tons of white lead ground in oil, two hundred thou-
sand pounds of red lead, two hundred thousand pounds
of litharge, one hundred thousand gallons of linseed-
oil, and one hundred thousand gallons of castor-oil.
It is not too much to say that among the men
whose sagacity grasped and whose energy fulfilled the
conditions of the prosperity of St. Louis, none oc-
cupied a higher rank or contributed by his individ-
ual success more largely to the general welfare than
the eminent and honored merchant, George Collier,
after whom the Collier White-Lead Works are named.
George Collier, younger son of Peter and Catherine
Collier, was born on the 17th of March, 179G, on
his father's homestead in Worcester County, Md.
His lather, who died while he was yet a child, besides
carrying on with success the farm upon which he re-
sided, was largely engaged in the Atlantic coasting
trade, and at his death, which occurred before 1810,
left what was in those days a handsome property to
his family. His mother was a woman of great force
of character, revered as well as loved by all who
knew her. After her husband's death she continued
to reside at the homestead in Maryland until both
her sons, John and George, arrived at manhood, giv-
ing to each of them the best education for mercantile
pursuits which that part of the country at that time
afforded, and for this purpose sending them to Mr.
Wylie's academy in Philadelphia, then of the highest
repute.
About the year 1816, John Collier, who had just
arrived at manhood, came to Missouri, then still a
Territory, and settled at first in St. Charles, where he
began business as a merchant. His success was such
that before long he opened a branch house in St.
Louis, which within a few years became the principal
establishment. During this time George Collier was
completing his education in Philadelphia, where he
formed friendships subsequently of great service to
him in his business career.
About the year 1818, having completed his educa-
tion, George Collier joined his brother in Missouri
and engaged with him in business, before long becom-
ing his partner. According to the custom of those
times, their business was of a general nature, includ-
ing an assortment of the staple articles most in demand
among those who traded with St. Louis. It was at
first carried on at retail, but soon expanded into a
wholesale business, and extended rapidly throughout
the settled portions of Missouri and Illinois.
In 1821 the partnership was dissolved by the death
of the elder brother, who had already made his mark
as a business man of ability and energy, as well as of
high personal character. The younger continued the
business alone for several years.
About the year 1825, his business continuing to in-
crease, Mr. Collier took into partnership with him Peter
Powell, like himself a native of Maryland, and who
had been for several years in his employ. The firm
of Collier & Powell, thus formed, continued to carry
on a general merchandise business until the year
1830, when Mr. Collier retired from the firm, having
acquired what was for those days a considerable for-
tune.
From this time he entered upon pursuits charac-
teristic at once of his energy and his far-sighted views
as a business man. Realizing that the river trade of
St. Louis, north, south, east, and west, was to be the
secret of her prosperity, he began to invest his means
largely in the building of steamboats. But a few
years had passed since the first steamer came up from
New Orleans to St. Louis (1817), making the weary
voyage in twenty-seven days, but demonstrating by
the fact of making it that the days of the " broad-
horn," the flat-boat, and the keel-boat were at an end.
Pittsburgh had become the navy-yard of Western com-
merce, at which then and for years afterwards the
greatest facilities for such work existed.
It has been said that the faculty of judging men
and selecting fit agents for important enterprises is
characteristic of high ability. The method pursued
by Mr. Collier in entering upon this new field demon-
strated his possession of that faculty. It was his
habit, year after year, to select men already experi-
enced in the river navigation and to send them to
Pittsburgh to make contracts for the building of steam-
ers which they were to command, and in which he
often gave them an interest. Instructing them as to
the character and purposes of the vessel, he furnished
them with credits sufficient to meet whatever cost
might be incurred, and stationed them at Pittsburgh
in active superintendence of the work while it pro-
gressed, thus securing the most watchful personal
TRADE, COMMERCE, AND MANUFACTURES.
1255
supervision and assistance from men at once compe-
tent for their duties and whose interests coincided with
his own. In this way during the twelve or fourteen
years following he became largely interested in steam-
boats, constantly building new ones of size and ca-
pacity suited to the trade either of the upper or the
lower Mississippi or the Missouri Rivers, according
to their destination. It was one of his maxims to
hold no property which brought no return ; and in
respect of steamboats it was observed that he rarely
held one longer than was necessary to establish its
character in the trade, selling those which did not
prove profitable in order to cut off further loss, while
those which earned a good name he often sold when
at their highest repute, thus realizing their highest
value and escaping further risks. The limits of this
sketch forbid more than a cursory mention of this
part of his mercantile history. Suffice it to say that
during the years in question he was the owner of a
large number of steamers plying on all the waters
communicating with St. Louis, and most of which
had been built under his directions, often having
afloat at one time eight or ten large vessels. The men
to whose fidelity, ability, and skill he intrusted the
management of these large interests rarely disap-
pointed him. Sharing with him the profits of these
ventures, some of them thus laid the foundations of
their own success. Such men were Sullivan Blood,
afterwards president of the Boatmen's Savings Insti-
tution, long a highly-respected citizen of St. Louis ;
John Simonds, afterwards of the banking-house of
Luca's & Simonds ; and N. J. Eaton, who, after re-
signing a commission in the United States army, had
come to St. Louis, and whose executive ability was
early recognized by Mr. Collier, more than one of
whose boats he commanded. To these names, long
and well known in St. Louis, might be added others,
notably that of Rufus J. Lackland, afterwards one of
its most prominent and successful merchants, now
(188J) president of the Boatmen's Savings- Bank and
the St. Louis Gas-Light Company, and who is himself
authority for the statement that to his early acquaint-
ance and connection with Mr. Collier, and to the as-
sistance rendered him, unsought, by the latter in his
early business life, his subsequent success is largely
due.
An important element in these enterprises was the
high reputation for probity, as well as for large re-
sources and exemplary business habits, which Mr.
Collier had established not only in St. Louis, but
throughout all parts of the country where the busi-
ness men of that city were known. It was prover-
bial that his credit was practically unlimited, and
that whoever he sent to Pittsburgh with au-
thority and credit for building a steamboat, or north-
ward to purchase lead, or to New Orleans for the pur-
chase of return cargoes of groceries on his boat, or to
Philadelphia, then the financial centre of the United
States, was sufficiently backed by George Collier's
name.
It goes without saying that the navigation of the
Western rivers was attended in those early days with
not less, perhaps with greater risks and dangers than
now. But so constant was the good fortune, and so
high the reputation of his steamers, that George Col-
lier's "luck" became proverbial. Nor is it any dis-
paragement to others to claim for him the first rank
among those whose far-sighted energy and bold and
successful management built up the vast river trade of
St. Louis, along whose Levee, before 1860, often lay
at one time a fleet of nearly two hundred magnificent
steamers, busily loading and unloading side by side
the rich and varied products of every zone.
During these years, however, the steamboat inter-
est was by no means the only one which engaged his
attention. The rich deposits of lead at and near Ga-
lena, 111., as well as those to the southward in Mis-
souri, were at that time the great source of supply for
that metal. Partly as an independent investment, and
paitly by way of utilizing his steamboat property, Mr.
Collier engaged largely in the purchase and shipment
of lead, especially from the north, forming for that
purpose a business connection with the house of
Thomas Fassit in Philadelphia, in which direction, as
well as via New Orleans, great quantities of lead were
shipped. Besides purchasing lead from others, he
became a large owner in the Galena mines, and the
metal from those regions at that time was the chief
source of supply, not only for the white-lead factories
in Pennsylvania and other Eastern States, but was
also shipped in large quantities to France and other
parts of Europe. This traffic in lead, since distrib-
uted over regions farther west, formed for many years,
as we have seen, an important part of the trade of St.
Louis, and to its development no man in that city
contributed more actively or more sagaciously than
George Collier.
Operations so large as these, and requiring the con-
stant use of so much capital and credit, naturally
suggested to his active mind the combination with
them of a banking business. About 1835-36 he
formed a partnership with William G. Pettus, whose
wife was the sister of Mr. Collier's first wife. For
several years thereafter the firm of Collier & Pettus
conducted a large business in the way of banking and
exchange, deriving an independent source of profit
1256
HISTORY OF SAINT LOUIS.
from the dealings in Eastern exchange resulting from
the shipments of lead, already mentioned, as well as
from large collections which rapidly flowed into their
hands from Mr. Collier's Eastern acquaintances, who
sold to the merchants of St. Louis their general sup-
plies.
In still another direction the interests already men-
tioned were utilized. Some of the steamers wholly
or in part owned by Mr. Collier were in the Southern
river trade, and were constantly engaged in carrying
to New Orleans lead shipped by him and his associates,
as well as other staple articles, including flour, in the
manufacture of which at St. Charles he was early in-
terested. The proceeds of such cargoes were invested
under his direction in profitable return cargoes of
heavy groceries, sugar, coffee, salt, and molasses, for
which New Orleans was up to the outbreak of the
civil war the principal point of supply to St. Louis
and thence to the fur West and Northwest.
In 1840 the banking firm of Collier & Pettus was
dissolved by Mr. Collier's retirement therefrom,
though Mr. Pettus for some time longer continued
the business. In 1842 Mr. Collier formed the firm
of Collier & Morrison, taking into partnership his
brother-in-law, the late William M. Morrison, then a
young man, for whom this introduction to business
life also proved the first step in a highly successful
mercantile career. The business of this firm was
chiefly commission, but they also dealt largely in
lead, for which during so many years St. Louis was
the great entrepot of the West.
In 1840, Mr. Collier, whose health was never
robust and had become delicate, determined to with-
draw from active business, and gradually sold out all
his interest in steamboats. In 1847 he retired from
the firm of Collier & Morrison, which was succeeded
by William M. Morrison & Co., the new partners
being Kufus J. Lackland and Alfred Chadwick,
whose office during the remainder of his life Mr. Col-
lier made his headquarters, and to whose very success-
ful career his advice and assistance largely contrib-
uted. From this time he gradually withdrew from
business cares other than the management of his val-
uable landed estate and other investments in the city
of St. Louis.
It is possible in the brief space at command only
to allude to other features of a business life whose
thirty years of activity included and so largely in-
fluenced the early commercial history and subsequent
growth of his adopted city.
His calm and sagacious judgment, united with
singularly clear and quick prcceptions, both as to men
and as to the contingencies of business, peculiarly
qualified him for financial success, and for many years
before his death Mr. Collier was by common consent
regarded as the highest financial authority in St. Louis,
and was often consulted as such by those in whose
affairs he was not personally interested. For several
years prior to its failure in 1837 he was one of the
directors in the Branch Bank of the United States at
St. Louis. In February, 1837, the Bank of the State
of Missouri was chartered, in which the State was a
large stockholder, appointing a majority of the direc-
tors. In December, 1840, Mr. Collier was elected
one of the directors who represented the private
stockholders, and continued to fill that position for
six years, having been twice re-elected, but declined
a third re-election in 1846.
By an act approved Jan. 12, 1831, was incorpo-
rated the first insurance company in St. Louis, under
the name of the Missouri Insurance Company, the
name of George Collier heading the list of incorpora-
tors, and for many years of its successful career he
was one of its most important members. It was
characteristic, however, both of his self-reliance and
his customary good fortune if the result of wise and
watchful management is to be called good fortune
that he rarely insured his own property at all, though
he not unfrequently underwrote risks for others as a
private person.
As already stated, the shipment of lead from St.
Louis southward and eastward was a very important
part of its early commerce. Part of the lead thus
shipped was for many years returned to the West in
the shape of white lead from Eastern factories, but
between 1837 and 1850 the manufacture of white
lead and of oil from the castor-bean was established
in St. Louis. The well-known firm of Charless &
Blow were among the pioneers of this industry. lu
1850 their factory was destroyed by fire, and the
heavy loss thus sustained threatened the business with
ruin. But it was re-established by the incorporation,
in September, 1851, of the Collier White Lead and
Oil Company, to the capital of which Mr. Collier was
the largest single contributor, the active management
remaining in the hands of the Hon. Henry T. Blow;
The prosperous career of this important industry has
more than verified the anticipations of those who,
like Mr. Collier, believed that the future prosperity of
St. Louis would depend largely upon her manufactures.
In 1845 was held at Memphis the first Inter-State
River and Harbor Convention, an assemblage made
famous by the presidency of John C. Calhoun. It
was Mr. Calhoun himself who in reference to the
question of constitutional power on the part of the
Federal government to make such improvements
TRADE, COMMERCE, AND MANUFACTURES.
1257
there first applied to the great rivers of the West a
designation which instantly became famous, that of
" inland seas." It was more than a picturesque
phrase : it was an argument in a word, it was the
solution of a grave constitutional question. At this
convention the commercial interests of St. Louis were
represented by a delegation of twenty-five of her most
prominent citizens, of whom George Collier was one.
He was also a member of the first board of direc-
tors of the Missouri Pacific Railroad, having been one
of those who first met for the purpose of organizing
and procuring its incorporation.
In February, 1851, the Mercantile Library Hall
Association of St. Louis was incorporated by special
act for the express purpose of erecting, and soon after
did erect, for the use of the St. Louis Mercantile Li-
brary Association, the large building at the southwest
corner of Fifth and Locust Streets, still occupied by the
latter. In this public enterprise Mr. Collier took great
interest, not only subscribing liberally, but giving still
more important advice and assistance in planning and
prosecuting the work.
He was for many years a trustee of the Second
Presbyterian Church, of which the Rev. Dr. William
A. Potts was the eminent and beloved pastor.
It is not within the purpose of this sketch, even
did its limits permit, to dwell upon the personal qual-
ities which not only commanded the highest respect
and confidence of his associates and of the community
at large, but won the tender affection of those who
knew him best. Always gentle and courteous in man-
ner and of few words, his demeanor even under
trying circumstances was singularly calm and self-
possessed, while his conduct indicated great prompt-
ness and decision of character. His accurate judg-
ment of men has already been mentioned. To this
was united a cordial and sympathetic interest in young
men who proved themselves worthy of confidence,
which in many instances, long held in grateful re-
membrance, showed itself by timely and generous aid
in money and credit. No trait of his was recalled more
warmly by those from whom these reminiscences
have been obtained than the frequent and liberal as-
sistance afforded by him, often unsought, to those
whose character was his only security.
Mr. Collier's political affiliations were always with
the Whig party. If he had ever indulged any aspi-
rations for public life, the uniform and overwhelming
preponderance in Missouri of the Democratic party
would have rendered them hopeless. He was always
averse, however, to notoriety of any sort, and uni-
formly declined or avoided even the temptation to
leave the quiet walks of private life.
Early in 1852 his health, which had long been del-
icate, began to fail steadily, and a lingering illness
terminated in his death at his house in St. Louis on
the 18th of July, 1852, at the comparatively early
age of fifty-six.
Mr. Collier was twice married. His first wife,
Miss Frangoise E. Morrison, whom he married ou
Jan. 1, 182G, at St. Charles, Mo., died Aug. 30,
1835, leaving a daughter and an infant son. In 1838
he married Miss Sarah A. Bell, eldest daughter of
the late William Bell, of Pittsburgh, Pa., who still
survives him. Of this marriage five sons and one
daughter survived him. Both daughters are still liv-
ing in St. Louis. The elder in 1857 became the wife
of Henry Hitchcock, a leading member of the St.
Louis bar. The younger in I860 married Ethan A.
Hitchcock, then a partner iu the American house of
Olyphant & Co. in China, where he. continued to
reside till his retirement from that firm in 1872.
Since 1875 he has resided in St. Louis, holding high
positions of business trust.
Five sons of Mr. Collier attained manhood, only
two of whom now survive. One of these, William
B. Collier, is a resident of California. The other,
Maurice Dwight Collier, was admitted to the bar in
St. Louis in 18G9, and has since pursued his profes-
sion with diligence and promise of success. During
part of this time he was a diligent and influential
member of the City Council, and in 1876 was elected
a member of the board of freeholders, thirteen in
number, who framed the present city charter of St.
Louis.
The works of the St. Louis Lead and Oil Company
were erected in the spring of 1865, and are located on
North Second Street at the corner of Cass Avenue. In
addition to the manufacture of white lead, the company
gives a large share of attention to producing litharge, red
lead, linseed-oil, castor-oil, and cotton-seed oil. The
works consume annually the enormous amount of one
thousand tons of pig-lead, in addition to fifty thousand
bushels of castor-beans, one hundred thousand bushels of
flaxsecd, and forty-five thousand bushels of cotton-seed.
The works of the company alone cost nearly two hun-
dred thousand dollars, and have a frontage of nearly
six hundred feet on Second Street. They have eigh-
teen stacks, holding each five thousand pots and forty
thousand pounds of metal. As many as eighty-five
men are given employment at these works, to whom
the company pay about sixty thousand dollars annually.
The Southern White Lead and Color Company
erected its works in the fall of 1865. They are situ-
ated at the corner of Main and Lombard Streets. The
company devotes its attention almost wholly to the
1238
HISTORY OF SAINT LOUIS.
production of white lead, and its brands, like those
of all other St. Louis works, have already gained an
enviable reputation, especially throughout the Southern
and Southwestern States. Its lot has a frontage of
two hundred and fifteen feet on Main Street and one
hundred feet on Lombard Street. The works have
twenty stacks of a capacity of five thousand pots each,
ten pounds of lead to a pot. The consumption of pig-
lead is twelve hundred tons yearly, the supply being
obtained from Missouri, Iowa, Wisconsin, and also
Germany. The product of the Granby mines in Mis-
souri is as highly esteemed as that of any other State
in this country or of Europe, but good metal is not
always to be had in large enough quantities at home,
and hence the company is compelled to go abroad.
Iron. " Here is the centre of the world's trade, here
is the future metropolis of the world's empire, in the
favored child of the mighty valley of the Mississippi,
the City of the Iron Crotm." l This declaration ceases
to be hyperbole when St. Louis is regarded as the centre
of that iron region " where they have enough ore (iron)
to run one hundred furnaces for one thousand years."
With Iron Mountain, Pilot Knob, Shepherd Moun-
tain, Simmons' Mountain, and thousands of other
deposits to glut the forges of the future, St. Louis
cannot fail to become the grandest iron work-shop in
the world. " Concentrated in a limited area, sur-
rounded on all sides by the grandest agricultural dis-
trict of the globe, with unlimited supplies of coal,
with timber and water-power unsurpassed upon the
continent, with a genial climate and healthy homes
for the operatives, and their food cheaply produced
almost at their doors, with the world for a market,
and transportation facilities for reaching its most dis-
tant point, it is not difEcuk to see a prosperous future
for a section so happily situated and so richly en-
dowed," and even exaggeration seems impossible in
forecasting the future prospects of a city which is
the centre and the commercial and manufacturing me-
tropolis of a country so favored with natural advan-
tages.
As early as September, 1814, D. Stewart, on Main
Street, adjoining the store of T. Hunt & Co. and
opposite the dwelling of William C. Carr, " manu-
factured all kinds of cut nails, brads, sprigs," and
sold them at the following prices : 6d., 7d., 8(7., 10c/.,
12<?., and 2(W. at twenty cents per pound ; 4d. at
twenty-five cents per pound. He sold the best quan-
tity of bar-iron at fourteen cents per pound, or twelve
and a half cents by the ton. The establishment of iron
1 Address by Charles P. Johnson, of St. Louis, before the
State Immigration Convention, April 13, 1880.
foundries in St. Louis, it is believed, antedates the
mining of the ores, and may be regarded as having
been begun in 1817, when Lewis Newell landed in
the then thriving village and commenced the business
' of blacksmithing, giving special attention to the mak-
ing of edge tools. His fame soon spread abroad as a
great axe-maker. At this time St. Louis was an im-
portant centre of the fur trade of the West ; the de-
mand for wolf-traps, beaver-traps, and squaw-axes was
very considerable, and Newell soon made a specialty
of the manufacture of these implements, the produc-
tion of a good quality of which brought him at once
wealth and a wider fame. About that time, too, the
old French cart began to be superseded by the Yan-
kee wagon, all the cast-iron hub-boxes for which had
to be brought from Pittsburgh, as indeed all other
iron castings. Then it was that the idea of founding
first entered the brain of the first St. Louis founder.
Newell saw that if he could make the hub-boxes he