The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, February 2, 1896, Page 15

“O reader! Had you in you Such stores as silent thought can bring, O gentle reader! you would find A tale in everything ‘What more £ have to say is short, And you must kindly take it; It is no tale; but should you think, Perhaps a tale you'll make it.” > Poverty Hollow was rightly named. It is the place in Connecticut where Coll Huntington was born and educated, b a general way its productions are mea I know the region. well, for it is over- looked by my native hills. It hasalso been overlooked by Mr. Huntington since | he grew rich, for people about there might like to get somebody to pay off their home- stead mortgages. In youth Iroamed through woodsand fields and streams that Huntington had known; the magnate’s sliding places and skating ponds became mine. Huntington had fished where I fished, and as vainly. We missed being “boys together” by half & hundred y h feelings of neighborly re- is sketch is written, and with in the achievements of my kins- Hollow is an outlying district ton, but only one went with thatillustrious native of the Hollow to the school which is still preseryed. k Hiram Miner would have had the dis- tinction, but be was sent to a neighboring district. He started out in life richer than Huntington, and he considers himself richer yet, in all that is worth baving, though nearly all othersin the Hollow are poor. If Hiram were in Congress his vote would be counted against the funding bill. Erastus Baldwin was “Young Russ” i vears ago. He belonged to the | e school when the boys of that | | institation used to walk down through | Fiuteville to wrestle the Poverty Hollow | boys, and he is honorea .by tradition as the only vouth who could throw young | Huntington. He and Mr. Miner own railways, the little structures on. which | huge logs are run. to meet the buzzing saws, and they say that they would not | give them vp to own the Southern Pacific | and Congress. There isn’t any money in the sawmills but the owners have opinions of their own about wealth. | Godown along the brook from Erastus | Baldwin’s unshingled, hali-boarded saw- { mill; follow the road that follows the | brook on its winding way through the | brush and trees: and you will come to an- | other sawmill. That is the Samuel Bald- | win place—for Baldwins are numerous among the "Litchfield hills.. Below the | pond where the old wheel turns is the solid stone foundation of a structure that is gone. The vanished building was.a mill—the Huntington miil. : ““Uncle Bill” Huntington, or William, g 3 od P & :m:uw Nt (lhll;,“ “l el . vy i Ji ”171 i wil ) i I s v . Wy 0l Bl e o Ml b, gl iy Site of the House i Which Mr. Huntington Was Born. [From a photograph taken for “The Call.’’] of the town of Harwinton, Conn., and is nd securely as Sacramento in the the Southern Pacific Railroad. le and Thomaston are adjoining villages on the south. The first clocks in America were made at Terryville, but Thomaston has gained control of the in- dustry, and at the latter place Hunting- ton obtained the timepieces for his early peddler’s outfit. s There is the weaith of beauty in the scenery at Poverty Hollow, but lacking is the wealth that pays taxes. . Six poor though picturesque farms are still worked. Four rival sawmills are the delight of amateur photographers, and anything but the delight of the strugghng owners. And, yes— . Still sits the schoolhouse by the road, A ragged beggar sunning, and the beggar—town pauper, at any rate—is the only surviving schoolmate of Collis P. Huntington. Men of the locality remember Hunting- ed among the Litchfield hills as | | carding-mill there when his son, Collis, was born. He ran the mill for years and he saved money, for when he died, though everybody thought him penniless, the relatives found about $3000 stored away. The pretty stream flows westward from the Samuel Baldwim place, with wooded hills at the left bank and a sweet lhitle valley on the right. Down the valley, five hundred yards or so, a little white school- house marks.an abrupt turn of the road. That is the Poverty Hollow School, where Huntington' regeived bhis early training. The outer board covering of the building has been renewed, and there are new shingles, but no other, changes have been made. So few are the families about there now, the sons and daughters of the older inhabitants having lone ago moved away, that the school is closed. b house and at the west side of the road re- poses the farm where Huntington, the railroad miilionaire, was born. The house is gone. A large stone, one e IS Hiram Miner, Who Was Wanted in the Railroad Service Because He Looked Like a Farmer. {From a photograph taken for “The Call.”] as the natives never knew him, had a| THE SAN FRANCISCO CALL, SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 2, 1896. IRTHPLACE AwEARLY LIFE o C PHVNTINGToN THE PYERTY HOLILW FARM, THE OLD (ONNECTICVT SCHOSLHOVIE: _AND THE BOYS °F HUNTINGTEN] TIME R, J& Feaream— that couldn’t be got out of the ground without blasting, marks the northwest cor- ner of the filled-up cellar. The well, on the side toward the road, remains but a slight depression in the ground. Down across the ficld, however, and twenty yards or more from the site of the where Horace Barper now lives. That's just above the old Huntington place. He got $5 a month an’ board doing man’s work on the farm. He stayed there two years an’ he saved every cent that he earned. That’s the way Collis Hunting- ton began. i “There ain’t many men that have made as much money as he has, but hedidn’s earn it all at Orson Barber’s. “At 16 he went to peddling notions an’ things. He bought his outfit with the money he earned on the farm, an’ I guess he had some left. He-sold pins, needles, tape, thread an’ little combs that we used to all want. He carried these things in two little tin trunks that were, I suppose, about two foot long,.a foot wide and six- teen inches high. He held one of these in each hand, with a strap over his shoulders. Every two or three weeks he used to come back, when he had to get a new stock, an’ he peddled that way for'several years, un- til he had about $5000. ““When the gold excitement broke out he quit peddling an’ started for California. He put his $5000 into whisky, another man going in with him as partner, an’ the cargo was shipped around the Horn. Collis|an’ his partner then'started for California by the isthmus route. I believethe partner. died on the way. Of course the whisky was wuth consid’dble money when it got to California; an’ about the railroading and other things you know more than I could tell. 2 “Collis’ father, ‘Uncle Bill,” used to come arouna an' sharpen scissors after the fam- ily broke up. He used to come around an’ stay over Sunday, kind o’ visiting, I sup- pose. That was after his wife had'gone to live with one of her daughters. Every- SEPORL P U ot B s | AE oA The Schoolhouse at Poverty Hollow in Which the Railroad Magnate Received His 3 Early Education. [From a photograph taken for “The Call.”] | house, stands a rickety, dilapidated collec- | tion of boards and shingles and beams. Just around the corner from the school-. ‘That is the Huntington barn, and the | present owner is sentimental enough to preserve it while paying interest on his 000 mortgage. The roof is caved in, the des are open, but it is the barn that the Huntingtons owned, and so it will stand as long as nature lets.it, or as long, at any rate, as the present owner can keep the bank from foreclosing. Two montbs ago T roamed again over the old region of Poverty Hollow, and the man who accompanied me was Lyman Mather, the only one remaining of Hunt- ton’s school-fellows. Mather is several years vounger than Huntington, who is 76, but he is broken down and feeble. He was a farmer at the Hollow, but now he is penniless and alone and he boards with the William Humiston family at the expense of the town. Har- winton has no poorhouse, its plan being to “board out’” the paupers. “I remember Collis Huntington well,” slowly said oid Mr. Mather, as he hobbled along with his cane. ‘“He’s got richer than Ihave. There ain’t many on us left now; he an’ I are about the only. ones liv- ing of all thatused to go to school down here. “‘Collis is the only one that’s ever made much money. He’s made more in a month than the rest on us have in all our lives. body thought he was poor, but when he was dead they found $3000 or more. He died about twenty-five year ago, I guess it was. “Collis has got pretty rich, but if fifty or a hundred million dollars won’t give a man a little leisure what's the use of hav- ing it.” Mr. Mather, who has nothing but leisure, went with difficulty about the Hollow and told of his schoolmate and of the incidents of his boyhood. Then he turned back toward the house where the town supports him, and as he went he said: “Yes, Collis has made a good deal.o’ money, but he hain’t meeh soul.”” “These ol’ folks are kind o’ gone,” is the way that one of the natives teid. of the pussing away of Mr. Mather’s generation. Most of them have “kind o’ gone” in the T . ington when he sent for, me,” said Mr. Miner in giving his contribution to the Southern Pacific history. ‘‘He 'lived at that time on the road right alongside: of the tunnel, but I hear he's built himself 2 new house lately. - 2 “Well, he wanted me to go with an- other fellow and buyup a. lot of land" for him. He'said he thought they'd know I was a farmer, and that I'd know about what land was worth for farming pur- poses. The man going along with me would know what it was worth to'the rail- road. The upshot of it all was, though, that Huntington decided to build on the road he had staked out to fool them, and so 1 didn’t have to go. ButI bad a visit at Huntington’s, and I haven’t been down to New York since then.” Erastus Baldwin came to California about twenty-five years ago. He worked as a section hand on the Central Pacific Railroad, but never relinquishing his school-day claim to supremacy in wrest- ling he visited the magnate on a social footing of equality, and he says that he re- fused to recognize Huntington when he thought the Jatter had: been drinking. *Young Russ” has-not been so successful in husiness as Hi Miner, though the two are ' rival sawmill - owners. He is the philosopher of Poverty Hollow, however, and among his native, trees he finds peace’ and comfort, and good timber enough to give him a living. At 74 years he is hale and vigorous, and he can wrestle yet. *‘Col aud I were boys together, and we’ve been men together,” said Mr: Baldwin. *'I haven't anything against Col and he hasn’t anything against me, though I was the only boy about here that could ever throw him, v § -“Oh, yes; we used to have some good wrestling-bouts in those days. The Pov- erty Hollow boys were a big, strong lot of Lyman Mather, the Only Surviving Schoolmate of Mr. Huntington, Nov Residing in Poverty Hollow. [From a photograph ta. ken for “The “Call.”] fellows, and Col was the biggest and toughest of ’em all. I was going to school in Campville then, and over there we had a teacher who was pretty spry and who knew a good deal about wrestling in a sort of scientific way. This teacher used to give us lessons, and I got so that there was nobody in our school that could handle me, even if I was the smallest of the lot. “We got a challenge from Poverty Hol- low, and so we came down here one Satur- day to wrestle it out. Several matches were tried, and Col got the best of every- body he tackled. Finally he tackled me, and I gave him the prettiest throw you ever saw in your life.”” The historian laughed so loud at the memory of his victory that the hills about the Hollow laughed with him in their echo, and s loose board fell from the old mill by way of applause: ‘“ ‘By jingo!’ said Col, ‘you be a.good un if you be small!’ And again the peaceful hills became merry over the battle that they remem- bered. “I threw him every time he stood up till he said be was satisfied,” continued Mr. Baldwin, and he paused in contem- from San Francisco to San Jose. A man named Ackerson was foreman—you don’t know him, I suppose. Perhaps he ain’t there now.. B *““While I was with the railroad I went up to San Francisco and called or Col. We were glad to see each other. He of- | fered me a- job on. another section, but of | course I didn't want to be under any ob- ligations, so I told bim I guessed I'd quit railroading. A “Aiter that I met him on a railroad train, but he looked to me asthough he bad been out celebrating a little too much and so I. didn’t recognize him. I pre- tended not to see him at all. “When I left the railroad, as I told Col I would, I didn’t know what I was going to do. But they wanted an engineer on a steamboat and I made an application, as I had learned to run an engine atone of the mills here. Ihad to go before a board of experts and answer a lot of questions before I could get my license. “They questioned me pretty closely and finally they asked what I would do under certain circumstarices if the engine would not work. I toid ’em and they said I was right and that I could take the job. way of their ancestors, and the ancient churchyard on Harwinton Hill has graves that far outnumber the living inhabitants of the town, except on cattle-show days. In all the families, however, there are Huntington traditions, stored carelessly away in the minds of the local patriarchs like the antique, inherited furniture and old firearms in the garrets. One of these traditions preserves an incident of the rail- road man’s experience &s a youthful Yankee peddler. “Willard Weed o’ Wolcottyille went t’ peddlin’. with Huntington,” is the way The Barn at the Old Homestead of the Huntingtons. ) [From a photograph taken for “The Call."’] But some on us have done about as much work as he has, I guess. “At school he was a reg’lar harum scarum. He was awild sort of a fellow. He was allus a-stubbin’ around barefoot in summer. I recollect that very well. he would jump right plumb into it thing. He wasallus having trouble with the teacher. - William K. Peck was one o' the teachers; they was allus at it. Collis was olaer than I was, and he was a big fellow anyway, an’ he looked like a perfect mountain to me.” good deal rather cut up than study. sort of a man. He ran the carding-mill down here. The mill’s gone long ago, an’ so’s*Uncle Bill. * We used to oother him a good-deal, having fun with the old man; but one time he up an’ took an ol’ pistol an’ shot one on us, sort of a woman. She was very partic’lar -| was 14 an’ went to work at Orson Barber’s, every Sunday to church. “There was a lot of ’em in the family. Solon was the oldest boy. He got pretty rich, but not with any help fromCollis, I guess. He died less than ten year ago. Collis was the second. around here now. Joseph, the third son, “An’ he was a reg’lar daredevil. If there was any danger anywhere around | that’n.” fust *Oh, he was bright enough, but he'd a “‘His father, ‘Uncle Bill, was a queer 0 fellow named Bid- | well—liked to kill'd him. They had him up for it. Mrs. Huntington was'a prettynice about the family going to Harwinton He don’t come ‘Willard tell’t himself, place up in Dutchess County, State o’ New York, when they was a-walkin’ ’long 'n’ carryin’ their little tin trunks. *“‘Y’aint?’ says Huntington ¢’ him, body.” . *8’ Huntington carryin’ hjs two trunks 'long, when a ma: ‘We don’t want nothin’ here.” zot,” says Huntington. suthin’.’ > “‘Don’t want to buy nuthin’,’ “‘Y’ might want suthin’.’ - “ “Told you I didn’t, s0 go 'long." “ ‘Got everythin’ y* want, hev y'? #Yes, I hev!’ - 5 ““Well, y're derned well off.’” that the story is related, “an’ I've heerd They come t’ a fine * ‘I ain’t a-goin’ in there,’ says Willard -Weed: ‘Can’t.sell nothin’ 'n a place like ‘Well, I be. I ain’t a goin’ t’ skip no- he started in t’ th’ yard, |. comes. t’ th’ door, 'n’ shouts out t' him, "«“‘Better let me show y' what we've ‘Y’ might want Poverty Hollow, With the Schoolhouse on the Left and the Samuel Baldwin. Saw- ° mill in the Distance. [From a photograph taken for “The Call.”’] plation of his’ superiority over the rest of the world. He added: 3 “You speak to Col about that when you go back to California. Tell him that I guess I could do it yet.” i < Once more the man and the admiring hills laughed out upon the Hollow, and Mr. Baldwin’s ancient horse strolled around the corner of .the mill to see what the fun was. ' “Col has never been here since he went away,” the narrator continued, *‘but I went out to California and saw him. He has a pretty good property there, I guess, but 1'd rather be pottering away about the old Hollow here. “I went out to the mines first, but they wanted to have me go to work down in a well 700 feet deep for $5 a day. I told’em I wouldn’t do that sort of labor for five thousand a day. 8o I got a job on the railroad where they were building a line ‘| ahead. So then saysI: | ‘“‘Now,’ says I, ‘you've been asking me a lot of questions—just let ‘me ask you one or two.” “They laughed, but they said fo go “‘Suppose things happened just as you said and you fixed the engine just as I told | you I would, and still it wouldn’t work. | ‘What could be doune then?’ “ T don’t know,! said one of 'em. ‘What would you do?’ « *‘I'd throw the whole dern thing over- board and quit the job,’ says I.”” Then the hills made known that they | heard and undersiood and the aged horse | kicked up its heels and frisked away. ‘I went all over California; and down to Mexico like a fool; and I made a voyage to'the Sandwich Islands. But wherever I traveled I paid my fare, so that Col | wouldn’t think I wanted any favors from him just because we were boys together.’, Mr. Baldwin told of the difficulties tha are encountered in wresting subsistence from the natural conditions in his native region, but he expressed satisfaction that his quiet life in the Hollow is better than anything that Huntington can know. And his words at the end of the interview were, as he turned back to the tattered mill: *“If you see Col out in California give him my regards.” The house in which the Huntington family resided was a plain little story-and- «a-balf structure. The gable end wad to- ward the roadway. A huge stone chimney ‘was out of all proportion to the rest of the building, as measured by the modern ideas of the architects, though quite the fashion at the time. Just at the front of the house was the old well with the tall ‘‘pole” contrivance that added to New England picturesque- ness uniil a lot of enterprising agents in- vaded the lana and ‘induced the people to adopt a modern invention. Lyman Mather occupiea the house dure ing some of his better years. Soon after he abandoned it the building was pulled down, the cellar was filled up and the site became a mere .part of the ninety- acte farm. The old well afforded a burial place for some of the “stun” that had to be hauled away to make room for the pumpkins to grow. A covering .of soil was then given and now the circular depression is bhardly notice- able. Against the relic of the old barn, “down across the lot,” a later barn was erected years ago. The roof over which Huntington and the other boys climbed and chased in the Poverty Hollow schooldays has been partly broken down by the snow and storms of many winters, but the wrecked end of it sways and dangles, and is a tenacious tribute to the excellence of the material turned out by the sawmills of the Hollow. The farm 1s a poor one to-day; it was probably never any better. Most of it is called meadow land, and grass grows on it, though the term “meadow’ is therea little bit of politeness that the farmers re- tain for mutual satisfaction and encour- agement. Much of the stone has been piled up in long rows, that will serve as fences until the world ends. = Visitors won- der why so much work was done to divide a little farm into so many sections—like building lots on the map of a new Western city—but the stone had to be put some- where, and old wells are not often avail- able. Though the stone walls are numerous, and broad and high, there is stone enough still scattered over the ground to macad- amize a boulevard, and plowing would be both dangerous and difficult but that the farmer of the region is skilled in the art of dodging such obstructions. The Huntington farm sections that are not annually plowed up or reserved as *‘meadow” are pasture lots and the wood land, and the only level bit of ground in the whole place is where the Huntington house used to stand. Poverty Hollow is a quiet, modest pretty little bit of the New England back- woods, hidden away 1 the hills, and its can only be reached by the most mislead- ing sort of by-roads. It is entirely un- known to the people five or ten miles away, and the world would never have heard of it but for its production of the man who owns the Western railroads. ‘Why or when it received its name no * man in that region of patriarchs can re- member, and there is no man in that region who cares. - Huntington may have made mistakes in his life, but he did not make any when he chose Hi Miner to pose as a farmer for the puzpose of buying up land along a coveted right of way. Mr. Miner is an educated. man, but he gan pose asa New England agrictlturist in a8 way that would ed: and enlighten the most devoted admirers of Denman Thompson. was then, as now, right in It was many years 8go, and this man 8 prime. died young. Then there was Rhody an’ Elizabeth an’ ‘Susan an’ ‘two other girls. It was a pretty nice family all through, and Collis, I'guess, was about the only one that seemed to be wild or rough. “Collis could read. an' write an’ cipher when he quit school. He quit when he Huntington was acquiring land for his Southern railroad route, and his greatest trouble was in the prices that were de- manded. So he had his surveyors stake | out a fictitious route, and then he sent for his old friend, Hi Miner, to buy up,as a farmer, the land that was wanted. “I went down to New York to see Hunt- One of the Little Ponds in the Region Where Huntington Went * Slubbihg" Around Barefoot. [From a photograph taken for *“The Call.”’] *