55

Mr. Samuel Shears the Managing Proprietor of the "Lincoln" is the Man.

He Tells Some Interesting Facts in Relation to the War, How the Peace Conference Was Conducted At Niagra.

How a Passport Across the River Was Secured.

Among the prominent citizens of Lincoln is one who is entitled to the distinction of having spent more years in hotel life than any other man in the state, and it is doubtful if any other person in the country has spent as many years in the harness as host as he. Mr. Samuel Shears, the proprietor of the Lincoln, by all odds the finest hotel in the state, was born at Rochester New York in September 1828, and is consequently was sixty-two years of age. At the time of his birth his father was the proprietor of the Monroe house the then leading hotel of Rochester, and from that day to the present Mr. Shears' life has, with the exception of about five years, been spent in a hotel. At the age of eighteen he went to Buffalo and in company with a brother opened and conducted the Arcade, the principal hotel of that city. This they ran until 1851 when he formed a partnership with another brother and for twenty-two years rean the Clifton, the leading hotel on the Canada side of the river at Niagara Falls, Samuel assuming the active management. In the latter part of 1878 they sold out the Cliften and he opened the Boody house at Toledo, then just completed and the finest house in that portion of Ohio. From Toledo he went to Cincinnati where he opened the magnificient Burnett, and remained there until 1882, when he came to Omaha and in company with Messrs. Markel and Swobe built and opened the Millard whose popularity under the direct management of Mr. Shears soon extended from the Atlantic to the Pacific.

Something over two years ago he thought that half a century and more in the harness entitled him to a release from active work and he sold out to his partners. He had however mistaken his own temperament and found that contentment for him was not to be found in the relinquishment of the business habits and activity acquired by his many years of service, and he began to cast about him with the object of again entering the life for which his is so eminently fitted. During this time a number of enterprising and wealthy citizens of this city organized the Lincoln Hotel company, and proceeded at once with the erection of the present magnificent structure, costing nearly $250,000 on the corner of Ninth and P streets. Before it was completed it was leased to Mr. Shears and his former partner in the Millard, Mr. Markel, and it is as joint proprietor and active manager that Mr. Shears may be found, always ready to meet the guests of the house with those polite attentions which at once puts them at their ease and makes them feel at home. The faculty of pleasing the travelling public is born in some men, and is a something that cannot be acquired, and this faculty is possessed to an eminent degree by Mr. Shears. As may be supposed his long career as proprietor of leading hotels has brought him in contact and in numberless cases on terms of familiarity with the celebraties of this and other nations, and he possesses a fund of anecdote and information about people and events that makes him a most interesting conversationalist.

A few evenings ago a JOURNAL man asked him to recount some of the incidents that transpired at his house during that most interesting period of American history, the civil war. In compliance with this request he obligingly seated himself, saying:

"I hardly know how to begin, each day during those stirring times was crowded with events that if fairly told would prove most interesting. As you are aware, Niagra Falls from its location and natural attractions became during the rebellion, the headquarters on on this continent for foreign southern sympathizers. This of itself made it the northern headquarters for copperheads, and large numbers of representative southern men who were in one way or another actual participants in the rebellion. My hotel was the leading one, and from the first became the headquarters for conferences and political intrigue, and as a natural consequence I became acquainted with and entertained many prominent personages. While proprietor I had among other guests of the house the Prince of Wales, who remained five days, Princess Lousia, his sister, the Duke of Endinboro for two weeks and Prince Arthur who remained three months; besides these were innumerable foreign ambassadors and their families in addition to scores of noted men of the United States, both north and south. I must not gorget to mention also Miss Kate Boyd, a daughter of Dr. Boyd a leading and influential citizent of Memphis Tenn., and Mrs. Train, wife of the erratic George Francis Train. Both of these ladies were southern spies, who in some manner unknown to me crossed the river and made their way through the northen states to the confederate capital bearing with them information deemed of importance to the confederate leaders and returning they brought such word as was entrusted to them for transmission from the rebels to their sympathizers and friends at Niagara. Both these women were mediums through whom communication was kept up between Niagara and Richmond, and there was also another medium used which it will suprise you to learn of, and that was a special wire to Louisville, over which confederate messages were sent with the utmost confidence that secrecy would be inviolably maintained; I know that such was the case and to me it was one of the most astonishing bits of information that I became possessed of during the war.

During the early part of the war I had many wealthy northern people at my house, but as the war progressed and the number of southern people increased, the northerners forsook the Falls compelled to do so in a measure by the intensity of feeling that developed between them and the southern sympathizers. An incident that occurred at the house will serve to show to what a degree this feeling was developed. In addition to a large number of southern ladies who were stopping at the house was a party of wives and daughters of weathy New York men. After supper they would all go out on the veranda, the southern ladies occupying one end and the New York ladies the other. One evening some Italian musicians came up on the veranda and began playing "Dixie," One of the New York ladies gave them a half dollar to play the Star Spangled Banner. I was in the office and a gentleman came in and told me if I did not go out and drive those Italians away that the ladies would soon be engaged in a pitched-battle, and sure enough when I went out they were gathered around the musicians, frantic with rage at each other and paying them $5 gold pieces to play certain pieces. I made the Italians come inside and took $90 in gold from them which the ladies had given them and then went out and talked to the ladies about the foolishness of the proceeding, after which I gave each side back $45.

There was a large number of rascals there who made bounty jumping a business. They would cross over into the states get a bounty for enlisting, desert and come back over the river, and perhaps repeat the same thing within a week. A Mr. Spaulding who was appointed collector of customs at the Falls by Mr. Lincoln, established a very close watch and endeavored to prevent anyone crossing the river into Canada without a passport, but as shrewd as he was he met more than his match in George N. Sanders, who had represented Virginia in the United States congress, and was then, I think, a member of the confederate congress. He had been entrusted with a large amount of confederate bonds for the purpose of delivering them to some Englishmen whom it had been pre-arranged were to receive them at the Falls. He succeeded in getting from Richmond through the states to the American side of the falls; here the problem of getting across the river confronted him. He was disguised as a laboring man and carried an old carpet bag in his hand. He decided upon a plan and proceeded to act upon it. He went direct to Spaulding and stating that he wanted to go across the river and about thirty miles inot the country to harvest a crop for a bedriddent brother who was unable to hire it done, asked him to give or lend him a quarter to pay his bridge toll; Spaulding told him that he would have to have a passport as well as a quarter for toll; this information seemed to suprise him greatly and his grief for his stricken brother seemed so genuine that in the end Spaulding not only paid his toll but gave him a passport. He came up to the desk in my office and I thought he was about as forlorn a looking spectacle as I had ever seen enter a first class hotel with the intention of staying and I eyed him suspiciously as he took up a pen and registered, not his name but the letters 'S. N. G.' which, I afterward found to be his initials reversed. I told him that it was required of guests of the house that they register by name, but he made some trifling remark, said it was all right and asked me to put his carpet bag in the safe. I was inclined to think the fellow was a little off his base, and stood looking at him when he took from around his waist a belt heave with gold and asked me to put that in the safe also, that settled it with me, he wanted one of the best rooms in the house, and got it too. Within an hour after his arrival a dozen of the most distinguished men in the house had been up to his room and when he reappeared for supper, he came in full dress with a silk tie, and big diamond in his shirt front.

One of the most interesting events to me was the conference held at my house between Clement C. Clay, Thompson, Mason, and Beverly Tucker on the part of the confederates, and Horace Greely and Dean Richmond as unofficial representatives of the north. President Lincoln's private secretary, Mr. Hayes was also present for the purpose of keeping Mr. Lincoln informed of what was taking place. Of course the southern men were clothed with authority from the government to definite action whil Messrs. Greely and Richmond had no such authority from the administration at Washington and any act that could possibly be construed as a recognition of the south as a separate government was persistently avoided by them. Mr. Greely and his companions had rooms in one end of the house and the southern gentlement in the other. The usual form of communication between them was by unsigned letters. These letters were also unaddressed, but bore peculiar marks. I was instructed as to the significance of these marks and when a lette was left lying in a designated place I knew by the mark upon the envelope for whom it was intended and delivered it personally. I became a great admirer of Horace Greely. I recollect that one night he sat up with me until two o'clock in the morning and talked to me of what he was there for, of the delicacy and importance of the work he had undertaken, and of the hopes he had of a successful ending. His own great heart was bleeding because of the sheading of each others' blood by brothers and his supreme desire was to end the slaughter of war. After they had been there some two weeks, I think it must have been, Dean Richmond sat down by me late one night and said Mr. Shears thank God, we have about come to terms, and our work is nearly done. Although he did not say much about the terms of the proposed agreement he gave me to understand that slavery was not to be interfered with, I delivered into Clay's hands Lincoln's proclamation addressed to whom it may concern but intended in fact as a guarantee of safe escort for Clay and his fellow representatives to Washington. As you are aware the conference failed of its object, and Mr. Greely and his companions departed sad and dejected. To my dying day I shall revere the memory of Horace Greely."

In Spokane Falls.

Senator Frye stepped in to shake hands with the club a few evenings ago. The conversation naturally tuned on home industry. The senator remarked: "I was in Washington at Spokane Falls last year, and was entertained by one of the local boomers. He was a patriarchal old fellow, with a long beard who looked like a deacon, and was worth $5,000,000 or $6,000,000.

He took me out to drive behind a fine pair of horses and showed me the town. One of the objects that attracted my attention was a very long building- a tremendous affair- one of the longest buildings I ever saw in my life.

"How many gambling games do you suppose there are in that building? asked my friend, the patriarch.

"Give it up," said I.

"Thirty-nine."

"Now look here, my friend," said I, "you must destroy that thing, or it will destroy you."

"What do you mean?" he demanded.

"Mean? I mean that you ought to drive it out of town."

"Good God, senator," said he, "if we lose it Tacoma'll get it."