History of Westchester county : New York, including Morrisania, Kings Bridge, and West Farms, which have been annexed to New York City, Vol. II, Part 26

Author: Scharf, J. Thomas (John Thomas), 1843-1898,
Publication date: 1886
Publisher: Philadelphia : L.E. Preston & Co.
Number of Pages: 1286

USA > New York > Westchester County > History of Westchester county : New York, including Morrisania, Kings Bridge, and West Farms, which have been annexed to New York City, Vol. II > Part 26

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

This completes the list of industries hitherto organ-

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HISTORY OF WESTCHESTER COUNTY.

ized in Yonkers. But even while we are writing we hear of others projected. The adaptation of the local- ity to manufacturing industries seems to have no limit. They have doubled here within the last ten years. They give employment to many thousands of people. No one can predict to what extent they will yet grow, and their growth will hasten all other forms of growth, and will bring with these all the conditions they will require,-business, schools, churches, means of trans- portation and publie works of every kind. There is a growth withont limit before the people, the eondi- tions of which will depend, humanly speaking, wholly upon their own good judgment and practical wisdom in appreciating and applying the forces within their reach on every hand.

SECTION XV. The City Banks.

The city has two banks for discount and two for savings. The "Yonkers Savings-Bank " is the oldest of these institutions. It was incorporated under a special act. The date of its incorporation was April 13, 185, and it began business June 13th of the same year. The next in order is the " First National Bank of Yonk- ers, N. Y.," which was originally chartered under the name of " The Bank of Yonkers," and began business on the 10th of August, 1854. The third is the " Peo- ple's Savings-Bank of the Town of Yonkers," which was incorporated April 5, 1866, and opened for busi- ness April 27, 1867. And the youngest is the " Citizens' National Bank of the City of Yonkers," which was in- eorporated under the National Bank Act, December 5, 1872, and began business February 1, 1873. In regard to the Savings-Banks we state, as an incident bearing equally on both, that an act was passed by the Legislature of 1875 to conform all savings institu- tions to a uniformity of powers, rights and liabilities. Under this act, their mode of doing business, their rates of dividends, etc., are fixed by law.

We give the histories of the four Yonkers banks in the order of time in which they began to do business.

YONKERS SAVINGS-BANK .- This is now thirty-two years old. Its board of trustees was originally forty- one in number, but under the act of 1875, referred to above, it was reduced to twenty-five. The original trustees were Ethan Flagg, Robert P. Getty, J. Henry Williams, William Radford, Thomas O. Farrington, Horatio G. Prall, John T. Waring, Edward W. Can- dee, Henry W. Bashford, Lemuel W. Wells, Samuel D). Rockwell, William L. Atwater, William N. Sey- mour, Bailey Hobbs, Duncan Macfarlane, Charles Areher, Henry F. Devoe, George Gilroy, Amos W. Gates, James C. Bell, James L. Valentine, Joseph S. Hawkins, William G. Ackerman, John Olmsted, Rob- ert Grant, William W. Serugham, Jonathan Odell, Benjamin Brown, Fielding S. Gant, Joseph HI. Jen- nings, George H. Bell, Frederick A. Coe, Samuel S. Barry, John Stilwell, James Serymser, Josialı Rich. Edward F. Shonnard, Henry A. Underwood, Law-

renee Post, Jr., Jaeob Read and Cornelius M. Odell. Twenty-seven of these men have since died, and eleven more have been dropped, so that of them all none are now in the direction except Robert P. Getty, J. Henry Williams and Jacob Read.

The present trustees (there being eight vacancies) are Robert P. Getty, J. Henry Williams, Jacob Read (original incorporators), George W. Francis, Freder- ick A. Back, S. Emmet Getty. Stephen H. Thayer, Jr., Sylvanus Mayo, J. W. Rockwell, Samuel P. Holmes, S. Franeis Quick, George W. Read, Joseph A. Loekwood, G. Livingston Morse, Fred. Von Storeh, William H. Thorne and Frederie Shonnard. The officers are Robert P. Getty, president ; Jacob Read and George W. Francis, vice-presidents; S. Emmet Getty, secretary ; J. Henry Williams, treas- urer ; and Lyman Cobb, Jr., eashier.

From the date of organization to 1864 the bank was open for business on Tuesday and Saturday even- ings only. From 1864 it has been open daily as well as on those evenings. Its first evening hours were from 6.30 to 8 p.M., and its first day hours were from 10 to 12 A.M., and from 2 to 5 p.M. In later years its hours have been from 9 to 12 A.M., from 2 to 5 and from 6 to 8 P.M.

From 1854 to 1859 Mr. Egbert Howland, cashier of the Bank of Yonkers, acted as business manager, under the title of clerk. From 1859 to 1867 Mr. Samuel D. Rockwell was the elerk and for part of that time the treasurer also. In 1867 he resigned both these offiees. Then Mr. Lyman Cobb, Jr., who had been trustee from 1863 and had in 1866 resigned his trusteeship to accept the assistant clerkship, was eleeted clerk, and Mr. Isaac H. Knox was chosen treasurer. Mr. Cobb still holds his ofliee, but in 1873 the title clerk was changed to the title cashier. Mr. Knox resigned the treasurership in 1874 and Mr. J. Henry Williams, a trustee from the beginning to now, was elected in his place, and holds the office to-day. Mr. Ethan Flagg was the bank's only president from its opening till his death on the 11th of October, 1884, a period of more than thirty years. Then Mr. Getty, a trustee from the beginning, was elected pres- ident, and he continnes in the ofliee still.

In 1867 Mr. Rafaelle Cobb was employed by his father as an assistant in the elerkship. In 1874 the trustees gave him a regular appointment as clerk, which he still holds. He has served in the bank for eighteen years.

In 1859 the deposits with the bank from organization had amounted to fifty-seven thousand eight hundred and eighty dollars. In 1867 they had increased to three lindred and fifty thousand dollars. On the Ist of January, 1886, they had reached the sum of $8,359,715.

During its first five years the Yonkers Savings- Bank condueted its business at the Bank of Yonkers (now the First National Bank). The next two or three years it conducted it in a store on the opposite

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side of the street. Then it hired and occupied rooms in the Getty House, on the corner of New Main Street. In 1866 it was determined to erect a new building for it on Getty Square. The result was the ereetion of the present elegant banking-house, of which it took possession April 19, 1868. It is of brown stone in front and has three stories and a base- ment. It covers forty by seventy feet on the ground. In the cellar is a steam-heating apparatus. The basement is rented for offices. The banking is con- dueted on the first floor in a front apartment, thirty- five by forty feet, provided with Lillie's safety vault, consisting of two chambers and a fire-proof vault in the rear, seeured by three combination locks. The trustees' room, in the rear of the banking-room, is twenty-five by forty feet.

The bank has a police

telegraph attachment to its safe and call, which will bring an officer in one minute. The second floor has accommodations for the use of the janitor, and also contains the Yonkers Lyceum Hall. The third floor has a main lodge- room, thirty-five by fifty- one feet, with a sixteen- foot ceiling and four ante- rooms. This floor has always been occupied by the Freemasons. The eree- tion of this building gave great impulse to business. In four years the amount of deposits doubled, and in five years more it doubled again, rounding the mil- lion. It has been thought alsothat it very much helped the boom in real estate, which oc- eurred immediately thereafter, when building lots in some quarters doubled in value, actual sales being made at two thousand four hundred dollars, when the amount paid just two years before had been one thousand two hundred dollars. It also had an influence in re- dueing the rate of interest on Yonkers city indebted- ness.

The Bank, January 1, 1886, reported to the Bank De- partment the amount due depositors as $1,392,842.71, and the surplus as $137,072.

The amount eredited to depositors for the preceding six months was $24,300.48. The first six months in 1854 had reached but $124.16. On the 1st of Janu- ary 1877, however, $29,640 had been credited. The whole amount of interest eredited to depositors from the organization to the 1st of January 1886, was

SamLD. Rockwell

$840,110.63, and the whole amount of money depos- ited was $8,359,715, making a total of $9,199,825,63. The whole amount that had been paid depositors was $7,806,982.92, and the amount remaining on hand and due them was $1,392,842.71. The number of open accounts was 5099. It will be seen from this financial statement that the bank is in a sound condition.

Samuel Darling Rockwell, one of the founders of the Yonkers Savings Bank, was born in the town of Ridgefield, Conn., January 23, 1810. His parents were well to do farmers for those days, whose Christian fidelity made a happy home. Here he remained during his early youth, enjoy- ing the advantages of a common school during winter, and working on the okl homestead during the summer. In 1825 his father procured for him a situa- tion in the city of New York, where he learned the trade of watch-maker and jeweler, continuing in the same establishment until he became the owner and succeeded his employer in 1837. In the fall of 1844 he came to Yonkers, pur- chased a site and built a small cottage, and in the spring of 1845 removed from the city with his family, being one of the first of the business men of New York to locate here, but going daily to and from his business by way of the Harlem road for several years previous to the build- ing of the Hudson River Railway. He was soon followed by many who, like himself, sought relief from a crowded eity in the was at that time

pure air of Yonkers, which a thinly inhabited country town, containing only about 3000 inhabitants. He afterwards withdrew from business in New York, and established a real estate ageney which he still continues. Ile has ever been intimately connected with all sehemes for public improvement, and especially interested in all that concerns the welfare of the public schools. ! In religion he is connected with the First Presbyterian Church, and was one of the first to assist in organizing a church of that denomination in Yonkers. Mr. Rockwell married Oril James, daughter of Jacob Sherman, of Brinfield, Mass. Their children are John William, who is now residing in Yonkers ; George Sigourney, who was killed at the battle of Stone River, 1863, at the age of twenty-three, Frances

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HISTORY OF WESTCHESTER COUNTY.

Elizabeth, wife of John H. Riker, of New York City; Julius Talcott, who married Imogene, daughter of | Alfred Jones, and is now residing in this city.

Mr. Roekwell is one of the oldest citizens of Yon- kers and is well known as a man of enlarged views, and no one has a better elaim to be considered a representative man of the city.

Lyman Cobb, Jr., the cashier of the Yonkers Savings- Bank is the son of the eminent Lyman Cobb, the author of the numerous school books whose circula- tion may be counted by millions. This celebrated lexicographer was a native of Lenox, Massachusetts, and removed to New York, where the greater part of his life was spent in the preparation of the works which have given him a lasting and well-deserved fame. Mr. Cobb was born September 18th, 1800, and married Miss Harriet Chambers, of Caroline, Tomp- kins County, N. Y., April 7, 1822. Their children were Sarah Jane, born in Rochester, N. Y., March 20, 1823, married Wm. C. Dunean July 1, 1846, died July 7, 1847 ; Eleanor Mack, born in Berkshire, Tioga County, April 3, 1825; Lyman, Jr., born in Caroline, Tompkins County, September 18, 1826; Hannah Louisa, born August 13, 1828 ; George Whit- ney, born in New York, October 11, 1835; William Henry, born June 12, 1837 ; Charles Frederick, born December 3, 1848, and Eugene Wheaton, born Oeto- ber 16, 1851. After a long life of activity and useful- ness this ecelebrated man died in October, 1864, at Colesburg, Potter County, Penn., and rests in peace in the cemetery of that quiet village.

Lyman Cobb, Jr., whose portrait appears in this work, passed the earlier part of his life in New York, where he was engaged as assistant to his father, in the preparation of his numerous works on educational subjects. His close application to business made such inroads upon his health that in 1850 he removed to Yonkers, seeking the benefit of the country air. For two years he was book-keeper in the employ of Marshall Lefferts, a well-known business man and Colonel of the famous Seventh Regiment of New York. While in his employ the labor devolved upon him of keeping five distinet sets of books, a burden too onerous to be borne for a great length of time, and he resolved to make Yonkers his permanent home. Here he taught sehool for three years, and was soon reckoned among the prominent citizens of the village, being elected Clerk of the village (a position which he held for seven years), andwas for sixteen years justice of the peace, performing all the civil and criminal busi- ness of the office during a large portion of the time. He was elected trustee and secretary of the Yonkers Savings Bank, which he held for three years, when he resigned to accept the office of cashier, and has continned in that position for the last seventeen years. In 1869 he was ordained deacon in the Episcopal Church, and established a Mission Church, a full ac- count of which will be found in another place. His connection with the City Hospital as chaplain, dur-

ing the last ten years, and the daily service condueted by him, shows his active interest in the cause of phi- lanthropy, and as President of the Young Men's Christian Association, his ability and willingness to do good have been fully shown. In the Masonic fraternity Mr. Cobb holds an honorable place, being a member of four different bodies. He was for four years Master of Rising Star Lodge, No. 450, a charter member of Nepperhan Lodge, No. 736, and was first High Priest of Nepperhan Chapter, No. 177. He was Charter Member and thrice Illustrions Master of Nepperhan Council, and Charter Member and Com- mander of Yonkers Commandery, No. 47, and is now treasurer of the Couneil and the Lodge. In 1884, in company with his wife, daughter and youngest son, he made a tour of several European countries.

Mr. Cobb was married to Miss Cornelia Drake, of Little Falls, Herkimer County, November 4, 1845. their children are Raffaelle, born January 3, 1850; married to Martha C. East, and has two .children- Raffaelle, Jr., and Cornelia Willis ; Francis Eugene, born September 14, 1852, and married to Miss Katha- riue B. Mann, of Watkins, N. Y .; Minuie Putnam, born Mareh 17, 1857, and Frederic Lyman, born October 20, 1862. The only daughter, Miss Minnie P. Cobb, has just died in May 1886.

As a citizen of Yonkers Mr. Cobb holds a high and honorable position. A firm supporter of the Episec - pal Chureh, and a devout member, he is in charity with all Christian denominations. His character, in society, is that of an honest and careful business man, and he has gained the well-deserved reputation of a good and useful citizen.

THE FIRST NATIONAL BANK OF YONKERS, N. Y. -This bank also was organized in 1854. It began business on the 10th of August in that year, and, like the Yonkers Savings-Bank, is now thirty-one years old. Its original directors, named in the articles of association, were Amos W. Gates, Ethan Flagg, Rob- ert P. Getty, Henry F. Devoe, Lemuel W. Wells, William H. Arthur, William G. Ackerman, Fickling S. Gant, William C. Waring, James L. Valentine, John Olmsted, John Stilwell and Henry W. Bashford. The direetors since eleete.I, in the order of their elec- tion, have been Abraham Hatfield, John T. Waring, Thomas C. Cornell, James C. Bell, Joseph S. Haw- kins, William W. Serugham, Jeremiah Robins, John W. Mills, Edward Underhill, Isaac HI. Knox, Corne- lius M. Odell, John H. Morris, Jonathan Odell, George B. Skinner, Henry Bowers, Alexander Smith, Wil- liam L. Cogswell, James Faulkner, James Stewart, William A. Dibble, James M. Drake, Charles Clark, William H. Doty, Warren B. Smith, Rudolf Eicke- meyer, Angustus Marsh, William D. Olmsted, Samuel P. Holmes, William F. Cochran and William P. Ketcham. Total number of directors from the begin- ning, forty-one. Of these, the following are the directors in July, 1886, viz., John Olmsted, Robert P. Getty, John T. Waring, Thomas C. Cornell, Isaac H.

Sypmai Golf

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Knox, James Stewart, Warren B. Smith, Rudolf Eickemeyer, Charles Clark, William H. Doty, Au- gustus Marsh, William F. Cochran and William P. Ketcham.

Mr. John Olmsted has been president from the be- ginning, being still in the active duties of the office. The first cashier was Mr. Egbert Howland, who re- signed May 1, 1875, on account of impaired health, and died January 12, 1878. Mr. Howland, before coming to Yonkers, had started and been successively the cashier of the two banks of discount still flourish- ing in Peekskill and Somers. He was the working power of the First National Bank of Yonkers during his connection with it. Mr. William D. Olmsted be- came cashier of the bank when Mr. Howland re- signed in 1875, having been assistant cashier from September 15, 1871. Mr. Olmsted resigned the cashiership September 10, 1878, when Mr. Wallis Smith was appointed cashier. Mr. Smith is still in office. Mr. James T. Howland entered the bank at its opening, as clerk. Subsequently he be- came assistant to the cashier. For many years now he has been the bank teller. Mr. John H. Keeler was appointed book-keeper April 1, 1868, and resigned February 1, 1873. Mr. Wallis Smith succeeded Mr. Keeler, and kept the position till he was made cash- ier. Peter S. Abrams was employed as office-clerk and runner in 1862, was promoted to the position of second teller in 1872, and resigned June 1, 1877. He has since died. Edward Gibson was engaged as junior clerk June 4, 1875, and, when Mr. Smith was pro- moted, was placed in charge of the dealers' ledger, at which he still remains. Wells Olmsted was en- gaged as junior clerk in September, 1878, and holds the position now. Luke Simpson was employed as janitor in April, 1873, and is janitor still.

Of the original directors, Amos W. Gates, Ethan Flagg, Henry F. Devoe, Lemuel W. Wells, William H. Arthur, Fielding S. Gant, James L. Valentine and John Stilwell have died. And of the directors since elected, the same is true of Abraham Hatfield, Joseph S. Hawkins, William W. Scrugham, Jeremiah Rob- ins, John W. Mills, Edward Underhill, Cornelius M. Odell, Alexander Smith, William L. Cogswell, James Faulkner and William A. Dibble. The total number lost by death has been nineteen.

The bank in December, 1864, changed its relations from a State bank to a National bank, with the title which it now holds and which stands at the beginning of this article. The circulation of the former bank, ninety thousand dollars, was assumed by the new bank, and some of the notes representing it have even yet not been presented for redemption.

The bank began business in a small room in the Getty House, receiving at its opening thirteen depos- its, amounting to eleven thousand nine hundred and twenty-six dollars. Its first dividend was paid on the 10th of April, 1855, to one hundred and thirty-three shareholders. Its capital stock is one hundred and

fifty thousand dollars, its surplus fund is thirty- seven thousand five hundred dollars, its undivided profits are $15,185.11, and its individual deposits (subject to check) amount to $485,775.78. It has paid dividends with regularity from its beginning, its business having been throughout a continuous success.

Two years nearly after its opening the directors leased of Mr. Robert P. Getty the rooms at the south end of the Getty House, and, in March 1863, they erected a safety vault in these rooms and an additional apartment in the rear. These premises they occupied till they took possession of their present building. They are now occupied by the Citizens' National Bank.

Plans for a bank building (on a lot of ground next south of the Getty House, twenty-two feet front, to which six feet, bought of the Anderson estate, were soon added), made by J. Davis Hatch, were adopted in September, 1871, and work was begun at once. In January, 1872, the Yonkers Savings-Bank trustees formally invited this bank to occupy a portion of their banking-rooms, free of charge, till the completion of the new building, but this liberal offer proved unnec- essary, and, with proper acknowledgment, was de- clined.

The vaults of the present bank were built and placed in position by Lewis Lillie, formerly of Troy, N. Y., as soon as the building was enclosed.

The building committee reported estimates for counters, desks, furniture and fixtures on the 1st of November, 1872, most of which were furnished by the carpenters (Seger & Smith), who, together with the masons (J. & G. Stewart), completed the building about the 1st of May of the following year.

On the 30th of April, 1873, after business hours, the treasure and books of the bank were removed to the new vault ; and on the next day business was begun in the new banking-rooms, where it has been con- ducted since. The office-hours of the bank are from nine A.M. to three P.M. of each day.

On the 8th of August, 1879, the directors of this bank celebrated the twenty-fifth anniversary of its organization with appropriate ceremonies. The his- tory of the bank to the time was carefully prepared, and printed in the Yonkers papers. The statement we have given, as far as it refers to its record down to that date, is condensed from that history. For what has transpired since, we have been indebted to the cashier of the bank, who has courteously answered our questions in reference to its present details.

John Olmsted, one of the oldest citizens of Yonkers, and president of the First National Bank of that city, was born in Spencertown, Columbia County, N. Y., October 4, 1811. His grandfather, Jonathan Olmsted, was a native of Connecticut, born in 1745. He married Thankful Crosby. Their son Jonathan was born June 12, 1782, and settled in Spencer- town, where he practiced as a physician, and also conducted a small country store. In those primitive

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times the usual fee for a professional visit was twenty- five cents, or fifty cents if called to travel a long distance. To obtain goods for his store he made occasional visits to New York, when it sometimes took him two weeks to make the trip on the slow-sailing sloops, the only eraft used in early times. After a life of usefulness he died at the early age of forty-two, leaving a family of six daughters and one son. The son, John Ohn- sted (subject of this sketch), left home at the age of thirteen and found employment in a store in South Hadley, Mass. It was here that he earned his first dollar. Being one of the scholars in the Sunday-school, his aunt offered him one dollar for every thousand verses of the New Testament which he could commit to memory. The result was his learning from the second chapter of Mat- thew to the eleventh chapter of Luke, inch- sive, somewhat more than two thousand two hun- dred verses. He returned in the fall of 1826 and tanght a distriet school in his native town with good success, the wages being twelve dollars a month. As was customary in those days, the teacher " boarded round." In the spring of 1827 he ob- tained a clerkship in the store of James Clark, of Kinderhook, and re- mained one year. He then went to New York and entered the whole- sale grocery-store of Ste- phens, Lippincott & Co., 52 Front Street. The John Onisted former members of this firm had retired rich and the partners were then Charles Robb and John L. Stephens. The latter [ in history. In 1868, in company with one of his had studied law and had entered the firm to get some practical knowledge of mercantile life. He afterwards became an extensive traveler, and his "Travels in the Holy Land " and "Travels in Central America, Chia- pas and Yneatan " are among the most interesting books of travel ever written by an American.

In 1832 Mr. Olmsted was sent by the firm as a wit- ness in a suit to be tried at Plattsburgh, and he retains a vivid remembrance of meeting troops of people who were fleeing from Canada to escape the cholera then raging. After his return he found the dreaded disease ravaging New York. Business was almost suspended and he conkl stand in the store-

door and see no one in the street, nor any vessels in the ships. The great fire of 1835 destroyed their place of business, only a safe with books and papers and a few valuable goods being saved. In 1834 Mr. Olmsted made a visit to Niagara Falls, then a long and tedi- ous journey. For a part of the way he traveled on the " Mohawk and Hudson" Railroad, the first in the State, its meagre accommodations being very far behind the equipments of modern times. In the spring of 1837 Mr. Olmsted formed a partnership with Mr. H. G. Her- bert, under the firm-name of Herbert & Olmsted, with Mr. Ira Davenport, of Steuben County, N. Y., as special partner, in the wholesale grocery business, at No. 62 Front Street, New York. This business he con- tinued at that place and at No. 72, on the same street, till 1850, when he leased the store, No. 203 Fulton Street, and occu- pied it till he closed up his business in 1854.

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History of Westchester county : New York, including Morrisania, Kings Bridge, and West Farms, which have been annexed to New York City, Vol. II, Part 26

Author: Scharf, J. Thomas (John Thomas), 1843-1898, Publication date: 1886 Publisher: Philadelphia : L.E. Preston & Co. Number of Pages: 1286

Author: Scharf, J. Thomas (John Thomas), 1843-1898,
Publication date: 1886
Publisher: Philadelphia : L.E. Preston & Co.
Number of Pages: 1286