USA > Maryland > Men of mark in Maryland Johnson's makers of America series biographies of leading men of the state, Volume IV > Part 9
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He is primarily a business man; a good citizen. Now an in- dependent in his political thinking, though originally a Democrat, he has never been able to spare the time to take active part in public life. He is not even fond of sports or athletics, and admits that he has not had time to indulge in these things. He holds membership in the Roman Catholic Church; the Mount Royal Improvement Association; the Merchants and Manufacturers Association, and has given much service as a member of committees connected with these associations.
He believes that the young man entering life can find no better code than the practice of morality and temperance in everything, and that such practice will bring a fair measure of success.
Mr. Codd was married November 15, 1881, to Julia Irma Mohler. Of this marriage, six children have been born, of whom four are now living, viz: Mrs. S. Wilson Heaps, J. Early Codd, E. Anita Codd, James Edward Codd, and one granddaughter, Julia Mary Heaps.
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COLEMAN YELLOTT
M AJOR COLEMAN YELLOTT, lawyer, soldier, statesman, and poet, was born in Dulaney Valley, Baltimore County, Maryland, in 1821, and died at Leesburg, Virginia, July 28, 1870. He was the son of Captain John Yellott, who commanded a troop of cavalry at the battle of North Point in the War of 1812, and a grandson of that John Yellott who came from England about 1792 and became the founder of a family which has been prominent in Maryland from that day to the present. The first John Yellott mar- ried Rebecca Coleman, great-grandddaughter of Colonel Charles Ridgely of Hampton, one of the most notable men of that generation.
Major Yellott was well educated; studied law, and was admitted to the bar in Harford County. Shortly after his admission to the bar, he was sent to the General Assembly as representative from Har- ford County. At that time he was a Whig, but that party was then in the throes of dissolution. Upon the decadence of the Whig party, Major Yellott allied himself with what was then known as the "Amer- ican party," and having moved to Baltimore, where he was practic- ing law, was elected by the American party a member of the State Senate, that city having then a representation of only one senator.
When the internal troubles of the country became acute in 1861, Major Yellott, then a member of the State Senate, became the author of a bill which he introduced in May 1861, the purpose of which was to provide for the safety and peace of the people of Mary- land. He was an intense Southern sympathizer,-the only exception to this rule in the Yellott family having been his nephew, Major John I. Yellott, who adhered to the Federal side. In his heroic effort to bring about a peaceful solution of the troubles, Senator Yellott was sent to Montgomery, Alabama, to negotiate with the Confederate government. While there, the actual outbreak of hostilities came, and he threw in his fortunes with the South. A conscientious man, never a self-seeker, he accepted an appointment as clerk of the military court (with the rank of major), which was attached to the Army of Southwestern Virginia, successively com-
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manded by Generals Jones, Breckenridge and Echols. He dis- charged with fidelity the duties assigned him; and whenever in the course of the campaign battles occurred, he laid aside his judicial functions, shouldered a musket and fought in the ranks. He served faithfully and well for four years, and upon the conclusion of the struggle retired to Lexington, Virginia, where he began the practice of law. He had married Mary Virginia Rust, daughter of General George Rust of Leesburg, Virginia, and of this marriage there were five sons and four daughters. One of his sons Robert E. Lee Yellott, (whose sketch appears elsewhere in this volume) was born in 1868 in Lexington, while Major Yellott was living across the street from General Lee.
He returned to Baltimore in 1869 and resumed the practice of law there, but almost immediately disease developed (which was the result of his war exposure), and he passed away, as above stated, at the home of his brother-in-law, Colonel A. T. M. Rust in Lees- burg, Virginia, July 28, 1870.
Some measure of the esteem in which Major Yellott was held by his contemporaries may be gathered from the newspapers of the day at the time of his death. One of the Baltimore papers speaking of him said: "he was a man of brilliant abilities, both as a legal gentleman and also in his literary qualifications. He possessed the happy faculty, by his rare eloquence, of riveting the attention of either a jury or an audience, and as an effective public speaker was one of the most captivating men- the State had ever produced."
His loss to the legal profession was a distinct one, and though he passed away at the comparatively early age of forty-nine, he left behind him not only an unsulled reputation in a personal way, but the reputation of a strong and sterling patriot.
At a meeting of the Bar Association, subsequent to his death, a most beautiful tribute was paid him by Mr. William Henry Norris, one of his companions during the four years of the war, who spoke particularly with reference to that period of his life. He stated that the military court, of which Mr. Norris was also a mem- ber, attended the army regularly, and that at every place where they stopped Major Yellott became a favorite by his winning man- ners, and that no officer connected with the army won such popu- larity with the people everywhere as did Major Yellott-this being due to the charm of his simple manners, his amiability, and his
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constant cheerfulness-never discouraged, never petulant, never despondent, whatever the discomforts or hardships. In the course of the campaigns, there occurred a desperate battle at Cloyd's Moun- tain, May 9, 1864. The numbers engaged were not large, but the battle was one of the most desperate of the war-the Federal loss in the engagement being over five hundred in killed and wounded and out of all proportion to the numbers engaged. Colonel Norris stated that in that struggle, Major Yellott fought as a private in one of the companies of the Twenty-Second Regiment; and in the disorganization subsequent to the desperate struggle he and others supposed that Major Yellott had been killed, but two days later he rejoined the remnant of the army at the head of about forty soldiers of the company with which he had fought, who having lost all their officers upon the field of battle had elected Major Yellott as their temporary captain, and he conducted them safely to the army after having led them heroically in the battle.
Always devoted to good literature, he found diversion in the writing of plays and poems. Among these poems may be mentioned "Our Own Bold Chesapeake," "Sonnets to Delia," "To the Rose," "To be Free," and "Desaix."
Member of a family, every one of whom has stood above the average of the community, he was one of its worthiest members. One of his brothers, Judge George Yellott of Towson, was also a distinguished lawyer, who served for fifteen years upon the Mary- land bench. One of his sons, Robert E. Lee Yellott, is now a success- ful and prominent business man .of Washington City.
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ROBERT E. LEE YELLOTT
R OBERT E. LEE YELLOTT, prominent in the real estate, loan and insurance life of Washington, D. C., and a resident of Chevy Chase, Maryland, comes of a Maryland family of most notable character. The first of whom we have any record is Jeremiah Yellott, a sea captain who came from England about the time of the Revolutionary War; engaged in mercantile pursuits, and served in the Revolutionary struggle as commander of the Antelope, a war vessel fitted out by the State. He was the origina- tor of the "Baltimore Clipper," the fastest sailing vessels that the world has ever known, and which carried the reputation of Baltimore into every corner of the world and contributed much to the build- ing up of our foreign trade before the advent of steam. The old sea captain was followed by his brother, John, who came from Pomfret in Yorkshire, England, in 1792. John Yellott became the founder of the Maryland family, as his brother, Jeremiah, left no children of his body. John Yellott bought eleven hundred acres of land in Harford County, near the town of Bel Air. It was one of the average, run-down Maryland plantations of that day. As a farmer he was far in advance of his generation, and he surprised the natives by putting twenty-five tons of plaster on his farm. This looked to them as the wildest folly-but Mr. Yellott made good by growing better crops than anybody else in the county. In 1805, he sold the first farm he had bought, and bought another one in the same neighborhood, and finally in 1813 he moved into Dulaney's Valley and bought a part of the Epping estate from Mrs. Catherine Dulaney Belt. In 1816 he sold this to his son, John, and finally settled at Auburn, on the York Road. He married Rebecca Coleman, great-granddaughter of Colonel Charles Ridgely of Hampton, one of the most distinguished men of his day, and the owner of a great landed estate. John Yellott (II) served as a captain in the War of 1812, and was the father of some most distinguished sons, among them Major Coleman Yellott (sketch of whom appears elsewhere in this work); Judge George Yellott, a strong lawyer, for fifteen years on the Maryland bench;
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Jeremiah Yellott, named in honor of the old sea captain; and Colo- nel Washington Yellott, a well-known lawyer of Baltimore.
Major Coleman Yellott married Mary Virginia Rust, daughter of General George Rust of Leesburg, Virginia. Of this marriage there were nine children, five sons and four daughters. Robert E. Lee Yellott is one of the children of Major Coleman Elliott and his wife, Mary Virginia Rust and was born in Lexington, Virginia, August 2, 1868.
In the maternal, as well as in the paternal lines, Mr. Yellott is descended from distinguished families. The Ridgelys, to which his grandmother belonged, have already been mentioned. The Rust family, of which his mother was a member, has a long and honorable record in America, dating back to 1634. The family history had been told in a work of more than five hundred pages, published in 1891, by Albert D. Rust of Waco, Texas.
Upon the outbreak of the War between the States, every member of the Yellott family, with one exception, were ardent Southerners in their sympathies. Major Coleman Yellott, father of our subject, served through the war as a Confederate soldier. George W. Yellott, a cousin, was a Confederate soldier in Mosby's command. The only exception was Major John I. Yellott, yet living and practicing law in Baltimore County, who adhered to the Union side, and rose to be a major in the Federal army. He is a cousin of our subject, as all the Yellotts are descended from the first John. A little résumé of this family here is instructive as showing their patriotic temper. Jeremiah Yellott, fresh from England, fought in the infant navy of the struggling Republic. His younger brother, John, set the pace for agricultural improvement in his section of Maryland. The second John, son of the first John, was captain in the War of 1812. Major Coleman Yellott and his brothers and cousins fought in the Confederate army. One of his brothers served the State faithfully in a judicial capacity. The other cousin standing up for his convic- tions, fought valiantly on the Federal side. The maternal line is equally strong, and Mr. Yellott's maternal grandfather, General George Rust, was prominent both in civil and military life, having been a State Senator in Virginia, and before the Civil War superin- tendent of the government's arsenal at Harper's Ferry.
Robert E. Lee Yellott's parents did not escape the penalty of being on the losing side, and the war left them sadly crippled in a
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financial way. The youngest of nine children, he learned what the struggles of that post-bellum period were and had to be content with such education as could be obtained at a local school in Vir- ginia, known as Waterford Academy. Up to the age of seventeen, his time, aside from this limited schooling, was spent on the farm, and he then moved to Washington, an unknown youth seeking his fortune. He secured a position from a stranger, and after two years in the city, at the age of nineteen, showed the mettle that was in him by embarking in the grocery business on his own account. He did a large business, but did not fancy the pursuit and did not see enough in it to gratify his ambitions. So he changed over to the insurance business, becoming manager of an insurance business, which position he held for twelve years. He took up the study of law, attending night sessions of the George Washington University, and was graduated in 1901 with his law degree. He entered upon the practice of law in Washington, but only followed that for two years, when he became interested in real estate, and for the past five years has been actively engaged in developing residential property in Chevy Chase, Maryland, where he has a beautiful home. He now devotes his en- tire time to his real estate interests.
Mr. Yellott has developed business ability of a high order. He is recognized as one of the successful real estate operators of the State, and is a strong financier, having been one of the organizers, and a director of the American National Bank of Washington.
On May 26, 1906, Mr. Yellott was married to Lillian Wright, daughter of Judge John Wright of Tennessee. Of this marriage there are two children: Robert Wright and Mary Virginia Yellott. Mrs. Yellott's father was one of the distinguished Tennesseeans of the last generation. He was elected as a Democrat to the Thirty- Fourth Congress when only twenty-seven years of age. He was re-elected to the Thirty-Fifth and Thirty-Sixth Congresses, his last term terminating March 3, 1861. He took sides with the Confeder- acy; served as a colonel in the Confederate army; as a member of the Confederate Congress, and after the war as a judge of the Ten- nessee Court of Appeals. Through the various marriages which have occurred in this family, and through the paternal line of descent, also, Mr. Yellott's children have inherited an uncommon degree of juridical and military blood.
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Mr. Yellott is a member of the Episcopal Church; of the Uni- versity Club of Washington; the Columbia Country Club; the Masonic Order; the Sons of the American Revolution; the Kappa Alpha college fraternity, and is an active Democrat in political affairs. He is secretary of Chevy Chase Democratic Club. He finds his chief recreation at present in golf, and his literary recreation in classic essays and works of a historical character. He is a strong believer in system, in persistency, and in a strict observance of all promises. He believes the man who makes this his code will succeed in life; and now at the comparatively early age of forty-three, he finds himself by the practice of his own doctrine, a success in the business world and a citizen of high standing.
JOSEPH DI GIORGIO.
J OSEPH DI GIORGIO, president of the Atlantic Fruit Com- - pany, is a native of that sunny country which for two thousand five hundred years has exercised such a tremendous influence upon the world and contributed so largely to the pages of history. Mr. Di Giorgio was born thirty-seven years ago in Cefalu, Italy, and is a son of Salvatore and Concetta Di Giorgio. His father was a lemon-grower and packer. Young Di Giorgio was a strong, healthy boy, living in the country, and while not required to do hard labor, was called upon to assist upon his father's plantations, which not only was useful in building up his physical strength, but also in learn- ing habits of order and carefulness and taught him the necessity of doing well whatever he might undertake.
He received his education in the public schools in Italy, but at the age of sixteen years, determined to begin the earning of his own livelihood, and accordingly at that time came to America, where in New York City he shortly engaged in the lemon business as a dealer and broker. In those early days, he gave evidence of the industry and daring in business enterprise, which has always marked his business career.
In New York, he met with some measure of success, but later removed to Baltimore, where shortly after he engaged in the fruit- jobbing business with Joseph Catanzaro, the business subsequently becoming known as the Catanzaro-Di Giorgio Company, and which is now known as the Di Giorgio Fruit Company, the company hav- ing been started in 1899, and he having within a few years thereafter bought out Mr. Catanzaro and succeeded to the entire ownership of the business. He devoted his efforts to the development of this business, which has constantly grown until it is the most im- portant house of its character in Baltimore, and has extended its field of operations, not only to handling of foreign fruit products, but to the California and Florida products as well.
Shortly after forming that company, he became associated with the West Indies Trading Company, in which the Garretts, of Balti-
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more and Ohio fame, had been interested, and which company was engaged in the importation of bananas from Jamaica. He took charge of the sales department. Under his management, the busi- ness grew to larger proportions, and in 1901, having acquired the entire interests of that company, he formed a new banana importing company known as the Di Giorgio Importing and Steamship Company, of which he became president and general manager.
This company extended its operations in the importation of fruit from Jamaica to include Cuba. He remained in the importing business until January, 1905, when his interests in the importing field having steadily extended, he transferred the whole into the present company known as The Atlantic Fruit Company, which was formed at that time and into which he also took one or two other smaller importing companies. Its capital stock at that time was two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. He immediately extended the field of its operations to cover the importation of fruit into Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore.
The record of the six years which elapsed from the time of its organization until the present time, afford another evidence of the progressive quality inaugurated and carried out by Mr. Di Giorgio in extending his banana interests. The company met with unusual success, paid large dividends, and finally in 1910, having in the interim begun the acquirement of interests in small banana growing companies in Jamaica, and having acquired like interests in the Sumon Fruit Company, a banana growing company in Cuba, he then added to the field of operation, the district of Pearl Lagoon, in Nicaragua, just beginning to be developed as a banana growing property, under the Central American Growers and Transportation Company, to which company he advanced a large sum of money and in which he acquired a controlling interest.
In September, 1910, the capital stock of The Atlantic Fruit Company was increased from two hundred and fifty thousand dollars to one million dollars, and out of its surplus in addition to the usual dividend in cash, a stock dividend of one hundred per cent was declared.
Through the course of these years, he had become gradually more and more interested in not only banana growing companies, but in the steamship end of the business, and the natural result of all these interests is the recent announcement of the amalgamation
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of various banana growing interests and steamship companies, into a new and much greater corporation, to be known as The Atlantic Fruit and Steamship Company, with a capital stock of twelve million dollars, and a bond issue of five million dollars, and which, it is said, will, when formed, control in fee and under leases and contracts ` in the neighborhood of one hundred and seventy thousand acres of land, situated in various tropical countries. Thus, out of a small beginning, a gigantic corporation will have grown in a space of a very few years.
At the same time, Mr. Di Giorgio's interests were not alone confined to the development of the banana business. He also con- stantly devoted some time and attention to the development of the other businesses in handling Florida and California fruits, as well as in the foreign lemon business. He early acquired interests in the Merchants Fruit Exchange in Baltimore, through which this fruit was marketed to the trade, and later, upon the dissolution of that company, he started the present Baltimore Fruit Exchange, now the only auction exchange in Baltimore, and of which he is still president. But Baltimore did not alone suffice for his efforts in this direction.
Having early formed business connections with Messrs. Hugh Connolly and James M. Fanning, of Pittsburg, their joint operations extended to New York and resulted in 1908, in the formation of the Connolly Auction Company, for the marketing of all classes of fruit products handled in the New York field. He became vice-president of that company, which position he still holds, and cooperating with his associates, he has gradually extended that business until today it handles all the business of the California Fruit Growers Exchange, the largest citrus fruit marketing organization in the world, and han- dles as well the deciduous business of the California Fruit Distributors, which handles nearly all the deciduous output of California.
Added to this is the Connolly Auction Company's representation · of various independent handlers of fruit, as well as that of the Florida Citrus Exchange, which is becoming an important feature in market- ing the Florida products.
This business bringing him into closer contact with the Cali- fornia interests, in January, 1910, he with his associates acquired control of the Producers Fruit Company of California, one of the largest deciduous companies in that field, and again in the spring of this year, he and his associates made their largest investment in the
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California business, by acquiring absolutely the Earl Fruit Company, the largest of all deciduous concerns on the Pacific Coast.
Recently a New York fruit journal, in speaking of Mr. Di Giorgio's achievements, stated: "Joe Di Giorgio is the mountain- climber of the fruit trade. To surmount one peak only serves to tempt him to scale another still higher."
By no means has Mr. Di Giorgio's attention to his business caused him to neglect his civic duties, which he early assumed by his assump- tion of American citizenship. In Baltimore he served on various boards and committees by appointment from public authorities, serving as vice-president of the Municipal League, and by appoint- ment of Mayor Timanus on the Committee for Inspection of the Public Schools. In 1910, he moved his headquarters to New York.
He is a director in the Maryland National Bank, of Baltimore; in the National Reserve Bank, of New York; holds membership in the Order of Elks, Eagles, Baltimore Athletic Club, New York Club, and is a member of Chancellor Walworth Lodge of Masons, New York. Mr. Di Giorgio finds his recreation in horse-back riding, driv- ing, motoring and outdoor sports in general.
The only thing wherein we have free trade with foreign countries is in men, and the enrichment of this country by the multitude of valuable citizens who have come to us from abroad as a result of this free trade in men is almost enough to induce us to believe in free trade in commodities. Mr. Di Giorgio is one of these valuable citi- zens who is now an American in every sense and has contributed his ·full share to the building up of his adopted country.
JOHN MARTIN ELDERDICE
OCTOR JOHN M. ELDERDICE of Mardela Springs, in Wicomico County, though a young man, has already won his spurs as a physician. He was born in Martinsburg. West Virginia, on January 21, 1879; son of Reverend James M. and Enity (Virdin) Elderdice. His father was a Methodist Protestant minister, for forty-eight years a member of the Maryland Conference. He was a man of meck and lovable Christian character, and a devoted Bible student.
Doctor Elderdice is descended from Hugh Elderdice who came from Scotland in 1780 and settled in Baltimore.
He was a normal boy, and most of his early life was spent in villages. As a boy he was very fond of the study of nature. His education was obtained only through many difficulties. Finally in 1897, he was able to enter the Western Maryland College and was graduated in 1900. In 1901, he entered the medical department of the University of Maryland and was graduated in 1905. He immedi- ately entered upon the practice of his profession at Mardela Springs, and has already established the character of a most capable medical man; and having identified himself thoroughly with the community, is now one of its prominent citizens.
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