The Life of Henry Bradley Plant: Founder and President of the Plant System of Railroads and Steamships and Also of the Southern Express CompanySmyth, G. Hutchinson (George Hutchinson)
History
The Life of Henry Bradley Plant: Founder and President of the Plant System of Railroads and Steamships and Also of the Southern Express Company
Smyth, G. Hutchinson (George Hutchinson)
Plant family; Plant, Henry Bradley, 1819-1899
Mr. Plant led a very busy life in Augusta. He lived with his wife at the
hotel, and, when she was travelling in the North in the summer, he had
his office, for convenience, on the same floor as his bedroom. It had
been his habit to keep pad and pencil by his bedside, so that when there
came to his mind a matter that called for attention he at once put it
down on his memoranda. He was constantly receiving reports from his
express offices all over the South. There came to him, for adjustment,
many questions of management that were perplexing and urgent, so that he
was often on the road, called away at short notice, north, south, or
southwest. Complications, great, varied, and numerous, were superinduced
by the civil war. The railroads were often seized by the contending
armies, offices were raided, and confusion worse confounded heaped
troubles thick and fast upon the president of the company, sufficient to
have crushed a man of ordinary brain and nerve. But Mr. Plant was not
the man to give way to difficulties,--only coolly to plan, determine,
execute, and conquer.
The following communication in memorandum form, from one intimately
acquainted with Mr. and Mrs. Plant while in Augusta, Georgia, will be
found suggestive of the busy life he led, and will prove valuable in
furnishing the dates when he lived in that city, and the location of his
various residences while there. Moreover, its sequel sounds like the
plot of a good novel.
“Mr. and Mrs. H. B. Plant became residents of Augusta, Georgia, in 1854.
Captain W. and his wife moved to that city in 1855. Both families
boarded at the Eagle and Phœnix Hotel, and thus became acquainted.
The Eagle and Phœnix was on Broad Street, and is now believed to be
the property of Mr. Plant. Mr. Plant was busy organizing and developing
the express business, was continually on the road, and made frequent
visits to the North. He moved to the Globe Hotel about the summer of
1856. Captain W. and his wife moved to the Trout House, in Atlanta,
Georgia, early in 1858, and Mr. and Mrs. Plant joined them there and
spent the summer months with them, while Mr. Plant still made Augusta
his headquarters and was constantly on the road.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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