Sandy Spencer is dead, and the papers have treated his memory kindly, as he really deserved, for he was at bottom a kind-hearted man.
But there is one story about Sandy that has never appeared in print, and which illustrates the man, or rather, the boy; for he was a mere boy at the time.
He was livin’ in the country, hatin’ farm work, despisin’ country life, dyin’ with eagerness to get to New York, but utterly unable to get the means of gettin’ there, and not only too lazy about his legs to walk there, but too proud; for a man livin’ in his neighborhood whom he disliked very much had one day tauntin’ly told Spencer that the only way by which he could ever get to New York was by walkin’ and swimmin’ there. So Spencer had made up his mind that he would get to New York without doin’ either.
He would go by the cars to the metropolis, and make his grand entree into New York like a gentleman, via the Camden and Amboy route, which was then the swell way for reachin’ the Empire City. It was in the good old days when New Jersey was called “the State of Camden and Amboy;” when the directors of this all-powerful road controlled the Legislature of the State, and when a free pass couldn’t be procured on any account unless one had “influence,” in which latter case one could get all the free passes from Gatzmer (the genial agent of the road) one wanted.
But young Spencer had no “influence” and his folks had none, or money either. So for a year or so it seemed that young Sandy was doomed to remain in rustic obscurity. But “as nights to morns, to souls occasions come,” says a poet, and the Spaniards have a proverb that all things come to him who waits and watches. So young Spencer watched and waited. And his “occasion” came came in the odd shape of a collision on the Camden and Amboy Railroad between two trains near Spencer’s country home, such as it was.
Nobody was killed by the accident, but severa persons were injured, and in the excitement of the collision the conductor of one of the trains had thrown himself into a little pond right by the track, and in doin’ so some loose change in silver that he had in his hands at the time fell into the pond in was lost.
Young Spencer heard of this casualty and got his idea at once. He saw his golden, or at least his silver, opportunity. He said nothin’, but kept lookin’ round the little pool for several days to see if any other chap had hit on his idea, and to prevent the other fellow from carrying it out if he had. But nobody had been struck as Spencer had been, and so after the fuss created by the collision had subsided, the young chap began to carry out practically his idea. He made a sort of drain, without bein’ seen at the work, in odds and ends of time, and then with a rake, carefully, as if hunting for diamonds, raked the mud at the bottom of the drain pool for the conductors lost silver. He found $6.53 of it, and then stopped, not because he was certain that this amount was all that the conductor had lost, but because he couldn’t find any more, and because he had found enough to get to New York without either walkin’ or swimmin’, though he had only a little over two dollars when he landed in New York.
Among “Sandy” Spencer’s friends in later life in New York were Remsen Appleby, “Rem” Appleby, the wealthy tobacconist, inventor and sport. Appleby really deserved well of New York in general, and of musical New York in particular, as he was the first man to practically and pecuniarily discover Theodore Thomas, for whom he opened the “Central Park Garden” on Seventh avenue near the park, which was the first place in which Theodore Thomas had the chance to display his musical abilities.
The “balls” given at this place were very “fast,” but the concerts were very good, and reputable, as well as popular.
“Rem” Appleby was also held in high repute by the Germans of New York, as it is claimed that he was the first man to make the great German beverage, lager beer, popular among the “American element” in New York.
Appleby and Spencer were associated in various enterprises, and each man was thoroughly satisfied with the other. Had Spencer taken Appleby’s advice he never would have entered into his last venture, which landed him in the penitentiary.
With all his faults and the misfortunes of his later life, “Sandy” Spencer was a clever and a capital fellow, much cleverer and better than the world will ever give him credit for.
He was a “good man gone wrong.”
[Editor’s notes: The above column doesn’t fully explain who Spencer was, but one of the obituaries that it refers to is more helpful. Spencer had a career similar to Harry Hill:
Theodore Thomas went on to become a famous orchestra conductor, notably with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.
Given Sandy Spencer’s birth year of 1837, it seems likely the railroad accident was the one that occurred in 1855–which, contrary to what the column says, was deadly, killing 24 people:]
