USA > New York > New York City > History of the city of New York, 1609-1909 > Part 60
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
He enjoyed the personal friendship of the late President Mckinley, whom he accompanied on his presidential trip to the Pacific Coast, and had the honor of being the only guest of the President on that journey outside of his Cabinet.
He has traveled all over the United States, and very extensively in Europe and Northern Africa, and he has a wide acquaintance with men and affairs at home and abroad. He has received from the French Government the decoration of Chevalier of the Legion d'honneur, and is a member of the American Chamber of Commerce in Paris. He finds his most favored recre- ation in automobile journeys, and he has made numerous much enjoyed auto- mobile trips in various parts of Continental Europe.
Mr. Moore was a founder and for ten years president of the Montauk Club in Brooklyn; a member and formerly president of the New York Civic Federation, taking an active part in building up and extending the useful- ness of that important organization. He is vice president of the St. John's Guild and treasurer of the Railway Business Association. He is a member of the Chamber of Commerce of the State of New York, the National Civic Fed- eration, New York Board of Trade and Transportation, American Society of Mechanical Engineers, Empire State Society of the Sons of the Revolution, the Ohio Society, St. Andrew's Society, Pilgrims of the United States, Society of the Genesee, New England Society of Brooklyn, and the Automobile Club of America. He is also a member of the Army and Navy Club, Republican Club, Union League Club, Lotos Club, Engineers' Club, Railroad Club, Ma- chinery, Lawyers' and Transportation Clubs. His town house is at 524 Fifth Avenue, and his country residence, "Old Orchard," at Belle Haven, Greenwich, Connecticut, where he usually spends part of the summer season.
Mr. Moore married, at Norwalk, Ohio, Miss Mary C. Campbell, and they have four children: Charles Arthur Moore, Jr., now vice president and secre- tary of Manning, Maxwell & Moore, Incorporated, born June 23, 1880, and married Annette Sperry; Jessie Campbell Moore, born January 17, 1884, now married to Colby Mitchell Chester, Jr., son of Rear Admiral Colby M. Ches- ter, U. S. N .: Mary Elsie Moore, born October 23, 1887, who married Don Marino dei duchi Torlonia, of Rome, Italy; and Eugene Maxwell Moore, born in February, 1891.
665
WILLIAM DELAVAN BALDWIN
W ILLIAM DELAVAN BALDWIN, president of the Otis Elevator Company, was born in Auburn, N. Y., September 5, 1856, being son of Lovewell H. and Sarah J. (Munson) Baldwin. He is of English ancestry, early transplanted in New England.
After completing the courses in the district and high schools of Auburn, N. Y., he entered the works of D. M. Osborne & Co., manufacturers of har- vesting machinery, at Au- burn. Thoroughly master .. ing both the manufacturing and business details, he reached a high position with that company, which in 1878 sent him abroad; and for five years he did efficient work in the promotion and enlargement of the com- pany's European business. Resigning from that con- nection in 1882, he pur- chased an interest in and became treasurer of Otis Brothers & Company, en- gaged in the manufacture of freight and passenger ele- vators. He later took the lead in reorganizing the business, and is now presi- dent and director of The Otis Elevator Company, the largest manufacturers of elevators in the world, main- taining seven large factories in this country and fifty branch offices and employ- WILLIAM DELAVAN BALDWIN ing over 6500 people. He is a director of the Lincoln Trust Company and Home Insurance Company. He is a member of the Chamber of Commerce, the American Geograph- ical Society, and the Union League, Lawyers', Engineers', Racquet and Ten- nis, Adirondack League and National Arts Clubs.
He married, in New York City, in 1881, Helen, daughter of Nahum M. Sullivan, of Montclair, N. J. Of their seven children, five are living.
666
HISTORY OF NEW YORK
WILLIAM ELLIS COREY
667
WILLIAM ELLIS COREY
W ILLIAM ELLIS COREY, now president of the United States Steel Corporation, has had a career which has few parallels in the history of American industry. His advance from a position of humble beginnings to that of president of the world's greatest corpora- tion took little more than twenty years, yet each of the rapidly succeeding steps he made up the ladder of success was the reward of demonstrated fit- ness and efficiency.
He was born in Braddock, Pennsylvania, May 4, 1866, son of Alfred A. Corey, formerly a coal operator, but now retired, and Adaline (Fritzius) Corey. He is of an old American family, and in the Eighteenth Century an ancestor of his, Benijah Corey, was owner of a farm of three hundred acres of land located in what is now a part of New York City.
Mr. Corey was educated in the public schools of Braddock, afterward taking a business course in Duff's College in Pittsburgh. At the age of six- teen he secured employment in the chemical laboratory of the Edgar Thomson Steel Works at Braddock. Captain William R. Jones, who was then in charge of those works for the Carnegie firm, whose genius as a practical steel manu- facturer and works manager, was one of the greatest of early factors in securing for the United States its primacy in the steel industry, and for the Carnegie Steel Company the lead among the many corporations engaged in steel manufacture.
Mr. Corey made a study of the chemistry and metallurgy of steel, of the processes of manufacture as exemplified in the Edgar Thomson Works, and of the methods of management which appeared most practical. As in the Army of Napoleon every private was said to carry a field-marshal's baton in his knapsack, so in those years of rapid development of the steel industry by the Carnegie Company, the worker in the ranks might look forward to the highest positions as the reward of special ability in the production of steel better, faster or at less cost. In every duty placed in Mr. Corey's hands he soon developed the highest order of efficiency, and in April, 1887, he was trans- ferred to the Homestead Steel Works of the same company, where he was employed in the Open Hearth Department, and where he showed such ability that in July, 1889, being only twenty-three years of age, he was made Plate Mill superintendent, and in September, 1893, became superintendent of the Armor Plate Department. The rapidity of his advancement has few parallels in the history of industry, and especially is this true of a young man whose career was entirely dependent upon his zeal, his industry and his intellect, without outside influence.
He had demonstrated genius as well as executive ability and had done much to improve processes and methods of manufacture. His invention of the Carnegie reinforced armor plate was a most valuable contribution to the
668
HISTORY OF NEW YORK
preëminence of the Carnegie Company in the steel industry. Mr. Charles M. Schwab, who was four years the senior of Mr. Corey, was his immediate superior in rank, and as Mr. Schwab went higher, Mr. Corey succeeded him in various offices, and after him became successively general superintendent of the Homestead Steel Works in February, 1897, at the age of thirty-one, and president of the Carnegie Steel Company in April, 1901. He had thus in nineteen years advanced from the bottom to the top in the great Carnegie corporation, which had then become the chief of the component companies making up the United States Steel Corporation.
Mr. Schwab, who had preceded him in the various offices in the Carnegie Company, had become the president of the Steel Corporation, holding that office until August, 1903, when he resigned the office to become the head of other interests. Mr. Corey again succeeded him, being elected in August, 1903, president of the United States Steel Corporation, which office he has held ever since. In that position he is commander-in-chief of an army of nearly two hundred thousand workmen, the executive of works producing about one-half of the entire steel product of the United States, more steel than either Great Britain or Germany or one-fourth of the total amount of steel made by all the countries of the world. In his command are sixty mines, producing one-sixth of all the iron ore in the world; nearly one hundred blast furnaces producing approximately half of the pig-iron output of the United States; a fleet of one hundred large ore ships; the largest American commer- cial fleet under a single ownership; a system of railroads approximating two thousand miles of trackage, with thirty thousand cars and seven hundred locomotives, and agencies for production and distribution which exceed in magnitude any other industrial organization. To this place of extended power as to his previous fields of duty Mr. Corey brings capacity and ability of the highest order. In technical, practical knowledge and in the executive skill for the successful marshalling of gigantic forces in the army of industry, Mr. Corey has well earned his reputation as the world's premier steel manu- facturer. In this office, as in all the others which have been filled by Mr. Corey in the successive steps of his career, his selection has been fully justi- fied by results.
Mr. Corey, besides being president of the United States Steel Corpora- tion, is a director of the Carnegie Steel Company, the Elgin, Joilet and East- ern Railway Company, Federal Steel Company, National Tube Company, United States Steel Export Company and of other subsidiary companies, and he is a member of the American Institute of Mining Engineers. He is a member of the Duquesne, Union and Country Clubs of Pittsburgh, the Metro- politan, Railroad, Lawyers and Ardsley Clubs of New York, the Automobile Club of America and the Metropolitan Club of Washington, D. C.
669
JOHN CAMPBELL MABEN
J OHN CAMPBELL MABEN, president of the Sloss-Sheffield Steel and Iron Company, was born at Petersburg, Virginia, December 31, 1839, the son of John and Elizabeth ( Moore) Maben.
The family is of Scotch and English extraction. The paternal branch was founded in America, in 1800, by David Maben, of Loch Maben, Scot- land. The maternal branch dates from 1710 and is directly descended from Alexander Spottswood, who served on the staff of the Duke of Marlborough at the battle of Blenheim, was a major general in the British Army and colonial governor of Virginia 1710-1722.
Mr. Maben was edu- cated in private schools in Richmond and at Prince- ton ; moved to New York in 1868 and entered the bank- ing house of Lancaster, Brown & Company, whose power of attorney he held for two years, and was then admitted to partnership. He was an original director of the Terminal Company (of which the Southern Rail- way is the successor), until its reorganization in 1894. He took an active part in organizing the Sloss Iron and Steel Company, and later the Sloss-Sheffield Steel and Iron Company. He is a Republican in poli- tics. During the Civil War JOHN CAMPBELL MABEN he was a captain of cavalry in the Confederate Army. He is a member of the Union Club, and The Virginians of New York, and also the Confederate Camp here.
Mr. Maben married Miss Virginia Merchant, at New York, in October, 1871, and has three children: J. C. Maben, Jr., Spencer M. Maben, and Eliza- beth Moore Maben.
670
HISTORY OF NEW YORK
ROBERT E. JENNINGS
671
ROBERT E. JENNINGS
R OBERT E. JENNINGS, who has long held a prominent position in the steel industry of the country, is a native of Rochester, New York. He was the third son of Edward and Rosanna (Riley) Jen- nings, and was born in 1848.
His family is of Irish origin; his grandfather, Edward Jennings, having been a wealthy leather manufacturer in the west of Ireland. He became a participant in one of the patriotic uprisings of his day and suf- fered heavy financial losses as a consequence.
His son, Edward, who had been trained in the leather business, came to the United States in 1820, and settled in Rochester, where he continued the same industry.
Robert E. Jennings, after leaving school, began his business career in the hardware trade, in which he continued for several years. He then engaged in the steel business, in which he has ever since remained an active factor.
In 1880, Mr. Jennings founded the steel-making firm of Spaulding & Jennings Company of Jersey City, New Jersey, conducting it with great success until 1900, when the business of that firm was sold to The Crucible Steel Company of America, of which Mr. Jennings became vice president. He continued in that connection until 1904, when he retired from the company.
Early in 1905 he was appointed receiver of the Carpenter Steel Company of Reading, Pennsylvania, and later in the same year, having reorganized the company, he was elected its president, which office he still holds. Mr. Jennings is also chairman of the Taylor Iron and Steel Company, of High Bridge, New Jersey; president of the Parish Manu- facturing Company of Reading, Pennsylvania; vice president of the First National Bank of Jersey City, New Jersey, and a director of several banks and trust companies.
Mr. Jennings has met with large success in the management of the important enterprises of which he is the head and is recognized as one of the most representative of the independent steel company executives of the country. His offices are at 100 Broadway.
He is a member of the Engineers' Club, and of the Lawyers' Club of New York; of the Essex Club of Newark, New Jersey; the Essex County Country Club of Orange, New Jersey, and the Carteret Club of Jersey City, New Jersey. His town residence is at II Kensington Avenue, Jersey City, and his country place at Raquette Lake, New York. On January 10, 1900, Mr. Jennings was married, in Newark, New Jersey, to Mrs. Elizabeth Holt O'Gorman, the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. P. M. Kelly of New Orleans, Louisiana.
672
HISTORY OF NEW YORK
JOHN ALEXANDER TOPPING
673
JOHN ALEXANDER TOPPING
J OHN ALEXANDER TOPPING, chairman of the Board of Direct- ors of the Republic Iron and Steel Company, was born June IO, 1860, at St. Clairsville, Belmont County, Ohio. His father, Henry Topping, was a lawyer, and served in the First Ohio Cavalry and on the staff of General Rosecrans, in the Civil War, and his mother was Mary (Tallman) Topping. His great-grandfather, James Tallman, was a pioneer iron manu- facturer in Virginia, and a Revolutionary soldier; and his grandfather, John C. Tallman, founded at Bridgeport, Ohio, the first national bank organized in Belmont County, Ohio. His paternal grandfather, Alexander Topping, born in New York State, was an early settler in Northern Ohio.
After attending the public and high schools of Kansas City, Missouri, Mr. Topping became a bank clerk at Bellaire, Ohio, in 1877, and in 1878 entered the Ætna Iron and Nail Company, as pay-roll clerk, steadily advancing until in 1898, he became president of the Ætna Standard Iron and Steel Company until the consolidation of the American Tin Plate Company, American Sheet Steel Company and National Steel Company. In 1900 he was elected first vice president of the American Sheet Steel Company, which position he resigned in July, 1903. He engaged in the reorganization of LaBelle Iron Works, of Wheeling, West Virginia, which represented an investment of about $10,000,000, and one of the largest of the independent steel companies.
He became, in July, 1904, president of the American Sheet and Tin Plate Company, subsidiary to the United States Steel Corporation, until January, 1906, when he joined the syndicate which secured control of the Republic Iron and Steel Company and the Tennessee Coal, Iron and Railroad Company, reorganizing and refinancing them, after expending about $4,000,000 in the Republic Company (of which he then became president and is now chair- man of the Board of Directors), and $12,000,000 in the Tennessee Com- pany, in which he became chairman of the Board of Directors. The latter company constructed the first model steel plant and rail mill at Ensley, Ala- bama, and became the first manufacturer of open-hearth steel rails in the United States, employing modern equipment.
When the Tennessee Coal and Iron Company was sold to the United States Steel Corporation in 1907, Mr. Topping resigned from that company and since then has devoted his entire attention to the Republic Iron and Steel Company, one of the foremost of the independent steel enterprises of America.
He is a member of the Sons of the Revolution, the Duquesne Club of Pittsburgh, Pa., Union League Club and New York Athletic Club of New York, the Greenwich Country Club of Greenwich, Connecticut, and the Tri- ton Game and Fish Club of Quebec, Canada.
He married, at Bridgeport, Ohio, January 18, 1883, Minnie C. Junkins, and they have two sons: Wilbur B., and Henry J. Topping.
43
119
HISTORY OF NEW YORK
FREDERICK HEBER EATON
675
FREDERICK HEBER EATON
F REDERICK HEBER EATON, president of the American Car and Foundry Company, is a native of Berwick, Pennsylvania, born April 15, 1863, the son of Ralph Hurlburt and Eliza Knapp ( Dickerman ) Eaton. He is descended from William and Martha (Jenkins) Eaton, of Staples, County of Kent, England, who settled in Watertown, Massachusetts, in 1642, later removing to Reading, Massachusetts. Among their descendants was Jacob Eaton, born in Meredith, New Hampshire, in 1757. He was twice chosen surveyor of highways in that town; served on a committee to draft war resolutions ; was appointed to select men for the Continental Army and himself served in the Revolutionary War under Lieutenant Ebenezer Smith, participating in the siege of Fort Ticonderoga. His son Jacob, born in 1786, was instructor in the Hinesburg Academy, Vermont, and served in the War of 1812. His son Ralph Hurlburt (father of Frederick Heber), was born in Mt. Pleasant, Pennsylvania, in 1830, engaged extensively in mercantile pur- suits and finally located in Berwick, Pennsylvania.
Mr. Frederick Heber Eaton attended the public schools, and ever since leaving school has been identified with manufacturing enterprises, beginning in 1880. From 1892 to 1899, he was first secretary, afterward vice president and finally president of the Jackson & Woodin Manufacturing Company, car builders, at Berwick, Pennsylvania. From 1899 to 1901 he was vice president and executive member of the American Car and Foundry Company of New York, and in June, 1901, was elected president and executive member of that company, since which time he has continued to occupy those offices. He is also a director of the Columbia Trust Company, Seaboard National Bank, Susquehanna, Bloomsburg and Berwick Railroad, the Sligo and Eastern Rail- road, Hoyt & Woodin Manufacturing Company, and Inter-ocean Steel Com- pany, and is a trustee of the Mutual Life Insurance Company of New York.
In his political views Mr. Eaton is a staunch Republican and was elected a presidential elector for Pennsylvania on the Mckinley and Hobart ticket in 1896. He is a member of the New York Chamber of Commerce, of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Pennsylvania Society of New York, Society of Colonial Wars, and the New York Society of Sons of the Revolution. He is also a member of many of the leading clubs, including the Ardsley, Auto- mobile Club of America, Beaverkill Stream Club, City Lunch Club, City Mid- day Club, Deal Golf Club, Engineers' Club, Metropolitan Club, New York Athletic Association, New York Railroad Club, New England Railroad Club, Railroad Club of New York, Union League of New York, and Wyandanch Club. He has his city residence at 182 West Fifty-eighth Street, New York, and a country place, "Hillcrest," in his native town of Berwick, Pennsylvania.
Mr. Eaton married, at Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania, in 1881, C. Elizabeth Furman, and they have one daughter, Mrs. Mae Eaton Crispin.
616
HISTORY OF NEW YORK
COLONEL ROBERT COCHRAN MCKINNEY
677
COLONEL ROBERT COCHRAN MCKINNEY
C OLONEL ROBERT COCHRAN MCKINNEY-In many of the A greater industrial centres of the entire world are now to be found exemplifications of American inventive skill and manufacturing ability which bear the name of Niles-Bement-Pond Company. It has sometimes been said that the products of this unsurpassed American manufacturing industry are more widely known and more widely utilized, not only in the United States, but also throughout the world, than any other American manufactured prod- uct. To these products belong the distinctive appellation bestowed in other countries, "made in America."
The great corporation known by this name is of comparatively recent organization; and yet it has often been spoken of as one of the best exam- ples of the economic principle which is contained in meritorious combination and cooperation. The Niles-Bement-Pond Company identifies and illustrates the life career of Robert Cochran Mckinney; for the organization as it now stands represents not only his technical and expert mechanical knowledge and ability, but also the forecasts of a true business statesman, and a high gift for organization; a gift which has sometimes been thought to be of greater value than any other, if high and honorable achievements in combination and cooperation are to be secured.
In the world of great business affairs Colonel Mckinney already ranks upon an equality with men who have achieved very greatly, and have done that without in any way lowering the standards of business morals or per- sonal integrity in its relation to business affairs.
Colonel Mckinney seems to have reached or compassed his great achieve- ments partly through native ability and partly through early training and association. He was born at Troy, New York, and at a time when that com- munity was especially distinguished for manufacturing interests associated with machinery, iron and steel products, stoves and ranges. He was a son of Robert and Mary (Smyth) Mckinney, and his father was presumably identified with certain lines of hardware manufacture; for when, in 1861, Colonel Mckinney's parents removed from Troy to Cincinnati, the senior Mc- Kinney became a member of a firm engaged in manufacturing hardware. Although young Mckinney attended the public schools and Woodward High School in Cincinnati until eighteen years of age, he must also have received constant information respecting hardware manufacture while still a youth. Two of his brothers, older than himself, had established a manufacturing company at Hamilton, Ohio, and the fact that the brothers were engaged in manufacturing there justifies the inference that young Mckinney's early asso- ciations were such as to bring him into constant touch with manufacturing.
He must have discovered a strong bent for mechanics, for he took a par- tial course in mechanical engineering in Cornell University in the early seven-
678
HISTORY OF NEW YORK
ties. His student life was followed by employment in the draughting room and office of a company which manufactured steam pumping machinery at Hamilton.
The City of Hamilton had already gained especial distinction as a manu- facturing centre, greatly if not chiefly occupied in producing machinery, steam pumps, and machine tools. There had been established there a com- pany engaged in manufacturing machine tools, which had not yet gained its high reputation for the quality and the finish of its product. The Niles Tool Works, for that was the name, was unique since it was the first manufactory of that kind established and operated west of Philadelphia.
In 1877 Mr. Mckinney became associated with the Niles Tool Works. It was at a critical and yet opportune time. The country was just upon the verge of resuming specie payments, and financial conditions were still some- what chaotic. The country was also recovering from the demoralization of business and impairment of credit consequent upon the panic of 1873.
It was undoubtedly at this time that Colonel Mckinney first impres- sively revealed his qualifications for seizing the opportunity that was opening in the West, especially for a business of this kind; for within two years he was elected secretary of the company, and a little later treasurer and general manager ; that is to say, he was the chief operating authority. The choice was wisely made. In addition to Mr. Mckinney's technical and expert knowl- edge as a mechanical engineer, he showed himself possessed of great energy in extending the business and increasing the capacity of the plant, while still maintaining the high reputation of the company.
So great was this expansion that it was found to be imperative that there be reorganization of the business and enlargement of the capital, so that greater facilities could be obtained and a very high quality of product at the lowest possible cost of manufacture could be secured. The capital on the reorganization was increased to $2,000,000. In this expansion were in- volved, first, expert and technical knowledge of manufacturing itself ; second, ability successfully to finance a reorganization, and in the third place, the difficult but vital feature of organization, the perfecting of a symmetrical ma- chinery of organization, and the securing of competent, highly skilled subor- dinates for the direction of the various departments.
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.