OHIO AND DRIVES THEM OVER THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS UNDER GREAT HARDSHIP AND SUFFERING.-HIS GREAT CAREER AS A STEAMBOAT MAN, AND HIS OPPOSITION TO VANDERBILT. HIS MAR BIAGE AND FAMILY.-HE BUILDS AND ENDOWS RELIGIOUS AND EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS.-RETURNS TO HIS OLD HOME AFTER HIS SPECULATIVE FALL, BUT CAN FIND NO REST SO FAR AWAY FROM WALL STREET.-HIS HOPES, THROUGH WM. H. VANDERBILT, OF ANOTHER START IN LIFE. HIS BANKRUPTCY, LIABILITIES AND WARDROBE. HIS SUDDEN BUT PEACEFUL END. CHARACTERISTIC STORIES OF HIS ECCENTRICITIES. HAD intended at first to give only a sketch of the salient I points in the speculative career of Drew, but, on re flection, I find that the lives of great men all remind us that people want to know a great deal of minutiæ concerning men who have made their mark in this world. Our enterprising newspapers are encouraging this laudable curiosity more and more every day. So in the case of Drew, I must try to furnish answers to questions that may be asked about him in order that popular expectation may not be disappointed. I shall endeavor to anticipate what the reader may naturally want to know when he comes to the end of Drew's great speculative ventures. One of these questions will probably be, what kind of a boy was Daniel Drew, and how did he begin to make money? It goes without saying that Drew was the most unique figure that Wall Street has ever seen, and a characteristic specimen of one kind of American thrift, enterprise and speculation. Every side of his many sided and peculiar character, therefore, is of interest as the representative of a class to the reader who sets his heart on making money, and the majority of readers have this weakness. He is of special interest to all speculators not only in this country, but throughout the civilized world. These facts constitute my apology for dwelling so long and minutely on his characteristics. I have an idea that his life and adventures will be read with deep interest many years hence, and help to prolong the existence and reputation of this book. They will also assist to immortalize the man who was one of the most wonderful products of American civilization, and who could hardly have been evolved from any other soil or clime. Such prodigies of success cause the members of the older social fabrics to stare with astonishment at the stupendous capabilities of our great country. There is nothing interests people so much as the start in life, probably because there are so few who consider themselves able to get a good start. So far as I can learn, in the case of Daniel Drew, the boy was father to the man. He worked on a farm, going to school at intervals, where he was unable to learn anything, except that he obtained a notion of the current theological ideas of that day, until he was fifteen years of age, when his father died, leaving him, a younger brother and their mother to shift for themselves on a poor, small farm. His father was of English and his mother of Scotch descent. In his seventeenth year young Drew enlisted as a substitute in the State Militia, which had then been called into service on account of the second war with England. The regiment was placed at Fort Gansevoort, on the Hudson, opposite New York. Hostilities ceased between this country and England a few months after his enlistment, and the regiment was mustered out. Daniel returned home. His mother had taken charge of his substitute money, which probably did not exceed a hundred dollars, the amount with which his great rival, Commodore Vanderbilt commenced life, and which he earned from his mother by ploughing and planting a field. HE BORROWS MONEY TO BUY CATTLE. 119 "I want my substitute money," said Drew to his mother, one day shortly after his return. "What are you going to do with it?" queried the old woman, for being of Scotch descent, she was quite as thrifty in looking after the pennies as her American contemporary, old Mrs. Vanderbilt. They both had the gripping sense by nature, and to this transmissible quality may probably be attributed, in a large degree, the financial success of both of their sons. "I am going to buy cattle, and sell them in New York," replied Daniel. “Are you sure you will not lose money by it?" rejoined his mother. "I am sure I will make money," he said. He started to purchase cattle in the country and to sell them in New York. His profits were at first very small, especially as his capital was so limited. He soon discovered that if he could purchase his cattle in Ohio he would be able to increase his profits largely, and he applied to Henry Astor, a butcher in Fulton Market, and a brother of the great millionaire, John Jacob Astor, for a loan to speculate in Ohio cattle. Astor accommodated him, though he at first thought he was running a considerable risk. He was mistaken, for Drew made money and soon established his credit on a solid basis. He bought cattle throughout Ohio, and drove them over the Alleghany mountains. He is said to have been the first drover who attempted this daring experiment. It required sixty days then to make the journey. He suffered great hardship and privation, and would sometimes lose a third part of a drove of 600 or 1,000 in crossing the mountains. Yet, as cattle were very cheap in Ohio, his profits were still very large. One terrible night, in a terrific thunderstorm, the tree under which he took shelter was shattered to splinters, his horse was killed under him, and he himself was struck senseless for a time. But no hardship or privation could deter him in the pursuit of making money. He afterwards extended his operations to Kentucky and Illinois. In 1829 Drew opened a cattle yard at Twenty-fourth street and Third avenue and ran the Bull's Head Tavern. He went into the steamboat business in 1834. Vanderbilt had then been seventeen years in the business. Westchester and Emerald were the names of his first two boats, and they ran between New York and Albany, in opposition to the Vanderbilt Line. Drew reduced the fare from three dollars to one, and attempted to freeze out Vanderbilt. The war of rates became so fierce that people were carried 100 miles between these two cities for a shilling. Drew added the Knickerbocker, the Oregon, George Law, Isaac Newton and the New World to his river fleet, and became quite a formidable competitor of the Commodore. In 1840 Isaac Newton organized the People's Line on the Hudson, of which Drew became the largest stockholder. The boats St. John, Dean Richmond and Drew were built The Isaac Newton was burned and the New World was sunk. When the Hudson River Railroad was opened, in 1852, Drew refused to sell out his stock. "You can regulate your fares as you choose," he said to the President of the Railroad Company, "but the only way you can regulate my steamboat fares is to buy the People's Line, and this I don't believe you have money enough to do." The railroad line merely stimulated traffic, as the elevated railroads have done in our day, and Drew was only a gainer instead of a loser by the apparent competition. He also controlled the Stonington Line for twenty years. Drew made his debut in Wall Street in 1844, just thirteen years prior to my first appearance on the boards of this financial theatre, and he was quite a war horse in speculation when I entered the arena. He formed a partnership with his son-in-law, a Mr. Kelly. and Nelson Taylor, as stock brokers and bankers. Their business was large and their credit good. The firm continued for ten years, until it was dissolved by the death of his partners. Drew then became one of the most daring and successful operators in Wall Street HIS DREAD OF DYING IN POVERTY. 151 Drew was married at the age of 25 to Roxana Mead, a farmer's daughter, by whom he was the father of three children, William H., Josephine, who died in infancy, and Catharine, who was married to the Rev. W. I. Clapp, a Baptist clergyman, who died and left his widow in good circumstances. So there were very little grounds for "Uncle Daniel's" dread that he should probably die in miserable destitution, as it seems that his two surviving children were very kind to him. His wife died in 1876. Drew was a member of St. Paul's Methodist Episcopal Church of New York for several years. He contributed large sums to various religious and educational institutions, but like Wilkins Micawber, he usually paid the money in notes, which appeared in the schedule of his liabilities when he had lost his large fortune, and had become bankrupt. He founded the Drew Seminary at Carmel, for young ladies, at a cost of $250,000. He built the Drew Theological Seminary, at Madison, New Jersey, also at a cost of $250,000, and endowed it with a similar amount. He only paid the interest on the latter. He increased the endowment fund of the Wesleyan University, at Middletown, Conn., and the Concord Biblical Institute. He added $100,000 to the endowment fund of Wesley University, but only paid the interest on that also. These appear in the schedule, in the list of his unsecured claims. He owned several large grazing farms in Putnam county, but they were heavily mortgaged. Drew had some intention of returning to his old home after the bankruptcy proceedings in 1876, to spend the remainder of his days there among his grandchildren. This desire shows that there was something inherently soft and good, after all, in his avaricious nature, and reminds me of the touching lines of Cowper on the same subject: "Be it a weaknes, it deserves some praise, |