USA > New York > New York City > Leslie's history of the greater New York, Volume III, Pt. 1 > Part 39
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various other corporations. He is a member of the Union League, Lotos, the New York Athletic, and Press clubs.
BENNETT, JAMES GORDON, JR., succeeded his father as pro- prietor and manager of the New York Herald in 1872, having been carefully edneated and trained in journalism. In 1883 he joined with John W. Mackay in the organization of the Commercial Cable Com- pany, and the laying of new cables across the Atlantic to England and France. This service has greatly decreased the cost of ocean telegra- phy. An enthusiastic yachtsman, in 1806 he raced from Sandy Ilook to the Needles, Isle of Wight, his schooner-yacht, Henrietta, wimming in 13 days, 21 hours, 55 minutes. In a similar race, from Queenstown to New York, in 1870, the English yacht, Cambria, defeated his yacht, Dauntless, by the short lead of two hours. He is a member of the Union, Metropolitan, and many other clubs, but for years has had his principal residence in Paris, where he superintends the col- lection of foreign news, a feature of his paper. He has established London and Paris editions of the Herald, and attracted attention by the publication in the English edition of warnings of storms telegraphed from the United States. Two of his nota- ble journalistie feats were the sending of Henry M. Stanley to search for Dr. Living- JAMES GORDON BENNETT, JR. stone in Africa, at the expense of the Herald, and the fitting up and dispatch of the Jeannette Polar Explor- ing Expedition. Mr. Bennett was born in this city, May 10, 1841.
BENNETT, JAMES GORDON, founder of the New York Herald in 1835, and its Managing Editor as well as proprietor until his death, June 2, 1872. was born at New-mills, Banffshire, Scotland, abont 1800. He was educated for the Roman Catholic priesthood at Aberdeen, but a perusal of Franklin's " Antobiography " turned his thoughts toward America. Reaching Halifax in 1819, he gave lessons in French, Spanish, and bookkeeping for a time, and then removed to Boston, where he worked in a printing office. In 1822 he reached New York, and for some years worked as reporter and assistant editor on New York newspapers, interspersed with various futile attempts to launch a journal of his own. A series of letters as Washington corre- spondent of the Courier and Enquirer attracted attention, and in 1830 he became associate editor of this paper. In 1833 he became City Edi- tor of the Pennsylvanian at Philadelphia. He presently returned to New York, however, and on May 11, 1835, sent forth the first number
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of the New York Herald, a one-cent daily, from its original office in a cellar. Refusing a political complexion for his sheet, and denying that he had any hobby to promulgate, he filled the paper with news and gossip dished up in a sprightly style. The paper at once became a success, while his enterprise in getting news ahead of his competi- tors enabled the Herald to lead all rivals for many years in point of circulation. He married Henrietta Agnes Crean, in her early days an accomplished music teacher, and had two sons and a daughter. One son is his namesake and successor; the other died in early youth. The daughter married Isaac Bell, Jr., and is now a widow living abroad with her three children-one son and two daughters. . Mrs. Bennett died in Italy, in March, 1873, not quite a year after her hus- band's decease.
CARLETON, GEORGE W., long a prominent publisher of this city, although since 1886 he has been in retirement from the active manage- ment of the house founded by him, is now an active executive officer of a number of important corporations. He is President of the Wilcox and Gibbs .Sewing Machine Company, and a director of the Equitable Life Assurance Society, and the Fifth Avenue Safe Deposit Company. He is a member of the Union League and Lotos clubs, and the Sons of the Revolution. He was born in New York City, January 16, 1832, and educated at Dr. Hawk's classical seminary at Flushing, L. I. He married Elizabeth H., daughter of Moses G. Baldwin and Elizabeth Bolles, of Newark, N. J., and has two danghters. He is himself the son of Cyrus Carleton, of Alma, Me., and Maria Leonard Arms, of Deerfield, Mass., and is descended from Edward Carleton, of London, who came over in 1639 and settled at Rowley, Mass., which he repre- sented in the General Court. This Edward was lineally descended from one of the Norman invaders of England, Carleton-Baldwin de Carleton, of Carleton Hall, near Penrith, Cumberland, England. Mr. Carleton's paternal great-grandfather, Moses ,Carleton, during the Revolution was a private in the Lexington Alarm Company of minute men, of which his maternal great-grandfather, Noadiah Leonard, was Captain.
PUTNAM, GEORGE PALMER, in 1840 established in this city the publishing firm of Wiley & Putnam, in 1848 continued the business under his own name, while from 1866. when his sons became asso- ciated with him, until his death in 1872, he was head of the firm of G. P. Putnam & Sons. In 1852 he established Putnam's Magasine. which was eventually discontinued through lack of support at that time for a purely literary periodical. He was appointed by President Lincoln, in 1862. Collector of Internal Revenue. In 1837 he had been the organizer of the first copyright association, and subsequently he was one of the earliest advocates of international copyright. He was
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one of the founders of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The devel- opment of wood-engraving was largely due to his encouragement. He published several volumes of which he was the author. In 1810 he married Victorine, daughter of Joseph Haven, a Boston merchant, and granddaughter of Colonel Francis Mason, who was in command of the ordnance in Washington's army in 1776. George Haven. J. Bish- op, and Irving Putnam are their sons. Mr. Putnam was himself the son of Henry Putnam, a lawyer of Boston, and Catherine Hunt, daughter of General Joseph Palmer, of the Revolution, and descended from John Putnam, who came from England to Salem, Mass .. in 1634. General Israel Putnam, of the Revolution, was a member of the same family.
PUTNAM, GEORGE HAVEN, in 1872 succeeded his father, the late George Palmer Putnam, as head of the publishing house of G. P. Putnam's Sons, and since the incorporation of the business, has been its president. He was born in London, England, April 2, 1844, and attended Columbia College and the University of Göttingen, leaving the latter in 1862 to enlist in the One Hundred and Sixty-seventh New York Volunteers. He served until the close of the war, attaining the rank of Major. In 1866 he was appointed Deputy Collector of In- ternal Revenue. He has been active in securing international copy- right, and is Secretary of the Publishers' Copyright League. He has also been a prominent champion of Civil-service reform and of Free Trade, and more recently has participated in the work in favor of sound finance done by the Chamber of Commerce as a member of one of its sub-committees. He is the author of many encyclopedie and magazine articles, and has published volumes on the copyright ques- tion and aspects of the publishing business. He was one of the found- ers of the City Club, as he was also of the Reform Club. He is likewise a member of the Century and Authors' clubs, the Savile Club of Lon- don, and the Military Order of the Loyal Legion.
GREELEY, HORACE, the most famous newspaper editor in the history of the United States (see frontispiece of this volume), was born in Amherst, N. II., February 3, 1811, and died in New York, No- vember 29, 1872. When he was ten years of age bis father, Zaccheus Greeley, a small farmer, became bankrupt, and left New Hampshire to escape imprisonment for debt. He settled at Poultney, Vt .. where Horace was apprenticed to learn the printer's trade. The latter came to New York City in 1830, and worked for eighteen months as a jour- neyman printer. He then obtained an editorial position on the Morning Post, a penny sheet, which soon expired. As editor of the New Yorker, he saw that journal develop into a success. He next edited the Log- Cabin, in advocacy of the Presidential canvass of General Harrison. He had carefully hoarded his savings, and, on April 10, 1841, he issued
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the first number of the New York Tribune. This venture was success- ful from the start, while Greeley eventually made his journal the fore- most in the United States in power to influence public opinion. Elected to Congress in 1848 to serve three months of an nnexpired . term, this short term enabled Greeley to expose the mileage abuse. In 1851 he visited Europe, and while at London was Chairman of one of the juries of award at the World's Fair. In 1859 he made an over- land trip to California. He deprecated the Civil War, but urged its vigorous prosecution when inaugurated. In May, 1867, in the face of threats of personal violence, be signed the bail bond of Jefferson Davis. He opposed the reconstruction policy. In 1872 he was nom- inated for the Presidency by a faction of the Republican party, and was indorsed by the regular Democratic organization, but failed of election. It is believed that this disappointment hastened his death. His history of the Civil War, " The American Conflict," is one of the standard authorities on the subject. He published other works, on slavery, political economy, various reforms, farming, and on his trav- els in Europe, together with an autobiographical narrative.
ROBINSON, SAMUEL ADAMS, after a long career as a successful physician, has distinguished himself in recent years by his practical work in advocacy of sound economics in the United States. He had long been an active Republican and a prominent member of the Amer- ican Protective Tariff League, being Chairman of the Committee on Literature in the latter organization. He had also been a frequent delegate to the American Bankers' Association, and had made a study of economics, accumulating a large library on the subject. But after the Presidential election of 1892. believing a financial crisis to be at hand in the nation, he abandoned a plan of travel abroad in order to devote his energies to popular educational work in economics. He was active in Washington in 1893 in the fight to secure the repeal of the billion clause of the Sherman silver bill. . He was also instru- mental in obtaining important amendments to the Wilson tariff bill. In 1894, on the urgent appeal of the Executive Committee of the American Protective Tariff League, he visited, as the representative of this organization, various States and Territories in the West where campaigns were in progress. His efforts in Utah, where he made many addresses, are believed to have secured the small Republican majority in the convention which framed its constitution as a State. Being - present at the National Convention of the League of Republican Clubs at Denver, in June, 1894, he was made a delegate from New York, placed on the Committee on Resolutions, and led the successful fight for a sound money resolution. He subsequently received a vote of thanks from the Protective Tariff League, which was presented to him engraved on silver. He visited twenty-seven States and Territo- ries, informing himself as to the propaganda in advocacy of the mi-
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limited coinage of silver at the ratio of sixteen to one. In the spring of 1895 he was urged to pursue his work in connection with the New York Chamber of Commerce. He was elected a member of this body, made a member of its Special Committee on Sound Financial Legis- lation, and made a member and Corresponding Secretary of this com- mittee's Executive Committee of nine members. In this capacity he visited a large percentage of the important cities of the Union, and in every one, with a single exception, succeeded in inaugurating system- atie work in the interest of sound finances. He was made a delegate from New York to the National Convention of the League of Repub- lican Clubs at Cleveland, Ohio, in 1895; was again a member of the Committee on Resolutions; was a member of its Sub-Committee of Nine, and was a member of its Sub-Committee of Three. During the two weeks of the debate with Har- vey, author of "Coin's Financial School," which occurred at Chicago in July, 1895, Dr. Robinson fur- nished arguments to Mr. Horr, the sound-money champion, also writ- ing a considerable part of the large volume which subsequently ap- peared. From about this time until the close of the Presidential cant- paign of 1896, he concentrated his efforts in educational work in eight States, which he considered there was a bare possibility of carrying for sound money, namely : Califor- nia, Oregon, North Dakota, Indi- ana, Kentucky, West Virginia, Michigan, South Dakota, Ohio, and Nebraska. When Mckinley and SAMUEL ADAMS ROBINSON. Bryan bad been nominated, Ohio and Nebraska were dropped from this list, on the supposition that the nominees would carry their respective States. Literature was sent to the editors, doctors, postmasters, teachers and officers of labor or- ganizations, granges, and farmers' alliances in all these States, this educational work being accomplished, so far as possible, before the heat of a political campaign had set it. When the precinct poll-lists could be obtained, literature was sent to the voters. The commercial lists of Bradstreet and Dun. for towns of 5,000 or less, were utilized in a similar way. MeKinley carried seven of the eight States thus can- vassed. His entire plurality in six of them was but 38,921, however, and since the carrying of these States by Bryan would have elected the latter, and, since each vote changed would have counted as two, a change of 19,467 votes in the States thus canvassed might have
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elected Bryan. Dr. Robinson has continued educational work along these lines since the campaign of 1896 as Chairman of the Committee on Finance of the New York Board of Trade and Transportation. As a delegate from this body to the National Monetary Convention, in January, 1898, he read a notable paper on " The True Source of the Demand for a Gold Standard and a Sound Currency." A delegate to the last convention of the National Board of Trade, he was appointed for the current year Chairman of its Committee on Public Health and a member of the committees on Finance and on Merchant Marine. In the last-mentioned committee he defeated the attempt to secure an in- dorsement of the Hanna-Payne ship subsidy bill. His subsequent seath- ing criticisms of this measure, published in the organ of the American Protective Tariff League, and in the Congressional Record. as incorpo- rated in the speech of a member, are credited with having defeated this bill in the last Congress. Dr. Robinson was born in Franklin, Pa., and is the son of Rev. John Robinson, D.D., and Hannah Walker Adams Plumer. His grandparents, John and Rosanna Robinson, of Scotch antecedents, removed from Ulster, Ireland, to Virginia. Dr. Robin- son also descends from Henry AAdams, of Braintree, Mass., in 1636. the common ancestor of Samuel Adams of the Revolution, President John Adams, and President John Quincy Adams. Through his grand- father, Major Samnel Plumer, and his great-grandfather, Captain Nathaniel Plumer, a Revolutionary officer, he also descends from Francis Plumer, who came to New England from England in 1633. Educated by his father, at sixteen years of age Dr. Robinson began the study of medicine, and was graduated at Cleveland, Ohio, at the end of a four years' course. For six years he pursued professional studies in New York, London, Paris, Berlin, and Vienna. Residing on Staten Island, his practice extended to New York and Brooklyn, while he received patients from all parts of the Union. Trustee of a banking institution and Chairman of its Finance Committee, for many years he was a director of one of the largest insurance companies of New York, and Chairman of its Investment Committee. One of the founders and original trustees of St. Anstin's School, Staten Island, he was also its President until he recently resigned. He is President of the Kill von Kull Workingmen's Club and Institute, of West New Brighton, S. I., his predecessor in this office having been the late Hon. Erastus Brooks. He is a director of the Staten Island Chamber of Commerce, and was one of the founders of the Civic Federation of
. America, of which he is Treasurer. He is a member of the New York Chamber of Commerce, the New York Board of Trade and Transporta- tion, the American Economic Association, the American Protective Tariff League, the Republican and Patria clubs of New York, the Na- tional Municipal League and Franklin Institute of Philadelphia, and the Home Market Club of Boston. As a Mason he is a life member of
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Crescent Lodge, Palestine Commandery; is a member of the four Scot- tish Rite bodies, and of Tyrian Chapter and Mecca Temple, New York City.
TILDEN, SAMUEL JONES, attended Yale College and the Univer- sity of the City of New York, and in 1841 was admitted to the New York bar. For thirty years he was engaged in the active practice of his profession, and was one of the recognized leaders of the bar. He was a specialist in municipal law, and was proficient in conveyancing. From 1858 to 1875 he was counsel for many railroad corporations. For a time he was corporation attorney for the City of New York. He was a member of the New York Assembly in 1845 and 1846, and was a mem- ber of the Constitutional Convention of 1846. During the Civil War he was frequently consulted by Secretary of War Stanton and Gover- nor Horatio Seymour. He was one of the founders of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York in 1870 to clear the legal profession from the imputation of indifference in the presence of the corruption of the judiciary under the Tweed influences. His is by far the most prominent figure in the movement resulting in the overthrow of the Tweed ring, the successful issne being principally due to his remark- able genius for political organization. In 1871 he accepted election to the New York Assembly for the purpose of carrying through the impeachment of Judges Barnard. Cardozo, and McCunn. He became Chairman of the State Democratie Committee. In 1874 he was elected Governor of New York, defeating John A. Dix by a majority of 50,000. As Governor he overthrew the Canal ring, exposing the scandals con- neeted with canal management, and directing the prosecution of guilty parties. He was the Democratic nominee for President in 1876, and received a large popular majority over Rutherford B. Hayes. Both sides claimed a majority of the electoral vote, and the election was long in doubt. The extra-constitutional electoral commission, which finally decided the matter, gave Mr. Hayes 185 electoral votes and Mr. Tilden 184. By bis will, Mr. Tilden left several million dollars for the establishment of a public library in New York City, but this project was defeated, as originally intended, by a successful contest of the will. Through the generosity of one of the heirs, however, about a million dollars was released for the purpose intended. This has been united with the Astor and Lenox endowments to establish the new Public Library of the City of New York. Mr. Tilden was born in New Lebanon, N. Y., February 9, 1814, and died at his country residence, Greystone, Westchester County, N. Y .. August 4, 1886. His father, Elam Tilden, was a farmer. He descended from Nathaniel Tilden, who settled in Scituate, Mass., in 1634.
CORNELL, ALONZO B., Governor of New York from January 1, 1880, to January 1, 1883, has been actively connected with the develop.
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ment of telegraphic corporations in this country. He is now a director of the Western Union Telegraph Company, and Vice-President of the American Railway Electric Light Company. He was formerly Presi. dent of the Western Union Telegraph Company, in the service of which he rose through the grades of operator, superintendent, director. and vice-president. Born in Ithaca, N. Y., January 22, 1832, the son of the late Ezra Cornell, founder of Cornell University, having re- ceived an academic education, he learned telegraphy at Troy, N. Y .. and assisted the late Professor Morse in building the first telegraph line. In 1854 he became active in forming the Western Union, being a director of the original companies which were consolidated in its organization. He has been a director of the Western Union con- tinuously to the present time, as well as its Vice-President and Presi- dent for terms of years. He was appointed by President Grant in 1869 Surveyor of Customs for the port of New York, and declined his nomination by the same the next year as First Assistant Treasurer at New York, preferring to retain the other position. Elected to the New York Assembly of 1872, he was unanimously made Speaker by the Republicans, who controlled the House. Declining re-election, he re- sumed as an officer of the Western Union. In 1876 President Grant appointed him Naval Officer of Customs at this port, and this office he held until July. 1878, when he was suspended by President Haves. as was Chester A. Arthur as Collector of the Port, in the factional fight then in progress. Mr. Cornell received his vindication in his nomination and election as Governor of New York in the fall of 1879, as did Mr. Arthur in his nomination and election as Vice-President the following year. Mr. Cornell was one of the best governors in the history of the State, but his renomination in 1882 was prevented by the politicians of his party, whose ire he had aroused by the resolute exercise of the veto of obnoxious legislation. The people approved, however, and elected as his successor Grover Cleveland, who had dis- tinguished himself as the " veto " Mayor of Buffalo. The amendment to the usnry laws brought about by Governor Cornell in 1882 - has proved to be a financial measure of the highest importance, and one which has gone further toward making New York City one of the chief monetary centers of the world than any other legislative act."
MILLER, WARNER, United States Senator from New York in 1882 and several years following, and the pioneer in the manufacture of paper from wood pulp, is interested in various corporations. He is President of the Herkimer Paper Company, Secretary of the Hudson River Pulp and Paper Company, and a director of the Standard Na- tional Bank, the Traders' Fire Insurance Company, and the Interna- tional North and South American Transportation and Express Com- pany. He actively interested himself in the project of a ship canal across the Isthmus of Panama, and for some years was President of
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the Nicaragna Canal Construction Company. The inventor of ma- chines to mannfacture wood pulp. these were not at first regarded with favor by papermakers, but eventually became indispensable. As a result of this invention the paper used by newspapers has been re- dneed in cost from fifteen to three and a half cents a pound. From his own mills at Herkimer he rapidly accumulated a fortime. He was born in Oswego County. New York. August 12. 1838. of Ger- man descent. his grandfather having been a colonel in the Revolution. In 1860 he was graduated from Union College, and when the war be- gan onlisted in the Fifth New York Cavalry. He was promoted to Lieutenant, and having been captured in the Battle of Winchester. and paroled on the field, was honorably discharged. He was a Mem- ber of the Assembly of 1875, and was elected to the 46th and 47th Congresses. Upon the resignation of Senators Roscoe Conkling and Thomas C. Platt to embarrass President Garfield. he was elected to the United States Senate in place of Mr. Platt. He was the Republican candidate for Governor of New York in 18SS. and was defeated by political enemies in his own party.
BLISS, CORNELIU'S NEWTON, Secretary of the Interior in the Cabinet of President MeKinley, is heal of the drygoods commission firm of .Bliss, Fabyan & Company, of this city, and has been promi- nently connected with many finan- cial and other institutions. He is a trustee of the Central Trust Com- pany, a director of the Fourth Na- tional Bank, the Equitable Life As- surance Company, and the Home Insurance Company, and a governor of the New York Hospital. At the time of his acceptance of the portfo- lio of the Interior in 1897, he was also Treasurer of the New York Hospital, Vice-President of the Fourth National Bank. Vice-Presi- dent of the Chamber of Commerce. and Chairman of its Executive CORNELIUS NEWTON BLISS. Committee, Vice-President of the Union League Club, and President of the New England Society. He was Treasurer of the Republican National Committee in 1892. and again in 1896. In addition to the organizations named, he is like- wise a member of the Union, Metropolitan, Riding, Players, Lotos. Merchants', Lawyers', and Republican clubs, and the Dunlap Society. He married, in 1859, Elizabeth, daughter of Hon. Avery Phimmer, of Boston, and has living a daughter and a son, Cornelius Bliss. Jr. Born
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