USA > New York > New York City > History of the city of New York, 1609-1909 > Part 62
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. Hegeman left the transportation interest in 1899 to become the Eastern sales agent for the American Car and Foundry Company, in which he continued until 1901, when he was elected to his present position as presi- dent of the U. S. Metal and Manufacturing Company, which has had a most successful career and attained a marked development of business under his executive direction. Mr. Hegeman is also the president and a director of the Rockland Railroad Company, a director of the Fort Wayne Rolling Mill Com- pany, and trustee of the Excelsior Savings Bank.
He has always been a consistent Republican, and takes an active and influential part in public and political affairs. He has served as a member of the council, and as mayor of the borough of North Plainfield, N. J. He has also been actively identified with party management as a member of the Republican County Executive Committee of Somerset County, New Jersey, and as a member, for several terms, of the Republican Congressional Com- mittee of the Fourth District of New Jersey.
Mr. Hegeman is a member of the New York Athletic Club, the Lotos Club and the Republican Club, all of New York City; of the Racquet Club of Philadelphia, and of the Park Club and the Watchung Hunt and Country Club of Plainfield, New Jersey.
Mr. Hegeman married, in the Church of the Holy Cross, at North Plain- field, New Jersey, October 23, 1883, Kate Greenough Matthews. They have a daughter, Virginia, and a son, Harold Arrowsmith.
+69
HISTORY OF NEW YORK
LENOX SMITH
695
LENOX SMITH
L ENOX SMITH, president of the Standard Roller Bearing Company, is a native of the City of New. York, born here in 1843, the son of Rev. Edward Dunlap Smith, D.D., and of Jane Blair (Cary) Smith.
In his paternal line Mr. Smith is descended from English Quakers, who came to Pennsylvania about 1750. His grandfather, Edward Smith, of Phila- delphia, was a very prominent iron master, and one of the founders of the Cambria Iron Company. His father, Rev. Dr. Edward D. Smith, was a graduate of Princeton University, from which he also received his degree of Doctor of Divinity, and was chaplain to Congress during Webster's term of service, and later a Presbyterian clergyman in New York City. His father's family is connected with those of Wister, Rawle, Cadwalader, and others in Philadelphia. His mother was a member of the Cary family of Virginia, where she was born, and connected by kinship with the families of Randolph, Fairfax and Jefferson, in Virginia. His brother, Archibald Cary Smith, the naval architect, is named after Archibald Cary, an ancestor.
Lenox Smith, who was named after James Lenox, the philanthropist, who gave to New York City the Lenox Library, and who was a warm friend of his father, was prepared in New York City schools, and then entered Columbia College, from which he was graduated A.B., in 1865 and A.M. in due course, and afterward entered the Columbia School of Mines, whence he was graduated E.M., in 1868. Before his graduation from Co- lumbia College he had served, during 1862, in the Seventy-first Regiment, United States Volunteers, as a volunteer private.
After his graduation from the School of Mines, Mr. Smith served on the surveying corps of the New York Central and Hudson River Railroad. He afterward acted as inspector of railroad material for the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul Railroad, the Chicago and North-Western Railway, and the Northern Pacific Railway. He served as agent for the Cambria Iron Com- pany from 1878 to 1884. He became interested in the construction of new railroads, including the Bangor and Aroostook, with which he is still identi- fied. He is president of the Standard Roller Bearing Company, one of the great manufacturing industries of the country, of which he was vice presi- dent before succeeding to the presidency.
Mr. Smith is a Republican in politics. He is a veteran of the National Guard of the State of New York, having served with the First Brigade Staff as major of engineers, from 1879 to 1884.
Mr. Smith was elected a trustee of Columbia University in 1883, and is still a member of that board. He is a member of the Alumni Societies of the Columbia School of Science and of Columbia College; and he is a mem- ber of the Union Club, New York Yacht Club, Larchmont Yacht Club, and American Museum of Natural History. He resides at 135 Madison Avenue.
696
HISTORY OF NEW YORK
FREDERICK TYSOE FEAREY
697
FREDERICK TYSOE FEAREY
F REDERICK TYSOE FEAREY, president of the Rail Joint Com- pany, has long been well and favorably known as an experienced railroad man and skillful inventor. He is a native of the city of Newark, New Jersey, where he was born September 18, 1848, the son of Isaac and Alice (Tysoe) Fearey. His parents were both of English nativity and descent.
Mr. Fearey received his education in the public schools and business col- leges of his native city, and after he left school he entered the railway service and was for several years the employee of leading railroad systems, acquiring an expert knowledge of and familiarity with railway matters. Being of a mechanical turn of mind, with considerable inventive genius, his railroad experience led him to much thought in reference to the problems involved in railroad construction, the most practical result of which was his invention of the rail joint, which he perfected after long and careful study of the problems involved. He secured his first patents in 1888 and 1889, and in due time the rail joint was introduced by companies in which Mr. Fearey was interested. Finally the Rail Joint Company, which is the final evolution of the producing and executive features of the rail joint, was organized, Mr. Fearey becoming president of the company. The principal plant of the company at Troy, New York, has been enlarged and frequent additions, due to the increasing demand for and use of the rail joint, of which there are now over fifty thousand tons manufactured annually, have become necessary.
In addition to his successful career in connection with the rail joint, Mr. Fearey has been successfully identified with the formation of telephone com- panies in Essex County, New Jersey. His activities in the various lines of usefulness, with which he has been identified in an executive relation, have made Mr. Fearey especially well known in Essex County, and on these activi- ties he has also brought to bear a large store of technical knowledge and scientific skill as well as remarkable administrative capacity.
Mr. Fearey is an earnest Republican in his political views, and has served as a member of various clubs in the Republican organization.
Mr. Fearey is a member of the New Jersey Historical Society, the New- ark Board of Trade, the Essex Club of Newark, New Jersey, and the Repub- lican Club of East Orange, New Jersey. He is also a member of the Board of Trustees of the First Baptist Church of Newark, New Jersey, and a mem- ber of the Artists' Club of the same place; South Orange Field Club of South Orange, Municipal Art League, of East Orange, and the Musical Arts Society, and Civics Club of Orange, New Jersey; also National Arts Club and Metropolitan Museum of Art, of New York City. He has his home at East Orange, New Jersey.
Mr. Fearey married, in 1896, Bertha Louise Kittel, of New York City, and has two daughters: Marie Louise and Geraldine Kittel Fearey.
698
HISTORY OF NEW YORK
NIELS POULSON
699
NIELS POULSON
N IELS POULSON, founder and head of the Hecla Iron Works of Brooklyn, an engineer of distinction and a citizen of enviable rec- ord, is a native of Denmark. He was born February 27, 1843, and added to his ordinary school courses an excellent preparation, technical and practical, as an architect and builder. Upon reaching his majority, in 1864, he came to the United States, and for the two years following his arrival in this country was engaged as a mason.
In 1866 Mr. Poulson accepted an appointment in the office of the super- vising architect of the Treasury in Washington, and after two years as draughtsman in that office, he resigned in order to go to New York and pursue practical studies in the subject of architectural iron work. With that in view he entered the service of the Architectural Iron Works of New York, with which he continued for eight years, and after the first year was for seven years in general charge of the architectural and engineering departments con- nected with that establishment. In this capacity he had much to do with the modern development in the enlarged use and more efficient adaptation of iron to building purposes, and being ambitious to turn out architectural iron work of a better quality than had so far been used, he determined to start a busi- ness of his own.
With this in view he associated with himself Mr. Charles M. Eger, who had also been connected with the Architectural Iron Works, as a draughts- man, and started upon a comparatively modest scale, under the firm name of Poulson & Eger, the manufacturing enterprise which, under its present style of the Hecla Iron Works, has grown to be one of the largest of its kind in the country. Striving even more earnestly for progress and improvement than for success and financial profit, they have succeeded in securing both. As a means toward securing better work, they encouraged their mechanics to study the technical side of the business, and to this end established an evening school of instruction in draughting in connection with their works, in which lessons were given without charge by competent instructors, under whom these em- ployees were given the benefit of the best technical instruction and made better acquainted with the architectural iron industry and the mechanical and engi- neering principles underlying it. This educational feature, inspiring the me- chanics with a desire to do better work, not only brought increasing excellence in their own product, but has also had an important, if somewhat less direct, influence upon the improvement which has made the American product of iron work the best in the world. Many of the men who started with the firm of Poulson & Eger as mechanics have, through what they learned in that employ, been enabled to start in business for themselves, and in the enterprises they have inaugurated have retained the high standards which they acquired through connection with these works.
200
HISTORY OF NEW YORK
A few years ago, as the result of an investigation made by the Society of Mining Engineers, a comparison was published between European and American iron work, showing the product of American makers was of far better quality than the European, and due credit was given to Mr. Poulson and Mr. Eger for their part in bringing about this result. The business has for some years past been organized as a corporation, of which Mr. Poulson is the president.
Mr. Poulson has applied his inventive skill and engineering attainments in various ways useful to the public, and has been especially interested in the problem of rapid transit. Even before the subway days, when the congestion at the bridge was the daily dread of all Brooklynites whose business was in Manhattan, all the train service that could be furnished under the method then in vogue, was woefully deficient, and crowds of weary men and women were compelled to long and tedious waits before securing transportation homeward. In the agitation for better facilities Mr. Poulson devised a plan to greatly increase the efficiency of the service, and his plan for train dispatching, which was only a part of his general plan for the relief of bridge travelers, was found upon trial to allow the dispatching of 120 trains per hour, which was a large increase over the number to be accommodated under the old plan. The plan was discarded by the city and another less effective one was adopted, but Mr. Poulson's effort in behalf of better transportation was much appre- ciated by the people of Brooklyn.
Mr. Poulson's interest in the rapid transit problem has by no means diminished, and he has recently formulated plans by which the ever increas- ing congestion of travel may be materially relieved. These plans are adapt- able to subway or elevated railroads and provide for but two track beds instead of four, separate rails being used for the express and local trains, the local tracks swerving to the rear of the station, while the express passes on the straight track. By this method the subway need be only half as wide as that now in use, materially reducing the cost of construction, installation and main- tenance, while the overhead road would be of steel construction and stone bal- last, making it practically noiseless. The plan also provides for pay-as-you- enter cars, reducing the labor cost. By this reduction of expenses it is thought by Mr. Poulson that the transportation companies would be able to give greater care to the comfort of their patrons.
Mr. Poulson is charitable as well as public spirited, and recently made a gift of $100,000 to the American Scandinavian Society. This will be used for educational purposes and provide for the payment of the tuition expenses of Scandinavians pursuing trade or technical courses in the United States, and Americans taking similar courses in Scandinavian countries. He has an hon- orable business and personal record, and holds a high place in public esteem.
701
JOHN MITCHELL CLARK
J OHN MITCHELL CLARK, long prominent in the iron and steel trade, was born in Boston, July 23, 1847, son of Right Rev. Thomas March Clark, D.D., LL.D., bishop of Rhode Island, and Caroline (Howard) Clark. He is a direct descendant from Nathaniel Clark, of Wiltshire, England, who came to Boston in 1633; and through his paternal grand- mother, a direct descendant of Rev. John Wheelwright, Church of England clergyman and friend and schoolmate of Oliver Crom- well, who became a Puritan and pastor of a church at Mount Wollaston (now Braintree), Mass., but was banished from Massachu- setts by the General Court for views expressed in a sermon, and afterward founded the town of Exeter, N. H., and Wells, Maine. On his mother's side he is a descendant from Abra- ham Howard, an early set- tler of Marblehead, Mass.
Mr. Clark was edu- cated in the University Grammar School at Provi- dence, R. I., and was gradu- ated from Brown Univer- sity, Ph.B., 1865. In Feb- ruary, 1866, he entered the office of Naylor & Company, Boston. January 1, 1884, he became a partner, and removed to New York; and for several years he has JOHN MITCHELL CLARK been senior partner in the firm. He is president and director of the American Grondal Kjellin Com- pany, and of the Berkshire Iron Works.
He is a member of the Union Club and of the Down Town Association of New York. Mr. Clark married, in London, England, July 2, 1900, Sarah Wood. He has his city residence at 33 West Sixty-seventh Street, and a country place, "Gray Craig," at Newport, Rhode Island.
702
HISTORY OF NEW YORK
MISHA E. APPELBAUM
703
MISHA E. APPELBAUM
M ISHA E. APPELBAUM, president and treasurer of the New York Metal Selling Company, was born in Minsk, Russia, July 4, 1879, where he attended a preliminary school; and his education was finished in the public schools of New York City. When but fifteen years of age he obtained employment as an errand boy in an East Side store, but having made up his mind to pursue a mercantile career, he entered the service of the American Metal Company, Limited, in 1898, where he remained until the panic of 1907. By sheer merit he arose to the highest position with that company and grasp- ing every detail of the business, ably fitted himself to cope with the commer- cial world. Having severed his connection with the American Metal Com- pany, Mr. Appelbaum, in the face of the panic and the unsettled financial con- dition, organized the company of which he is the head.
Mr. Appelbaum's family had lost all their possessions in Russia and landed in America almost penniless; yet despite the handicap of poverty and ignorance of the English language, he, in a few years had mastered the tongue of his adopted country, made himself indispensable to a large corporation and eventually organized a company which in the first year of its existence handled more than fifty million pounds of metal. The second year Mr. Appelbaum had expanded the business to an annual sale of one hundred million pounds of copper, lead, and zinc, and made himself a leader in his line-a remarkable career in the face of the obstacles which an unknown and penniless foreigner usually encounters in a new country.
Mr. Appelbaum early evinced an interest in good city government, and when District Attorney Jerome was first nominated, he was one of the speak- ers selected to address his compatriots; and in the last campaign he made many speeches for the Fusion ticket.
Mr. Appelbaum is a great lover of music and literature, and is an ardent advocate of all outdoor sports, and his aim throughout his career has been to make money sufficient to gratify his tastes along these lines. He is a member of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the City Athletic Club, the Traf- fic Club, and American Museum of Natural History; and is also a member of nearly all the important charitable institutions in the city.
Mr. Appelbaum married Miss Irma Coshland, at Riverdale-on-the-Hud- son, June 19, 1906, and resides in winter in the city.
Mr. Appelbaum controls the New York Metal Selling Company, and it is due to his business sagacity that the concern has attained an important place in the metal world and is constantly increasing its business. Whilst compet- ing sharply with all members of the trade, he has nevertheless been able to put himself on a very friendly basis with all factors, and it would not be sur- prising to see him in a few years one of the controlling figures in the copper world.
704
HISTORY OF NEW YORK
ADRIAN DEXTER ADRIANCE
705
ADRIAN DEXTER ADRIANCE
A DRIAN DEXTER ADRIANCE, mechanical engineer and manu- facturer, is a native of Camden, New Jersey, where he was born November 18, 1876, son of Benjamin and Nellie (Madden) Adriance.
He is of French and Dutch descent on the paternal, and of English and Irish extraction on the maternal side. The founders of the family in America were Adrean Reysen and his brother, Martin Reysen, who came to America from Holland about 1620. Their sons, Elbert and Martin, took the old family name of Adriance, and Elbert married, in 1642, Cata- lina, daughter of Rene Jansen, and from them Mr. Adriance is descended. His father is a Civil War veteran, is proprietor of the Adriance Machine Works, of Brooklyn, president of the Savage Arms Company, of Utica, New York, president of the Warp Twisting-in Machine Company, and identified with other large interests.
Mr. Adriance attended public schools, but is largely self-educated; a practical mechanic and mechanical engineer, with much inventive skill and originality. He was an incorporator and director of the Ontario Can Company, and of the American, British and Canadian Can Company; a di- rector of the Savage Arms Company, 1903 and 1904; and was incorporator, director and vice president of the Warp Twisting-in Machine Company of New Jersey, 1902-1904. He has been a director since 1904 of the Warp Twisting-in Machine Company of New York (capital $2,600,000), its general manager since 1905, and its vice president from 1907 until April, 1910, when he was made secretary, treasurer and general manager.
The Warp Twisting-in Machine Company has its factory at 260 Van Brunt Street, Brooklyn, and it was largely through his perseverance and energy that this unique piece of mechanism was perfected, after nine years of untiring labor, and placed on the market in practical form. The machine is a labor-saving device used in the manufacture of textiles and takes the place of hand twisters and skilled labor, doing the work better and multi- plying the ordinary output about five times.
Mr. Adriance's knowledge of mechanics was of inestimable value in the construction and improvement of the machine, and its extensive use by the silk trade throughout the country was also largely due to the energy and enterprise with which he has managed the business.
He is a Republican in political affiliations. He is a member of the Economic Club of New York, Navy League of New York, Crescent Athletic Club of Brooklyn, ex-member of Troop C of Brooklyn, member of the Varuna Boat Club of the Thirteenth Regiment; and is a member of the United Spanish War Veterans, the Sons of Veterans, Royal Arcanum, and National Alumni. He resides at 461 Greene Avenue, Brooklyn.
45
706
HISTORY OF NEW YORK
ARTHUR THEODORE STILSON
707
ARTHUR THEODORE STILSON
A RTHUR THEODORE STILSON, vice president and manager of the Central Stamping Company, is of New England stock, on both sides of English origin, being the son of Andrew J. and Charlotte A. (Judd) Stilson. His first American ancestor on the father's side, James Stilson, came from England to America about 1625, and on the maternal side he is descended from Captain Thomas Judd. He is also a descendant of Andrew Jackson.
His grandfather, Phineas Stilson, emigrated to the West from Litchfield County, Connecticut, about the year 1801, and settled in the town of Denmark, now Castorland, Lewis County, New York, as a farmer, that section being then in the wilderness. His youngest son, Andrew J. Stilson, left the farm on attaining his majority, went to Connecticut and after four years there married in Litchfield County, in that State, and subsequently returned, with his wife, to the old homestead farm in Lewis County, New York, on which their son, Arthur T. Stilson, was born May 6, 1859, being the youngest of five children.
Following the Civil War, business complications arose, which resulted in his father's failure, and after his mother's death, in 1870, he practically earned his own living by work at farming and in the lumber woods, sawmills, and in driving logs, at which he became an expert. He had little schooling up to the age of sixteen, but during his seventeenth and eighteenth years he attended the Lowville (New York) Academy for about six months, all told.
Leaving there October 19, 1878, he came to New York City, arriving with only six dollars in his pocket. He attended evening school during the fall and winter months for two or three years after his arrival. Soon after coming to New York he entered the employ of James Aikman & Company, of Cliff Street, which was consolidated four years later with four other large firms, forming The Central Stamping Company, with which Mr. Stilson has been connected ever since, and of which he is now vice president and manager.
Mr. Stilson usually votes the Republican ticket, though he has never aspired to political position. He has at Montclair, N. J., quite a large estate, which he has named "Westover," and which is his home. He also has a large farming property, the "Stilsonian Farms," in Morris County, New Jersey, where he finds much recreation, gratifying the lifelong appreciation he has always had for farm life, in the personal supervision of the extensive farming operations carried on upon that estate.
He is a member of the Civic Association, the Apollo Club, Outlook Club, Art Association and Montclair Club, all of Montclair. N. J., the Machinery Club of New York City, and other associations, although he seldom attends them, greatly preferring home life.
Mr. Stilson married, in Brooklyn, N. Y., February 7, 1900, Florence May Colby, daughter of the late John Fogg Colby of Bangor, Maine, and has two sons, Colby Stilson, born October 27, 1903, and Judd Stilson. born May 9, 1905.
708
HISTORY OF NEW YORK
E DWARD PAUL REICHHELM, was born at Stringau, Silesia, Prussia, November 13, 1843, son of Julius and Pauline (von der Lippe) Reichhelm. His father participated in a revolutionary movement and his arrest was ordered, but escaping to Belgium, he brought his family to the United States in December, 1848.
Mr. Reichhelm studied in public and private schools, and attended Cooper Institute while apprentice in a New York machine shop. In August, 1861, he ran away from home and enlisted for the war as pri- vate in the Third Missouri Infantry, and was discharged as captain in the Fifty-first United States Colored In- fantry, June 16, 1866.
He became a clerk, and in November, 1873, he formed the firm of Gesse- wein & Reichhelm, tool dealers. When it dissolved, in May, 1876, he formed E. P. Reichhelm & Com- pany, of which he is still the head. He organized the American Gas Furnace Company in January, 1887, and the American Swiss File and Tool Company in August, 1899, both founded to carry out original ideas in making first-class tools, which have gained an inter- EDWARD PAUL REICHHELM national reputation for ex- cellence and have received many medals and first prizes from industrial exhibitions and institutions.
He is a past commander in the Grand Army of the Republic, member of the Loyal Legion, and the Masonic order; is a Republican and former presi- dent of the Park Commission of Bayonne, New Jersey.
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.