Huntington

His handling of company's business proved to
have been open to serious criticism, and the as-
sociates, when this became known, compelled
Mrs. Colton to liquidate her husband's interest
in their companies upon terms which she con-
sidered unjust. In litigation some years later
the Huntington letters to Colton were read into
the court record and became exposed to public
view (New York Sun, Dec. 29, 30,1883), They
did not, apparently, affect the disposition of the
case at the bar, which was decided adversely to
Mrs. Colton, but they profoundly impressed pub-
lic opinion with respect to the character of Hunt-
ington. The letters reveal him as an active, pro-
fane, and cynical advocate of the company's in-
terests before the national legislature. They
show further that he continually contemplated
the use of money, during the period covered by
the correspondence, as a means of influencing
members of Congress, and that he entertained
no doubts but that money would be accepted if
offered, although the letters contain no direct
evidence of bribes given or received. The whole
tone of the correspondence justifies much of the
severest criticism directed against railroads In
politics, and affords a highly unfavorable view
of the ideals and moral standards of Huntington
himself.

Huntington's later life never received the pub-
licity to which the Colton letters exposed his
career as a lobbyist and political agent, nor did
it possess the dramatic element attached to the
years when he helped to build the first transcon-
tinental railroad. He was, however, continuous-
ly active, and as his wealth increased he became
more and more an outstanding figure in the
business world. His principal investment, out-
side of the Southern Pacific, was in the Chesa-
peake & Ohio. This railway he acquired in
1869. He became its president, extended its line,
under other charters, from Huntington, W. Va.,
to Memphis, Tenn., and founded the town of
Newport News, Va., as its deep-sea terminus.
The record shows that he invited his western as-
sociates to participate in his eastern holdings,
but they refused, and Huntington himself sold
part or all of his eastern and southern railroad
properties during the nineties in pursuance of a
policy of concentration upon the territory west
of the Mississippi. He was also president of the
Pacific Mail Steamship Company, of the Mexi-
can International Railway Company, and of
various roads forming part of the Southern Pa-
cific system. He was interested in the United
States & Brazil Steamship Company, running
a line of steamers from New York to Brazil, in
the Old Dominion Steamship Company, in the

Huntington

Market Street Railway of San Francisco, in
railroads in Kentucky, Ohio, and Indiana, and
he doubtless had holdings and influence in en-
terprises with which he was not generally known
to be connected After April 1890, he served as
president of the Southern Pacific Company. It
was at this time that the differences which had
existed for some years between Huntington and
Stanford produced an open break. Huntington
had long been dissatisfied with the amount of
time which Stanford devoted to Southern Pacific
affairs, and he believed, moreover, that the lat-
ter's election to the United States Senate in 1885
had occurred at the expense of A. A. Sargent,
Huntington's personal friend. Huntington ac-
cused Stanford openly, in 1890, of using Southern
Pacific influence for Stanford's political advance-
ment; procured his own election to the presi-
dency of the Southern Pacific Company, a po-
sition which Stanford had held since 1883;
and announced a change of policy for the future
in terms which his associate could hardly for-
give.

Physically, Huntington was a man of unusual
strength and endurance, measuring more than
six feet, and weighing in later life considerably
more than 200 pounds. He was twice married:
first, on Sept. 16, 1844, to Elizabeth T. Stod-
dard of Litchfield County, Conn.; second, to
Mrs. Arabella Duval (Yarrington) Worsham
of Alabama, on July 12,1884, when he was near-
ly sixty-three years old. By neither wife had
he children, but he adopted and brought up a
baby girl, his first wife's niece, and his second
wife had by her first marriage a son, Archer,
who took the name of Huntington and of whom
Collis Huntington always spoke as his son*
While he himself was too immersed in business
affairs to be socially ambitious, he built or bought
expensive houses on Fifth Avenue, New York,
and on Nob Hill, San Francisco. His adopted
daughter Clara married in 1889 a German no-
bleman, Prince Hatzfeldt. Opinions differ wide-
ly as to Huntington's character, and somewhat
as to the motives which guided him on his long
career. It is probably safe to say that he was
vindictive, sometimes untruthful, interested in
comparatively few things outside of business,
and disposed to resist the idea that his railroad
enterprises were to any degree burdened with
public obligations. There is, on the otiier haod,
no question with respect to his indomitable en-
ergy, his shrewdness in negotiation, his inde-
pendence of thought and raciness of expression,
and his grasp of large business problems. He
was the dominant spirit among the small group
of men who built up the Southern Pacific sys-

411