USA > New York > New York City > Leslie's history of the greater New York, Volume III, Pt. 2 > Part 23
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September 3, 1861, his twenty-first birthday, he joined the Sixth New York Cavalry, Company D, and subsequently participated in all the campaigns of the Potomac, with Sheridan in the Shenandoah Valley, and at Gettysburg and Appomattox. He became, successively, Ser- geant in the Quartermaster's Department, Second Lieutenant on the staff of Colonel Devin, Acting Quartermaster of his regiment, Cap- tain, and Brevet Major, and was mustered out with his regiment in September, 1865.
BALDWIN, AUSTIN P., is a director of the German-American Insurance Company, is largely interested in steamship and express lines, and has long been a successful importer of wines in New York City, where he was born in 1834. He is a member of the Union League and Mendelssohn Glee clubs, the St. Nicholas Society, and the Down- town Association. He has visited Europe more than thirty times and has also toured Japan. He married Alice Bradford, of Providence, R. I., a lineal descendant of Governor William Bradford and Captain Miles Standish, and has a daughter and two sons, Standish Bradford and Arthur Radcliffe. He is himself the son of the late Austin Bald- win, of Albany, and Julia Clarissa, daughter of Colonel John Van Heusen Huyck, of Rhinebeck, N. Y. His father was a prominent Al- bany merchant, was Speaker of the New York Assembly, and held other important positions in public life. He is also descended from General William Radcliffe, of the Revolution.
ANTHONY, RICHARD ALLARD, President, since 1896, of E. & H. T. Anthony & Company, is the son of the late Edward Anthony, one of the founders of the house, and its head from the beginning until his death in 1888. He was born in New York City, May 24, 1861, at- tended Rutgers College for two years, and in 1881 was graduated from Columbia. He entered the corporation of which his father was President, became its Secretary in 1884, Vice-President in 1888, and President in 1896. IIe is also a trustee of the United States Savings Bank, and was formerly a director of the Second Avenue Railroad. He is a member of the University and other clubs, the Holland So- ciety, Sons of the Revolution, and Columbia Alumni Association. He married, in 1895, Amelia, daughter of Lawrence H. Van Valkenburgh.
ADAMS, CHARLES HENRY, for some years a resident of New York City, became prominent in public life while residing at Cohoes, N. Y. He was the first Mayor under the charter of that city, and served as President of its Water Board. He was a member of Gov- ernor Hunt's staff, with the rank of Colonel, in 1851, a member of the Assembly in 1857 and of the Senate in 1872. In the latter year he was a Presidential Elector, and in 1873 was United States Com- missioner to the Vienna Exposition. He was elected to Congress in
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1876. He was born in Coxsackie, N. Y., the son of the late Dr. Henry Adams, and Agnes, daughter of Anthony Egberts. His father was a soldier in the War of 1812, and his maternal grandfather a pay- master in the Revolution. He is eighth in lineal descent from Henry Adams, of Braintree, Mass., in 1634. Bred to the law and practicing for some time, in 1850 he engaged in woolen manufacture at Cohoes. In 1869 he was elected President of the Bank of Cohoes, of which he had been a director since 1859. At present he is a trustee of the Metropolitan Savings Bank of New York City and President of the Mercantile Corporation of the United States and South Africa. He is a member of the Metropolitan Club and the St. Nicholas and other societies. He was married, in 1853, to Elizabeth Platt, of Rhinebeck, N. Y., and in 1877 to Judith Crittenden Coleman. By his first wife he has a daughter and a son, William Platt Adams, and by his second wife two daughters.
SHOEMAKER, HENRY F., in 1864 entered the wholesale coal- shipping house of Ilammet, Van Dusen & Company, of Philadelphia, and within a year or two organized the firm of Shoemaker & McIntyre, in the same line. In 1870 he organized the firm of Fry, Shoemaker & Company, engaged in the mining of anthracite coal. In 1877 he became Secretary and Treasurer of the Central Railroad of Minnesota, and in the latter part of that year he removed to New York City, where he has since resided. He assisted in the construction of the Rochester State Line Railroad, now the Buffalo, Rochester and Pittsburg, in 1878, and was largely instrumental in its extension to the coal fields of Pennsylvania. In 1881 he established the banking house of Shoe- maker, Dillon & Company, making a specialty of large issues of rail- road bonds. With his associates, in 1882, he built the Rochester and Ontario Belt Railway, now part of the Rome, Watertown and Ogdens- burg Railway. In 1886 he became actively interested in the Wheel- ing and Lake Erie Railroad. The following year he became President of the Mineral Range Railroad. He became one of the principal own- ers of the Cincinnati, Hamilton and Dayton Railroad in 1888, and Chairman of its Executive Committee, a position which he still holds. He is also now President of the Dayton and Union Railroad Com- pany, President of the Dayton and Ironton Railroad Company, Presi- dent of the Southern Boulevard Land and Improvement Company, Vice-President of the Indiana, Decatur and Western Railroad, is a director of the Cincinnati, Hamilton and Indianapolis Railroad Com- pany, the Cincinnati, New Orleans and Texas Pacific Railroad Com- pany, and the Alabama Great Southern Railroad, Limited, of London. England. He is a director of the Cleveland, Lorain and Wheeling Railroad Company, in which, in 1893, he and his associates bought a controlling interest and made one of the most prosperous coal-carry- ing roads of Ohio. Among the mines adjacent to coal-carrying roads
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in which he is interested are the Medvale Goshen, the Superior, and the Cleveland Massillon. He was formerly interested in the mining of bituminous coal in the Kanawha Valley, West Virginia. He was at one time a director and large owner of the New Jersey Rubber Shoe Company, now the United States Rubber Company, and is now a trustee of the Mount Hope Cemetery Association. He is a member of the Union League, Lotos, Riverside Yacht, and American Yacht clubs, the Sons of the Revolution, and Lafayette Post, No. 140, Grand Army of the Republic. He married, in 1874, Blanche, daughter of Hon. James W. Quiggle, of Philadelphia, at one time United States Consul to Antwerp, and subsequently United States Minister to Bel- gium, and has two sons and a daughter. Mr. Shoemaker was himself born in Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania, March 28, 1815, the son of John Shoemaker and Mary A. Brock, his ancestors emigrating from Holland to Philadelphia in 1683. Both his grandfathers were soldiers in the War of 1812, while his grandfather, John Shoemaker, was a Revolutionary soldier. Mr. Shoemaker attended the public schools and was graduated from Genesee Seminary, Lima, N. Y. Upon the invasion of Pennsylvania by General Lee in 1863, he raised a company of miners, and, as their First Lieutenant, took them to HENRY F. SHOEMAKER. Harrisburg. They were mustered into the Federal service as a part of the Twenty-seventh Pennsylvania Volunteers, and served until Lee was beaten at Gettysburg, and retreated south of the Potomac.
BERRIAN, CHARLES ALBERT, has been engaged in the real es- tate business in New York City since 1870, and is especially an expert on realty values in the Twenty-third and Twenty-fourth wards,-the Borough of the Bronx. He subdivided many of the old farms in this section and disposed of them as building lots. During the past five . years he has been almost exclusively engaged in making appraisals of property values either for the City of New York or for private owners. His services to the city include the condemnation of property valued at more than $3,000,000 for the Jerome Park Reservoir, as well as properties for the Grand Boulevard and Concourse, the famous ave- nue and driveway projected on a scale surpassing anything existing in any other city in the world. He has been a member of the Repub-
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lican County Committee of New York County, and frequently has been a delegate to county, city, and State conventions. He was a member of the State Convention which nominated Governor Morton, and of the City Convention which nominated Mayor Strong. He held the office of United States Custom House Auctioneer under President Harrison, and now holds it again under appointment by President McKinley. He was for three years Secretary of the Fordham Club, and is now a member of its Executive Committee. He is also a mem- ber of the Suburban and Union Republican clubs, the North Side Board of Trade, and the Auctioneers' Association of the City of New York. He was born in New York City, January 30, 1845, the son of the - late Philip H. Berrian and Phebe, daughter of Captain John Marshall. His father, who was long engaged in the real estate business in New York City, was a resident of Fordham, as was his grandfather, Charles Berrian. The first of his ancestors to settle at Fordham, Nicholas Berrian, was one of the sons of Cornelius Berrian, who, in 1727, bought Berrien Island. He was the son, in turn, of John Berrien and Ruth Edsall, and grandson of Cornelis Jansen Berrien and Jannetie Stry- ker. The family is of French Huguenot antecedents, hailing from Ber- rien, Department of Finisterre, France. They were driven to Holland by religious persecution, and from the latter country Cornelis Jansen Berrien immigrated to New Amsterdam, settling in Flatbush, L. I., as early as 1669. He was Deacon and Town Official, and in 1683 Commis- sioner to levy a special tax by appointment of the New York Colonial Assembly. Mr. Charles A. Berrian was educated in the publie schools and at Farnham Preparatory Institute, Beverly, N. J. He became clerk in a banking house in New York City, and for several years was Secretary of the Ashburton Coal Company. During the next three years he held the office of Deputy County Clerk of Suffolk County, New York. He was married, January 30, 1867, to Susan Almy, daugh- ter of Stephen C. Rogers, of Huntington, L. I., where the family had been seated for many generations. Mr. Rogers was for seventeen years Supervisor of his town, and for three years County Clerk of Suffolk County, New York. Mr. and Mrs. Berrian have two daughters.
BENEDICT, HENRY HARPER, President of Wyckoff, Seamans & Benedict, manufacturers of the Remington Typewriter, was born in German Flats, N. Y., October 9, 1844, the son of Micaiah Benedict, great-great-grandson of John Benedict, Captain of the militia of Dan- bury, Conn., and member of the Colonial Legislature, and is lineally descended from Thomas Benedict, who arrived in New England from Nottinghamshire in 1638. He was graduated from Hamilton College in 1869, during his course having served as Professor of Latin and Mathematies in Fairfield Seminary, New York. He accepted a con- fidential position in the large manufacturing establishment of E. Rem- ington & Sons, of Ilion, N. Y., and presently became a director of the
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corporation of Remington & Sons, and at the same time Treasurer of the Remington Sewing Machine Company. The rights in the Reming- ton Typewriter having been acquired by Edward G. Wyckoff and Clar- ence W. Seamans, in 1882 he joined them in New York City as a mem- bei of the firm of Wyckoff, Seamans & Benedict. Active as the Business Manager and in charge of the foreign interests of the company, he is now its President. He is a member of the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church, a trustee of Hamilton College, and the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences, a member of the Union League, Grolier, Delta Kappa Epsilon, and Republican clubs of this city, of the Hamilton and Riding and Driving clubs, and Long Island Historical Society of Brooklyn. While a resident of Ilion he was President of its Literary Association and the Herkimer County Bible Society, and Treasurer, a trustee and an elder of the First Presbyterian Church, which he was active in founding.
BARRON, JOHN CONNER, while he was graduated from Yale in 1858, and from the New York College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1861, has not followed his profession since the close of the Civil War, but has engaged in important financial enterprises. . He offered his services to the Government, however, in April, 1861, and rose to the rank of full Surgeon of the Sixty-ninth New York. Subsequently he was appointed Surgeon-General, with the rank of Colonel, of the First Division of the National Guard of this State, on the staff of Major- General Shaler, while, from 1863 to 1871, he was Surgeon of the Sev- enth Regiment. He traveled abroad extensively after the war, and then occupied himself with business enterprises in this city. He has been President of the Kentucky Coal, Iron and Development Com- pany, and sustained the same relation to the L. C. Ranch and Cattle Company, and the Gila Farm Company. He is now President of the Carpenter Steel Company and a director of the Pacific Company and the United New York Railroad and Canal Companies. He has been Vice-Commodore of the Atlantic Yacht Club, Rear-Commodore of the Seawanhaka-Corinthian Yacht Club, and Rear-Commodore of the New York Yacht Club, while he is now Vice-Commodore of the Hudson River Ice Yacht Club. He is also a member of the Union, Union League, and several shooting clubs. The match of his Wave with the Scotch cutter, Madge, was the first instance of international cutter-racing. He built the Athlon and acquired the English cutter, Clara. He was born in Woodbridge, N. J., in 1837, the son of the late John Barron and Mary, daughter of Colonel Richard Conner, of Staten Island, a Revolutionary soldier and member of the New York Provin- cial Congress of 1775. He is lineally descended from Ellis Barron. who was made Freeman of Watertown, Mass., June 2, 1641, having emigrated from Burnchurch County, Waterford, Ireland, where his family for many generations had been seated as " Barons of Burn-
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church." Dr. Barron married, in 1869, Harriet, daughter of Rev. Albert Williams, of San Francisco, and has a daughter and three sons -- Thomas, Carlisle Norris, and John Conner, Jr.
ADAMS, HENRY HERSCHEL, having risen to eminence in the commercial and financial circles of Cleveland, Ohio, has achieved a like success in New York City, whither he removed in 1882. He has been President of the Columbus and Hocking Coal and Iron Com- pany since 1890, as also of the Henry H. Adams Iron Company since 1891, and is President of the Brooklyn and Rockaway Beach Railroad Company. Ile is Treasurer of the Advisory Board of the New York Board of Education, a member of the New York Board of Trade and Transportation, and of the New York Metal Exchange, and is command- er of Lafayette Post, G. A. R. Born in Collamer, Ohio, July 9, 1844, he is lineally descended from Henry Adams, who settled at Braintree, Mass., in 1634. His grandfather, Benoni Adams, was a Revolutionary soldier, and his father, Lowell L. Adams, a soldier in the War of 1812. His mother, Hepzibah Thayer, was a well-known anti-slavery agitator and writer prior to the Civil War. Hay- ing received an academic education, he enlisted at the age of seventeen and served throughout the Civil War, participating in many battles, and in 1864 suffering capture by General Forrest, and incarceration in a Con- federate prison. In 1867 he success- fully engaged in the iron business in HENRY HERSCHEL ADAMS. Cleveland, Ohio, also owning vessels in the iron ore and grain trade on the lakes. He was a member of the Board of Trade of Cleveland, and of its Board of Education. A delegate to the Boston " Free Ship " Convention of 1881, he was a member of its committee which appeared before a. U'nited States Senate committee.
BEACH, JOHN N., has been engaged in the wholesale drygoods business in New York City since 1867, from that year to 1872 being a member of the firm of P. Van Volkenburg & Company; from 1872 to 1879 a member of that of Van Volkenburg, Beach & Company: while since 1879 he has been a member of the well-known house of Tefft, Weller & Company. He has been President of the Drygoods Chronicle Publishing Association, Vice-President of the Mercantile
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Accident Insurance Society, and a director of the Hamilton Loan and Trust Company, and is now a member of the Chamber of Commerce, a trustee of Hamilton College, a trustee of Adelphi College, Brooklyn; an officer of Lafayette Avenue Presbyterian Church, Brooklyn, and a member of the Merchants' Club, of New York. He married, in 1870, Mary Linette, daughter of Elisha Nelson, of Cold Spring, N. Y., and has several children. The eldest son died in 1893, during his senior year at Hamilton College, and Mr. Beach has erected upon the grounds of Hamilton College a memorial arbor of stone. Born in Lodi, N. Y., August. 1, 1837, Mr. Beach is the son of the late George Clinton Beach and Mary Ann, daughter of Colonel Rynear Covert, of Seneca County, New York. His father was successively a teacher, a farmer, and a merchant. Mr. Beach attended the public schools, Ovid Academy, and Hamilton College, from the latter receiving the degree of A.M. in January, 1893. For some time prior to his removal to New York City in 1867, he was successfully engaged in the retail drygoods business at Watkins, N. Y.
COLES, EDWIN SANDS, was long active in financial circles in New York City, being a prominent stockbroker, member of the New York Stock Exchange, and for more than thirty years Secretary of the Stock Exchange Building Company. He was born at Dosoris, L. I., in 1828, and died in 1896, having been a member of various prominent clubs, and the St. Nicholas and other societies. He was the son of Butler Coles and the grandson of General Nathaniel Coles, while also descended from Robert Coles, who came from Suffolk, England, to Massachusetts in 1630. His son, Nathaniel, was one of the first settlers of Oyster Bay, L. I., and the family estates there and at Do- soris are still held by the family. Mr. Coles is survived by his widow, Sarah, daughter of Dr. Charles De Kay Townsend and Maria Fonda; by one son, Walter Henry Coles, and by two daughters.
DODGE, GRENVILLE M., eminent alike as a civil engineer, a soldier, and a railroad financier, is now President of the Fort Worth and Denver Railway Company, President of the Love Electric Trac- tion Company, and a director of the Union Pacific Railway Company, the Wichita Valley Railway, the India Wharf Brewing Company, and the American Mutoscope Company. During the period between his graduation in 1851 as a civil engineer from the Military Univer- sity of Norwich, Vt., and the beginning of the Civil War, he resided in Illinois, and was Assistant Engineer in the construction of the Chi- cago and Rock Island and other Illinois and Iowa railroads. At the close of the war he became Chief Engineer in charge of the con- struction of the Union Pacific Railroad. He has been conspicuous both in the building and the operation of the Texas and Pacific, the
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Missouri, Kansas and Texas, the International and Great Northern, and the Fort Worth and Denver railroads. Captain of the Council Bluffs Guards when the Civil War began, he was appointed Aid to the Governor of Iowa, with rank of Lieutenant-Colonel, and having organized the Fourth Iowa and Dodge Battery, joined Fremont at St. Louis with these forces in July, 1861. In command of a brigade in January, 1862, he led the advance in the capture of Springfield, Mo., and participated at Sugar Creck and Blackburn's Mills. His gallantry at Pea Ridge won for him the commission of Brigadier- General of Volunteers. Having supervised the rebuilding of the Mobile and Ohio Railroad, he was given command of the Central Divi- sion of Mississippi, and won several battles, capturing General Faulk- ner and his army near Island No. 10. As commander of the Second Division, Army of the Tennessee, he defeated General Forest in 1863. Throughout the Atlanta campaign he commanded the Sixteenth Corps under Sherman, participating in all the important actions and bearing the brunt of the battle of Atlanta. A severe wound received soon after the latter engagement prevented him from accompanying the march to the sea, but he was commissioned Major-General of Vol- unteers in command of the Department of Missouri in 1864. The following year he commanded the forces in Kansas and the territo- ries. Returning to civil life, he was in 1866 elected to the 39th Congress from the Fifth District of Iowa. He has long resided in New York City, and is a member of the Union League and United Service clubs, and the New England Society. He was Chief Marshal of the procession at the dedication of the Grant Mausoleum in River- side Park in April, 1897. He is President of the Society of the Army of the Tennessee. He is also Chairman of the committee to erect a statue to General Sherman. In 1898 he was appointed by President McKinley a member of the War Investigating Commission, and was elected President of the Commission. Born in Danvers, Mass .. April 12, 1831, he is the son of Sylvanus Dodge and Julia F. Philips; is grandson of Captain Solomon Dodge, of Rowley, Mass., and lineally - descended from a settler of Salem, Mass., in 1629.
DAVIDSON, MATHIAS OLIVER, the distinguished civil engineer, resided in New York City, and was engaged upon various munic- ipal works. He was active in the construction of the Croton Aque- duct, and subsequently. from 1870 to 1872. laid out the avenues which cross the upper portion of the city. He opened the coal regions of Western Maryland, took charge of railroad construction in the island of Cuba in 1856, and was occupied from 1865 to 1870 in building the New Haven and Derby Railroad. Employed upon important public works in Mexico under the Emperor Maximilian, he was offered the title of Marquis by the latter, but never assumed it. He was the son of Dr. Oliver Davidson, of Plattsburg, N. Y .. and Margaret, daughter
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of Dr. Mathias Burnet Miller, of Utica, and sister of Judge Morris S. Miller, and was sixth in descent from Nicholas Davidson, who came from England to Charlestown, Mass., in 1639, as the personal repre- sentative of Mathew Craddock. Royal Governor of Massachusetts Bay, and became one of the wealthiest men in the colony. His family was one of the nine noble Scottish stocks which competed for the crown upon the death of Margaret of Norway. Mathias Oliver Da- vidson married a daughter of Captain Mathew Miles Standish, of Plattsburg. and Catherine Phoebe Miller, her father being an officer in the War of 1812, and a descendant of Captain Miles Standish. of Plymouth.
WILSON, WASHINGTON, one of the founders in 1865 of the firm of Earl & Wilson, leading manufacturers of collars and cuffs, has been the member of the firm resident in New York City, managing the business and financial interests. He is a trustee of the Bowery Sav- ings Bank, a trustee of the Madison Avenue Baptist Church, and a gov- ernor of the New York Skin and Cancer Hospital. He is a member of the New York Chamber of Com- merce, and of the Union League, Grolier, Riding, Merchants', and New York Athletic clubs. Born in New York City, June 1, 1838, he is the son of John Wilson and Gainor Evans Roberts. His father was a member of the old volunteer fire department of New York City, and a member of the New York firm of Derrickson & Wilson, saddlers. His grandfather, of an old fan- WASHINGTON WILSON. ily of Lincolnshire, England, came to America in 1804, establish- ing himself in the feed business in New York City. Mfr. Wilson's mother was the daughter of parents who came to this country from Bala, North Wales, and was the grandniece of Rev. John Williams. a Baptist clergyman. Having been educated in the New York pub- lie schools, in 1853 Mr. Wilson entered the employ of Crocker & Stow. subsequently William A. Crocker, in the notion trade in New York City. With a partner, under the style of Goddard & Wilson, he sub- sequently acquired this business, contiming it until the Civil War made it unprofitable. After winding up the affairs of his firm, from 1862 to 1865 he was in the employ of the Adams Express Company. In 1865 he organized the present house of Earl & Wilson, having as
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partner William S. Earl, of Troy, N. Y. In 1870, Mr. Wilson married Janes Rich, of an old New York family, and has three daughters.
GRIFFIN, FRANCIS BUTLER, has been engaged in business in New York City as a hardware merchant for a quarter of a century. He is a director of the National Shoe and Leather Bank, is Treasurer of the New York Infant Asylum, and one of its managers, and is one of the Managers of the Presbyterian Hospital, and a Member of the Executive Committee of its Board of Trustees. He married Annie M., daughter of John H. Earle. He is a member of the City, Pres- byterian, and Hardware clubs. the Sons of the Revolution, the So- ciety of Colonial Wars. and the New England Society. Born in New York City. November 8. 1852, he is the son of George Griffin and Elizabeth Frances. daughter of Abraham Benson, of Fairfield, Conn., and is the grandson of George Griffin, a prominent lawyer of this city during the first half of the present century. He descends from Jaspar Griffin, who came to New England when a child. having been born in Wales, in 1648. of royal descent. He also descends from Sir Matthew Griswold, of Malvern Hill, England, who settled at Wind- sor. Conn .. in 1639, and from Henry Wolcott, son and heir of John Wolcott. of Golden Manor. England. His great-grandfather, Colonel Zebulon Butler, of the family of the Earls of Ormond, commanded the American forces in Wyoming. Valley at the time of the massacre, and succeeded Benedict Arnold in the command of West Point by the designation of Washington.
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