USA > New York > New York State's prominent and progressive men : an encyclopaedia of contemporaneous biography, Volume I > Part 15
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Mr. Hone has been a member of the governing committee of the Stock Exchange, and was for two years vice-president of the Exchange, in 1890-91. He is a director of the Evansville and Terre Haute and of the Evansville and Indianapolis railroad companies, and has been treasurer and a manager of the Man- hattan Club.
Mr. Hone has taken some interest in political matters, though he has held no public office. He was a member of the New Jersey Democratic State Committee for three terms, twice a del- egate to the New Jersey Democratic State Convention, and in 1892 he was a delegate at large from New Jersey to the Demo- cratic National Convention.
He is a member of the Metropolitan Club, the Manhattan Club, the Larchmont Yacht Club, the Sons of the Revolution, the Sons of the War of 1812, and the Grand Army of the Re- public. He has been a member also of the Union, Knicker- bocker, and New York Yacht clubs.
WILLIAM BUTLER HORNBLOWER
THE first American member of the Hornblower family was Josiah Hornblower, an eminent English civil engineer who, at the request of Colonel John Schuyler, came to this coun- try in 1753. He became the manager of some copper-mines at Belleville, New Jersey, and there set up the first stationary steam-engine in America. He was a captain in the French and Indian War, a vigorous patriot in the Revolution. There- after he was Speaker of the Lower House of the New Jersey Legislature, a State Senator, a member of Congress, and a jus- tice of the Court of Common Pleas in New Jersey. His son, Joseph C. Hornblower, was a lawyer by profession. He was a Presidential Elector in 1820, chief justice of the State of New Jersey in 1832, member of the Constitutional Convention of 1844, professor of law at Princeton in 1847, vice-president of the first Republican National Convention in 1856, president of the New Jersey Electoral College in 1860, and one of the foun- ders of the American Bible Society. His son, William Henry Hornblower, was a prominent Presbyterian clergyman, a mis- sionary, pastor of a church at Paterson, New Jersey, for twenty-seven years, and professor in the Theological Seminary at Allegheny, Pennsylvania, for twelve years. He married Mathilda Butler of Suffield, Connecticut, a woman of Puritan ancestry.
William Butler Hornblower, the second son of this last-named couple, was born at Paterson, New Jersey, in 1851. He was educated at the Collegiate School of Professor Quackenbos; then at Princeton, where he was graduated in 1871; and at the Law School of Columbia College, where he was graduated in 1875. Between leaving Princeton and entering Columbia he spent two
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Sincerely P.S. Hrublow .
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WILLIAM BUTLER HORNBLOWER
years in literary studies. In 1875 he was admitted to practise law at the bar of New York, and became connected with the firm of Carter & Eaton, with which he remained until 1888. In that year he formed the new firm of Hornblower & Byrne, which later became Hornblower, Byrne & Taylor.
Mr. Hornblower has long been one of the most successful lawyers of New York. Since 1880 he has been counsel for the New York Life Insurance Company. He was counsel for the receiver in the famous Grant & Ward bankruptcy cases, and has made a specialty of bankruptcy cases and insurance suits. His practice in the federal courts has been extensive, and among the cases in which he has appeared may be named the Virginia bond controversy, and railroad bond cases of the city of New Orleans.
Mr. Hornblower has long taken an active interest in politics as an independent Democrat. He has on more than one occa- sion been among the foremost leaders of his party in this State, especially during the administrations of President Cleveland, of whom he was an earnest supporter. He also took a prominent part in the sound-money campaign in 1896. He has often been suggested as a fitting candidate for office, and in 1893 was nomi- nated by President Cleveland for a place on the bench of the Su- preme Court of the United States. His fitness for the place was universally conceded, but his independence in politics had dis- pleased some party leaders, and his nomination was not con- firmed.
He married, in 1882, Miss Susan C. Sanford of New Haven, Connecticut, a woman of Puritan descent, who died in 1886, leaving him three children. In 1894 he married Mrs. Emily Sanford Nelson, a sister of his first wife and widow of Colonel A. D. Nelson, U. S. A. His home in this city is on Madison Avenue, and his summer home is Penrhyn, Southampton, Long Island. He is a member of the Metropolitan Club and the Bar Association, and of various other social and professional organizations.
HENRY ELIAS HOWLAND
THE last survivor of the historic company that came to the New World in the Mayflower was John Howland, who died at a great age, after a life full of heroism and adventure. He married Elizabeth Tilley, also a Mayflower Pilgrim, and they had a large family, which spread into the various New England States and New York.
Henry Elias Howland comes of the New England branch of the family, and is a lineal descendant, in the seventh generation, from John Howland of Plymouth Colony. His great-grand- father was the Rev. John Howland, who was for nearly sixty years a famous Congregational clergyman in the town of Carver, Massachusetts. Judge Howland's parents were Aaron Prentice Howland and Huldah Burke, who also came of a family dis- tinguished in New England annals. Edmund Burke of New Hampshire, member of Congress for many years, and Commis- sioner of Patents under Presidents Pierce and Buchanan, was a near relative.
Henry Elias Howland was born at Walpole, New Hampshire, in 1835. He was prepared for college at the Kimball Union Academy, Meriden, New Hampshire, and entered Yale College, from which he was graduated in 1854. He took a course in the Harvard Law School, receiving his degree of LL. B. in 1857. After his admission to the bar he came to New York city and began to practise law, which he has continued uninterruptedly, except for a short period in 1873, when he was appointed to fill an unexpired term on the bench of the marine court.
As a practitioner he has had an extraordinary success, and he has established a high reputation as a speaker, both in court and in political meetings. He is a lifelong Republican, and has
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been active in municipal politics. He was an alderman of the city in 1875 and 1876, president of the Municipal Department of Taxes in 1880, under Mayor Cooper, and has been the party nominee for judge of the Court of Common Pleas and for the bench of the Supreme Court. He is president of the Society for the Relief of the Destitute Blind, president of the board of the Manhattan State Hospital of New York, and a member of the corporation of Yale University.
Judge Howland is a member of the Metropolitan, the Century, the Union League, the University, the Players', the Republican, and the Shinnecock Hills Golf clubs, and the New York State Bar Association. He is secretary of the Jekyl Island Club, secretary of the Century Association, Governor-General of the National Society of Mayflower Descendants, and Governor of the New York Society, president of the Meadow Club of South- ampton, and vice-president and a member of the council of the University Club.
He was married, in 1865, to Miss Louise Miller, daughter of Jonathan and Sarah K. Miller, and granddaughter of Edmund Blunt, the famous author of Blunt's " Coast Pilot."
They had six children : Mary M., Charles P., Katherine E., John, Julia Bryant, and Frances L. Howland. Of these three only are living. The Howland town house is at 14 West Ninth Street, and they have a beautiful country home at Southamp- ton, Long Island.
COLGATE HOYT
COLGATE HOYT is a son of James Madison Hoyt, who was born at Utica, New York, was educated at Hamilton Col- lege, married Miss Mary Ella Beebes of New York city, and settled in Cleveland, Ohio, where he had a distinguished career as a lawyer, real-estate operator, and leader in the benevolent activities of the Baptist Church. Colgate Hoyt was born in Cleveland, on March 2, 1849. After receiving a careful and thorough primary education he was sent to Phillips Academy, Andover, Massachusetts. Owing to trouble with his eyes, he was, however, compelled to leave school at the end of his first year there. He then returned home to Cleveland, and was for a time employed in a hardware store in that city. Later he joined his father in his real-estate operations, and soon became himself the owner of some valuable pieces of property. From 1877 to 1881 he was largely engaged in loaning money on the security of real estate.
Mr. Hoyt came to New York city in 1881, and became a partner in the firm of J. B. Colgate & Co., bankers and dealers in bullion. He maintained that connection with much success until the death of Mr. Trevor, in 1890, when the firm was dissolved. In 1882-84 he was a government director of the Union Pacific Rail- way, and was thereafter for some years a company director of the same road. He joined Charles L. Colby and Edwin H. Abbot in the Wisconsin Central Railroad enterprise in 1884, and the three became trustees of the entire stock of the corporation, and made the road a through line from Chicago to Milwaukee and St. Paul. They also built the Chicago and Northern Pacific Railroad as a terminal, with fine passenger stations in Chicago.
Mr. Hoyt has been a director and active spirit in the Oregon
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Railway and Navigation Company, the Northern Pacific Railroad Company, and the Oregon and Transcontinental Company. He reorganized the last-named as the North American Company in 1890, under trying circumstances but with entire success. In 1888 Mr. Hoyt bought the whaleback steamboat patents of Cap- tain Alexander McDougall, and organized a company with five hundred thousand dollars, known as the American Steel Barge Company. Of this corporation he became president and trea- surer. It has great shipyards and other works at West Superior, Wisconsin, and gives employment to some fifteen hundred men. Another of Mr. Hoyt's enterprises is the Spanish-American Iron Company, which has a capital of five million dollars, and is engaged in the development and operation of the Lola group of iron-mines in Cuba. Mr. Hoyt was one of its organizers and its treasurer. He is also proprietor of extensive orange groves in Florida, and is a director and first vice-president of the Missouri, Kansas and Texas Railroad of Texas. He is a member of the New York Stock Exchange, and has exercised no little influence in Wall Street affairs.
Mr. Hoyt was married, in 1873, to Miss Lida W. Sherman, daughter of Judge Charles T. Sherman and niece of General William T. Sherman and ex-Secretary John Sherman. They have four children living. Mr. and Mrs. Hoyt make their home in Oyster Bay, New York. Mr. Hoyt is a member of the Metro- politan, Union League, Lawyers', Riding, New York Yacht, and Seawanhaka-Corinthian Yacht clubs, the Ohio Society, and the Fifth Avenue Baptist Church. He is a trustee of Brown Uni- versity, Providence, Rhode Island. He was the originator of the novel missionary scheme of operating chapel cars on railroads. He was also the chief organizer of the famous First Troop of Cleveland, one of the finest cavalry organizations in the country, which served as escort to President Garfield and President McKinley at their inaugurations.
Mr. Hoyt has held no political offices. He is a brother of the Hon. James H. Hoyt of Cleveland, one of the foremost members of the Ohio bar, and of the Rev. Dr. Wayland Hoyt, the eminent Baptist clergyman.
THOMAS HAMLIN HUBBARD
THE names of Hamlin and Hubbard are both well known in the history of New England, and of the State of Maine in particular. The former has been borne by an eminent college president, and by a vice-president of the United States. The latter has been conspicuous in the State of Maine for the greater part of the century, and is inseparably identified with one of the most noteworthy incidents in the political and social history of that commonwealth. That incident was the adoption of the so-called Maine Law, a law absolutely prohibiting the manu- facture or sale of intoxicating liquors of any kind in that State, save as chemicals for purely scientific use. The author of that famous statute was General Neal Dow. The man who enforced it and made it splendidly successful was Dr. John Hubbard. This pioneer of prohibition rose into political prominence in Maine in the first part of the century. In 1843 he was elected a member of the State Senate, and exerted a marked influence in that body in directing and shaping important legislation. In 1849 he was elected Governor of the State, and served in that capacity for four years. It was during his administration that the Maine Law was enacted, and it fell to his lot, accordingly, to put it into force. That was no easy task, for Maine had been a hard-drinking State, and prejudice against the new order of things was strong. Important property interests and political influences were arrayed against it. But Governor Hubbard was tremendously in earnest. He took up the matter with inflexible determination and unflagging zeal. In a short time he put the law into force as fully as any other law on the statute-book, thus achieving what innumerable critics had pronounced impossible.
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To him, therefore, the success of the law and its permanent retention upon the statute-books of the State are due.
Governor Hubbard had a wife who was a worthy companion for so zealous and masterful a man. Sarah Hodge Barrett, as her name would indicate, was of pure New England stock. One of her grandsires was a minute-man at Lexington, and a gallant soldier in several engagements in the War of the Revolution, and was killed in the second battle of Stillwater, just before the surrender of General Burgoyne. A large measure of his patriotic spirit descended to his granddaughter, Sarah Hodge Barrett, who became the wife of Doctor, afterward Governor, Hubbard.
Of this parentage Thomas Hamlin Hubbard was born, at Hal- lowell, Maine, on December 20, 1838. He received a careful preparatory education, and in 1853 was matriculated at Bowdoin College. There he pursued a studious career, and was graduated honorably in 1857. His bent was toward the practice of law, and he at once began studying with that end in view, in a law office at Hallowell. In 1860 he was admitted to practice at the Maine bar. But he was not himself fully satisfied with his attainments, and so went to Albany, New York, and entered the well-known law school there. On May 14, 1861, he was admitted to practice at the bar of the State of New York, and actually began such practice, with fine prospects of success. It was not, however, for long. An important interruption was at hand.
That interruption was the one which came to thousands at about the same time. The outbreak of the Civil War aroused all the young man's patriotic ardor- an element not lacking in the sons of Maine - and impelled him to offer his services to the national government. He went back to Maine, to his old friends and neighbors, and in 1862 joined the Twenty-fifth Regi- ment of Maine Volunteers, with the rank of first lieutenant and adjutant. During a part of his service he was acting assistant adjutant-general of his brigade. On July 11, 1863, he was mus- tered out, but immediately reentered the service. He was actively engaged in raising the Thirtieth Regiment of Volun- teers, and on November 10, 1863, was commissioned lieutenant- colonel in that regiment. In that capacity he served through the Red River campaign, and soon was promoted to the command of the regiment, and led it in the assault upon Monett's Bluff.
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He assisted in the construction of the famous Red River dam, by means of which the depth of water in the river at that point was increased sufficiently to float out the Federal gunboats and thus save them from serious embarrassment. He also helped to bridge the Atchafalaya River with a line of boats, for the passage of the army.
A colonel's commission came to him on May 13, 1864, and he was transferred with his regiment to the Shenandoah Valley, in Virginia. He there served throughout the remainder of the war, sometimes in command of his regiment, sometimes in com- mand of a whole brigade. He also served as presiding judge of a court martial. In April, 1865, he was ordered to Washington, and there, in the following month, participated in the grand final reviews. Later he was sent to Savannah, Georgia, to con- duct examinations of officers of the volunteer army who wished to be transferred to the regular army. And, finally, on July 13, 1865, he received the commission of a brevet brigadier-general, and then was honorably mustered out of the service.
General Hubbard then returned to the law practice, which had been so completely interrupted three years before. He came straight to New York city, and for a year or more was associated with the Hon. Charles A. Rapallo. Then, in January, 1867, he be- came a partner in the firm of Barney, Butler & Parsons. Seven years later the firm was reorganized into its present form and style of Butler, Stillman & Hubbard. In its affairs General Hubbard has from the first played a leading part, and he has long been recognized as one of the leaders of the New York bar. His engagements as counsel have included many cases in which enormous commercial interests were involved. Much of his practice, indeed, has been in the interest of corporations and great industrial enterprises, and to that branch of professional work he has paid particular attention, and in it he has become an assured authority. Such professional practice has naturally led him into other business relations with corporations. Thus he is a director and vice-president of the Southern Pacific Rail- road Company and president of several other railroad companies affiliated therewith.
UP Huntington
COLLIS POTTER HUNTINGTON
THE village of Harwinton, in picturesque Litchfield County, Connecticut, was the native place of Collis Potter Hun- tington, where he was born on October 22, 1821. He was the fifth of nine children, and at the age of fourteen years left school and began the business of life. For a year he was engaged at wages of seven dollars a month. In 1837 he came to New York and entered business for himself on a small scale. Then he went South, and gained much knowledge of the region in which some of his greatest enterprises were afterward to be conducted. At the age of twenty-two he joined his brother Solon in opening a general merchandise store at Oneonta, New York, and for a few years applied himself thereto. But he longed for more extended opportunities, and found them when the gold fever of 1849 arose.
Mr. Huntington started for California on March 15, 1849, on the ship Crescent City, with twelve hundred dollars, which he drew out of his firm. He reached Sacramento some months later with about five thousand dollars, having increased his capital by trading in merchandise during his detention on the Isthmus. He at once opened a hardware store there, which is still in existence. Business was good, profits were large, and by 1856 he had made a fortune. Then he turned his attention to railroads, especially to a line connecting the Pacific coast with the East. In 1860 the Central Pacific Railroad Company was organized, largely through his efforts, and he came back to Washington to secure government aid. He was successful, and the sequel was the building of the first railroad across the continent. He was one of the four who gave that epoch-making
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work to the nation, the others being Messrs. Hopkins, Stanford, and Crocker.
The Central Pacific road was completed in May, 1869. Later Mr. Huntington and his three associates planned and built the Southern Pacific road. When Colonel Scott sought to extend the Texas Pacific to the west coast, Mr Huntington hurried the Southern Pacific across the deserts of Arizona and New Mexico, and met the Texas line east of El Paso. Thence he carried his line on to San Antonio. In the meantime he had acquired various lines east of San Antonio, including the Gal- veston, Harrisburg and San Antonio, the Texas and New Orleans, the Louisiana Western, and the Morgan's Louisiana and Texas railroads. In 1884 he organized the Southern Pacific Company, and under it unified no less than twenty-six distinct corporations, with some seven thousand miles of railroads and some five thousand miles of steamship lines in the United States and five hundred and seventy-three miles of railroads in Mexico.
Even these stupendous enterprises did not exhaust the energy nor satisfy the ambition of Mr. Huntington. He and his asso- ciates acquired the Guatemala Central Railroad, probably the best railroad property in Central America, and opened coal- mines in British Columbia. Not content with his railroad system from the Pacific to the Gulf, he reached out to the Atlantic as well, gaining a controlling interest in various Eastern railroads, and establishing at Newport News, Virginia, where the system terminated, one of the greatest shipyards in the world, and a port for commerce which already has secured a large share of the foreign trade of the United States.
Of late years Mr. Huntington has resided most of the time in this city. Despite his long career and advancing age, he still exhibits the energy and ambition of youth, and the ability thereof for hard and continuous work, his fine native consti- tution having been kept unimpaired.
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CLARENCE MELVILLE HYDE
"THE family of Hyde, which is not without distinction in the history of Great Britain, was among those earliest trans- planted to the North American colonies. Its pioneer and pro- genitor on these shores was William Hyde, who came from England in 1632. He first settled at Hartford, Connecticut, and later removed to Norwich. There the family was permanently established, and there it contributed much, through many gen- erations, to the growth, not only of the city of Norwich, but of the entire colony and State. Indeed, the Hydes played no small part in the affairs of the colonies in general. We find, in the third generation, Simon Lathrop, a son of William Hyde's daughter, serving with gallantry as a lieutenant-colonel of Con- necticut troops at the memorable capture of Louisburg. Again, in the next generation, James Hyde was a lieutenant of Connec- ticut troops in the patriot army in the War of the Revolution, being connected with the First and Fourth Connecticut regi- ments successively.
The sixth generation discloses the name of Edwin Hyde, a wholesale grocer in the city of New York, his father, Erastus Hyde, having come hither from Connecticut, the first of the family to leave that State. Edwin Hyde was associated in busi- ness with Ralph Mead, a man of old Connecticut ancestry, and he married Mr. Mead's daughter, Elizabeth Alvina Mead. Their home was at No. 95 Second Avenue, a part of the city that in early days promised to be the chief center of fashion and wealth, but which was in time outstripped by Fifth Avenue.
To that couple, at that address, Clarence Melville Hyde was born, on January 11, 1846. At the age of seven years he was sent to a primary public school, where he manifested more than ordinary ability in mastering his lessons. His progress was so
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rapid, and, at the same time, sure and thorough, that at the age of twelve years he was able to go to the Columbia College Gram- mar School to begin his college preparatory course. Four years later he was matriculated at Columbia College, where he pursued a most creditable career, and was duly graduated as a member of the class of 1867, with a fine reputation for scholarship. His next step was to enter the Law School of Columbia College, there to continue his brilliant career. He was graduated in the class of 1869, with the degree of LL. B., and the next year the college added to his A. B. degree that of A. M.
Mr. Hyde was not the inheritor of a great fortune, but had his own way to make in the world, and he set out diligently to make it. He lived quietly, studied earnestly, and worked hard at his chosen profession. After his admission to the bar, he engaged in general practice, but made a specialty of real-estate business, accountings, etc., a department of the legal profession for which there is in New York much demand, and which is accordingly profitable. In such practice he was eminently successful, and he rose rapidly to a leading place at the bar.
Mr. Hyde early took the active interest in public affairs that was to be expected of a man of patriotic ancestry. He affiliated himself with the Republican party, and was earnestly devoted to the promotion of its principles and welfare. During the admin- istration of President Arthur he served as deputy consul-general at Vienna, but apart from that has held no public office, and has sought none.
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