USA > New York > New York City > Leslie's history of the greater New York, Volume III, Pt. 1 > Part 11
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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
EGLESTON, THOMAS JEFFERSON, for more than a quarter of a century a prominent merchant of New York City, was born in Lenox, Mass., in 1800, and died in this city in 1861. He married in 1828, Sarah Jesup Stebbins, and had five sons who reached maturity --- David S., well-known iron merchant; Thomas, distinguished professor of Columbia College; William Couch, railroad director; George Wash- ington, and the late Henry Paris Egleston. He was the son of Major Azariah Egleston, of Lenox, Mass., who rose to the rank of Lieutenant in the Massachusetts line during the Revolution; participated in the battles of Bunker Hill, the Cedars, Trenton, and Princeton, with the Canadian campaign and the Valley Forge experience; was Aid to General Paterson, with rank of Major, in Shay's Rebellion; was a founder of the Society of the Cincinnati; for thirty years was Justice
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of the Peace and was Deputy to the General Court, State Senator, and Associate Justice of the Court of Sessions. The founder of the family in America, Bagot Egleston, was born in Exeter, Devonshire, in 1590, married in England Mary Talcott, of Braintree, Essex; arrived in Boston in 1630; was made a Freeman of Dorchester in 1631, and sub- sequently removed to Windsor, Conn.
EGLESTON, DAVID S., eldest surviving son of the late New York merchant, Thomas Jefferson Egleston, has himself been for more than half a century successfully engaged as an iron merchant of this city. He is a trustee of the Seaman's Bank for Savings and is a director of the Bank of America and the Hanover Fire Insurance Company. He is a member of the Union, Metropolitan, and New York Yacht clubs, the Century Association, the Downtown Association, and the New England Society. He was born in 1830, and engaged in business at an early age. He married Fannie Hawley.
EGLESTON, THOMAS, having been graduated from Yale College and from the School of Mines of Paris, France, became the founder of the Columbia University School of Mines of this city, and has been its professor of mineralogy and metallurgy from January, 1864, to the present time. Says the " Memorial History of New York " (IV., p. 430 ) : " In March, 1863, Thomas Egleston, a recent graduate of the Ecole des Mines of Paris, prepared a ' plan for a school of mines and metallurgy in New York City,' in which he succeeded in interesting the trustees of Columbia, so that they consented to establish such a branch of the college on condition of its not being a burden upon the funds of the college." Professor Egleston is a member of the Gro- lier Club, the Century Association, the Scientific Alliance, the Sons of the Revolution, the Society of Colonial Wars, and the Yale Alumni. He is also an officer of the Legion of Honor of France. His wife was a Miss Me Viekar.
EGLESTON. WILLIAM COUCH, one of several brothers who have long been prominent in the business, social, and educational life of New York City, is the son of the late merchant, Thomas Jefferson Egleston. He was born in 1839, is a graduate of Vale College, and has been active in connection with railroad securities. He is at pres- ent a director of the Cleveland and Pittsburg Railroad Company, the Pittsburg, Fort Wayne and Chicago Railroad Company, and the Massillon and Cleveland Railroad. He is a member of the Union and Metropolitan chibs and the Yale Alumni.
SCHURZ. CARL, formerly United States Senator from Missouri and Secretary of the Interior, has been a resident of New York City since 1880. For some years he was editor of the New York Erening
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Post, and has been prominent in reform movements and as a speaker on important publie occasions. He is a director of the Germania Life Insurance Company, the Sprague Electric Company, the Interior Con- dnit and Insulation Company, and the Witte Water Placer Company. He was born in Liblar, Prussia, March 2, 1829, and was educated at the Gymnasium of Cologne and the University of Bonn. Having contrib- uted toward the Revolution of 1848 as a journalist, forced to flee from Boun, he joined the Revolutionary Army in Southern Germany and helped defend Rastadt. He escaped into Switzerland upon its cap- ture, but secretly returned and succeeded in liberating a friend from the fortress of Spandau on the night of November 6, 1852. He was Paris correspondent of several German newspapers, taught languages in London, emigrated to Philadelphia, and in 1855 settled in Madison, Wis., where he soon became active in support of the Republican party. His speeches in his native tongue aroused the German element against slavery. In 1857 he was the unsuccessful Republican candidate for Lieutenant-Governor of Wisconsin. He took part in the Lincoln- Douglas Senatorial debate in Illinois, making his first speech in Eng- lish. He was practicing law in Milwaukee when President Lincoln appointed him United States. Minister to Spain. In December, 1861, however, he resigned, returning from Spain to go to the front. In April, 1862, he became Brigadier-General of Volunteers in command of a division of the corps of General Franz Siegel. He distinguished himself at the second battle of Bull Run, and May 14, 1863, was com- missioned Major-General of Volunteers, commanding a division of General O. O. Howard's corps. He participated at Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, Fredericksburg, and Chattanooga. After the war Pres- ident Jolmson sent him through the South to report ou the work of the Freedman's Bureau. In 1868 he was temporary Chairman of the convention which nominated Grant for the Presidency. From 1869 to 1875 he was United States Senator from Missouri. Ile stood with Charles Summer in opposing some of Grant's measures, and presided over the convention which nominated Horace Greeley for President in 1872. He favored the resumption of specie payments, and opposed the retention of United States troops in the South. He supported Hayes in 1876, and entered his cabinet as Secretary of the Interior. He introduced competitive examinations and provided for the protec- tion of the forests on the public domain. From the close of the admin- istration until 1884 he was editor of the New York Erening Post. He actively supported Grover Cleveland for President in 1884, 1888, and 1892. He has published " Speeches " (1861), " Life of Henry Clay " (1887), and " Abraham Lincoln : An Essay " ( 1891).
ANDREWS, LORING, born in Windham, N. Y., January 21, 1799. having learned the trade of a tanner and become his employer's part- ner, in 1829 established himself in the leather business in New York
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City. In 1832 he became the partner of William Wilson, Gideon Lee, and Shepherd Knapp, but during the panie of 1837 the firm failed. Beginning anew, Mr. Andrews acquired a large fortune and made many investments in city real estate. The leather firm of Lor- ing Andrews & Company, which he organized in 1861, became one of the most prominent honses in the trade. He was a founder and the first President of the Shoe and Leather Bank, a founder and the first President of the Globe Life Insurance Company, and a founder and original director of the Mechanics' Bank. He gave $100,000 to found professorships in the University of New York. He married in 1839 Blandina B., daughter of Rev. James B. Hardenburgh, D.D., and had a danghter and six sons -- William Loring, James B., Constant A., Loring, Jr., Walter S., and Clarence Andrews. Loring Andrews, Sr., died in this city January 22, 1875. He descended from William An- drews, one of the founders of New Haven in 163S.
ANDREWS, CONSTANT A., President of the United States Realty Company, President of the Elkhorn Valley Coal Land Company, and President of the United States Savings Bank, is the son of the late Loring Andrews, leather merchant, and one of the most prominent business men of the city of his day, and is lineally descended from William Andrews, one of the founders of the New Haven Colony in 1629, and the builder of its first church. Mr. Andrews was born on Barclay Street, attended the Columbia College Grammar School, and completed his education in Germany. Returning to this city when eighteen years of age, upon the ontbreak of the Civil War, he joined with the late Colonel Frank E. Howe in establishing a hospital for sick and wounded soldiers at the corner of Broadway and John Street. Later on he volunteered, joining the troops on the Pamunky River. Subsequently, for about ten years, he was associated in his father's mercantile and real estate interests, and after his death with his brother, William, closed up the leather business in 1879, retiring from that trade. He spent a few years abroad, and returning established himself as a private banker. Upon the organization of the United States Savings Bank he became its President. while he subsequently became chief executive of the other important corporations mentioned above. He is a member of the Chamber of Commerce, Treasurer of the New York City Mission and Tract Society, and Treasurer of the Charity Organization Society. He is a charter member of the Man- hattan Club and was first Treasurer of the Reform Chib.
GOULD, JAY, was perhaps the most conspicuous figure in the history of American finance. He was born in Roxbury, Delaware County, N. Y., May 27, 1836, and while he attended the local schools and seminames between the ages of five and sixteen, he was largely self-read and self-educated. He became his father's partner in a hardware store at Roxbury in the winter of 1851, and successfully
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managed the entire business, including all purchases from whole- sale firms at Albany and New York City. At the same time he became proficient at surveying through self-study, and the follow- ing spring and summer was engaged in surveying Ulster County, N. Y., preparatory to the publication of a map. Ilis employer failing, with two fellow employees he acquired the business and successfully carried through the project. From this time until 1856 he made actual surveys of the ground for maps of the town of Co- hoes and the counties of Albany, Sullivan, and Delaware, of this State; sketched and published maps for the same; collected data for his " History of Delaware County"; turned the manuscript in to hiis Philadelphia publisher in the spring of 1856, and, receiving word' of its destruction by fire, re-wrote the history with such rapidity that it was published in September following; undertook and directed expeditions for the survey of counties in Ohio and Michi- gan, and personally surveyed the route for the railroad be- tween Newburg and Syr- acuse, and for the Albany and Muscayuna plank road. These exertions, which re- quired about twenty hours out of each twenty-four, pros- trated him with typhoid fever and pneumonia. With the capital of $5,000 thus ac- quired he launched a success- ful tanning enterprise at Gouldsboro, Pa. He founded this community, built mills and stores in addition to the large tannery, constructed a plank road, established a stage route, erected a school- JAY GOULD. house, and secured postal facilities, receiving the appointment as postmaster. He formed a partnership with the New York City leather firm of Leupp & Lee, which became heavily indebted to him through loans made by him and the signing of the firm's paper. Some months sub- sequent to the death of Mr. Leupp, unable to secure an account- ing, he held some of the hides of Leupp & Lee as security. Dur- ing his absence in New York, Lee appeared at Gouldsboro and seized the tannery, discharging Gould's men. Upon his return, these and the neighboring farmers put themselves at Gould's sery- ice, and, at the head of a storming party, he retook the tannery,
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and subsequently defeated his opponent at every point in the courts. Mr. Gould was slandered through the public prints on account of this affair, but the complete documentary evidence which has come to light demonstrates that the attempt at wrong-at robbery, in fact -was entirely on the side of his slanderers, while Gould honestly met all his obligations on this as on all other occasions. When he disposed of this business he had amassed a considerable fortune. In 1860 he acquired a controlling interest in the Rutland and Wash- ington Railroad, its first mortgage bonds having fallen to ten cents on the dollar as a result of the financial panie of 1857. Gould be- came President, Treasurer, and General Superintendent of this road, developed the local traffic all along the line, and finally consoli- dated it with several small roads, creating the Rensselaer and Sara- toga Railroad, the stock of which he disposed of at 120. He was now able to acquire a controlling interest in the Cleveland and Pittsburg, the stock of which he purchased at an average of 70. IIc similarly developed its local resources and made valuable alliances which enabled him to lease the road to the Pennsylvania system. He then disposed of his stock at a large profit. His connection with the Erie was next in order of time, but we will defer reference to it for a moment. Following his connection with the Erie, Gould be- gan to buy the stock of the Union Pacific at a time when it was at the verge of bankruptcy and selling at 30 and less. While he was buying it continued to decline to 15, but he kept on until the tide turned. He found bonds to the amount of ten million dollars due in a few months, and the directors at the point of selecting a receiver. He inspired courage, and met one-half of these bonds himself, while the other directors raised the other half between them. He went along the line, started coal mines, and developed other resources. The road soon began to pay dividends and the stock rose to nearly 80. In February, 1879, he sold one hundred thou- sand shares of the stock at an average of 70 to a syndicate of in- vestors, and a little later sold a like amount at still better figures. The stock continued to rise until it reached a point twenty per cent. higher than Mr. Gould's selling price. Ilis motives were twofold, as he himself expressed them before the United States Senate Commission of 1883, which was investigating for sociological purposes: " There seemed to arise all at once on the part of the public a great ontery that it was 'Jay Gould's road.' However, I thought it was better to bow to public opinion, so I took an opportunity whenever I could to place the stock in investors' hands." The other motive was ap- parent when he at once purchased outright from Commodore Gar- rison the original Missouri Pacific, a line between St. Louis and Kansas City, three hundred miles long. " I had passed the time when I cared about mere money-making," he said. " My object in taking the road was more to show that I could make a combination and
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make it a success. So I took this road and commenced developing it, bringing in other lines which would be tributary to it, extending branches into new country where I could develop coal mines, and so on. I continued to develop that road until, I think, we have now in the system controlled by it about ten thousand miles of railroad." He was also the creator of the present Western Union Telegraph system. He had acquired stock in the Atlantic and Pacific Tele- graph Company along with the Union Pacific stock, this line being a rival of the Western Union Telegraph Company, controlled by the late William H. Vanderbilt. Mr. Gould bronght abont a consoli- dation of these companies, under agreement that General Eckert, -General Manager of the Atlantic and Pacific, should become General . Manager of the reorganized Western Union. This was not carried out, and determined, as he said, to place General Eckert in charge of a telegraph company as large as that from which he had been removed, Mr. Gould established the American Union Telegraph Company. A war of extermination against the new enterprise was attempted by the Western Union, but the older and stronger enter- prise was worsted, Western Union stock declined and was bought up by Mr. Gould, and eventually there was a surrender and settle- ment, the control of the Western Union passing from the Vanderbilts to Gould, under whom it has assumed the supremacy among tele- graphic systems on the American continent which it enjoys at the present time. Similarly, Mr. Gould invested in the stock of the Manhattan Railway Company when it was in the hands of a receiver, with the late Cyrus W. Field developed and improved the property, and saw the stock rise nearly to 180. Against his advice, Mr. Field entered upon a course of artificial inflation, and was without re- sources when a reaction set in. To save his friend from utter ruin, Mr. Gould took nearly $S,000,000 of Field's stock at 120, although it immediately dropped to 77, and at the same time loaned him $1,500,000 without security. Instead of gaining credit for this gen- erosity, Gould was credited with having ruined Field. Mr. John T. Terry, who represented Field at the time, declares that Mr. Gould came to the rescue on this large scale "most reluctantly and at much personal inconvenience," and adds: "This transaction not only saved the parties, but beyond question saved a panic in New York. And yet there are probably thousands and tens of thousands of persons here and abroad who believe that Mr. Field was wronged by. Mr. Gould." Probably no business man in the history of the country has been so unjustly vilified as Mr. Gould. In the connection just referred to, Mr. Terry remarked upon this as follows : " Mr. Gould has been for years the subject of much misrepresentation and un- reasonable abuse, partly from misapprehension and partly from malice. Those of his transactions which have been prompted by the best motives have been turned and twisted by attributing the worst
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possible motives to him." Mr. E. Ellery Anderson, after his investi- gation of the affairs of the Union Pacific Railroad, said : " One thing always impressed me, and it is interesting in connection with eur- rent statements and some popular impressions of the man. It is this: I have always found, even to the most trivial detail, that Mr. Gould lived up to the whole nature of his obligations." Ex-Gov- ernor Alonzo B. Cornell declared: "I regarded him as one of the most remarkable men America has produced. As a business man he was the most farsighted man I have ever known. He was the soul of honor in his personal integrity. His word passed in honor was as good as any bond he could make. He was the most misunder- stood man in this country." Gould had nothing to do with the de- preciation of the values of the stocks he purchased. He simply took up properties which others had failed to place upon a paying basis, and having a genius for organization, executive management, and the development of all available resources, transformed corpo- rations which had been brought to the brink of bankruptcy into dividend-earning companies. The proof that he had planned to re- juvenate the Erie in precisely the same way in which he did every other road he controlled exists in the fact that he actually acquired the coal fields which have since remained the most valuable assets of that corporation. But he was handicapped through having the. unscrupulous " Jim " Fisk and Daniel Drew as his associates. Com. modore Vanderbilt was also seeking to gain control of the Erie, and, although Gould defeated him, the resulting notoriety alarmed the English stockholders, and the executive control passed into other hands. Born in Roxbury, Delaware County, N. Y., May 27, 1836, Jason Gould was the son of John Burr Gould and Mary, daughter of John More. His grandfather, Captain Abraham Gould, and his great-grandfather, Colonel Abraham Gould, were officers in the Revo- lution, the latter being killed while opposing the British forces un- der General Tryon. His great-great-grandfather, Hon. Nathan Gould, of Fairfield, Conn., was both Chief Justice and Deputy Governor of the Colony of Connecticut, and was in turn the son of the eminent Major Nathan Gould, who, having in 1646 emigrated from St. Ed- mondsbury, England, to Fairfield, Conn., was from 1657 to 1694 a member of the Connecticut Council, and one of the petitioners for the Connectient Charter. He was of gentle blood and an armiger. . Jay Gould also descended from Captain John Bury, and the latter's father, Colonel John Burr. of Fairfield, Conn., of an ancient knightly family of Suffolk, England, as likewise from Lieutenant-Colonel John Talcott, of Hartford, Conn. On January 22, 1863, Mr. Gould married Helen Day, danghter of Hon. Daniel S. Miller, of Greenville, N. Y., who had earlier been a wholesale merchant of New York City. Both parents have pre-deceased all their children-George J. Gould, Edwin Gould, Helen Miller Gould, Howard Gould, Anna (Countess Cas- tellane), and Frank J. Gould.
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GOULD, GEORGE JAY, eldest son of the late eminent railroad financier, Jay Gould, and Helen Day, daughter of Daniel S. Miller, wholesale merchant of New York City, is President of the Manhat- tan Railway, President of the Missouri Pacific Railway Company, President of the Texas and Pacific Railway Company, President of the International and Great Northern Railroad Company, and sus- tains the same relation to nine other important railroad corpora- tions. He is also a director of the Equitable Life Assurance Society, the Mercantile Trust Company, the National Surety Company, the New York Telephone Company, the Western Union Telegraph Com- pany, the Pacific Mail Steamship Company, the Union Pacific Rail- way Company, the Wabash Railroad Company, and a number of other railway companies. He has taken an active interest in yachting and is a member of the New York Yacht, Larchmont Yacht, American Yacht, and Atlantic Yacht clubs, as well as of the New York, Coun- try, New York Athletic, Lawyers', and other clubs, and the Sons of the Revolution. Having purchased the Vigilant, the successful defender of the America cup, in 1894 he sailed this yacht in many international events in European waters, and in one race succeeded in defeating the Prince of Wales's celebrated Britannia. He was born in this city in 1864, was educated in private schools and under private tutors, and was his father's confidential assistant for many years prior to the death of the latter. He married Edith Kingdon, of Brooklyn, and has two daughters, and three sons-Kingdon, Jay, and George J. Gould, Jr.
GOULD, EDWIN, second son of the late Jay Gould, is Vice-Presi- dent of the St. Louis Southwestern Railway Company, First Vice- President of the St. Louis Southwestern Railway Company of Texas, and a director of the Traders' Fire Insurance Company, the Western Union Telegraph Company, the Manhattan Railway, the Missouri Pacific Railroad Company, the Wabash Railroad Company, the Amer- ican Speaking Telephone Company, the International Ocean Tele- graph Company, the International and Great Northern Railroad Com- pany, the Kansas City and Arkansas Valley Railway, the Little Rock and Fort Smith Railway, and the Little Rock Junction Company. He was born in New York City in 1866, and was graduated from Columbia College in 18SS. He was at one time a member of Troop A, and subsequently was appointed Inspector of Riffe Practice to the Seventy-first Regiment, with the rank of Captain. He has made several gifts to Columbia University. He is a member of the Coun- try, New York Athletic, Lawyers', Atlantic Yacht, Delta Kappa Epsilon, and Essex County Country clubs, and the Sons of the Revo- lution.
GOULD, HOWARD, third son and fourth child of the late eminent Jay Gould and his wife, Helen Day Miller, was born in New York
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City June 8, 1871. He was educated at Columbia College, but prior to his college course, as well as since, he participated in the executive management of the large interests of his family. At the present time he is Vice-President of the Tyler Southeastern Rail- way Company, and a director of the Traders' Fire Insurance Com- pany of New York, the Gold and Stock Telegraph Company, the Manhattan Railway, the Missouri Pacific Railroad Company, the Texas and Pacific Railway Company, the Iron Mountain and South- ern Railroad Company, the International and Great Northern Rail- road Company, the Little Rock and Fort Smith Railway, the Kansas City Northwestern Railroad Company, and the Kansas City and Ar- kansas Valley Railway. Ile is also prominently identified with the pneumatic-tube system operated in connection with the New York Postoffice. He is a member of the New York Stock Exchange, of the New York Athletic, Lawyers', Delta Kappa Epsilon, New York Yacht, American Yacht, Larchmont Yacht, Atlantic Yacht, and Sea- wanhaka-Corinthian Yacht clubs, of New York City, and the Largo Yacht and Royal Alfred Yacht clubs, of England, and is an honorary member of the Royal Cork Yacht Club of Ireland. He was half-owner of the yacht Vigilant throughout her racing course in European waters in 1894, when she succeeded in winning a race from the Prince of Wales's Britannia. He is also the owner of the cutter Niagara, with which he won sixty prizes in races with English yachts during the seasons of 1895 and 1896.
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