USA > New York > New York City > History of the city of New York, 1609-1909 > Part 50
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He began in marine insurance with A. O. Will- cox & Son, January 1, 1884, and from 1889 was partner in that firm and its suc- cessor, Albert Willcox & Company. Since Albert Willcox died, in August, 1906, Mr. William G. Will- cox and William Y. Wemple have continued that firm as managers of the Sala- mandra Insurance Com- pany of St. Petersburg. The firm's brokerage busi- ness and that of Charles E. & W. F. Peck and Walker & Hughes was taken over by the corporation of Will- cox, Peck & Hughes.
Mr. Willcox is a director of the Assurance Company of America and Battery Park National Bank; member Advisory Committee of the Staten Island Branch of the Corn Exchange Bank; president WILLIAM GOODENOW WILLCOX of the Board of Trustees of the S. R. Smith Infirmary and the Staten Island Academy; trustee of the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute; treasurer of the Richmond County Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children; member of the Down Town Association, Staten Island and Richmond County Country Clubs. He mar- ried, at West New Brighton, S. I., May 28, 1889, Mary Otis Gay, daughter of Sydney Howard Gay, and has had five children (one now deceased).
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HISTORY OF NEW YORK
JACOB HENRY SCHIFF
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JACOB HENRY SCHIFF
J ACOB HENRY SCHIFF, distinguished as a banker, financier and philanthropist, was born in Frankfort on the Main, Germany, in 1847. He was educated in Germany, and in 1865 came to New York City.
He secured a position as a bank clerk, and after a few years of service in that capacity became partner in the firm of Budge, Schiff & Company, bank- ers and brokers, until 1875, when he married Therese, daughter of Solomon Loeb, then head of Kuhn, Loeb & Company, and was admitted to that firm.
The firm of Kuhn, Loeb & Company was first formed in Cincinnati, where they were for years successfully engaged in mercantile business, com- ing from there to New York to engage in banking. To this firm Mr. Schiff's experience and genius for banking proved a valuable asset, and it was not long before he was taking a most influential part in the management of its affairs. On the retirement of Mr. Loeb, in 1885, he became the head of the firm, which has constantly increased its importance as a factor in the finan- cial world, with large and most influential international connections, and close relations with leading capitalists at home.
Personally, Mr. Schiff has attained great distinction as a financier, and as financial adviser to the Standard Oil group of capitalists, the Pennsylvania Railroad, the late E. H. Harriman, and other large interests, and his firm has financed many of the most important and extensive financial operations. This firm took the leading part in the financing and management of the organiza- tion of the Union Pacific Railway, in 1897, beginning with the purchase of that railroad from the government, and the subsequent measures by which control of the Southern Pacific and other important railroads was acquired, and has been a participant in nearly all of the greater financial activities of national or international importance. One of the most notable of these great operations of the firm was the placing of the large Japanese loan in this coun- try during the war with Russia, in which the firm achieved a signal success.
Mr. Schiff has in recent years resigned most of his directorates in favor of his younger partners, but is still a director of the National City Bank, National Bank of Commerce, Bond and Mortgage Guarantee Company, West- ern Union Telegraph Company, Woodbine Land and Improvement Company, and various other corporations. He is a member and vice president of the Chamber of Commerce.
Since the Japanese-Russian War, Mr. Schiff has been actively identified with important financial operations in the Orient, and has made a close study of the financial and commercial policies of the various nations connected with the question of the open door in China and the developments in Manchuria and Korea resulting from the recent war. He has paid an extended visit to Japan and observed conditions closely, so that his opinion on Far-Eastern sub- jects has great weight in the country at large as well as in financial circles.
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HISTORY OF NEW YORK
Therefore an address by him before the Republican Club of New York in March, 1910, aroused great interest throughout this country and abroad, and much comment, favorable and unfavorable, according to the affiliations and sympathies of the writers; but all recognized the fact that Mr. Schiff's views were backed by the authority of intimate knowledge of his subject and per- fect sincerity of opinion.
In political views Mr. Schiff is a Republican, but he has been influentially identified with effective nonpartisan movements for reform in the municipal government of New York. He was a prominent member of the Second Com- mittee of Seventy, whose well-directed efforts resulted in the overthrow of the Tiveed Ring, and of the Committee of Fifteen and Committee of Nine, which were both important later factors for the promotion of civic reform in the City of New York.
Educational and charitable causes have enlisted Mr. Schiff's close and efficient attention, and in the support and direction of Hebrew charities he has taken a position of especial prominence, being vice president of the Baron de Hirsch Fund and president of the Montefiore Home for Chronic Invalids. His benefactions to charities have been many, including $50,000 to the Hebrew Sheltering Home; $200,000 to be used for the purpose of establishing normal schools for the training of Jewish Sunday school teachers, one to be located in Cincinnati and one in New York City; $100,000 for a Technical College at Hafia, Palestine, besides many other gifts to orphanages, hospitals and syna- gogues, given with a thorough understanding of the wants of these institu- tions, of which he has made a sympathetic study. He was also a liberal con- tributor to the Galveston Relief Fund at the time of the flood there, and has led in promoting the work of the Young Men's Hebrew Association.
His interest in education is very great, and has been manifested in many substantial ways. He has shown special enthusiasm in the encouragement of the study of Semitic literature, with which he is himself thoroughly conversant. He founded the Semitic Museum at Harvard, and the Jewish Theological Seminary, New York, and gave a fund of $10,000 to the New York Public Library toward the purchase of a Semitic library. He also presented to that institution the famous Tissot collection of Old Testament paintings, valued at $37,000. He was a founder and the first treasurer of Barnard College.
Mr. Schiff is a member of the American Museum of National History, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, to which he has made valuable gifts, and the American Fine Arts Society, and is also a member of the Lawyers' and Republican Clubs of New York.
Mr. and Mrs. Schiff have their town house at 965 Fifth Avenue, and a country home at Seabright, N. J. They have two children, of whom their son, Mortimer L. Schiff, is a partner in the firm of Kuhn, Loeb & Company.
519
JULES SEMON BACHE
TULES SEMON BACHE, senior member of the firm of J. S. Bache & Company, bankers and brokers, was born in New York City, son of Semon Bache and Elizabeth (Van Praag) Bache.
He was educated at Charlier Institute, New York, and in Frankfort, Ger- many. He entered business in 1876, spending three years with his father's firm, after which he joined the banking and brokerage house of Leopold Cahn & Company. In 1892 the business was reorganized as J. S. Bache & Company, Mr. Cahn remaining as special partner for some years.
Under the able guid- ance of its senior the house of J. S. Bache & Company has become one of the rep- resentative banking and brokerage concerns of the country. It has member- ships in the New York Stock Exchange, Philadel- phia and Chicago Stock Ex- changes, the New York Cotton, Coffee, and Produce Exchanges, Chicago Board of Trade, and the New Or- leans and Liverpool Cotton Exchanges; and maintains branch offices at Buffalo, Rochester, Albany, Troy, Saratoga Springs, Mon- treal, Atlantic City and Bar Harbor. Its private wire system is most extensive and connects with the im- portant financial centres.
JULES SEMON BACHE
Mr. Bache is a director in the National Bank of Cuba, International Banking Corporation, Empire Trust Company, New Amsterdam Casualty Company, Anniston City Land Company, Oakland Bayside Realty Company, New River Collieries Company, Matanzas Railway and Warehouse Company, and other corporations in the United States and Cuba; and is a member of the New York, Lawyers, and The Lambs Clubs, and Automobile Club of America.
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HISTORY OF NEW YORK
JAMES SPEYER
521
JAMES SPEYER
J AMES SPEYER, head of the International Banking House of Speyer & Company, New York, is of an ancient family. The name of Spire, Spira or Speier appears in the chronicles of Frankfort on Main as early as the middle of the Fourteenth Century, and the first member of the Speyer family, of whom accurate records have been kept, and of whom Mr. James Speyer is a direct descendant, was Michael Speyer, who died in 1686. As far back as 1792, when the French general, Custine, brought three leading citizens to Mayence as hostages to guarantee the payment of a war tax, one of them was the imperial court banker, Isaac Michael Speyer.
James Speyer was born in New York City in 1861. He was educated at Frankfort on Main, and at the age of twenty-two entered the historic bank- ing house of the family in that city, and later was in the London and Paris branches. In 1885 Mr. Speyer returned to New York and is now head of the American house of Speyer & Company, as well as a partner of Speyer Broth- ers, of London, and of Lazard Speyer-Ellissen, of Frankfort on Main.
Edgar, brother of Mr. James Speyer, and head of the London house of Speyer Brothers, was, in 1906, created a Baronet by King Edward VII, and in 1909 was again honored by the king by being called to the Privy Council with title of The Right Honorable Sir Edgar Speyer, Bart., P.C. Arthur von Gwinner ( whose wife is the daughter of Philip Speyer, founder of Speyer & Company, and a cousin of Mr. Speyer ) is a member of the Prussian House of Lords and director of the Deutsche Bank, Berlin.
The founder of the American firm of Speyer & Company, Philip Speyer, came to New York in 1837. He was joined in 1845 by his brother, Gustavus Speyer. At the beginning of the Civil War this firm was largely instrumental in opening a market for United States government bonds in Europe. The house of Speyer, with its affiliations in London, Frankfort, Amsterdam, Ber- lin, and Paris, is one of the foremost institutions of the financial world. It has been identified with many financial transactions of magnitude, including the refunding of the bonded debts of the Lake Shore Railroad Company; the readjustment of the Central Pacific Railroad Company's finances (carrying with it the full payment of the debt of the company to the United States Government ) ; the reorganization of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Company : the readjustment of the financial affairs of the Mexican National and the Mexican Central Railway Companies; the financing of the Underground Elec- tric Railways of London ; the financing of the railways in the Island of Luzon in the Philippines, under agreement with the secretary of war of the United States; the financing a system of railways in Bolivia for the government of that Republic; the establishment of the Banco Mexicano de Comercio e Indus- tria in the City of Mexico, and of the Société Financière Franco-Americaine of Paris, one of the first institutions in France to deal in American securi-
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HISTORY OF NEW YORK
ties. At present Speyer & Company are more particularly the fiscal agents of the Baltimore & Ohio, the Rock Island, the St. Louis & San Francisco, and the Missouri, Kansas & Texas Railroad Companies. In 1904 the house of Speyer placed an issue of $35,000,000 Republic of Cuba 5% bonds, and again in 1909 took an issue of $16,500,000 41/2% bonds ; in 1904 the firm contracted for a $40,000,000 Mexican Government loan, and in 1908 for $25,000,000 Mexican Government Irrigation 41/2% bonds.
Mr. James Speyer is a director of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Con- pany; trustee of the Central Trust Company of New York; trustee and men- ber Executive Committee Union Trust Company of New York; director of the Citizens' Saving and Trust Company of Cleveland; trustee German Sav- ings Bank in the City of New York; member of Board of Managers Girard Trust Company of Philadelphia; director Bank of The Manhattan Company, Mexican Bank of Commerce and Industry, Mexico City; North British & Mercantile Insurance Company of London and Edinburgh in the United States, The North British and Mercantile Insurance Company of New York; director The Rock Island Company; vice president and director The Société Financière Franco-Americaine, Paris ; trustee Title Guarantee and Trust Company, Under- ground Electric Railways Company of London, Limited, General Chemical Company, Corn Products Refining Company, and Lackawanna Steel Company.
In November, 1897, Mr. Speyer married Ellin L. Lowery, nee Prince, daughter of the late John Dyneley Prince. Mr. and Mrs. Speyer are actively interested in charitable and educational affairs. Mr. Speyer is treasurer of the Provident Loan Society; trustee and chairman of Finance Committee, Teachers' College; trustee Hospital Saturday and Sunday Association; mem- ber Board of Managers Isabella Heimath; director Mount Sinai Hospital; member of Finance Committee State Charities Aid Association; director New York Peace Society; member of Executive Committee The National Civic Fed- eration; trustee and member of the Executive Committee "The Pilgrims"; member of Council University Settlement Society. His charity knows no dif- ference of race, creed or color. He presented Speyer School to Teachers' Col- lege, in 1902, in Mrs. Speyer's and his own name, and was the founder of the Theodore Roosevelt Professorship at the University of Berlin.
In politics Mr. Speyer is independent and nonpartisan. He was vice president and treasurer of the German-American Reform Union in the Cleve- land campaign of 1892; member of the Executive Committee of Seventy (through which Tammany Hall was overthrown), and a charter member of the Citizens' Union. In 1896 he was appointed by Mayor William L. Strong a member of the Board of Education, but resigned after one year. He is a member of the City, Lotos, Manhattan, Players', Reform, Lawyers', Whist, Racquet, City Midday, and New York Yacht Clubs, and Deutscher Verein.
EDWARD EVERETT CLAPP
523
E DWARD EVERETT CLAPP, senior member of the prominent casualty insurance firm of E. E. Clapp & Company, comes of old colonial stock, being son of the late Justice Clapp and seventh in descent from Roger Clapp, who was first commandant of Fort Independence in Boston from 1665 to his death in 1686. Mr. Clapp was born in Holyoke, Massachusetts, January 5, 1838, residing later many years in Newburg, New York.
In April, 1861, he sailed for China. Our Civil War created such a demand for cotton that China com- menced raising it for ex- port, and Mr. Clapp saw his opportunity and took up this industry.
In 1875 he established in Albany an agency of twelve fire companies, one life, and The Fidelity and Casualty, and in 1881 the president of The Fidelity and Casualty persuaded him to sell his Albany interests and come to New York to develop the accident busi- ness of the company. His firm, E. E. Clapp & Com- pany, are to-day managers for the States of New York. New Jersey, Massachusetts and Rhode Island. They do a business of one million four hundred thousand dol- lars, making them the largest accident and health agency in the world.
EDWARD EVERETT CLAPP
In 1864 Mr. Clapp was married to Miss Eliza B. Townsend, of New- burg, New York. Their residence is at East Orange, New Jersey. He is a member of the Union League, Chamber of Commerce, Down Town Asso- ciation, Peace Society, Republican Club, Economic Club, of New York; Essex County Country Club and New England Society, of Orange; Republican Club, East Orange, and Society of Colonial Wars of New Jersey; 32° Mason.
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HISTORY OF NEW YORK
ISAAC NEWTON SELIGMAN
525
ISAAC NEWTON SELIGMAN
I ISAAC NEWTON SELIGMAN, the present head of the banking house of J. & W. Seligman, was born in New York City, July 10, 1855, son of Joseph and Babette (Steinhart) Seligman.
His father, Joseph Seligman, born at Baiersdorf, Bavaria, Germany, September 22, 1819, was graduated from the University of Erlangen in 1838. He was an excellent Greek and classical scholar, and following his graduation he took up medical and theological studies. As his ambi- tion was for a business career, he engaged in financial and commercial pursuits in Germany until 1845, when he came to the United States.
After a period of teaching and filling a cashier's position, Mr. Selig- man established himself in the mercantile business at Greensboro, Alabama, where he met with success, remaining there until about 1857, when with his brothers he united in establishing an importing business in New York City.
In 1862 Mr. Joseph Seligman and his brothers established the banking firm of J. & W. Seligman & Company, which soon became a factor of importance in the banking world, and established branches in London, Paris and Frankfort. The Seligmans were agents for the introduction of the bonds of the United States into the European, and more especially the German, markets, and the government, as a recognition of their services, made the London branch of Seligman & Company the recognized European depository for the funds of the State and Navy Departments. They also had a house in San Francisco (later consolidated with the Anglo-Cali- fornia Bank), and the Seligman and Hellman Bank in New Orleans, Mr. Hellman being son-in-law of Joseph Seligman. Mr. Joseph Seligman was offered, but declined, the position of secretary of the treasury in the first Grant administration. He founded the great Hebrew Orphan Asylum in New York, and was one of the organizers of the Ethical Culture Society of New York, to which he gave $70,000. He died, widely honored and deeply lamented, April 25, 1880. To him and his wife, Babette, whom he married in 1848, there were born nine children.
Isaac Newton Seligman, now head of the Seligman banking firm, was the second son. He was educated at Columbia Grammar School and graduated from Columbia College, with honors, in 1876. He was a mem- ber of the Columbia crew which won the race at Saratoga, in 1874, over the crews of Yale, Harvard and nine other colleges. He was for a long time president of the Columbia Boat Club.
Mr. Seligman began his banking career in the New Orleans branch from 1876 to 1878, then came to New York City, entering the house of J. & W. Seligman. He soon evinced a great genius for finance, and on the death of his father in 1880, he and his uncle, Jesse, succeeded to the management and has been head of the house since the death of Mr. Jesse
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HISTORY OF NEW YORK
Seligman in 1895. The house gained control of the St. Louis and San Fran- cisco Railway, selling it to Jay Gould; reorganized the American Steel and Wire Company, Cramp Steamship Company, and other great corpora- tions. He is a director of the United States Savings Bank, Munich Fire Insurance Company, and Mount Morris National Bank; is a trustee of the Rossia Insurance Company and the Lincoln Trust Company.
Mr. Seligman is a member of the Chamber of Commerce, and rep- resented it in the Chamber of Commerce Celebration in London.
He has served as a member of the Republican National Finance Committee, director of the Sound Money League, chairman of the Finance Committee and the treasurer of the Citizens' Union; also as trustee of the Manhattan State Hospital for the Insane; member of the Executive Committee of the National Conference of Charities and Correc- tion; trustee and treasurer of the City and Suburban Homes Company (model tenements) ; member of the Committee of Seven for the Suppres- sion of Raines Law Hotels; member of Committee of Nine on Police Reform; trustee of the Mckinley Memorial Association; trustee of the Grant Memorial Association; treasurer and member of the Executive Committee of the Hudson-Fulton Celebration Commission; treasurer and member of the Executive Committee of the Carl Schurz Memorial Com- mittee ; vice president and treasurer of the Andrew Green Memorial Com- mittee; trustee, treasurer and member of the Finance Committee of the National Civic Federation; chairman of the Finance Committee of the Canal Association of Greater New York; trustee of the Columbia Univer- sity; of the Columbia University Alumni Association; Civil Service Association, New Forest Preserve Association, the People's Institute, the Cooperative Committee on Playgrounds, etc .; has served as vice president of the Baron de Hirsh Memorial Fund, treasurer of the Waring Fund, treasurer of the American Hebrew, trustee of the United Hebrew Chari- ties and Hebrew Charities Building (founded by his father-in-law) ; a trustee and treasurer of St. John's Guild, trustee and vice president of the Legal Aid Society, Civic Forum, University of Wichita, Kansas, etc .; treasurer and trustee of the Citizens' Union; trustee of the Lincoln Uni- versity Endowment Fund.
He is trustee and treasurer of the City Club, and member of the Lotos, New York Athletic, National Arts, Columbia University, City Midday, Lawyers', St. Andrews, Lakewood Country, Garden City Golf and Seabright Clubs.
He married, in Frankfort, Germany, in 1883, Guta Loeb, daughter of Solomon Loeb, of the banking firm of Kuhn, Loeb & Company, and has two children: Joseph Lionel and Margaret Valentine Seligman.
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LOUIS MAURICE JOSEPHTHAL
L OUIS MAURICE JOSEPHTHAL, now the senior member of Josephthal, Louchheim & Company, bankers and brokers, is a native of New York, where he was born October 17, 1868, son of Moriz Josephthal, banker and merchant, and of Theresa ( Wise) Josephthal. His father, born in Germany, came to this country in 1835, and his mother was born in Balti- more, Maryland. Mr. Josephthal was graduated from the College of the City of New York in 1887, as B. S. He entered business life in charge of the silk department of William Openhym & Sons, 1887 to 1896. He became a member of the New York Stock Ex- change February 8, 1900; is a member of the Chicago Board of Trade, and senior member of Josephthal, Louchheim & Company.
For nearly twenty years he has served in the Naval Militia, occupying the grades of pay yeoman, assistant paymaster, and is now paymaster of the Naval Militia of New York, with the rank of lieutenant, be- ing one of the charter mem- bers and organizers of the Naval Militia. He was paymaster of the United States ironclad Nahant in the Spanish-American War.
He was formerly sec- retary and director of LOUIS MAURICE JOSEPHTHAL Mount Sinai Hospital; is a member of the Phi Beta Kappa Society, Naval and Military Order of the Spanish-American War, Naval Order of the United States, Society of Amer- ican Wars, Naval Reserve Association, and Army and Navy, Atlantic Yacht, and Criterion Clubs, and City Athletic Club.
He married, in New York, March 28, 1900, Edyth Guggenheim, and has two daughters: Elinor Clare, and Barbara Edyth.
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HISTORY OF NEW YORK
WILLIAM SALOMON
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WILLIAM SALOMON
W ILLIAM SALOMON, one of the most distinguished representa- tives of international banking in New York, was born in Mobile, Alabama, October 9, 1852, the son of David and Rosalie Alice (Levy) Salo- mon. He is a great-grandson of Haym Salomon, of Revolutionary fame, who, coming to America in Colonial times, became a distinguished and wealthy merchant of New York. He was committed, at Lord Howe's order, to the terrible "Provost" prison, but he afterward gained his liberty, fled to Phila- delphia and was one of the most valued financial supporters of the patriot cause, advancing the then colossal sum of $700,000 to the government. David Salomon, father of William Salomon, was a merchant of great distinction in Philadelphia, and later in New York.
William Salomon was educated in the Columbia Grammar School, and at fifteen entered the banking house of Philip Speyer & Company (afterward Speyer & Company, of New York), a branch of the famous Speyer house of Frankfort on the Main. He was connected with the London house, known as Speyer Brothers, in 1870, and afterward went to the Frankfort house for two years, and returned to the New York house in 1872. In 1875, Ignace Schus- ter, resident manager in New York, being called abroad, Mr. Salomon and another young man received joint power of attorney, managing the New York house until 1878, when William B. Bonn, a partner, was given charge. In 1882, Mr. Salomon became a partner in Speyer & Company, and continued with it, having charge of many of its largest transactions, until January I, 1899. For about three years he held the position of chairman of the Board of Directors of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Company. On January I, 1902, he established his present firm of William Salomon & Company, of 25 Broad Street, New York, which has attained a position of great prominence in international banking. Mr. Salomon's partners are Alonzo Potter, Clar- ence McK. Lewis, Elisha Walker, Stewart Waller, and George Garr Henry.
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