Memoirs continues... Page seven... I left the Hotel Wagner and walked up Academy Hill, I walked along Cliff Street. Just here I collided with the Reverend Francis Stoddard Haines, the Dutch Reformed minister, who was a great friend of mine. Hurrying on I passed Dave Craig's house, the pretty cottage of Mrs. Dewey, Dr. Peter Sloanes, and further on Peter Skinnus (?), Bronwell Fox, Daniel Reed, Adam Smith, Frank Shubert, and then I found myself home, the old brick house with a slate mansard roof stood on the little plot of ground between Shubert's and the road which leads down the hill to the street running on the level of the West Shore Railroad tracks. From our back porch there was a wonderful view of the Mohawk Valley stretching away in the distance westwardly, and when I was a boy this view was one of my joys, and I used to love to watch the trains of the New York Central come around the curves of the river on the opposite side of the valley, and on the near side one could see the canal boats slowly navigate their way up and down along side of the winding Mohawk. There, in the yard in back of the house, stood my horse, Dandy. He knew my step. He whinnied to me a home greeting. The door opened and my mother saw me. The joy of her greeting, and her, "Dear boy, so happy to have you back," and my father's warm clasp, and his, "Mother and I have dinner for you!" And, oh, the good home cooked dinner, with my favorite dessert, fresh rhubarb pie! Then I ran around the house to greet Dandy and kissed his warm soft nose, and mounting him I went for a ride. Over the hills I galloped, youth and joy, so glad to return home, so happy to see again the wonderful panorama of that beautiful valley. From the crest of a hill I drank in that gorgeous view, miles and miles of blue valley and green sunlit hills stretching away as far as the eye can see, the air filled with the song of the larks, the buzz of the bee, and the scent of the spring flowers. A farmer's wagon passed me, and I pulled Dandy to one side of the road to let it pass. It was a rattling green body with red wheels, the driver perched up on a high seat in front. He called to me, "Howdy, fine morning, John." I can see it all now. Oh, that peaceful, lovely valley; that dear horse, Dandy, my sweet daydreams, my happy youth! Before John Vosburgh, the father of Maude, became proprietor of the Mohawk Hotel, their house used to be a rendezvous for the young people of the village. Maude was the liveliest and gayest of all the town girls, and we certainly made things hum in this home. Maude's mother was the sweetest and dearest woman I have ever known, and we all called her Aunt Kate. Raymond, of course, held first place in Maude's affections, but I was an old friend, and I used to love to be with them. Raymond had a brother named Will. Will Lipe was one of the handsomest young men I ever saw, always dressed in the height of fashion. He was living in New York, but often visited Canajoharie, and we all admired him, both because of his genial personality, and because he was right up to date in everything, and brought to us the latest fads of the big city. Ed Frost was also a happy, good natured individual, and he used to dole out the ice cream sodas in Tom Daggert's (Dygert?) drug store, which was a favorite hangout for the young people on warm summer afternoons and evenings. Raymond Lipe owned a saddle horse, and we two often rode together around the country. Raymond was buying hay, and we sometimes traveled many miles though the farming country adjacent to the Mohawk Valley. It was on these rides that the scheme of starting a packing business was conceived. Raymond had a recipe for preserving hams which he said were superior to any hams in the world. He sent us one to try, and my father, who was fond of ham, said he never ate a finer flavored ham. Raymond proposed, on one of our horseback excursions, that we start a ham packing business. I suggested to father that he back us in the enterprise. Raymond also talked this over with his brother Walter, and I interested my brother David in the idea, and finally father decided he would back us provided we all of us took hold. The result was that we met in H. L. Huston's law office and organized the Imperial Packing Company. We rented Dan Soul's Saloon property because he had a large refrigerator, and because it was convenient and cheap. This property stood on the site that is now the plant of the Beechnut Packing Company. It is said "Fool's rush in where angels fear to tread," and I now wonder how we four boys had the nerve to tackle such a business without any of us knowing the slightest thing about the technique of the pork business. At any rate, we did start in, and as Dan Souls said to us when we rented his store, "Well, boys, big pains from little toe corns grow," meaning, I suppose, he thought we would not last long but would have a lot of experience. Shortly after this, we interested Mr. Bartlett Arkell in this infant enterprise, and this was an important move we made and it was the salvation of this new-born industry, as under his advice and management this business finally became the Beechnut Packing Company, a highly successful venture. Due to our ignorance of the proper methods of curing and handling pork, we spoiled a whole carload of hams and we had to sell these at a loss, which frightened my father, who decided that this was too risky a business to be in and he insisted that my brother and I sell out. We sold our shares to the Lipe boys and retired from the concern in 1892.

1892-1896 We moved to Brooklyn, New York, in the spring of 1902 (? should be 1892, JR). My brother, David, joined the Produce Exchange in New York, and Father bought him a partnership in a flour and grain business. I tried my hand at several occupations in the next four years, but was never successful in any. In the spring of 1896 I found employment with the Wall Street firm of Ashwell & Company, 30 Broad Street, and remained with this concern for eleven years, or until the death by accident of W. C. Ashwell, the head of this firm, which took place in 1907. During my connection with Ashwell & Company I witnessed many important events in the history of Wall Street, and the country generally. When I first became connected with this firm stocks were very low priced and many companies were in bankruptcy. In 1897 began a "bull" market after the election of William McKinley as president, and this continued until the spring of 1899 when a severe break occurred in the market. During this period occurred the Spanish American War. Then later on in 1901 another break occurred in stocks. In the eleven years I served in Wall Street I saw the Northern Pacific "corner," the Southern Pacific "pool," run by James R. Keene, burst; the John W. Gates' panic; the formation of the Steel Trust; the election of President Roosevelt, the "bronco busting" of the Standard Oil Company, the money panic of 1907. There were many other startling events including the assassination of President McKinley, the Boer War, the Gates crowd speculation, the Equitable Life investigation, the sinking of the Maine, and the Tom Lawson and H. H. Rogers' fiasco in Amalgamated Copper, but these are sufficient to show how very uncertain stock prices were and how difficult it was to forecast, with any accuracy, the prices. To begin with I saved a few hundred dollars and started in to buy the market in the summer of 1897, and by the spring of 1898 I had run this small sum up into the thousands. All anyone had to do during this period was to buy and away up went everything. During the Northern Pacific "corner" I was lucky enough to hold two hundred shares of Northern Pacific but unfortunately sold it out too soon, in fact the night before the "corner" took place. I made forty points on the sale, which wasn't so bad, but if I had held on until the morning of the next day I would have had a good many hundred points, as it sold on that day at one thousand dollars per share. In 1899, on April 27th, I married Lucia B. Gregory of Fort Plain, New York, my boyhood sweetheart. Newspaper clipping attached; from the Utica Observer: A Fort Plain Wedding Marriage of John D. Zieley of Brooklyn and Miss Lucia B. Gregory.

Fort Plain, April 28–(Special)–At high noon yesterday, at the Gregory residence in this village were married Miss Lucia Babcock Gregory and John David Zieley, of Brooklyn. The ceremony was peformed by the Rev. E. A. McCullum, of the Reformed Church, in the east parlor, in the presense of about 125 guests. The bridal party entered the parlor to the strains of the Lohengrin wedding march, executed by Leppetrt's Orchestra, in the following order: Groom and best man; ushers, Edward H. Stichel, of this village, and David Zielley, Jr., of Brookyn; ring bearer, little Isabelle Rose Gregory of Newark, N. J., with the ring on a silver tray; bridesmaids, misses May G. Edwards and Ella R. Zieley, of this village; bride leaning on the arm of her brother, Delancy Gregory. The bride's gown was of white crepe de chine over white silk, with corsage of point lace and chiffon, and she wore a tulle veil with coronet of orange blossoms, and a diamond pendant, the gift of the groom. She carried a bouquet of lillies of the valley. ******************************************************************

End of Part One

Part Two: Please go to the next page (eight) for the start of Part Two, at the bottom of this page.