Read Online Stress by Loren D. Estleman - Free Book Online
Authors: Loren D. Estleman
Tags: Historical
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migration at its height, A. Crownover & Company was the largest private employer in a city that challenged Philadelphia for the title of wagonmaker to a restless nation.
Politics killed the dream. In 1859, Abner, an ardent abolitionist, met with John Brown on the northern end of the Underground Railroad and agreed to finance Brown’s mad plan to storm the federal armory at Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, and procure weapons for armed insurrection against the United States. After the raid collapsed and Brown was hanged, Abner stood trial for treason. His acquittal for lack of evidence failed to save his reputation, and he was forced to sell his interest in the wagonmaking business to support himself and his second family. He died a broken man on the eve of the second Battle of Bull Run, his country aflame with civil war.
His son, also named Abner, went to work for the company at age eleven to feed his mother and three sisters. By virtue of hard work and intelligent suggestions, he rose from grease boy to regional vice president before his eighteenth birthday. Wagon trains had by this time begun to grow scarce, and as a result of his persuasion the firm turned its emphasis from cross-continental carriers to short-haul freight vehicles, passenger coaches, and finely crafted carriages for the landed gentry. Abner, Jr., himself was credited with the invention of an elaborate system of suspension that smoothed the ride to the theater and the opera and made Crownover’s distinctive coronet emblem a symbol of position and excellence in places as distant as New York, Boston, and San Francisco. In 1874, having ascended to the board of directors, Abner Crownover II sold his house on the River Rouge and took advantage of depressed stock values created by the ’73 Panic to acquire controlling interest in Crownover Coaches. He was twenty-three.
Abner’s first wife having died childless of scarlet fever, he remarried in 1876 and fathered six children, two of whom died in infancy. The eldest of the three surviving boys, Abner III, assumed directorship of the Detroit office in 1898. Edward, the youngest, was placed in charge of the upholstery shop. Harlan, born second and pronounced feeble-brained at an early age, became a dock foreman. When Abner proved himself incapable of making a decision and seeing it through—he would sign a contract with a lumber firm on Friday for the hickory required to frame the company’s popular Town and Country Phaeton, change his mind over the weekend, and dispatch a messenger to intercept the contract on Monday—his father discreetly reassigned him to the new position of Executive Director and appointed a more competent colleague in his place. Upon the colleague’s retirement in 1902, Edward ascended to the regional post widely regarded as the final step before the company presidency. By this time there was pressure among the board of directors to retool the plants in Detroit and Dearborn to provide bodies for the burgeoning automobile industry. Abner II, past fifty now and beset with health problems, resisted, believing that the motorcar was merely a rich man’s toy, beyond the means of even his wealthiest customers, and furthermore was too contrary in its mechanism for practical use. Edward, who had never gone on record in opposition to any of his father’s views, concurred.
Harlan Crownover had been considered slow-witted throughout his first thirty years, his reluctance to join in family discussions interpreted as inability to understand. Six months after taking over the loading dock at the Detroit plant, he inaugurated a system that allowed workers to offload a freight wagon in half the time with less muscular strain, almost eliminating sick days among the crew. He used the extra hours in his working day to meet with automobile pioneers, including Ransom E. Olds and young Henry Ford; convinced by their enthusiasm for their invention, Harlan canvassed the directors for support should those
Politics killed the dream. In 1859, Abner, an ardent abolitionist, met with John Brown on the northern end of the Underground Railroad and agreed to finance Brown’s mad plan to storm the federal armory at Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, and procure weapons for armed insurrection against the United States. After the raid collapsed and Brown was hanged, Abner stood trial for treason. His acquittal for lack of evidence failed to save his reputation, and he was forced to sell his interest in the wagonmaking business to support himself and his second family. He died a broken man on the eve of the second Battle of Bull Run, his country aflame with civil war.
His son, also named Abner, went to work for the company at age eleven to feed his mother and three sisters. By virtue of hard work and intelligent suggestions, he rose from grease boy to regional vice president before his eighteenth birthday. Wagon trains had by this time begun to grow scarce, and as a result of his persuasion the firm turned its emphasis from cross-continental carriers to short-haul freight vehicles, passenger coaches, and finely crafted carriages for the landed gentry. Abner, Jr., himself was credited with the invention of an elaborate system of suspension that smoothed the ride to the theater and the opera and made Crownover’s distinctive coronet emblem a symbol of position and excellence in places as distant as New York, Boston, and San Francisco. In 1874, having ascended to the board of directors, Abner Crownover II sold his house on the River Rouge and took advantage of depressed stock values created by the ’73 Panic to acquire controlling interest in Crownover Coaches. He was twenty-three.
Abner’s first wife having died childless of scarlet fever, he remarried in 1876 and fathered six children, two of whom died in infancy. The eldest of the three surviving boys, Abner III, assumed directorship of the Detroit office in 1898. Edward, the youngest, was placed in charge of the upholstery shop. Harlan, born second and pronounced feeble-brained at an early age, became a dock foreman. When Abner proved himself incapable of making a decision and seeing it through—he would sign a contract with a lumber firm on Friday for the hickory required to frame the company’s popular Town and Country Phaeton, change his mind over the weekend, and dispatch a messenger to intercept the contract on Monday—his father discreetly reassigned him to the new position of Executive Director and appointed a more competent colleague in his place. Upon the colleague’s retirement in 1902, Edward ascended to the regional post widely regarded as the final step before the company presidency. By this time there was pressure among the board of directors to retool the plants in Detroit and Dearborn to provide bodies for the burgeoning automobile industry. Abner II, past fifty now and beset with health problems, resisted, believing that the motorcar was merely a rich man’s toy, beyond the means of even his wealthiest customers, and furthermore was too contrary in its mechanism for practical use. Edward, who had never gone on record in opposition to any of his father’s views, concurred.
Harlan Crownover had been considered slow-witted throughout his first thirty years, his reluctance to join in family discussions interpreted as inability to understand. Six months after taking over the loading dock at the Detroit plant, he inaugurated a system that allowed workers to offload a freight wagon in half the time with less muscular strain, almost eliminating sick days among the crew. He used the extra hours in his working day to meet with automobile pioneers, including Ransom E. Olds and young Henry Ford; convinced by their enthusiasm for their invention, Harlan canvassed the directors for support should those
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