All the rails, locomotives, powder and various other material for the road were bought by him, and shipped around Cape Horn or across the Isthmus. His transactions brought him into contact with all sorts of people in New York and other Eastern cities, and it is still told of him that j when some one who did not know him came to him in 18()2 with an otl'er of a handsome commission if he would deal with him, Huntington replied: " I want all the commissions I can get, but I want them put in the bill. This road has got to be built without any stealings;" and his bold refusal to be fleeced by sharks, and his straightforward ways of conducting

HISTORY OF WESTCHESTER COUNTY.

business, gained credit for him and his partners, and secured for himself the high and honorable rank he enjoys as one of the few really great financiers of this country.

Allotted space does not permit a narration of the vast labors of Mr. Huntington in building the Southern Pacific Railroad, and the Chesapeake and Ohio and its adjuncts -- constituting together a continuous line four thousand miles long from San Francisco, the dominant harbor of the Pacific coast, to Chesapeake Bay, the finest natural harbor on the Atlantic; nor of the other great systems of transportation by land and water over which his control is primary and direct. It is said that the total length of railroads completed and in progress, now intrusted to the charge of C. p. Huntington, is, in round numbers, something over ten thousand miles.