Twain once called Connellsville native ‘rotten’
Did You Know? Did you know that a Connellsville native once suffered the wrath of Mark Twain?
William Andrews Clark Sr. spent his first 17 years in Connellsville. His family moved to Iowa in 1856.
He would later make fortunes in mining, railroads and in banking. When he died at the age of 86 in 1925, he was considered one of America’s 50 wealthiest people.
Clarkdale, Ariz, and Clark County, Nev., were both named in his honor. Not bad for a Connellsville native.
But what was bad was his first attempt, in 1899, to become a U.S. senator from the state of Montana.
In those days, Senate candidates were chosen directly by state legislatures. After Clark won election, he admitted he’d bribed some Montana state legislators for their votes.
The U.S. Senate refused to seat him, and later the 14th Amendment of the Constitution (which calls for the elections of U.S. senators by direct popular vote) was passed as a result of Clark’s shenanigans.
Clark would later win a U.S. Senate seat fair-and-square, but his single term, between 1901 and 1907, is said to have been “undistinguished.”
But that didn’t allow him to avoid a sharply worded essay written by Mark Twain.
“He is as rotten a human being as can be found anywhere under the flag; he is a shame to the American nation, and no one has helped to send him to the Senate who did not know that his proper place was the penitentiary, with a ball and chain on his legs. To my mind he is the most disgusting creature that the republic has produced since Tweed’s time,” was the text contained in the essay titled “Senator Clark of Montana.”
Clark’s son, by the way, William Andrews Clark Jr., is credited as being the founder of the Los Angeles Philharmonic in 1919.
Did you know that another Fayette County native made national news when, after he died, his surprising wealth was discovered? Or, as it was later discovered, the whole thing was considered a “canard.”
According to the June 12, 1935, edition of the Chicago Tribune, “Old Fred Schroyer, dressed in virtual rags, used to come to town and often paid his bills in pennies, but today it was revealed the miser-recluse had a fortune of approximately $500,000 cached away in his iron box at home.”
The following day, the Uniontown Morning Herald filled in the supposed details of the German Township man whose “eccentricities, and an acumen for business increased his finances but failed to change his quiet farmer-life.”
The story claimed that Schroyer’s father (William H. Schroyer) had been a close friend of “Mr. Studebaker, who established the automobile firm which netted him a vast fortune.”
The elder Schroyer bought 25,000 shares of Studebaker stock at $1.25 per share, and he sold them at $50 per share.
Fred Schroyer had been known to loan out thousands of dollars to help “hard-pressed school boards and township road supervisor boards.”
Yet an item in the Connellsville Daily Courier on June 17, threw the story of Schroyer’s reported wealth into question.
“Wild and weird stories of Fred Schroyer of Masontown, possessing a fortune of $7,000,000 were branded as ‘utterly absurd’ by Dean D. Sturgis, attorney for the estate,” it said.
He also disputed the report that $102,000 found in a safe was taken to the state police barracks for safe keeping.
“You’d be closer to it if you said several thousand dollars in cash, stocks and bonds were in the safe,” Sturgis added.
Did you know that I’ve discovered yet another visit to Fayette County by the man who once called Uniontown native George C. Marshall the greatest man he knew – Harry S. Truman?
I’ve already written about Truman’s April 27, 1935, speech at the 10th annual banquet and meeting of the Uniontown Chamber of Commerce at the White Swan Hotel.
Truman was junior U.S. senator from the state of Missouri at the time.
He later returned, as president, for a whistle stop speech at the railroad station in Connellsville in 1952.
That visit was known for Truman’s response to a 17-year-old’s sign that read: “H.S.T. (Harry S. Truman) makes waste.”
He told the young man to “go home and kiss your mother.”
The following year ex-president Truman and his wife drove through Uniontown, on June 23, 1953, in their private car. They’d come from Truman’s home in Independence, Mo., and they were headed to Washington, D.C.
But I’ve found yet another visit to Fayette County by Truman. He campaigned in Uniontown just five days before he was elected vice president on Nov. 2, 1944.
The Uniontown Evening Standard estimated that nearly 2,000 people were on hand to hear Truman speak at the Fayette County Courthouse.
He gave his firm support for the re-election of local Congressman J. Buell Snyder. (Snyder easily won re-election.)
Snyder introduced Truman that day. He jokingly referred to him in a way that might have been considered highly inappropriate five months later – when Truman was sworn in as the nation’s 33rd President.
Snyder called Truman, “The boy from Missouri.” Truman didn’t seem to mind. He still gave his hearty endorsement to Snyder, and high praise for the area’s WWII efforts.
“This local has done a magnificent job of helping to win the war,” he said
Edward A. Owens can be reached by e-mail at freedoms@bellatlantic.net.