William Sargent LADD

  General Notes:

Notes from Warren Ladd: of Portland, OR. Received the advantages only of a common school education, although he for a short time attended the Northfield Seminary. He was quick to learn, but after all did not particularly relish the routine life of a student, and soon aboandoned it. At the age of 20 he was employed as freight and passenger agent of the Boston, Concord & Montreal Railroad, and won the confidence and respect of his employers. In 1851 he resigned his position, and, in direct opposition to the advice of parents and employers, he started to seek fortune and fame among the undeveloped territories of the Pacific slope, and he reached Portland the same year, where he accepted a position as clerk and book-keeper for the firm of Wakeman, Dimon & Co, who had sent a stock of goods out here in charge of Mr Gookin, a junior member of the firm. This gentleman shortly afterwards returned east and Mr Ladd took charge of their business, and in partnership with C E Tilton, subsequently purchased the interest of the firm, which partnership existed until 1854, when Mr Tilton withdrew. Mr Ladd continued the mercantile business until April, 1859, when he sold it to his two brothers and Mr S G Reed. In April 1859, in partnership with C E Tilton, he established the first banking-house on the north west coast. He served several times as director of the common schools of Portland. He was on of the founders and for years a director of the Portland Academy, and a warm friend of the Willamette University at Salem. He was the senior member of the banking firm of Ladd & Bush, at Salem; a heavy stockholder and director of OSN Company; director in the Oregon City Woolen Mills and the Salem Flouring Mill Co. He held the position of mayor of Portland.

From the notes of Donald L Ladd: William S. moved with his parents in 1830 to Sanbornton Bridge [now Tilton] NH. He came to Oregon in 1851. His wife to be Caroline Augusta ELLIOTT of NH, followed him within a couple of years and they were married (17 Oct) 1854. William S. became a prominent business person having interest in coal mining, Transportation & shipping, and other endeavors. He held the office of Mayor, set up a lending Library, partnered in the LADD and TILTON bank [later know as LADD & BUSH bank] and was the benefactor in other gifts to the City of Portland. There are several areas in Oregon that carry the LADD name
in his honor; A road, SW of Portland, a subdivision in Portland and I understood
that a glacier on Mt hood was also so named, but I have been unable to find any reference to that in the Geographical Names of Oregon. He and Caroline had seven [7] children, five [5] of which lived to maturity.

A WWII ship was named for William S. LADD of Oregon. The cargo ship, William S. Ladd, was sunk by Kamikaze on Dec.10.1944, 11 mi. S Dulag, Leyte, P.I.

"Data from the book entitled Merchants, Money and Power The Portland Establishment, 1843-1913 Author - E. Kimbark MacColl with Harry H. Stein: He arrived in Portland, Oregon from Sanbornton Bridge, N.H. (Later Tilton, N.H.) He was paralyzed from waist down after 1877.

William S. Ladd arrived in Portland, Oregon three months after the town's incorporation, in early April, 1851. Coming ashore with a small consignment of liquor, a character reference from his Congregational minister, a hole in his shoe, and cash to survive for two weeks. The 24-year-old Ladd was short on cash but long on ambition and was destined to become a major business and political leader in the territory, believing that Oregon afforded him great opportunity.

Ladd was barely covering expenses and hard pressed for money, when he needed to pay property tax. If Ladd could not pay the $6, he could in traditional American fashion dig up and remove two stumps in front of his shop, which he did.

Ladd added to his liquor stock by touring valley farms; adding eggs, chickens and other produce. He also became a commissioned merchant selling consigned goods consisting of shaving soap, tobacco, paper, farm tools, blasting powder, and other items. The sweet smell of success came to Ladd after only five months in Portland.

Ladd was involved in politics and was elected to the city council in 1853 and chosen mayor in 1854.

The gold strike put Ladd heavily into gold-dust transactions with San Francisco and New York banks. In 1854, he found himself extending credit along with other Portland merchants, making loans, receiving deposits and generally functioning as a banker to customers. Never a borrower himself, he loaned money to customers at 1 percent per month, probably standard for the period. If not repaid promptly and fully, Ladd took goods in exchange, or in later years, a piece of property. In 1859, Ladd and his San Francisco associate would form the Ladd & Tilton Bank, destined to become Portland's leading and most profitable financial institution. The bank indispensably advanced Portland's growth and industrialization by providing working capital to many non-mercantile enterprises, especially manufacturing Ladd erected Portland's first brick structure during the summer of 1853.

Within 10 years, the group of dedicated Front Street merchants consisting of William S. Ladd, Henry W. Corbett, Cicero H. Lewis and Josiah and Henry Failing, and their families would dominate the economic, political and social life of Portland. All became warm and lasting friends, close-knit, they trusted and respected one another as business people without losing their sharp competitiveness.

All of Portland as well as the officials of River View Cemetery were shocked and dumbfounded when the one and only grave robbery occurred. William S. Ladd, one of the founders of the cemetery and one of Portland's leading citizens was buried at River View Cemetery Jan. 9, 1893. On Tuesday morning, May 18, 1897, a gardener noticed the grave of William S. Ladd had been opened, the top lifted off the wooden box, the metal coffin inside had been cut on three sides and the body was missing. Good detective work resulted in discovery of the body on the west bank of the Willamette River, opposite the Meldrum place, off old White House Road (which is now known as Macadam Avenue) and the arrest of the four men involved was made the following Friday. The body and grave marker, which had been taken for identification in ransom demands, were returned to River View Cemetery by a boat launch. Reburial was not sufficient. It was made certain Ladd's remains would never be disturbed again. After the box was closed, the grave was filled with cement instead of earth, and a guard stood by day and night until the concrete hardened.

"History of the Pacific Northwest, Oregon and Washington 1889", Volume II, Page 411 - 430, Copyright 2000, 2001 - Janine M. Bork: WILLIAM SARGENT LADD. - Of the gentlemen who came to Oregon with the purpose of forming here not only a settled social and political, but also a determinate business order, there is none to-day more prominent than W.S. Ladd. Our state has often invited comparison between her leading men and those of other parts of the nation, not at all fearing that she should suffer even if the investigation and analysis were carried to the extreme. But, in the case of the gentleman before us, such a comparison would never be thought of, since he has long been reckoned among the most wealthy men of the nation even in this age of colossal fortunes. But although thus able to take his place in the line of those who control the financial operations of the United States, the solid, common sense of Oregonians, the most of whom have worked from the ground up, pays but little respect to wealth apart from character. It is therefore a matter of much congratulation that the man who might, most justly of all, assume the name of "Money King," has other claims upon their respect and recognition which make his wealth seem but adventitious. He is as one of the plain, hard-working builders of our state, who has been earnest for the social and moral as well as financial progress of the Northwest, that his name appears here. "Woe to that land whose prince is a child." Equally ill for it when its social and business leaders are men of pleasures and immorality. It has been well for Oregon that her prince on 'change has been one whose social, religious and domestic relations have stimulated and honored the highest of her people.

W.S. Ladd was born at Holland, Vermont, October 10, 1826. As a boy he grew up tall and slender, active of mind and body, and was impelled by a quiet but intense ambition. In his father, Nathaniel Gould Ladd, a physician, and of a family that came to America in 1623, he had a guide and an example of every manly virtue; and in his mother, Abigail Kelly Mead, he found the stimulus to industry, and the life of mental effort. Both his parents were Methodists, and gave him the sort of instruction and training which usually lead to success. Like other New England boys, he went to school and learned to work, and furthermore developed the romantic idea of life on the sea, which was never brought to realization. His parents moved to New Hampshire, and found work for him on a farm, and afterwards bought a piece of fifteen acres of very rough, rocky and wooded land which the youth brought into cultivation by his own personal exertions.

At the age of nineteen, he found a somewhat wider scope for his abilities in teaching a public school at Loudon, New Hampshire; and, although this was one of those districts where the teachers and pupils had pitched battles, he was successful in subduing his impudent pupils at the first encounter, and moreover kept them awake by the use of bright methods, and questions for them to think about.

After the cessation of his duties as pedagogue, the Boston, Concord & Montreal Railway was running its line past Sanbornton Bridge, now known as Tilton, at which place he was residing; and he sought and obtained a situation in the freight house which was established there, and continued in this and other work connected therewith, thereby gaining practical business ideas that became of great service to him thereafter.

For some years after reaching independent life, he had felt an interest in the Pacific coast, having learned of the peculiar products and exports of California; but, upon the discover of gold in1848, he became impressed with the belief that not the region out of which the gold was dug, but that from which supplies and products were obtained for the mines, would obtain the greatest permanent wealth. Finding that the Willamette valley in Oregon bore this relation to the mines of California, he was attracted towards it as a promising field. These abstract considerations were much intensified by conversation with a Mr. Carr, who had been to the Pacific coast, and who, from business operations at San Francisco and at Portland, had laid by something of a fortune, and had returned to the village in which Ladd was living. Determining thereupon to make Oregon his home, the young adventurer, now our banker, made preparations and set sail from New York February 27, 1851.

Arriving at San Francisco, he there found Mr. Chas. E. Tilton, an old school friend, engaged in selling consignments, which he was receiving from New York, to jobbers; and he proposed to him to go into business and thereby sell the goods themselves. To this Tilton did not accede; and Ladd came on up to Oregon. He found our state still exceedingly crude, although, under the administration of Governor Gaines, affairs were taking form. But at Portland all the beginnings were slow and difficult. He carried on a small business in selling out a few articles that he brought with him; but his affairs reached at one time so low an ebb, that he was glad to save paying his six dollars road tax by digging out and burning up a couple of fir stumps in the street in front of his store, which was opposite the ground now occupied by the Esmond Hotel.

Soon afterwards he found an opportunity to close out the goods brought in a vessel to Portland by W.D. Gookin, who had known his father in New Hampshire. By this transaction he cleared a thousand dollars, and immediately reinvesting this sum in articles of ready sale was enabled to prosecute his mercantile business with vigor and increasing profits. Here, indeed, he got the hold and made the beginning of his present great business, which from that time to this has never suffered a retrograde movement. In 1852 he was conducting an independent business, operating, however, with Gookin, who by a successful venture in a vessel with a cargo of lumber to San Francisco had made twenty thousand dollars. Later, Mr. Ladd went to that city to make arrangements for a future mercantile business, and on his return brought up for his friend sixty thousand dollars in coin.

His business habits of this time are remembered as most exemplary, - promptly at his place, often being at hand as early as four o'clock in the summer mornings to help off his customers with their wagon-loads in the cool of the day. He economized his strength, avoided saloons, spent his nights in sleep, not in carousals, - and made it a point to observe the Sabbath by attendance upon public worship. He was a shrewd trader, meeting loss and profits with equal equanimity. Not easily excited, he could view business affairs with coolness, and make the most advantageous moves in the hours of opportunity. Thus, once, upon receiving word from Tilton that turpentine was running low in the San Francisco market, he made a shipment by the steamer General Warren, which was an old vessel. Striking upon the Columbia bar as she went out, she went to pieces. The morning the news of the wreck reached him, Ladd purchased in a few hours all the available turpentine in Portland, and had it in his store. This brought ten dollars a gallon at San Francisco, the profits more than covering his former loss.

In 1852 his business was strengthened by a partnership with Tilton, and in 1853 by the arrival of his brother Wesley. In 1854 he was united in marriage to Miss Caroline A. Elliott, of New Hampshire, a young lady of excellent mental endowments and acquirements, and of a noble character, with whom he had been acquainted since school days. In 1858 steps were taken with Tilton for the formation of a bank; and in 1859 the institution was ready for operations. This is the bank, located at the corner of First and Stark streets, in which so large a part of the monetary business of Oregon has been transacted. It was started on a limited scale; but in 1861 its capital was increased from fifty thousand dollars to one hundred and fifty thousand dollars. The earnings, however, which were returned to the business, brought the capital up to one million dollars. Thereafter dividends were ordered; and, when the partnership was dissolved in1880, bills receivable amounted to upwards of two million, five hundred thousand dollars. It has always done a sound and select business, and has followed the policy of keeping below current interest, as rates have become less and less, asking for instance loans at two and one-half percent per month, when from three to five per cent was readily obtainable. So secure has this bank been that Oregonians have depended upon it as certainly as upon the sunrise or the rainfall. When it made its statement in 1888, there was less than thirteen hundred dollars outstanding, although over one hundred thousand dollars which had been previously charged to profit and loss had been collected since 1880. It is still operating with the same success as formerly.

But while his old store and his bank have occupied his close attention, and have been the principal means of making his fortune, Mr. Ladd has branched out into a large number of other ventures, chiefly of a public interest. He is one of the greatest farmers in the state, owning three farms of his own, and five in partnership with S.G. Reed. He conducts these partly for amusement and recreation, but very much also for the sake of discovering and introducing the most improved methods, testing machinery and importing fine livestock. he has been lavish of his means if these particulars, and has done the state substantial good thereby. He has rigidly followed what he believes will lead to public utility, and for that reason has eliminated from his régime the breading of fast horses. It is understood that he controls about three-fourths of the entire flouring-mill business of the Pacific Northwest. He is identified with the Oregon Iron and steel Company, at Oswego, and has been a controlling stockholder of the Oregon Railway & Navigation Company. He owns lots and buildings all over Portland, and permits in them only respectable and legitimate businesses.

His residence on Jefferson street, built as early as 1859 from drawing of a house which he and his wife saw while on a visit to the South and East at Bangor, Maine, has long been an ornament to Portland. His interest in school matters and public education has been deep and continuous; and he has given his own time to their furtherance. He has been a friend of churches and public charities; and his gifts have been munificent. It is said that an appeal for sufferers, if worthy, has never been refused by him, nor by any member of his family. With his workmen and employés he is easily master, but nevertheless a friend and favorite; and his remembrance of all in his pay every Christmas is a sort of touch of human kindness that makes kin to him the laboring masses. He believes in fairness to all who work, and that their rights and liberty be respected, and denounces the iniquity of combinations of capital which would deprive trade or labor of its freedom. It is for these qualities that he is looked upon with favor and pride by the people of his city and state; and he suffers as little from envy as any rich man in the nation. There are few, indeed, who realize more fully the idea of a man of great wealth and power holding his means as a public trust, and sincerely striving to return all his dollars to the use of society, and to the advantage of his fellow men.

Perhaps nothing shows more fully his unquailing spirit, and the predominance of his will, than his steady and persistent application to business since the infirmity came upon him, by which he has been rendered incapable of physical activity. His uninterrupted application to business and development of great plans is an example of how little the operations of a great mind and spirit depend upon the completeness of these temples of clay in which the soul spends its earthy life.

To his wife he ascribes a great portion of his success, saying: "I owe everything to her. Through all she has been to me most emphatically a help-meet, in the best and highest sense a noble wife, a saintly mother to our children. I can place no adequate estimate upon her help to me in building up our fortunes in this state. Always patient, thoughtful, and courageous, she has cheerfully assumed her part of whatever load I have had to carry. We both started together at bed-rock; and from then until now we have taken every step in harmony."

In his children, Mr. Ladd has special cause for satisfaction. The eldest son, William M. Ladd, inherits much the same vigor of body and intellect and will as have lived in his father. He has been furnished the best of educational advantages, having traveled in Europe, and being an alumnus of Amherst College. He was married in 1885 to Miss Mary Andrews, of Oakland, California. He is a present a partner in the bank. The second son, Charles Elliott, is also a man of fine tastes and scholarly instincts, an alumnus of Amherst College, and is now at the head of the large flouring business. He was married in 1881 to Miss Sarah Hall, of Somerville, Massachusetts. The eldest daughter was married in 1880 to Henry J. Corbett, son of Senator Corbett. The second daughter was married in 1880 to Charles Pratt of Brooklyn, New York, a gentleman well known in the business world as being largely interested in the Standard Oil Company, as well as other large manufacturing interests located in the Eastern States.

Another says of our subject: "No one ever can read the history of W.S. Ladd without being impressed thereby. During his mercantile career, he never misrepresented in order to sell an article. On the street, his word was as good as another's bond. His gifts and donations have been munificent. He endowed the chair of practical theology in the Presbyterian Theological Seminary in San Francisco, in 1886, with fifty thousand dollars, and gave several scholarships to the Willamette University. Throughout a wide extent of country, few churches have been built without aid from him. The bank is a liberal instituti8on, as well as an aid to progress. The Library Association of Portland, has alwa6ys felt his fostering care, having for twenty years occupied, rent free, the second floor of his bank building. It has been his custom from the first to set aside one-tenth of his net income for charitable purposes. It is a principle of his business never to go to the law, except as a last resort."

A life lived upon so high an aim as the above has been of vast service in our state hitherto, and will still be of use in stemming the tides of social, business and political toils that are so fast coming upon us.

1860 Census, Multnohma Co, Oregon
W.L. Ladd, Age 32, Banker, Born in Vt;
C.A. Ladd (Spouse) Age 30, Born in N.H.;
W.W. Ladd, Age 4, Male, Oregon;
E.C. Ladd, Age 3, Female, Oregon;
H.K. Ladd, Age 11/12, Female, Oregon
Also listed are John (Ladd) Chinese from Hong Kong,
Bridget Marony, Age 35, Servant from Ireland,
G.B. Gilbert, Age 21, Servant from N.H. (NOTE: Some initials are incorrect)

  Noted events in his life were:

• Occupation. Railroad Agent, Clerk, Bookkeeper, Mercantile Business, Banker, Director of Schools, Mayor of Portland, OR

• Occupation: Banker, 1860, Portland, Multnomah Co, OR.

William married Caroline Augusta ELLIOTT on 17 Oct 1854 in San Francisco, San Francisco Co, CA. (Caroline Augusta ELLIOTT was born on 18 Mar 1827 in Tilton, NH and died on 23 Oct 1909 in Portland, Multnomah Co, OR.)