Background
William Sargent Ladd was born in Holland, Vermont, son of Nathaniel Gould and Abigail (Mead) Ladd and a descendant of Daniel Ladd who emigrated from England in the seventeenth century. The family moved to New Hampshire in 1830.
William Sargent Ladd was born in Holland, Vermont, son of Nathaniel Gould and Abigail (Mead) Ladd and a descendant of Daniel Ladd who emigrated from England in the seventeenth century. The family moved to New Hampshire in 1830.
William at fifteen worked on a farm, at nineteen taught a village school, and afterward became station agent for the Boston, Concord & Montreal Railroad at Sanbornton Bridge (Tilton). This position he held until 1851, when he was attracted to Portland, Oregon, by stories of the opportunity to make money by outfitting and provisioning the California miners. At this time Portland had a population of about seven hundred and had become the metropolis of the Pacific Northwest.
Here Ladd with a small stock of goods became a merchant, prospered, erected the first brick building in 1853, was elected mayor in 1854, and in 1859 established the first bank north of San Francisco under the name of Ladd & Tilton, an institution that weathered successfully the panics of the succeeding years.
Ladd was the principal financial supporter and the leading promoter of many transportation and industrial enterprises, including the Oregon Steam & Navigation Company (1862), which enjoyed a monopoly of transportation on the upper Columbia River during the boom times of the Idaho gold rush and made fortunes for its owners; its successor the Oregon Railroad & Navigation Company (1879); the Oregon Iron & Steel Company (1866); Oregon Telegraph Company (1862); Oregon Central Railroad Company (1866); Oregon & Idaho Telegraph Company (1868); and the Portland Flouring Mills (1883), described in 1890 as "the largest manufacturing corporation in the Northwest states. " He took over Villard's unfinished Portland Hotel in 1887 and in three years completed it, giving his city the finest hotel of its day in the region. He also helped to form companies for the manufacture of furniture and cordage and established model farms for raising highbred stock and for conducting agricultural experiments.
Ladd was also known for his public interests and philanthropies. He made gifts to churches and schools, gave $50, 000 to the Presbyterian Theological Seminary of San Francisco (1866); was an early member of the public-school board and the Portland Library Association, giving the library free quarters in his bank building for twenty years; set aside one tenth of his yearly income for charity and beneficence, and by his will set up a trust fund of a half-million dollars to be used for charitable purposes. At his death, he was worth more than ten million dollars. Paralyzed in his lower limbs at the age of forty-nine, he continued in the face of this handicap an active direction of his varied interests.
Quotes from others about the person
"The biography of William S. Ladd, " wrote the editor of the Oregonian (Jan. 7, 1893), "wants but little of being also the history of Portland. .. . He has been foremost, or with the foremost, in every work through which character is given to city and state. "
Ladd was married in 1854 to Caroline A. Elliott, a New Hampshire schoolmate.