USA > New York > New York State's prominent and progressive men : an encyclopaedia of contemporaneous biography, Volume I > Part 13
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JAMES BEN ALI HAGGIN
gin's engagement to marry her was announced, though she was little more than one third his age.
The marriage took place at the home of Miss Voorhies's step- father, at Versailles, Kentucky, on the afternoon of December 30, 1897. The couple came on to New York that evening, in Mr. Haggin's private railroad car, and have since made their home in New York city.
Mr. Haggin has taken no part in politics, though his oppor- tunities to do so have been many. He is a favorite figure in society, and a welcome associate in the clubs of which he is a member. Chief among these are the Union and the Manhattan clubs of New York.
N. WETMORE HALSEY
F OR three generations the paternal ancestors of N. Wetmore Halsey were natives of New York city. His great-grand- father, Jabez Halsey, was a silversmith, with his home and shop on Liberty Street. 'His grandfather, Anthony P. Halsey, is well remembered from his lifelong connection with the Bank of New York, of which he was president for the last twelve years of his life. Mr. Halsey's father, Seton Halsey, left New York and went West to engage in farming. The family was founded in America by Thomas Halsey, who came hither from Great Gaddesden, thirty miles north of London, England. The manor-house there in which he was born has been owned and occupied by the Hal- seys since 1570, and is now the residence of Thomas Frederick Halsey, M. P. Thomas Halsey came to America in 1637, and settled at Salem, Massachusetts, whence he removed in 1641 to Southampton, Long Island, New York.
Seton Halsey married Miss Frances Dean, a native of the cen- tral part of New York State, and a descendant of the Andrus and Brudner families. To them was born, at Forreston, Ogle County, Illinois, on December 24, 1856, the subject of this sketch.
Mr. Halsey's boyhood was spent upon his father's farm, where he did the work incident to farming in Illinois at that date. He was, however, sent to school and carefully educated. From the local schools he went to Beloit College, in Wisconsin, for three years. He did not complete his course there, and accordingly received no degree. Thence he went to the Union College of Law, in Chicago, and was there graduated.
His first business enterprises were in the rural part of the State of Illinois, where he was, from 1880 to 1884, a country
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lawyer and editor of a country newspaper. In 1884 he removed to Chicago, and there for two years was engaged in general law practice as a member of the firm of French & Halsey. From 1886 to 1891 he was attorney for and employee of the firm of N. W. Harris & Co., bankers of Chicago. Since 1891 he has been a member of that firm, and has been its resident partner in New York city. He enjoys a considerable reputation in New York, Chicago, Boston, and, indeed, throughout the United States, as a bond expert and writer, and as a participant in important bond negotiations.
Mr. Halsey has an interest in various companies and large properties, though he is not an officer of any of them.
Mr. Halsey is connected with numerous clubs and other so- cial organizations in New York, Chicago, and elsewhere. Among these are the Lawyers' Club, the New England Society, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York; the New Eng- land Society, the Riding and Driving Club, and the Essex County Country Club of Orange, New Jersey; the Field Club of South Orange, New Jersey; the Chicago Law Institute of Chicago; and the college fraternity of Phi Beta Phi.
He was married in Chicago, on October 20, 1885, to Miss Mar- garet Hitt of the well-known Hitt family of Illinois, a relative of many prominent Illinois public men. Her ancestors on the paternal side were originally settled in Virginia and Maryland, whence they removed to Illinois and colonized a portion of Ogle County, in 1835, and have been identified with the development of the State, and furnished a number of distinguished public men.
Three children have been born to Mr. and Mrs. Halsey, named respectively Frances, Ralph W., and Helen. The family spends portions of every summer at " Halsey Farm," Forreston, Illinois, one hundred miles west of Chicago, an estate of five hundred acres in the richest part of the State.
OLIVER HARRIMAN, JR.
THE name of Harriman has for many years been known and honored in the commercial life of New York. It is borne by Oliver Harriman, formerly of the important firm of Low, Harriman & Co. of Worth Street, but now retired. Mr. Harri- man was also, during his active business career, a director of numerous financial institutions, with some of which, indeed, he is still identified. He ranked for a long time among the fore- most merchants of the metropolis. He married Miss Laura Low, a member of the family of his partner, and the bearer of a name known and honored in New York for many generations.
Oliver Harriman, Jr., the son of this couple, was born in New York on November 29, 1862, and received a careful education in primary and secondary schools. Finally he entered Princeton University, and there pursued with credit the regular academic course. He was prominent in college social life as a member of the Ivy Club and a leader in athletic sports, in which he per- sonally excelled. He was, moreover, a good student, and was duly and honorably graduated in the class of 1883.
His inclinations for business led Mr. Harriman not so much toward the mercantile pursuits of his father's firm as toward purely financial operations. Accordingly, on leaving college, he went into the financial center of the city and entered the employ of the well-known firm of Winslow, Lanier & Co., bankers. There he remained for five years, serving in various capacities and being promoted from rank to rank. In that excellent school of sound finance he learned the business of banking in a thor- ough and practical manner, and prepared himself to engage therein successfully on his own account.
The latter step was taken on January 1, 1888. On that date
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Mr. Harriman, being only a little past twenty-five years of age, opened the offices of his own firm of Harriman & Co., bankers and brokers. In the conduct of that business his natural abili- ties and aptitude, and the admirable training of the preceding five years, assured him a gratifying measure of success. His firm has enjoyed much prosperity, and has established itself in an honorable rank among the many other houses in the same line of business with which the Wall Street region of New York is thronged. Mr. Harriman has also become interested in vari- ous other enterprises, and is a trustee of the Continental Trust Company.
Mr. Harriman has taken a good citizen's interest in the welfare of the city, State, and nation. He has not, however, made him- self conspicuous in political affairs, and has held no civil office. He has had a creditable and extended career in the military service of the State. In April, 1888, he entered the National Guard of the State of New York as a second lieutenant of Company F of the Eighth Regiment, and there served efficiently for some years. In 1894 he was chosen to be an aide-de-camp of General Louis Fitzgerald, commander of the First Brigade of the National Guard of New York. The next year he was selected for the office of commissary of subsistence, with the rank of major.
In the best society of this city Mr. Harriman is a familiar and welcome figure. His membership in clubs includes many of the best organizations in New York. Among them are the University, the Metropolitan, the Knickerbocker, the New York Yacht Club, and the Westchester Country Club. His fondness for athletic sports, developed in school and college, is still one of his charac- teristics, as might be inferred from the names of some of the organizations to which he belongs.
Mr. Harriman was married on January 28, 1891, his bride be- ing Miss Grace Carley of Louisville, Kentucky, a member of one of the leading families of that city. Their home is, of course, in this city, and they are now the parents of one child, a son, who bears the names of both his father and his mother - Oliver Carley Harriman.
GEORGE B. MCCLELLAN HARVEY
A NOTABLY successful business and newspaper man of the younger generation is George B. McClellan Harvey, proprie- tor and editor of the "North American Review." He comes of Scottish ancestry, and is a native of Vermont, where he was born, at Peacham, on February 16, 1864. He was educated at the Caledonia Grammar School in that town, and at an early age manifested a strong tendency toward literary and journalistic work. When only fifteen years old he began writing for the local newspapers, and attained considerable success. At the age of eighteen he became a reporter on the staff of the Springfield " Republican," one of the foremost papers in New England, and remained there two years. Then he went West, and for the next year was a reporter for the "Daily News" of Chicago.
As in old times all roads led to Rome, so in these days all journalistic roads lead to New York. At the age of twenty-one, with his Peacham, Springfield, and Chicago experience behind him, Mr. Harvey came to the metropolis, and became a reporter for the New York "World." For nearly seven years he served that paper, rising from place to place on its staff until he became managing editor, and then editor-in-chief. The last-named place he held only a short time, when his health became impaired, and he was on that account compelled to resign. That was in 1893.
Mr. Harvey then turned his attention to business affairs. For two years he was associated in business with William C. Whitney. Then he undertook the development of electric railroad and lighting concerns on his own account. He built the electric roads on Staten Island, and at Long Branch, Asbury Park, and elsewhere on the New Jersey coast, and is now president of sev-
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eral of them. In 1898 he formed what is known as the Harvey Syndicate, and purchased the street-railroads of Havana and other properties in Cuba, and to the development and improve- ment of them has since devoted much attention. He is vice- president of the Monmouth Trust and Safe Deposit Company of Asbury Park, New Jersey, of the Lakewood Trust Company of Lakewood, and a director of the Audit Company and of the Mechanics' and Traders' Bank of New York.
Mr. Harvey was, at the age of twenty-one, appointed aide-de- camp, with the rank of colonel, on the staff of Governor Green of New Jersey. He was reappointed and made chief of staff by Governor Abbett, and declined another reappointment at the hands of Governor Werts. He was also appointed commissioner of banking and insurance by Governor Abbett, but resigned the place after a few months in order to give his full time to newspaper work. He also declined the place of consul-general at Berlin, which was offered to him by President Cleveland.
Early in 1899 Colonel Harvey purchased and became editor of the "North American Review " of New York, perhaps the most noted of literary and critical periodicals in the United States, and has since devoted much time and work to the management of it. On taking charge of it, he made this statement of his aims :
"The policy of the 'North American Review' will be more poignant in the future. Its articles will be written by men of the hour. They will be popular in their character, while possessing at the same time dignity and weight. I expect to edit the magazine, and will follow the general lines laid down by a long list of illustrious predecessors. There will be no change of form or manner of review. There will be no political partizanship."
In such manner Colonel Harvey has since that time been con- ducting the " Review." From the whirl and intense partizan- ship of a daily political paper, and from the keen competition of business enterprises, to the dignified calm of a great review edi- torship, was a marked transition, but it has been successfully sustained.
Colonel Harvey was, in November, 1899, elected president of the well-known publishing corporation of Harper & Brothers of New York.
Charles Strachaway
CHARLES HATHAWAY
C YHARLES HATHAWAY, the head of the well-known firm of Charles Hathaway & Co., bankers and brokers of New York city, is of mingled English and Scottish ancestry. His father was Nathaniel Hathaway, a member of the family of that name long prominent at New Bedford, Massachusetts, whither it had gone in early days from England.
Nathaniel Hathaway became interested in the industrial- ism which in his day, as at present, was so marked a feature of New England, and particularly that part of New England, and removing to Delhi, in Delaware County, New York, on the upper reaches of the Delaware River, he there established exten- sive and profitable woolen mills, the management of which was the chief business of his life.
Nathaniel Hathaway married Miss Mary Stewart, a descendant of the illustrious Scottish family of that name which figured so largely in the history of both Scotland and England in former centuries.
The offspring of this marriage, Charles Hathaway, was born on December 27, 1848, at Delhi, Delaware County, New York. He was educated in the local schools, including the excellent Delaware Academy at Delhi, and then at the well-known Wil- liston Seminary, Easthampton, Massachusetts.
His earliest business occupation was as a clerk in the Dela- ware National Bank of Delhi, New York. He entered the ser- vice of that institution soon after leaving school, and filled the place with acceptability to his employers and with profitable experience and instruction for himself.
He next turned his attention to the naval service of his coun- try, with which several of his kinsmen on the maternal side
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were or had been prominently connected. In 1872, being then twenty-four years of age, he became fleet clerk on the Asiatic Squadron of the United States navy, under Paymaster Edwin Stewart, who has now become rear-admiral.
In both these places Mr. Hathaway received much practical training in various phases of finance, and was fitted for the career into which he was about to enter. His service in the navy lasted from 1872 to 1875, when he returned to this country.
He came to New York city in 1879, and entered the employ- ment of the firm of Platt & Woodward, a leading house of bank- ers and brokers at No. 26 Pine Street. There he found himself fully started in a metropolitan financial career. His previous experience was of much service to him, but there was of course much more to learn. He applied himself diligently to the mas- tery of all the details of the business, preparing himself for lead- ership in it, and at the same time served his employers with such acceptability as to win their esteem and favor and assure his own promotion from place to place in their office.
His promotion culminated in 1889, when he was received into partnership as a junior member of the firm. Thereupon he took hold of the direction of the business with the same zeal and in- tuition that had marked his subordinate service, and became one of the most forceful members of the firm. Five years after his entry into the firm, in 1894, the senior partners retired, and Mr. Hathaway became the head of the house, which has since been and is now known as that of Charles Hathaway & Co.
To the affairs of this house, and to the promotion of the inter- ests of its numerous clients, Mr. Hathaway has devoted and still devotes himself with singleness of purpose and with unflagging energy. He works as diligently as though he were still an em- ployee instead of the head of the house, and brings to his labors all the accumulated knowledge and experience of his varied career and of the excellent financial training which he received in earlier years. He has not sought prominent identification with other business enterprises, and has taken no part in politi- cal matters beyond discharging the duties of a conscientious citizen. The enviable success of his firm is the legitimate result of such concentration of his efforts, and the esteem and con- fidence with which he is regarded by his clients and business
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associates are deserved tributes to the fidelity and integrity which have marked his whole career.
Mr. Hathaway is a well-known and influential member of many clubs and other social organizations, both in New York city and in the delightful New Jersey suburbs - if a fine city is properly to be called a suburb - where he makes his home. In New York city he is a member of the Union League Club, the Down-Town Association, and some others. In the city of Orange, New Jer- sey, he is a member of the New England Society of Orange, the Essex County Country Club, and the Riding and Driving Club of Orange. He was one of the organizers of the last-named club, and has been president of it ever since its incorporation. He is fond of fishing and shooting, and is a member of various clubs devoted to those sports on Long Island, New York, and in Canada.
Mr. Hathaway was married soon after he entered business life in New York, and while he was yet merely an employee in the counting-house of Platt & Woodward. His marriage occurred at Platteville, Wisconsin, on October 5, 1882. His bride was Miss Cora Southworth Rountree, the daughter of a prominent pioneer and business man of the Badger State. Four sons have been born to them: Stewart Southworth Hathaway, Harrison Rountree Hathaway, Robert Woodward Hathaway, and Charles Hathaway, Jr.
DANIEL ADDISON HEALD
TI THE town of Berwick-upon-Tweed, which occupies a unique position in the political organization of Great Britain, was the old home of the Heald family. From it John Heald came to this country in 1635, and settled at Concord, Massachusetts. There the family remained for several generations. The grand- father of the present representative lived at Concord before the Revolution, and held the office of Deputy Sheriff of Middlesex County. He was among the " embattled farmers " who stood at Concord Bridge and " fired the shot heard round the world." He was also in the American army at Bunker Hill. After the war he removed to Chester, Vermont. His son, Amos Heald, re- mained at Chester, and was a farmer there. Amos Heald mar- ried Lydia Edwards, daughter of Captain Edwards of Groton, Massachusetts, who also was at the battles of Concord and Bunker Hill.
Daniel Addison Heald, son of Amos and Lydia Heald, was born at Chester, Vermont, on May 4, 1818. Until he was six- teen years old he lived upon his father's farm, attending in season the local school. Then he went to the Kimball Academy, at Meriden, New Hampshire, and was prepared for college, largely under the direction of Cyrus S. Richards. Thence he went to Yale, as a member of the class of 1841. While in Yale he was distinguished as a fine student and a leader among his college- mates. He was a member of the Linonian Literary Society, and was its president. He also belonged to the fraternity of Kappa Sigma Theta. He was graduated in the class of 1841, with honorable standing.
During his senior year at Yale Mr. Heald engaged in the study of law, under the direction of Judge Daggett, at New Haven.
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Afterward he pursued his legal studies with Judge Washburn, at Ludlow, Vermont, meanwhile teaching in the academy at Chester. In May, 1843, he was admitted to practice at the Ver- mont bar, and began the pursuit of his profession at Ludlow. It may be added that, in addition to his graduating degree of A. B., he received in course the advanced degree of A. M.
For three years Mr. Heald devoted himself exclusively to the practice of law. Then, in 1846, he extended his interests by be- coming cashier of the Bank of Black River, at Proctorsville, which place he filled with success for four years. Meantime he had become interested in insurance, being an agent for the Ætna Company of Hartford, Connecticut, and other leading companies. More and more this last-named business engaged his attention, until at last he decided to devote himself entirely to it.
He became connected with the Home Insurance Company of New York in 1856, and has ever since been identified with it. For some time he was an agent of it. Then he became general agent. In time he was elected second vice-president of the com- pany. Promotion to first vice-president followed. Finally, on April 1, 1888, after thirty-two years' service, he became president of the company, which place he still holds. He has been con- nected with fire-insurance for more than fifty-seven years, so that to-day he may well be considered the dean of the business. In addition to the Home Insurance Company, Mr. Heald is prominently connected with the National Bank of North America, and is a director of the Holland Trust Company and the National Surety Company.
In his early years, before he gave up the law for insurance, Mr. Heald was elected to the Vermont Legislature, and served for a time in each of its Houses. Mr. Heald was married, on August 31, 1843, to Miss Sarah E. Washburn, who bore him five chil- dren. These were Mary E. Heald, who married A. M. Burtis in 1874; Oxenbridge Thacher Heald, who died at the age of six months; John O. Heald, who married Elizabeth Manning ; Charles Arthur Heald, who died in 1880, while a senior in Yale University ; and Alice W. Heald, who married George L. Man- ning. Mrs. Heald died many years ago, and in 1895 Mr. Heald married a second time, his wife being Miss Elizabeth W. Goddard, of Newton Center, Massachusetts.
ARTHUR PHILIP HEINZE
A FINE combination of one of the "learned professions" with practical business is to be observed in the career of Arthur Philip Heinze, who has attained success equally as a lawyer and as an investor in mines. Mr. Heinze was born in Brooklyn, New York, on December 18, 1864. His father, the well-known New York merchant, Otto Heinze, was of German birth, a son of a Lutheran minister and a descendant of that Kaspar Aquila who helped Luther translate the Bible into Ger- man, the copy of the Bible which was presented to this ances- tor of his in 1547 by the nobles of Thuringia being still in Mr. Heinze's possession. His mother was, before her marriage, Eliza Marsh Lacey, a native of Middletown, Connecticut, and a descendant of the first colonial Governor of Connecticut. Mr. Heinze was educated thoroughly in the schools of Brooklyn, at the high school at Leipzig, Germany, at Columbia College, where he was graduated with high honors in 1885, at Leipzig again, at Heidelberg, and finally at the Columbia University Law School, where he was graduated in 1888.
Mr. Heinze then devoted himself to the practice of the law in the New York office of Messrs. Wing, Shoudy & Putnam. Upon the death of his father, in 1891, he found his attention fully occupied in settling the affairs of the estate as executor. Then he took a trip half-way round the world. In the course of his travels he visited his youngest brother, F. A. Heinze, at Butte, Montana, and decided to join him in the copper-mining industry. In 1893 the brothers founded the Montana Ore Pur- chasing Company, and speedily became the third largest cop- per-producing company in the State, disbursing twelve hundred thousand dollars in dividends in four years. Certain copper
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companies in Boston then began suits against it, and a great mass of litigation, comprising more than fifty suits, was the result. Many of these are still pending. In this litigation Mr. Heinze's legal abilities have been of vast service and profit to his company, and promise to safeguard its interests to the end.
Mr. Heinze also conducted for some years the financial part of his brother's copper-mining and railroad enterprises in British Columbia, where he had built a railroad and a smelter, and had received a subsidy of four million acres of land from the Dominion government. This enterprise was finally sold to the Canadian Pacific Railway. Mr. Heinze then entered his father's old firm, Otto Heinze & Co., wholesale dry-goods and commis- sion merchants of New York.
Mr. Heinze has always manifested a great fondness for music, historical studies, and languages. His proficience as a linguist is extraordinary, as he has mastered no less than seventeen lan- guages, and speaks five with perfect fluency. He has taken lit- tle part in political affairs, finding ample occupation for his time and talents in business and his social and domestic interests.
He was married, on June 14, 1899, to Miss Ruth Meiklejohn Noyes, the youngest daughter of John Noyes, one of the pioneers and most respected citizens of Montana. Their attractive home is on Madison Avenue, New York. Mr. Heinze is a member of various social organizations of high standing. The bulk of his time is, however, divided between his home and his multifarious professional and business duties. In the pursuit of the latter he unquestionably ranks among the most successful men of his age in New York.
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