The Book of Daniel Drew

by Bouck White

Overview

"He Who Sells What Isn't His'n Must Buy it Back or Go to Pris'n." --"Uncle Dan'l" Drew Long out of print and virtually unavailable for years, THE BOOK OF DANIEL DREW is the irresistible story of a country boy who grew up to become Wall Street's first great speculator. Told for the most part in his own salty language - of his early life as a cattle drover, as a profiteer of "watered" cattle (a scheme he later used in the stock deal in the famed Erie Railroad operation), of his building of a fortune on Wall Street and of his epic struggles with Commodore Vanderbilt including his unholy alliances with Gould, Fisk and Boss Tweed. Originally published in 1910, THE BOOK OF DANIEL DREW is a true classic of the stock market. It's a fascinating look at an era in American financial history whose ethos was "anything goes" and anything did!

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781596051188
Publisher:	Cosimo Classics
Publication date:	05/01/2005
Pages:	240
Product dimensions:	5.00(w) x 8.00(h) x 0.55(d)

Read an Excerpt

Ill THESE years of mine as a calf-drover were broken in upon a little later. I went into the circus business. Some time after the War of 1812, the travelling circus came into fashion. The people in those days lived in little settlements. They were lonely. They didn't have much amusement. So, when times became settled once more and the farmers had recovered from the war, the Rolling Show came in and did lots of business. Only we didn't call it a show in those days, nor a circus no siree! The people wouldn't have come near us. Because the preachers thundered against circuses and all such worldliness. To get the trade of the church people, we called it a "Menagerie" and "The Great Moral and Educational Exhibition." Putnam and Westchester counties were headquarters for the circus business in early days, particularly Star's Ridge, in the town of South-east, and Purdy's Station, just below Croton Falls. I guess the reason for this was, because those two counties are just north of New York City. Being a beautiful farming region, with Bridgeport, Conn., and Danbury just across the State line, this region became naturally the winter quarters for the New York shows. The circuses would start out from our section each spring, and come back to us in the fall, for winter quarters. In this way all our part of the State got to talking circus. There was old Hakaliah Bailey, of Somers Somerstown Plains it was, back in my day five miles below Carmel. He brought over the first elephant ever seen in the county. "Old Bett," he called her. In front of the tavern there in Somers the Old Elephant Hotel they called it you can see even yet a pedestal with an elephant carved on top of it. And Seth Howe, downat Turk's Hill, near Brewsters', when he came to make his fine summer home there, ...