CAPTAIN ROBERT DOLLAR

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 75, Issue 118, 21 May 1932, Page 12

CAPTAIN ROBERT DOLLAR

ORIGINAL OF “CAPPY BICKS” Captain Robert Dollar, whose death was reported this week from San Rafael, California, was the original of Afr. Peter B. Kyne’s “Cappy Ricks.” He was born at Falkirk, Scotland, on March 20, 1844. His father, William Dollar, worked in a timber yard and young Robert was educated at a common school until he was 11 years old. He went to Canada soon after that and began his active career at the. age of 13 doing odd jobs at 10s a week in a lumber camp in that Dominion. From poverty he rose ultimately to affluence and power. In 1856 he went to the United States and became a natural ised citizen of that country in 1888. In the meantime (1874) he had married Aliss Alargaret Proudfoot, of Ottawa. He settled at San Francisco and engaged in foreign trade and lumber business on an extensive scale, becoming known as one of the largest

operators of ocean vessels in the world. He was president of the IDollar Steamship Co., the Robert Dollar Co., the Admiral Oriental Co., the Dollar Portland Lumber Co., the Canadian Robert. Dollar Co. Also he was director of the American International Corporation, of the Anglo-London and Paris Bank, the San Francisco Savings Bank, etc. Captain Dollar was 53 when he first entered the shipping business with a vessel called The Newsboy. He was said to have been the first shipowner to carry the American flag round the world on regular trips. The ship Retriever mentioned by Air. Kyne in his “Cappy Ricks” stories, until recent years was used as a hulk in Auckland Harbour, and now lies rotting at Pine Island. The vessel was abandoned in mid-Pacific about six years ago, and was picked up by the Union Company’s Talune and towed to Papeete waterlogged, and with only her foremast standi:• From Papeete she was brought to Auckland. For many years Captain Dollar made trips round the world annually in his own ships, one such voyage being undertaken when ho was 82. Invariably he visited his birthplace, Falkirk, on these trips, and he was given the jfrccdom of that city and keys thereof as well as those of Boston. New York and Shanghai. He was also the recipi-' ent of several medals from Chin*.