Carleton Watkins End of Innocence
Another of Collis Huntington's biographers, David Lavender, planted food for thought about a traveling salesman's life: "these years [1837-1840] are obscure biographically. . .a time of footloose wandering. . ." A fair question for Lavender to ask, as he did, was: "What lonesome farm girls may have smiled on him, what town bullies, eying his heavy six-foot frame, may have challenged him. . . are matters we can only surmise" [18]
During the period of wandering Collis met a number of people whose thinking shaped his attitudes, among them John Brown, who instilled a fervent abolitionist spirit that forever guided his politics. Thus, when Collis Huntington arrived in Oneonta in 1840 or 1841, took up residence at the McDonald Tavern, and befriended young Carleton Watkins, he was vastly more experienced in the ways of the world than his young companion. Moreover, Collis came with more than thirteen hundred dollars in cash in his pockets, a significant sum of money, thus, he was not only experienced, but also flush.[19] The inevitable question is, What did a worldly-wise twenty-year-old have in common with a pubescent twelve-or-thirteen year-old (who also could have been his roommate)? What were the elements besides fishing that would form the basis for a relationship between Collis and Carleton which endured for half a century?
The year before the aforesaid fishing and other sporting adventures, Collis married Elizabeth Stoddard, a woman from a prominent Litchfield, Connecticut family, and together they bought a house on the corner of Chestnut and Church streets in Oneonta.[20] No children resulted from his marriage of more than forty years, nor did Collis's second wife, Arabella, bear him children, although he legally adopted her teenage son from a previous marriage, Archer. [21]
From all outward appearances, Collis led a settled and somewhat ordinary life in Oneonta of the 1840s. The firm of "S. and C. P. Huntington—General Merchants" was known and respected in the community. For eight years Collis tended the Oneonta retail operation in partnership with his older brother and may have been responsible for developing the profitable barrel-making operation ("cooperage") that was added to the back side of their stone commercial building.[22]
We know very little about Collis's private time during the Oneonta years, and not a lot more about his public life. In 1844 he became Chief of the volunteer fire brigade and for the rest of his life retained an interest in firefighting and firefighters. In 1848 he was elected to the position of Oneonta Street Commissioner whose job it was to coordinate the widening, extension, and maintenance of the city streets.[23]