People talk about the late Commodore Vanderbilt as if he were a regular hero of finance, but there was a man who figured in New York before Vanderbilt’s time who was as big a man every way, for his times, as was Cornelius V. I mean Jacob Barker. Old Jacob was very smart, very shrewd and very manly. There was nothin’ of the hypocrite or sneak about him. He had his faults and plenty of ‘em, but with all his faults he was a man.
The story of Jacob Barker’s career is one of the most interesting on record. Jacob was a cousin of a man still more remarkable than himself, Benjamin Franklin, and was very proud of the relationship. Barker looked a good deal like Franklin, too, about the face.
It was said of Barker that he was a man before he was a boy, and it was true–at least he was actin’ and workin’ like a man all through his boyhood. He had made and saved $5,000 before he became of age, and $5,000 then counted as $50,000 now.
Some of his boyish wrestles with trade are quite interestin’ and curious. It seems he had saved money enough to buy a gold watch, and then a chance was presented him for a little “spec” in ship’s bread and provisions. Although credit was offered him he wouldn’t run into debt; but taking his pet gold watch out of his pocket, he swapped it for a lot of bread. He sold this bread at a big profit to Tom Knox, a shippin’ merchant on Wall street, and got a head of John Hyslop, the famous baker, and realized enough out of his shop bread spec altogether to get back his gold watch and make a cool $100 profit beside, which was very good for a lad of seventeen.
Once he had saved enough money to buy a horse, which he used not for show but for travelin’ on business. One mornin’ he had a chance to get some sperm oil cheap. He hadn’t any money with him, but he swapped his horse for oil and walked back, goin’ over thirty miles on foot. He more than doubled his money on the oil.
A chap who can turn watches into bread, and horses into oil, and turn the oil and the bread into gold again, was bound to get along in this world.
Before he was nineteen years old he had an interest in a tradin’ vessel. One afternoon he stopped and saw about gettin’ his vessel and her cargo insured. An arrangement was made about the insurance, promises passed on both sides, only no papers were drawn up then, that part of the transaction bein’ put off till the next mornin’.
Late at night Jacob Barker received news from a private source that the tradin’ vessel was lost. And now in this particular state of affairs Jacob showed the peculiar kind of stuff he was made of.
He did not on the one hand do as they would in Sunday-school books, and in Sunday-school books only. He didn’t go the next morning as fast as he could and tell the insurance man that he wouldn’t need those insurance papers because his ship was lost.
Nor did he do, as a great many would have done, insist upon gettin’ the insurance papers all drawn up and in his possession, keepin’ quiet about the loss of the vessel, and rakin’ in the insurance money at last.
Jacob Barker went right between those two extreme courses. He didn’t tell the insurance man his ship was lost–he would have thought that actin’ like a fool. Nor did he send it once and get his papers–he would have thought that actin’ like a rogue. He simply said nothin’ or did nothin’ one way or the other, givin’ the insurance man a chance to find out about the ship if he could, or to back out of his promise to insure it, if he wanted to.
It was Jacob’s luck that the insurance man felt like keepin’ his promise. He sent to Jacob’s place the next day and gave him the papers. When the loss of the ship was at last publicly reported Jacob got his insurance money.
But the transaction didn’t end here. After Jacob took all his insurance money, he always stuck in all his business transactions afterwards to this insurance man and sent him lots of profitable business from other parties. Altogether the insurance man made up out of Barker in the long run of time what he had lost on that first ship.
One of the first things Barker did when he became of age was to marry. And, like a man, he married a woman for love, and not for money. His wife had been one of his early schoolmates, and they had always liked each other.
While at his weddin’ breakfast a great misfortune happened to him–a piece of downright ill luck.
He received a note while entertainin’ a few intimate friends, just after the weddin’ ceremony, informin’ him that he was a ruined man financially.
He had, in one of his human and foolish moments, endorsed for a friend named Henry Deaves. This Deaves had “busted” and the note informed Barker that he would be held responsible for $5,000–about all he was worth in the world. Pleasant news to get at table with a bloomin’ bride of an hour sittin’ beside you.
But Jacob was a “brick” and read the note through as if it had contained the most ordinary and unimportant news. Then he smiled at his newly-made wife, said somethin’ pleasant, and put the note in his pocket.
Just then, in comes Henry Deave,s the man for whom Jacob had been ruined. Deaves was a friend of Jacob’s wife, who rose kindly to receive him. Jacob was mad at Deaves, of course, but he was too much of a gentleman to show his anger before a room full of company and before his wife. So he shook hands with Deaves, took a glass of wine with him, cracked some jokes, and then showed him the note.
A man with a nerve like that was bound to get along. He paid all he had out on this Deaves’ account, and then goin’ into business on his own book made up his losses and came out way ahead. There are some men whom nobody or nothin’ can put down, and Jacob Barker was one of ‘em.
Years afterwards, when he had gone into politics heartily, he had a fight with the old Evening Post. Coleman was the editor of the Post then, and was a man who didn’t hesitate at fightin’ with pistols as well as with pens. He called Barker all sorts of names one day in an article, and then Barker, who controlled the then Daily Advertiser, had a reply to this article set up in the Advertiser office, the reply bein’ worse on Coleman than the original attack had been on Barker.
The “reply” bein’ set up, Barker sent a proof of it by a messenger to Coleman, tellin’ Coleman that if he didn’t retract and take back his article against Barker in the Post, the reply would come out in the Advertiser.
Coleman was mad and sent word back to Barker that if that “reply” ever saw a light in the Advertiser Barker would have to hold a short interview with Coleman over at Hoboken, on the duelin’ ground.
Barker read Coleman’s note and told the man who brought it to tell Mr. Coleman that the reply would appear in the Advertiser the next day, and that he, Barker, would grant Coleman the interview he hinted at, the day after.
Coleman, bein’ a brave man himself, liked pluck in others, and was so much struck with Barker’s quiet determination in this matter, that a further correspondence passed between the two parties, windin’ up by Coleman publishin’ on his part a retraction and by Barker becomin’ ever afterwards a warm friend of Coleman.
Barker was, like Vanderbilt, a good fighter, and he got into a row about financial matters with Robert Lennox, the famous New York merchant. This Lennox-Barker quarrel was a very long, hard and bitter one, lastin’ for years, and involvin’ many prominent people in it. But in the end Barker came out of it first best.
Like Vanderbilt, too, Barker was in his own way, a patriot. During the second war with England he is said to have loaned the U. S. Government nearly a quarter of a million of his own money, besides interestin’ men like Rathbone, Post, Newland, Minturn, Astor, Mumford and Coster, in Government loans.
Among the most important events in the New York career of this really extraordinary man were what are still remembered as “the conspiracy trials,” in which Jacob Barker was accused of conspiracy to defraud.
These trials caused a great stir all over the country, and were, while they lasted, the great sensation of New York. There were several of those trials and durin’ them Barker pleaded his own cause, and did so better than most lawyers could have done it for him. In fact, Barker would have been as great a lawyer as he was a speculator, if he had chosen so. The stuff was in him.
Barker wasn’t the man to let others abuse him calmly, and once when at a bank meeting, one of the Directors named Rogers called him names. Barker sent Rogers an invitation to meet him over the river at the duelin’ grounds at Hoboken. But Rogers didn’t accept the polite invite, but instead got a warrant against Barker for his arrest, for sendin’ a hostile challenge, which was against the State law.
Barker was tried and found guilty. He made a speech to the jury, but it didn’t change their views. He was sentenced to a fine and to loss of citizenship. He paid the fine without any fuss, but he grieved a good deal over the loss of his citizenship. Finally Governor Clinton was induced to “let up” on Jacob, who received his citizenship back with great delight, and never had anythin’ more to do with sendin’ challenges.
At one time Barker ran the Exchange Bank as his own private bank, and it “busted,” leaving many of its depositors in a bad way. But they were ultimately paid, and the entire circulation of the bank redeemed.
Barker was a man of brain and brass–as smart as Jim Fisk, and less flighty and more honest. But with all his energy and character he was obliged to leave New York at last “under a cloud.”
But here is perhaps just where the greatest part of his life begins. He lost no time in grievin’. He went right down to New Orleans, settled there, commenced his career all over again, and made another fortune after fifty years of age.
After makin’ and losin’ money in New York for fifty years, he started afresh, and made and kept money in New Orleans for thirty years.
That’s the kind of a man Jacob Barker was.
