Henry B. Plant | |
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| Born | Henry Bradley Plant (1819-10-27)October 27, 1819 |
| Died | June 23, 1899(1899-06-23) (aged 79) New York City, US |
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| Employer | Plant System (founder) |
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| Children | Morton |
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Henry Bradley Plant (October 27, 1819 – June 23, 1899), was a businessman, entrepreneur, and investor involved with many transportation interests and projects, mostly railroads, in thesoutheastern United States. He was founder of thePlant System of railroads andsteamboats.
Born in 1819 in Branford,, Connecticut, Plant entered the railroad service in 1844, serving as express messenger on the Hartford and New Haven Railroad until 1853, during which time he had entire charge of the express business of that road. He went south in 1853 and established express lines on various southern railways, and in 1861 organized the Southern Express Co., and became its president. In 1879 he purchased, with others, theAtlantic and Gulf Railroad of Georgia, and later reorganized the Savannah, Florida and Western Railroad, of which he became president. He purchased and rebuilt, in 1880, the Savannah and Charleston Railroad, now Charleston and Savannah. Not long after this he organized the Plant Investment Co., to control these railroads and advance their interests generally, and later established a steamboat line on the St. John's river, in Florida. From 1853 until 1860 he was general superintendent of the southern division of the Adams Express Co., and in 1867 became president of the Texas Express Co. In the 1880s, most of his accumulated railroad andsteamship lines were combined into thePlant System, which later became part of theAtlantic Coast Line Railroad.
Plant is particularly known for connecting the previously isolatedTampa Bay area andsouthwest Florida to the nation's railroad system and establishing regular steamship service between Tampa, Cuba, andKey West, helping to spark significant population and economic growth in the region. To promote passenger traffic, Plant built the largeTampa Bay Hotel resort along his rail line through Tampa and several smaller hotels further south, starting the area's tourist industry. His semi-friendly rival,Henry Flagler, similarly sparked growth along Florida's opposite coast by building theFlorida East Coast Railroad along with several resorts along its route.[1]
Henry Bradley Plant was born inBranford, Connecticut, to Betsey (née Bradley) and Anderson Plant, a farmer in good circumstances. He was the descendant of John Plant who probably emigrated from England and settled atHartford, Connecticut, about 1639. When the boy was six, his father and younger sister died of typhus. Several years later his mother married again and took him to live first atMartinsburg, New York, and later atNew Haven, Connecticut, where he attended a private school. His grandmother, Betsy Plant, who hoped to make a clergyman of him, offered him an education atYale College, but, impatient to begin an active career, he got a job as captain's boy, deck hand, and man-of-all-work on a steamboat, The New York, plying between New Haven and New York City.
Among his various duties was the care ofexpress parcels. This line of business, hitherto neglected, he organized effectively. After marrying Ellen Blackstone in 1843, Plant decided to stay ashore and took a position with Beecher and Company, an express company located in New Haven which was taken over by theAdams Express Company. Plant was transferred from steamboats to railroads. After a few years he was put in charge of the old York office of the company. In 1853 his wife, Ellen Elizabeth (Blackstone) Plant was ordered South for her health. After a journey of eight days, the Plants arrived in Jacksonville in March and spent several months at a private home nearJacksonville, Florida, then a tiny hamlet. Plant was impressed with the possibilities of the future development of Florida.
The next year, after it became necessary for his wife to again travel south for her health, he requested and obtained the responsibility for all Adams Express Company's interests in the territory south of thePotomac andOhio rivers. In the face of great difficulties, he successfully organized and extended express service across this region, where transportation facilities, although rapidly growing, were still deficient and uncoordinated. At the approach of theCivil War the directors of Adams Express, fearing the confiscation of their Southern properties, decided to sell them to Plant for his promissory note of $500,000. With Southern stockholders of the company he organized in 1861 theSouthern Express Company, aGeorgia corporation, and named himself president. Because he had built a reputation for providing reliable and efficient express service, the cabinet ofConfederate presidentJefferson Davis made Plant's company the agent for theConfederacy in collectingtariffs and transferring funds. In 1863, claiming a serious illness, he left his home in Augusta with a safe passage document signed by Jefferson Davis and sailed to Bermuda. After spending a month there, he traveled to Canada, Connecticut, and then England. When in France, he was informed that his Confederate passport was not valid. After some discussion with French authorities, an unusual resolution was reached as he was issued a French passport declaring him a U.S. citizen residing in Georgia which allowed him to travel extensively across Europe and later re-enter the United States when he returned to New York by way ofCanada.
After the war, Plant returned to the South in February, 1865 to reclaim his business interests, primarily the Southern Express. The railroads of the South had been practically ruined and many railroads went bankrupt in thedepression of 1873. In this situation, he found his opportunity. Convinced of the eventual economic revival of the South, he bought atforeclosure sales in 1879 and 1880 theAtlantic and Gulf Railroad and theCharleston and Savannah Railroad. With these as a nucleus he began building along the southernAtlantic seaboard a transportation system that twenty years later included fourteen railway companies with 2,100 miles of track, several steamship lines, and a number of important hotels. In 1882 he organized, with the assistance of Northern capitalists (among whom were M. K. Jesup, W. T. Walters, andHenry Morrison Flagler, who himself would be instrumental in the development of Florida's east coast) thePlant Investment Company, aholding company for the joint management of the various properties under his control. He reconstructed and extended several small railroads so as to provide continuous service across the state, and by providing better connections with through lines to the North he gave Florida orange growers quicker and cheaper access to Northern markets.
In 1887, Plant built thePICO Hotel inSanford for the accommodation of his railroad and steamship passengers to Central Florida.[2] Subsequently, he either built or purchased the Inn at Port Tampa (1888), Hotel Kissimmee (1890), Seminole Hotel (1891), Hotel Punta Gorda (1894), The Ocala House (1895), and the Fort Myers Hotel (1898).
Tampa, then a village of a few hundred inhabitants, was made the terminus of his southern Florida railroad and also the home port for a new line of steamships toHavana. For the accommodation of winter visitors he built in Tampa, in the style of a Moorish palace, an enormous hotel costing over $3,000,000 and covering 6 acres situated on 150 acres. Opened on February 5, 1891, it was the first hotel in Florida to have an elevator, electric lights, and a telephone in each room. The hotel was called the Tampa Bay Hotel and was famous for its fanciful Moorish and Victorian architecture. In 1898, this hotel gained international fame as the stateside military headquarters for the U.S. invasion force during the Spanish–American War. The hotel now serves as the main building for theUniversity of Tampa and houses theHenry B. Plant Museum. Another large, Victorian-style hotel established by Plant was opened in 1897, theBelleview Biltmore nearClearwater, Florida.
The subsequent growth in wealth and population of Florida and other states tributary to the Plant System made its founder one of the richest and most powerful men in the South. A good physical inheritance, preserved by temperate habits, made it possible for Henry Plant to keep working until almost eighty years of age.
His first wife died in February 1861, and in 1873 he married Margaret Josephine Loughman, the daughter of Martin Loughman of New York City, who with one of his two sons survived him. He was honored at the Cotton States and International Exhibition in 1895 in Atlanta, GA with his own, Henry Plant Day.
Henry Plant built or bought eight hotels, including several inTampa, Florida and the new town ofPort Tampa, which he built at the end of his rail line. His most prized hotel was theTampa Bay Hotel, a lavish resort built right across theHillsborough River from Tampa. Built at a cost of $3 million, it was said to be an attempt to compete with fellow industrialistHenry M. Flagler, who was developing Florida's east coast.
Plant died from heart disease in New York City on June 23, 1899.[3]
In his will he attempted to prevent the partition of his properties to the value of about $10,000,000 by forming a trust for the benefit of his grandson, Henry Plant II (born 1895), but the will was contested by his widow and son and declared invalid under the laws of the state of New York. This decision made possible the consolidation of his railroads with other properties to form theAtlantic Coast Line Railroad, today a key portion of the Florida operations ofCSX Transportation.
Plant's son,Morton Freeman Plant (1852–1918), was vice-president of the Plant Investment Company from 1884 to 1902 and attained distinction as a yachtsman. He was part owner of thePhiladelphia baseball club in theNational League, and sole owner of the New London club in theEastern League. Of the younger Plant's many gifts tohospitals and other institutions the most notable were the three dormitories and the unrestricted gift of $1,000,000 to theConnecticut College for Women. His former1905 mansion onFifth Avenue in New York City is now the home ofCartier.
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