USA > New York > New York State's prominent and progressive men : an encyclopaedia of contemporaneous biography, Volume I > Part 17
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ELIJAH ROBINSON KENNEDY
road extending along the shore of the bay and the Narrows from Bay Ridge Avenue to Fort Hamilton into a public pleasure drive had often been mentioned, but the project that finally took shape was entirely the conception of Mr. Kennedy, and it was due solely to his energetic and persistent labors that acts of legislation were obtained creating a commission to design a magnificent parkway, and providing several millions of dollars for the purchase of the requisite property and for beginning its development .and improvement. He was president of the commission that perfected the plans for the improvement, and that had the vast work well established before the absorption of the city of Brooklyn in the city of New York.
Mr. Kennedy has traveled over much of his own country, has visited Mexico and Central America, and has made several extensive tours in Europe, where he has a large circle of acquaintances in several countries. He is an enthusiastic pho- tographer, and after a foreign trip is accustomed to lecture, using many of his views in lantern-slides. His purpose origi- nally was thus to entertain his friends at home; but people inter- ested in philanthropic societies have insisted on his lecturing for their benefit, and he declares that on his terms he is in great demand. "I get nothing," he says, "and pay for my own cab." Although a member of several popular clubs in New York and Brooklyn, he is an infrequent visitor to any of them. He has a house at Southampton, Long Island, and his home in Brooklyn, directly opposite Prospect Park, is to him a more attractive spot than any club, while the members of his family are his most congenial associates. His library comprises nearly five thousand volumes, and is constantly growing. Although a student as well as a reader, he seldom writes for publication, but in 1897 he pre- pared a volume of biography of his friend the late General John B. Woodward. Mr. Kennedy is a high-minded man, incapable of envy or revenge, fond of the society of the wise, and extremely generous and hospitable. Although past fifty years of age, his cheerful disposition and his robust health have preserved the ardor and enthusiasm of his youth quite unimpaired.
HENRY SCANLAN KERR
T THE Kerr family is of English origin, and was planted in this country early in this century. The Scanlan family came from Wickford, Ireland, and is descended from the Power family, of which Tyrone Power, the actor, and Sir William Tyrone Power, M. P., were members. William H. Kerr, State prosecu- tor of Ohio, and Harriet Ellen Scanlan of Montreal, Canada, were married and settled in Cincinnati. There, on September 4, 1866, their son, Henry Scanlan Kerr, was born.
He was first sent to the public schools of Cincinnati, and to Chickering Institute, but was so wild and self-willed that it was impossible to get him to attend to his studies. So he was sent to Montgomery Bell Academy, a part of the University of Nash- ville, Tennessee, to see if anything could be done with him there. At first he was as heedless of study as ever. But one day he quarreled with the boy who stood at the head of the class, made up his mind to beat him in scholarship, and, to the amazement of all, did so at the next examination. Thereafter he stood at the head of the school in scholarship, and was gradu- ated, valedictorian of his class, in 1883, carrying off the final prize and highest honors. He was also as conspicuous in athletics as in scholarship.
After some experience in a Cincinnati insurance office and on a Louisiana sugar plantation, he came to New York in Septem- ber, 1885, and entered the office of his uncle, Charles T. Wing of Wall Street, then one of the foremost dealers in railroad bonds. There he learned the business of banking and brokerage. A few years later Mr. Wing died, and then Mr. Kerr thought he should be taken into the firm. He told his employers, the new firm, that if he were not admitted he would set up an office of his
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own. They told him to go ahead. Thereupon he formed a partnership with Henry S. Redmond, a young Wall Street man, and a special partnership with Mr. Gilbert M. Plympton, a lawyer and capitalist. Mr. Plympton was eventually taken into full partnership, and Thomas A. Gardiner was also admitted. Mr. Kerr kept his own counsel until the new firm-name was being painted on the door of No. 41 Wall Street, on May 1, 1892.
The success of the firm from the start was remarkable. Honest, conservative, and intelligent effort, coupled with ex- traordinary energy, soon put the house among the foremost in Wall Street, and it has been increasing in wealth and importance each year. It has been declared to do the largest individual business in investment securities in Wall Street, and it has the enviable record of never having sold a security which has later defaulted on its interest. The force of this remark is evident when it is estimated that the house has distributed among over ten thousand investors over one hundred and fifty million dollars of securities. In order to accomplish this end, the house was one of the first to institute a department for the thorough examina- tion of properties in the securities of which the house deals, so that the name of the house is now a trade-mark of standard value. The house has taken active part in most of the large financial transactions carried through in recent years, including reorganizations, refunding schemes, government and railroad bond issues, too numerous to mention, being associated therein with all the great Wall Street banking-houses. Mr. Kerr is also senior member of the house of Graham, Kerr & Co., of Philadelphia.
Mr. Kerr enlisted as a private in Troop A, the crack New York cavalry organization, in 1890, and was honorably discharged as first sergeant in 1895, after admirable service in the Brooklyn and Buffalo strike riots, and elsewhere. He was married, in 1895, to Miss Olive Grace, daughter of John W. Grace of New York. They have one son.
He is a member of the Chamber of Commerce, and the Union, the Union League, Racquet and Tennis, Country, and New York Yacht clubs, the Ohio Society, and the Down-Town Association.
Robur Kinball
ROBERT JACKSON KIMBALL
R OBERT JACKSON KIMBALL, banker, of Randolph, Ver- mont, and New York city, was born at Randolph, Vermont, on February 16, 1836. His ancestors were English, and emigrated to this country in 1634. He is in the eighth generation from Richard Kimball, who came over in the ship Elizabeth, and set- tled at Watertown, Massachusetts, and thence removed to Ips- wich, where the remainder of his life was spent. The direct line of descent from Richard Kimball was through John Kimball, Richard Kimball II, Richard Kimball III, John Kimball II, Richard Kimball IV, and Hiram Kimball, to the subject of this sketch. Mr. Kimball's great-grandfather, John Kimball II, and grandfather, Richard Kimball IV, both served in the Revolution- ary War in Colonel Samuel B. Webb's Third Connecticut Regi- ment.
Mr. Kimball's grandfather removed from Pomfret, Connecti- cut, to Randolph, Vermont, about the year 1795, and in that town the grandfather, father, and son have for more than one hundred years continuously maintained a family home.
Educated in the common schools and the West Randolph Academy, Mr. Kimball decided upon a business career, and en- tered upon it in early life. He lived in his native State until after he had attained his majority, his occupations including tele- graphic and express service on the railroads of Vermont. He engaged in the business of a banker at Toronto, Canada, in 1862, and two years later was appointed United States consul at that place. Toronto was then the headquarters of a number of prominent refugees from the Southern States, who were striving to use Canada as a base of operations in the interest of the Con- federacy and against the United States. He was the means of
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communicating important information to the United States gov- ernment concerning the manufacture of cannon and the fitting out of hostile expeditions on Lake Erie and elsewhere. He also gave information that led to the capture of Robert Cobb Ken- nedy, the leader of the gang which, in November, 1864, set fire to ten hotels and other crowded buildings in New York city, and attempted to destroy as much of the city as possible, regard- less of the loss of life. Fortunately the fires were discovered, and the men failed in their purpose and fled to Canada. In his official duties as consul, Mr. Kimball met Kennedy, recognized him by a photograph, and notified the authorities, so that when the criminal returned to the United States he was captured, taken to Fort Lafayette in New York harbor, tried for violating the rules of war and acting as a spy, convicted, and hanged.
At the end of the war, in 1865, Mr. Kimball came to New York city and established a banking house, which still continues, under the firm-name of R. J. Kimball & Co. The course of this firm has been generally most successful. In 1872, owing to a great decline in value of securities in the panic which character- ized that year, he was unable to meet all demands upon him, and was compelled accordingly to suspend payments to his creditors. Within forty-eight hours, however, he settled with his creditors by payment of twenty-five cents on the dollar, receiving a discharge from all further obligations, and was thus enabled to resume business. In 1881 he voluntarily paid the other seventy-five per cent. of his obligations, together with interest thereon at six per cent., the whole amounting to many thousands of dollars.
Mr. Kimball became, in January, 1867, a member of the Open Board of Brokers, which was, in May, 1869, consolidated with the New York Stock Exchange, whereupon he became a member of the latter organization.
While having a business in New York, on the death of his father, in 1865, Mr. Kimball assumed the affairs of the home in Vermont, where he spent more or less of his time every year. He resumed his citizenship in his native town in 1886, and built a new residence.
He was an aide-de-camp on the staff of Governor Dillingham of Vermont, with the rank of colonel, from 1888 to 1890. He
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represented the town of Randolph in the Legislature of 1890-91, serving on the standing committees on ways and means and on banks, and on a special joint committee on the World's Colum- bian Exposition. In 1899 he was elected trustee of the University of Vermont and Agricultural College, to fill the vacancy caused by the death of the late Senator Justin S. Morrill. Mr. Kimball has shown his public spirit and generosity in many ways in dif- ferent enterprises in his native town. He has there, as already stated, erected a new residence in lieu of the old family home- stead, and has made it a conspicuously attractive house, and a worthy monument of taste. He also maintains a home in Brooklyn, New York, where he has a handsome house replete with evidences of culture and refinement.
Mr. Kimball has long been prominently connected, as trustee, with various important religious, charitable, and other institu- tions in Brooklyn, including the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences and the People's Trust Company. In September, 1898, he was elected president of the Iowa Central Railway Company.
In both public and private life he stands high in the regard of all who know him as a citizen and a man. He was united in marriage with Martha L., daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Charles A. Morse, in 1863. Their children are two daughters, Clara Louise and Annie Laura, and one son, W. Eugene Kimball. The last- named was graduated at Amherst College in 1896, and at once started in the banking business with his father, and was admitted to the firm of R. J. Kimball & Co. in January, 1898.
WILLIAM F. KING
THE stories of mercantile careers are greatly varied. There are some men who try one occupation after another in succes- sion, until at last they hit upon the one for which they seem fitted and in which they achieve success. There are those who, sticking consistently to the one calling, remove from one estab- lishment or firm to another, perhaps many times, before reaching the place in which their ultimate achievements are made. There are also those, whose careers are by no means the least interest- ing, who at the beginning enter not only the calling but the individual house in which their entire business course is to be run. Such last has been the record of the well-known president of the Merchants' Association of New York.
William F. King, who was born in New York city on Decem- ber 27, 1850, is the son of Charles King, a man of German birth, who had a successful career in New York as a grocer, and who, having retired from active business, died in August, 1899. Mr. King's mother, whose name before her marriage was Ella Elliott, was born in Ireland. Mr. King was educated in Public School No. 3, in New York city, and was destined from the first for a mercantile career.
On leaving school, while yet in boyhood, he entered, in 1866, the employment of the well-known firm of Calhoun, Robbins & Co. of New York, importers of and wholesale dealers in fancy goods and notions. His first place was, of course, a subordinate one. But he quickly manifested an aptitude for the work, and won the favors of his employers. The details of the business were mastered by him, one by one, and promotions consequently came to him from time to time. Thus he rose, step by step, through all the ranks, from that of errand boy, to be, as he is at
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Miliam Aring
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the present time, a partner in the firm. Such, in brief, is the story of his business career.
In the course of his active and successful career Mr. King has found no time, or felt no inclination, to engage in political affairs beyond discharging the duties of a citizen. He has, however, given much time and labor to various non-political undertakings for the promotion of commercial interests and for the conserva- tion of the public welfare. The beneficent works of the Mer- chants' Association, in attracting trade to New York, in investi- gating the water-supply needs of the city, and in other directions, are fresh in the public mind. In his capacity as president of the association Mr. King has been foremost and most efficient in these.
He has not, either, sought other business relationships apart from the firm with which he has so long been identified. He has, indeed, avoided all directorships and trusteeships in other corpo- rations, especially during his official connection with the Mer- chants' Association.
Besides being president of the Merchants' Association, Mr. King is a member of the Chamber of Commerce of the State of New York, the New York Board of Trade and Transportation, the New York Consolidated Exchange, the St. John's Guild, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the American Museum of Natural History, the Fine Arts Society, the Zoological Gardens, and the Merchants', City, New York Athletic, Colonial, and National Arts clubs.
Mr. King was married, in 1883, to Miss Martha Kneeland Danolds, a native of Albion, New York. Four children have been born to them. Of these, two, William F. and Sarah Kneeland, are now deceased. The others, Martha Elliott and Hildegaarde, are living.
DARWIN PEARL KINGSLEY
TN the closing years of the seventeenth century, three brothers, named Kingsley, came from England and settled, one in Maine, one in Massachusetts, and one in Connecticut. Each of these was the founder of a worthy line of American de- scendants. The subject of the present sketch belongs to the Massachusetts family, founded by the second of three brothers. Four generations ago one of the sons of that branch of the family removed from Massachusetts, where he had been born in 1765, to Bennington, Vermont, and his five sons all settled in their turn in northern Vermont. One of these, Nathan Kingsley, made his home in Grand Isle County, Vermont, and there his descendants have chiefly remained down to the present time. In the last generation Hiram Pearl Kingsley was a pros- perous farmer at Alburg, Vermont. He was a leading citizen, a member of the Vermont Legislature, and generally respected for his strict probity. He married Miss Celia P. La Due, of French ancestry, who is now living in St. Albans, Vermont.
The son of this couple, Darwin Pearl Kingsley, was born at Alburg, on May 5, 1857. He was fitted for college at Barre Academy, Barre, Vermont, and in 1877 was matriculated at the University of Vermont, at Burlington. Four years later he was graduated with the degree of A. B., and in 1884 he received the advanced degree of A. M. It should be added that his student life was interspersed with farm work, school-teaching, news- paper work, etc., to pay his way. At college he " boarded him- self " and rang the college bell in payment of fees. Thus he worked his own way through the academy and university. He got a good education, and he learned at the same time to appre- ciate the value of it from its cost.
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On leaving the university in 1881, he went to Colorado, and that fall became a school-teacher for a year. He was a pio- neer in opening western Colorado to settlement, after the re- moval of the Ute Indians. In 1883 he became editor of the Grand Junction (Colorado) "News." The next year he was one of Colorado's delegates to the National Republican Convention. His work as an editor and his ability as a public speaker quickly made him prominent in Colorado politics, and in 1886 he was elected State Auditor and Insurance Commissioner on the Re- publican ticket.
The last-named office inclined Mr. Kingsley toward the calling in which he is now successfully engaged. At the close of his term he left Colorado and returned to the East. He first settled in the State which, as a colony, had been the home of his earliest American ancestor, and entered the service of the New York Life Insurance Company in its Boston office. That was in 1889. His aptness for the work and his success in execution of it speedily marked him for promotion. In 1892 he was called to New York, and was made superintendent of agencies at the home office of the company. Six years later he was elected a trustee and third vice-president of the company, in which places he remains.
Mr. Kingsley is a member of the Union League Club, the University Club, the Merchants' Club, the St. Andrew's Golf Club, the Ardsley Casino Club, and the New England Society of New York. He is also a trustee of the University of Vermont.
Mr. Kingsley has been twice married. His first wife was Mary M. Mitchell, whom he married at Milton, Vermont, in June, 1884. She died at Brookline, Massachusetts, in August, 1890, leaving him one son, Walton Pearl Kingsley. He was married the second time in New York, on December 3, 1895, his wife being Josephine McCall, daughter of the Hon. John A. McCall, president of the New York Life Insurance Company. Two children have been born to him in his second marriage: Hope Kingsley, and Darwin Pearl Kingsley, Jr.
PERCIVAL KÜHNE
T HE Kühne family has for many generations been conspicu- ous among the landed proprietors of Magdeburg, Germany, and the vicinity of that historic city. Among its members, in the early part of this century, was Johann Friedrich Kühne, who was an accomplished musician and one of the most noted clarionet- players of his day. He was an associate of Richard Wagner and of the other great German musicians, though he practised the art not as a profession, but merely as a means of personal plea- sure. His son, Frederick Kühne, born at Magdeburg in 1824, after founding the banking-house of Knauth, Nachod & Kühne in New York, was made the consul-general of all the German states except Prussia. He filled that important place with eminent success for more than sixteen years preceding the forma- tion of the German Empire in 1871, and then retired with many decorations of distinction and knighthood. He founded the well-known New York banking-house of Knauth, Nachod & Kühne, which to-day occupies high rank in the financial world. He married Miss Ellen Josephine Miller, a descendant of an old distinguished English family.
The second son of Frederick and Ellen Josephine Kühne was born in this city on April 6, 1861, and was named Percival Kühne. He was educated in the city schools, and in the College of the City of New York, and then for several years completed his education at Leipsic, Germany.
It was Mr. Kühne's intention to follow his father's vocation as a banker. Accordingly, upon his return to this country from his studies at Leipsic, he entered the banking-house of Knauth, Nachod & Kühne, in a subordinate capacity, and devoted his at- tention to a thorough mastery of the details of the business.
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His natural aptitude for financial affairs and his careful scholas- tic training and mental discipline made his progress sure but by no means slow. He was promoted from rank to rank, and eventually became a partner in the firm. The elder Mr. Kühne died in Paris, in April, 1890, and thereupon his son succeeded to his full interest in the firm.
Mr. Kühne has paid as a member of the firm the same inces- sant and conscientious attention to the details of business that he paid when he was a subordinate learning the business. He has given to it likewise the benefit of his admirable judgment and foresight, and his unwavering integrity, thus amply sustain- ing the established reputation of the house for probity and suc- cess. But his business activities have not by any means been confined to the counting-room. His high standing as a banker has caused him to be eagerly sought after by other financiers, to lend strength and judgment to their enterprises. Thus he be- came one of the organizers and is now a trustee of the Colonial Trust Company. He is a trustee and a member of the finance committee of the Citizens' Savings Bank. He is also a trus- tee of the Lincoln Safe Deposit Company and of the Colonial Safe Deposit Company. Nor has he confined himself to purely financial affairs. His interest has extended to new inventions and manufactures. He became identified with the Pintsch Light- ing Company, as director and secretary of that corporation, which was later amalgamated with the Safety Car Heating and Light- ing Company. He is also a director and vice-president of the Regina Music Box Company.
Mr. Kühne has held no political office, and has sought none, contenting himself politically with the discharge of the duties of an intelligent and local private citizen.
Mr. Kühne is a member of the Union, Metropolitan, Union League, and Calumet clubs, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the New York Botanical Garden, the New York Zoological Garden, Holland Lodge, Free and Accepted Masons, and the Seventh Regiment Veteran Association. He was married, on January 31, 1893, to Miss Lillian Middleton Kerr, daughter of the late Hamilton B. Kerr of New York. They have no children.
JOHN CAMPBELL LATHAM
JOHN CAMPBELL LATHAM, the third of that name,- his father and grandfather having borne it before him,-is a Kentuckian by birth, but by ancestry a Virginian of Virginians on both sides of the family. The first of the Lathams in this country was James Latham, who came over from England and settled in Culpeper County, Virginia, in early colonial times. From him the line of descent has run unbroken down to the subject of this sketch. During the closing years of the last cen- tury a great tide of migration set westward from Virginia to what is now the State of Kentucky, and among the foremost in that movement were some of the Lathams, including the direct ancestors of our subject. To the development of Kentucky they gave the same devotion and efficiency that earlier generations of the same family had given to the upbuilding of the Old Dominion.
On the maternal side, also, Mr. Latham is of pure cavalier ancestry, his mother's family having been among the earliest colonists of Virginia. Two generations back, Dr. David Glass of Richmond, Virginia, was one of the foremost physicians and surgeons in the country. He temporarily forsook his profession to engage in the War of 1812, and as a patriotic officer of unerr- ing skill and unfailing courage he distinguished himself as greatly upon the field of battle as in the healing art of medicine. Dr. Glass's daughter Virginia became the wife of the second John Campbell Latham. The latter was one of the foremost citizens of Hopkinsville, Kentucky. He is described as having been a man of affairs in the highest and best sense of the term. Sound judgment, business ability, and unimpeachable character assured him great success in his undertakings, and fitted him
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well for the many places of trust to which he was called by the urgent choice of his fellow-citizens.
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