Business & Finance: John Blair's Judgment

When close, old John Insley Blair died in 1899, aged 97, he left behind him some $70,000,000. He was one of the first of the picturesque gentlemen who crosshatched the U. S. with railroads and in the process made huge fortunes. He helped organize Delaware, Lackawanna & Western. He was in with Oakes Ames on the Union Pacific. At one time he was president of 16 separate railroads. He was said to control more trackage than any man in the world.

Thirteen years before the Civil War he started Blair Presbyterian Academy in Blairstown,...

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