(This book was originally published prior to 1923, and rep...)
This book was originally published prior to 1923, and represents a reproduction of an important historical work, maintaining the same format as the original work. While some publishers have opted to apply OCR (optical character recognition) technology to the process, we believe this leads to sub-optimal results (frequent typographical errors, strange characters and confusing formatting) and does not adequately preserve the historical character of the original artifact. We believe this work is culturally important in its original archival form. While we strive to adequately clean and digitally enhance the original work, there are occasionally instances where imperfections such as blurred or missing pages, poor pictures or errant marks may have been introduced due to either the quality of the original work or the scanning process itself. Despite these occasional imperfections, we have brought it back into print as part of our ongoing global book preservation commitment, providing customers with access to the best possible historical reprints. We appreciate your understanding of these occasional imperfections, and sincerely hope you enjoy seeing the book in a format as close as possible to that intended by the original publisher.
https://www.amazon.com/autobiography-Gurdon-Saltonstall-Hubbard-Papa-ma-ta-be/dp/B00B2JWNDK?SubscriptionId=AKIAJRRWTH346WSPOAFQ&tag=prabook-20&linkCode=sp1&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=B00B2JWNDK
(This book was digitized and reprinted from the collection...)
This book was digitized and reprinted from the collections of the University of California Libraries. It was produced from digital images created through the libraries’ mass digitization efforts. The digital images were cleaned and prepared for printing through automated processes. Despite the cleaning process, occasional flaws may still be present that were part of the original work itself, or introduced during digitization. This book and hundreds of thousands of others can be found online in the HathiTrust Digital Library at www.hathitrust.org.
https://www.amazon.com/Incidents-events-Gurdon-Saltonstall-Hubbard/dp/B006NZCVCQ?SubscriptionId=AKIAJRRWTH346WSPOAFQ&tag=prabook-20&linkCode=sp1&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=B006NZCVCQ
Hubbard was born in Windsor, Vermont, in 1802. He was the son of Elizur and Abigail (Sage) Hubbard and a descendant of Gurdon Saltonstall and of George Hubbard who settled first at Wethersfield and died at Guilford, Connecticut, in 1683. From his early youth his life was one of adventure.
After schooling in private and common schools in Vermont, he was taken to Montreal. There he showed a precocious aptitude for trade and at the age of sixteen apprenticed himself for five years to the American Fur Company, leaving Montreal to accompany the voyageurs of that organization through the waters traveled a century and a half before by La Salle. Possessed of a forceful and engaging personality, he won the confidence of the Indians, who called him "Pa-pa-ma-ta-be, " "The Swift Walker. "
After completing his apprenticeship, he was formally appointed to conduct a trading station on the Iroquois River in Illinois. Later he became superintendent of all the American Fur Company's posts in that region. During the next few years he made frequent trips to Mackinac Island, the headquarters of John Jacob Astor, and covered the country from the straits of Mackinac south to Kankakee and Danville. In 1827 he was admitted to a share in the profits of the company, and in 1828 bought out its entire interests in Illinois.
Hubbard was one of the last representatives in Illinois of the trader who carried on commerce through barter. Although Danville was his official headquarters, Chicago was the point to which his supplies were brought by water and from which his furs were shipped to the East. On one occasion he scuttled his boats in the south branch of the Chicago River and, proceeding on foot to Big Foot's Lake, procured pack ponies and wended his way to the Wabash, dotting the plain with trading posts. The trail he blazed, known as Hubbard's Trail, was for years the only well-defined road between Chicago and the Wabash country. This most picturesque period of his life came to an end with the cessation of the fur trade in Illinois.
It was during the transition from the fur trade to more general commerce that he had the foresight to develop a new avenue of trade by using the growing surplus of hogs in the Wabash country to supply the growing frontier towns. He was the first to see the possibility of establishing a meat-packing industry in Chicago by utilizing the livestock of the Middle West. He understood the fundamental economic factors underlying the packing industry, although his actual processing was primitive compared to the complicated and scientific methods of the twentieth century.
In 1834 he moved his permanent residence to Chicago and eventually became one of the largest meat packers in the western country. Not only did he furnish the western settlements with pork, but he developed a system of transportation on the Great Lakes whereby he shipped barreled pork and tierced lard in sailing vessels to Buffalo and points east. His transportation company, known as the Eagle Line, connecting Chicago, Buffalo, and the upper Lakes, was the first general systematic carrying service touching Chicago and did much to develop the general trade of the region.
Another of Hubbard's contributions to the development of Chicago was due to his foresight in seeing that the future of the city depended upon a network of transportation facilities stretching out in every direction. His fur-trading experience had taught him the need of a canal penetrating the western country. Therefore, while representing Vermilion County in the state legislature in 1832-33, he introduced a bill providing for the construction of the Illinois and Michigan Canal, and upon its defeat, substituted a bill for a railroad, which was defeated by the vote of the presiding officer. After he left the legislature he continued to urge upon succeeding sessions the passage of a canal bill until such a bill actually became law in 1836.
To him in large part Chicago is indebted for the location of the terminus of the canal well within Illinois, instead of at Calumet, Ind. The canal was begun in 1836 and was finished in 1848 and its importance to Chicago cannot easily be exaggerated. That city became at once the pivotal point for the commerce of the lower Mississippi Valley which had theretofore gone to New Orleans and a gateway for the emigration which was to people the untraveled areas of the Far West.
Foreseeing the amazing growth of Chicago, Hubbard, with others, built an immense warehouse and packing plant at La Salle and South Water Streets, where he stored pork greatly in excess of the needs of the town itself and utilized the supplies built up during the winter to carry on his trade throughout the year. This structure was known as Hubbard's Folly, but in it was established the first bank in Chicago, in December 1835, and from it Hubbard issued the first insurance policy ever written in that city. He was one of the incorporators of the first water-works, and one of the leading philanthropists of the city. In 1868 his packing plant was burned, and he lost most of his property and business in the great Chicago fire of 1871. Crippled financially, he retired to private life.
(This book was originally published prior to 1923, and rep...)
(This book was digitized and reprinted from the collection...)
In 1831 he married Elenora Berry of Urbana, Ohio, who died seven years later. By this marriage he had one son. In 1843 he married Mary Ann Hubbard of Middleboro, Massachussets.
