USA > New York > New York City > History of the city of New York, 1609-1909 > Part 51
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).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67 | Part 68 | Part 69 | Part 70 | Part 71 | Part 72 | Part 73 | Part 74 | Part 75 | Part 76 | Part 77 | Part 78 | Part 79 | Part 80 | Part 81 | Part 82
Mr. Salomon is chairman of the Board of Directors of the Philippine Railway Company; and a director of the International Banking Corporation, Empire Trust Company, Lincoln Trust Company, Standard Trust Company, Madison Safe Deposit Company, Standard Safe Deposit Company, and the Philippine Railway Construction Company.
He has been an extensive traveler; takes great interest in works of art and antiquity; and is a writer of clear and trenchant style, who has made many contributions to periodical literature.
In 1891 he was chairman of the Finance Committee of the New York State Democracy (of which Charles S. Fairchild was chairman), which aided greatly in the nomination of Grover Cleveland for President in 1892.
Mr. Salomon married, in 1892, Helen Forbes Lewis, daughter of William Mckenzie Forbes, of Tain, Ross-shire, Scotland.
34
530
HISTORY OF NEW YORK
ERNST THALMANN
531
ERNST THALMANN
E RNST THALMANN, senior member of the firm of Ladenburg, Thalmann & Company, bankers, was born in Mannheim, in the Grand Duchy of Baden, Germany, in 1851, the son of M. Thalmann, who was a prominent merchant of that city.
He was educated in excellent schools of his native town, and in Septem- ber, 1868, came to the United States as a boy of seventeen, and he entered the employ of Greenbaum Brothers & Company, bankers and brokers, with whom he remained for six years. He then returned to Europe for one year to study financial methods and conditions there, after which time he came back to New York, and in 1876 established the banking house of Limburger & Thalmann. In 1880 Adolf Ladenburg became a partner and the firm name became Laden- burg, Thalmann & Company, and still retains that title, although there have since been some changes in the firm. The present partners are Ernst Thal- mann, Benjamin S. Guinness, Walter T. Rosen, Moritz Rosenthal and Ed- ward E. Thalmann.
The firm does a large international business as bankers and brokers, its connections extending over almost every part of the globe. It rates as one of the foremost banking concerns of the metropolis, and its individual mem- bers are men whose large experience and abilities as financiers have been gained in connection with many important financial operations, and who have gained mastery of the principles and methods of international finance in deal- ings with many of the foremost bankers and institutions of the world.
Besides being at the head of the banking house of Ladenburg, Thal- mann & Company, Mr. Thalmann is a member of the New York Stock Ex- change. He is also president and director of the United Railways Investment Company, and the Barney Estate Company; vice president of the Alliance Realty Company, and of the United States and Hayti Telegraph and Cable Company; trustee of the New York Trust Company; director of the Birming- ham and Atlantic Railroad, Atlanta and Birmingham Air Line Railway, Utah Copper Company, Century Realty Company, Cumberland Corporation, Law- yers' Mortgage Company, The Mortgage-Bond Company of New York, National Railways of Mexico, Northern Alabama Coal, Iron and Railway Company, The Omaha Water Company, and the Seaboard Air Line Railway. He is also trustee in the United States for the Aachen and Munich Fire Insurance Company, Bavarian Mortgage and Exchange Bank of Munich, Frankfort Transport, Glass and Accident Insurance Company, and Munich Reinsurance Company.
Mr. Thalmann is a member of several societies of the city, and of the Lawyers', Midday, and Harmonie Clubs, and the Liederkranz of New York. He married, at Cologne, Germany, in 1881, Anna Michaelis, and they have two sons.
532
HISTORY OF NEW YORK
ROBERT B. VAN CORTLANDT
533
ROBERT B. VAN CORTLANDT
R OBERT B. VAN CORTLANDT, a prominent banker of New York, was born at Kings Bridge, New York, August 14, 1862, son of Augustus and Charlotte Amelia Bayley (Bunch) Van Cortlandt. He is a direct descendant of Oloff Stevenson van Cortlandt, who came from Holland to New Netherland in 1637, and became one of the most prominent and suc- cessful merchants and burghers of New Amsterdam, founding a family of the highest prominence in New Amsterdam and New York throughout its his- tory; and he was a burgomaster under Stuyvesant. His son, Stephanus van Cortlandt, was especially distinguished in the history of the city, being one of the most prominent merchants of the city and an elder in the Dutch Church. When New Amsterdam became New York he was appointed by Governor Richard Nicolls a member of the first Board of Aldermen of the City of New York, June 12, 1665, and in 1667 he was appointed mayor of the City of New York by Governor Andros, and was the first native-born mayor the city ever had. He was again appointed mayor in 1686 and 1687. He was a member of the Provincial Council under Governors Dongan, Sloughter, Fletcher, and the Earl of Bellomont; served as colonel of the Kings County regiment in Indian Wars; served as revenue collector under Bellomont; was a large landed proprietor, and was succeeded in the Council of the province by his son Philip. Other Van Cortlandts have been distinguished in New York from that time to this.
Mr. Robert B. Van Cortlandt was educated in Switzerland and Germany and was graduated from Columbia College in the Class of 1882.
He became identified with the banking business, became a member of the New York Stock Exchange, September 28, 1887, and has been a member of the prominent banking firm of Kean, Van Cortlandt & Company since January 2, 1896. The firm is one of the strongest identified with the banking activities of New York City, and is constantly connected with many of the largest financial operations. Mr. Van Cortlandt is a director of the Lackawanna Steel Company, the Trust Company of America, Toledo Railways and Light Com- pany, Detroit United Railway, Electric Properties Company, Publishers Paper Company, Southern Steel Company of Gadsden, Alabama; Westchester and Bronx Title and Mortgage Company; and is president and director of the Kean, Van Cortlandt & Company Realty Company.
Mr. Van Cortlandt has taken a considerable interest in political affairs, and was nominated as a candidate for presidential elector on the Democratic ticket for Westchester County in 1908. His home is at Guard Hill, Mount Kisco, in Westchester County.
Mr. Van Cortlandt is a member of the Society of Colonial Wars, the St. Nicholas Society, Knickerbocker, Metropolitan, and Union Clubs, Down Town Association, New York Yacht, The Lambs, and City Midday Clubs.
534
HISTORY OF NEW YORK
HARRY LAWRENCE HORTON
535
HARRY LAWRENCE HORTON
H ARRY LAWRENCE HORTON, who has ever since the close of the Civil War been active and prominent in the financial activities of New York, is of early New England ancestry and ancient English lineage. In the old country the family line is traceable from the Norman Conquest of 1066 to Joseph Horton, Esquire, of the landed gentry of Leicestershire, England, with a considerable estate at Mousely, in that county, in the early Seventeenth Century.
Barnabas Horton, son of Joseph, a Puritan in religion, joined a party of his co-religionists who sailed from England on the ship Swallow, in 1633, and landed at Hampton, Massachusetts. In October, 1640, with some companions from New Haven, Connecticut, where he had been living for a short time, he went to Long Island and founded there the town of Southold, which was the home of the family for several generations. He erected there the first frame dwelling house ever built in Eastern Long Island, was a magistrate and prominent in the affairs of that time, and his family has produced many citizens of prominence as pioneers, soldiers, clergymen and farmers. From there one of his descendants went to Bradford County, Pennsylvania, and it was there, on the farm of his father, at Sheshequin, that Harry Lawrence Horton, eighth in descent from Barnabas Horton, was born, July 17, 1832, the son of William B. Horton and of Melinda (Blackman) Horton, who was the daughter of Colonel Franklin Blackman of Bradford County.
Mr. Horton's boyhood was spent on the farm and in the neighboring schools, where he received a good common school education, while his work on the farm made him a strong, healthy boy of robust physique. At the age of seventeen he left home and worked in stores, first at Horn Brook, Pennsylvania, and after that in Towanda, Pennsylvania, where he received his preliminary business education and experience. Deciding to go West, he went from Towanda in 1854 and visited several places in Michigan, Illinois and Wisconsin, until 1856, when he located in Mil- waukee as a member of the grain commission firm of Cole & Horton.
The importance of Milwaukee as a grain market made it an excellent field for the operations of the firm, which was successful from the start, and throughout its career, first as Cole & Horton, later Cole, Horton & Company, and finally as Horton & Fowler, it was one of the leaders among those operating in grain in Milwaukee and holding membership in the Milwaukee Board of Trade, until in 1865 Mr. Horton decided to come to New York as a larger and more metropolitan field of business oppor- tunity.
On arriving in New York he established in business as a banker and broker, creating the firm of H. L. Horton & Company, which for the past
536
HISTORY OF NEW YORK
forty-five years has been successfully engaged in business and has a standing and reputation second to none in the entire financial district of New York. It has membership in the New York Stock Exchange, the New York Produce Exchange and the Chicago Board of Trade, and the most favorable connections with all markets in America and Europe, maintaining a branch house in London and having an extensive clientage in the United Kingdom as well as in the United States. He remains the senior member of that firm, his present partners being Frederic W. Anness, C. B. Mears, L. T. Watson and Russell Griswold Colt.
Mr. Horton was a resident of Staten Island, making his home at New Brighton from 1869 to 1878, and during that period was recognized as one of the most prominent and progressive citizens of the Borough of Richmond; identified with all the movements for the improvement and betterment of Staten Island as a place of residence for New York business men, and especially prominent in the organization of an improved system of water supply for that borough, having been for many years a director and treasurer of the Staten Island Water Supply Company, which is the organization through which the towns of Richmond Borough have been for several years supplied with water of excellent quality. Mr. Horton also took a prominent part in the solution of the rapid transit problem, having been from the first actively identified with the Staten Island Rapid Transit Company, which has made every part of the island accessible, by rapid and inexpensive connections, to the business centre of New York.
While a resident of New Brighton, Mr. Horton was identified in a prominent and influential way with the public interests of the city and served for some time as president of that village by election, devoting himself with public spirit to building up the best interests and promoting the welfare of New Brighton and its citizens; and although for some years past he has made his home at 144 West Fifty-seventh Street, in Manhat- tan Borough, he has by no means lost interest in the progress and pros- perity of Staten Island. During a long and prosperous career as a banker and financier Mr. Horton has maintained for himself an unquestioned stand- ing and honorable reputation in the business world.
Mr. Horton is a member of the Union League, Lawyers', New York Athletic and Manhattan Clubs of New York, the Suburban Riding and Driving Club, and the Monmouth Beach Golf Club and Country Club of Monmouth, New Jersey.
Mr. Horton has been twice married, first in Milwaukee, October 26, 1858, to Helen Elizabeth Breed, who died, and second in Trinity Chapel, New York, October 12, 1875, to Sarah Patten. He has two daughters: Blanche, wife of E. F. Hutton, and Grace, wife of E. M. Lockwood.
.
537
FREDERICK J. LISMAN
REDERICK J. LISMAN, now at the head of the banking house of F. J. Lisman & Company, was born at Büdingen, near Frankfort on the Main, Germany, July 21, 1865, the son of Gerson and Josephine (Gross) Lisman. He was educated abroad, came to this country in 1881, and in 1890 he went into Wall Street, starting his financial career as a bond broker.
The business expanded rapidly, and since 1895 he has been a member of the New York Stock Ex- change and head of the firm of F. J. Lisman & Company.
Mr. Lisman came first into prominence by expos- ing the rotten condition of the Richmond Terminal System (now merged in the Southern Railway), and since then he has been on many reorganization com- mittees. He is now a di- rector of the Broadway Trust Company ; the Bush Terminal Company; vice president of the Railways Company General; first vice president of the Raleigh and Southport Railway Com- pany, and a director of the Detroit, Toledo and Ironton Railway Company, the Georgia Coast and Pied- mont Railroad Company, Chesterfield and Lancaster Railroad Company, Okla- homa Central Railroad Company, Tampa and Jack- FREDERICK J. LISMAN sonville Railroad Company, and a member of the American Advisory Board of the French-American Bank.
Mr. Lisman is known in financial circles as being, probably, the best in- formed man in the United States on the subject of the finances of the various American railroad systems.
Mr. Lisman married, June 7, 1892, Leonora Cohen, and they have one son, Robert G. Lisman, born March 9, 1893.
538
HISTORY OF NEW YORK
JAMES GRAHAM CANNON
539
JAMES GRAHAM CANNON
J AMES GRAHAM CANNON, president of the Fourth National Bank of New York, and one of the most distinguished of American bank- ers, was born at Delhi, Delaware County, New York, July 26, 1858, the son of George B. and Ann E. Cannon.
Mr. Cannon was educated in a New York public school and at Packard's Commercial School, from which he was graduated in 1876.
On leaving that institution he entered the Fifth Avenue Bank of New York as messenger. After filling every intermediate position he became pay- ing teller, and on June 3, 1881, was appointed assistant cashier and elected a director and still holds the latter office. He resigned the cashiership, however, to accept, March II, 1890, the position of vice president of the Fourth Na- tional Bank of New York, which he held until, in August, 1910, he became president, following the death of President J. Edward Simmons.
Mr. Cannon is also a director of the Bankers' Trust Company; a trustee of the Franklin Savings Bank; chairman of the Board of Directors of the H. W. Johns-Manville Company; also director of the United States Guarantee Company, and United States Mortgage and Trust Company.
Mr. Cannon is nationally known as one of the most skillful bankers in this country, a thorough student of financial science and banking methods, and surpassed by none in the country in his knowledge of credits, and has deliv- ered many addresses on that subject, which have been collected in permanent form and published, including: Bank Credits; Buying Commercial Paper; and The Banker and the Certified Public Accountant; and is an authority on these questions. Mr. Cannon has also written many articles on Clearing House Practice, and his book on this subject is a standard. His last publication is on Clearing House Loan Certificates and Substitutes for Money Used During the Panic of 1907.
He is a member of the Executive Committee and chairman of the Com- mittee on Finance and Currency of the Chamber of Commerce; and was for- merly president of the National Association of Credit Men. He is a member of the International Committee of the Young Men's Christian Association; a trustee of the New York University; president of the Board of Trustees of Hahnemann Hospital; vice president of the Packard Commercial School Com- pany; member of the Executive Committee of the Congregational Home Mis- sionary Society; president of the Westchester County Chamber of Commerce, and member of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Westchester County His- torical Society, New York Academy of Science, and the Transportation, Union League, Metropolitan, and Republican Clubs.
Mr. Cannon married, in New York City, February 17, 1881, Charlotte B. Bradley, and has three children: Mabel (Mrs. H. F. Ballantyne), Marguerite (Mrs. A. T. Tamblyn), and James G Cannon, Jr.
540
HISTORY OF NEW YORK
FRANK ARTHUR VANDERLIP
541
FRANK ARTHUR VANDERLIP
F RANK ARTHUR VANDERLIP, president of the City National Bank of New York, was born in Aurora, Illinois, November 17, 1864, the son of Charles and Charlotte L. (Woodworth) Vanderlip.
He was reared on a farm near his native city, attended the public schools, worked for a time in the machine shops of Hoyt & Brother Manu- facturing Company, at Aurora, and attended the University of Illinois and the University of Chicago. Later he received his A.M. from the University of Chicago, and in June, 1906, LL.D. from the University of Illinois.
Mr. Vanderlip entered newspaper life as a reporter on the staff of the Chicago Tribune and became known as one of the best of his profession in that city, later becoming associate editor and part owner of The Economist, the leading financial newspaper of the West.
Lyman J. Gage, president of the First National Bank of Chicago, when called into the cabinet of President Mckinley as secretary of the treasury, March 4, 1897, appointed Mr. Vanderlip as private secretary, but on June Ist following, he was promoted to the office of assistant secretary of the treasury, where he served with distinction for nearly four years, showing a remarkably complete grasp of the larger financial problems of the country.
He resigned from that office February 1, 1901, in order to accept the position of vice president of the National City Bank of New York, the greatest banking institution in America. He proved his executive ability so completely that when Mr. James Stillman, the president, resigned that office, the Board of Directors elected Mr. Vanderlip president of the bank January 1, 1909.
Mr. Vanderlip is also a director of the Union Pacific Railroad Company, Southern Pacific Company, Consolidated Gas Company, United States Realty and Improvement Company, Riggs National Bank of Washington, D. C., the American Security and Trust Company of Washington, D. C., Missouri, Kan- sas and Texas Railroad Company, Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad Company, Louisiana and Western Railroad Company, the Farmers' Loan and Trust Company of New York, and the Century Realty Company.
Mr. Vanderlip has been an extensive contributor to magazines and is author of the volumes: Chicago Street Railways; The American Commercial Invasion of Europe; Political Problems of Europe; and Business and Educa- tion. He is a trustee of the New York University, Stevens Institute of Tech- nology, and Carnegie Foundation. He is president of the Board of Gover- nors of Letchworth Village.
He is a member of the New York Chamber of Commerce, the Metro- politan, Century, Union League, and City Clubs of New York, and the Cos- mos Club and Commercial Club of Washington.
Mr. Vanderlip married, in Chicago, May 19, 1903, Narcissa, daughter of Charles Epperson Cox, and has four children.
542
HISTORY OF NEW YORK
WILLARD VINTON KING
543
WILLARD VINTON KING
W ILLARD VINTON KING, president of the Columbia Trust Company of New York, was born in Brooklyn, November 3, 1868, son of William Vinton King, cotton broker, and Isabel (Boyd) King.
He was prepared in the Friends' Seminary, New York City, and was graduated from Columbia University, A.B., with highest honors, 1889, taking the prize scholarship in Latin, and election to Phi Beta Kappa.
He began his business career as messenger with the Produce Exchange Bank, leaving it after a few months for the Continental Trust Company of New York, and served with it from 1890, through every position to secretary, in 1898, and vice president in 1901. In 1904 that company and the New York Security and Trust Company were merged as the New York Trust Company, of which he was vice president, until he was elected, in March, 1908, president of the Columbia Trust Company.
That company, started shortly before the panic of 1907, had naturally made little headway up to the time when, six months after the panic, Mr. King's administration began. Since that time, however, the company has grown steadily, and has an acknowledged standing as an independent, clean and substantial concern, taking only conservative kinds of business.
The company is almost unique in being independent; for while its board represents strong and diverse interests, it has no dictator. This has made it popular with those who feel that their affairs should not be subject to the scrutiny or the policies of any of the great Wall Street groups.
Politically, Mr. King usually acts and votes with the Republican Party, but he has not sought or held office. He was, however, a member of the Commission on Speculation, appointed by Governor Hughes in 1909, to investigate the New York Stock Exchange and other exchanges.
Mr. King is a director of the Brunswick Terminal and Railway Com- pany, Columbia Trust Company, and City Land Improvement Company. He is a member of the Chamber of Commerce of New York, and of the executive committee of the New York Trust Companies Association.
He is a veteran of the Twenty-second Regiment, National Guard of New York, a trustee of Columbia University, treasurer of the New York Association for the Blind, trustee and treasurer of the American School for Classical Studies in Rome, a member of the Phi Beta Kappa Society and the Delta Upsilon Fraternity, and of the University Club, Columbia University Club, and the Morris County Golf Club. When in town he resides at 21 West Fourteenth Street, the "Van Beuren Mansion," and his country resi- dence at Convent, N. J., is notable, not only for its architectural beauty and simplicity, but as the only fireproof house in the Morristown district.
Mr. King married, in New York City, April 26, 1904, Mary Spingler van Beuren.
544
HISTORY OF NEW YORK
CopyRIGHT By PACH BROS, N.Y.
WALTER G. OAKMAN
545
WALTER G. OAKMAN
W ALTER G. OAKMAN, president of the Hudson Companies, was born in Philadelphia, the son of John and Harriette S. (Campbell) Oakman and received his preparatory education in private schools in the city of his birth, afterwards graduating from the University of Pennsylvania.
Upon leaving college he entered the banking house of John S. Kennedy & Company, where he gained a knowledge of financial affairs that was of vast benefit in his after life. He was then appointed division superintendent of the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad and soon mastered the intricacies of railroading and general transportation. On retiring from the service of the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad, Mr. Oakman came to New York City and the next quarter century of his life was a period of intense activity. During this time he filled the office of vice president of the Central Railroad of New York; president of the Richmond and Danville Railroad system, now the greater part of the Southern Railroad; and was for ten years president of the Guaranty Trust Company.
While president of the trust company, Mr. Oakman was vice president of the Interborough Rapid Transit Company. He was greatly interested in the question of relieving the congested traffic conditions, and his experience with steam roads was of vast assistance when the subways were built. He was also an important factor in the organization of the Hudson Companies, of which he has been president since their formation; and in the construction of the tubes and terminal buildings of the Hudson and Manhattan Railroad Company, Mr. Oakman's part was an important one.
In addition to being president of the Hudson Companies, Mr. Oakman is vice president and director of the Jefferson and Clearfield Coal and Iron Company and a director of the following concerns: Alabama Great South- ern Railroad Company; American Car and Foundry Company; Brooklyn Heights Railroad Company; Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company; Buffalo, Rochester and Pittsburgh Railroad Company; Hudson Street Railroad Com- pany: Kings County and Fulton Elevated Railroad Company; Long Island Railroad Company; Louisville and Nashville Railroad Company; Morristown Trust Company; National Bank of Commerce; New York and New Jersey Railroad Company ; Reynoldsville and Falls Creek Railroad Company, and Rich- mond Light and Railroad Company.
Mr. Oakman is a member of the Metropolitan, Union, University, Rid- ing, Down Town, and Railroad Clubs of New York. He is also a member of the Automobile Club of America, the Century Association of New York, the Pennsylvania Society of New York, and of the Alumni Association of the University of Pennsylvania.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.