Inter Ocean, January 17, 1906
The world’s greatest merchant, Marshall Field, was born in Conway, Mass., Aug. 18, 1835, where also was born the late William C. Whitney. He was the son of John and Fidelia (Nash) Field, and came of a stock old In New England, the descendants of the Fields of England, whose remote ancestor, Hurbutus De la Field, was from Alsace-Lorralne.
He was a distant cousin of the clerical family which produced the famous brothers, Cyrus Field, the cable layer; David Dudley Field, the eminent lawyer, and Stephen J, Field, Justice of the Supreme court.
The forbears of Chicago’s most successful merchant were typical New England farmers for several generations, down to his father, who exulted in hard physical labor as some men do in feats of prowess.
Reared a Farmer Boy.
Marshall Field was brought up a farmer’s boy. Work developed the strength of the vigorous frame he had inherited from his ancestry. Without being tall, he had a good height, larg, powerful arms, and a chest of great depth and strength, surprising for one of otherwise somewhat meager frame.
He did not receive much schooling. He went to school in the winter when work on the farm was suspended. Later he studied in the Conway academy.
But the business bent of the young mercantile genius early made its mandate mani-fest, and when 17 years old he started his career in a country store at Pittsfeld, Mass. There he remained four years, until seized by the Western fever. The call of the future was too much for him, and in 1856 he entered Chicago, a young man at his majority.
Owed Character to Parents.
Marshall Field owed much to his parent?g?. His sister, Mrs. Helen Field James of Williamsburg, Mass., once said: “I remember hearing an acquaintance of the family say that my father’s sound sense and ability, with my mother’s refinement and love for study, had given an excellent trait to my brothers.”
Marshall Field’s father was born in Conway and always resided there, on the farm his father purchased on moving from Hatfield. He was an attendant at church, held varlous public offces of trust, and was respected by his townsmen. He was the soul of honor, and possessed good judgment in a remarkable degree. He was a fine looking man, and an excellent representative of the gentleman of the old school. He died June 13, 1876. His wife, the mother of Marshall Field, was Fidella Nash, the daughter of Elijah and Paulina (Warner) Nash of Conway. She died Sept. 22, 1865.
The Field children were in the order of birth: Joseph N. Fleld, now of Manchester, England; Marshall Field of Chicago, the late Henry Field of Chicago, Laura Field Dibblee, the wife of Henry Dibblee of Chicago. and Helen Field James, the wife of Lyman D. James of Willlamsburg, Mass.
Probably it was the instinct of his mercantile genius which sent the young man of 21 straight to Chicago from the small New England town. Certain it is that in his survey of the wide West of opportunity he selected the one point which could furnish an arena suitable to his ability.
Beginning in Chicago.
On his arrival in Chicago, then a city of 200,000 inhabitants, Marshall Field secured a position as salesman with the wholesale dry goods house of Cooley, Wadsworth & Co. Although the firm was a flourishing concern, the panic of 1857, which burst like a hurricane over Chicago, closed banks and business houses and filled the streets with men out of employment, tried it severely. But in the guise of Cooley, Farwell & Co. It not only was one of the minority that survived the storm and stress, but it was able to take advantage of conditions and to secure business which its defeated rivals had let fall.
In this firm, in 1860, at 35 years of age. Marshall Field became a Junior partner. In the three years after the panic he had become a necessity. The lesson of the panic had not been lost upon him: it had compelled him to study the science of credit as applied to the rapidly changing conditions of a new, rapidly growing country.
Loser His First Fortune.
The five years that followed were not so much of success as of experience. With the breaking out of the civil war came first financial disturbances, and later “flush times,” proceeding from the swelling volume of greenbacks, and national bank notes, which produced speculation and extravagance, as well as exorbitant inflation in nominal values.
If Mr. Field made mistakes in that period, as did every one else, he made few others in all his business career. Extended credits, although the business of the house increased rapidly, brought on disaster, and in 1865 both Mr. Field and another young salesman and junior partner, Levi Z. Leiter, found all the money they had made rapidly since 1860 was gone. Mr. Field is said to have lost nearly $100,000, as did Mr. Leiter.
Field, Palmer & Leiter.
The late Potter Palmer was of the opinion in 1865 that there was room in Chicago for one more great dry goods house, and selected the two young men with whom to make the venture. The firm of Field, Palmer & Leiter was organized, with the young man of 30 at its head, and with Mr. Palmer as its financial, backer. Two years later Mr. Palmer withdrew, and the firm name was changed to Field, Leiter & Co., so remaining for nearly fifteen years.
The new firm occupied the strategical position to make the best of the swelling flood which burst out the country after the war, deluging it with prosperity and riches. The West was on the advance, and her demands increased by leaps and bounds. And the men of the firm were able to use the conditions for their advantage. Both Mr. Field and Mr. Letter had learned early and learned well. What they had learned they applied vigorously and with success.
The philosophy of business, if such it can be called, which Mr. Field formulated and put into practice was that which he had gotten empirically and to which his great house adheres to to this day.
Ethics That Brought Success.
The business of Chicago was done as if at red heat, and the competition for it was at-most tumultuous. It was a time when a man in charge of enormous purchases and sales might easily have been overcome by the strong stimulus of trade which excited the great mass.
Mr. Field was inflexible in maintaining the principles and perfecting the system which, to his mind, offered the one promise of permanent succees. What these were may be vaguely outlined as the adoption of the cash system; with a not illiberal interpretation of its meaning.
Goods sold to customers of established solvency and not in amounts exceeding their requirements or capacity, were “cash” at thirty or sixty days, and payments were exacted with absolute promptness. The customers themselves became more prudent men, with the certainty of so near a settlement. Their own sales were sure to be more carefully made, and their credits shorter. Mr. Field’s exactness was, therefore, a powerful conservative agency throughout the widening area of his business relations.
Purchased for Cash.
On the purchasing side of the account the principle involved’ was applied much more rigidly, for Mr. Field decided not to have any liabilities. Such credits as he secured were purely nominal, covering little more than the time required for transfer and delivery of goods purchased. No purchase was to be made which would call for a note. a promise to pay. So buying for cash, more-over, a varying but important margin of advantage in prices paid was sure to be obtained. The best bargains came for the readiest payments.
There was no mortgage upon any property owned by Mr. Field and never has been.
Heavy Loss in Great Fire.
The great Chicago fire of 1871 swept away three and a half millions of dollars in property of Field, Leiter & Co. Stock on hand, business appliances, the commodious building, all were eaten up by the flames. Gone were the fruits of incredible industry, sagacity, and science of credit. Chicago as a buying center seemed impossible for years. It had no goods to sell, and if it could obtain them by credit it had no buildings in which to store them.
While Field, Leiter & Co. were insured for the entire amount of their losses, many of the insurance companies were rendered insolvent by the fire, and of the $2,500,000 ultimately recovered only a small portion was at once available.
Mr. Field secured some great shells of horse car barns at Twelfth and state streets, and while smoke still overhung the burned city put gangs of men at work preparing them for his goods. Having survived the fire, Field, Leiter & Co. next faced the panic of 1873, that swept the country and brought the strongest structures toppling to the ground.
Triumph Over Fire and Panic.
But the panic proved that the bouse was founded strongly, and that the principle of cash payments which Mr. Field had evolved was sound. Houses which gave long time credits went to the wall, but there could be no question raised as to the solvency of a house that had no debts.
Since 1873 the history of the dry goods house of Marshall Field has been one of steady marching to greater success, of expansion to meet the growing possibilities of pusiness. The whole system is conducted upon the principles so early chosen by Mr. Field.
Leiter Retires From Firm.
After the fire the wholesale and retail departments were organized apart. In 1881 Mr. Leiter retired, owing to a difference of opinion between himself and Mr. Field. The former believed that the retail side of the business should be given up, while the latter foresaw its possibilities. The firm name then became Marshall Field & Co., under which title it was incorporated in 1901.
The object of incorporation was stated at the time by a member of the firm as follows:
- The advantages of Incorporation are obvious to any one familiar with the conduct of a great business like ours. It is growing constantly and we wish to provide for the future.
The capital stock at the time of incorporation was given at $6,000,000, and while the terms of subscription published were nominal, it is understood that three-fourths of it was held by Mr. Fleld.
This brings up an invention of Mr. Field by whose operation he has been enabled to conduct his great business through other men and yet to retain its permanency for himself.
Maker of Millionaires.
It has been said that Mr. Fleld has made more millionaires in the West than any other man. In this way he resembles Andrew Carnegie in the East. The result is his policy. He always paid for brains liberally.
He has taken men from the position of cash boy and raised them gradually to the position of departmental managers and even higher at lucrative compensation. He had that faculty which Carnegie has said is more valuable than any other in business, the knowledge of men. But his unerring knowledge of men was shared by many others; his uniqueness lay in his knowledge of how to use the men after he had selected them.
Time Partnership Methods.
He devised the method of time partnerships. He admitted an employe of great ability to a sort of junior partnership for a term of years, after which the partner in accordance with the contract retired and n fresher and younger man was taken into the firm in his place. Every man, so admitted and so retired, has gone out a millionaire, some of them many times over.
Such a partner made a greater fortune in the time than he could have hoped to do for himself of for anyone else, but at the end of the period be was out, with no perpetuated interest in the business. The only continuing partner In Marshall Field & Co. was Mr. Field himself.
By that means Mr. Field secured the best work and capacity of his lieutenants. It was as if he undertook to make an individual’s fortune in return for the latter’s devotion. Besides the late Henry Fleld, his brother, partners who retired as millionaires after a long or short term of partnership were Henry J. Willing, retired 1883; Lorenzo J. Woodhouse, 1890; John G. McWilliams, 1900; Thomas Templeton, 1900; Harlow N. Higinbotham, 1901; Harry Gordon Selfridge, 1904; Robert M. Fair, 1905.
The one partner of Mr. Field who had survived his death, and who may be his successor in the house of Marshall Field & Co., is John Graves Shedd, Mr. Shedd has been with Marshall Fleld more than thirty-three years and of him the great merchant is reported to have once said:
“Of all my partners at present or in the past I consider Mr. Shedd the greatest merchant, I should be content to leave my business in his hands.”
Mr. Field derived for more than a score of years an immense income from his dry goods business. Of late years it has averaged between three and four millions a year. Never an extravagant man personally, and one who proverbially eschewed speculation, being known in Wall street as “the staid Marshall Fleld,” his investments have been of the solid kind, and some of them date many years back. From them his income has been constantly enlarging, until of late years they probably much exceed that of his dry goods interest.
Interests Circle World.
But it is as the greatest merchant in the world he will be remembered. His wholesale and retail houses in Chicago are now merely the points of assembling and distribution for the immense output of his mills and factories, not merely in America, but all over Europe and Asia. His brother, Joseph N. Field, who lives in Manchester, England. is Mr.Field’s European representative.
There are branches of Marshall Fleld & Co. in New York, Manchester, Nottingham, Bradford, Paris, Calais, Lyons, Chemnitz, St. Gall, Plauen, Annaberg, and Yokohama, and the day of Marshall Field, Jr.’s, funeral all these houses were closed.
Mentality of the Man.
That was the distinction of Mr. Field mentally—his unlimited power of growth. his capacity to enlarge himself to the size of his opportunities. His mind, exact. positive, piercing to the precise relations of things, grasped successively the intricacies of great problems. Experience as salesman taught him the prineiples of credit, and for the administration of a business too vast to be conducted by one man he devised hia method of partnerships. He passed from wholesale and retail seller to manufacturer and sbipper. He eliminated middle men and bought the factories which supplied him with produets.
Widespread Holdlngs.
He has been declared the richest man west of New York. Certainly he was worth $100,000,000. He owned 40 per cent of the stock of the Pullman company, had invested heavily in Rock Island and Baltimore & Ohio. His interest in city transportation was known to be great. His holdings of real estate in Chicago were estimated conservatively at $40,000,000, upon which is said to be not a dollar of incumbrance. He was assessed for $2,000,000 in 1905 on his personal property at his Prairie avenue residence, while the personal property of his firm was put at over $10,000,000.
Marshall Field was not only the first merchant of Chicago, but also the best known figure upon her streets. Thousands knew him be sight.
Probably no rich man’s wealth excited less envy. The public respect for the man and the conviction that his wealth was the legitimate proceeds of his brain was attested by the movement in 1904 to nominate him for the Vice Presidency on the Democratic ticket—a movement so strong that it required his refusal to quash it.
Loyal to Chicago.
He loved Chicago, her ways, streets, manners, bustle, all that his own eyes had seen develop. Although he went to Europe nearly every year, probably no city in the world was as beautiful to him as Chicago. He remarked once, when putting the surface cars underground was mooted, that he hoped not since it would destroy “the look of business in the streets.” Whenever he came home from abroad in the tall he would declare to all his acquaintances: “I tell you, I’m glad to be back in Chicago once more.”
Mr. Field did not neglect his own interest. but that interest was at various times singularly compatible with the interest of the city, and he was ready at ail times to uphold Chicago as against the world.
He was the power behind the throne in the Walsh banks’ settlement. He insisted that the Clearing House association step in and save the city and the public from the peril of a panic. The bankers, sitting in conclave in the First National Bank building that Sunday night before the Walsh banks closed. summoned him from a dinner party. came; he met the defiance of Mr. Walsh. Then he inspired the bankers with courage and persuaded them to throw the weight of all Chicago’s credit Into the scale.
He, with John J. Mitchell and J. Pierpont Morgan of New York, a year ago purchased the City railway stock at 200, paying for it some $38,000,000. He declared at the time against absentee ownership of Chicago’s street railways, and he had planned by a consolidation of all the surface lines to solve the traction problem on terms equitable to the stockholders, the city, and the public.
He was forced to postpone the solution by the munieipal ownership movement.
He was considered a typical Yankee of New England, possessed of all their practical virtues and strenuous qualities. He had the thrift, energy, executive, and trading ability, and positive mind that could not be deceived, and the positive determination that conceived its purpose and took the shortest route to the end. He had also the unostentation, the modesty of the stanch New Englander.
Strong Religious Feeling.
It would have been strange if Mr. Field, considering his race, had not some religious emotions. One of his friends in his first days in Chicago was Dwight Moody, who became the famous evangelist.
His relatives were all of the Presbyterian faith, and it may be cited as characteristic of the man’s secrecy in good deeds ns well as in business that all his life he supported a missionary somewhere, but where no one of his closest friends could find out.
In the early years of his business life Mr. Field not only kept a sharp eye on his employes for the purpose of discovering who served him well and who ill, but he kept also a moral watch upon each and all. He had them all in mind, and made inquiries about their tamilies and affairs, and did many of them a helpful turn. Of course, as his businesses grew it became impossible for him to have a regard for the individual moral welfare of every one who worked for him, yet he never lost his interest in the personal life of his people, and his benevolences to them were manifold.
Quiet Manners of Merchant.
Traditions of his personal courtesy and also of his marvelous attention to details are plentiful among his employes. He never lost his temper, never scolded, never, in the expressive phrase, “went up in the air.” The older people in his establishments who once came into contact with the man all have a personal esteem for him.
“I remember him as a quiet, attentive, kind spoken gentleman,” said a man who had grown gray in his service. “Once when I was a gawky boy I ran into him as he stepped out of the elevator and knocked off his silk hat. I was too scared to move, but he merely picked up his hat and said quietly. as he moved away. ‘My boy, you must learn not to be careless.'”
Even in his last years he worked hard at his desk, coming down to his wholesale store at 10 o’clock every morning and working until 4 o’clock. At 1 o’clock he usually went to the Chicago club for luncheon, but was back it his desk at 2. Then he was driven home in his carriage down Michigan avenue..
His horses were well known, as was his plain black brougham. His coachman always drove at a rapid pace, as if to cover the distance in the least possible time. But, though he hurried always, Mr. Fleld never adopted the speedier automobile.
Attended to Details.
His supervision of business was both general and in detail. As a master of a general dry goods campaign: no one ever excelled him. Multimillionaire magnate. that he was, he did not disdain to plan a retail State street sale, and in the art of conducting it he had no equal up to the day of his death. He was likely to walk into any department any day and to ask a question, quite casually, concerning a certain stock of goods, an importation, or so many rolls of something that arrived last week, or secured at some special discount. Then he would walk away. Two weeks later, perhaps, when no one fancied he would remember the matter, he would suddenly take it up again and inquire as to results.
As one of his salesmen some years ago put it: “The old man never forgets anything he hears or sees. If his attention happens to light on a lot of silk at some one of his mills, he will never let go, but’ will follow it through wholesale and retail, and will want to know when the last bale is sold and what it brought.”
Fealty to His Friends.
Mr. Fleld was temperamentally cold, perhaps, being a walking intellect, as it were. But he not only had the respect of his employes, but also the love of his friends. He was loyal to his friends also and would fight for them valiantly. What he did for them he never mentioned, and sometimes not even his other friends knew. He and the late Norman Williams conducted the social war against General Nelson A. Miles when the latter was appointed the general commending the department of the lakes, and he did it because he considered the latter had wronged General Forsythe, a friend of Field’s. He made the war bliter.
Quarrel With Leiter.
He could be magnaminous. He and Levi Z. Leiter had become enemies. The estrangement commenced over social differences and became aggravated as such things will. The two men had not spoken for years, but when Joseph Leiter lost against Armour in the famous wheat deal and the elder Leiter needed millions immediately, Mr. Field sent him word he could have all he wished. Mr. Leiter refused the clemency thus extended. but as Mr. Field was the only man in town able to pay the hard cash down for the Leiter fee at the southwest corner of State and Madison streets, it was to Mr. Fleld that he parted with his choicest piece of real estate.
Mr. Field always retained his interest in his old home and birthplace, Conway, Mass. Usually he visited there once a year for a day or two, and in 1900 erected there the “Field Memorial library” in memory of his parents.
Gifts to City.
In 1893, toward the close of the Columbian exposition, he contributed a million dollars as a nucleus for a permanent museum to preserve the many priceless exhibits of scientific, historical, and artistic curios which were being donated to the city by the exhibitors at the fair. In recognition of this act the new institution was named the Field Columbian museum. Mr. Field some years later announced that he was willing to furnish. the necessary funds for the erection of a permanent museum building as soon as a site could be secured in Grant Park on the lake front. The building will cost from $6,000,000 to $8,000,000 and will be the greatest monument possessed by any city in the West. Mr. Fleld has aleo given largely, principally in land, to the University of Chicago.
His Family Life.
The first wife of Mr. Field, to whom he was married on Jan. 3, 1863, was Nannie Douglass Scott, the daughter of Robert Scott, an iron-master of Ironton, Ohio. The children born of the marriage, were Lewis, born Jan. 9, 1866, who died the same year; Marshall born April 21, 1868, who died in November, 1905, and Ethel Newcomb, born Aug. 28, 1873. Mrs. Field died several years ago. Of the two children who lived to maturity, the son married Albertine Huck, the daughter of a Chicago brewer and real estate owner. Their children are Marshall Fleld III., Gwendolyn, and Henry. The daughter married Arthur Magie Tree, the only son of Judge Lambert Tree, whom she divorced in 1901, marrying Captain David. Beattle of the British army. She realdes in London.
The first Mrs. Field was an invalid for the major part of their married life, and the condition cast a gloom over her husband for many years. Her son, Marshall Field, Jr., inherited his mother’s ill health, which never permitted him to take up the business management, which his father, was ambitious for him to do.
Marrles Mrs. Caton.
Last September Mr. Field married Mrs. Delia Spencer Caton, the widow of Arthur Caton, who died a year ago. The two were wedded in St. Margaret’s church, Westminster, London.1
Mrs. Caton during the life of Mr. Caton was one of the most brilliant social leaders of Chicago, rivaling Mrs. Potter Palmer. She inherited a fortune from her father, Franklin F. Spencer, founder of the hardware house of Hibbard, Spencer, Bartlett & Co. Her house, in Calumet avenue was especially fitted for entertaining and the hospitality of herself and Mr. Caton was notable. Her marriage to Mr. Field was considered by the friends of both to be enrinently fitting. It brought to Mr. Field a woman who, as a wife, was adapted to the commanding position his wealth and station afforded.
“Mr. Field is very much in love,” smiled his friends approvingly, and when, after a honeymoon on the continent, the pair returned last fall to Chicago, his happiness was everywhere remarked. He seemed twenty years younger and happier than any one ever had known him to be. His whole nature was mellowed; always a kindly man, his kindness now was overflowing.
Plans for the Winter.
A brilliant winter was promised. Mr. Fleld himself meant to round out to fullness his life. With a brilliant and vivacious partner the Field mansion was expected to become such a center of social life as Chicago had never seen.
He planned the rebuilding of the northeast corner of State and Washington streets to conform with the monumental style of the remainder of his retall block. He expected to execute the plans for his great building on the lake front for the. Field Columbian museum, plans that had been delayed by opposition which was finally overcome.
Every sign was auspicious. Eminent in Chicago as he had long been in fact, now be hoped the full and open recognition was to come to him.
Dreamed of Pleasant Evening.
He would complete all his projects, dispense a gracious hospitality, take some ease, since his vast interests were well in hand; and men in control picked by himself and trusted by him.
Thus an old-age agreeable and, distinguished, in the companionship of the woman he dearly loved, surrounded by his family and friends, in the city he had-helped develop, stretched out before him. Hale and vigorous, his strength unimpaired by any indulgences of youth—impaired, if at all, only by the excess of hard work—he had every hope of living in greater happiness than he perhaps had known for many years.
He had brought his only son home from England, where the latter had been living for the sake of his health, a few years before to dwell next his own door. His hopes were centered in his grandsons, especially in the third of his name, aged 11 years.
He greatly admired and respected for her high character his son’s wife, and he personally looked to the education of her three children.
Tragedy Ends Son’s Life.
The fatal shooting of his son in November occurred when he and Mrs. Field were in New York. They hurried to Chicago by special train. Mr. Field, in the interval before his son died, spent the hours at his son’s bedside In Mercy hospital. When the son died he it was who took his son’s wife home in his carriage and who was her chief comforter.
But the sudden blow aged Mr. Fleld five years, old friends said.
Since the death of his only son Mr. Field had been living quietly in Chicago at his home in Prairie avenue, and Mrs. Field used every art to divert him from his grief. The uncertain weather of the last few weeks, weither cold nor warm, gave him a severe cold. For some days he did not leave the house, but his system seemingly responded to the bracing air of a few days ago, and against the advice of his physicians he appeared down town..
To get him away from sad scenes the New York trip was planned. Mrs. Field hoped that the change there and the passing show would help him. But on the journey his cold became worse and he was taken from the car in New York a sick man.
H4>NOTES:
1 Daily Mirror (London), September 7, 1905
Is It Legal, Seeing That It Was Solemnised in Secret?
Is the marriage of Mr. Marshall Field, the Chicago millionaire, to Mrs. Delia Spencer Caton, at St. Margaret’s, Westminster, on Tuesday, absolutely valid within the strict technical meaning of ecclesiastical law?
This question has been raised by the fact that the ceremony was solemnised practically in private, with policemen preventing the entry of the parishioners and the general public.
It is pointed out that the special licence, under which the ceremony took place, makes reference to the fact that the wedding is to take place in the presence of “all Christian people willing to be present.”
“There is,” said one high authority yesterday, “no justification in strict ecclesiastical law for any Christian desirous of attending being kept out of the church, unless, of course, it was so full that it would have been dangerous to admit any more.”
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