USA > New York > New York State's prominent and progressive men : an encyclopaedia of contemporaneous biography, Volume I > Part 14
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F. AUGUSTUS HEINZE
F AUGUSTUS HEINZE'S ancestry on his father's side is German, extending unbroken through a famous line of Lutheran clergymen for three centuries. Among them was that Aquila who knew the Bible so thoroughly that Luther said if all the Bibles were destroyed the book could be restored from Aquila's memory. Aquila's Bible, bearing Luther's remark in Luther's writing upon its title-page, is still owned by the family. Maternally, Mr. Heinze is descended from Connecticut's first colonial Governor.
F. Augustus Heinze was born in Brooklyn in 1869. Educated in the local schools and in Columbia College School of Mines, he was graduated as a mining engineer. Finally he went to Ger- many and studied in the best scientific schools there. Return- ing to the United States, he went West, seeking a business opportunity, and settled at Butte, Montana, in 1890. He was em- ployed by the Boston and Montana Copper Mining Company as a mining engineer, and acquired a thorough practical knowledge of the mining and smelting business.
In 1891 he entered the copper-producing field, competing with the great concerns which already occupied and apparently mo- nopolized it. His first operations were confined to mining under leases, and concentrating ores so produced in a mill located at Meaderville. Purchasing this mill, he shortly thereafter arranged to erect a smelter. Construction was commenced on October 27, 1892, and within sixty-eight days the works produced copper matte. In 1893 he was incorporated, with several associates, under the name of the "Montana Ore Purchasing Company."
This company, one of the most progressive in the entire State of Montana, has been ever among the first to adopt improvements
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in machinery and refining methods. The company in 1895 em- ployed 16,000,000 pounds of copper and 650,000 ounces of silver, and paid 32 per cent. in dividends on $1,000,000 capitalization. The capital stock is now $2,500,000, and more than $5,000,000 has been expended for mining properties and improvements. The company owns some of the most valuable copper-mines in the world, including both the east and west extensions of the Anaconda lode.
Mr. Heinze has been active in other localities, erecting, in 1895, large smelting works at Trail, British Columbia, and connecting the same with Rossland by the first railroad entering that town. He connected Trail with Robson by a railway which comprises part of the Columbia and Western Railway Company. The erec- tion of his works at Trail, and the contract which he made with the Le Roi Mining Company for smelting 75,000 tons of ore, made possible the development both of the Le Roi Mine and Rossland district. His enterprises were so important that the Canadian Pacific Railway Company purchased his entire inter- ests, at a very handsome profit to him, in 1898.
This transaction accomplished, he concentrated attention on his Butte investments, where some of the older mining companies had endeavored to curtail his operations by litigation in the courts. The most important of these suits, however, have been decided in his favor. These litigations were among the most important ever prosecuted in the mining industry of the United States, and since 1897, when they were inaugurated, several of the contesting companies have found it necessary to consolidate into what is known as the "Amalgamated Copper Company."
Mr. Heinze has held no political office, but his personal popu- larity and influence in the State is very great. Although younger than other prominent mining magnates of Montana, among whom might be mentioned Senator Clark and Marcus Daly, his ability, intellect, and youth, backed by the immense wealth he has acquired, promise to soon raise him to a position of greater prominence than that yet attained by any one in the State.
JAMES WILLIAM HINKLEY
M ANY men achieve success in some one calling, and a smaller number in two or three. Those who do so in half a dozen widely different pursuits are rare, and when found are well worth more than passing observation. In the present case success is to be recorded as an editor and publisher, as a railroad man, in the insurance world, as a manufacturer, as a financier, and, perhaps above all, as a political manager.
James William Hinkley, who was born at Port Jackson, Clin- ton County, New York, comes from Puritan stock, and is in the fifth generation of direct descent from that Thomas Hinkley who was the third Governor of the Plymouth Colony, and was famous in the King Philip War and other early struggles. He was educated at the Smith and Converse Academy, near his birthplace, and then was appointed a cadet at the West Point Military Academy. At the latter institution he received the liberal training, in mind and body, for which that government school is noted, and to which credit for much of his success in life is to be given.
On leaving school Mr. Hinkley entered the newspaper profes- sion, and became editor and owner of the "News-Press" of Poughkeepsie, New York, and afterward editor and owner of the "Daily Graphic " of New York city. His newspaper work naturally led him into politics, and gave him influence and power in that field. He was from the first a Democrat, and his ability, resource, and judgment made him a valuable counselor of that party. He rose from place to place in the party organization, until he was chosen chairman of the State Committee to succeed Edward Murphy, Jr., United States Senator, and to fill a place that had formerly been held by Daniel Manning, Samuel J. Til-
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den, and other Democrats of national reputation. The period of his chairmanship was marked with many noteworthy triumphs of the party at the polls, reflecting the highest credit upon him and his lieutenants for their skill and energy in political cam- paigning.
Mr. Hinkley is president of the Poughkeepsie City and Wap- pingers Falls Railway Company, and has various other railroad interests, all of which he has directed with consummate skill. He was president of the Walker Electric Company, which has recently been consolidated with the Westinghouse Electric Com- pany. He is interested in other business and manufacturing enterprises of magnitude, and makes himself felt as force in each and all. He was a close personal and political friend of the late ex-Governor Roswell P. Flower, and was associated with him in many of his great financial undertakings.
One of his most notable business connections at present is that with the United States Casualty Company of this city. For some time he was chairman of the executive committee of its board of directors, and in that place his services were dis- tinguished by soundness of judgment and directness of action which conduced to the great prosperity of the corporation. He was then promoted to the presidency of the company, and still holds that office with great acceptability. Under his lead the company has risen to a foremost place among institutions of that kind, and in the last few years has more than doubled its assets and surplus.
Mr. Hinkley still makes his home at Poughkeepsie, where he has a beautiful mansion and spacious grounds, commanding an unrivaled prospect over the Hudson River and surrounding country. He spends, however, much of his time in this city, and is well known in its business, political, and social life. He is a member of the Manhattan Club, Lawyers' Club, Down-Town Business Men's Club, and other organizations.
EDWARD H. HOBBS
E DWARD H. HOBBS, for many years one of the represen- tative lawyers and political leaders of Brooklyn, was born at Ellenburg, Clinton County, New York, on June 5, 1835. His father, Benjamin Hobbs, was a farmer, a descendant of Josiah Hobbs, who came to New England in 1670. His mother, whose maiden name was Lucy Beaman, was a descendant of Gamaliel Beaman, who came from England in 1635, and was one of the members of the Massachusetts Bay Company, and a settler of Boston. He was educated at the district school at Ellenburg, and then at the Franklin Academy at Malone, New York, work- ing, meantime, on his father's farm. He was sixteen years old when he went to the Franklin Academy and began to prepare himself for college. The outlook for a college career was not bright, for his means were sorely limited ; but his ambition and determination were strong, and not to be daunted by hard work and lack of money. He entered Middlebury College, at Middle- bury, Vermont, and made his way through it in creditable fash- ion, paying his own way, for the most part, by teaching school and working at various other occupations. Having thus got a good general education, he adopted the law as his profession, and began to prepare for the practice thereof. He entered the Al- bany Law School, an institution of the highest rank in those days, and pursued its course with distinction. Admission to the bar and entry upon professional practice followed.
His college course was interrupted by the Civil War. Early in that struggle he enlisted as a private in the Union army, being then in his senior year at Middlebury. He served through- out most of the war in the Army of the Potomac, and also in North and South Carolina, and was promoted to be lieutenant
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and adjutant, and acting assistant adjutant-general. After the war he made his home in Brooklyn, and has ever since been identified with that city. He began the practice of law in New York city, and soon attained marked success, building up a large and profitable business. The firm is now composed of four members, under the name of Hobbs & Gifford. Mr. Hobbs is counsel for a number of large industrial and manufacturing corporations. He is also a director of the Bedford Bank of Brooklyn.
For many years there have been few men in Brooklyn politics, on the Republican side of the fence, more widely known and respected than "Major" Hobbs, as he is familiarly called. He has all his life been a consistent and energetic Republican, with his party loyalty founded, not upon personal interest, but upon intelligent principle. He has been a scholarly and eloquent advocate of the doctrines of that party, and has contributed much to its success in campaigns by his effective speaking. He was long a member of the County and State Republican com- mittees, and has been a delegate to at least one national con- vention and probably a score or more of State conventions. In such places his influence has been felt and his services have been recognized. He might have had nominations and elections to various important public offices, had he so chosen; but he preferred to remain in private life, and, accordingly, has never held any public office.
He is a member of various social organizations, including the Union League Club of Brooklyn, the New England Society of Brooklyn, the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences, and the Delta Kappa Epsilon Club of New York, of which last-named he is one of the founders.
Mr. Hobbs was married at Baltimore, Maryland, in 1868, to Miss Julia Ellen Buxton. He has one child, a son, Charles B. Hobbs, who is now one of his law partners.
EUGENE AUGUSTUS HOFFMAN
T THE name of Hoffman is one that has for many generations been conspicuous in American history for the services of its bearers to the nation in various important directions. In peace and in war, in church and in state, the descendants of Martinus Hoffman, who came to this country in 1640, have made their marks and made them creditably. In the present case we have to do with one of the family who has employed more than ordi- nary talents and more than ordinary wealth in a singularly beneficent manner for the intellectual advancement, the social interest, and, above all, the spiritual elevation of his fellow-citi- zens and fellow-men.
The Very Rev. Eugene Augustus Hoffman, dean of the General Theological Seminary of the Protestant Episcopal Church in New York city, is the son of Samuel Verplanck Hoffman, and was born in this city on March 21, 1829. His education was acquired at the Columbia College Grammar- School, at Rutgers College, and at Harvard University, the last- named institution conferring upon him in course the degrees of B. A. and M. A. In 1848 he entered as a student the theologi- cal seminary with which he has now long been identified as dean, and was graduated from it in 1851. Shortly afterward he was ordained a deacon of the Protestant Episcopal Church by Bishop Doane of New Jersey. Two years of active mission work at Elizabethport, New Jersey, followed, and then he became rector of Christ Church, Elizabeth, New Jersey. There he established one of the first and most successful free churches in America, and did notably good parish work. He was also able, at the same time, to build up self-supporting churches at Millburn and at Woodbridge, New Jersey. In
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1863 he went to Burlington, New Jersey, as rector of St. Mary's Church. He found that church heavily encumbered with debts, and with characteristic energy and ability he set to work to clear them off. Within a year he had not only done this, but had also raised enough money to secure for the church the fine bells which now occupy its stately spire. Then, in 1864, he became rector of Grace Church, on Brooklyn Heights, and remained there five years, resigning on account of the ill effect of the strong air of the Heights upon his health. His next charge, from 1869 to 1879, was the parish of St. Mark's in Philadelphia, where he established the first Workingmen's Club in an American church, and did other valuable work.
After twice declining the nomination, Dr. Hoffman was in 1879 elected dean of the General Theological Seminary. That institution was then in straitened circumstances, and needed wise direction and financial aid to save it from disastrous de- cline. It received both from its new head. Dr. Hoffman's administrative ability, his devotion and energy, and the munifi- cence of himself and his family soon made it a far stronger school than its projectors had ever ventured to expect. A great group of fine new buildings, improved grounds, new professorships, and rich endowments are among the fruits of his labors at Chelsea Square.
Dr. Hoffman is a member of the boards of numerous religious and charitable organizations, a member of most of the learned societies of New York, and of the Century and some other lead- ing clubs. He has represented the Diocese of New York at the last seven General Conventions of the church. He has received the degree of D. D. from Rutgers College, Racine College, the General Theological Seminary, Columbia College, Trinity Col- lege, and the University of Oxford, that of LL. D. from King's College, Nova Scotia, and that of D. C. L. from the University of the South and from Trinity University, Toronto. He has written a number of books on religious and ecclesiastical themes. He is married to Mary Crooke Elmendorf, and has living one son and three daughters.
F. C. HOLLINS
F C. HOLLINS was born in Philadelphia, but has been a resi- ยท dent of New York since boyhood. At the age of seven- teen he entered the agency of the Bank of British North America in New York, where he rose to the position of assistant cashier. At the age of twenty-one he took charge of the Coles estate in Jersey City, and sold for that estate to the Erie and Morris and Essex Railroad companies a large part of the dock and terminal properties now occupied by them. He served for two years as a director in the Board of Education in Jersey City. Upon his retirement he received a testimonial from the taxpayers for his devotion to their interests. In 1879 he became a junior partner in the banking and brokerage firm of H. B. Hollins & Co., of New York. In 1886 he organized the present banking and brokerage house of F. C. Hollins & Co.
In 1886 Mr. Hollins became a director of the Lake Erie and Western Railway Company, and afterward was appointed chair- man of the stock-holders' committee of reorganization. He car- ried his plans through and secured the road for the stock-holders. He was also a director in the Peoria, Decatur and Evansville Rail- way Company, and, as one of the executive committee, sold the road to Columbus C. Baldwin and the Hanover Bank interests of New York, whereby George I. Seney, who had become finan- cially embarrassed, was enabled to pay off his indebtedness. He was also a director in the St. Louis, Alton and Terre Haute Rail- way Company for three years, during which time the common stock appreciated in value from fifteen to eighty-five dollars per share. In 1886 and 1887 he furnished the money for the comple- tion of a large portion of the Toledo, Ann Arbor and North Mich- igan and the Detroit, Bay City and Alpena (now the Detroit and
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Mackinac) railways. In 1887 and 1888 he built the St. Louis and Chicago and the Litchfield and St. Louis railways in Illinois. In 1888 he also purchased and completed the Central Missouri and the Cleveland, St. Louis and Kansas City railroads, then in course of construction, and sold the two roads to a syndicate of contrac- tors. The contractors were unable to carry out their plans, and Mr. Hollins joined with others and bought the properties. Mr. Hollins was elected president of the roads, and was in 1891 successful in selling them to the Missouri, Kansas and Texas and the Missouri, Kansas and Eastern Railway companies. In 1889 the president of the St. Louis and Chicago Railway, and outside speculations of his partner, involved the firm in some financial difficulties. Mr. Hollins immediately dissolved the firm, assumed all the liabilities individually, both of the firm and of his partner, who died shortly after, and paid every creditor in full, besides taking up two hundred thousand dollars of St. Louis and Chicago Railway bonds sold to him by the president of that road, which were afterward claimed to have been an over- issue. In 1894 Mr. Hollins again became active in business. He was one of the committee which reorganized the Indianapolis, Decatur and Springfield Railway Company, after which the road was sold to the Cincinnati, Hamilton and Dayton Railway Com- pany. In 1897 he was appointed chairman of the stock-hold- ers' committee of reorganization of Peck Brothers & Co. of New Haven, and saved the property to the stock-holders. In 1898 he was active in the consolidation of the Meriden Britannia Com- pany with fourteen other silver and silver-plate companies, under the name of the International Silver Company, and became the largest subscriber to the purchase of the bonds of that company. Since that time, he has been engaged in several other large en- terprises, including the purchase of the Consolidated Railway Electric Lighting and Equipment Company.
HARRY BOWLEY HOLLINS
H ARRY BOWLEY HOLLINS is of English ancestry. His father, Frank Hollins, was a son of William Hollins, who came from Newcastle-under-Lyme, Staffordshire, England, and settled in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1795, and, with his brother John, founded a counting-house in that city. Frank Hollins married Elizabeth Coles, a descendant of Robert Coles, who set- tled at Roxbury, Massachusetts, in 1630. The Coles family in 1700 removed to Long Island, and a branch of them settled at Dosoris - now Glen Cove. John B. Coles, a great-grandfather of Mr. Hollins, was a prominent merchant of New York city, and was one of the founders of the original Tontine Association.
Harry Bowley Hollins was born in New York city on Septem- ber 5, 1854, and was educated in local schools and in the Univer- sity of the City of New York, now New York University. His inclinations were strongly turned toward financial operations, and on beginning business life he first sought a clerkship in the house of Levi P. Morton & Co. That was in 1870. Next he was a clerk in the house of D. P. Morgan & Co. In 1872 he became cashier for Oakley & Co., and in 1873 cashier for John D. Prince & Co. In 1874 he made a trip around the world, and in 1875 he started in business on his own account.
At that time Mr. Hollins organized the insurance brokerage firm of Grundy, Hollins & Martin, at No. 28 Pine Street. Two years later, in 1877, he formed the firm of H. B. Hollins, stock- brokers. Finally, in 1878, he founded the firm of H. B. Hollins & Co., bankers and brokers, at No. 74 Broadway, with whom he is still identified. This firm from the time of its organization transacted the bulk of the Vanderbilts' operations on Wall Street, until they discontinued their dealings there. Mr. Hollins
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was one of the founders of the Knickerbocker Trust Company, which was organized in 1884 with a capital of $300,000. In 1886 his firm acquired control of the Central Railroad and Banking Company of Georgia, of which Mr. Hollins was thereupon elected vice-president, and also of the ferries afterward operated by the Metropolitan Ferry Company of New York. The firm was the first to engage in industrial enterprises, and also to become interested in international financial institutions. In 1888 it organized a syndicate which purchased control of the Banco Hipotecario de Mexico, and founded the International Mortgage Bank of Mexico, of which Mr. Hollins is now vice-president. In that year the firm also acquired control of all the gas-light companies in St. Louis, Missouri, and consolidated them under the name of the Laclede Gas Light Company. It also acted as bankers in the organization of the United States Rubber Com- pany, financed' the electrical equipment of the Brooklyn City Railroad Company, and organized the Long Island Traction Company and the Brooklyn, Queens County and Suburban Rail- road Company, which companies now form part of the Brooklyn Rapid Transit Corporation. It financed the following ferry companies, of which it obtained control : the Twenty-third Street Ferry Company, the Union Ferry Company, the Hoboken Ferry Company, and the Brooklyn Ferry Company. It also financed the East River Gas Company, which has its plant at Ravens- wood, borough of Queens, and supplies gas to Manhattan Island through a tunnel under the East River. It was the first New York banking house to enter Havana, Cuba, after the war, having in 1899 organized the Havana Commercial Company.
Mr. Hollins is connected with the Brooklyn Ferry Company, the New Amsterdam Gas Company, the Fort Worth and Rio Grande Railway, the International Mortgage Bank of Mexico, the Laclede Gas Company of St. Louis, the Plaza Bank of New York, the Knickerbocker Trust Company, and other corpora- tions. He is a member of the Union, Metropolitan, Racquet, and Knickerbocker clubs of New York, and the South Side Club of Long Island. He married, in 1877, Miss Evelina Knapp, daughter of William K. and Maria M. Knapp, and granddaughter of Sheppard Knapp and Abraham Meserole. They have four sons and one daughter.
JOHN HONE
THERE are no names more honorably distinguished in the history of this country than those of Hone and Perry. The founder of the former family in America came from Ger- many and settled in New York. One of his descendants, the great-grandfather of the present subject, was the head of the noted auction house of John Hone & Sons, and another was that Philip Hone who is remembered as one of the best mayors this city ever had. The father of the present subject was John Hone, a Columbia College alumnus, and a successful lawyer of this city, while his mother was Jane Perry Hone, daughter of that Commodore Matthew Calbraith Perry who commanded a squadron in the Mexican War and afterward won immortal fame by " opening" Japan to intercourse with the world.
Of such parentage John Hone was born in this city on De- cember 14, 1844. He was educated at the well-known Charlier Institute in this city, and entered Columbia College in 1861. But the call of patriotism led him to leave college, and on May 25, 1862, he was mustered into the service of the nation as a private in the New York Seventh Regiment. He was called into active service at the time of Stonewall Jackson's raid in the Shenandoah Valley, and then, in September, 1862, was mustered out and returned to college. A second time he forsook college for the army, in June, 1863, when he went to the front with the Seventh Regiment. A few weeks later the regiment was recalled to this city to suppress the Draft Riots. These absences from college were objected to by the president of Columbia, and accordingly Mr. Hone severed his connection with Columbia and was not graduated. But the university -as it had then be- come - vindicated his record many years later by giving him, in
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June, 1894, the A. B. degree, which, but for his patriotism, he would have taken in 1865.
After leaving college, Mr. Hone entered a banking-house in New York, and then transferred his services to the house of August Belmont & Co., where he remained until January 1, 1869. At that date he opened the house of Hone & Nicholas, of which he was the head. It had a successful career until 1876, when it went into liquidation. In 1877 Mr. Hone became a member of the Stock Exchange, and junior partner of the firm of Smalley & Hone. This connection lasted until 1881, since which time he has been in business alone.
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