USA > New York > New York City > History of the city of New York, 1609-1909 > Part 48
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HISTORY OF NEW YORK
den of power should rest, so, by and by-in 1885-when Mr. Flagler was half way on the road between fifty and sixty, he developed a desire for new creations. A journey to the South brought him to St. Augustine, by the palm-shaded ocean frontage of Florida, and his imagination took fire at the thought of what a picturesque paradise the country was that fasci- nated the seafaring Spanish cavaliers of four centuries ago, and how habitable and productive it could be made. Then and there he began a series of developments. A great chain of mammoth and beautiful hotels began with the Ponce de Leon and the Alcazar, at St. Augustine, fol- lowed by the Ormond Hotel at the famous hard sand beach of that name, the Royal Poinciana and The Breakers, at Palm Beach, the Royal Palm at Miami, and the Colonial and Royal Victoria at Nassau, Bahamas. But while thus providing for the tourist and the health-seeker, Mr. Flagler took note of agriculture, and decreed that the settlers of the eastern side of Florida should not want railroads for carrying their golden oranges and garden truck to the Northern markets. Hence a buying, improving and building of railroads set in thereabout that has meant six hundred additional miles of rails in the State of Flowers. But his last achievement has been his greatest. With a wonderful creative stroke he projected and is build- ing a line of railroad south from Miami along the Atlantic keys or tiny meadowlike islands that fringe the coast. It is a massive viaduct of con- crete, solid as the hills and altogether the last word in railroad building and equipment, literally running through the Atlantic Ocean to Key West-one of the wonders of the modern world. It has for two years been taking trains to Knights Key. Another year will probably see it finished.
And in all this Mr. Flagler has only drawn upon his own long purse. He has had no partners. Whether building hotels, or churches or schools, acquiring old railroads, building new ones, buying and run- ning steamships, he has made them and paid for them just as he did for his own Florida home, "Whitehall," at Palm Beach. He has in twenty-five years built up the eastern half of Florida, and has seen tens of thousands follow in to reap the harvest of fruits, flowers and manufacture.
For a man of eighty, he is marvelously young ; alert to all about him, he is reserved to the point of reticence; considerate without comment, kindly without gush ; doing great things of novelty with the air of moving easily along appointed paths. He has never traveled in Europe and has never seen California. Although traveling much, he is not fond of travel. He has retained his great Standard Oil interests; remained a vice presi- dent of the company until recently ; he is still a director.
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ELBRIDGE GERRY SNOW
E LBRIDGE GERRY SNOW, president of the Home Insurance Com- pany, was born in Barkhamstead, Conn., January 22, 1841, being the son of Elbridge Gerry Snow and Eunice ( Woodruff) Snow. His education, begun in the district and high schools, was completed in the Fort Edward (N. Y.) Institute. After his graduation he studied law, but instead of engaging in practice, he entered an insurance office in Waterbury, Conn. In 1862 he obtained a clerkship in the main office of the Home Insurance Company, in New York City, and since then his connection with the com- pany has been continuous. He remained in the main office for nine years, then went to Boston as State agent of the company, for Massachusetts; and, while there, also became a part- ner in a local agency repre- senting several of the best companies, under the firm name of Hollis & Snow.
In 1885 Mr. Snow returned to New York City as secretary of the com- pany, became its vice presi- dent in 1888, and since 1904 has been president of the Home Insurance Company, to which his experience and ability have been of inesti- mable value.
Besides being at the head of this great company, ELBRIDGE GERRY SNOW Mr. Snow is a trustee of the New York Life Insurance Company, and is a director of the North River Savings Bank and other corporations.
He is also a member of the American Museum of Natural History, and the Municipal Art Society, and several other similar associations; is a mem- ber of the Society of Mayflower Descendants, the New England Society in New York, and the Lotos, City and Underwriters' Clubs.
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HISTORY OF NEW YORK
ELBERT HENRY GARY
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ELBERT HENRY GARY
P ROFESSIONALLY one of the foremost American lawyers, by achievement the premier figure in the movement toward the con- solidation and more perfect organization of great industries, and officially the head and executive of the world's greatest corporation, Judge Elbert Henry Gary has attained a deservedly prominent place in the public eye.
He was born in Wheaton, Illinois, October 8, 1846, being a son of Eras- tus and Susan A. (Vallette) Gary, and on both sides of sturdy New England stock. The Wheaton public schools and Wheaton College gave him his gen- eral education, and he was graduated from the Law Department of Chicago University in 1867. Being admitted to the Bar in 1867, he was for a few years a clerk in the Cook County Courts, then engaged in practice with offices in Chicago and in his native town of Wheaton, which is twenty-five miles west of Chicago, and the county seat of Du Page County. He established there, in 1874, the Gary-Wheaton Bank, of which he has ever since been president, and as its banker and foremost lawyer was the leading citizen of Wheaton. He was three times president of the village of Wheaton, and after it was re- organized as a city, was its first mayor for two terms. He was also county judge of Du Page County, Illinois, for two terms.
As a Chicago lawyer he practised for twenty-five years, becoming a leader at that bar, and being counsel for some of the largest corporations and leading business interests. He was president of the Chicago Bar Association in 1893 and 1894. Judge Gary had much to do with the combination and reor- ganization of the traction interests, and with the consolidation of industries. In 1892 he consolidated several wire mills under the name of the Con- solidated Steel and Wire Company, and about the same time united several plants in and around Chicago and Joliet, Illinois, under the name of the Illinois Steel Company. John W. Gates became president of those companies, in each of which Judge Gary became a director and acquired a substantial interest. In 1896 he added a large number of mills to the Con- solidated Steel and Wire Company, and reorganized it as the American Steel and Wire Company. In 1898 the Illinois Steel Company interests, combining with others, represented by Eastern capitalists under the leadership of J. Pierpont Morgan, were consolidated under the name of The Federal Steel Company, up to that time the largest of American corporations, and Judge Gary was elected its president. Finally the organization of the United States Steel Corporation was effected, Judge Gary being intrusted with the negotiations which united with The Federal Steel Company, the great Carnegie interests, the American Steel and Wire Company, the American Sheet and Tin Plate Company and other "Moore" interests, besides numerous other manufacturing, shipping, railroad, coal, coke, ore and other interests composing the United States Steel Corporation, of which Judge Gary, as
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HISTORY OF NEW YORK
chairman of the Board of Directors and chairman of the Finance Committee, is the chief officer and directing head. The charter and form of government of this corporation were drafted by Judge Gary, and have been commended as the most perfect example of organic regulation ever devised for a great cor- poration. The Tennessee Coal and Iron Company's large Southern interests have since been acquired, largely through Judge Gary's initiative.
In view of the predominant part in its organization, and the wise executive direction he has given to the United States Steel Corporation, it is appropriate that the Board of Directors have chosen the name "Gary" for the great industrial city they have built by Lake Michigan in Indiana.
Judge Gary is also the chairman of the Board of Directors of the Allis-Chalmers Company; and is a director of the American Bridge Company, American Land Company, American Sheet and Tin Plate Com- pany, American Steel and Wire Company, American Steel Foundries Com- pany, American Trust and Savings Bank, the Chicago, Bessemer and Lake Erie Railroad Company, Bullock Electric Manufacturing Company, Carnegie Steel Company, the Chicago, Lake Shore and Eastern Railway Company, Commercial National Bank of Chicago, Duluth and Iron Range Railroad Company, the Elgin, Joliet and Eastern Railway Company, Federal Steel Com- pany, the Gary-Wheaton Bank, of Wheaton, Illinois, H. C. Frick Coke Com- pany, Hudson and Manhattan Railroad Company, Illinois Steel Company, International Harvester Company, Lake Superior Consolidated Iron Mines, Merchants Loan and Trust Company of Chicago, Minnesota Iron Company, National Tube Company, Newburgh and South Shore Railway Company, New York Trust Company, Oliver Iron Mining Company, Phenix National Bank of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh Steamship Company, Shelby Steel Tube Company, Union Steel Company, United States Coal and Coke Company, United States Natural Gas Company, United States Steel Products Export Company, Universal Portland Cement Company.
It is a matter of history that when the United States Steel Corporation was organized, yellow journalists and agitators prophesied the wiping out of small and independent concerns. But instead of that there has been evolved in the steel industry, since the organization of the United States Steel Cor- poration, greater harmony than at any previous period of the development of that industry. The interests of the corporation and of the independent companies are competitive, but not conflicting, and by meeting the heads of the independent concerns in councils of harmony Judge Gary has brought the entire steel business of the country into friendly relations. Several times he has invited the leaders in the trade to dinners to talk over the interests of the trade, and the independents have reciprocated. There has been no cut-throat price-cutting on the part of the corporation or its competitors, but there has
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ELBERT HENRY GARY
been greater prosperity and stability in the business than ever before; and to Judge Gary belongs the leading share of credit for creating these conditions.
In no instance have his abilities as a diplomat been displayed more com- pletely than in connection with the organization of the International Harvester Company. The harvester industry was divided into fourteen com- panies (survivors of two hundred) fiercely contending in every farming section of this and many foreign countries for the business, with armies of salesmen, cutting prices and raising havoc with profits. The era of consolida- tion had fully arrived, and other industries had taken advantage of its benefits, but the competition between the harvester people had been so intense that although they met in Chicago to try to reach an agreement, it seemed that the more they talked the further they were apart. William Deering, how- ever, made one suggestion which took root, and that was that the best way to get a workable plan was to go to New York and consult Elbert H. Gary, who had been his attorney for twenty-five years.
They all knew Judge Gary, whose achievement in connection with the organization of the Steel Corporation was then recent history. One by one they sought Mr. Gary in New York, and his advice to them was to consolidate. None of them wanted to do that, but asked him to work out a plan to stop the ruinous features of their competition. Judge Gary thought out a plan, then took the matter up with J. Pierpont Morgan, called four of the leaders to New York and finally reached terms of agreement which unified the industry and combined the thirteen principal manufacturing concerns in the line in the International Harvester Company, a most successful consolidation, with all its component companies working in harmony. There are those who consider Judge Gary's work in securing this result a greater triumph of diplomacy than even his achievements in forming the Steel Corporation.
Though a great lawyer and business executive, Judge Gary finds time for social and artistic interests, and for recreation. He is a member of the best clubs of New York and Chicago, is a collector and connoisseur of art, is President of the Illinois Society of New York and of the Automobile Club of America, and a member of the Automobile Clubs of Great Britain and Ireland, France, Germany and Italy. He makes annual vacation trips to Europe, making automobile tours to places of interest.
In Wheaton, Ill., he has erected the Gary Memorial Church, by many authorities regarded as the finest memorial church in America, in memory of his parents, and he has recently completed a $100,000 mausoleum there for their remains. He married in Aurora, Ill., June 23, 1869, Julia E. Graves, who died June 21, 1902, and by whom he has two daughters, Gertrude (wife of Dr. Harry Willis Sutcliffe) and Bertha (wife of Robert W. Campbell). He married again, in New York, December 2, 1905. Mrs. Emma T. Scott.
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HISTORY OF NEW YORK
T HE ASTOR FAMILY has for more than a century held leading place in the physical development of New York City. The founder of the family in America, John Jacob Astor, was a German, born July 17, 1763, at Waldorf, near Heidelberg. He lived and worked in his native place until he was sixteen years of age, when he went to London; in which city lived his uncle, who was a member of the firm of Astor & Braidwood, manufac- turers of pianos and other musical instruments, which, under its later name of Braidwood & Company, became leader in the British piano industry. One of his brothers was employed with that firm, and Henry Astor, another brother, had emigrated to New York, whither John Jacob had decided to go as soon as he accumulated sufficient funds for the purpose. He worked in the piano factory for about four years, then went to Baltimore with a small consignment of musical instruments.
On the voyage to Baltimore Mr. Astor, in conversation with a fellow pas- senger, learned much about the profitableness of the fur trade-buying from Indians and frontiersmen and selling to large dealers. The field described seemed so promising that, in order to get a practical insight into the business, he came to New York, entered the service of a Quaker furrier, and after he had learned the business thoroughly established himself on Water Street, working hard at the business in his shop except when on his purchasing trips to the interior. Soon after starting for himself he went to London, where he made favorable arrangements with fur houses, and also secured from Astor & Braidwood a general agency for their pianos in America, and on his return to New York opened a wareroom; thus becoming the first in this country to engage regularly in the musical instrument trade.
The fur trade was, however, his principal activity, and he prosecuted it with such success that his leadership in the trade became undisputed in the United States; he was the chief competitor of the Hudson Bay Company in the London market. To secure further advantage for himself, to make Amer- ican trade independent of the Hudson Bay monopoly, and to extend civiliza- tion through the Western wilderness, he proposed to Congress, in 1809, a national scheme to establish a chain of trading posts from the Great Lakes to the Pacific Coast; to buy one of the Sandwich Islands, and establish a line of vessels between a Pacific port and China and India. Two expeditions were sent, one by land and one by sea, to establish relations of amity with the Pacific Coast Indians; but Congress pursued the plan no further, because the War of 1812 occupied the national attention and took all the resources of the govern- ment. The settlement of Astoria had, however, been founded in 18II, and Mr. Astor continued his operations without government aid; but did not suc- ceed in his plan to establish settlements in the Northwest. As an expansion- ist he was forty years ahead of his time. While his immediate purpose was
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JOHN JACOB ASTOR
not accomplished, Mr. Astor's efforts promoted the patriotic feeling which afterward resulted in securing for the United States the control of the valuable region at the mouth of the Columbia River, claimed by Great Britain. Washington Irving wrote his famous work, Astoria, largely from documents which Mr. Astor furnished.
His trading post, Astoria, was personally located by him at the mouth of the Columbia River. He visited the Indian tribes and gained their friend- ship. He had hoped by these means to open the way for the peaceful acqui- sition, by the United States, of the entire Oregon country. But the hostility of the Hudson Bay Company, which would not of itself have frustrated his plans, was reinforced, by the action of his agent, who, at the first approach of a British war-ship, dismissed Mr. Astor's Indian allies, struck his flag and surrendered the post.
He organized The American Fur Company, which built up an inter- national trade. Its sales in New York City attracted buyers from all civilized countries, and its export business grew so large that he employed ships of his own, which carried furs to Europe and brought back heavy cargoes of foreign merchandise.
He succeeded in establishing a large trade with Asiatic countries, espe- cially China, and in many other ways displayed unequalled business ability. He invested in government securities during the war period, when they were selling at from sixty to seventy cents on the dollar, and doubled his money on the investment after the war was over. He made many sagacious investments in real estate in the places which he deemed most clearly in the line of future expansion of the city, the development of which vindicated and approved his judgment. As the city grew he built many structures which were the hand- somest of their time. He was never a real estate speculator, buying at a low price to sell at a higher one, but always an investor who bought and improved for permanent income. He became the wealthiest man of his time, and was a citizen of public spirit as well as a successful business man. He fell in with and amplified the proposition of Washington Irving for the establishing of a public library for New York, and in his will left $400,000 for the founding of the Astor Library; which was carried out by his son, William B. Astor. He also made many gifts to charitable institutions in his lifetime and by bequest in his will. The estate left by him was estimated at twenty million dollars at the time of his death, March 29, 1848.
He married, in New York, in 1785, Sarah Todd, and had three sons and four daughters. Two of the sons and two daughters died without issue. The other daughters, who married, were provided for by their father in his life- time, and his only surviving son, William B. Astor, was made sole heir on the death of his father, in 1848.
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HISTORY OF NEW YORK
T HE fourth child and second son of John Jacob Astor, who after his death became his heir, was William B. Astor, born in New York, September 10, 1792. He attended the public schools until 1808, then went to Heidelberg for two years, and after that was a student in Göttingen. After leaving the university he traveled in the Old World until 1815, when he returned to New York.
In that year his father began his successful career in the China trade, in which the son became a partner, the firm remaining John Jacob Astor & Son until 1827, when they retired from that business. The American Fur Company was then formed, with William B. Astor as president, and both he and his father were active for several years in that very successful business, but afterward withdrew from that and all other commercial activities, the affairs of the Astor Estate engaging his entire attention.
Mr. Astor, like his father, had a farseeing vision of the future growth of the city of New York, and was a large buyer of real estate in the region below Central Park from Fourth to Seventh Avenues; and even in his own lifetime was rewarded by a large and rapid increase in values. His uncle, Henry Astor, had left him a fortune of $500,000, and his father had made him a present of the Astor House property, and he was himself a wealthy man when, in 1848, the death of his father made him the richest man in New York. From 1860 onward he devoted his attention largely to the improve- ment of his property by building; and in a few years was the owner of hun- dreds of houses, mostly of the first class. He was also extensively interested in railroad, coal and insurance corporations, his investments outside of land being of the most conservative character.
He added largely to the bequest of his father to the Astor Library, to which he devoted much attention, and to which his total gifts amounted to more than a half million dollars. His estate at the time of his death, Novem- ber 24, 1875, amounted to $45,000,000; which he divided between his two sons, John Jacob and William Astor, giving them a life interest in the resid- uary estate, which descended to their children.
He married, in 1818, Margaret Rebecca Armstrong, and had seven chil- dren : Emily, John Jacob, Laura, Mary Alida, William, Henry and Sarah. Of these, Sarah died in infancy, and Laura and Henry died without issue. Emily married Samuel Ward and had one daughter, who married John Winthrop Chanler and had eight children; and Mary Alida Astor married John Carey and had three children.
John Jacob Astor, son of William B. Astor, and heir to half of his estate, was born in 1822, and died in 1890, leaving one son, William Waldorf Astor, born March 31, 1848, who, after having been United States Minister to Italy from 1882 to 1885, removed to England, where he now resides.
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IVILLIAM ASTOR
W ILLIAM ASTOR, son of William B. and Margaret Rebecca (Armstrong ) Astor, and grandson of John Jacob Astor, was born in New York City, June 12, 1829, in the old Astor Mansion on Lafayette Place, adjoining the Astor Library. He was graduated from Columbia Col- lege in the Class of 1849, being then only twenty years of age. He was one of the most popular men of his day in that college, entered fully into the col- lege spirit, and was proficient and enthusiastic in athletic affairs. After his graduation from Columbia, he went on a long foreign tour in Europe, Egypt, and the Orient. He profited much from his travels and was especially impressed by what he saw in the Orient. As a result of this visit he retained, throughout his life, an active interest in Oriental art and literature.
He entered his father's office as assistant manager of the family's estate in houses and lands in New York and elsewhere, and after the death of his father, in 1875, when half of the estate became his own by inheritance, he greatly added to his holdings.
Mr. Astor was fond of country life, and to gratify his taste in that direc- tion he created an extensive and beautiful estate at Ferncliff, where he had a farm of great productiveness and high cultivation. He built a railroad from Saint Augustine to Palatka, in Florida, in 1875, and constructed several blocks in Jacksonville, Florida, and for his services to that State was given a grant of eighty thousand acres of land.
Mr. Astor was a yachtsman of distinction. His first yacht, the Ambas- sadress, was probably the largest and finest sailing yacht ever launched, and he made many voyoges in her. In 1884 he had built for him the steam yacht Nourmahal, which was one of the finest of its day; and he also owned other yachts, including the sailing yacht Atalanta, which won the Cape May and Kane cups. He was also fond of horses, and owned many fine animals.
Under his management the Astor Estate was greatly enlarged and improved, and he possessed to the full the Astor faculty for correct judgment in land purchases. He died in Paris, April 25, 1892.
Mr. Astor married in New York, September 20, 1853, Caroline, daugh- ter of Abraham Schermerhorn, a member of one of the oldest and most dis- tinguished families in the city. The children of that union were four daugh- ters and one son, John Jacob Astor, the present head of the family. Of the daughters, Emily Astor was married in 1876 to James J. van Alen of New- port, Rhode Island, and died in 1881. Helen Astor was married in :878 to James Roosevelt Roosevelt, and died in 1893: Charlotte Augusta Astor was married first, in 1879, to J. Coleman Drayton, and second, in 1896, to George Ogilvy Haig; and Caroline Schermerhorn Astor was married, in 1884, to Marshall Orme Wilson.
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HISTORY OF NEW YORK
COLONEL JOHN JACOB ASTOR
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COLONEL JOHN JACOB ASTOR
T HE present head of the Astor family is Colonel John Jacob Astor, who was born at his father's estate at Ferncliff, near Rhinebeck- on-the-Hudson, July 13, 1864, son of William and Caroline (Schermerhorn) Astor. Besides his Astor ancestry, which is of German origin, he is de- · scended from Oloff Stevensen van Cortlandt, who was the first city treasurer of New Amsterdam when that office was created in 1657, was afterward bur- gomaster of that city and was a member of the first Board of Aldermen of New York, appointed by Governor Nicolls of New York in 1665; from Colo- nel John Armstrong, one of the heroes of the French and Indian Wars; and from Robert Livingston, who came to New York in 1674, and received in 1686 a royal grant for the famous Livingston Manor, comprising more than 160,000 acres in Columbia and Dutchess Counties, New York.
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