CREEK ROAD GANG
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Autobiography of
Nathaniel Watson Ladd
(1848-1932)
Part 7
Editor's note:
This
is the seventh excerpt from the autobiographical manuscript left by
Nathaniel Watson Ladd. See prior issues for the first
installment, the second
installment, the third
installment , the fourth
installment ,
the fifth
installment, and the sixth installment.
Born in 1848 in Derry, New Hampshire, the second child and first son of Daniel and Lucy Ladd, Nathaniel Watson Ladd went on to graduate from Dartmouth College and to study law at Boston University. He became a Boston lawyer and political figure, serving on the Boston Common Council, and later in the State Legislature. He was also a founder of the Boston Athletic Association. He died in 1932.
In this section, Nathaniel Watson Ladd tells of his first job after graduating college in 1873. He also touches on the Panic of 1873 and on prejudice against Irish immigrants.
I think Mr. Hazen [ed. – Principal of Pinkerton Academy when N.W. Ladd had been a student there] was the means of my getting my first job after leaving college. He was then the Chicago agent of Ginn Brothers School Book Publishers. I had an interview with Edwin Ginn, who at that time had a little office on Beacon Street near Tremont [ed. – in Boston], and we finally made an agreement by which he was to advance the money for my expenses and I was to establish a branch headquarters for them in Louisville, Kentucky, on a Commission basis. I had previously put my name into a teachers employment agency, and after I had been established in Louisville for about a month, I was offered a place to teach natural history in a Military School in Worcester, Massachusetts. By that time, I had discovered that I was doing a lot of missionary work for Ginn Brothers and would get very little commissions. I wrote Edwin Ginn a long letter, outlining all these facts and offering to work for him at a salary of one hundred dollars a month and all my expenses. I asked him, in view of the teachers opportunity, to send me a telegram whether or not he wanted me to keep on with the work. He telegraphed me to keep on and the principal of the Worcester School was very mad and wrote me an ugly letter, but nothing ever came of it. I heard afterwards that he was a hard man to get along with.
I traveled out from Louisville, all through the states of Kentucky, Tennessee, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia, and enjoyed the work very much, visiting schools and colleges. Most of the books were for higher education, but he published Mason’s Music Course and Miss Richardson’s Geography, so I was obliged to visit the common schools as well as the high schools and colleges.
Some amusing incidents happened during that work. For instance, when I was in Nashville, Tennessee, I visited the high school. The principal was a man who had received his education in Portland, Maine. It happened at that time that an attempt was being made to bring in Northern Capital into the South. There was a party of Northwestern Excursionists being entertained in Nashville, and there were several of them on the platform when I visited the high school. There was a class in grammar made up of young ladies eighteen or twenty years old, and the principal, as they usually did, invited me to ask questions of the class. I gave them the sentence, “How do you do?” I had no sooner gotten the words out of my mouth than there was a sort of a roar from these Northwestern Excursionists. I looked around in some alarm, fearing that I may have made a blunder. They saw the expression on my face, and one of them ventured to explain it by saying that in their country, they did not go through with all this rig-a-ma-role, but simply said, “Howdy!”
I remember one other incident in the Blue Grass Region of Kentucky. I was visiting one of the common schools in the interest of the geography and Mason’s Music Score. The teacher was a one-armed Confederate soldier. He had a class in geography who were reciting, and he was actually teaching them that the revolution of the earth on its axis produced the seasons, and its revolution around the sun produced day and night. I would suppose that it was laplis lingue on his part, but one boy got it the other way and got it right, and the teacher corrected him. I did not send that teacher any of our books.
I lived at the Galt House and at the time of the financial panic of 1873, I could not get money to pay my board bill. There was, I think, about a month when nobody paid any bills. The proprietor of the Galt House understood the situation and was willing to wait. Ginn Brothers had a large capital and their credit was good.
Edwin Ginn’s brother visited me while in Louisville and looked over my work. I do not think he remained very long with the firm. He was nothing like so able a man as Edwin, and I think Edwin carried most of the business.
I attended the Episcopal Church in Louisville, and got acquainted with many nice people. A man doing my work at that time was properly clothed if he wore a Prince Albert coat and silk hat, and I wore both. My work rather called for that, and I was often taken for a minister. I remember being in New Orleans one time, going into a sleeping car. I took a seat near one end of the car and there was a game of cards going on at the other end. The porter came along and whispered to me that if I objected to the card playing, he would have it stopped.
After about eight months, Edwin Ginn wanted me to change my headquarters to St. Louis, Missouri, which I did, and had desk room in a book house there, the same as in Louisville. I traveled out from there all through Missouri, Kansas, Illinois and Iowa. While my headquarters were in St. Louis, Mr. Mason, the author of our Music Score, visited me and traveled some with me. I think it was in some city in Iowa that he made a speech in one of the schools which we visited and congratulated the teachers on the class of pupils that they had to teach, and emphasizing the fact that things were quite different in the Atlantic Coast cities like Boston and New York, where the Irish who came to this country were not able to get any further West and settled down there. The whole course of his remarks constituted quite a reflection on the Irish race, and when the school was dismissed, she [ed. – the teacher] came to him mad through and through, and upbraided him roundly for reflecting on the Irish race. Mr. Mason was rather a timid man, and I pitied him most sincerely.
When my year was up, Edwin Ginn wanted me to continue at the same price, but I told him I could not, and offered to work another year for one hundred and fifty dollars a month and all my expenses. He said he could not afford to pay it because of the 1873 Panic in which he had made losses, but asked me if I would continue at the old salary for about three months longer until the Fall schools opened, which I did. During my second year he wrote me a long letter, giving in detail the capital he had invested in this business, all his assets and liabilities. I could see that he was laying the foundation for me to join him in the business, but I did not encourage it, because I had made up my mind, although I liked the book work very much, that I wanted to become a lawyer.
Born in 1848 in Derry, New Hampshire, the second child and first son of Daniel and Lucy Ladd, Nathaniel Watson Ladd went on to graduate from Dartmouth College and to study law at Boston University. He became a Boston lawyer and political figure, serving on the Boston Common Council, and later in the State Legislature. He was also a founder of the Boston Athletic Association. He died in 1932.
In this section, Nathaniel Watson Ladd tells of his first job after graduating college in 1873. He also touches on the Panic of 1873 and on prejudice against Irish immigrants.
I think Mr. Hazen [ed. – Principal of Pinkerton Academy when N.W. Ladd had been a student there] was the means of my getting my first job after leaving college. He was then the Chicago agent of Ginn Brothers School Book Publishers. I had an interview with Edwin Ginn, who at that time had a little office on Beacon Street near Tremont [ed. – in Boston], and we finally made an agreement by which he was to advance the money for my expenses and I was to establish a branch headquarters for them in Louisville, Kentucky, on a Commission basis. I had previously put my name into a teachers employment agency, and after I had been established in Louisville for about a month, I was offered a place to teach natural history in a Military School in Worcester, Massachusetts. By that time, I had discovered that I was doing a lot of missionary work for Ginn Brothers and would get very little commissions. I wrote Edwin Ginn a long letter, outlining all these facts and offering to work for him at a salary of one hundred dollars a month and all my expenses. I asked him, in view of the teachers opportunity, to send me a telegram whether or not he wanted me to keep on with the work. He telegraphed me to keep on and the principal of the Worcester School was very mad and wrote me an ugly letter, but nothing ever came of it. I heard afterwards that he was a hard man to get along with.
I traveled out from Louisville, all through the states of Kentucky, Tennessee, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia, and enjoyed the work very much, visiting schools and colleges. Most of the books were for higher education, but he published Mason’s Music Course and Miss Richardson’s Geography, so I was obliged to visit the common schools as well as the high schools and colleges.
Some amusing incidents happened during that work. For instance, when I was in Nashville, Tennessee, I visited the high school. The principal was a man who had received his education in Portland, Maine. It happened at that time that an attempt was being made to bring in Northern Capital into the South. There was a party of Northwestern Excursionists being entertained in Nashville, and there were several of them on the platform when I visited the high school. There was a class in grammar made up of young ladies eighteen or twenty years old, and the principal, as they usually did, invited me to ask questions of the class. I gave them the sentence, “How do you do?” I had no sooner gotten the words out of my mouth than there was a sort of a roar from these Northwestern Excursionists. I looked around in some alarm, fearing that I may have made a blunder. They saw the expression on my face, and one of them ventured to explain it by saying that in their country, they did not go through with all this rig-a-ma-role, but simply said, “Howdy!”
I remember one other incident in the Blue Grass Region of Kentucky. I was visiting one of the common schools in the interest of the geography and Mason’s Music Score. The teacher was a one-armed Confederate soldier. He had a class in geography who were reciting, and he was actually teaching them that the revolution of the earth on its axis produced the seasons, and its revolution around the sun produced day and night. I would suppose that it was laplis lingue on his part, but one boy got it the other way and got it right, and the teacher corrected him. I did not send that teacher any of our books.
I lived at the Galt House and at the time of the financial panic of 1873, I could not get money to pay my board bill. There was, I think, about a month when nobody paid any bills. The proprietor of the Galt House understood the situation and was willing to wait. Ginn Brothers had a large capital and their credit was good.
Edwin Ginn’s brother visited me while in Louisville and looked over my work. I do not think he remained very long with the firm. He was nothing like so able a man as Edwin, and I think Edwin carried most of the business.
I attended the Episcopal Church in Louisville, and got acquainted with many nice people. A man doing my work at that time was properly clothed if he wore a Prince Albert coat and silk hat, and I wore both. My work rather called for that, and I was often taken for a minister. I remember being in New Orleans one time, going into a sleeping car. I took a seat near one end of the car and there was a game of cards going on at the other end. The porter came along and whispered to me that if I objected to the card playing, he would have it stopped.
After about eight months, Edwin Ginn wanted me to change my headquarters to St. Louis, Missouri, which I did, and had desk room in a book house there, the same as in Louisville. I traveled out from there all through Missouri, Kansas, Illinois and Iowa. While my headquarters were in St. Louis, Mr. Mason, the author of our Music Score, visited me and traveled some with me. I think it was in some city in Iowa that he made a speech in one of the schools which we visited and congratulated the teachers on the class of pupils that they had to teach, and emphasizing the fact that things were quite different in the Atlantic Coast cities like Boston and New York, where the Irish who came to this country were not able to get any further West and settled down there. The whole course of his remarks constituted quite a reflection on the Irish race, and when the school was dismissed, she [ed. – the teacher] came to him mad through and through, and upbraided him roundly for reflecting on the Irish race. Mr. Mason was rather a timid man, and I pitied him most sincerely.
When my year was up, Edwin Ginn wanted me to continue at the same price, but I told him I could not, and offered to work another year for one hundred and fifty dollars a month and all my expenses. He said he could not afford to pay it because of the 1873 Panic in which he had made losses, but asked me if I would continue at the old salary for about three months longer until the Fall schools opened, which I did. During my second year he wrote me a long letter, giving in detail the capital he had invested in this business, all his assets and liabilities. I could see that he was laying the foundation for me to join him in the business, but I did not encourage it, because I had made up my mind, although I liked the book work very much, that I wanted to become a lawyer.
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