While I enjoy reading stories in many forms, there’s nothing quite like a biography.
Munger described reading biographies as gathering wisdom from the “eminent dead”. Not only is it entertaining but also enlightening. You get to glean first-hand experience without having to go through the tribulations. And you end up learning a lot about what not to do, versus finding a story to try and emulate.
More recently, I’ve read biographies about prominent Americans who helped shape the country: Franklin, Washington, Lincoln, Grant, Eisenhower, LBJ, James Baker…
And also financiers and businessmen: Jay Gould, Aristotle Oanassis, Lee Iococca, Walt Disney, J. Paul Getty, Rockefeller, Mark Rich…
And global figures: Mandela, Churchill….
And of contemporaries: Elon Musk, Steve Jobs, David Goggins, Gary Stevenson, Andrew Wilkinson, Andre Agassi, J. Prince…
All these biographies gave me a spark, and imparted some wisdom. These stories of interesting men who I’d heard so much about, and then ‘got to know better’ by reading their biographies.
I found some of their stories inspiring and admirable. Others were cautionary tales. Most were a mix of both.
Somehow we all share the same story, each woven into the complicated tapestry of the collective human journey. These ‘interesting men’ are like me – and I, them.
Some years ago, I was fortunate enough to come across the biography of another ‘interesting man’ – this one from my own family. Someone from my own bloodline who had an inspiring tale – a life full of lessons & wisdom.
And that someone was Edward Courtney, Sr., my great great grandfather.
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Edward Courtney, Sr. was born in County Cavan, Ireland around 1815. County Cavan, like much of Ireland at the time, was in the throes of economic blight after the end of the Napoleonic Wars in Europe. Poverty was rampant, opportunity scarce. The Great Famine loomed over the next generation.
As a 19 year old with an “adventurous spirit”, Edward set out for America to make some money. (~1834) The crossing from Liverpool to New York took nine weeks.
Upon arrival in New York, he worked at a sewer digging site as a shovel man for $1 a day, and he was damn happy to have the work. Notably, he started work “the next day” after landing. No time to waste, just pick up a shovel and go.
He started moving up the ladder, taking odd jobs. He soon found steady work helping build part of the Long Island Railroad for $16 a month – a strong wage for a motivated young man from Ireland.
Before long, a friend invited him up to Albany to learn the bricklaying trade. After 3 years of building his skillset, having a “roaming disposition”, Edward started traveling.
First, a 10 week “stormy voyage” to New Orleans, where again he started “to work … the next day”.
Then, a trip up the Mississippi to St. Louis, where he stopped for a stretch. And then up to Davenport, Iowa, which was “just being staked off as a town”. There he did masonry for “the first hotel of any note in Iowa” – his first big job – and got married. (~1843)
A few years later, he won the contract to plaster a prominent hotel up the river in Dubuque – where he moved with his new family and established himself. He built himself up for the next 5 years.
In 1850, like many others at the time, he got the “California fever” and headed West to look for gold. In the company of “thirty-two wagons”, he crossed the western half of the continent – “a long and toilsome journey of … four months”. He landed in present-day Pacerville, California – then known as Hang Town – to work in the mines, starting work “the next day” true to form.
Ready to return home to his family after a few years of trying his luck at gold mining, he booked passage to sail out of San Francisco. (~1852) In those days, one had to sail down the west coast to Panama, cross the isthmus over land, and then sail back up to New York – all before heading inland towards Iowa. Needless to say, it was a long journey for Edward – and one that he nearly didn’t survive.
The voyage from San Francisco to Panama took “twelve weeks” on an “old vessel”. 400 of the 1,400 passengers died due to malnourishment and other maladies. The dead bodies were thrown overboard. There was a near mutiny before the captain reluctantly gave the passengers access to food stores. On that leg of the journey alone, the death rate was nearly 3 in 10.
After arriving in Panama, only “one-half” of the remaining passengers were healthy enough to make it across the isthmus.
1,400 original passengers- minus 400 who died on the ship- minus 500 more stuck in the jungle = a mere 500 of the original passengers who made it across Panama. Edward was one of them.
On the steamer from Panama to New York, he was in “Perfect paradise” no doubt relieved to have a “good bed to lie on and plenty of good victuals”. The ship stopped to take coal in Havana, which he considered “the handsomest place [he] he had ever seen”. (Amazing how quickly things can change thru life’s ebbs and flows.)
He made it to New York and headed West towards home with “no delay” – taking the Erie Canal to the Great Lakes and navigating his way to Chicago. From there, he took a stage coach to Galena, Illinois – birthplace of Ulysses S. Grant, who was lying in wait before staking his own claim to history.
It’s quite likely Edward walked the final 15 or so miles from Galena to Dubuque.
He had a wife – a “good and faithful woman” – and several children. During the Civil War, he sold all his “city property” and bought a down-trodden farm outside of town. He rehabilitated it successfully and lived out his remaining years there.
By my math, Edward traveled at least 27,000 miles during his lifetime – most by ship but several thousand across land.
He died in 1880 in his mid-60s. Those who knew him spoke of his “many virtues of head and heart”, a man of “industry and energy”.
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The first time I read Edward’s autobiography, I got goosebumps.
This ‘great man’ from my own family had so many attributes for me to admire. I wondered: Am I biased to think that maybe we’re alike? To think that maybe some of his traits were passed onto me?
Take, for example, his “roaming disposition”, and his “adventurous spirit”. Certainly I can relate to these, having traveled the world over and lived in several countries. Whenever I sit still for too long, I get the itch to move around and see something new. I can imagine Edward with the same underlying restlessness, as he meandered up the Mississippi.
How about work ethic? Edward always started work “the next day”, even after a long and tiring voyage. My grandmother Ellen – Edward’s granddaughter, born in Dubuque in 1923 – called this “stick-to-it-iveness”. I’d like to think that I got some of that from Edward (and Ellen) as well.
Edward was unafraid. Unafraid to roam and explore, but also unafraid to take risks. He had no rational reason to risk traveling across the Western frontier on a wagon train after having already established himself in Dubuque. But he wanted to see what this gold rush thing was all about – so he went for it. In my own way, I can relate – having chosen a life path filled with adventure, often sacrificing stability.
And yet, despite all the roaming, Edward seemed grounded and responsible. His obituary – published in the Dubuque Herald on December 29, 1880 – detailed his last days, when he knew he was in poor health and nearing death: “he arranged his worldly affairs by ordering his bills settled up and paid, to leave the estate as clear as possible for his wife and family.”
What could be more noble than that? I intend to live my last days as Edward did.
At the end of his autobiography – found at the Indiana State Library some years ago by a family member – Edward summed up his life: “Thank God, I never suffered any great misfortune. I was always very successful in all my undertakings, and believe it is the result of dealing honorably with my fellow men.”
Dealing honorably. That was the balancing mechanism for Edward’s life – his core principle. And as an adventurer, his insurance policy.
The lesson: No matter what path you take, and whatever life throws you, be decent with everyone and somehow it’ll all work out.
Edward started out destitute in Ireland and lived through the American Civil War. Remarkably, he mentioned neither of these severe times of hardship in his life sketch. In fact, he never mentioned any hardship at all.
I think he focused on life’s possibilities and shied away from dwelling on life’s frustrations. That’s an ethos we all can embrace.
Cheers to Mr. Edward Courtney, Sr. for a life well-lived. I hope my own story will carry the same weight for my successors, as yours has for me.
Here is a link to Edward’s life sketch, in his own words: A Sketch of The Life of Edward Courtney, Sr.