USA > New York > New York City > Leslie's history of the greater New York, Volume III, Pt. 1 > Part 35
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ENCYCLOPEDIA OF NEW YORK BIOGRAPHY.
VAN VECHTEN, FRANCIS HELME, attended the public schools of Brooklyn, the Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute, and an academy at Stamford, Conn. For eight years he was connected with the New York newspapers, rising from the position of police court reporter to that of managing editor. He studied law with Hon. A. N. Weller and Charles Crary, also taking the course of the Columbia College Law School, and in 1878 was admitted to the bar. He commenced practice in New York, but during the last ten years has mainly practiced in the Second Judicial District. He has been counsel in the interest of Queens County in a number of important cases. He has appeared in cases of public interest as counsel for Justice Keogh of the Supreme Court; for the County Clerk of Queens County; for the Board of Supervisors of Queens County, and for Mayor Gleason, of Long Island City. He was born in Brooklyn, N. Y., July 26, 1856, and is the son of Junius R. and Helen C. Van Vechten. His grandfather, Jacob Ten Broeck Van Vechten, was a prominent lawyer of Albany, and Grand Master Mason of the State of New York. His great-grand- father, Abraham Van Vechten, was the eminent New York lawyer of that name. Hlis paternal ancestors came to this country from Holland in 1631.
INGERSOLL, ROBERT GREEN, was educated in the common schools, studied law, and began practice in Shawneetown, Ill., in partnership with his brother, Eben Ingersoll, who subsequently be- came a congressman. They subsequently established a law office in Peoria, Ill. Mr. Ingersoll was defeated as a Democratic candidate for Congress in 1860. In 1862 he was commissioned Colonel of the Eleventh Ilinois Cavalry. He had become a Republican, and, in 1866, was appointed Attorney-General of the State of Illinois. He nomi- Dated James G. Blaine for the Presidency in the National Republican Convention of 1876 in a speech which established his fame as a political orator. He has been counsel in many important cases, in- (Inding the " star-route " cases, in which he appeared for the defend- ants. He declined the post as United States Minister to Germany offered him by President Hayes in 1877. He is a popular lecturer against Christianity and the Bible, relying upon wit and ridicule rather than upon very profound argument. He was born in Dresden, N. Y., August 11, 1833, and is the son of a Congregational clergyman.
MELVILLE. HENRY, was graduated from Dartmouth College with honors in 1879, at twenty years of age, for two years taught a Massachusetts high school, was graduated from the Law School of Harvard University in 1884. representing the Law School at the Uni- versity commencement, spent a year in the New York office of James 6. Carter, and in 1885 was admitted to the New York bar. He bo- came the law partner of the late Roscoe Conkling. prior to the latter's
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death in 1889, when he became a member of the law firm of Dough- erty, Melville, & Sweetzer. Daniel Dougherty, the " silver-tongued orator," being its head. The death of Mr. Dougherty dissolved this association. He is now senior member of the firm of Melville, Mar- tin & Stephens, and has a large practice in the higher courts in corporation, patent. and trademark cases. He is a member of the Seventh Regiment Veterans, now holds the commission of Cap- tain of Company A in the Eighth Regiment, National Guard, New York. For many years he was Secretary of the Republican Club of the City of New York, while he is also a member of the Lawyers' and Harvard clubs, the New Eng- land Society, the Bar Asso- ciation of the City of New York, the Society of Colonial Wars, and the Society of the Sons of the Revolution. He was born in Nelson, N. H .. HENRY MELVILLE. August 25, 1858, the eldest son of Josiah II. Melville aud Nancy Nesmith. Eleven of his ancestors participated in the colonial wars of the country, and nearly as many in the Revolution, ranging in grade from private to Brigadier-General.
DILLON, JOHN FORREST, was graduated from the Medical De- partment of lowa University, and for six months practiced medicine, then took up the study of law, and in 1852 was admitted to the Iowa bar. He served a term as Prosecuting Attorney of Scott County in that State. In 1858 he was elected Judge of the Seventh JJudicial District of lowa, and was subsequently re-elected. During this period he published a digest of Iowa Supreme Court reports. Elected to the Supreme Court of Iowa by the Republican party, he served a term of six years from 1863. Hle was re-elected in 1869, and just afterward was appointed by President Grant United States Circuit Judge of the Eighth Judicial District, embracing six States. In 1872 he published his famous " Municipal Corporations." This was fol- lowed by " Removal of Causes from State to Federal Courts " ( 1875). " Municipal Bonds " ( 1876), and " United States Circuit Court Re-
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ports " (1871-1880). He also founded the Central Law Journal, and for one year edited it. In September, 1879, he removed to New York City to become general counsel to the Union Pacific Railway Com- pany and Professor of Real Estate and Equity Jurisprudence in the Columbia College Law School. From 1881 to 1893 he sustained a legal partnership with General Wager Swayne. In 1882 he resigned his professorship in Columbia. He has argued many notable cases in the Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court of the United States. He is counsel of the Missouri Pacific Railway Company, the Western Union Telegraph Company, the Manhattan Railway Company, the Texas and Pacific Railway Company, and the estates of Jay Gould, Sidney Dillon, and James C. Ayer. In 1891 and 1892 he was Storrs Professor of Municipal Law in Yale University. In 1894 he pub- lished " Laws and Jurisprudence of England and America." In 1892 he was elected President of the American Bar Association. He was one of the Commissioners appointed by Governor Morton to prepare a charter for " Greater New York." He is one of the forty members of the Institute de Droit International, and is a member of the asso- ciation for the reform and codification of the laws of nations.
HORNBLOWER, WILLIAM BUTLER, head of the law firm of Hornblower, Byrne, Taylor & Miller, was graduated from Princeton College in 1871. having taken first prizes in English literature and belles-lettres, and in 1875 was graduated from the Columbia College Law School. In 1890 the Governor of New York appointed him a member of the commission authorized by the Legislature to propose amendments to the judiciary article of the State Constitution. In 1893, President Cleveland appointed him an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States to succeed Justice Blatchford, bnt. bitter factionists in Cleveland's own party defeated this and other nominations in the Senate. He has published " Conflict be- tween Federal and State Decisions " (1880), " Is Codification of the Law Expedient ? " ( 18SS). " The Legal Status of the Indian " (1891), and " Appellate Courts" (1892). He has been an active member of the Bar Association of the city, and is also a member of the Met- ropolitan, Century, University, Reform, Manhattan, and Democratic clubs. He was born in Paterson, N. J., May 13, 1851, and is the son of Rev. William H. Hornblower, D.D., Professor of Theology in the Allegheny Theological Seminary, and Matilda Butler, a descend- ant of a Connectiont family prominent in the colonial wars and the Revolution. His grandfather, Joseph C. Hornblower, was Chief Jns- tice of New Jersey. His great-grandfather. Josiah Hornblower, who brought the first steam engine to America in 1750, was a patriot in the Revolution, and a member of the National Congress in 1785. Mr. Hornblower is also a grandnephew of Justice Bradley, late of the United States Supreme Court, as he is of Judge Lewis B. Woodruff.
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BACKUS, HENRY CLINTON, born in Utica, N. Y., May 31, 1848, attended Phillips Exeter Academy, in 1871 was graduated from Harvard, was graduated from Columbia College Law School in 1873, and has since practiced law in this city. At the outset he was con- nected with the firm of Sanford, Robinson & Woodruff, and subse- quently for a while with that of Beebe, Wilcox & Hobbs. His prae- tice is largely in the domain of probate, realty, and admiralty law, and he is a manager of several large estates and of important fiduciary -interests. For ten years he was a member of the Republican County Committee of New York. County, for five years was a member of its Committee on Resolutions, and for one year was a member of its Executive Committee. He has three times declined nominations for the Assembly, and has also declined nominations for the City Court bench and as Surrogate. Republican candidate for the Con stitutional Convention in an over- whelmingly Democratic district, he ran ahead of his ticket, but failed of elcetion. He is a member of the 1 Harvard and Chelsea Republican clubs, the City and State Bar asso- ciations, the Dwight Alumni Asso- ciation, and other organizations, and is an honorary member of the Railway Conductors' Club. Ho was one of the original members of the committee having in hand the erection of the Grant Tomb. Hle married, in 1890, Hattie J. Davis, and has living a son. He is himself the son of Charles Chap- HENRY CLINTON BACKUS. man Backus and Harriet Newell, daughter of Edward Baldwin; is the grandson of Colonel Elisha Backus, of the War of 1812; is great- grandson of Major Elisha Backus, of the Revolution, and descends from William Backus, who emigrated from England in 1635, and became one of the founders of Saybrook, Conn. The father of Mr. Backus was at one time a member of the publishing firm of Bennett, Backus & Hawley, of Central Law York, proprietors of the Baptist Register, now the New York Examiner and Chronicle. Removing to this city in 1850, he became one of the founders of the American Ex- press Company.
GULLIVER, WILLIAM CURTIS, was graduated from Phillips (Andover) Academy in 1865, from Yale College in 1870, subsequently
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receiving the degree of Master of Arts, and from the Columbia Col- lege Law School in 1874, having also studied law with Alexander & Green, of New York City. He was admitted to the bar in 1874, and is now a member of the well-known firm of Alexander & Green. lle has been engaged in the reorganization of various corporations, including the Sugar Trust, the Lead Trust, and the Cordage Trust, with many railroads. He was one of the counsel in the income- tax cases and the Broadway Surface Railroad litigations. He is a trustee of the City Club, having been one of its founders, and is a member of the Union, Century, University, University Athletic, Con- try, Riding, and Lawyers' clubs, the Yale Alumni Association, and the City Bar Association. He was born in Norwich, Conn., April S, 1849, and is the son of John Putnam Gulliver and Frances Curtis. Through his mother he descends from Governor William Bradford. Ilis father was professor of the relation of Christianity to the secu- lar sciences at Andover Theological Seminary. His grandfather, John Gulliver, was one of the New England Guards that protected the Charlestown Navy Yard during the War of 1812. His great-grand- father, Gershom Gulliver, was one of the minute men in the Battle of Lexington, and also participated in the Battle of Dorchester Heights. The first paternal ancestor in America, Anthony Gulliver, was born in England in 1619, and came to Massachusetts in 1635. Through his grandmother, Sarah Putnam, he also descends from General Israel Putnam.
COTTERILL, GEORGE WASHINGTON, was graduated from the University of Vermont, and studied law with Peck & Colby, leading lawyers of Montpelier. Vt. After his admission to the bar he re- mained for some time with this firm, but in 1855 connected himself with the New York law firm of Ludwig, Smith & Finke. Subsequently he formed a partnership with his brother. For many years he has practiced alone. He was counsel for the Underwriters' Agency, com- posed of the Germania, Hanover. Niagara, and Republie insurance companies, and successfully condneted the suit which subsequently grew out of this arrangement. In many important cases he repre- sented the late William Steinway and the firm of Steinway & Sons. He is counsel to the Liederkranz of this city, as well as a member, and was its reorganizer. For thirty-five years he has been a member of the Union League Chib. He is also a member of the New York, Lawyers', and Insurance clubs. the New England Society, and the Fish and Game Association. He is a native of Montpelier, Vt .. the son of Mahlon Cotterill and Catherine Edmonds Couch. His father was one of the originators of the Vermont Central Railroad. His mother descended from the Edmonds and Couch families of New Hampshire, and was related to the Lees of Virginia.
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HISTORY OF THE GREATER NEW YORK.
HAYS, DANIEL PEIXOTTO, head of the law firm of Hays & Greenbaum, of New York City, and a director and President of the Harlem Law Library, was born at Pleasantville, Westchester County, N. Y., March 28, 1854, the son of David Hays and Judith Peixotto. His great-grandfather, Daniel Hays, was a Revolutionary soldier, and at the close of that war purchased the homestead at Pleasant- ville, which has descended to the present Mr. Hays. Of the. same family was Jacob Hays, who was Iligh Constable of New York City for half a century. Mr. Hays attended the public schools of New York, and in 1873 was graduated from the College of the City of New York. He obtained a clerical position in the law firm of Carpentier & Beach, of New York City, at the same time attending the Columbia College Law School, and in 1875 was graduated from the latter and admitted to the bar. After serving two years as Managing Clerk of Carpentier & Beach, he became junior partner of the law firm of Beach & Hays; and upon the death of ex-Judge Beach, a few months later, he became the partner of his other former partner, James S. Carpentier, under the style of Car- pentier & Hays. Mr. Carpentier died in 1886, and soon after the present firm of Hays & Greenbaum was formed. He was counsel of General Adam Badeau to recover from the estate of General Grant payment for his services in writing the "Grant Memoirs." He was also counsel of General Siekles in DANIEL PEIXOTTO HAYS. several important cases, and was principal connsel in the contest of the will of John B. Haskin. He is a Democrat, and was a delegate to the Democratic State Convention which first nominated David B. Hill for Governor of New York. In 1888 he bought the Nyack Oily and County, a newspaper of Rockland County, New York, and gave its support to Grover Cleveland. In 1893 he was appointed Commission- er of Appraising, relative to the changing of grades in the Twenty- - third and Twenty-fourth wards of New York City, and the same year was appointed Civil-service Commissioner. He is a member of the Reform, Manhattan, Lawyers', Democratic, and Harlem Democratic clubs.
VAN SLYCK, GEORGE WHITFIELD, attended the academy at Kinderhook, N. Y., concluded his preparatory sindies at Providence,
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R. I., and in 1859 entered Williams College. In 1862 he entered the Union Army, having organized Company E, of the One Hundred and Twenty-eighth New York Volunteers. He served in the Louisiana campaign terminating in the capture of Port Hndson. He then served on the staff's of several generals. After the war he also served on the staff of General Shaler, of the National Guard of New York. He studied law with JJudge John H. Reynolds, of Albany, was graduated from the Albany Law School, and soon after his admission to the bar engaged in practice in New York City. He was born in Kinder- hook, N. Y., in July, 1842, and is the son of Hugh Van Slyek and Ormita M. Pulver. His father was locally prominent. His brother, the late Colonel Nicholas Van Slyek, was a leading member of the Rhode Island bar. The first paternal ancestor came from Holland in 1640.
MCCLURE, DAVID, was admitted to the bar in December, 1869, and is a member of the law firm of Turner, MeClure & Rolston. He was a member of the commission appointed by the Supreme Court in 1892 to consider the question of rapid transit in New York City by means of an underground railroad. Mayor Gilroy appointed him in 1893 a member of a commission to draft laws for the government of the New York public schools. He was a member of the Consti- tutional Convention of 1894. He is a director of the Lawyers' Surety Company and counsel of the Farmers' Loan and Trust Company, the West Side Savings Bank, the Consolidated Gas Company, Saint Patrick's Cathedral, and the Roman Catholic Orphan Asylum. He was counsel in the Merrill, Sebyler Skaats, and Charles B. Beck will contests, the De Meli divorce case. the General Burnside and Livingston litigations, and in a large number of important railroad foreclosure cases. He is a member of the Manhattan and Democratic clubs and the Bar Association of the city. He was born at Dobb's Ferry, Westchester County. N. Y., November 4, 1848.
TAGGART. WILLIAM RUSH, practiced law in Ohio from 1875 to 1887, and since the latter year has practiced in New York City. From 1887 to 1891 he was connected with the law firm of Dillon & Swayne. Since 1891 he has been Solicitor of the Western Union Telegraph Company, in charge of the litigations of that corporation in New York City. He was counsel in the foreclosure proceedings upon the lines of the Wabash, St. Louis and Pacific Railroad east of the Mississippi. and in the subsequent reorganization. He was attorney for the West- ern Union Telegraph Company in the suits of the Government to can- cel the contracts of his clients with the Union Pacific Railroad Com- pany, the Northern Pacific Railroad Company, the Central Pacific Railroad Company, and the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad Company.
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He was counsel in the case of Sturges rs. the Pennsylvania Railroad Company. as also in that of Laidlaw rs. Russell Sage. He is a direc- tor of the Cincinnati, Hamilton and Dayton Railway Company, the Mansfield Street Railway Company, and the Rapid Addressing Ma- chine Company. He is a member of the Colonial Club. the Ohio So- ciety. the Bar Association of the city, the Sous of the Revolution, and the National Academy of Science; is a Knight Templar and a mem- ber of the Presbyterian Church. Ile married, in 1877. Margaret Waterworth, of Salem, Ohio, and has two daughters and a son --- Rush Taggart. Mr. Taggart was born in Smithville, Wayne County, Ohio, September 4, 1849, the son of Dr. William Wirt and Margaret M. Taggart. Both parents, of 1 Scotch-Irish descent, were nativos ! of Ohio. Mr. Taggart attended the public schools. the high school, and the University of Wooster, Ohio, being graduated from the last- mentioned in 1871. During the two years following he was con- nected with the United States Geo- logical Survey. He studied law with Martin Walker and Charles M. Yacm, distinguished Ohio lawyers, and in 1875 was gradu- WILLIAM BUSH TAGGART. ated from the Law School of the University of Michigan. He prac- tieed law at Wooster and Salem, Ohio. At Salem he entered the service of the Northwestern branch of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company.
WHEELER, EVERETT PEPPERELL, attended the public schools of this city; in 1856 was graduated from the College of the City of New York, subsequently receiving the degree of Master of Arts; read law with his father in New York; in 1859 was graduated from the Harvard Law School, and in May, 1861, was admitted to the bar. From 1877 to 1879 he was a member of the New York Board of Education. From 1884 to 1889 he was Chairman of the Supervisory Civil-service Board of New York City. He assisted in drafting the Pendelton Civil-service bill and the New York State civil-service acts. In 1875 he was a commissioner on the Third Avenue and the Ninth Avenue elevated railways. He was one of the founders of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York, and is now
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its President. He was President of the Free Trade Club from 1882 to 1888, as he was of the Reform Club in 1889 and 1890. He was one of the founders of the East Side House and of the Webster Free Library. He has published " The Modern Law of Carriers " and " Wages and the Tariff," besides many addresses and pamphlets on civil service and tariff reform. He has appeared as counsel in many important cases. Born in New York City, March 10, 1810, he is the son of David Everett Wheeler and Elizabeth, daughter of William Jarvis, of Vermont. He is the great-great-grandson of Sir William Pepperell, the captor of Louisburg.
UNTERMEYER, SAMUEL, attended the New York public schools and the College of the City of New York, and in 1878 was graduated from the Colmbia College Law School. He has been counsel in many important cases. Ile is counsel for the National Wall Paper Company, and has organized a number of trust and trade combina- tions. He represented the brewers' associations in the State of New York in the attack on the constitutionality of the Raines liquor tax law. He was born in Lynchburg, Va., March 2, 1858, and is the son of Isodor and Therese Untermeyer. His father, a Virginia tobacco planter, lost his property through loyalty to the Confederacy, and died upon hearing the news of Lee's surrender.
LEVENTRITT, DAVID, was graduated in 1864 from the College of the City of New York, having taken several prizes, and in 1870 was graduated from the University Law School. He was special counsel for the City of New York to condemn for a public park lands between High Bridge and Washington Bridge. He was Chairman of a commis- sion to estimate damages in the case of lands condemned by the city for a bridge across the Harlem River, at Third Avenue. In the fall of 1898 he was elected a Justice of the Supreme Court of the State of New York on the Democratic ticket. He is Vice-President of the Aguilar Free Library. For many years he was Chairman of the Law Com- mittee of Tammany Ilall. He married, in 1868, Matilda Lithaner, of New York City. He was himself born in Winsboro. S. C., Jannary 31, 1845, and is the son of George M. Leventritt and Betty Goldberg.
HILDRETH, JOHN HOMER, was prepared for college at Wes- levan Academy, Wilbraham, Mass., and in 1869 was graduated from the Columbia College Law School. Since his admission to the bar, he has practiced in New York City, making a specialty of commercial and real estate law. He has frequently served as referee and receiver. In 1882 he was the unsuccessful Republican candidate for the New York Assembly from the Twenty-fourth District, that being the year in which Grover Cleveland swept the State with a Democratic major- ity of 192,000. He is a member of the Republican Club, the New Eng-
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land Society, the North Side Board of Trade, the Dwight Alumni Association, and the American Geographical Society. He is a member of Crescent Lodge, 402, Free and Accepted Masons; Crescent Chapter, 220, Royal Arch Masons, and Harlem Lodge, 201, Independent Order of Odd Fellows, and has been an officer in each. Hle was born in Lawrence, Mass., November 25, 1847, and is the son of Jairus C. Hildreth and Emeline Watson. The ancestors on both sides were long established in New England. A great-grandfather on the ma- ternal side was a soldier at Bunker Hill.
SMITH, FRELING H., was graduated from Union College with high honors in 1865: two years later was graduated from the Columbia College Law School and admitted to the bar, and the same year be- came managing clerk for the New r - York law firm of Van Vorst & Beardsley. In 186S he entered the office of Moses Ely as clerk, and one year later became a partner under the style of Ely & Smith. This association continued for fif- teen years, until the retirement of Mr. Ely in 1883, since which time Mr. Smith has practiced alone. He successfully defended Ralli & Com- pany in the litigation growing out of the fraudulent acts of the cotton brokers, H. M. Cutter & Company. He is a director of the Forty-see- ond Street and Grand Street Ferry Railroad of the city, and of the Adirondack Railway Company. Born in Chatham, N. Y., January FRELING H. SMITH. 31, 1844, he is the son of Joseph William Smith and Ruth Benjamin, his ancestors being of Scotch descent on both sides. His mother was a cousin of the late Judge Welcome R. Beebe, of New York.
LAROCQUE, JOSEPH, well-known New York lawyer, and a mem- ber of the firm of Shipman, Laroeque & Choate, was graduated from Columbia College in 1849. studied law with Griffin & Laroeque, of which firm his brother, Jeremiah Larocque, was a member, and in 1852 was admitted to the bar. He has appeared in many notable cases. He was elected President of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York in 1895 and was re-elected in 1896. He was active in organizing the Committee of Seventy in 1894 to wrest the munici- pal government out of the hands of Tammany Hall, and was made
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