DEATH OF AMERICAN TRAMWAY, KING

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 6, 8 January 1916, Page 13

DEATH OF AMERICAN TRAMWAY, KING

'A MULTI-MILLIONAIRE.

Mr. P. A. B Widener, the wellknown financier and multi-millionaire, died early in November last ai Philadolphia. He left behind him a fortune of seven million •'pounds.

Born in tho city where his death took place, Mr. Peter Widener was within a few days of his 81st birthday. He began his career in the "meat business," and is said to have been, in fact, a butcher's errand boy. He first rose to prominence in Republican politics. In the early' 'seventies he was appointed City Treasurer of Philadelphia, an office which ho twice •' served. It was by'his interests in | street railways that ho laid the foundation of his great wealth. He was known in America as the "Tramway" or "Trolley King." His partner in tramway schemes was Mr. William L. Ellrins, who had been a grocer's boy in Philadelphia while Mr. Widener was also still on the bottom rung, and who had made money in the oil-refining business.. When he took up tramways he secured Mr.,Widener's assistance for the extension of his undertakings in Philadelphia, and eventually throughout Pennsylvania and the' neighbouring States. The partners then invaded Chicago, and, with Mr Yerkes, acquired still.wider interests in street cars, which they owned in New York, Pittsburg,Buffalo, and Boston. One thing led to another, and they became controllers of electric lighting and then of coal-mining companies. Among the many other corporations with which Mr. Widener was closely concerned was the American Tobacco Company. Once, when walking with' his partner near a big office building which was in course of construction by a syndicate of which they were prin-. cipals, a crane chain broke, letting fall a great iron girder, which just missed the two millionaires. Mr. Winner was noted for the art treasures which he accumulated. He bought many famous pictures in Europe. In five years he acquired six Rembrandts. From Lord Sackville in 1910 he bought Gainsborough's "Miss Linley and Her Brother" for £40,000. In April, 1911, he purchased from the Marquis of Lansdowne Rembrandt's classic painting, "The Mill." -The price was stated in America to be £100,000. From Italy he bought the Cattaneo Van Dyck, a transaction which led to the more stringent enforcing of the law which aims at preventing masterpieces leaving Italy. The picture was taken from the walls of the palace in Genoa, rolled up, and motored across the frontier, and thence sent to Paris. In February of 1914 Mr. Widener acquired from Mesrs. Duveen, of Now York, the celebrated Panshanger Raphael. For this painting of the Madonna, which was formerly in the colI lection of Earl Cowper at Panshanger House, the millionaire was at j 6rst said to have paid £140,000, a record sum. But later reports placed the price at between £90,000 and £140,000. To Philadelphia. Mr. Widener presented tho building for its Public Library.