Patrick Calhoun

Patrick Calhoun (March 21, 1856 - June 16, 1943) was the grandson of John C. Calhoun and Floride Calhoun, and the great-grandson of his namesake Patrick Calhoun. He is best known as a railroad baron of the late 19th century, and as the founder of Euclid Heights, Ohio. Patrick Calhoun was born at Fort Hill, the estate of his grandfather, John C. Calhoun, located near Clemson, South Carolina. He was born to Andrew Pickens and Margaret Maria (née Green) Calhoun, and was the youngest of six children. His maternal grandfather, Duff Green, was an important South Carolina businessman who had been a financial backer of John C. Calhoun early in Calhoun's political career. Patrick received his education in local country schools around Clemson. His life changed dramatically in 1865. The defeat of the Confederacy left Andrew P. Calhoun, a wealthy cotton planter, financially ruined. Andrew died suddenly on March 16, 1865. Patrick spent the next five years working on his family farm at Fort Hill and reading extensively in his father's library. Patrick left home in 1871 and traveled to Dalton, Georgia, and the home of his grandfather, Duff Green. A relative defrayed the cost of his single year of high school education. He studied law thereafter under his grandfather's tutelage, and was admitted to the bar. He moved the following year to St. Louis, Missouri, and was admitted to the Missouri bar. He suffered a severe health breakdown after a year, and went to live on the Arkansas farm of his brother, John C. Calhoun II. An attorney from Atlanta, Georgia, offered him a partnership in 1878 if he would move to Atlanta. This association was very brief, and he founded the law firm of Calhoun, King & Spalding. Focusing on corporate law, the firm became highly profitable. Calhoun used his profits to found the Calhoun Land Company (which invested in cotton production in the Mississippi Valley); buy extensive real estate in Georgia, South Carolina, and Texas; and invest or buy stock in manufacturing, mining, oil, and railroads. In 1884, Calhoun was appointed legal counsel of the Central Rail Road and Banking Company of Georgia. He formed a syndicate of investors in 1886 and won control of the Richmond and West Point Terminal Railway and Warehouse Company. He was ousted by a similar corporate coup in 1893, but the company went bankrupt two years later and Calhoun acted as an agent for J. P. Morgan in buying the railroad and integrating it into the Southern Railway.