OCR Text |
Show WENTTO WAR WITH -A "BEECHER BIBLE." According to the press the public has lost, in the passing of MajorPond, 4fthe most remarltable manager of celebrities the world has ever seen." The list of the celebrities whose tours he. managed man-aged is really the list of all the great orators, singers, authors, artists, travelers, humorists and lecturers who appeared in this country during his business life. He managed them all from the time of Henry Ward Beecher to Booker T. Washington. Wash-ington. He knew more prominent people intimately inti-mately than any other man in the land. His life was eventful from the time when, as a lad, he went to Wisconsin and, carried away by the sentiment senti-ment around him, engaged in underground slave running. In 185G, at the age of 18, he joined John Brown in his famous raid. As a member of the band he carried one of the Sharp's rifles known as the Beecher Bible, for the reason that the guns were shipped west by Abolitionists as Bibles. Three years later he -was among the pioneers who made the rush to Colorado and Pike's Peak. Within two years he had enlisted in the cavalry and with a hundred thousand others was trying to capture Richmond and the south. He was one of the seventeen survivors out of one hundred and eighteen Union cavalrymen who were attacked by Quantrell in the Baxter Springs massacre. Later on he appeared in Utah as the proprietor of its first" Gentile paper, The Salt Lake Tribune. Then his life work began. HOW HE BEGAN HIS CAREER When Ann Eliza Young apostatized, Major Pond was delegated to go with her to Washington, Washing-ton, where she told her story of Mormonism to congress. At once the genius of the major as a manager began to shine. Ho quickly realized the possibility of making money with Ann Young as a lecturer. He stopped at Denver for a trial. "I got the school room," he used to say, "and charged one dollar and a half for a ticket. I sold four hundred tickets, and that six hundred dollars dol-lars well, it was an eye-opener for me as to what might be done in the lecture field. I believe I've "wprked it pretty well since." The major had countless delightful anecdotes on the celebrities ho had managed. Once he had a contract with Mark Twain in which it was stipulated that the humorist was "to be kept moving" on the road. "At a little town in Minnesota," the major used to recount. "We had been kept waiting for a train since 4 o'clock in the morning. MARK TWAIN'S CONTRACT. "Mark began to grow uneasy and finally said, 'I'm tired of this business, Pond. You contracted with me to travel and here you keep me waiting for late trains that never arrive.' Mrs. Twain expostulated ex-postulated with him for his remark, but he persisted per-sisted in his stand and said. 'I contracted with Pond to travel and I insist on his carrying out his contract.' A11 right,' I said, 'I'm willing to give you all the traveling you want if you'll tell me how to do it. This station has no wheels on it so I can't trundle you. But he got around the difficulty by sitting on a wheelbarrow, and he never ceased growling at me for breaking my contract con-tract till I began to wheel him up and down the platform." San Francisco Town Talk. |