paintings to auction. As a result, works from the Van Horne art collection became widely dispersed.
Van Horne also collected Japanese pottery and porcelain. Although he had never been to Japan, he abandoned fossil collecting in the 1880s and began instead to put together a fine collection of rare Japanese pottery and porcelain. He began buying Japanese pieces less than three decades after Japan had been forced by U.S. Commodore Perry in 1854 to open its ports to trade and Western influences. Almost immediately, the Western world became fascinated by Japanese culture, and objects from Japan began flowing into the West, attracting attention because of their very different aesthetic.
This fad for all things Japanese may have inspired Van Horne to take up his new hobby, though it is more likely that the CPR’s inauguration of a temporary service to the Far East in the late 1880s whetted his interest in Japanese culture, especially its pottery and porcelain. Certainly his collection benefited from the CPR’s establishment of a regular passenger steamship service to the Far East in 1891. Thanks to this development, Van Horne became acquainted with many Japanese statesmen and prominent businessmen. Once these men learned of his deep interest in Japanese art and ceramics, they began to inform him when choice pieces came up for sale, and sometimes they presented him with valuable gifts of pottery and porcelain. The collection grew steadily in size and value throughout the 1890s and the opening years of the twentieth century. In Roger Fry’s opinion, it became the finest Japanese pottery and porcelain collection outside Japan.
Van Horne always handled his Japanese artifacts with great “loving kindness,” and, before displaying them to a visitor, he carefully polished them with a piece of soft silk. He loved to contemplate the form, glaze, and decoration of each specimen, and often stood enraptured for minutes at a stretch before a favourite piece. His knowledge of the subject was so extensive that, even when blindfolded, he could usually identify by sensitive touch alone which specimen had been brought to him.
In due time, Van Horne’s collection contained a full representation of Japanese master potters. At that point, he turned his attention to still rarer Chinese and Korean pottery. Among the Chinese pieces was a stunningly beautiful, tall, graceful vase made of mottled glass that had once belonged to the illustrious Parisian dealer Samuel Bing Sr. Bing reported that, during his lifetime, Whistler had journeyed several times from London to Paris just to see it. When Van Horne acquired it, he considered it one of his most prized possessions.
In the decade or so before his death, Sir William also assembled a collection of ship models. It boasted some very important old votive models of European origin, made to implore or express thanksgiving for safe passage across the ocean depths. The presence of these vessels in various rooms and halls throughout his Sherbrooke Street home helped to give it the appearance of a domestic museum.
Today, “Renaissance” is an overworked label when it is used in relation to individuals. However, when the term is applied to Van Horne — as an architect, painter, and collector — it is entirely fitting. It is also appropriate that a man so gifted should find outlets for his prodigious energy and talent in so many different pursuits. While these diversions satisfied his collector’s instinct and artistic bent, they also served as an important diversion. They distracted him from the many worries and burdens of his job as CPR president and, later, as head of several quite different businesses — the Cuba Company, the Laurentide Paper Company, the Canadian Salt Company, and the Canadian Sardine Company.
10
Cuba Beckons
Van Horne’s trip to the West Coast in the spring of 1899, just before he retired from the railway presidency, reinforced his view that he did not want to devote the remaining years of his life to his many hobbies. So long as he had major responsibilities, first as general manager and then as vice-president and president of the CPR, he found that painting and building up magnificent collections of art, porcelain, and model ships enthralled and delighted him. Once he resigned, however, they failed to kindle the same level of interest for him. He realized that hobbies could not fill his life.
At this point, Van Horne was only fifty-six years old, but he knew that his health had been “in an uncertain state for several years.” Nevertheless, there was still too much energy churning in his massive frame to allow him to settle into a life of ease. What he needed was a major challenge, one that would tax his problem-solving abilities to the utmost and give a new edge to his life. Alternatively, he said, he wanted a project that involved “working out schemes.” Fortunately, just such a project came his way — building the Cuba Railroad.
When Van Horne agreed in 1881 to mastermind the construction of the CPR, he took on a tremendous gamble. That was nothing, however, compared to the audacity he demonstrated in organizing and completing the construction of a railway in Cuba. A developing nation, Cuba had just emerged from nearly four centuries as a colony of Spain. To obtain its independence, it had engaged in a series of minor rebellions and skirmishes that culminated in the War of Independence from 1895 to 1898. At that juncture, the devastated island was acquired by the United States, the victor in the Spanish-American War, which was fought over the issue of Cuban independence. The last stages of this struggle were so costly that starvation and anarchy were widespread. Visible signs of the war’s impact were everywhere, from closed schools and abandoned farms and plantations to a wretched shabbiness and stench in Havana, the national capital. There were also fewer people on Havana’s streets: for years Spain had herded the rebels and their allies into disease-ridden concentration camps. As a result, the island’s population had plummeted from approximately 1.8 million in 1895 to 1.5 million in 1899. There was an alarming shortage not only of labour but also of horses and oxen — all of which were essential to any large construction project in this pre-mechanized era.
To further complicate the problems of doing business, Cuba operated in a bureaucratic nightmare after Spain’s departure. Corrupt courts and a chaotic monetary system were everyday facts of life. Combined with the devastation and disease caused by the war, they presented a daunting challenge to the American military government when it took office in January 1899.
Notwithstanding all these drawbacks, Cuba was a country brimming with investment opportunities. In the aftermath of the war, streetcars, bridges, warehouses, sugar storage facilities, and sugar plantations all needed extensive renovation. In fact, no sooner had the smell of gun smoke vanished from the air and shipping been restored than hordes of entrepreneurs began descending on the island eager to snap up development projects. Among these promoters were Canadians who had carved out a niche for themselves in areas that had become Canadian specialties: insurance, utilities, and transportation. Seeking out new investment opportunities, these men came armed with capital from British, American, and Canadian sources.
Competing with the Canadians were American entrepreneurs. Among them was a young man, Percival Farquhar, who would link up with Van Horne and play a key role in the construction of the Cuba Railroad. Farquhar was a Quaker, a trained engineer and lawyer who, during his years at Yale College, had made friends with several Cubans. After a career as a Wall Street speculator, this suave and good-looking thirty-four-year-old left for Cuba to pursue his capitalist dreams. Ultimately, he would come to represent some of the worst excesses of financial capitalism, such as issuing debt on debt and persuading inexperienced politicians to sell state-owned properties at a fraction of their true value.
After arriving on the island, Farquhar set his sights on a scheme to electrify Havana’s streetcars, which were then drawn by emaciated mules and horses. The deplorable state of the city’s transportation system also attracted the attention of some of Van Horne’s business friends. One of these was General Russell Alger, who had resigned his position as American secretary of war in 1899. Another was the well-known Cuban diplomat, writer, and orator Gonzalo de Quesada. Van Horne, in fact, would later claim that it
