USA > New York > New York City > Leslie's history of the greater New York, Volume III, Pt. 1 > Part 26
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
220
HISTORY OF THE GREATER NEW YORK.
counsel of the Sugar Trust, as he has been of its successor, the American Sugar Refining Company. He was one of the original members of the Bar Association of the City of New York and one of its most active founders. He took a leading part in the proceedings preliminary to its organization, and submitted the draft for the original constitution, which was in large part adopted.
SEWARD, CLARENCE A., prior to his death in 1897, was one of the most prominent lawyers of New York City. Born in this city, he was reared at Geneva, N. Y., in the family of his famous uncle, the late William H. Seward. He was graduated from Hobart College in 184S, in 1850 was admitted to the bar, and for four years practiced at Geneva. In 1854 he came to New York City and became a member of the law firm of Blatchford, Se- ward & Griswold, the head of which was the late Judge Blatchford, of the Supreme Court of the United States. He became prominent in the celebrated Day and Goodyear india rubber litigations, the Bank of England forgery case, the Broad- way Railroad investigation, and the Lauderdale Peerage case in the British House of Lords. He was an expert in express cases. Under Governor King and Governor Mor- gan he was Judge Advocate-Gen- CLARENCE A. SEWARD. eral of the State of New York. Upon the attempted assassination of his uncle, he was called to Washington, D. C., and discharged the duties of Assistant Secretary of State. At the time of his death he was President of the Union Club of New York City, a position he bad held for many years. He was President of the Fifth Avenue Protec- tive Association and Vice-President of the Adams Express Company. He was President of the Alpha Delta Phi Society of New York, and was also President of the Alumni Association of Hobart College, from which institution he held the degree of Doctor of Laws. He was a delegate to a number of Republican State and National conventions. ITe was the First Elector on the Republican State ticket in the Presi- dential campaign resulting in the election of Garfield and Arthur.
BAYLIES, EDMUND LINCOLN, member of the law firm of Carter & Ledyard, was born in New York City in 1857; in 1879 was gradnated from Harvard; in 1882 from the Harvard Law School, and took an
221
ENCYCLOPEDIA OF NEW YORK BIOGRAPHY.
additional course in the Columbia College Law School before engag- ing in active practice in this city. He has appeared in many important cases, and is counsel to many corporations. He is a trustee of the New York Life Insurance and Trust Company and a director of the Pacific Cable Company and the Mexican Telegraph Company. He is a member of the Patriarchs, Knickerbocker, University, and City clubs, the Downtown Association, Bar Association of the city, and the Sons of the American Revolution. In 1SS7, he married Louisa Van Rensselaer, lineal descendant of Kiliaen Van Rensselaer, first patroon of Rensselaerwyck. He is himself the son of Edmund Lincoln Baylies, Sr., and Nathalie E. Ray, and is the great-great-grandson of General Benjamin Lincoln, of the Revolution, and great-grandson of Colonel Hodijah Baylies, who served on General Lincoln's staff, and married his daughter Elizabeth.
BOWERS, JOHN MYER, one of the eminent lawyers of New York City, where he has followed his profession since 1871, is also a director of the Corn Exchange Bank, the Coney Island Jockey Club, the New York Law Publishing Company, and a trustee of the Tennis Building Association and the New York Institution for the Blind. He has long enjoyed a large corporation practice, is a leading member of the Bar Association of the City of New York, and is an influential Democrat. He is a member of the Union, Metropolitan, Manhattan, Riding, and Whist clubs, the Downtown Association, Sons of the Revolution, and Society of Colonial Wars. He married Susan Dandridge, and has two daughters and three sons, Spotswood Dandridge, Henry Myer, and William Crain Bowers. Mrs. Bowers is descended from Governor Alexander Spotswood, of Virginia, who was born at Tangiers in 1676, and fought under Marlborough, being wounded at Blenheim. The country place of Mr. Bowers is the old family mansion at Coopers- town, N. Y., where he was born, November 27, 1849. He is the son of Jolin Myer Bowers and Margaret M. S., daughter of Robert Wilson and his wife. Martha, whose father, Colonel Charles Stewart, of Lands- downe, N. J .. came from Bortlee, County Donegal, Ireland, and was of the royal Stuarts. He is also lincally descended from Adolph Myer, who settled in Harlem in 1661, coming from Ulsen, parish of Bent- heim, Westphalia. The Rays and Crommelins, old New York families, were ingrafted upon this line.
BEAMAN, CHARLES COTESWORTH, a member of the famous law firm of Evarts. Choate & Beaman, has been engaged in the active practice of law in this city since 1866. He was Examiner of Claims, State Department, Washington, in 1871, and the following year rep- resented the United States as Solicitor in the matter of the famous Alabama claims before the Court of Arbitration at Geneva, Switzer- land. He is President of the Brearley School, a trustee of the Provi-
222
HISTORY OF THE GREATER NEW YORK.
dent Loan Society, and a director of the Mexican National Railroad Company and the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad Company. He is of New England descent, the son of Rev. Charles C. Beaman and Mary Stacy, and was born at HonIton. Me., May 7, 1840. He was graduated from Harvard College in 1861, attended the Harvard Law School, and was admitted to the bar in this city in 1866.
SANDS, BENJAMIN AYMAR, who has been engaged in the prac. tice of law in New York City for more than twenty years and is eminent as a corporation lawyer, is also an officer of a number of important corporations. He is Vice-President of the Colorado Mid- land Railway Company, is a trustee and Secretary of the Terminal Improvement Company, is a trustee of the Greenwich Savings Bank, and the New York Seenrity and Trust Company, and is a director of the Hudson River Bank, the National Safety Deposit Company, the Commonwealth Insurance Company, and the Terminal Warchonse Company. He is a member of the Executive Committee of the City Bar Association. He is also a member of the Union, City, University, Riding, Church, and -University Athletic clubs, the Downtown Asso- ciation, the St. Andrew's Society, the Columbia Alumni Association, and the Society of Colonial Wars. He was born in this city, July 27, 1853, and was graduated from Columbia College and from the Colum- bia College Law School. Both his father, the late Samuel Stevens Sands, and his maternal grandfather, Benjamin Aymar, were promi- nent merchants and financiers of New York City. His grandfather. Austin Ledyard Sands, was also one of the notable New York mer- chants of his day. His great-granduncle, Comfort Sands, was one of the Revolutionary Committee of One Ihundred, which ruled this city in 1775, and subsequently became President of the New York Chamber of Commerce. The founder of the family in America, James Sands, emigrated in 1658 from Reading, Berkshire, England, to Plymouth, Mass., and in 1660 was one of the purchasers of Block Island. Sands Point, L. I., was named after his son, John Sands.
HUBBARD, THOMAS HAMLIN. has been engaged in the prac- tice of law in New York City since the close of the Civil War. being for a year associated with Hon. Charles A. Rapallo, late of the Court of Appeals bench. and, since July, 1867. a member of the well- known law firm of Barney, Butler & Parsons, and its successor, Butler. Stillman & Hubbard. He is President as well as a director of each of the following railroad corporations: The Southern Pacific Coast Railway, the Southern Pacific Railroad Company of Arizona. the Southern Pacific Railroad Company of New Mexico, the California and Pacific Railroad. the Oregon and California Railroad, the Fort Worth and New Orleans Railway. the Houston and Texas Central Railroad, the Central Texas and Northwestern Railroad. the Anstin
-
223
ENCYCLOPEDIA OF NEW YORK BIOGRAPHY.
and Northwestern Railroad, and the Mexican International Railroad. He is also a director and Vice-President of the Southern Pacific Com- pany, which controls this system, and is a director of the Chatta- nooga and Southern Railroad, the Wabash Railroad, the Pacific Im- provement Company. the Western National Bank of this city, the Washington Building Company, and the Detroit Gas Company. He has been one of the Vice-Presidents of the Union League Club of New York, and is also a member of the Riding, Lawyers', and Republican clubs, the Downtown Association, the City Bar Association, the New York Law Institute, and the Military Order of the Loyal Legion. Born in Hallowell, Me .. December 20, 1838, he is the grandson of Dr. John Hubbard, an eminent physician of Readfield. Me .. who was born in New Hampshire, and is the son of Dr. John Hubbard, the skillful surgeon, who was elected to the Maine Senate, and from 1849 to 1853 was Governor of that State, the Maine Liquor Law being enacted during his administration. General Hubbard's mother was Sarah Hodge, daughter of Oliver Barrett, of Chelmsford, Mass., and grand- daughter of a Revolutionary soldier who was one of the " minute men " at Lexington, and was killed in the ---- second battle of Stillwater. just pre- ceding Burgoyne's surrender. Gen- eral Hubbard was graduated from Bowdoin College in 1857, was ad- mitted to the Maine bar in 1860, continued his studies at the Albany Law School, and was, admitted THOMAS HAMLIN HUBBARD. to the New York bar in the spring of 1861. He went to the front with the Twenty-fifth Maine Volunteers in 1862, with the commission of First Lieutenant and as Adjutant of his regiment. He was mus- tered out July 11. 1863, having also served as Assistant Adjutant- General of the Brigade. He was instrumental in raising the Thir- teenth Maine Volunteers, in which he received the commission of Lieutenant-Colonel, November 10, 1863. He served through the Red River campaign; after the battle of Pleasant Hill. La., was assigned to the command of his regiment, and led in the assault of Monett's Bluff at Cane River Crossing. He assisted in the construction of the Red River dam to float the stranded gunboats at Alexandria, La .. and helped bridge the Atchafalava River with a line of steamers. He was commissioned Colonel of his regiment May 13, 1864, and soon after was transferred to the Shenandoah Valley, where he served through-
i
224
HISTORY OF THE GREATER NEW YORK.
out the campaign of 1864-65, also acting as president of a court-mar- tial. After the review of his command in Washington, in April, 1865, he was ordered to Savannah, Ga., where he conducted a board for examination of officers of the volunteer force who applied for com- missions in the regular army. He was commissioned Brevet-Brig- adier-General July 13, 1865, and soon after inustered out of service.
BUTLER, PRESCOTT HALL, member of the celebrated law firm of Evarts, Choate & Beaman, with which he has been connected for more than a quarter of a century, is the oldest child of the founder and original head of that firm, the late Charles E. Butler, who, in 1842, with William M. Evarts established the law partnership of But- ler & Evarts, at the head of which he remained until his retirement in 1879. Mr. Butler's mother, Louisa Clinch, was a sister of the late Mrs. A. T. Stewart, while he himself, in 1874, married Cornelia Stew- art, daughter of J. Lawrence Smith and Sarah Clinch, and grand- niece of Mrs. Stewart. They have a daughter and two sons-Law- rence and C. Stewart Butler. Mr. Butler has long enjoyed a large corporation practice, has been connected with various corporations, and is now President of the Garden City Company. He is a member . of the Metropolitan, University, Riding, Racquet, Players', Harvard, Adirondack League, New York Yacht, Larchmont Yacht, Seawan- haka-Corinthian Yacht, and Jekyl Island clubs, the Century and Downtown associations, the City Bar Association, and other organiza- tions. He was born on Staten Island, March 8, 1848, and was gradu- ated from Harvard in 1869.
ANDERSON, ELBERT ELLERY, has practiced law in New York City since 1854, and since 1868 has been head of the law firm of Ander- son & Man. In one of its cases this firm recovered $2,000,000 interest on bonds of the Missouri, Kansas and Texas Railroad, and has been especially prominent in railroad litigations. Mr. Anderson is now Receiver and Government Director of the Union Pacific Railway Company, and a director of the Montana Union Railway, the Man- hattan, Alma and Burlingame Railway, and the Central Branch Union Pacific Railway Company. He was one of the commission appointed by President Cleveland in 1887 to investigate the Central Pacific and Union Pacific railways, and prepared the majority report. He was a Major of Volunteers during the Civil War, was captured, and came home on parole. Although a Democrat he helped to over- throw the Tweed ring, and subsequently became one of the reorgan- izers of Tammany Hall. He was its chairman for the Eleventh Dis- triet for several years, but in 1879 became one of the seceders who founded the County Democracy. He was long Chairman of the Gen- eral Committee of the latter organization. As President of the Re-
-
F
225
ENCYCLOPEDIA OF NEW YORK BIOGRAPHY.
form Club and Chairman of the Tariff Reform Committee in 1892, he was active in publishing articles and delivering addresses. He was similarly active in favor of a sound currency in 1896. He has been a member of the Rapid Transit Commission, the Croton Aque- duet Commission, the Elevated Railroad Commission, and the Board of Education, being appointed to the latter position by Mayor Strong in 1896. The son of the late Dr. Henry J. Anderson, Professor in Columbia College, he was born in this city October 31, 1833. IIe traveled in Europe with his father when ten years of age, was gradu- ated from Harvard in 1852, and in 1854 was admitted to the New York Bar. IIe married Augusta Chauncey.
BETTS, FREDERIC HENRY, was graduated from Yale College in 1864, from the Yale Law School in 1865, and from the Columbia Col- lege Law School in 1866. He had also studied with Governor Henry B. Harrison, of New Haven, Conn., and with Man & Parsons of this city. He is recognized as one of the ablest patent lawyers in the United States. Ile was Lecturer on this subject in the Yale Law School from 1872 to 1883, and has published a work on " The Policy of Patent Law " (1879). 'He became counsel for the Insurance De- partment of the State of New York in 1874, while for sixteen years, from 1877 to 1893, he was counsel in the patent cases of the City of New York. He has conducted cases of prime importance for the General Electric Company, the Edison Electric Light Company, the Western Union Telegraph Company, the Westinghouse Air Brake Company, and other corporations of like prominence. Mr. Betts was a member of the Republican County Committee of New York County in 1884. He was a member of the Citizens' Committee of Fifty in 1883, as he was of the Committee of One Hundred in 1884. He is a member of the Metropolitan, Century, City, University, Lawyers', Grolier, and Church clubs, the Sons of the Revolution, the Society of Colonial Wars, the Yale Alumni, and the Association of the Bar. He was born in Newburgh, N. Y., March 8, 1843, and is the son of the late Hon. Frederic J. Betts and Mary Ward. His father became Dis- trict Attorney of Orange County, New York, in 1823, while from that year until 1827 he was Master in Chancery. Between 1827 and 1841 he was Clerk of the United States Circuit and United States Dis- triet courts of New York. From 1867 to 1870 he was a Judge of the Hustings Court of Campbell County, Virginia. Mr. Betts traces his descent from many notable men of colonial New England. He is a descendant of Governor JJohn Haynes, of Governor George Wyllys, of Governor William Leete, of Assistant Edward Rossiter, of Assist- ant Samuel Wyllys, of Assistant Samuel Sherman, of Colonel Andrew Ward, and Captain John Taylor, officers in the colonial wars; of Sam- uel Comstock Betts and Uriah Betts, Revolutionary soldiers; of Cap- tain Andrew Ward and Lieutenant John Scoville. Other ancestors.
226
HISTORY OF THE GREATER NEW YORK.
William Spencer, George Bartlett, Christopher Comstock, Nathaniel Stone, and Josiah Rossiter, were all members of the Connecticut Pro- vincial Assembly.
DAVIES, WILLIAM GILBERT, eldest son of the late dis- tinguished Judge Henry E. Davies, of New York City, has been en- gaged in the practice of law in New York since 1863, and has long been Counsel to the Mutual Life Insurance Company, mainly confining himself to practice as Chamber Counsel. He is a Lecturer on the Law of Life Insurance in the University of the City of New York, and is a director of the Chelsea. the Assurance Company of America. the La- fayette Fire Insurance Company, and the National Standard Insur- ance Company. He is a member of the Union, Tuxedo. St. Nicholas, .University, Manhattan, Lawyers', Grolier, Nineteenth Century, Church, and Atlantic Yacht clubs; the Century Association. the Lied- erkranz, the Sons of the Revolution, the Society of Colonial Wars. the New England Society, the New York Historical Society, the Academy of Science, the Scientific Alliance, the Trinity College Alumni, the Phi Beta Kappa Alumni Association, and other organizations. He married, in 1870, Lucie C., daughter of Hon. Alexander H. Rice, who was Mayor of Boston. a Member of Congress, and Governor of Mas- sachusetts for three terms.
COCHRAN, JOIIN, President of the New York Society of the Cin- cinnati, is one of the distinguished citizens of New York. He was graduated from Hamilton College in 1831, was admitted to the bar in 1834, and taking up his residence in New York City in 1846, became one of the eminent practitioners at the bar. He was in 1853 appointed United States Surveyor of the Port of New York. From 1857 to 1861 he was a member of Congress. In a public address in November, 1861, he advocated the arming of the slaves, and is believed to have been the first to propose this as a military measure. He recruited a regi- ment and served at its head nntil disabilities forced him to resign in 1863. From 1863 to 1865 he was Attorney-General of the State of New York. He was candidate for Vice-President on the ticket with John C. Fremont in 1864, but resigned prior to the election. In 1869 he refused an appointment as United States Minister to Uruguay and Paraguay. He was elected President of the Common Council of New York City in 1872, and the same year was a delegate to the Na- tional Liberal Republican Convention which nominated Greeley for the Presidency. In 1889 he was appointed a Police Justice. He was born in Palatine, N. Y., August 27, 1813, the son of Walter L. Cochran and Cornelia, daughter of Judge Peter Smith, of Peterboro, N. Y., and granddaughter of Colonel James Livingston of the Revolutionary Army, a descendant of the first Lord of Livingston Manor. He is the
227
ENCYCLOPEDIA OF NEW YORK BIOGRAPHY.
grandson of Dr. John Cochran, of Washington's Army, whom Wash- ington appointed Surgeon-General and Congress made Director-Gen- eral of Hospitals in 1781, and who married Gertrude, sister of General Philip Schuyler.
HOADLY, GEORGE, was graduated from Adelbert College in 1844, attended the Harvard Law School, was admitted to the bar in Cincinnati, Ohio, in August, 1847, and in 1849, under the firm style of Chase, Ball & Hoadly. became a member of the Cincinnati law firm of which the late Salmon P. Chase was the head, and Flamen Ball the second partner. In February, 1851, he was elected by the Ohio Legis -. lature sole Judge of the First Superior Court of Cincinnati. Upon the abolition of this court in 1853 he formed a law partnership with Ed- ward Mills. In 1855 and 1836 he was City Solicitor of Cincinnati. In the latter year he declined the appointment to the Supreme Bench of Ohio, offered him by Governor Chase. In 1859 he was elected to succeed Judge Gholsou ou the bench of the Second Superior Court, and in 1864 was elected for a sec- ond term, having meauwhile de- clined the offer of Governor Tod to appoint him to the Ohio Supreme bench. In 1866 he resigned his Su- perior Court Judgeship to resume the practice of law in Cincinnati as the head of the law firm of Hoadly, Jackson & Johnson. The firm was reorganized as Hoadly, Johnson & Colston in 1874, and became fa- GEORGE HOADLY. mous throughout the West for its conduct of notable railway litigations. Mr. Hoadly was one of the connsel of Samuel J. Tilden in the Tilden-Hayes Presidential election contest of 1876. He personally argued the Florida and Oregon cases. He was one of the leading members of the Ohio Constitutional Con- vention of 1873-74. A Republican during the Civil War, and for some time subsequently, in 1872 he joined the Liberal Republican move- ment in support of Horace Greeley for the Presidency. He presided as Temporary Chairman over the Democratic National Convention, held at Cincinnati in 1880. In the fall of 1883 he was the successful Democratic candidate for Governor of the State of Ohio. He was re-nominated in 1885, but failed of election. In 1886 he resumed the
228
HISTORY OF THE GREATER NEW YORK.
practice of law, and in 1887 removed to New York City, where he has since been head of the well-known law firm of Hoadly, Lanterbach & Johnson. He was associated with James C. Carter in arguing the unconstitutionality of the Chinese Exclusion Act. At the present time he represents the United States in the foreclosure of the Govern- ment subsidy lien npon the Union Pacific Railway, being special as- sistant to the Attorney-General. He was formerly a trustee of the Cincinnati University, and for twenty years was a regular lecturer in the Cincinnati Law School. He is a Freemason, and Knight Templar, and a thirty-third Degree Scottish Rite Mason. He is a member of the Metropolitan. Nineteenth Century, Century, Lawyers', Manhattan, and Democratic clubs. He was born in New Haven, Conn., July 31. 1826, and received his early education in the public schools of Cleveland, Ohio. He is the grandson of Captain Timothy Hoadly, of Northford, Conn., and the son of George Hoadly and Mary Anne, eldest daughter of William Walton Woolsey and Elizabeth Dwight, of New York City. His father was graduated from Yale in 1801, was three years tutor in Yale, was a lawyer and banker of New Haven, became its Mayor, and, removing to Cleve- land, Ohio, also became its Mayor. Governor Hoadly's mother was a niece of the first President Dwight, and the elder sister of President Woolsey, of Yale College, was a great-granddaughter of Jonathan Edwards, and was an aunt of Theodore Winthrop and Snsan Wool- sey (" Susan Coolidge "). Governor Hoadly holds the degree of Doctor of Laws from Adelbert College, Dartmouth College (1887). and Yale College (1884).
BENEDICT, CHARLES LINNAEUS, Judge of the United States Court of the Eastern District of New York for the long term of thirty- two years, from his appointment to this bench by President Lincoln in 1865 until his resignation, July 19, 1897, was born in Newburg, N. Y., in 1824, the son of the late Professor George Wyllys Benedict and Eliza, daughter of Stephen Dewey and Elizabeth Owen, of Shef- field, Mass. His father was a professor in the University of Vermont as well as secretary and treasurer of its Board of Trustees, was editor and proprietor of the Burlington Free Press, and served two terms in the Vermont Senate. Other prominent names appear in the line from Judge Benedict back to Thomas Benedict, who came from Notting- ham, England, and died at Norwich, Conn. Judge Benedict was grad- uated from the University of Vermont in 1844, studied law with his unele, the late Erastus C. Benedict of New York City, and was en- gaged in snecessful practice as the law partner of his uncle when he received his judicial appointment. He is a member of the Century Association, the Sigma Phi Club, the Hamilton Club of Brooklyn, and the New England Society. He married first, in 1856, Rosalie, daughter of Abner Benedict, and subsequent to her death, which occurred in
229
ENCYCLOPEDIA OF NEW YORK BIOGRAPHY.
1858, married Sarah, widow of Henry B. Cromwell and daughter of Dr. William Seaman, both of New York City. His son, George Abner, was by the first wife.
BRADY, JAMES TOPIJAM, was a leading lawyer in his day, being especially notable for his success before the jury in criminal cases. He was constantly engaged as counsel in famous cases of this char- acter. He had the gift of persuasive eloquence, was tactful in the man- agement of his cases and was a good cross-examiner. He was also counsel in many notable civil cases, including the litigation of Goodyear es. Day over rubber patents, the Parish and Allaire will. cases, the Huntington forgery case, the Cole homicide case, and the divorce case of Edwin Forrest, whose counsel he was. He was ap- pointed United States District Attorney at New York in 1848. Ile was also Corporation Counsel of New York City for a time. He was the unsuccessful candidate for the governorship of New York on the ticket of the Breckinridge Democracy. He published a story, " A Christmas Dream."
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.