USA > New York > New York City > Leslie's history of the greater New York, Volume III, Pt. 1 > Part 22
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
183
ENCYCLOPEDIA OF NEW YORK BIOGRAPHY.
dent of the Company. In 1894 he disposed of his interest in this com- pany, and is now giving his attention to the Kings County Trust Com- pany. He has been a resident of Brooklyn since 1875.
CARPENTER, HERBERT SANFORD, from 1890 to 1895, was a member of the New York banking firm of Charles Head & Company, and since the latter date has been a member of the banking firm of Thomas L. Manson, Jr. & Company. He was born in Brooklyn in 1862, was edneated in this city, and is the son of the eminent artist, Francis B. Carpenter, and Augusta Prentice, and grandson of Asaph H. Car- penter and Elmira Clark. His father made life studies of Lincoln and his Cabinet for his celebrated painting, " Signing of the Emancipation Proclamation," which hangs in the United States Capitol, and subse- quently published " Six Months at the White House; or, The Inner Life of President Lincoln." Mr. Carpenter married, in 1883, Cora Anderson, of one of the old families of Louisville, Ky., and has a daughter. He is a member of the New York Athletic, Players', and Engineers' clubs.
BATTERMAN, HENRY, has been engaged in business in Brooklyn since 1867, and latterly has been prominently connected with a num- ber of important financial institutions. He is now President of the Broadway Bank of Brooklyn, and a director of the Manufacturers' Trust Company and the American Stoker Company. By appointment of Mayor Charles A. Schieren, of Brooklyn, he served on the Bridge Commission. He is a member of the Hamilton, Union League, Riding and Driving, and Germania clubs, of Brooklyn. The son of John F. and Sophie Batterman, both of whom were born in Germany, he was himself born in Brooklyn, N. Y., November 5. 1849, and was educated in the public schools of that city and Renville's Commercial College ' of the City of New York.
CROMWELL. OLIVER EATON, for many years actively engaged in business in this city as a stockbroker, is the son of the late Charles T. Cromwell, a prominent New York lawyer, and grandson of John Cromwell, a merchant of New York City, and Lieutenant of Artillery in the War of 1812. He was born in the City of New York, October 6, 1848, and was graduated from Columbia College as a mechanical en- gineer. He is a member of the Union, Metropolitan. Delta Phi, New York Yacht, American Yacht. and Seawanhaka-Corinthian Yacht clubs. the St. Nicholas Society, and Holland Lodge. In 1891 he was a County Commissioner of Bernalillo County, New Mexico, where he has interests. Ile married. in 1890. Lucretia B .. daughter of James H. Roberts, of Chicago, and has a danghter and two sons-Oliver Eaton and James Roberts Cromwell. He is lineally descended from
184
HISTORY OF THE GREATER NEW YORK.
John Cromwell, of Cromwell's Neck, Westchester County, who was the son of Colonel John Cromwell, and grandson of Sir Oliver Crom- well, the cousin and uncle respectively of Oliver Cromwell, Lord Pro- tector of England. Through his mother, Henrietta Amelia, daughter of Benjamin Brooks, of Bridgeport, Conn., Mr. Cromwell is also de- scended from Catherine Henrietta, sister of the Lord Protector. Her son, Colonel William Jones, who came to New Haven in 1660, is his ancestor, as is also Theophilus Eaton. first Governor of New Haven Colony.
DAVIS, FELLOWES, has been long engaged in the handling of stocks in New York City, and is a director of the Cincinnati, Hamilton. and Dayton Railway Company. He is a member of the Council of the Military Order of Foreign Wars, and is one of the Board of Managers of the Society of the Sons of the Revolution. He is also a member of the Union Club, the Society of Colonial Wars, and the New York Historical Society. He is the son of William Davis, Jr .. and Maria Davis, his paternal and maternal great-grandfathers being two brothers, Captain Aaron Davis, Jr .. and Moses Davis, both of whom were Revolutionary soldiers, while their father, Colonel Aaron Davis. was also Colonel of Militia during the Revolution. and a prominent member of the Massachusetts Legislature. The latter's grandfather. William Davis, settled in Roxbury. Mass., in 1638, being of the old manorial family of Davis, long seated at Twickenham, England. Mr. Davis is also descended from Governor John Winthrop, Sr., and Gov- ernor Thomas Dudley. He married, in 1871. Marie Antoinette Baker, of Boston, and has a daughter and three sous -- Fellowes, Jr., Pier- pont, and Dudley. Mrs. Davis is also descended from Governor Dud- ley, as well as from Robert Baker, who came over with Endicott's fleet, and received a grant of land from the crown at Salem, Mass., in 1637; from Jonathan Baker, who distinguished himself in the French and Indian war, and from Benjamin Baker and Jesse Davidson, Revo- lutionary soldiers, who were her great-grandfathers.
BARTHOLOMEW. JOHN OLMSTED, formerly engaged as an im- porter in this city in the British trade, and in later years engaged in banking on Wall Street, is a member of the Union and Metropolitan clubs, and was born in Denmark, N. Y., February 10, 1827. He is the son of the late Dr. Erasmus Darwin Bartholomew, a physician of Western New York, and Mary Seline Brewster, a descendant of Elder Brewster, of Plymouth Colony. His grandfather, Dr. Sherman Bar- tholomew, was a Surgeon in the American Army in the War of 1812, while the founder of the line in this country, William Bartholomew, who arrived in Boston in 1634, and subsequently became a member of the Massachusetts General Court, was of gentle blood, the son of Will-
185
ENCYCLOPEDIA OF NEW YORK BIOGRAPHY.
iam Bartholomew, of Warborough, Oxfordshire, and Friswede, daugh- ter of William Metcalf, Mayor of New Woodstock.
KELLY, RICHARD, was the founder of the Fifth National Bank of New York City, and was its President for about thirty-two years. from its organization in January, 1864, until his death in his seventy- seventh year, April 20, 1897. In his younger days he was connected with the Volunteer Fire Depart- ment of the city. He was one of the old members of the Union Leagne Club, and remained through life a stanch Republican. his first and last ballots alike having been cast for the candi- dates of that party. He also served upon the bench as a Jus- tice of New York City, and was at one time the Republican candi- date for Comptroller of the city. Hle was for many years President of the School Board of the Nine- teenth Ward. He served upon the Nominating Committee of the New York Clearing House Asso- ciation. He was long President of the Pavonia Ferry Railroad Company, retaining the position until that company disposed of its right of way through Lexing- ton Avenue to the Metropolitan Traction Company. At the time of his death he was also Presi- dent of the Dry Dock, East Broadway and Battery Railroad Company, and a director in RICHARD KELLY. various other enterprises. ITe married Jane Meeks, also of an old New York family. She survives him, with their two children -- Dr. Stephen Kelly and Richard B. Kelly.
KELLY. STEPHEN, in the spring of 1897 succeeded his father, the late Richard Kelly, as President of the Fifth National Bank of New York City, of which he had been Vice-President since 1887. and a director for a much longer period. He was born in New York in 1847. and was educated in the public schools, in 1868 being graduated from the College of the City of New York. He studied medicine under Dr.
186
HISTORY OF THE GREATER NEW YORK.
James R. Wood, at Bellevue Hospital Medical College, and after his graduation from the latter in 1871, was for several years actively and successfully engaged in the practice of medicine in New York City. In 1873 he was married to Miss Julia Davis, of Natchez, Miss. While always retaining his legal residence in New York City, he for many years successfully engaged in cotton planting on an extensive scale. in Mississippi and Louisiana. He was long a director of the Dry Dock, East Broadway and Battery Railroad Company, prior to its sale, August 23, 1897. to the Third Avenue Railroad Company. He is a member of the New York Athletic Club. By his first wife, who died in 1883. he has one child-George M. D. Kelly. On August 4, 1897, Dr. Kelly was married to Miss Emma Riley, of Cornwall, N. Y.
Richard B. Kelly, the younger son of the late Richard Kelly and Jane Meeks, is engaged in the practice of law in New York City. He is Vice-President of the Fifth National Bank, as well as its coun- sel and attorney, and is also a trustee of the Broadway Savings Insti- tntion, and a director of the Home Bank.
SCHWAB, GUSTAV, was for many years one of the most eminent of New York business men. He was born in Stuttgart, Germany, in 1822, the son of Gustav Schwab, the well-known German author and poet, and the grandson of Dr. John Christopher Schwab, who long occuped the chair of Philosophy and Mathematics in the University of Stuttgart, and declined to relinquish it in order to accept his desig- nation by Frederick the Great to assist in establishing and directing the Berlin Royal Academy of Science. Having been in the counting- house of I. H. Meier & Company, of Bremen, between the ages of seventeen and twenty-two, in 1844 Mr. Schwab came to New York to take a position with the firm of Oelrichs & Kruger. Within five years he engaged in the shipping business in this city on his own account as junior member of the firm of Wichelhausen, Recknagle & Schwab. In 1859 he severed this connection to enter the firm of Oehrichs & Company, successors to Oelrichs & Kruger. It was shortly subsequent to the organization of this firm that the house acquired the American agency of the North German Lloyd Steamship Line, the head of H. II. Meier & Company, of Bremen, with whom Mr. Schwab had served his mercantile apprenticeship, being President of the steamship com- pany. Mr. Schwab succeeded the late Henry Oelrichs as head of Oelrichs & Company, and so remained until his retirement from busi- ness in 1887, when the present Herman Oelrichs: son of Henry, be- came senior partner. Mr. Schwab died in 1SSS. At the time of his death he was Vice-President of the Merchants' National Bank, as well as its senior director. He was also a director of the Central Trust Company, the Washington Life Insurance Company, and the Orient Mutual Insurance Company. He was at one time a member of the New York Board of Education, was long Treasurer of the German
187
ENCYCLOPEDIA OF NEW YORK BIOGRAPHY.
Hospital, and was Warden of St. James's Church (Episcopal), of Fordham. He married in 1850, Catherine Elizabeth, daughter of L. II. Von Post, of this city, a descendant from one of the German emigrants from the Palatinate to this country in 1710. Their family included the present Gustav H. and Herman C. Schwab, members of Oelrichs & Company; Rev. Lawrence HI. Schwab, Rector of St. Mary's Church ( Episcopal), of this city, and Dr. John C. Schwab, Professor of Political Economy in Yale University.
SCHWAB, GUSTAV H., eldest son of the late Gustav Schwab, was born in New York City, May 30, 1851, was educated here and at Stutt- gart, Germany, received a business training at Bremen, Germany, and Liverpool, England, in 1873 became connected with the firm of Oelrichs & Company, of this city, of which his father was long the head, and since 1876 has been a member of that firm. He is a trustee of the United States Trust Company, the Atlantic Mutual In- surance Company, and the Birkbeck Investment Savings and Loan Company, and a director of the Merchants' National Bank and the New York Produce Exchange and Safe Deposit Storage Company. He has served as Commissioner of Emigration for the State of New York. He is a prominent member of the Chamber of Commerce and has been Chairman of its Executive Committee. Ile was formerly a member of the Sub-committee on Finance, and is now Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Commerce and Revenue Laws. He is a member of the Metropolitan, Century, City, Reform, Commonwealth, Tuxedo, Riding, and Mendelssohn Glee clubs, and the Liederkranz. He married in 1876, Caroline E. Wheeler, niece of William B. Ogden, of New York, who was the first Mayor of Chicago, and at one time President of the Chicago and Northwestern Railway Company, and has two children-Emily Elizabeth and Gustav Schwab.
CONSTABLE, JAMES MANSELL, who has long been the head of the notable drygoods house of Arnold, Constable & Company, and since 1842 has been a member of the firm, is also Vice-President of the Institution for Savings for Merchants' Clerks, and is a director of the Bank of New York. He was born in Surrey, England, in 1812. and having become impressed with this country while on a pleasure tour, came over permanently in 1840. He was the friend of the late Aaron Arnoldl, head and founder of the then existing firm of Arnold. Hearn & Company, and became interested with him, two years later be- coming a partner under the new style of A. Arnold & Company, which later gave place to Arnold, Constable & Company. He married, in 1844, Henrietta, only daughter of Aaron Arnold, and has two daugh- ters and a son-Frederick A. Constable. As a memorial to his wife, who died in 1884. Mr. Constable erected at Mamaroneck a Protestant
188
HISTORY OF THE GREATER NEW YORK.
Episcopal Church. Ile is a member of the Reform Club and the Up- town Association. The firm has houses at Paris and Lyons. France.
PLANT. HENRY BRADLEY, has long been the most prominent figure in connection with express and railway interests in the Southern States. Entering the employ of the New Haven Steamboat Company at the age of eighteen, he was soon intrusted with the ex- press business by rail and water between New Haven and New York. Upon the organization of the Adams Express Company he became its representative in the South. From 1854 to 1861 he was Superintendent of its Southern Division, with headquarters at Au- gusta, Ga. In the latter year he organized the Southern Express Company, which succeeded to the business of the Adams Express Company in the Confederate States. Illness soon after forced him to spend much time in Bermuda and England. After the war he be- came active in developing the agencies of transportation in the Southern States. He was the head of the syndicate which, in 1879. acquired the Atlantic and Gulf Railroad. and reorganized it as the Savannah, Florida and Western. He also acquired and rebuilt the Savannah and Charleston Railroad. In 1882 he secured the incor- poration of the Plant Investment Company, and thus became head of a notable syndicate of capitalists who had joined forces to develop the resources and facilities of the South. Fast mail steamship lines were established between Tampa. Fla .. and Havana. Cuba; New York and Florida. Boston and Halifax, and connecting local Southern ports. Large modern hotels were erected in Florida, and the rail- ways of that State developed and compacted with systems extending to the north and the west. The result has been the creation of the so-called Plant system. of which its originator is the executive head. Since it was founded by him, in 1861, he has been President of the Sonthern Express Company, while he is also President of the Savan- nah, Florida and Western Railway Company, President of the Silver Springs, Ocala and Gulf Railroad Company. President of the Charles- ton and Savannah Railway Company, President of the Alabama Mid- land Railway Company, President of the Brunswick and Western Railroad Company, President of the Tampa and Thonotosassa Rail- road Company. and is a director of ten or twelve other roads. He is also President of the Canada, Atlantic & Plant Steamship Company. and of the Lake Alfred Company; is a trustee of the American Surety - Company. and the Metropolitan Trust Company. and is a director of the Key West Commercial Company, and the Jacksonville Street Railroad Company. He was born in Branford. Conn .. October 27. 1819, had as tutor Rev. Timothy O. Gillette, and attended the Lan- castrian School at New Haven. He descends from Jolm Plant, who emigrated from England to Connecticut in 1636. Ilis paternal and maternal great-grandfathers were Revolutionary soldiers, the latter
189
ENCYCLOPEDIA OF NEW YORK BIOGRAPHY.
holding the rank of Major, the former having the distinction of hay- ing been stationed at Washington's headquarters at Newburgh, and having served on guard at the execution of Major Andre. Mr. Plant married, in 1842, Ellen Elizabeth, daughter of Hon. James Black- stone, of Connecticut, by whom he had his only surviving son, Morton F. Plant. She died in 1861, and twelve years later he married Mar- garet Josephine, only daughter of Martin Loughman. of this city. Mr. Plant is a member of the Union League Club and the New Eng- land Society.
PLANT, MORTON F .. is the only surviving son of Henry Brad- ley Plant, of this city, and is actively associated in the management of the immense transportation system erected by his father. He is second executive officer of many of the corporations, and a director of others. He is Vice-President of the Southern Express Company, Vice-President and Manager of the Canada, Atlantic and Plant Steamship Company. Vice-President of the Florida Southern Rail- road Company. Vice-President of the Alabama Midland Railway Company, Vice-President of the Brunswick and Western Railroad Company, Vice-President of the Abbeville Southern Railway Com- pany, Vice-President of the Montgomery Belt Line Railway Company, and Vice-President of the Sanford and St. Petersburg Railway Com- pany, while he is a director of the Charleston and Savannah Railway Company, the Savannah, Florida and Western Railway Company, the St. John's and Lake Eustis Railroad Company, the Winston and Bone Valley Railway Company, and the Green Pond, Waterboro, and Branchville Railway. He is a member of the New York Athletic Club.
MILLS, DARIUS OGDEN, has distinguished himself by his prac- tical philanthropy. In 18SS he erected for the City of New York in the Bellevue Hospital grounds, at a cost of $100,000, the D. O. Mills Training School for Male Nurses. He is one of the joint builders and owners of the Madison Square Garden and the new Metropolitan Opera House. He is patron of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the American Museum of Natural History, and the American Geographic- al Society. He is a principal proprietor of the new model tenements on the East and West Sides of New York, in the heart of the most crowded districts, which now afford apartments for the families of workingmen at a rent as low as for sqnalid quarters, but giving them every sanitary convenience, light, air, bathroom, properly-equipped kitchen, and tastefully decorated living rooms. On Bleecker Street, between Sullivan and Thompson, he has erected an imposing ten- story hotel palace for those whose circumstances compel them to study the strictest economy. Here a night's lodging can be had for twenty cents, and good meals for fifteen cents. Nevertheless there is
190
HISTORY OF THE GREATER NEW YORK.
complete elevator and attendant service, serupulous cleanliness, with firebrick finish, marble corridors, spacious parlors and reading- rooms, baths, and lavatories, while the fifteen hundred bedrooms are handsomely carpeted and tastefully and comfortably furnished. A similar hotel for women, and another for meu in the so-called " Ten- derloin " district, are under way. He is also proprietor of the Mills Building, one of the notable office-buildings of the city, with wings on Wall and Broad streets. Mr. Mills is President of the Virginia and Truckee Railroad. a trustee of the United States Trust Company. and the Metropolitan Trust Company, and a director of the Bank of New York, the Farmers' Loan and Trust Company, the Madison Square Garden Company, the Metropolitan Opera and Real Estate
Company, the City and Suburban Homes Company, the Edison Elec- trie Illuminating Company, the Mergenthaler Linotype Company, the Minnesota Iron Company, the Duluth and Iron Range Railroad Company, the Cataract Construc- tion Company. the Niagara Devel- opment Company, the Niagara Junction Railway Company, the Erie Railroad Company, the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railroad Company, and the Car- son and Colorado Railway. He was born in North Salem, West- chester County, N. Y .. September 5, 1825, the son of James Mills, of an old Westchester family. He held a clerkship in New York City DARIU'S O. MIL.I.S. for several years, and then became Cashier of the Merchants Bank of Erie County, New York, being partner of his consin, E. J. Townsend, in its ownership. Upon the discovery of gold in California, he estab- lished himself as a general merchant at Sacramento, at the same time buying gold dust and dealing in exchange on New York. Subse- . quently he established the banking firm of D. O. Mills & Company, which continues to be one of the leading financial houses of Califor- nia, and " the oldest bank of unbroken credit in the State." He also organized the Bank of California, with a capital of $2.000,000. and for nine years was its President. When he retired, in 1873. the bank was doing an immense business, but under his successor, the unfor- tunate Ralston, it was brought to the verge of ruin in two years. Mr. Mills finally consented to his reflection as President, and having once more placed the institution on a solid basis, resigned in May,
191
ENCYCLOPEDIA OF NEW YORK BIOGRAPHY.
1878, and removed to New York. He was long a Regent and the Treasurer of the University of California, and endowed the Mills Pro- fessorship of Moral and Intellectual Philosophy for $75,000. He was a trustee of the Lick estate, and of the Lick Observatory. He pre- sented to the State of California the marble group, " Columbus before Queen Isabella," which adorns the rotunda of the State House. He married, in 1854, Jane T., daughter of James Cunningham, of New York City. Their daughter is the wife of Hon. Whitelaw Reid.
CAMERON, SIR RODERICK WILLIAM, coming to New York City from Canada in 1852, established a packet line to Australia, and founded the firm of R. W. Cameron & Company, which maintains a large importing and exporting trade between the United States and Canada on the one hand and Australia. He was knighted by Queen Victoria in 1883 for his services in promoting trade relations between Canada and the Australasian colonies. In 1849-50 he had been a dele- gate from Canada to the United States in advocacy of a reciprocity treaty. Ile was accredited to the Centennial Exposition at Philadel- phia in 1876 as Commissioner of New South Wales, and was similarly accredited to the Exposition at Paris in 1878. He also attended the Exposition at Melbourne in 1880, and that at Sydney in 1881, as Com- missioner from Canada. Upon his return in 1881 he prepared a valn- able report on the trade relations between the continents of North America and Australia, which the Minister of Agriculture in the Ca- nadian Cabinet published as an appendix to his report for 1881. He has interested himself in promoting outdoor sports, and at his well- known stud at Clifton, Staten Island, has done much to improve the American thoroughbred horse, importing some famous stallions. He is a member of the Metropolitan, Knickerbocker, and New York Yacht, and five London clubs. Born at Glen-Nevis, Canada, July 25, 1825, he descends from Donald Cameron, of Glen-Nevis, Scotland, and on the maternal side from Sir Roderick Macloud. His grand- father, Alexander Cameron, born at Glenmoriston, Inverness-shire. in 1729, emigrated to the Colony of New York prior to the Revolution, eventually settling in Canada. His father, Duncan Cameron, was a Member of Parliament, and one of the founders of the Northwest Fur Trading Company, afterward merged into the Hudson's Bay Company. Sir Roderick married in 1860, Anne Fleming, daughter of Nathan Leavenworth. She died July 2, 1879, four daughters and two sons- Duncan Ewen and Roderick Macloud-surviving her. Roderick Ma- cloud Cameron is a member of his father's mercantile firm. Sir Roder- ick is a director of the Alberta Railway and Coal Company.
ROOSEVELT. ROBERT B., member of the New York Fishery Com- mission from 1867 to 1888. when he was appointed United States Min- ister to the Netherlands, is well known for his effective crusade look-
192
HISTORY OF THE GREATER NEW YORK.
ing to the preservation of the wild game of the United States, and for many published volumes and magazine essays on this and other subjects. He is a director of the Brigantine Company and the Broad- way Improvement Company, and a trustee of the Holland Trust Com- pany; was First Vice-President and subsequently President of the Holland Society. He was active in the organization of the original "Committee of Seventy," which led in the overthrow of the Tweed ring, and was the first Vice-President of the Reform Club, organized the Citizens' Association, and one of the editors of its organ. the Oflison. Elected to Congress as a Democrat in 18TO, he maintained himself in independence of party dictation. He was active in the organization of the paid Fire Department of this city, as also in the creation of the Health Department. He was a Commissioner of the Brooklyn Bridge, a founder of the Lotos Club, one of the oldest mem- bers of the St. Nicholas Society, and a member of the Manhattan and Democratie clubs. He refused an offer of President Cleveland to ap- point him United States Sub-Treasurer at New York. Both as a writer and as an organizer of protective societies, he became a pioneer in vigorous opposition to the indiscriminate slaughter of game. He has been President of the Fish Culture Association. President of the National Association for the Protection of Game, and President of the International Association for the Protection of Game. He secured the creation of the New York Fishery Commission, of which he was so long a member, and published a report covering his twenty-one years of service. He has published volumes on " The Game Fish of North America," " The Game Birds of North America," and " Superior Fish- ing." " Fish Hatching and Fish Catching "; has edited other works. and been a prolific essayist and magazine writer. He has also pub- lished " Five Acres Too Much," " Love and Luck," and " Progressive Petticoats." He is a member of a distinguished New York family. and was born in this city. August 7, 1829. received a collegiate and legal education, and was admitted to the bar at twenty-one years of age. He soon abandoned legal practice for activity along the lines indicated. He lineally descends from Klaas Martinszen Van Roose- velt, who, with his wife, Jannetje Samuels Thomas, arrived in New Amsterdam from the province of Zeeland in August, 1649. The name means " Field of Roses."
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.