USA > New York > New York City > Leslie's history of the greater New York, Volume III, Pt. 1 > Part 32
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ENCYCLOPEDIA OF NEW YORK BIOGRAPHY.
ANDERSON, HENRY HILL, was engaged in the practice of law in New York City from 1849 until his death, September 17, 1896. Born in Boston, November 9, 1827, he was prepared at Phillips An- dover Academy; in 1848 was graduated cum laude from Williams Col- lege; coming to New York, studied Jaw while supporting himself as Instructor in the Friend's School; entered the office of Henry E. Da- vies, then counsel to the corporation; was admitted to the bar in 1849, and immediately intrusted with the preparation and trial of important cases. From 1852 to 1857 he was a member of the law firm of Willard, Sweeney & Anderson, the head of which was subsequently Chief Jus- tice of South Carolina; while Claudius L. Monell, afterward Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, also became a member of the firm. Having suffered the loss of his wife and children, he traveled abroad in 1857 and 1858. Becoming assist- ant to Corporation Counsel Greene C. Bronson in 1859, he had entire charge of the legal business in New York City, and established a sub- stantial reputation. He was Judge Bronson's Jaw partner until the death of the latter in 1863, when he formed a partnership with Ma- son Young. Judge Henry E. How- land subsequently entered the firm, and after the retirement of Mr. Young, George Welwood Murray and Henry Burrall Anderson were admitted, under the present style of Anderson, Howland & Murray. The Democratic candidate for the Supreme Court in 1871, Mr. Ander- . son was defeated by Judge Noah Davis. He refused the nomination HENRY HILL ANDERSON. for the Superior Court in 1872, declined an appointment as Corpora- tion Counsel, and refused an appointment to the Court of Appeals. One of the founders of the University Club, he was its first President. serving nine years. He was twice elected a vice-president of the City Bar Association, and served on its Executive Committee and on the Committees on Grievances, on the Judiciary, and on Judicial Nomina- tions. He was a vestryman of Calvary Episcopal Church and a mem- ber of the Metropolitan, Century, University, Lawyers', and New York Yacht clubs, the Downtown Association, the New England Society, and the Williams College Alumni Association. He married, second, Sarah B., daughter of William P. Burrall, of Hartford, Conn., who sur- vived him with three sons-Henry Burrall, William Burrall, and Charles P. Anderson, all of whom are lawyers. Mr. Anderson was
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himself of Scotch descent, the son of Rev. Rufus Anderson, a distin- guished clergyman of Boston, who was graduated from Bowdoin Col- lege and Andover Seminary, and for over forty years was Secretary of the American Board of Foreign Missions, and grandson of Rev. Rufus Anderson, also a prominent clergyman and graduate of Dartmouth College. Mr. Anderson's grandmother was a cousin of Chief Justice Parsons, of Massachusetts.
ANDERSON, HENRY BURRALL, eldest son of the late Henry Hill Anderson and Sarah B., daughter of William P. Burrall, was born in New York City in 1863; in 1885 was graduated from Yale, studied law and became a member of the law firm of Anderson, How- land & Murray, of which his father was long the head. He is a director and the Treasurer of the Continental Filter Company. He is a mem- ber of the City, University, New York, and New York Yacht clubs. He married Marie W., daughter of Joseph Larocque, the eminent law- yer of New York.
GILLEN, WILLIAM W., has been engaged in the practice of law in Jamaica, L. I., since 1879, while, from 1876 to the present time, he has also occupied a clerical relation to the Surrogate of Queens County, since 1885 having been Chief Clerk in the Surrogate's office. Himself a Republican, he has retained this office under both parties. He is a stockholder and director of the Bank of Jamaica, as he is also of the Jamaica Savings Bank. He is a member of the Jamaica Club, the Queens County Bar Association, the New York State Bar Association, and the American Bar Association. The son of Francis Gillen and Mary Roe, like his father he is a native of New York City, where he was born, January 24, 1853. His father, long engaged prominently in the forwarding business in New York City, was a representative of an old American family. His mother was of an old Long Island family, where her ancestors, emigrants from Eng- land, settled in the first half of the seventeenth century. One of her ancestors, Andrew Messenger, was one of the founders of the town of Jamaica, L. I. Upon the death of his father, in 1859, Mr. Gillen was reared in the home of his uncle, Henry W. Rowland, who subse. quently became Supervisor of the town of Jamaica. After his gradu- ation from the High School at Queens, L. I., during the five years from 1871 to 1876, Mr. Gillen held a position in his uncle's store at Queens. Becoming Clerk to Surrogate Alexander Hayner in 1876, he also began the study of law.
RAWSON, SIDNEY FULLER, eminent leader of the bar of Rich- mond County, is a director and counsel of the First National Bank of Staten Island, is counsel of the Board of Commissioners of Police for Richmond County, and has sustained a similar relation to the Board
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ENCYCLOPEDIA OF NEW YORK BIOGRAPHY.
of Supervisors, the Trustees of the villages of New Brighton and Port Richmond, and to many of the principal corporations on the island. Ile was District Attorney of Richmond County from 1871 to 1874, and attracted wide attention by his bold prosecution and conviction of a large number of public officials -- some of whom were members of his own political party-for malfeasance in office. Nominated for County Judge and Surrogate in 1874, he was defeated with the rest of the Democratic ticket in the conuty and throughout the
State. He was born at Schroon Lake, N. Y., Decel- ber 15, 1843, the son of Ashley Pond Rawson and Adaline Crego, and eighth in lineal descent from Edward Raw- son, first Secretary of Massa- elsetts Colony. The princi- pal of a public school when the Civil War broke out, he enlisted in the One Hundred and Eighteenth New York, and served from June, 1862. to Jnne, 1865. He studied law with Hon. Byron Pond, of Elizabeth, N. Y .; was ad- - mitted to the bar in May, 1867, and became the law partner of Lot C. Clark and Alfred DeGroot, practitioners on Staten Island and in New York City. Mr. Clark was recognized as the foremost lawyer in Richmond County SIDNEY FULLFR RAWSON. until his retirement, since which time the firm style has been DeGroot, Rawson & Stafford. Mir. Rawson was admitted to practice in the United States Supreme Court on motion of James C. Carter.
DICKERSON, EDWARD NICOLL, eminent patent lawyer, was born in Paterson, N. J., February 11, 1824, and died in Far Rockaway. L. I., December 12, 1889. He was a son of Philemon Dickerson. an eminent New Jersey lawyer, judge, and statesman. The founder of the Dickerson family in America, Philemon, emigrated from England early in the seventeenth century, and was one of the first Puritan ser- tlers of Massachusetts, being a freeholder in Salem in 1638. Mr. Dick- erson's mother was a daughter of Captain John Stotesbury, an officer
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HISTORY OF THE GREATER NEW YORK.
1
in the Revolution, who participated in many important battles. Mr. Dickerson was educated at Princeton College. At the age of twenty- one he was admitted to the bar. He decided to abandon his profession for a while and devote himself to travel and scientific researches. He visited many of the countries of Europe and Central and South America. In 1873 he resumed his legal practice, and became recog- nized as the foremost patent lawyer of the United States. Among the great snits with which he was identified as counsel were those of the American Bell Telephone Company and the National Improvement Telegraph Company, the Pan-Electric cases, and numerous others in- volving the best-known patents for the telephone, the telegraph, reap- ing machines, explosives, railways, refrigerators, ventilating process- es, niekel plating, planing machines, and guns. Among his clients were the Western Union Telegraph Company, the Gold and Stock Tele- graph Company. the Standard Oil Company, the MeCormick Mower and Reaper Company, the Bell Telephone Company, and the Edison Electric Company. Ile was passionately devoted to astronomical science, and on the roof of his residence in Thirty-fourth Street, near Fifth Avenue, he built an observatory equipped with the most ap- proved and recent instruments and inventions. He was the author of several useful inventions.
DICKERSON, EDWARD NICOLL, patent lawyer, and son of the late eminent patent attorney of that name, was born in Newport. R. I., August 23, 1852. He was educated at Trinity College, Hartford, Conn., studied law with his father, and, since his admission to the bar, has practiced law in New York City. He has represented many cor- porations, and has frequently appeared in patent cases. He has rep- resented the Western Union Telegraph Company, the Bell Telephone Company, and the General Electric Company. He has also taken out many patents as an inventor. He is president, vice-president, or director of a number of manufacturing and railroad corporations.
VAY WYCK, ROBERT ANDERSON, the present Mayor of the city, enjoys the distinction of being the first elected to that office under the charter creating the " Greater " New York. He was nom- inated by Tammany Hall, and elected by a large majority in the fall of 1897. and assumed the duties of the Mayor in January, 1898. He was born in the old Van Wyck mansion on Lexington Avenne in 1850, the late William Van Wyck, his father, having been a prominent lawyer and Democratic leader. He is also seventh in lineal descent from Cornelius Barents Van Wyck, who came to New Amsterdam in 1650 from Wyck, Holland, and married in Flatbush, in 1660, Ann. daughter of Rev. Johannes Theodorus Polhemus. Bred to the law. and engaged in active practice in this city. he was elected a Justice of the City Court, and established a reputation for carefully prepared
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ENCYCLOPEDIA OF NEW YORK BIOGRAPHY.
decisions. He was upon the bench of this court when elected Mayor, and was Chief Justice of the Court. He is unmarried, and a member of the Democratic, Manhattan, St. Nicholas, and Hardware clubs, and the Holland Society. Judge Augustus Van Wyek. of Brooklyn. is his brother.
DAHLGREN, JOHN VINTON, since 1892 a member of the well- known New York law firm of Lord, Day & Lord. in 1895 and 1896 was Attorney to the Building Department of New York City, and is the author of " Dahlgren's Building Law Manual." He married Eliz- abeth, daughter of the late Joseph W. Drexel, of New York, member of the bank- ing firm of Drexel, Morgan & Company. He is a member of the New York Ath- letic, Republican, and Catholic clubs. He was born at Val- paraiso, Chile, April 22. 1868; was gradu- ated from the Uni- versity of George- town, D. C., in 1SS9, and from its law school in 1891, and is the son of the late Admiral John Adolph Dahlgren, United States Navy, aud his wife Made- line, daughter of Hon. Samuel Finley JOHN VINTON DAHLGREN. Vinton, who was for twenty-two years a Member of Congress from Ohio, and author of the act creating the Department of the In- terior. His grandfather, Bernhard Ulrik Dahlgren, was a graduate of the University of Upsala, who, having been involved in a Re- publican movement in 1804, fled from Sweden. He subsequently be- came Swedish Consul at Oporto, Portugal, however, and still later was a merchant at Philadelphia, where he married Martha. daughter of James Rowan. a Revolutionary soldier. Mr. Dahlgren's great- grandfather. Dr. Johan Adolf Dahlgren, was also graduated from the University of Upsala, and was eminent in Sweden as a physician aud scientist. living from 1744 to 1797.
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HISTORY OF THE GREATER NEW YORK.
GRAY, JOHN ALEXANDER CLINTON, actively engaged in busi- ness in New York City for many years prior to his retirement in 1832, since that time has been interested in railroad and other corporate interests. At present he is Vice-President of the People's Bank of this city. He was Vice-President of the original Central Park Commis- sion. He is a member of the Union League Club and other organiza- tions. Born in the Clinton mansion at Little Britain, N. Y., in 1815, he has been a resident of this city since childhood. He is the son of John Gray, who died in 1816, and Grandson of Alexander Gray, who emigrated from Northern Ireland to Philadelphia in 1795, dying soon after. The wife of Alexander Gray was a member of the Clinton family, and after the death of her first husband she married her kins- man, General James Clinton, of the Revolution, brother of Governor George Clinton and father of Governor De Witt Clinton by his first wife. The present Mr. Gray married in 1837 Susan M., daughter of George Zabriskie, of this city, Alderman and member of the Assembly. Of their three sons, Rev. George Zabriskie Gray was for nearly twenty years dean of the Episcopal Divinity School, Cambridge, Mass .; Rev. Albert Zabriskie Gray, D.D., was chaplain in the Civil War, held sev- eral pastorates, and in 1882 became warden of Racine College, while Hon. John Clinton Gray is a Justice of the New York Court of Appeals.
GRAY, JOHN CLINTON, was appointed to the bench of the Court of Appeals in this State in 1888, to succeed the late Hon. Charles A. Rapallo, and at the election held in the fall of the same year was elected to succeed himself for the term of fourteen years. The son of John Alexander Clinton Gray and Susan M., daughter of the late George Zabriskie, he was born in New York City, was graduated from the University of New York, was graduated from the Harvard Law School, and subsequently continued the study of law at the University of Berlin. As head of the law firm of Gray & Davenport of this city, he was long engaged in the practice of his profession prior to his eleva- tion to the bench. He is a member of the Metropolitan, Century, Union League, and Manhattan clubs, and the city Bar Association.
ADEE, GEORGE TOWNSEND, succeeded his father as head of the firm of Adee, Timpson & Company, drygoods auctioneers of this city. He retired from its active management in 1850. and after the Civil War closed up its affairs. He became a director of the National Bank of Commerce in 1842, and was its Vice-President for ten years, during much of the time being Acting President. He was one of the founders and a director of the United States Trust Company, was also a founder and a director of the Equitable Life Assurance Society, and was a director of the Republic Fire Insurance Company. He was born in Albany, April 7, 1804, and died in this city, November 20. 1884. In
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ENCYCLOPEDIA OF NEW YORK BIOGRAPHY.
1851 he purchased the country-seat of Edward Le Roy, on Throgg's Neck, Westchester County. He was a vestryman of St. Peter's Church (Episcopal ), Westchester. He married, in 1844, Ellen Louise, daughter of Philip Henry, an old New York merchant and soldier of the War of 1812, and had a daughter, Mrs. M. Dwight Collier, and five sons-George A., lawyer; Philip Henry, lawyer; Frederic William, lawyer; Edwin M., and Ernest R. Adee.
William Adee, father of the late George Townsend Adee, was the founder and original head of the firm of Adee, Timpson & Company. He married Clarissa Townsend, of Albany, and resided at West Ches- ter village. He was the grandson of John Adee, who emigrated from England to Providence, R. I., and subsequently removed to Port- . chester, N. Y.
ADEE, FREDERIC WILLIAM, was graduated from Yale in 1873, and from Columbia College Law School in 1873. For eight years sub- sequent to May, 1874, he was en- gaged in practice in this city in con- nection with the well-known law 1 firm of Lord, Day & Lord, and since that time has maintained an office of his own. He is principally engaged in the practice of com- mercial, corporation, and real estate law, and in matters pertaining to estates, and has a large clientage in Europe as well as in this country. He is a member of the Union, Metropolitan, Knickerbocker, Uni- versity, and Country clubs, the Downtown Association. the Yale Alumni Association, and the City Bar Association. He has served on several committees of the Bar Association. He was bom in this city, April 19, 1853. of Huguenot and Dutch descent, the son of the FREDERICK WILLIAM ADEE. late George Townsend Adee, dry- goods merchant and banker of this city, and Ellen Louise, daughter of Philip Henry, also a New York merchant.
COUDERT, FREDERICK RENE, born in New York City. March 1, 1832, was graduated from Colombia College in 1850, was admitted to the bar two years later, and has since practiced in New York. With two brothers he formed the law firm of Coudert Brothers. He has been President of the Bar Association of the City of New York,
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and is President of the Manhattan Club. He has been President of the Columbia College Alumni Association and of the Young Men's Demo- cratic Club of New York City, and was the first President of the United States Catholic Historical Society. For ten years he was President of the French Benevelont Society. He is a trustee of Co- lumbia University and Seton Hall College, and is a member of the Visiting Committee of Harvard College. For three years he was Government Director of the Union Pacific Railroad. He was one of the counsel of the United States in the Bering Sea controversy with Great Britain before the Tribunal of Arbitrators at Paris in 1893. He has appeared in many important cases. He was a delegate to the International Congress on the Law of Nations at Antwerp in 1877, and attended the session of the same at Liverpool in 1882. He was counsel of the Democratic Committee in the Tilden-Hayes Presidential contest. He supported William R. Grace both times when elected Mayor of New York, and supported Grover Cleveland in each of his Presidential campaigns. During the first Cleveland campaign he was President of the Lawyers' Campaign Club. He was prominent in the " Anti-Snap" movement in this State in 1892, which led to Cleveland's renomination. He was Chairman of the Maynard Com- mittee of the Bar Association in 1893, the efforts of which led to May- nard's defeat at the polls. Mr. Coudert has twice received the degree of Doctor of Laws and also the degree of Doctor of Canon and Civil Law. He is a Knight of the Legion of Honor of France, an Officer of the Crown of Italy, and an Officer of the Order of Bolivar of Vene- zuela. He has delivered many addresses on important public occa- sions. He is the son of Charles Coudert, a native of Bordeaux, France, who was an officer in the Guard of Honor under Napoleon Bonaparte.
HAWES, JAMES WILLIAM. has been engaged in the practice of law in New York City since 1868, and has been counsel in many cases of note. Some years ago, as counsel of the Republican County Committee of New York, he applied for a writ of prohibition against the New York Board of Police to obtain a decision on the question of what constituted a quorum of inspectors of elections. As counsel for certain taxpayers, in 1884 he conducted an examination of the New York Park Commissioners. He was counsel on the defense in the famous case of Belden cs. Burke, involving $8,000,000 of the mortgage bonds of the Columbus. Hocking Valley and Toledo Rail- way Company. Between 1873 and 1876 he was a regular contributor to Appleton's " American Cyclopædia "; in 1877 became a contrib- utor to Kiddle & Schem's " Cyclopedia of Education," and for several years has written for Appleton's " Annual Cyclopædia." He has contributed articles on Brazil to the Overland Monthly. and a trans- lation of the Brazilian romance, " The Guarany," from the Portuguese of José de Alencar. He read an important paper on Portuguese lit-
.
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erature before the Phi Beta Kappa Alumni in New York City in 1883. He has delivered addresses on many public occasions in New York, including one before the Board of Aldermen on the occasion of the death of President Garfield. His address on compulsory voting be- fore the Commonwealth Club in 1892 attracted much attention. He has frequently spoken from the platform during political cam- paigns. He has been a member of the Republican County Committee. and a Delegate to Republican State Conventions. During three
years. from 1882 to 1884, he was President of the Republican Club of the City of New York, this term being longer than that of any other President of the club. In 1885 and 1886 he was also Chairman of its Executive Committee. In 1881 and 1882 he was a member of the Board of Aldermen of New York
City, and Chairman of its Commit-
tee on the Law Department. In 1885 he was a candidate for Justice
of the City Court on the Republic- an ticket. In 1890 he was anti- Tammany candidate for President of the Board of Aldermen. In 1895
he declined the nomination for Jus-
tice of the City Court tendered him by the Republican party, the Con- vention of Good Government clubs, and other anti-Tammauy organiza- tions. He was Chairman of the
Committee of the Republican Club which, in 1884-85, brought forward the name of William M. Evarts for the United States Senatorship. and, with the co-operation of JAMES WILLIAM HAWES. others, secured his election. Hle was one of the principal organizers, in 1887. of the Republican League of the United States, as also of the New York Republican State League. and was the first Chairman of the Executive Committee of the State League, as also of its sub-Executive Committee. In 1859 he was one of two Delegates-at-Large from the State League to the Convention of the National League. In 1871 he was active in the overthrow of the Tweed ring. For several years subsequent to 1871 he was Secretary of the Seventeenth Ward Council of Political Re- form. while for many years he was also a member of the City Council of Political Reform. He was a member of the Committee of Sixty, chosen by a mass meeting at Cooper Union in 1883 to procure legisla- tion looking to an increased water supply for New York City by an economical method which should not be under partisan control; and as a member of the sub-committee appointed to visit Albany, he ar-
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ENCYCLOPEDIA OF NEW YORK BIOGRAPHY.
ing to New York City, he spent several months in the law office of Hawkins & Cothren, and in November, 1868, was admitted to the New York bar.
DAVIES, JJULIEN TAPPAN, prominent lawyer of New York, has been engaged in legal practice in this city sinee 1867. He has ap- peared as counsel in many notable cases. He has been a trustee of the Mutual Life Insurance Company since 1882, and during this time has had charge of its important litigations. Since 1884 he has also been general counsel of the Manhattan Railway Company. He has been a manager of the Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society of the Protestant Episcopal Church since 1880, and is a member of the Metropolitan, Union League, University, Lawyers', Players', Repub- lican, and Southside Sportsmen's chibs. Born in New York City, September 25, 1845, he was educated at the Mount Washington Col- legiate Institute of this city, the Walnut Hill School of Geneva, N. Y., Cohunbia College, and the Columbia College Law School. He is the son of the late Henry E. Davies, well-known lawyer of this city, and Judge of the Court of Appeals. He is a brother of General Henry E. Davies, who became Major-General of Cavalry in the Army of the Poromac at the age of twenty-nine. He is also a nephew of General Thomas A. Davies, a graduate of West Point, as he is of Professor Charles Davies, the mathematician. He descends from Robert Da- vies, of Gwysany Castle, Flintshire, England, who was Sheriff of Flintshire, and held his castle for Charles II. against the Puritans. Mr. Davies is the son of Rebecca W., daughter of John Tappan. Hle also descends from Captain John Foote of the Revolution ..
VAN NEST, GEORGE WILLETT, was graduated from Harvard College and from the Harvard Law School, and since 1882 has prac- ticed law in New York City. He has argued numerous cases in the Court of Appeals. He was one of the editors of the seventh edition of Sedgwick on " The Measure of Damages," and contributed to the American Law Review for November, 1882, an article on " Impeach- ment of Judicial Officers under the Constitution of the United States." He is a member of the Union, Metropolitan, University, and Harvard clubs, the Downtown Association, and the St. Nicholas Society. He was born in New York City, and is the son of Abraham Rynier Van Nest and Margaret Willett. His ancestors include, besides the Van Nests, the Bronsons, Willetts, Banckers, Fields, and Bunsen.
CROOK. ABEL, was educated at Williams College and the Colum- bia College Law School, and since 1864 has been engaged in the prac- tice of law. During the last twenty years he has had a large practice as counsel for corporations and in will contests. He is a director in
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