USA > New York > New York City > Leslie's history of the greater New York, Volume III, Pt. 2 > Part 4
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37
PERKINS, CHARLES LAWRENCE, eldest son of the late Charles Lawrence Perkins, who became prominent in the iron business in this city, has been successfully engaged in the iron business in this city since 1879, and is an officer of a number of important corporations. Ile is President of the Southwestern Coal and Iron Company. is Pres- ident of the Silver City and Northern Railroad Company, is a trus- tee of the Bowery Savings Bank, and is a director of the Knicker- bocker Trust Company. the Griffin Wheel Company. and the Illinois Car and Equipment Company. He is Commissary of the First Brigade of the National Guard of this State on the staff of General Louis Fitzgerald, with the rank of Major. During the Brooklyn strike of January. 1895, he was Chief Commissary on both the First and Second Brigades. He is a member of the Union. Racquet, Players', Harvard, Whist, and Balustrode Golf clubs, the Downtown Associa- tion, and the New England Society. He was born in 1857 in Wal- ton-on-Thames, England. and in 1879 was graduated from Harvard. His grandfather, Benjamin Perkins, was Treasurer of the Massa- chusetts Home Missionary Society. His great-great-grandfather, Captain Francis Perkins, was an officer in the Revolution, and a de- scendant of John Perkins, who reached Boston in 1630, and a few years later removed to Ipswich, Mass., where he became prominent. He was born in 1590 in Newent, Gloucestershire. England. and do- scended from Peter Perkins, an officer in the household of Sir Hugh Despenser about 1300.
SPOFFORD, PAUL, was long one of the most eminent merchants of New York City. Born in Massachusetts in 1792, he was junior
394
HISTORY OF THE GREATER NEW YORK.
partner in a business firm of Haverhill for some time prior to 1818, and in the latter year established himself in New York in partnership with Thomas Tileston. Agents for the Boston Packet Line at the outset, gradually they engaged in the West Indian and South Ameri- can trade, became the owners of an extensive fleet, and presently had one of the largest shipping establishments in the city. The facilities of the house enabled it to render signal service to the Federal Government during the Civil War. The firm is also notable as being the first in the United States to successfully apply steam navigation to ocean commerce. Spofford & Tileston were one of the fifteen subscribers of $1,000 each to the Emergency Fund, which Lin- coln privately solicited in February, 1863. Paul Spofford was promi- nently connected with many of the important institutions of the city in his day. He was prominent in the Hone Club, founded by leading business men of the city, and was Treasurer and member of the Council of the University of the City of New York. He married. in 1822, Sarah, daughter of Daniel Spofford and Mary Nelson, grand- daughter of Lieutenant Moody Spofford, great-granddaughter of Colonel Daniel Spofford, and great-great-granddaughter of Captain John Spofford, and by her had a daughter, who died young, and one son, the present Paul Nelson Spofford. Of the four sons and one daughter by his second wife, Susan B., daughter of Rev. Gardiner Spring, two sons still survive-Joseph Louis and Edward Clarence Spofford. Both Paul Spofford and his first wife were lineal descend-
ants of John Spofford, of Rowley, Mass., in 1638; son of Rev. John Spofford, Vicar of Silkeston, Yorkshire, and in line from Gamelbar de Spofford, mentioned in the Domesday Book as having 39 manors in Yorkshire, at the time that he and other Saxon Thanes were dis- possessed by the Conqueror. Gamelbar's father, Gamel, son of Orm, was Lord of Thorp-Arch on the River Wharf, and had a mansion in York, and 134 manors in Yorkshire, Lincoln, Derby, Stafford, Salop. and Chester. (See Burke's " Family Records" for complete line to the Spoffords of New York. )
SPOFFORD, PAUL NELSON, is the son of the late Paul Spofford, one of the most notable New York merchants during the first half of the present century, and in addition to the care of the large estate left by his father, was long actively and successfully engaged in the West India and South American shipping and commission business which his father established. He organized the engineer department in the militia of this State, and was appointed Engineer-in-Chief, with the rank of Brigadier-General, on the staff of Governor John Young. He occupied the same position on the staff of Governor Hamilton Fish also, and was succeeded by the late General James Watson Webb. He is a director of the Ninth Avenue Railroad Company, a member of the Union and Union League clubs, a life member of the American
جية
395
1752952
ENCYCLOPEDIA OF NEW YORK BIOGRAPHY.
Bible Society, and a member of the New York Chamber of Commerce, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the New York Botanical Society, the New York Geographical Society, the New York Historical Society, the Society of Colonial Wars, the Essex In- stitute of Salem, Mass., and the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. He is a bachelor. He is the only son by his father's first wife, Sarah Spofford, and through her traces his ancestry to the same original ancestor in this country as through the paternal line.
COLGATE, JAMES BOORMAN, Vice-President of the Bank of the State of New York, from 1843 to 1852, was head of the wholesale drygoods firm of Colgate & Abbe, of this city; from 1852 to 1873, was associated with the late John B. Trevor, under the style of Trevor & Colgate, as dealers in stocks and other securities on Wall Street, and since 1873 has been head of the firm of James B. Colgate & Com- pany, brokers and bankers. In 1837 his firm added a bullion and specie department to their business and did the largest stock and bul- lion business in the street. Large- ly through the personal influence of Mr. Colgate the old Gold Ex- change was established, and for three years he was its President. In recent years he has attracted atten- tion as one of the most able advo- cates of the free coinage of silver. Ilis devotion to educational inter- ests and Christian philanthropy has been notable. Since reaching the age of twenty-one he has regu- larly contributed to the missionary JAMES BOORMAN COLGATE. and benevolent societies of the Bap- fist denomination. With Mr. Trevor, in 1869, he erected the building of the Warburton Avenue Baptist Church, of Yonkers, N. Y., do- nating it to the congregation. Subsequently he donated a church building for the use of the colored Baptists of Yonkers. His father, the late William Colgate, had in 1841 become one of the incorporators of Madison University, at Hamilton, N. Y. Mr. James B. Colgate was elected to its Board of Trustees in 1861, and since 1864 has been President of the Board. He erected two of its buildings, Colgate Academy and the Colgate Library, and in honor of its late President, Dr. Ebenezer Dodge, in 1891 established the Dodge Memorial Fund of $1,000,000. One-half the annual interest from this fund is paid to the University, the rest being added to the principal. In 1890 the
396
HISTORY OF THE GREATER NEW YORK.
name of this institution was changed to that of Colgate University. He has also liberally contributed to Colby Academy, New London, New Hampshire, Rochester University, Peddie Institute, Columbian College, Washington, D. C .; Rochester Theological Seminary, Cook. Academy, and many needy churches and associations. He was born in New York City, March 4, 1818, his father being the founder of the present well-known manufacturing house of Colgate & Company. of this city, while his grandfather, Robert Colgate, came to this country from Bessels Green, Kent, England, where the family had been seated for many generations. Mr. Colgate married, in 1844, S. Ellen Hoyt, of Utica, N. Y., by whom he had one son, William Hoyt Colgate. She died in 18446. In 1851 he married Susan F., daughter of the late An- thony Colby, who was Governor of New Hampshire. . By this mar- riage he has a daughter and a son, James Colby Colgate.
WEBB, WILLIAM SEWARD, eminent railroad financier and prom- inent socially, is the son of the late General James Watson Webb, and grandson of General Samuel Blachley Webb, of the Revolution. Born in this city, January 31. 1851, he studied under private tutors and at private schools, attended Columbia College for two years. and the New York College of Physicians and Surgeons for two years. being graduated from the latter in 1875, and also devoted two years to post-graduate studies in the medical universities of Vienna. Fol- lowing his marriage. December 20, 1881. to Lila Osgood. daughter of the late William H. Vanderbilt, he became actively interested in the management of the extensive Vanderbilt railroad system. Since 1883 he has been President of the Wagner Palace Car Company. and since 1891 President of the St. Lawrence and Adirondack Railway Company, which he organized. He is Vice-President of the Find- lay. Fort Wayne and Western Railway Company, a director of sev- eral other lines, Trustee of the Colonial Trust Company and the Con- tinental Trust Company. Director of the Lincoln Safe Deposit. Com- pany and the Westcott Express Company. and Secretary of the American Hackney Horse Society. For three years he was President- General of the National Society of the Sons of the American Revolu- tion. He is a scientific breeder of horses, notably the hackney, at his extensive Shelburne Farms Stud in Vermont, and has taken many prizes at the New York horse shows. In 1891 he was appointed In- spector of Rifle Practice, with rank of Colonel. on the staff of the Governor of Vermont. He is a Republican and an Episcopalian. He has traveled abroad. visited Alaska. and made tours of Canada and the United States by special train. He has a daughter and three sons.
DOUGLASS, ANDREW ELLICOTT, who, for thirty-five years, successfully followed a mercantile career in this city, since his retire-
397
ENCYCLOPEDIA OF NEW YORK BIOGRAPHY.
ment has won considerable renown by his studies and original re- search in American archeology. His personal explorations have mainly been on the southern coast of the United States. He has made valuable collections and is the author of monographs and essays. He is a member of the Century and Church clubs, the Scientific Alliance, the Numismatic and Archaeological Society, the Linnaan Society, the Ethnological Society, the Anthropological Society of Washington, the Anthropological Society of Paris, and the American Geographical Society. He married, in 1847, Sarah Cortelyou, daugh- ter of George Lecky Cornell and Isabella W. Sheldon. His only child, Mrs. Charles Boyd Curtis, is President of the Woman's Auxil- iary for Domestic Missions of the Diocese of New York, and Corre- sponding Secretary of the Society of Colonial Dames of New York. Mr. Douglass was born at West Point, November 18, 1819, and was graduated from Kenyon College in 1838. He is great-grandson of David Douglas (about 1715-1765) of Hanover Neck, N. J .; grand- son of Deacon Nathaniel Douglass, of Vanderpoel & Douglass, leather manufacturers, Newark, N. J., and is the son of Major David Bates Douglass, U.S.A., and Ann Eliza, daughter of Professor Andrew Ellicott. His father served through the War of 1812. He was a Yale graduate, and in 1841 was given the degree of LL.D. In 1815 he be- came Assistant Professor of Natural Philosophy at West Point; in 1820 succeeded his father-in-law as Professor of Mathematics; in 1823 became Professor of Engineering, and after resigning from the United States service in 1831, was Professor of Natural Philoso- phy in New York University, and subsequently Professor of Archi- tecture and Engineering; from 1840 to 1844 was President of Kenyon College, and from 184S until his death in 1849 was Professor of Math- ematics in Geneva College. Mr. Douglass's maternal grandfather, Professor Andrew Ellicott, made the surveys for the city of Wash- ington.
STANTON, JOHN, well-known mining engineer and developer of the copper mines of the United States, was one of the founders of the New York Mining Stock Exchange in 1876; was its first President, and has been its Treasurer since 1878. From 1852 to 1861 he was engaged in developing the copper deposits in Virginia, Maryland, and Tennessee. The Confederate Government having confiscated these properties, he turned his attention to the Lake Superior copper region and acquired properties of great value. He also has large interests in Colorado and Arizona. He was long President, Treasurer, and Manager of the Atlantic Mining Company, the Central Mining. Com- pany, the Allonez Mining Company, and the Wolverine Copper Min- ing Company. At the present time he is Secretary and Treasurer of the Atlantic Mining Company, Treasurer of the New York Con- solidated Stock and Petroleum Exchange, and a director of the Amer-
398
HISTORY OF THE GREATER NEW YORK.
ican Coal Company. He is a member of the Union League and other clubs, the American Institute of Mining Engineers, and the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. He was born in Bristol, England. February 21, 1830. His father was also a mining engineer, interested . in extensive collieries in Wales, who came to the United States in 1835, and invested in Pennsylvania coal mines, later acquiring iron mines at Dover, N. J.
SCHLEY, GRANT BARNEY, in 1880 became a member of the New York Stock Exchange, and, with Ernest Groesbeck, organized the firm of Groesbeck & Schley, stock brokers and bankers. The firm was reorganized in 1885 under its present style of Moore & Schley, John G. Moore having become a member. Mr. Schley is a director of the Manhattan Trust Company, the New York Mutual Telegraph Company, the Western Union Beef Company, the Norfolk and South- ern Railroad Company, and the Fort Wayne, Cincinnati and Louis- ville Railway. He is of Dutch de- scent, and was born in Chapinsville. N. Y., February 25, 1845, the son of Evander Schley, a merchant, How retired, of Canandaigua, N. Y. Having attended the Canandaigua Academy, at sixteen years of age Mr. Schley entered the express office of Wells, Butterfield & Com- pany, of Syracuse, N. Y. A little later the firm transferred him to their office at Suspension Bridge. GRANT BARNEY SCHLEY. When the consolidation was effected with the American Express Com- pany he was transferred to the New York City office of the latter cor- poration, being placed in charge of the Money-order Department. This occurred in 1870. Four years later he resigned to accept a posi- tion with the First National Bank of New York City, with which insti- . tution he remained for six years. During the latter part of this period he was in charge of the Foreign Exchange Department of the bank.
ADAMS. . EDWARD DEAN, a member of the banking firm of Winslow, Lanier & Company from 1878 to 1893, has achieved remark- able success in reorganizing embarrassed corporations. At the pres-
-
سط حية عنا - مهورالقصيرة
-
399
ENCYCLOPEDIA OF NEW YORK BIOGRAPHY.
ent time he is President of the Cataract Construction Company, Presi- dent of the Niagara Development Company, President of the Niagara Junction Railway Company, Vice-President of the Central and South American Telegraph Company, Chairman of the Executive Committee and President of the Chicago Terminal Transfer Railroad Company, a member of the Executive Committee of the Northern Pacific Railway Company and subsidiary companies, the West Shore Railroad Com- pany, the Northern Pacific Express Company, and a director of the Mer- cantile Trust Company, the New Jersey General Security Company, and the American Cotton Oil Company. He organized the Northern Pacific Terminal Company in 1882, and became its President; in 1883 organized the St. Paul and Northern Pacific Railway Company, becom- ing its Vice-President, and in 1885 organized the New Jersey Junction Railroad Company, constructed its lines, and leased them to the New York Central. In 1885 he also accomplished the delicate operation of a reorganization of the New York, West Shore and Buffalo Rail- road, the New York, Ontario and Western, and the West Shore and Ontario Terminal Company. He was Chairman of the Finance Com- mittee of the Central Railroad of New Jersey during its reorganiza- tion in 1887. In 1888 he was active in floating the bond issue of the Philadelphia and Reading, while in 1890 he reorganized the American Cotton Oil Company. As the representative of the German bond- holders he was Chairman of the Reorganization Committee of the Northern Pacific Railway Company in 1893. The son of Adoniram Judson Adams, of Boston, he was born in that city April 9, 1846, and in 1864 was graduated from Norwich University, Vermont. After spending two years abroad, from 1866 to 1869 he was in the employ of a Boston firm of bankers and brokers. From 1870 to 1878 he was a member of the Boston banking house of Richardson, Hill & Company, which he helped to organize. In 1878 he removed to this city, enter- ing the firm of Winslow, Lanier & Company as a senior partner. He is a trustee of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, a member of the Met- ropolitan, Tuxedo, Union League, and other clubs. He was married, in 1872, to Fannie A., daughter of William E. Gutterson, of Boston, and has a son and a daughter. The son, Ernest Kempton, has been graduated from Yale and Columbia.
GRISCOM, CLEMENT ACTON. JR., Manager of the International Navigation Company, owners of the American and Red Star Line of ocean steamers, has been a resident of New York City since engaging in business. He is President of the James Reilly Repair and Supply Company, is a trustee of the Sailors' Rest in the City of New York. and is a director of the Maritime Association of the Port of New York. He married, in 1889. Genevieve, daughter of Colonel Will- iam Ludlow, Engineer Corps. United States Navy, and is a member of the Metropolitan and Lawyers' clubs of New York, and the Uni-
400
HISTORY OF THE GREATER NEW YORK.
versity Club of Philadelphia. He is the son of Clement Acton Gris- com, of Philadelphia, well-known shipping merchant, and President of the International Navigation Company, and is of old and dis- tinguished Philadelphia ancestry.
DURANT, WILLIAM WEST, is largely interested in railroads and real estate in the Adirondack region, and is well known for his in- terest in yachting. He is a member of the Metropolitan, New York Yacht, Seawanhaka-Corinthian Yacht, Larchmont Yacht, and East- ern Yacht clubs. Born in Brooklyn, N. Y., November 23, 1850, he is the son of the late Thomas Clark Durant, well-known railroad finan- cier and President, and his wife, Heloise Hannah Timbrel, of Eng- land, who still survives. His great-grandfather, Thomas Durant, was a Revolutionary soldier, as was the latter's father-in-law, William Clark, a descendant of Thomas Clark, of the Mayflower. His great- great-grandfather, Edward Durant, of Newton, Mass., was graduated from Harvard in 1735; was Moderator of twenty-six town meetings; was Chairman of the Committee of Correspondence in 1774; was a member of the Provincial Congresses of 1775 and 1776, and married a daughter of Captain John Jackson. Mr. Durant descends from George Durant, of Malden, Mass., and Middletown and Lyme; Conn., who is thought to have been grandson of Mayor Richard Durant, of Bodmin, Cornwall, England.
CHAUNCEY, ELIHU, is the son of the late Nathaniel Chauncey, of Philadelphia, and Elizabeth Sewall, daughter of Samnel Salisbury. of Boston. His father was a graduate of Yale and a member of the Philadelphia Bar, while his uncle, the late Elihu Chauncey, was one of the most eminent citizens of Philadelphia, editor of the North American Gazette, President of the Reading Railroad, and connected with the Bank of the United States and the Bank of Pennsylvania. Another uncle, the late Charles Chauncey, was prominent at the Philadelphia bar, a member of the Common Council, and of the Consti- tutional Convention of 1827. Mr. Chauncey's grandfather, Charles Chauncey, LL.D., of New Haven, Conn., was King's Attorney in 1776 and Judge of the Superior Court in 1789. The founder of the family in this country, Rev. Charles Chauncey, was a graduate of Trinity Col- · lege, Cambridge, was among the early arrivals in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, and was the second President of Harvard College. Mr. Chauncey was born in Philadelphia, August 17, 1840, was graduated from Harvard, and has long been a resident of this city. He married, in 1871, Mary Jane, daughter of Rt. Rev. Horatio Potter, Bishop of New York, and has a daughter. He is a member of the Century Association, the University, Grolier, and Harvard clubs, the Society of Colonial Wars, and the New York Historical Society.
.
401
ENCYCLOPEDIA OF NEW YORK BIOGRAPHY.
WEBB, WILLIAM HENRY, upon the death of his father, the late Isaac Webb, of New York City, succeeded, in April, 1840, to the large shipbuilding business which his father had established and long conducted under the firm styles of Isaac Webb & Company and Webb & Allen. The latter style was continued down to the retirement of Mir. Allen from the business in 1813, when the entire establishment passed under the control of Mr. Webb, so remaining until he retired from active business at the close of the year 1872. During this period he built more than one hundred and fifty vessels. He built packets and steamships for service to London, Liverpool, and Havre; built the first steamships running between New York and Savannah; the first large steamer for the New Orleans trade; the first steamer for the Pacific Mail Steamship Company, carrying the United States mails between Panama and San Fran-
cisco; the first steamer entering the " Golden Gate," and the first three steamers carrying the United States mail from New York to China by way of Aspinwall, Pana- ma, and San Francisco. The screw frigate, General Admiral, seventy- two guns, built by him for the Russian Government, and launched in September, 1858, proved to be the fastest vessel of war which up lo that time had been built. Two iron screw frigates which he built for the Italian Government during the early years of the Civil War were the first ironclads built in the United States. He built the Dun- derburg, under contract with WILLIAM HENRY WEBB. the United States Government for a screw ram modeled after his own plans, of large tonnage, the heav- iest armament, with unexampled speed and the best seagoing quali- ties. The Civil War closing before its completion, he obtained a re- lease by Act of Congress and sold the vessel to Napoleon III. He established an independent line of steamers between New York and San Francisco; in 1868 established a line in the European trade, and sent the first American passenger steamer into the Baltic. He helped organize the Pacific Mail Steamship Company, and is the only sur- vivor of its original board of directors. He was one of the largest stockholders of the Panama Railroad prior to 1872. He established a line of mail steamers between San Francisco and Japan, by way of Honolulu and the Pacific Islands. He was not merely a shipbuilder, but contributed to the science of naval architecture, originating and design-
402
HISTORY OF THE GREATER NEW YORK.
ing plans and models, and introducing radical departures in con- struction, which revolutionized the merchant and naval marine. Three times he declined the nomination as Mayor of New York City. For fourteen years he was President of the Council of Political Re- form. He championed the cause of pure water for New York, and labored nearly five years before the State Legislature to accomplish the overthrow of the Aqueduct Commission, which opposed this reform. winning a signal victory. At a cost of half a million dollars he estab- lished and endowed the Webb Academy and Home for Shipbuilders in Fordham. He is now a trustee of the Central Trust Company and the Atlantic Mutual Insurance Company, and a director of the Pennsylvania Coal Company, the Third Avenue Railroad, and the Forty-second Street, Manhattanville and St. Nicholas Avenue Rail- way. He is a member of the Union League, City, and Republican clubs, and the New England Society. He was born in New York City, June 19, 1816. His paternal ancestors came from England, set- tling in Connecticut long prior to the Revolution. His mother's an- cestors, of French Huguenot and Scotch descent, were settled in New York in early colonial days.
BULKLEY, JUSTUS LAWRENCE, prominent leather importing merchant of New York City, where he has been engaged in this line for more than thirty-five years, is the son of the late Joseph Edmund Bulkley, who was also one of the leading leather merchants of New York. The present Mr. Bulkley was born in this city in 1840. His mother was of the well-known Lawrence family of Long Island, while through his father he is eighth in descent from Rev. Peter Bulkley. who was born in 1583 in Woodhill, Bedfordshire, England; was gradu- ated from St. John's College, Cambridge, and having come under the ban with Archbishop Laud after occupying the living at Odell for more than twenty years, in 1634 came to Cambridge, Mass., and was long pastor of the Church of Concord, of which place he was one of the founders. Rev. Peter Bulkley was ninth in descent from Baron Rob- ert Bulkley, Lord of the Manor of Bulkley in the County Palatine of Chester. In 1871, Mr. Bulkley married Laura E. Caldwell. and has two daughters and a son-Joseph E. Bulkley. The latter graduates from Yale in 1899. Mr. Bulkley is a member of the Union, Metropolitan. Riding, and Adirondack League clubs, the Holland Society, and the New England Society.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.