USA > New York > New York City > History of the city of New York, 1609-1909 > Part 69
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802
HISTORY OF NEW YORK
CHARLES C. COPELAND
803
CHARLES C. COPELAND
C HARLES C. COPELAND, senior member of the firm of Charles A C. Copeland & Company, manufacturers and commission mer- chants in dry goods, was born in Memphis, Tennessee, August 21, 1859, the son of Francis M. and Elizabeth V. (Woodson) Copeland. The family is of English origin, transplanted in America about 1690. His father was engaged in business in Memphis, Tennessee, before the Civil War, as a member of Copeland & Edmonds, wholesale cotton factors and dealers in gen- eral merchandise. He was an officer in the Confederate Army, and after the war removed North with his family.
Mr. Charles C. Copeland was educated, with the idea of training for the legal profession, in the College of the City of New York, but since 1879 has been engaged in the dry goods business, ultimately becoming the head of the prominent and successful firm of Charles C. Copeland & Company, manufacturers and commission merchants.
Mr. Copeland has given much attention to the study and investiga- tion of economic subjects, and has contributed valuable papers, notably in the First of January issue, for several years, of the Journal of Commerce, of New York, containing a yearly analysis of business conditions and business topics. Among the subjects discussed in these papers have been those of "Tariff Commission," "Gold Inflation," "Interference with the Laws of Supply and Demand," etc. He originated the bill to create a State Department of Commerce and Industry, and he has been promi- nently identified with many important economic movements. He was chairman of the New York delegation of the Board of Trade and Trans- portation to the Indianapolis Tariff Commission Convention; has served as chairman of the Committee on Commerce and Transportation of the Manufacturers' Association of New York; was a delegate to the New York State Water Ways Convention of 1910, representing New York City ; delegate to the National Rivers and Harbors Convention at Wash- ington, D. C., 1910, as representative of New York State, under appoint- ment of Governor Charles E. Hughes, and representing the Manufac- turers' Association; was a delegate to the Fort Wayne Convention on the Michigan and Erie Canal project. He was also appointed on the Citi- zens' Committee of the Hudson-Fulton Celebration.
Mr. Copeland is a member of the Chamber of Commerce of the State of New York, the Board of Trade and Transportation, Manufacturers' Association of New York, Academy of Political Science, Montauk Club, Red Bank Yacht Club, and City Club of East Orange, New Jersey.
He married, in East Orange, New Jersey, May 26, 1891, Susan Wiley Baker, and they have five children : Ashfield, Marion W., Carroll Pray, Francis Tuttle, and Katharine Copeland.
804
HISTORY OF NEW YORK
L OUIS SIEGBERT, senior member of the firm of Louis Siegbert & Brother, cotton converters, was born in Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin, January 12, 1864, the son of Henry and Mariana Siegbert. He is of German descent in both the paternal and maternal lines, his father, Henry Siegbert, having come, in 1840, from Germany to the United States, and having been for many years successfully engaged in mercantile business.
Louis Siegbert received his education in the public schools, and upon complet- ing his school work he en- tered upon a business ca- reer, first in a preparatory way in various positions which gave him a training for the active and responsi- ble commercial career upon which he was later to enter. In 1890, with his brothers Samuel and Julius Siegbert, he organized the firm of Louis Siegbert & Brothers, cotton converters, to which he has since devoted an executive supervision so thoroughly efficient that the firm has taken a place in the front rank of the indus- try with which it is identi- fied. Mr. Samuel Siegbert, of the original firm, is now deceased and the house is now composed of the other two original members, and there has been a steady de- LOUIS SIEGBERT velopment in the trade of the house, due to its thoroughly demonstrated ability to meet every require- ment of the business, and the experience and efficiency of its management. The office is at 114-120 Greene Street.
Mr. Siegbert is a Republican in political views, though his activities are not to any large degree political. He lives at the Hotel Gotham, and in sum- mer at Long Branch, New Jersey.
805
WILLIAM I. SPIEGELBERG
W ILLIAM I. SPIEGELBERG, of L. Spiegelberg & Sons, cotton goods merchants, was born in Santa Fé, New Mexico, October 8, 1863, the son of Levi and Betty Spiegelberg. His father was of the firm of Spiegelberg Brothers, leading merchants and bankers of Santa Fé, and after- ward established the firm of L. Spiegelberg & Sons, in New York.
William I. Spiegelberg was educated in public schools and the Columbia Grammar School in New York, and in the Weaving and Technical School of Mülheim on the Rhine, Ger- many. He afterward en- gaged in banking with a leading house at Frankfort on the Main. In 1887, with Levi and Charles S. Spie- gelberg he founded the firm of L. Spiegelberg & Sons, New York, and in that rela- tion he has earned a promi- nent place among the repre- sentative merchants of the city.
He is a member of the Board of Ambulance Serv- ice of the City of New York; president of the Sydenham Post-Graduate Course and Hospital and Training School for Nurses ; is a trustee of Tem- ple Emanu-El and of the Hebrew Orphan Asylum, and a director of the Night and Day Bank. He is a member of the Chamber of Commerce of the State of New York and of the Harmonie Club.
WILLIAM I. SPIEGELBERG
He married, in New York City, April 19, 1897, Beulah V. Guggenheim, oldest daughter of Isaac Guggenheim, head of the mining and smelting firm of M. Guggenheim & Sons, and niece of Senator Guggenheim, of Colorado. He has two children: Marjorie Betty Spiegelberg and William I. Spiegel- berg, Jr.
806
HISTORY OF NEW YORK
JOHN B. KEPNER
807
JOHN B. KEPNER
J OHN B. KEPNER is one of the most successful of the younger group
of merchants identified with the dry goods interest in New York City. He was born in Philadelphia, July 15, 1880, and completed his schooling after having qualified for the first year at the University of Pennsylvania. His tastes led him toward a business career, and in order to make adequate prep- aration he obtained a position as clerk in one of the pioneer dry goods com- mission houses of Philadelphia. In that establishment he secured a thorough training in the principles of the business, and a knowledge of the trade in its technical and practical details, which constituted a complete preparation for the larger activities of his later business career.
When the Philadelphia firm retired from business, Mr. Kepner came to New York City and took charge of the cotton goods department of one of the most prominent dry goods commission houses in this market. After con- ducting that department for some time, Mr. Kepner interested some capitalists in the launching of a new enterprise in the cotton goods trade, which, under the firm name of the F. C. Schwab Company, began business on February I, 1905, at 350 Broadway. The firm was successful, and from the start enjoyed a steadily enlarging business under Mr. Kepner's successful guidance, and on June 1, 1906, the name of the copartnership was changed to the Schwab-Kep- ner Company. The firm thus designated was on February 1, 1908, changed to an incorporation under the laws of the State of New Jersey, with the same title, Mr. Kepner acquiring practically all of the capital stock of the company.
The expansion of the business which followed was so marked that the original quarters of the company became totally inadequate for the greatly augmented business of the company and made a removal absolutely impera- tive. Therefore, on May 1, 1909, the company removed to the premises at 66 to 70 Leonard Street, corner of Church Street, where they occupy one of the most prominent locations in the trade, with every facility for the convenient transaction of business. The company's relations with the leading mills at home and abroad are such that they are enabled to meet the demands of their trade in this city and the country at large with the utmost promptness; and the list of their customers includes many of the most important business houses in the dry goods trade here and elsewhere.
Mr. Kepner personally has a wide acquaintance with the leaders in the cotton goods trade of the country, and his commercial standing is of the highest. His success is the result of his own well-directed efforts, and of his adherence in all his dealings to correct and conservative business principles, coupled with an enterprising promptness and intelligent appreciation of the needs of customers.
Mr. Kepner's city home is at the Hotel Astor, while his country resi- dence is at Cranford, N. J., where he usually makes his summer home.
808
HISTORY OF NEW YORK
WILLIAM MCKENZIE
809
WILLIAM MCKENZIE
W ILLIAM MCKENZIE, who has gained, as head of the successful Standard Bleachery Company, a position among the leaders in the bleaching, dyeing and finishing industry, is a native of Scotland, born in Glasgow on August 22, 1841. He received a sound education in the public schools of that city, and came to the United States as a young man.
From 1866 to 1884 Mr. Mckenzie was at Norwich, Connecticut, with the Norwich Bleachery, and there obtained that thoroughness of practical and technical knowledge which has made him one of the foremost experts in that industry. After his eighteen years with that establishment he was for a year with the Dunnell Manufacturing Company, of Pawtucket, Rhode Island.
In 1885 Mr. Mckenzie formed a partnership and acquired the Boiling Springs Bleachery at Carlton Hill, New Jersey, a property which had gone through various troubles under different managements, and which had prac- tically been abandoned. Its condition called for great skill to give it new life, but Mr. Mckenzie, fortunately, had all the qualifications for the task. It was renamed the Standard Bleachery, and for years Mr. Mckenzie devoted his entire energy, executive ability and technical skill to building up the busi- ness. The enterprise was incorporated in 1896, as the Standard Bleachery Company, its success having been assured for several years before, and Mr. Mckenzie became its president. Since 1905 Mr. Mckenzie and his sons have been the sole owners of the property. It has so developed under his executive supervision that it now holds a place in the esteem of the trade cor- responding with the magnitude of its facilities and the volume of its output.
The plant of the Standard Bleachery at Carlton Hill covers over twelve acres and the company operates the largest works in its particular line of any bleaching concern in the world. Its operations consist in the conversion of cotton piece goods from gray cloths, as they come from the loom, into the fine finished products which eventually reach the market.
These goods, manufactured principally in New England, are shipped direct to the bleachery. They include lawns, India linens, organdies, crepes, Swiss curtains, Persian lawns, long cloth, embroidery goods and a number of fancy woven fabrics for women's and children's dresses, in plain and mer- cerized finish.
Many processes of great interest are used in converting the fabrics into the finished product, several days being spent in passing through the different stages of development. When finished the goods are neatly packed and ship- ped all over the world, the bleachery having a reputation for careful work- manship which is unsurpassed. An average of over one thousand hands are employed, and the plant is operated day and night. The village of Carlton Hill is practically an outgrowth of this industry's development, and the com- pany owns eighty acres of land there.
810
HISTORY OF NEW YORK
These results have been obtained by Mr. Mckenzie by close application to the manifold problems involved in taking a moribund enterprise and in- jecting into it new life and vigor, and the task involved not only earnest effort, but executive and administrative abilities of a high order. Its success was the personal triumph of Mr. Mckenzie. The offices of the company are at Carlton Hill, New Jersey, and at 320 Broadway, New York City.
In the earlier years of his connection with the bleachery every moment of Mr. Mckenzie's waking hours was devoted to the business, but its rapid development centered the attention of the community upon the man who had made the enterprise so successful, and he was induced to serve the township of Boiling Springs as a member of the Township Committee. He showed a quick grasp of public matters and a keen perception of the needs of a grow- ing community; headed a movement to create the borough of East Ruther- ford out of the township; became East Rutherford's first mayor, and served with reelections for twelve years until he positively declined to run again.
For some years he represented his borough on the Bergen County Republican Executive Committee. In 1896 he was an alternate delegate from his congressional district to the Republican National Convention, and in 1900 he was chosen as one of the presidential electors who cast the vote of New Jersey for McKinley and Roosevelt. Governor Murphy appointed Mr. Mckenzie a member of the Passaic Valley Sewerage Commission, which has been solving the vexed question of the Passaic River pollution, and he still holds that place, contributing to the solution of this public problem the same abilities that he applied so successfully in the building up of his own business.
About fifteen years ago he assisted in founding the Rutherford National Bank, and is its vice president. For many years he has been president of the Hobart Trust Company of Passaic. Since its foundation he has been president of the East Rutherford Savings, Loan and Building Association, which has a capital of about $700,000. He is president of the Passaic Lum- ber Company of Wallington, and a member of the Board of Governors of the Passaic General Hospital. A lover of good literature, he first became vice president of the Rutherford Free Public Library and later was instrumental in founding the East Rutherford Free Library.
In recent years Mr. Mckenzie has traveled extensively abroad, and has cultivated his natural taste for good books, art, the drama and the opera. His home is "Braeside", at Carlton Hill, New Jersey, a beautiful place on a hill which overlooks the plant of the concern which he has built up.
Mr. Mckenzie's sons are James J., William, Jr., Kenneth M., and Ber- tram D. Mckenzie, all of whom are married. His daughter is Mrs. Harry W. Pierson, of Boston. He is a member of the St. Andrew's Society of New York and the Union Club of Rutherford.
811
GEORGE DINKEL
G EORGE DINKEL, consulting engineer of the American Sugar Re- r fining Company of New York, was born in Boston, November 29, 1867, the son of George and Barbara (Kammerer) Dinkel. His father, an engineer by professsion, was a native of Wurtemberg, Germany, and had come to this country in 1858.
Mr. Dinkel's education was procured in the public schools of Jersey City, the Stevens High School and the Stevens Institute of Technology, from which he was graduated as mechan- ical engineer in the Class of I888.
After graduation he started his technical career testing electrical plants, en- gines and other devices, then became connected with the Whittier Machine Com- pany, of Boston. He then entered the employ of the Matthiessen & Weichers Sugar Refining Company of Jersey City as an assistant engineer, and from that worked up to his present position as consulting engi- neer of the American Sugar Refining Company of New York. He has attained great distinction in the en- gineering profession, and has taken out numerous pat- ents for important inven- tions, especially in the line GEORGE DINKEL of machinery connected with the refining of sugar. Mr. Dinkel is a member of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, the Engineers' Club of New York, and the Stevens In- stitute Alumni Association; and he was secretary of the Congress of Arts and Sciences held at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition at St. Louis in 1904.
Mr. Dinkel was married, on November 16, 1909, to Anna D. Wittpenn, of Jersey City, New Jersey.
812
HISTORY OF NEW YORK
W ILLIAM BARBOUR, president of the Barbour Brothers Com- pany, The Linen Thread Company and other large enterprises, is the representative of a family that has taken the leading place in the creation and development of the linen thread industry, being a great-grandson of John Barbour, who introduced the manufacture of flax thread into the North of Ireland in 1784. He built up the business to a position of prominence and on his death bequeathed it to his two sons, William and John Barbour, who continued in business together for a few years. Then William Barbour with- drew from the partnership and erected, at Lisburn, near Belfast, Ireland, great mills of his own, carrying on the industry until his death, during the later years as head of the firm of William Barbour & Sons, which became a very large enterprise.
It was by two of his sons, Robert, born in 1828, and Thomas, born in 1832, that the manufacture of linen thread was introduced into the United States. Thomas Barbour, after being graduated with honor from Queen's College in Belfast, determined to come to New York City, his attention being attracted to that metropolis as one in which it might be possible to greatly enlarge the market for the product of his family's mills. When he reached New York he secured employment in the store of A. T. Stewart, then the leading dry goods house in the city, and he showed such business ability that it was not very long before Mr. Stewart gave him charge of his wholesale linen department. He continued in that department until 1858, when he started a linen store of his own, which he carried on until 1862, when he was admit- ted to partnership with his father and brothers in the firm of William Bar- bour & Sons, for whom he established and managed a selling agency in New York City.
His brother, Robert Barbour, who was a thoroughly trained flax spin- ner, also came to this country. The American tariff had been created along the lines of a protective policy and made it much more profitable to manufac- ture linen thread here than to manufacture in Ireland and sell the goods here. As in the case of many other industries, the opinion was commonly held that there were obstacles too great to be overcome in the endeavor to make linen thread in this country. But Robert and Thomas Barbour believed that they could make a success of the industry here, and in 1864 they bought a mill in Paterson, New Jersey, and began spinning flax. The thread produced was excellent in quality and found a ready sale, so that the selling agency in New York soon had no occasion to import its threads to fill the orders of the trade. In 1865 The Barbour Flax Spinning Company was established with mills in Paterson, with Thomas Barbour, president, until 1875, when Robert Barbour was elected president and Thomas Barbour vice president and treasurer of the company. The business was remarkably successful, the firm maintaining un-
813
WILLIAM BARBOUR
questioned leadership in the linen thread industry in this country. The num- ber of the people employed in their mills increased until there were more than a thousand, and the sales increased with great rapidity. The two brothers accumulated large fortunes and earned a very high place in the commercial world. Mr. Robert Barbour remained active in the business until his death, November 25, 1892; but Mr. Thomas Barbour went to Ireland in 1883 with the intention of spending his remaining years in his native country, and died there January 19, 1885. He was a business man of clear insight and great ability, a member of the Chamber of Commerce of the State of New York, and a director in various large corporations; and he was greatly interested in measures for the welfare of Ireland. His wife and son survived him.
The son of Thomas Barbour, Mr. William Barbour, early in life devel- oped a talent for executive management which soon brought him into active relation to the industries with which his father had been connected. He has long been at the head of various Barbour interests, greatly augmented by consolidation with other establishments in similar lines, and he is now presi- dent and director of the Barbour Brothers Company, The Linen Thread Com- pany, Algonquin Company of Passaic, New Jersey, Dunbarton Flax Spinning Company, Finlayson Flax Spinning Company, American Net and Twine Company, United States Twine and Net Company, Dundee Water Power and Land Company, W. & J. Knox Net and Twine Company, Hamilton Trust Company of Passaic, New Jersey, and the North Jersey Rapid Transit Com- pany; is vice president of the Barbour Flax Spinning Company; trustee of the Washington Trust Company; director of the First National Bank of Passaic, New Jersey, Hanover National Bank of New York, Home Trust Company of New York, Paterson Safe Deposit and Trust Company, Paterson Savings Institution, Pintsch Compressing Company, Safety Car Heating and Light- ing Company, United States Shoe Machinery Company, United States Smelt- ing, Refining and Mining Company, and Varona Land and Investment Com- pany, and has other corporate interests. His office is at 96 Franklin Street, New York City.
Mr. Barbour is a Republican in politics and is especially prominent as a supporter and advocate of the doctrine of the protection of American indus- tries by means of a customs tariff, and he was elected in 1910 to the office of president of the American Protective Tariff League.
He is a member of the Union League Club of New York, the Republican Club of New York, New York Athletic Club, and the Morris County Golf Club of. New Jersey.
Mr. Barbour married Adelaide Sprague, and they have three sons: Thomas, Robert and William W. Barbour. His residence is at II West Fifty-third Street, New York City.
814
HISTORY OF NEW YORK
WARREN CRUIKSHANK
815
WARREN CRUIKSHANK
W ARREN CRUIKSHANK, well known in realty circles, was born at Hempstead, Long Island, May 5, 1861, and was edu- cated at the village school, afterwards attending a business college, and then entering the real estate office of E. A. Cruikshank & Company in 1877. Nine years later he was admitted to partnership and when the firm was dissolved, November 1, 1903, he became president of the corporation of Cruikshank Company, its successors.
Mr. Cruikshank is a descendant of an old Scotch family. His grand- father, William Cruikshank, born in Boynsville, Aberdeenshire, Scotland, in 1760, came in early life to New York City and lived and died at 40 Greenwich Street, corner of Morris, the location of the family homestead. He married Sarah Allen, born in 1777, who resided at the corner of Wall and Pearl Streets. Their fifth child was James Cruikshank, born Jan- uary I, 1804, who died at Hempstead, Long Island, August 28, 1895, at the age of 91. James Cruikshank married Mary Ann Wheeler, born at Crutched Friar, England, January 12, 1820, who was the mother of Warren Cruikshank, and who died in Brooklyn, New York, in 1892. The Cruikshank family have been more closely identified with the business and management of New York City real estate than any other.
Mr. Cruikshank's grandfather established the business in 1794 at 40 Greenwich Street, carrying on the business until 1831, when he was succeeded by his son, James Cruikshank, who continued it until May, 1865, when his son, Edwin A. Cruikshank, took up the business. In 1875 the firm of E. A. Cruikshank & Company, composed of Edwin A. Cruikshank and his brother, Augustus W. Cruikshank, since deceased, was organized. This firm was located at different times at 68, 163 and 176 Broadway, and on May 1, 1898, moved to I4I Broadway, where the Cruikshank Company is now located. In addition to the presidency of the Cruikshank Company, Mr. Cruikshank is vice president and director of the Flatbush Trust Company, a director of the Irving National Exchange Bank, the Merchants' Refrigerating Company of New York and the Merchants' Refrigerating Company of New Jersey. He is a member of the Wyandanch Club of Smithtown, Long Island, Adirondack League Club, Knickerbocker Field, Meridian, and Underwriters' Clubs, and of the Historical Society.
Mr. Cruikshank married Fannie Augusta Minshull, daughter of Samuel Minshull, of Hempstead, Long Island, May 20, 1885. The chil- dren are Russell V. and Douglas M.
Mr. Cruikshank's residence is at 70 Lenox Road, Brooklyn, and his country home is at Hauppauge, Long Island. In the real estate world Mr. Cruikshank is considered a very able, conservative and aggressive man. He is fond of outdoor sports and the domestic rather than social life.
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