USA > New York > New York City > Leslie's history of the greater New York, Volume III, Pt. 2 > Part 27
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WESTERVELT, WALTER, has been Cashier of the Mutual Bank of Manhattan Borough since its organization, in June, 1890. He is its practical executive manager. He was born in New Jersey, in April. 1844, and is the son of Garret J. Westervelt and his wife, Harriet. The ancestors, established for many generations in this country, came originally from Holland. His father was a farmer. Mr. Westervelt was educated in Trenton, N. J., and became a bookkeeper. He is a Connaissioner of Appeals. He was married, in February, 1871, to Lizzie Auryansen, and has three children-Harriet, Tillie, and D. Spencer Westervelt. He resides in Englewood, N. J.
BISSELL, JOHN NEWTON, was born in Grenville County, Onta- rio, Canada, July 1, 1862, his father being a farmer; attended the common schools at Algonquin, Ontario, and the college and normal school, at Athens, Ontario, and, in 1883, came to New York and en- gaged with the Municipal Electric Light Company of Brooklyn. Since 1890 he has been Secretary and General Manager of this corporation. He was one of the original stockholders of the Kings County Trust Company, and is a stockholder and Secretary of the Newtown Light and Power Company. He is a member of the Hanover Club of Brooklyn, the Royal Arcanum, and of various Masonic orders. He is the son of Artemas Bissell and Mary, daughter of Michael Wright, a relative of Governor Silas Wright, of New York. His paternal great- grandparents were Connecticut loyalists, who removed to Canada at the time of the Revolution.
SELIGMAN, JOSEPH, was the head of the banking house of Sel- igman Brothers from its organization in 1861 until his death, in April, 1880, and was the eldest of the eight remarkable brothers who eventually constituted the firm, the others being Jesse, William, Abraham, Leopold, Isaac, James, and Henry. Of these, Joseph, Jesse, and James resided in this city, and directed the general policy of the house; Leopold and Isaac were at the head of the London house; William presided over the house in Paris, while Abraham and Hemy directed the house at Frankfort. Branch houses were also established at Amsterdam, San Francisco, and New Orleans, and intimate con- nections were made with leading banking firms of South America and the West Indies. Born in Baiesdorf, Bavaria, in 1823. Joseph was also the first of the brothers to come to America, arriving at New York in 1838. He found employment with the late Judge Asa Packer, of Pennsylvania, soon became, his Private Secretary, and presently was made Cashier of the bank at Nesquehoning, Pa., con- trolled by Judge Packer. In 1841 he engaged in the clothing business in Alabama, and at the end of seven years established himself in the same line on Church Street in this city. He had meantime induced
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several of his brothers to come to America, and all eventually united their energies in the business. Having accumulated large fortunes, the banking house was established in 1861. Like each of the other brothers, Joseph had the advantage of a good education, which the comfortable circumstances of the parents had enabled them to be- stow.
SELIGMAN, JESSE, in April, 1880, succeeded his brother Joseph as head of the famous banking house of Seligman Brothers, and so continued until his own death. IIe was a di- rector of the Bank of New Amsterdam and many other important corporations. A promi- nent member of the Temple Emanu-El on Fifth Avenue, and Pres- ident of the Hebrew Orphan Asylum, he was a liberal supporter of . benevolent organi- zations and public proj- ects irrespective of creed or nationality. He was a trusted ad- viser of Secretary Sher- man in the refunding measures of 1879, and his firm took $20,000,- 000 of the $150,000,000 of bonds then placed upon the market. He was largely interested in the Southern Rail- road system extending through the Southwest JESSE SELIGMAN. to Mexico. Born in Baiesdorf, Bavaria, in 1825, well educated, and following his brother Joseph to this country in 1840. he was engaged in the clothing business in California and New York prior to the establishment of the banking house in 1861. Of his three sons, the second, Henry, succeeded him. The eldest, Theodore, studied law after his graduation from Harvard, and is in practice in this city. The third, Albert, having been gradu- ated from the Troy Polytechnic Institute, studied mining and engi- neering in Saxony.
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SELIGMAN, ISAAC N., head of the banking house of Seligman Brothers, is a member of the Advisory Committee of the Audit Com- pany, and a director of the Western New York and Pennsylvania Railway Company, the St. Louis and San Francisco Railroad Com- pany, the North Shore Traction Company, the Western Gas Company, and the City and Suburban Homes Company. Born on Staten Island, N. Y., July 10, 1856, he is the son of the late Joseph W. Seligman. founder of the banking firm and its head until his death in 1880. He attended the Columbia College Grammar School and was graduated with honors from Columbia College in 1876, having been President of his class. He was also a member of the famous Columbia erew, which in 1874 vanquished Harvard, Yale, and nine other colleges on Saratoga Lake. In 1877 and 1878 he was connected with the New Orleans branch of the Seligman house, and in 1879 entered the New York firm. He was for some years associated with his uncle, Jesse, in the management of its affairs, and since his death has been head of the house. He was appointed by President Seth Low one of a committee to raise funds for new college grounds for Columbia. He is a member of the Lotos, University Athletic, and other clubs, and was formerly a member of the Union League. For some years he was President of the Columbia College Boat Club. In 1883 he was married to Guta, daughter of Solomon Loeb, of the banking firm of Kuhn, Loeb & Company.
SELIGMAN, HENRY, second son of the late Jesse Seligman, became his successor in the banking house of Seligman Broth- ers. He has displayed much of the conservative financial ability which characterized his father. He is President of the Standard Air Brake Company, and a director of William Cramp & Sons Ship and Engine Building Company, the Welsbach Commercial Company, the United Smelting and Refining Company, the Helena and Livingston Smelting and Reduction Company, the Kings County Traction Com- pany, the Atlantic Avenue Railroad Company, the Citizens' Gas Company, the Buffalo City Gas Company, the Buffalo Gas Light Company, the Buffalo Mutual Gas Light Company, and the Syracuse Gas Company.
BISHOP, GEORGE STARR, was born in New London, Conn .. May 1, 1832, the son of Gordon Tracy Bishop and Harriet Kimball. He attended the public schools, subsequently becoming clerk in a large retail store. At the age of eighteen he came to New York City and became bookkeeper in a wholesale grocery establishment. Subse- quently, for fourteen years, he was Accountant in the East River Sav- ings Bank of New York City. He organized the German Savings Bank of Brooklyn in 1866, and has been its Cashier since that date. For sixteen years he was Treasurer of the American Legion of Honor, and
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for seventeen years was Treasurer of the Knights of Honor. He mar- ried, in 1856, Mary C. Serris, of Edgarstown, Mass. She is now dead, as are three of their five children. Those living are Georgiana Hen- rietta and Elmer Hamilton. In 1881, Mr. Bishop married Gertrude A. Zoerrey.
WHEELER, CHARLES EMERY, attended the public schools of Brooklyn and a business college, at thirteen years of age entered the wholesale drygoods establishment of Bradley & Smith, of New York City, and, at the age of sixteen, entered the employ of the lumber firm of Johnson & Spader, of Brooklyn. This business was subsequently closed up, when he entered the employ of the Mechanics: Bank of Brooklyn. Having held nearly all the lower positions, for more than five years he has been Cashier of this institution. He served as one of the commissioners of the Tennessee Centennial Exhibition. He be- longs to the Congregational Club of Brooklyn and other organizations. He was born in Buffalo, N. Y., November 18, 1848, and is the son of William Wheeler and Evelyn A., daughter of Stephen Williamson.
RICHMOND, DEAN, was born in Barnard, Vt., March 31. 1801. and died in New York City, at the home of the late Samuel J. Tilden, August 27, 1866. His father, Hathaway Richmond, was born at Taunton, Mass., where his ances- tors were long seated. Hathaway Richmond removed with his family from Vermont to Salina, N. Y., in 1812, and engaged in salt manu- facture. Business reverses over- taking him. he went south, and died at Mobile, Ala. At fifteen years of age, Dean Richmond took charge of his father's business as a salt manufacturer, and at once became successful. Before he was twenty-one years of age he was a director in a Syracuse bank. In 1842 he established himself in busi- ness at Buffalo as a shipper and dealer in Western produce. He DEAN RICHMOND, made his residence at Attica, N. Y., however, and subsequently at Batavia, N. Y., where his daugh- ter, Mrs. A. R. Kenney, now resides. At Buffalo he built up an ex- tensive business, also becoming interested in railroad enterprises. He was one of the organizers of the New York Central Railroad Company by the consolidation of seven corporations, and was chiefly instru-
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mental in securing the passage by the Legislature of the act consum- mating this achievement. He was Vice-President of the new corpo- ration from its organization in 1853 until 1864, and was President of the New York Central from 1864 until his death two years later. He was long a leader of the Democratic party in this State, and for several years was Chairman of the Democratic State Committee. He refused to permit the consideration of his name as Democratic candidate for the Presidency of the United States in 1864.
CORWIN, FRANKLIN HOWARD, born in Orient, Suffolk County, N. Y., March 16, 1852, and educated in the public schools of that place, for twenty-seven years has been in charge of the shipping department of the Lalance & Grosjean Manufacturing Company, at Woodhaven, N. Y. He is proprietor of the Franklin HI. Corwin Insurance. Agency, the largest in Woodhaven, and is President of the Columbia Building and Loan Association of Brooklyn and Woodhaven. He is Vice-Pres- ident of the Jamaica Electric Light Company, and was one of the founders and is Vice-President of the Woodhaven Bank. He is also a director of the Suburban Electric Light Company and the Jamaica Ice and Cold Storage Company. He was Treasurer of School District No. 7, of the town of Jamaica, from 1890 until it became a part of the City of New York. For fifteen years he has been Superintendent of the Congregational Sunday-school at Woodhaven. He married Almira B. Jones, and has had five children, of whom two sons and two daughters are now living. He is himself the son of William G. Corwin and Elizabeth R., daughter of Peter Brown; is the grandson of John Corwin, and the great-grandson of John Corwin.
ISELIN. ADRIAN, many years ago was in partnership with his brother. William Iselin, in one of the most successful importing businesses in this city during the middle period of the present cen- tury. Subsequently he established the banking house of Adrian Iselin & Co., and was long its head, but retired from active business in 1883. He is a trustee of the Bank for Savings, and a director of the Metropolitan Opera and Real Estate Company. Born in New York City, he is the son of the late Isaac Iselin, member of the New York mercan- tile firm of De Rham, Iselin & Moore, and his wife, a daughter of the junior partner of the New York firm of Rossier & Roulet. Adrian Iselin married. in 1845, Eleanora, daughter of Columbus O'Donnell. of Baltimore, a prominent financier and railroad executive, and has three daughters, one of whom is Mrs. Delancey Astor Kane, and four sons-Adrian Iselin. Jr., banker; William E. Iselin, wholesale dry- goods merchant, Columbus O'Donnell Iselin, banker, and C. Oliver Iselin. prominent yachtsman.
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ISELIN, ADRIAN, JR., in 1883 succeeded bis father. Adrian Iselin, as head of the banking house of Adrian Iselin & Company, and is prominently connected with many notable corporations. He is Vice- President of the Guarantee Trust Company, Vice-President of the Buffalo, Rochester and Pittsburg Railway Company, Treasurer of the Clearfield and Mahoning Railway, Secretary and a trustee of the Manhattan Storage and Warehouse Company. a trustee of the Cen- tral Trust Company and the Mutual Life Insurance Company, and a director of the Sixth National Bank, the Gallatin National Bank. the Fifth Avenue Trust Company, the City and Suburban Homes Com- pany, the Jefferson and Clearfield Coal and Iron Company, the North British and Mercantile Insurance Company, the Mobile and Ohio Railroad Company, and the Reynoldsville and Fall Creek Railroad Company. He is a member of the Union, Metropolitan. Knicker- bocker, Century. Country. Riding. Catholic, New York Yacht, and Larchmont Yacht clubs, and the Downtown Association.
ROCKWELL, WILLIAM B., President of the Staten Island Rail- road Company, as well as its General Manager, was born in New York City, January 19, 1858. Hle is the son of Henty B. Rockwell and Anna M., daughter of Elisha Bishop, a soldier in the. War of 1812. Ilis grandfather was Ezra Rockwell, and his great-grand- father Jabez Rockwell. On both sides his ancestors were among the early settlers of Danbury, Conn., while there are strains on each side which enable him to trace descent from the original " Pilgrim fathers" who came over in the Mayflower. Mr. Rockwell received his education in the public schools and the Polytechnic Insti- tute of Brooklyn. Between 1879 and 1884 he was engaged in busi- ness at Scranton, Pa., in the con- duct of a planing-mill and lum- ber yard. From 1884 to 1890 his WILLIAM B. ROCKWELL. connection was with electric lighting, while in the interest of the General Electric Company and other corporations he traveled in every section of the United States. Since 1890 he has been active in con- nection with electric railroads. The road of which he is now Prosi- dent is the fourth line built by him. For eighteen years consecutively Mr. Rockwell was in the service of the National Guard of the State
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of Pennsylvania, having enlisted during the riots of August, 1877. He rose from the ranks to the position of Captain of Company II, Thirteenth Regiment, National Guard of Pennsylvania, and held this commission for seven years.
PACKARD, SILAS SADLER, stood at the head of the educators who prepare students for a practical business careor in the United States and Europe. The son of Chester Packard, grandson of Abel Packard, and lincally descended from Samuel Packard, of Windham, England, who settled in Hingham, Mass., in 1638, he was born in Cum- mington, Mass., April 28, 1826. In 1833 his father removed to Fre- donia, Licking County, Ohio. The son attended the district schools and Granville Academy, and, at the age of sixteen, began to teach penmanship. In 1845 he traveled in Kentucky as a teacher and por- trait painter. From 1848 to 1850 he taught penmanship in Bart- lett's Commercial College, Cincin- nati, taught for one year at Adrian, Mich., and from 1851 to 1853 was instructor in penman- ship, bookkeeping, and drawing in the Union School at Lockport, N. Y. From 1853 to 1856 he was editor and proprietor of the Niagara Rirer Pilot, at Tona- wanda, N. Y. In 1856 he became associated with the Bryant Stratton Business College of Buf- SILAS S. PACKARD, falo; while subsequently, with Mr. Stratton, he established the similar institution in Chicago. In January, 1857, he established the Bryant & Stratton College at Albany. In May, 1858, he opened the Bryant, Stratton & Packard College in New York City. Purchasing the interest of his partners in 1867, the institution became known as Packard's Business College. Mr. Packard at one time published a monthly, the American Merchant, in connection with the college in this city, and from 1868 to 1870 edited and published Packard's Monthly. Ile died at his home in New York City, October 27, 1898.
HAGEDORN, HERMANN C., born in Galveston, Texas, October 24, 1843, is the son of Alexander and Friederike Hagedorn, of Bremen, Germany, and was educated at a Latin and commercial school of Bremen. From 1859 to 1863 he served an apprenticeship in a Bremen
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transportation and shipping house, while from 1863 to 1866 he was in a commission house at Rotterdam. In the latter year he came to America, and accepted a business position, but in 1867 tried farm- ing in Virginia. Returning to New York in 1873, during the next twenty years he held a position in a commission house. Since 1877 he has also attended to the affairs of the Staten Island Savings Bank. He has been cashier of this institution since 1881, while, since 1893, he has assumed entire charge of its business, resigning his New York position. He is a member of the Deutscher Verein of Staten Island.
HARRINGTON, BRAINERD TIMOTHY, has been connected . since 1852 with the Harrington Boarding School for Boys, at Throgg's Neck, Westchester County, N. Y., and, since 1861, has been its' Prin- cipal, succeeding to that position upon the death of his brother, Thomas Ballard Harrington, who founded the school in 1849. He was born in Heath, Franklin County, Mass., June 1, 1826, the son of Timothy Ballard Harrington and Jane Mills, daughter of James Wil- son, a Revolutionary soldier. His grandparents were Thomas Har- rington and Rebecca Ballard. His great-grandfather, Rev. Timothy Harrington, was born in Cambridge, Mass., was graduated from Har- vard College in 1737; entered the ministry, and settled at Swanzey, N. H .; was driven out by Indians in 1747, and was pastor of the church at Lancaster, Mass, from 1748 until his death in 1795. He married Anna, daughter of Robert Harrington, of Lexington, Mass. Rev. Timothy Harrington was, in turn, the son of Thomas Harrington and Abigail Rice, of Watertown and Cambridge, Mass .; the grandson of Thomas Harrington and Widow Rebecca White, daughter of Deacon John Bemis, of Watertown, and great-grandson of Robert Harring- ton, who was born in England in 1616, in 1634 emigrated to Water- town, Mass., married Susanna George in 1648, and died at Watertown in 1707. Mr. Harrington received his early education in the public and private schools of his native place, which at that time afforded educational advantages in advance of the average found in New Eng- land towns. He began his career as a teacher in the public schools in his eighteenth year, teaching during the winter, and the rest of the year attending Williston Seminary, Easthampton, Mass, and subse- quently Amherst Academy, Amherst. Mass. He entered Amherst College in 1848, was graduated from that institution in 1852, and in 1855 received from it the degree of Master of Arts. Ilis activity as principal and business manager of the school over which he has so long presided has not prevented him from taking an active interest in local affairs. He has always been a Republican, and was for many years President of the Republican organizations in the old town of Westchester. He was a vestryman of St. Peter's Church, Westches- ter, by continuous re-elections, from 1866 to 1880, and, since the latter date, has been Warden continuously to the present time. He married,
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October 15, 1857, Abby Lucretia, daughter of Colonel Timothy Sulli- van Taft, of Boston, Mass., and has two daughters and a son-Thomas Henry Harrington. The latter was born in 1866, and in 1889 was graduated from Columbia University, School of Mines.
WARTH, ALBIN, was born at Kuppenheim, Baden, April 6, 1821, of which city his father, Hon. Peter Warth, a successful cabi- netmaker and builder, was Burgermeister. The latter erected the Congress House at Karlsruh, together with many other large build- ings. Albin Warth received a thorough education in the schools of Kuppenheim, afterward serving his apprenticeship as a locksmith, and then working at his trade in various cities, according to the cus- tom. In the service of Baron Von Drasin, he produced a form of the
tricycle, which became known as the Drasine, after the Baron. He also worked in Munich for a while, subsequently going to Leipsic, where, in 1845, he established, in partnership with Louis Vogt, a large factory for the manufacture of weighing-machines, or scales. Hle participated in the attempted revolution of 1848, and was the man who defended Robert Blum, the statesman, from insults at the Peters Church at Leipsic. He also participated in the demonstration at Dresden, after which, disguised as a student, he escaped to Eisen- ach. Here he found Oswald Ottendorfer, who had similarly ALBIN WARTH. made himself an outlaw. They were denounced in the news- papers, and, closely pursued by the authorities, with difficulty made their way into Hessen, and thence to Baden. Mr. Warth went to Zurich, Switzerland, where he established himself in the maunfacture of scales. ITere he remained for fourteen months. His business was presently penalized, and he came to America, working as a mechanic in Newark, N. J. In 1834 he completed a self-acting lathe for turning all regular forms of wood. It revolutionized the industry for which it was designed, inaugurating the era of cheap furniture. Patents were taken out in 1854 in the United States, England. and France. Mr. Warth took out no less than one hundred and fifty patents. He invented and sold to the Fabers several important labor-saving ma- chines for shaping the woodwork in lead-pencil manufacture. When the question of the export of petroleum in 1860 gave the prospect of a
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new American industry, he devised the locked can, for transportation without ruinous waste. He invented and sold to Louis Dejonge a machine which has been since used in dyeing paper. He patented' many improvements in connection with the sewing-machine. He con- trived the first patent fire-escape, and invented a rotary pump, without valves, which throws out sand and dirt without clogging. The most notable of all, from a commercial point of view, was his clothing-cut- ting machine, which established his reputation in Europe as well as in America. It was first patented in 1870. In 1856, he established at Stapleton, S. L., the works for the manufacture of his various machines, which are now conducted by his sons. He also made Stapleton his residence from that year until his death, May 7, 1892. He was an old member of the Society Erheiterung of Staten Island, while for twenty-six years he was a member of the Staten Island Quartet Club. In 1852, he married Miss Apollonia Geier, a native of Tauberbishops- heim, and a niece of Rev. Stein, who played a prominent part in the Badishe Revolution. Mrs. Warth survives her husband, with their three sons and two daughters. The sons, Henry Warth, Peter Albin Warth, and Charles F. Warth, became in turn associated with their father in the manufacturing business, and succeeded him in its con- · duct. The two daughters -- Mary Louise and Gertrude -- are now married, the former being Mrs. F. Zeyhle, of Brooklyn, and the latter Mrs. Oscar Bock, of Freiwaldan, Oesterreich, Austria. Mr. Warth exhibited a number of his machines at the Vienna Exposition in 1873, winning medals as elsewhere-at New York and St. Louis prior to this, and at the Centennial Exposition at Philadelphia in 1876. He also delivered an address before the Vienna Congress on Patent Laws, con- vened at this time.
HOFFMAN, WILLIAM MITCHELL VAIL, son of the late Rev. Charles Frederick Hoffman, D.D., was born at Garrison, N. Y., April 24, 1862, attended the New York Latin School, and, in 1884, was grad- uated from Columbia College. The same year he went into the real estate business with his brother, Charles Frederick Hoffman, Jr., and rapidly built up a large business in the sale of downtown property. HIe also took charge of estates, and conducted many of the largest sales and exchanges of property during the fifteen years he was a mem- ber of the firm of Hoffman Brothers. Subsequently giving up the real estate brokerage business, he became a large operator in the buying and selling of real estate on his own account. Upon the death of his father, in 1898, he retired from active business. He is President of the Society for the Promotion of the Interests of Church Schools, Col- leges, and Seminaries; is a director of the North River Fire Insurance Company, and the New York Institution for the Deaf and Dumb, and is a trustee of Hobart College, at Geneva, N. Y. He is a member of
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