FROM a pamphlet history of the Blackstone family, in which the name is spelled Blaxton, we gather the following interesting account:

“For several years before Winthrop came, in 1630, William Blaxton constituted the entire population of this peninsula [Massachusetts, of which the present Boston Common was then a part], at that time an unbroken wilderness of woods traversed by savages, by wolves, and other wild beasts almost as dangerous. Here he dwelt alone, exposed to dangers, many and great. He was a man of culture, refinement, and gentlemanly bearing, amiable and hospitable, liked by Indians, and indeed by everybody. These noble traits, this love of nature, his sacred calling, his trusting faith, invested whatever belonged to him with a romantic interest. He was a clergyman of the Church of England, born in 1595, graduated from Cambridge, England, in 1617, and died 1675, aged eighty years. Blaxton took orders in the Episcopal Church, but it seems that he never had a cure, though he still wore his canonical coat, which would indicate his attachment to the English Church, yet some have represented him as a non-conformist, ‘detesting Prelacy.’ He had in his library ten large volumes of manuscript books, presumably sermons, all of which were burned in his house during King Philip’s War. Blaxton came to America in 1623 with Robert Gorges.”

The father of Mr. Plant’s first wife was Captain James Blackstone. He lived to the ripe old age of ninety-seven. His son, Timothy B. Blackstone, is building a public library in Branford to the memory of his revered father. The following extract of a letter to the donor from one of the trustees of this library, Mr. Addison Van Name, will be of interest in this connection, showing, as it does, the origin of Yale College. The letter is dated from Yale University Library, and runs as follows:

“My fellow-trustees asked me to procure a design for a book-plate, and one is herewith submitted for your approval. It seemed to us that a memorable incident in the earlier library history of Branford might appropriately be commemorated here, and this has been attempted in the vignette, in the upper right-hand corner of the plate. You are no doubt familiar with the story, but President Clap’s Annals of Yale College is not a very common book, and I may be excused for quoting his exact language.

“In the year 1700, ‘The Ministers so nominated met at New Haven, and formed themselves into a body, or society, to consist of eleven ministers, including a rector, and agreed to found a college in the colony of Connecticut, which they did at their next meeting at Branford, in the following manner, viz.: Each member brought a number of books and presented them to the body, and laying them on the table said these words, or to this effect, “I give these books for the founding a college in this Colony.” Then the trustees, as a body, took possession of them, and appointed the Rev. Mr. Russel, of Branford, to be the Keeper of the Library, which then consisted of about forty volumes in folio.’”

The story is so good that, if there were not the best of reasons for believing it true, one might easily suspect it to have been invented. But in his preface President Clap says: “Several circumstances [and among them we may well suppose the incident in question] I received from sundry gentlemen who were contemporary with the facts related, among whom were some of the founders of the college with whom I was personally acquainted in the year 1726.”

The following account of Mr. Timothy B. Blackstone is taken from the New York Herald of April 12, 1896:

“Mr. Blackstone was born in a part of Branford known as Blackstoneville, on March 28, 1829. His father, Captain James Blackstone, in whose memory he erected this building, was a well-to-do farmer and stock-raiser. He derived his title of captain from being elected to that position in a company of local militia. He was elected to the Legislature in the sessions of 1825, 1826, and 1830, and was elected State Senator in 1840.

“Timothy attended the public schools here until he was eighteen years old, when he left, and obtained employment as assistant to a civil engineer, who was at that time surveying on the construction of the New York and New Haven, now the Consolidated, Railroad. After finishing this piece of work he became an engineer, and was appointed assistant engineer of the Stockbridge and Pittsfield Railroad, a short line constructed in 1849, and now a part of the Housatonic road. After this road was completed, Mr. Blackstone went west in 1851, and took charge of the construction of a portion of the Illinois Central Railroad. He settled at this time in La Salle, Ill., and was Mayor of the city for one year. In 1856, he became civil engineer of the Joliet and Chicago Railroad, which ran from Joliet via Lockport to Chicago. After this he was employed in surveying the land over which the Chicago and Alton Railroad now runs.

“Mr. Blackstone first began accumulating wealth while this road was being built. He purchased land ahead, and then sold it at a profit. He then invested in stock, and held several responsible offices until he attained his present position—president of the great system.”

On June 17, 1896, the magnificent library was dedicated with appropriate ceremonies, and called forth much enthusiasm from the towns-people.

In the course of his speech on this occasion, as reported in the Daily Palladium of New Haven, Judge Harrison said:

“While the primary purpose of the generous donor of this building, and its endowment fund, is to benefit the people of the town of Branford, it will never be forgotten that it serves also as a memorial to Hon. James Blackstone, who spent his long life of ninety-three years in this town, where he was born, and to the welfare of which he devoted so much time during the years of his young and mature manhood. For nearly two centuries the Blackstone family has occupied a conspicuous place in this community, and for the same length of time representatives of the family have been tillers of the soil, the title to which has always been in a Blackstone.

“We cannot properly dedicate this building to the purpose for which it is intended without calling your attention briefly to James Blackstone, his life, his family, and his ancestors. He was born in Branford in 1793, in a house located nearly opposite that home which was during nearly his whole life his residence, and where he died on the 4th of February, 1886. His first ancestor in this country was the Rev. William Blackstone, a graduate, in 1617, of Emanuel College, Cambridge. He received Episcopal ordination in England after graduation, but, like John Davenport of New Haven, he soon became of the Puritan persuasion, left his native country on account of his non-conformity, and became the first white settler upon that famous neck of land opposite Charlestown, which is now the city of Boston. When the Massachusetts colony came to New England they found William Blackstone settled on that peninsula. He had been there long enough to have planted an orchard of apple trees. Upon his invitation, the principal part of the Massachusetts colony removed from Charlestown and founded the town of Boston, on land which Mr. Blackstone desired them to occupy. He was the first inhabitant of the town, and the colony records of May 18, 1631, show that he was the first person admitted a freeman of Boston. His house and orchard were located upon a spot about half-way between Boston Common and the Charles River. A few years passed by, and the peculiar notions of the Puritans of Boston on the subject of church organization and government, had satisfied William Blackstone that while he could not conform to the church of Archbishop Laud, neither could he conform to the Puritan Church of Boston, and when they invited him to join them he constantly declined, using this language: ‘I came from England because I did not like the lord-bishops; but I cannot join with you because I would not be under the lord-brethren.’

“In 1633, an agreement was entered into between himself and the other old settlers, in the division of the lands, that he should have fifty acres allotted to him near his house forever. In 1635, he sold forty-four of those acres to the company for £30, retaining the six acres upon which was his orchard, and soon afterwards he removed to Rhode Island, living near Providence until the time of his death, which occurred on the 26th of May, 1675. A few years after leaving Boston he sold the orchard of six acres to a man named Pepys. He was not in any manner driven away from Boston by the Puritan Fathers, but holding certain ideas which did not agree with those of his neighbors, he concluded to move to a new location, from similar motives to those which led John Davenport to leave New Haven and go to Boston after the union of the New Haven colony with the Connecticut colony at Hartford. All of the accounts and records of Rev. William Blackstone show him to have been a religious man, with literary tastes, of correct, industrious, thrifty habits, kind and philanthropic feelings, living for several years on Boston Neck, and demonstrating the ability of the white man to live in peace with only Indians for his neighbors. While living in Rhode Island he frequently went to Providence to preach the gospel, and was highly esteemed by all the settlers of that colony. In July, 1659, he married a widow named Sarah Stevenson, and by her he had one son, John Blackstone. The inventory of his estate after his death describes him as having a house and orchard, 260 acres of land, interests in the Providence meadows, and a library of 186 volumes of different languages. A river of Rhode Island and a town in Massachusetts were named Blackstone in his honor.

“His only son, John, married in 1692, and about 1713 moved to the town of Branford, where he took up his residence on lands southeast of the centre of the town, and bounded southerly by the sea.

“The son of this John Blackstone was born in 1669, and died in Branford, January 3, 1785, aged nearly eighty-six. His son, John Blackstone, was born in Branford in 1731, and died August 10, 1816, aged eighty-five. The son of this last John Blackstone, Timothy Blackstone, was born in Branford in 1776, and died in 1849, at the age of eighty-three. This Timothy Blackstone was the father of Hon. James Blackstone, who was born in Branford, in the old homestead of his father and grandfather, in 1793.

“Here were five generations of the Blackstones living and dying upon the old family farm in Branford. All of them seem to have possessed many of the traits of their first ancestor in this country. They were noted for their force of character, industry, modesty, and marked executive ability. James Blackstone, like his ancestors, was a farmer. At the age of twenty he was elected a captain in the Connecticut militia, and as such commanded his company for several months while serving as coastguard on Long Island Sound during the war of 1812-15. He held at one time or another during his life the important local offices of the town, such as assessor and first selectman. Before the separation of North Branford in 1831, the township of Branford, as one of the original towns, was entitled to two representatives in the General Assembly, and on several occasions Captain James Blackstone of Branford and Captain Jonathan Rose of North Branford were the representatives of the town at Hartford and New Haven. In 1842, James Blackstone represented the Sixth District in the State Senate. In politics he was a Federalist, a Whig, and a Republican. His advice and counsel were sought by people, not only of his own town, but of neighboring towns, when occasions arose concerning the settlement of estates or other matters, where the opinion and advice of a man of marked good judgment were needed. The first time I ever saw Captain James Blackstone, he was pointed out to me by a resident of the town, as he was driving past the old public square, with the remark: ‘That is Captain James Blackstone. When he rises in a town meeting and says, “Mr. Moderator, in my humble opinion it is better for this town that a certain course be taken,” the expression of his opinion always prevails with the majority of the voters in the meeting, so great is the confidence the people of the town have in his judgment.’ His character and remarkable ability can be easily read by any student of physiognomy who will look at the admirable life-size portrait of him now placed in this building. If his tastes had led him to a larger place for the exercise of his ability, no field would have been so large that he would not have been a leader among men.

“Yet here he chose to dwell, performing his part well through the whole of his long life....

“The donor of this library was the youngest son of James Blackstone. To many of you his history and life are well known. He left the east more than forty years ago to pursue his chosen profession. He married, in 1868, Miss Isabella Norton of Norwich, and since that time his home has been upon Michigan Avenue, in that great metropolis of the west, Chicago. There, for over thirty years he has managed with consummate skill the affairs of the most successful of all the great railroads of the west. Of him, his character, his generosity, and his remarkable modesty, but great ability, I am not at liberty to speak ... but this is not complete as a memorial of James Blackstone unless I mention briefly the other descendants. The eldest son of James Blackstone, George, died in 1861, never having been married. The eldest daughter, Mary, married Samuel O. Plant. One of her daughters, Ellen Plant, is with us to-day. Three grandchildren of Mrs. Mary Blackstone Plant, being the children of her daughter Sarah, are William L., Paul W., and Gertrude P. Harrison.

“The second son of James Blackstone, Lorenzo Blackstone, who lived for many years in Norwich, and died there in 1888, had five children. The eldest, De Trafford Blackstone, has one son, Lorenzo. The second child of Lorenzo is Mrs. Harriet Blackstone Camp of Norwich, who has three children, Walter Trumbull, Talcott Hale, and Elizabeth Norton Camp. The second daughter of Lorenzo is Mrs. Frances Ella Huntington of Norwich. The fourth child of Lorenzo Blackstone is William Norton Blackstone of Norwich; and his youngest son, Louis Lorenzo Blackstone, died in 1893.

“The second daughter of James Blackstone, Ellen Elizabeth, married Henry B. Plant, now of New York City. She died in 1861, leaving one son, Morton F. Plant, who is married and has one son, Henry B. Plant, Jr. James Blackstone’s third son was John Blackstone, who died several years ago, leaving three children, George and Adelaide Blackstone and Mrs. Emma Pond.

“Sir William Blackstone, the great authority upon the common law of England, was a cousin of the fifth degree to our James Blackstone, and the portraits of the two men bear a marked family resemblance.

“Ten years ago James Blackstone passed to his reward. His influence for good still exists in this community, where the old New England ideas are yet strong, though modified by the leaven of modern industry, education, and thought.”

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CHAPTER IV.

THE Plants settled in Branford at an early date, and their descendants still own the lands on which their ancestors first settled over two hundred years ago. It will be seen, by referring to the genealogical table at the end of this volume, that Anderson Plant was of the fifth generation from John Plant, who resided in Hartford, Connecticut, in 1639. Anderson Plant was the father of Henry B. Plant, the subject of this biography. He is described as a farmer in good circumstances, of amiable disposition, fond of outdoor sports, gunning being a favorite amusement. He died when Henry was six years of age, and, consequently, Mr. Plant does not remember much about his father. He can recall, how his father once came in, with a friend, from a morning’s duck shooting, and threw down half a dozen ducks on the floor. At another time, his father took him by the hand to see something that was happening in the town which had drawn out the people, but he does not remember what it was. His father died of typhus fever, and he himself also had the fever, and was so ill that he knew nothing of his loss until he was partially recovered from the dreadful disease.

One week after the father’s death, the father’s youngest sister died, and Henry’s sister also died a few days following, when she was about a year old. He was then left alone with his mother.

She was the only daughter of the Honorable Levi Bradley. He was a member of the Legislature and also a musician who taught a singing school. Mr. Plant remembers that his mother sat with the choir in front of the pulpit and led the singing in the Congregational Church. She had been brought up in the Episcopal Church, and though her father did not approve of it, she deemed it her duty to go with her husband to his church.

“One of the first recollections I have of my mother,” says Mr. Plant, “was on a Christmas Eve, when she dressed me up neatly, took me on her knees, talked affectionately to me, and sang that beautiful vesper hymn, ‘Adeste Fideles’; even now, whenever I hear it, it brings tears to my eyes.” This explains tears the author has seen in his eyes while listening to the orchestra in the music-room, but knew not then what were their tender and sacred association. Little did that mother realize the mighty power, the subduing influence, the enduring benediction to her child of that simple act, the outgoing of the maternal heart. The hallowed influence of that sacred hour has never been effaced through long years, in the whirl of business, in the varied conflicts incident to a public life, in close contact with civil war, within sound of the booming cannon, and the groans of the dying, away in far distant lands, and on stormy seas. Yet amid all, the hallowed influence of that sacred hour, when a mere child on a mother’s knee, has never been effaced. How well it accords with what the poet wrote:

Mr. Plant’s first day at school is another tender memory connected with his mother. She had dressed him up in new clothes and talked to him about going to school and learning to read, and becoming a good scholar, and doubtless much more that her kindly mother-heart would suggest to awaken interest and stimulate ambition in the boy. Then she took him outside the gate, pointed out the schoolhouse, kissed him, and told him to go thither and give his name to the teacher as a scholar. His mother intuitively knew her child’s sensitive disposition, and had her misgivings about his being able to carry out her instructions; so she concealed herself and watched him till he reached the school door. Here poor little Henry’s courage failed him, and he came running back to his mother, not to be scolded, but to be encouraged and helped over his childish timidity. His mother this time went with him to the schoolhouse, took him in, and made him acquainted with the lady teacher. Thus began, more than seventy years ago, the first lesson of this most successful man. The scene is as vivid in his mind to-day as it was on the day when it was enacted. How little that teacher knew of the man that was enfolded in this timid child, and of the great privilege, as well as great responsibility, that was hers, thus early preparing him, in part, for his great career.

Henry was a very diffident child, nor did his diffidence quite cease with childhood, for even in manhood at public dinners when he suspected that he might be called on for a speech, it took away his appetite if not the enjoyment of the otherwise pleasant occasion.

This will surprise many of Mr. Plant’s friends who have listened to him with pleasure and profit on many occasions. He rarely prepared his speeches, but drew his ideas from that knowledge and experience which he possessed on so many different subjects, and always spoke intelligently in plain, clear, well-chosen words, without any attempt at oratorical display. Of this we shall speak in another place.

“Some time after my father’s death, perhaps three or four years,” says Mr. Plant, “my mother married again, a man by the name of Philemon Hoadley. He was a very religious man, and was exceedingly kind to me; he said I was the best boy he had ever seen. He lived in New York State, and mother left Branford and we moved to his home at Martensburg, New York. I lived part of the time with her there and part of the time with my grandmother Plant at Branford. She always attended church on the Sabbath, and took me with her, never failing to carry a good luncheon, which we ate in the church house at the close of the morning service.”

An incident of Mr. Plant’s boyhood was sent to the writer by one who has known him long, and esteems the President of the Southern Express Company, (of which he has been a faithful and efficient agent in North Carolina for many years) very highly, and loves him with a genuine, manly affection. He writes thus:

“The following incident which occurred in Branford during Mr. Plant’s boyhood may be of interest to you, in showing how near the country came to being deprived of his great usefulness and noble life. When a boy of about eight or ten years of age, he was one day riding a plow horse at work in the field. The horse became frightened and ran away, carrying plow, boy, and all with him. Barefooted and bareheaded, the brave lad clung to the horse until entirely exhausted, when he fell and was severely injured. He was found in the woods by friends who carried him into their house. After several hours’ hard work by the doctor and others, he revived sufficiently to be taken to his home. The fight for life was severe and protracted, but he bore it heroically.

“I wish I could express all I feel towards Mr. Plant. I have been in his employ thirty-eight years—with the Southern Express Company. During all these years he has been a friend to me in all that that word implies. I am sure I voice the sentiments of thousands of his employees when I say that he is one of the noblest and best of men.

A. P. B.”

After his mother married and had lived for some time at her husband’s home in New York State, they went to live at New Haven and Henry made his home with them, often visiting his grandmother Plant at Branford. The grandmother wanted him to go to Yale College, doubtless in the hope that he might enter the ministry, for few took a college course in those days unless they intended to enter the ministry. But Henry was not particularly fond of study. He had attended the district school at Branford, and had studied for a time at the Gillett Academy, and at Lowville, New York State. He had also studied under John E. Lovell, a famous teacher in New Haven, whose birthday was celebrated in New Haven, long after his death. He was the founder of the Lancastrian System of instruction in America. Henry did not accept his grandmother’s offer of a college course at Yale. He was anxious to try his hand at some active occupation. He attempted several things, none of which seemed to suit him. At last, in 1837, he engaged himself to a steamboat line running boats between New York and New Haven.

The boats of the line were named respectively, New York, New Haven, The Splendid, The Superior, and The Bunker Hill.

Henry began as captain’s boy and worked his way up, filling various positions for some five years, to the entire satisfaction of the company, so that on leaving it he was promised a captaincy of the next new boat if he would remain with the line. The following account, taken from, a recent issue of The Marine Journal, shows how young Plant would pocket his fastidiousness, and stand up to manly duty like a true American. This recalls the story of a man in a Philadelphia market who tendered his services to an Irish coachman, who was troubled to find a man to carry home some fish which he had bought for his master.

Arriving at the fine mansion on Chestnut Street the Irishman offered to pay his porter, who respectfully declined saying: “Oh, no, I only just carried the fish to oblige you. I do not need pay. I am a United States Senator. Good morning.”

“There are few men who can call to mind more interesting reminiscences of ‘Auld Lang Syne,’ and tell them in a more agreeable manner than Henry B. Plant. Referring to his early manhood, Mr. Plant said recently: ‘I got my first experience in the express business when performing the service of a deckhand on a steamboat running between New Haven and New York in the latter part of the “thirties.” At the time referred to I was employed on the side-wheel steamer New York, which had for companion steamers the New Haven, Splendid, and Bunker Hill, on each one of which I served at one time or another. It was on the New York, however, that I spent the most of my apprenticeship. The deck-hands slept below in the forecastle, an uncomfortably small space in the “eyes” of the boat, and took our meals in the kitchen, standing up. Take it all in all it was rather rough on a fellow that had just left a good home, and when some of my towns-people would come aboard and catch me with swab or broom in hand I didn’t feel altogether happy, but had too much pluck to quit. One winter the New York had been laid up for new boilers, and I was transferred to the Splendid till the New York was ready for service, and when she came out in the spring it was quite an event. She had two new copper boilers, one on each guard, the first to be placed on the guards.

“‘Up to this time a considerable lot of package freight, express matter, began to be sent back and forth. This was stowed in different places about the boat and not properly cared for, until one day the captain conceived the idea that a big double stateroom forward of the wheel could be used in which to store it, and I was given the duty of looking after it, and a berth was put up there for me to sleep in. As I look back upon my career in those days, the one on which I was transferred from the dingy forecastle to the express room was by far the happiest, and it was there that I took my first lessons in the express business.’” Those who are familiar with the extensive business of the Southern Express Company, of which Mr. Plant was the founder, and which begins at Washington and extends throughout the railroads south of Washington and the Ohio, excepting the Illinois Central, and to Cuba by the Plant Steamship Lines, can understand why it has taken nearly a lifetime of earnest toil to get it up to its present magnitude. It is a monument to the enterprise of the youngster from Connecticut, who got his first idea of the express business on a steamer between New Haven and New York nearly sixty years ago. The other large undertakings of Mr. Plant in railroads, steamships, hotels, etc., that have helped make the State of Florida the garden spot of the United States in winter, were easy as their necessities developed, in comparison to the Southern Express business which was the foundation of this enterprising citizen’s fame and fortune.”

Captain Stone was very fond of young Plant, and deeply regretted his loss to the service. It was during Mr. Plant’s engagement with this company, in 1842, that he married Miss Ellen Elizabeth Blackstone, daughter of Hon. James Blackstone, one of the Blackstone family already referred to in this biography. One son was born to him, a promising child, who lived only eighteen months. His second and only living child is his son, Morton Freeman, now associated with his father as his assistant, and Vice-President of all the interests of the “Plant System,” over which his father presides. Mr. Plant’s position on the steamboat line plying between New York and New Haven, entailed a frequent absence from his home in New Haven, and he therefore decided to be more at home. At this time he went into the express business of the line conducted by Beecher and Company. At first he had charge of the business at New Haven, but afterwards went to New York City, still keeping up his connection with the boats. When the Beecher Company was consolidated with the Hartford and New Haven line, owned by Daniel Philipps and C. Spooner of Hartford, Mr. Plant was placed in charge of all the express business of the New Haven line in New York. Subsequently the business was acquired by the Adams Express Company, and was transferred from the steamboat line to the railroad, and Mr. Plant was transferred with it. While thus employed, young Plant was economical and saving. He received his pay monthly, and instead of wasting it in folly and dissipation he gave his earnings to his mother, and she banked it for him. He then bought some stock in a New Haven bank which he still retains. His stepfather, being a religious man, advised Henry to buy a pew in a new church which the Congregational Society was building at New Haven. This he did, and in after years, on the failure of the church, when the property was sold, he got back his money. His stepfather died at New Haven about 1862 or 1863.

It was in 1853 that Mrs. Plant was seized with congestion of the lungs, and Doctors Delafield and Marco advised that she be at once taken to Florida. On March 25, 1853, Mr. Plant started with his sick wife from New York City to Charleston, South Carolina, by the steamer Marion. From Charleston he sailed on the steamer Calhoun to Savannah, Georgia. And from Savannah he went by the steamer Welaka to Jacksonville, Florida. It took over eight days to

make the journey which is now a delightful trip of one day, for he left New York on the Sabbath morning and the next Sabbath evening he arrived at Jacksonville, which was a small village then with only one poor wharf and not a vehicle of any kind to carry passengers or baggage. He succeeded in getting some negro boys to carry his trunk to a poor hotel where he remained only one day. Through some persuasion he found a man to take him into his private house at Strawberry Mills, seven miles in the country from Jacksonville, across the St. John’s River. Here Mrs. Plant’s health greatly improved, her cough disappeared and she was so much better that by the first of May, Mr. Plant was able to leave her and return to New York. Early in July, Mrs. Plant came back to the city apparently in good health. The following almost romantic story is told in the New York Times of their first experience in Florida.

“In the winter of 1853, a Northern man with an invalid wife brought her down to Jacksonville to benefit her health. The present metropolis of Florida was then a settlement of five or six houses, one of which was called a hotel, but the hotel was so badly kept that the gentleman was cautioned against going to it, and he found accommodations in a private house. He had letters of introduction to a Florida settler, whose home was six or eight miles out of Jacksonville, and as soon as he could communicate with him through a stray traveller, the settler sent his boat after the Northerner and took him to his house. The boat was an immense ‘dug-out,’ made from a single mammoth log, manned by a crew of uniformed blacks, who handled their oars in man-of-war style. At this settler’s house a hospitable and comfortable stopping-place was found.

“In the course of the winter the lady’s health improved to such an extent that her husband decided upon taking her to St. Augustine for a pleasure trip. There was in the household a beautiful Indian girl, the daughter of one of the Seminole chiefs, who afterward became the wife of the settler I have mentioned, and she volunteered to accompany the lady on what was then the long and difficult journey. The only road between Jacksonville and St. Augustine was the old Spanish highway known as ‘the king’s highroad,’ and this was so grown up with trees and bushes that it was barely passable. But even this road lay five or six miles from the settler’s house, and to reach it it was necessary to drive through the trackless woods. The gentleman and his wife and the Indian girl set out in a buggy, their host going before them on horseback to select the road and blaze the trees between his place and the king’s highway, to enable the strangers to find their way back.

“The journey was made in safety; but the return trip took a little longer than was intended, and the party found themselves at the point where they must leave the old highway and turn into the forest just as the deep shades of a Florida night were about to fall. They found the blazed trees, but were unable to follow them. The gentleman, however, managed for some time to pick his way by finding the indistinct wheel tracks in the sand and the broken twigs; but as the darkness increased this became impracticable, and there was every prospect that the invalid lady and her husband and the Indian girl would be compelled to spend the night under the pine trees. But their host was better acquainted with blazed trees, and, as they did not arrive when expected, he set out on horseback to hunt them up, and his shouts soon gave them welcome assurance of succor. The lady’s health was so much improved before the winter ended that she returned home comparatively well, and during the remainder of her life every winter was passed in Florida. Her husband has not since that time missed his annual winter trip to Florida, and he is now spending his thirty-ninth winter in the State.

“The gentleman who found Jacksonville a settlement of a few shanties, and who came so near passing a romantic but uncomfortable night in the woods with his wife and the Seminole girl, told me the story of his adventure a few days ago, while I sat with him in his gorgeous private car, so far down in the State of Florida that, in 1853, few white men had reached it. The Florida climate never did a better winter’s work than when it restored the health of this gentleman’s wife, and thus interested him in the new country, for the gentleman was Mr. H. B. Plant, who no longer does his Florida travelling in a dug-out, but sends his own cars over his own tracks to the farthermost corners of the State.”

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CHAPTER V.

WHEN Mr. Plant first went to New York City he boarded at the Judson Hotel, then kept by a Mr. Judson of Hartford, Connecticut. A little incident of that period shows the high estimation in which he was held by Captain Stone, Superintendent of the New York and New Haven steamship line. Captain S. Bartlett Stone brought his son George to board at the Hudson Hotel, saying, “Henry, when you were a boy I took charge of you; now do you the same for my son.” Mr. Plant remained in New York until October, when the fall weather of the North began to affect the health of his wife unfavorably. He then started South by the steamship Knoxville, which ran to Savannah. When he reached Savannah he commenced to exercise his appointment as superintendent of the Harnden Express, which forwarded express matter from New York by steamer to Savannah, and thence to Augusta, Macon, and Atlanta, by the Central, Macon, and Western Railroads; and also in Charleston, of the Hoey Express, by which goods were forwarded by steamer from New York to Charleston and were then distributed through the interior by the South Carolina Railroad.

About this time, Adams & Company had organized under the corporate title of the Adams Express Company, and had acquired all these express interests above mentioned. This was in March, 1853, and April, 1854. The chief shareholders of the company were Alvan Adams, of Boston; William B. Dinsmore, of New York; Edward S. Sanford, of Philadelphia; Samuel S. Shoemaker, of Baltimore; James M. Thompson, of Springfield, Massachusetts; Johnstone Livingstone, of New York; and R. B. Kinsley, of Newport, Rhode Island. When it was found necessary for Mr. Plant to go south again on account of his wife’s health he was appointed superintendent of the Adams Express Company. This was in 1854, and he was placed in charge of all the interests then controlled by that company, and all that might be acquired by the company in the South under his management or through his efforts.

During Mr. Plant’s administration of the Adams Express Company, the lines were extended over all the railroads south of the Potomac River, namely, Norfolk, Richmond, and Lynchburg, Virginia; Louisville, Kentucky; Cairo, Illinois, and over all the railroad lines constructed in the South, and over all the navigable rivers on which at that time there was steamboat connection. The expanding and establishing of this great express business at Nashville, Memphis, Vicksburg, Louisville, and New Orleans, and many other cities and towns, proved to be a herculean task requiring much arduous travel, often in stage-coaches by day and night, over rough roads, through swamp and forest, in summer’s heat and winter’s cold. It goes without saying that in securing efficient service, properly locating offices, appointing qualified agents, and earning the confidence and patronage of an exacting public, there was demanded a discriminating judgment, prompt decision, skill, and tact of the highest order. It was a tremendous strain on mind and body, and that too upon one not yet used to a Southern climate. It must be remembered also that the express business of the South forty years ago was in its infancy; the great Adams Express Company was still in its swaddling clothes, and required the greatest care and skill to nurse it into maturity, strength, and power, especially in the peculiar condition of the country at the time when a dreadful civil war raged throughout the land.

Few men would have ventured on such a hazardous undertaking, and fewer still would have conducted it to such a successful completion.

To the cool, clear head, the calm, quiet spirit, the persistent energy and dominant will of Henry B. Plant, is due the success of this great achievement. The Southern Express Company and the Texas Express together do a business now extending over twenty-four thousand four hundred and twelve miles of railway, have lines in fifteen States, employ six thousand eight hundred and eight men, use one thousand four hundred and sixty-three horses and eight hundred and eighty-six wagons. Of both these companies, Mr. Plant is the honored and efficient president, and were we to attempt to estimate the amount and value of the goods handled by these great organizations we feel sure the figures would be beyond the credulity of our readers.

This comes down to the year 1861, the beginning of the civil war, when the Adams Express Company, believing that it would be hazardous for Northern citizens to hold property in the South, decided to dispose of their interests there. After unsuccessful negotiations with other parties resident in the South, the company sold and transferred their entire interest in the express line to Henry B. Plant. He formed a corporation under the laws of the State of Georgia, taking in all the shareholders of the Adams Express Company who were then residents of the States south of the Potomac and Ohio rivers.

The company thus formed, known now as the Southern Express Company, at once elected Mr. Plant as its president, and this honorable and responsible position he still holds. A central office was established at Augusta, Georgia.

Mrs. Plant’s health now began to give way. Their little boy Morton was with relatives in the North. She saw that troubles many and great were coming upon the country. Her disease returned, consumption laid its cold hand upon her, and on February 28, 1861, this faithful wife and loving mother was taken from a world of strife, with its tumults of war and fratricidal conflicts, to the home of rest, peace, and eternal blessedness. The remains were interred in Augusta, but afterwards were removed to the family plot in the cemetery at Branford, the place of her birth and where her early years had been spent.

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CHAPTER VI.

Shortly before the removal of the capital of the Confederacy from Montgomery to Richmond, it was deemed necessary by government officials to define citizenship, and consequently a proclamation was issued by President Davis, that specified a time in which all citizens of States not in the Confederacy should leave it, or failing to do so within the time specified, would become citizens of the Confederacy, and would be subject to all duties and requirements of citizenship in the said Confederacy.

“At that time I thought it was incumbent on me,” said Mr. Plant, “that my duties and opinions should be understood by President Davis and his advisers. To that end I caused myself to be represented by counsel to Mr. Davis and his Cabinet, in order that my opinions and position might be clearly defined and known to the government, so that its wish might be expressed, as to whether I should continue to have charge of the express company without interference, or avail myself of the proclamation, and take my departure with other citizens of the State of New York.

“I wished to know whether by remaining I would be required to abandon the express and its obligations. It was a great satisfaction to me to learn from my counsel that the Cabinet were unanimous in this decision expressed by the President, that I should remain and continue to conduct the business of my company, he having full confidence in whatever I might do.”

The substance of this interesting episode has been published before with some slight variations, but the above is from the most authoritative source, and may therefore be received as correct.

While living at Augusta, Georgia, a curious incident occurred which resulted in the purchase of a slave by Mr. Plant. When the express office was opened at this place, help was needed, a sort of man-of-all-work for the many requirements of the office. Dennis Dorsey, a colored man, was hired from his owner to act as porter, and in whatever capacity he might be required. One summer when Mr. Plant was about to go north, Dennis came to him and said that his master was going to sell him, and that he wanted Mr. Plant to buy him. “What does your master want for you?” asked Mr. Plant. “Fifteen hundred dollars,” Dennis replied, “but it is too much, I am not worth so much. You can buy me when you come back, as there is little danger of my being sold at that price.” But Dennis was sold in Mr. Plant’s absence. When Mr. Plant returned, Dennis besought him to buy him from the trader at Mobile who then owned him. Mr. Plant bought him for eighteen hundred dollars, and brought him back to Augusta. In a short time after this Mr. Plant was stricken down with gastric fever, and Dennis proved a good and faithful nurse to him. Mrs. Plant was in her grave, and Mr. Plant lived alone at the hotel, so Dennis was gratified by the opportunity to return the kindness rendered to him by his generous purchaser.

Early in August, 1863, Mr. Plant returned from the mountains, whither he had gone during his convalescence. His health had been improved by the change, but he was still far from strong. Mr. Thomas H. Watts, attorney-general for the Southern Confederacy, had seen Mr. Plant’s physician, who had advised a change of climate. Mr. Watts sent Mr. Plant a passport, with an order from President Davis authorizing him to pass through the Confederate lines at any point. In about a month after this he went to Wilmington, North Carolina, and embarked on the steamer Hansa, for the Bermudas. He remained there about a month, when he went by the steamer Alpha to Halifax, Nova Scotia, and thence to Montreal. There some friends from New York came to see him, and brought his son Morton from school to him. Mr. Plant then went to New Haven, Connecticut, to visit his mother, and in the fall took passage on the steamship City of Edinburgh for Liverpool.

He was now a stranger in a strange land; the weather was cold, and with impaired health his experience was rather depressing.

However, Mr. Plant has never been the man to despond, still less to despair, but to make the best even of discouraging circumstances. So he went to Paris, whose mercurial people seldom cry, and always laugh when they can. Here he heard of some friends who were staying in Rome, and whom he would like to meet, so he determined to go there. By the French Commissioner of Passports he was informed that his passport from the Confederacy could not be recognized, and he was summoned to appear at the commissioner’s office. He at once presented himself to this official, answered many questions, and was informed that there was no way by which his passport could be accepted at present, but as he wished to visit Rome, then occupied by French troops, his case would be considered.

A few days afterwards he had the satisfaction of receiving a document which served as a passport, given in the name of the Empire of France, and in which he was described as a citizen of the United States of America, resident at Augusta, Georgia, and all officers, civil, military, and naval, were commanded to protect this stranger. He went to Rome via the Mediterranean Sea, and was received everywhere with great respect. He was about two weeks in France, several weeks in Rome, and from thence he went to Naples, Leghorn, Genoa, Milan, and Venice, which latter place was occupied by an Austrian army.

From Venice he went to Switzerland, visiting many places in that picturesque land, and returned to Paris by way of the Rhine. He then passed his time between London and Paris until the autumn, when he returned to America by way of Canada. He afterwards went to New York, where he was staying when President Lincoln was assassinated. By the end of April he was back in Augusta, Georgia.

Mr. Plant’s second tour in Europe was in 1873, on the occasion of his second marriage. He was then accompanied by his mother and his son, Morton Freeman, and on this occasion he made quite an extensive tour of the continent.

His third visit was in the year 1889, when he went to the Paris Exposition with an exhibit of Southern products. Soon after his arrival in Paris he was asked by General Franklin, representative and Commissioner-General of the United States, to accept the position of juror in Class Six, representing the United States. To this responsible position he was duly appointed by the proper authorities, and served with entire satisfaction to all concerned. He was the only English-speaking juror in that class, as Sir Douglas Galton was absent until near the close of the Exposition. From this Exposition the “Plant System” was awarded a large number of medals, which may be seen framed in that palace of art, wrongly named an hotel, at Tampa Bay. A diploma was given to Mr. Plant, in addition, and many other marks of esteem and courteous attention were freely tendered him.

Mr. Plant led a very busy life in Augusta. He lived with his wife at the hotel, and, when she was travelling in the North in the summer, he had his office, for convenience, on the same floor as his bedroom. It had been his habit to keep pad and pencil by his bedside, so that when there came to his mind a matter that called for attention he at once put it down on his memoranda. He was constantly receiving reports from his express offices all over the South. There came to him, for adjustment, many questions of management that were perplexing and urgent, so that he was often on the road, called away at short notice, north, south, or southwest. Complications, great, varied, and numerous, were superinduced by the civil war. The railroads were often seized by the contending armies, offices were raided, and confusion worse confounded heaped troubles thick and fast upon the president of the company, sufficient to have crushed a man of ordinary brain and nerve. But Mr. Plant was not the man to give way to difficulties,—only coolly to plan, determine, execute, and conquer.

The following communication in memorandum form, from one intimately acquainted with Mr. and Mrs. Plant while in Augusta, Georgia, will be found suggestive of the busy life he led, and will prove valuable in furnishing the dates when he lived in that city, and the location of his various residences while there. Moreover, its sequel sounds like the plot of a good novel.

“Mr. and Mrs. H. B. Plant became residents of Augusta, Georgia, in 1854. Captain W. and his wife moved to that city in 1855. Both families boarded at the Eagle and Phœnix Hotel, and thus became acquainted. The Eagle and Phœnix was on Broad Street, and is now believed to be the property of Mr. Plant. Mr. Plant was busy organizing and developing the express business, was continually on the road, and made frequent visits to the North. He moved to the Globe Hotel about the summer of 1856. Captain W. and his wife moved to the Trout House, in Atlanta, Georgia, early in 1858, and Mr. and Mrs. Plant joined them there and spent the summer months with them, while Mr. Plant still made Augusta his headquarters and was constantly on the road.

“On Mr. and Mrs. Plant’s return to Augusta in the fall of 1858, they took residence at the Planter’s Hotel, then kept by Mr. Robbins. In the spring of 1859, Mr. and Mrs. Plant, leaving their young son Morton, with Captain W. and his wife in Atlanta, visited New Orleans and remained there during Mardi Gras. Their stay, however, was much shortened by the demands made upon Mr. Plant’s time and attention by the celebrated Maroney robbery. Mrs. Plant’s health, which had been failing for some time, was rapidly growing worse. Mr. Plant’s movements were thus handicapped, and his trips necessarily became shorter and more frequent. Captain W. and wife moved to Athens in April, 1861. Mrs. Plant intended to spend the spring and summer of 1862 with them, but their plans were broken up by her death, at the Planter’s Hotel, Augusta, February 28, 1862.

“Mr. Plant visited Athens shortly after the funeral, and remained several weeks; from thence important business called him back to Augusta. Health began to fail him and he visited Athens again in the following year. It was at this time that his friends prevailed upon him to pay a visit to Europe in the hope that his strength would be restored to him.

“In illustration of the good memory which Mr. Plant possessed for a past kindness, the following interesting story is told. The narrator was sitting in his office talking with Mr. Plant, when the latter suddenly turned from him to a clerk to instruct him in the following words. ‘While I remember it, I want you to write to Mrs. W. to say that her request that we take charge of her money is granted. We will take it and give her six per cent., this will give her —— dollars to pay for her board, and we will add to it —— dollars, which will keep her comfortably among her friends.’

“The amount added was very nearly one and a half times as large as the interest on the moderate amount of insurance which her deceased husband had placed on his life before he died.

“Then when all arrangements for this poor widow’s comfort had been made with the treasurer, Mr. Plant, not supposing that I had ever heard of the woman, explained that long years ago, when his first wife was sick in Augusta, this now widowed woman was very kind to her and also to his son Morton who was then a very little child. This was thirty-six years ago, but it was as fresh in Mr. Plant’s memory, and as near to his heart as if it had occurred only a few weeks ago. Little did this good woman think at the time she rendered this kindly service to a delicate wife, that thirty-six years hence it would be paid back to her with compound interest. It may be truly said that ‘bread cast upon the waters shall return after many days.’”

The Southern Express Company rendered very valuable services to the men engaged on both sides during the Civil War, by carrying packages, boxes, and parcels of all descriptions free of charge,—medicines, and comforts of various character, that made the hard life of the soldier a little easier, and gladdened his heart with the evidences that he was remembered tenderly in his far-away home. This service was especially acceptable on the occasions of exchange of prisoners, when clothing and money were the special needs of the men.

The benediction of many a brave heart, now still in death, rests upon the kindly services of the Southern Express Company so generously given during the four years of the bloody struggle.

In evidence of Mr. Plant’s popularity and the esteem in which he was held by his associates in business as early as 1861, it may be mentioned that on January 1st of that year, at Augusta, Ga., he was made the recipient of a magnificent testimonial in the form of a service of solid silver bearing the following inscription:

PRESENTED TO
H. B. PLANT
BY HIS ASSOCIATES IN THE ADAMS
SOUTHERN EXPRESS
AS A TESTIMONIAL OF THEIR
RESPECT AND ESTEEM
AUGUSTA, GA.,
JANUARY 1, 1861

In 1873, eleven years after the death of his first wife, Mr. Plant married Miss Margaret Josephine Loughman, the only daughter of Martin Loughman, of New York City. She is descended from an ancient and noble family, whose ancestral estate, eight miles long, in the Land of the Shamrock, is now occupied by Lord Dundrum. Mrs. Plant’s great grandmother on her mother’s side was Lady Mary Murphy, of Ballymore Castle, Ballymore. Her own mother was Miss Ellen O’Duyer, said to have been a woman of great beauty and to have been descended from the Kings of Munster.

The finest train of Pullman palace cars we ever saw was prominent among the beautiful exhibits at the Atlanta Exposition of last year (1896). Their exquisite upholstering and decoration owed their superlative finish to the refined taste of Mrs. Plant. The Tampa Bay Hotel, more like a palace of art, is indebted to this same lady for much of its elaborate furnishing and artistic adornment. The two hand-carved mantelpieces in the salon, the admiration of all visitors, as well as some of the fine cabinet-work in the gentlemen’s reading-room, evinced her business capacity and fine sense of the fitness of beautiful furnishing that costs no more than the plain and commonplace. She has given much time and earnest effort to the selection, purchase, and direction of the upholstering and decorations of that finest of American-built steamships, La Grande Duchesse, just completed at Newport News.

The impress of her forcible character and refined taste can be detected in many places throughout the great system over which her husband so ably presides, but is known only to those who are admitted to the inner circles of its operations.

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CHAPTER VII.