USA > Missouri > Centennial history of Missouri, vol. 2 > Part 6
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ITis resourceful ability led him into various other fields of activity. He be- came one of the directors of the Missouri Pacific Railroad Company and an active factor in the extension of its line from Sedalia to Kansas City. He was also associated with Daniel R. Garrison and others in constructing a railway from Kansas City to Atehison and beeame .one of the owners of the road and one of its directors. He was long connected with the directorate of the St. Louis Gas Company and was again and again honored with its vice presidency. He was likewise connected with the Carondelet Gas Light Company, nor was he un- known in insurance eireles, serving at different times as president of the City Mutual Fire Insurance Company and the St. Louis Mutual Life Insurance Com- pany. Ile was a prime moving force in the organization and control of many building and manufacturing concerns and for many years what was the eity's finest hotel owed its existence in large measure to him. He became a director of the Lindell Hotel Company and when, at the beginning of the war work was sus- pended for lack of means, he furnished the capital necessary for its completion and then negotiated for its furnishing and oceupation by Spar & Parks, proprie- tors of the Planters House. He was the representative of Jesse Lindell in perfeet- ing leases which led to the improvement of the north side of Washington avenue,
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Charles D. Deck
between Eleventh and Thirteenth streets, in 1857, and was one of the eommis- sioners for the apportionment of the large estate of Peter Lindell. A factor in the city's industrial development as early as 1847, he became interested in the planing mill business, erecting a mill at the corner of Eighth street and Park avenue in connection with his brother. He was an incorporator, director and treasurer of the St. Louis Mutual House Building Company, the pioneer in- stitution of this kind in the city. Ile was one of the incorporators of the Insur- ance Exchange Building Company, which in 1868 erected the Insurance Ex- change building, then one of the finest office buildings of the west. For many years he served as a director of the Provident Savings Bank and also of the Meehanies Bank, which he aided in organizing and incorporating. From the date of its organization he was a member of the Merchants Exchange and in 1870 became one of the first trustees of Vandeventer Place and at his death was the last member of the original board. His enterprise has added much to the general welfare and wealth of the city. He desired success and rejoiced in the benefits and opportunities which wealth brings, but he was too broad-minded a man to rate it above its true value and in all of his mammoth business under- takings he found that enjoyment which comes in mastering a situation-the joy of doing what he undertook. The business record of Mr. Peek was ever an unassailable one, for he always followed constructive methods, his path never being strewn with the wreck of other men's fortunes.
In 1840 was celebrated the marriage of Mr. Peck to Miss Rebecca Adams, of Philadelphia, and to them were born nine children, of whom three survive: Rebecca Adams, who is the widow of Joseph Warren Dusenbery, of New York city, and now resides in St. Louis; Belle, the wife of Max M. Bryant, of St. Louis : and John Adams, also of this city. Mrs. Dusenbery is a member of the National Society of the Colonial Dames of America through New York and Mrs. Bryant of the National Society of Colonial Daughters of American Founders and Patriots.
The death of Mrs. Peck occurred May 10, 1909. Before her demise it was written of her: "Her husband always acknowledged her helpfulness, for her counsel and advice were of great value to him and her words of encouragement also constituted an element in his success. She is connected in ancestral lines with some of the oldest and most prominent New England families, from whom have come those strains of culture and refinement which have dominated her whole life and have not only made her a leader in social circles but one who has enjoyed the admiration and love of those with whom she has come in contact. She is today one of the oldest residents of St. Louis, not only by reason of the years which have been allotted to her, but also from the length of her connec- tion with the city. Coming here in ber girlhood, she witnessed its marvelous development and the growth of the great middle west, as St. Louis has been transformed from a little Freneh settlement to the fourth rity of the Union. Mrs. Peck has long been an active member of the First Presbyterian church, to which Mr. Peck also belonged. Mrs. Peck was the oldest and the only living member of the original members present at the celebration of the seventieth anniversary of the Second Presbyterian church, in which she was married, which was held in St. Louis, October 10, 1908. She was selected as the Missouri rep-
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resentative of the National Longfellow Memorial Association of Washington, D. C., and is one of the hundred regents of this organization."
Charles H. Peek possessed too, a most kindly and genial nature and held friendship inviolable. Those with whom he came in contact learned to prize him no less for his personal worth and agreeable manners than for his business capacity. Honorable in purpose, fearless in conduct, he stood for many years as one of the most eminent and valued citizens of St. Louis and the memory of his life remains as an inspiration and a benediction to those who knew him. Throughout his entire career he guided his life by those rules which have their root in the Christian religion. He was charitable and benevolent, willing at all times to share his success with those who were less fortunate and needed assist- ance, and yet his giving was of a most unostentatious character. He had reached his eighty-second year when he passed away July 3, 1899, leaving to his family the priceless heritage of an untarnished name. His life was ever honorable in its purpose and measured up to the highest standards of manhood and citizen- ship. He strove always to reach the high ideals which were his inspiration and he used his talents and his opportunities wisely and well, not only for his own benefit, but for the benefit and assistance of his fellowmen.
Oliver H . Dean
Oliver Hayes Dean
LIVER HAYES DEAN has been an active and devoted mem- O ber of the legal profession in Kansas City for many years. Ilis ambition has always been to be a lawyer representing the highest principles and purposes of his profession. He has greatly idealized his work; he believes it to be the most honorable and most useful and the most dignified of any work to which a man can dedicate his life. He has lived up to his ideals and by preparation and diligence has commanded success to an unusual degree.
Mr. Dean is president of the Kansas City School of Law and has lectured in this school on corporate and constitutional law for many years. Ile was one of the founders of this school, organized as it was to enable those who are ambitious to obtain a good legal education in Kansas City and who were unable to go to some distant place for such an education. It has greatly advocated and highly enforced the ethical requirements of the legal profession. It is believed that it has exercised a valuable and important influenee in that profession in the middle west. He has been pleased to give his time and more to the school without com- pensation. It has been unusually successful and now ranks among the best law schools in the country.
Mr. Dean was born in Montour county, Pennsylvania, near a village called Washingtonville, December 7, 1845. He is the son of the Hon. Joseph Dean, who served, when a young man, as an officer in the War of 1812 under General Scott and for several years was one of the lay judges of Montour county. The Dean family on his father's side is English and Scotch, and on his mother's side Holland Dutch.
Mr. Dean supplemented his early education, acquired in the publie schools of his native state, by study in Tuscarora Academy in JJuniata county, Pennsylva- nia. He taught Latin in this academy for a year when in his nineteenth year. He afterwards attended the University of Michigan, from which he was grad- uated, and on the completion of his academie course in that university in 1868 received the A. B. degree. He then continued his studies at the same institution in preparation for the bar and received the degree LL. B. in 1870. He has also received the degree of LL. D. from Knox College, Galesburg, Ilinois.
On account of his health Mr. Dean came to a drier climate than that of Penn- sylvania and located in Kansas City, Missouri, May 1, 1870. Hle entered the office of Judge Francis M. Black, who was later one of the supreme judges of Missouri. The friendship between Judge Black and him became very intimate. and they were devoted friends until his death. Shortly after locating in Kansas City, he became associated with Judge William Holmes, the firm then being Holmes & Dean, which continued for nearly eleven years, and later he became the
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Oliver Dapes Dean
junior member of the firm of Tichenor, Warner & Dean. When Mr. Tichenor retired from general practice, the firm became Warner & Dean and with other members added at different times, his association with William Warner, United States senator from Missouri, lasted for over thirty-five years. In memory of his old partner, his firm still retains his name and today the firm is known as Warner, Dean, Langworthy, Thomson & Williams, although Senator Warner has been dead over three years.
As an attorney Mr. Dean has been highly successful in all branches of the civil practice which has extended to every court and to various parts of the country. His ability has been supplemented by the highest industry. Ile has been loyal to his profession and has not allowed any of the allurements of public place to distract his attention from it. IIe has been for many years an adviser to many incorporated institutions in Kansas City.
Mr. Dean is an impressive, clear and forceful speaker, his ability in that direction being coupled with a strong, earnest personality and a manifest sin- cerity and honesty of purpose. He is well known as a writer on legal subjects and has delivered addresses before the bar associations of Missouri, Kansas and Illinois, the Universities of Missouri and Kansas, his addresses usually being upon corporation and constitutional law. Ile also lectured on medical jurispru- denee in the Kansas City Medical College and the University of Kansas for sev- eral years.
Mr. Dean is a member of the Kansas City, the Missouri State and American Bar Associations; the International Law Congress, which met at Madrid, Spain, in 1913, and this year (1920) at Portsmouth, England. He is also a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Arts, London, England, and a member of the following organizations in Kansas City, Missouri : Fine Arts Club, University Club, Coun- try Club, Blue Hills Club and Automobile Club ; and several charitable and edu- cational societies.
Mr. Dean has two children, a daughter Alice, the wife of Alvah S. Green, of Galesburg, Illinois, and Mason L. Dean, a business man of Kansas City, Missouri.
Mr. Dean is much devoted to music and art, but he finds his recreation largely in reading, which covers a broad and comprehensive scope. Ilis wide general information constitutes one of the basic elements of his success at the bar. He has traveled much abroad, and finds great interest in studying the political, social and economic conditions of foreign countries and the relations and influences of those conditions to and upon each other.
John Francis Queeny
OTIN FRANCIS QUEENY, who without invidious distinction J may be termed one of the leading business men and citizens of St. Louis, being known throughout the country as the "father" of the American chemical industry, became presi- dent and treasurer of the Monsanto Chemical Works at the time of incorporation in 1901 and is now serving as chair- man of the board of directors. He was born in Chicago, Illi- nois, August 17, 1859, a son of John and Sarah ( Flaherty ) Queeny, who were natives of Ireland and emigrated to the United States in young manhood and young womanhood, locating in Chicago, where they were subsequently married. The father, an architeet by profession, became identified with contracting and building interests in that city and was thus actively and successfully engaged until the great Chicago fire of 1871 brought financial disaster.
Jolin Franeis Queeny, the eldest of five children, attended the public schools of his native city to the age of twelve years, when occurred the great conflagra- tion which totally destroyed his father's property and rendered the family penniless. Thus obliged to provide for his own support, he secured a position in the wholesale drug establishment of Tolman & King of Chicago, being em- ployed as offiee boy at a salary of two dollars and a half per week. He remained with that concern for a period of eleven years and won gradual promotion until his weekly remuneration had been increased to eighteen dollars. In 1881 he made his way south to New Orleans, where he became connected as purchasing agent with the wholesale drug house of I. L. Lyons & Company, which he thus represented for a decade. From 1892 until 1894 he served as buyer in the drug department of the Meyer Brothers Drug Company of St. Louis and subse- quently became manager of the sales department of Merck & Company, chem- ieal manufacturers of New York, continuing in that connection from 1894 umtil 1897. In the latter year he again became buyer for the Meyer Brothers Drug Company, acting in that capacity until 1906, when he opened a local branch as manager for the Powers-Weightman-Rosengarten Company of Philadelphia. In 1907 he resigned in order to devote his entire time to the interests of the Monsanto Chemical Works, which had been incorporated in 1901 and of which he became president and treasurer.
The following is an excerpt from a review of his business career which appeared in "Greater St. Louis," the official bulletin of the Chamber of Commerce: "While connected with the Meyer Brothers Drug Company, the largest concern of its kind in the world. Mr. Queeny had all the opportunity necessary for observing the conditions surrounding both the drug and chemical markets. His first deduction from this study was concerning the sulphur mines of Louisiana and their nearness to St. Louis. Mr. Queeny's idea was that this
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John Francis Duceny
city would be the proper place for the refining of this product. Three years after his arrival here, therefore, he invested six thousand dollars of his savings in an East St. Louis plant for the refining of sulphur. * * * He applied for and received the consent of his employers to establish the plant under a hired manager and still retain his position with Meyer Brothers. That he might keep in constant touch with his East St. Louis plant, he had a telephone installed, and on a given date he anxiously awaited the word of his manager that the sulphur refining plant had been successfully inaugurated. The call came a little earlier than he expected, but not over his plant phone, and the message was in the nature of a surprise if not a calamity. The manager of his plant informed him that some way, in handling the sulphur, the plant had been ignited, and all that remained of his carefully saved six thousand dollars was the concrete foundation. * * * This wiped the slate clean again for Mr. Queeny, but only added to his determination to battle upwards. By 1901 there was fifteen hundred dollars credited to Mr. Queeny's savings account. Observation had made him decide first upon the manufacture of some of the chemicals in which he, as sales manager, dealt. Next, his choice narrowed down to saccharin. Saccharin had been coming gradually into growing use through- out the world, but its production was limited to a few manufacturing plants in Germany. It wasn't fully apparent to Mr. Queeny why Germany should have the monopoly in such a product or why American minds were not capable of evolving the method of manufacturing saccharin. It was an unblazed trail which he was traveling, with no guideposts; but with a paltry thousand dollars and a half, plus a friend's thirty-five hundred, he began his explorations over the uncharted course of American-produced chemicals. It is said to his credit that many of the signposts along this big and growing avenue of chemical manu- facture today are Queeny-made. With his limited capital he rented a part of a one-story building at the corner of Second street and Lafayette avenue. One of the first things he encountered was the customary German commercial compe- tition. No sooner had they learned of his experiments and proposal to manu- facture saccharin, than they transported bodily here the nucleus of a German syndicate which opened a plant in New Jersey. For three years it was a losing fight, the syndicate, with unlimited capital, sometimes holding the market down to half the cost of production. But John was a fighter. He continued to work by day with the Meyer Brothers Drug Company, putting into the infant concern all of his earnings aside from bare living expenses. His nights he spent in straightening out the business snarls that developed at his plant and in devising means to meet German competition. It took ten years to lay the actual physical manufacturing basis of his present success. Starting out with two employes, he had at the end of five years fifteen, but after weathering the first three years, the little industry commenced to climb over the line between profit and loss, gradually increasing his plant until it occupies the entire block. When the World war started, it cut off the imports of the German product, and later the sugar-shortage days were contributive causes of the enormous growth of the Queeny-conceived industry. While saccharin was his first and perhaps 'sweetest love' in the chemical line, the inability of America to secure German chemicals in all lines caused him to enter the manufacture of many other products. * * Before the entrance of the United States into the conflict, the war
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John Francis Queenp
abroad changed the industrial complexion of the country, due to the shutting off of German imports, and opened avenues of possibilities to the foresighted and venturesome. It is this condition which furnished the setting for the ultimate business triumph of John F. Queeny. It was not long after the outbreak of hostilities overseas that Mr. Queeny began to see the true vision of American- made chemieals. Heretofore, not only the dye, but the chemical markets of the world were in the hands of Teutonic scientists and chemists. It was the Germans who first realized that the study and research in chemical lines was the real baekbone of industrial progress. Forty years of intense training and develop- ment along this line had produced a school of learned chemists, upon whom the world depended for not only its supply, but for most innovations. This St. Louisan was a firm believer in American adaptability, and undaunted by the disasters which had characterized his struggle upwards, John F. Queeny care- fully but quickly weighed the situation. As a result, he not only backed his faith in American ingenuity with his savings, but his enthusiasm won for him the support of friends. With indomitable courage and 'stick-to-itiveness,' this man who had never accepted failure as a master has aided in doing for the American chemical industry what it had taken the Kaiser and his cohorts four decades to develop. This accomplishment justly brought into his own possession the success to which many years of faithful endeavor entitled him. * * * He acquired the Commercial Acid Company in East St. Louis, and he is also now interested in making the basic products for all manufacturing industries. *
* * Blunt-yes, but courteous : square-jawedly determined, with the happy faculties of rare judgment and business aeumen, as delicately balanced as the exaetest of his chemical scales-this is the Queeny equation." In addition to his extensive and important interests as a manufacturer of chemicals, Mr. Queeny is a director of the Mercantile Trust Company and the Lafayette South Side Bank.
On the 5th of February. 1896. Mr. Queeny was united in marriage to Miss Olga Mendez Monsanto, a native of St. Thomas, Danish West Indies, who came to the United States as a child of five years with her parents in 1875. The family home was established in Iloboken, New Jersey, where Miss Monsanto was residing at the time of her marriage. Mr. and Mrs. Queeny have two children : Edgar Monsanto, who served in the European war with the rank of lieutenant ; and Olguita Monsanto, at home.
In polities Mr. Queeny is a stanch republican, while fraternally he is identi- fied with the Masons and the Elks. He also belongs to the St. Louis. Noonday. Sunset Country and Riverview Boat Clubs and is. moreover, a member of the St. Louis Manufacturers' Association, the Chamber of Commerce. the Royal Society of Arts and the Society Chemical Industry of England, the American Electrochemical Society, the Chemists' C'hb of New York and the New York Press Club.
Echemin de Macency.
Edwin Clement Meserbey
DWIN CLEMENT MESERVEY, member of the Kansas City E bar, practicing as one of the firm of Haff, Meservey, German & Michaels, has long oeeupied a position of distinction among the lawyers of the state and is most widely known by reason of his valuable publie serviee in behalf of many projects which have safeguarded the interests and welfare of the municipality. His high ideals of citizenship have found expression in prae- tieal service for the publie good. His support of any measure is the result of thorough study into the subject and a firm belief in the righteousness of the cause.
Mr. Meservey came to Kansas City from the most northeasterly seetion of the country, for he was born in Hallowell, Kennebec county, Maine, on the 4th of March, 1861, a son of Thomas J. Meservey, who was born in Hallowell, Maine, in 1835, and of Mary H. (Brooks) Meservey, whose birth occurred in York, Maine, in 1837. The family name was originally spelled Messervy and the aneestral line can be traced baek directly to Gregoire Messervy, who lived in Anneville, in the parish of St. Martin, on the Island of Jersey, in 1495. The founder of the American branch of the family was Clement Messervy, who left the Island of Jersey in 1673 and settled at Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Among his lineal descendants was Thomas J. Meservey, father of Edwin Clement Mes- ervey. The family was represented in the American army during the Revolu- tionary war, and the Brooks family, of which E. C. Meservey is a descendant in the maternal line, manifested equal patriotism by active military duty in de- fense of the cause of independence. The progenitor of the Brooks family in the new world was Thomas Brooks, who in the seventeenth century settled at Con- cord, New Hampshire. Both families left their impress upon the history of New England through loyal support of many projects and measures for the publie good and by the maintenance of high standards of eitizenship.
Edwin C. Meservey, spending his youthful days in his native city, became a student in the Hallowell Classical and Scientific Institute, in which he pre- pared for college, and later he entered the University of Kansas, winning the Bachelor of Arts degree upon his gradnation with the class of 1882. Hle pre- pared for the bar as a student in the St. Louis Law School, which he attended from 1883 until June, 1885, when the Bachelor of Laws degree was conferred upon him. His identifieation with the west dates from 1877 and he remained in Lawrence, Kansas, as a student in the State University until 1882. At the time he entered Kansas University there was a preparatory course, and he en- tered as a middle preparatory student. He was a member of the Oread Literary Society and represented that society on two of its commencement programs. IIe also represented the Oread Society in a joint debate between that society and
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Edwin Clement Deservey
the Orophilian Literary Society. He was connected with several university publications, among them being the University Pastime and The Kansas Re- view. He was editor in chief of the Kansas Kibbabe, which was one of the first annuals published in the University of Kansas.
In 1882 Mr. Meservey initiated his business career by entering the employ of the Kansas City, Springfield & Memphis Railroad Company, in which con- nection he was engaged in survey work in Sharp and Fulton counties of Arkan- sas, for the railroad was at that time being extended from Springfield, Missouri, to Memphis, Tennessee. In June, 1883, he returned to Lawrence, Kansas, and for several months filled the position of city editor on the Lawrence Journal, having previously had some newspaper experience during his student days in the Kansas University. While attending the St. Louis Law School he had a desk in the office of Hon. Nathan Frank, an eminent member of the bar of that city, and following the completion of his law course he came at once to Kansas City, where he entered the employ of the law firm of Lathrop & Smith, with whom he continued until January 1, 1890. He then entered upon practice independently and organized the law firm of Meservey, Pierce & German, his associates being Arba F. Pierce and Charles W. German. Following the retire- ment of Mr. Pierce in July, 1907, the firm style of Meservey & German was assumed, and in March, 1911, this firm was joined by the law firm of Ilaff & Michaels and the partnership has since been maintained under the name of Haff, Meservey, German & Michaels. Almost from the beginning of his law practice Mr. Meservey has occupied a prominent position at the Kansas City bar. The thoroughness with which he has prepared his cases, the ability with which he has applied legal principles to the points at issue, his clear reasoning, his sound deductions and his close conformity to the highest ethical standards of the profession have brought him merited fame and success as a representative of the legal profession in Kansas City.
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