USA > New York > New York State's prominent and progressive men : an encyclopaedia of contemporaneous biography, Volume I > Part 18
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32
To this latter couple was born the subject of this sketch, John Campbell Latham III, at Hopkinsville, Christian County, Ken- tucky, on October 22, 1844. He was well instructed in primary and secondary schools, and was just about to enter the Univer- sity of Virginia when the Civil War broke out. At the first call to arms he threw down his books and enlisted in the Confederate forces. He did not once leave the field, even on furlough, until Lee surrendered at Appomattox. From November, 1862, until the surrender, he served on General Beauregard's staff in va- rious capacities of closest confidence with that commander.
At the close of the war he returned to Kentucky. His first venture was the establishment of a dry-goods firm in Hopkinsville, which business he conducted successfully for three years. In 1870 he closed out his Kentucky interests and came to New York. Having a decided partiality for finances, he went at once into Wall Street. In 1871 he founded the now widely known banking-house of Latham, Alexander & Co., which has survived the varying fortunes of Wall Street for more than a quarter of a century without a change of name. Besides general banking, the firm has for years done a large cotton commission and invest- ment business.
To Mr. Latham's indefatigable energy and unvarying integrity must be credited the excellent reputation and signal success of the house over which he has presided. His whole life is devoted to business and to his home. Neither social clubs nor political organizations have any attraction for him. He has always stu- diously shunned public office, even to the extent of avoiding official connection with any and all corporations.
He has done much for the material advancement of his native town, and takes a great pride in its prosperity. In 1887 he erected in Hopkinsville a magnificent monument to the memory of the unknown Confederate dead who were buried there. It is one of the handsomest memorials of the kind in the South, and well bespeaks the donor's reverence for his dead comrades-at- arms, who gave their lives for the cause they believed to be just.
Mr. Latham was married, on November 19, 1874, to Miss Mary L. Allen, daughter of Thomas H. Allen of Memphis, Tennessee.
EDWARD LAUTERBACH
E NDWARD LAUTERBACH, whose brilliant career as a law- yer and politician has made his one of the most familiar names in New York, was born in New York city on August 12, 1844. His education was begun in the public schools and contin- ued in the College of the City of New York, from which institu- tion he was graduated with honors in 1864. He worked hard in school and college, as one to whom study was a privilege rather than a drudgery, and as soon as he received his degree entered upon a course of law in the offices of Townsend, Dyett & Morrison. After his admission to the bar he became a member of this firm, which was then reorganized under the name of Morrison, Lau- terbach & Spingarn. The death of Mr. Spingarn terminated the partnership, and Mr. Lauterbach formed his present connection with the firm of Hoadley, Lauterbach & Johnson. Individually, the firm is an unusually strong one, and is well known throughout the country.
Mr. Lauterbach has made an exhaustive study of the statutes relating to corporate bodies, and has a high standing at the bar as a specialist in this department of practice. He has success- fully conducted a large number of important litigations involving intricate points of law, and has a wide reputation for being able to settle large cases outside the courts.
In addition to his other practice, Mr. Lauterbach is a promi- nent figure in railroad circles as an organizer. He was instru- mental in bringing about the consolidation of the Union and Brooklyn Elevated roads, and the creation of the Consolidated Telegraph and Electrical Subway, and was concerned in the re- organization of many railroads. He is counsel for and a director of a number of street surface railroads, among others the Third Avenue system.
222
Edward quekartach
223
EDWARD LAUTERBACH
Mr. Lauterbach has always been a Republican, and has taken as active a part in State and local politics as the absorbing nature of his profession would permit. For some years he was chair- man of the Republican County Committee of New York, and was associated with Chauncey M. Depew, Thomas C. Platt, Frank S. Witherbee, and Frank Hiscock in the advisory com- mittee of the Republican State Committee. In the Republican National Convention held at St. Louis in 1896 he was a delegate at large from New York, was the member from New York of the committee on resolutions, and was one of the sub-committee of nine appointed to draft the platform, the financial plank of which presented the greatest issue that had been before the American people for many years. Mr. Lauterbach was one of the three delegates at large from the city of New York to the Consti- tutional Convention, which met in June, 1894. He was made chairman of the committee on public charities, an appointment which was considered highly appropriate, as he has been very prominent in all philanthropic and benevolent work, and is con- nected officially with many charitable organizations. The cause of education has a sympathetic and practical friend in Mr. Lauterbach, who has done much in various ways for its advancement.
Mr. Lauterbach is married, and has four children. The old- est, a son, was educated for his father's profession, and was admitted to the bar at the age of twenty-one. The other three are daughters. Mrs. Lauterbach has for years been a conspic- uous figure in New York society, not only in its brilliancy and pleasure-seeking, but also in its beneficent activities. She be- came interested in the Consumers' League, and did much to secure legislation for the benefit of women employed in factories. She has also been interested in the movement for woman suf- frage, the Good Government clubs, the Prison Guild, and many other enterprises for the improvement of social, industrial, and educational conditions.
LYSANDER WALTER LAWRENCE
'H APPY the people whose annals are blank in the history books," said Carlyle. Even more true is it of the man whose quiet life enables him to keep out of the "history books." Such a man is Lysander Walter Lawrence. He has no war record. He has held no political office, and has never wanted one. He has never caused a public sensation. Yet he has lived a happy, prosperous, useful life, full of kind deeds, essentially a friendly life ; and now, although he is far from having "fall'n into the sear, the yellow leaf," he has, and in abundance,
"that which should accompany old age, As honor, love, obedience, troops of friends."
Mr. Lawrence was born in Albany, New York, on July 30, 1836. He grew up in that cultivated city and was educated in its best schools. In April, 1858, he came to New York city and entered on a business career which has been steadily suc- cessful. In 1863 he married an estimable lady of Savannah, Georgia, with whom he enjoyed the most perfect marital bliss for thirty-five years, until her death in 1898. He has just built and presented to the village of Palenville, in New York State, where he and his wife were accustomed to spend their summers, the Rowena Memorial, a very handsome stone building fitted with every best modern device, in which the two district schools of the village have been consolidated.
When Mr. Lawrence came to New York he obtained employ- ment with a prominent firm of manufacturing stationers. Five years later he was admitted to the firm, and subsequently, on the death of some of the partners and the retirement of others, he became sole proprietor of the concern, which is now one of
224
Lysander H. Lawrence
Lysander H. Lawrence
225
LYSANDER WALTER LAWRENCE
the most important of its kind in the United States. It is a noteworthy fact that in the entire forty-one years of his business life Mr. Lawrence has remained within a stone's throw of the spot where he began, in Nassau Street, near Pine Street. Mer- chants have moved far away. Banks and insurance companies have gone, sometimes up-town and sometimes down. Building after building in which he was located has been demolished to make room for immense new edifices. But he has stuck close to the old stand, and has held most of his original patrons. Pos- sibly most of Mr. Lawrence's friends, if called on to mention his chief trait, would at once declare that it is fidelity -fidelity in business and in social relationships. But on second thought they would probably agree that his most marked characteristic is friend- liness. If some customer wishes a peculiar trinket for his desk, Mr. Lawrence will provide it-the more certainly if it prove diffi- cult to obtain. Not for the profit to be made on it. The chances are that if he has to send to the other side of the world for it, or have it invented and newly made, he will deliver it with a bill for a quarter of its cost, after which he will retire to his private office and quietly enjoy the pleasure he has conferred. If a faithful clerk grows unwontedly serious and at times appears troubled, he may find, some evening after he has kissed his wife and the baby, that the formidable-looking envelop that came by a late mail contains a "satisfaction piece " as proof that the mortgage on his house has been paid off-by Mr. Lawrence, of course. If some institution for improving and gratifying public taste has a specific need, Mr. Lawrence will offer aid for the purpose, provided his name be kept out of the subscription list. If some family be in want of food or fuel or money to pay the rent, a natural affinity will bring the case to the knowledge of this shy, retiring man, and then the distress will be relieved. And such deeds will be done because Mr. Lawrence is impelled by the glowing power of friendship - for the young clerk quite as much as for the bank president, for the destitute family quite as truly as for the popular institution. In truth, so genial and friendly is this man that no person, even a stranger, can en- counter him five minutes in his place of business without going out more cheerful than he went in. Thus the world is better because Walter Lawrence is living in it.
000
JAMES D. LAYNG
THE history of the development of the American nation is, industrially, largely a history of railroads. In no other coun- try have railroads been built on so enterprising a scale, and in no other have they done so much for the material upbuilding of the nation, or contributed so much to the progress of social and political affairs. For beyond doubt the great trunk-lines stretch- ing in all directions over the continent are one of the most potent factors in binding together all parts of the Union in a harmo- nious whole.
Naturally, therefore, railroad men figure largely in the national biography. It is with such a man that we are at present to deal. James D. Layng is the son of George W. Layng, a lawyer, and Elizabeth N. Layng, and was born at Columbia, Pennsylvania, on August 30, 1833. His father was born in the north of Ire- land, of Scotch and Irish ancestry, and his mother was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, of Irish ancestry. He was educated at the Western University, of Pennsylvania, at Pittsburg, and was graduated there in the class of 1849. His attention was imme- diately thereafter centered upon railroading, and to that business it has been chiefly devoted ever since, with more than ordinary success.
It was on August 9, 1849, when he was scarcely sixteen years old, and had been out of college only a few weeks, that he began work as a rod-man in the engineer corps engaged in building the Ohio and Pennsylvania Railroad. He remained at that work until March 12, 1850, when he became level-man in the same service. On May 1, 1850, he became an assistant engineer of construction of the same road; on November 25, 1851, resident engineer of construction of the Steubenville and Indiana Rail- road; in November, 1853, resident engineer of construction of
226
Holayay
227
JAMES D. LAYNG
the Cleveland and Mahoning Railroad; in January, 1856, chief engineer of maintenance of way; and in April, 1858, superin- tendent of the Steubenville and Indiana, Railroad; in October, 1865, superintendent of the eastern division of the Pittsburg, Fort Wayne and Chicago Railroad, into which the old Ohio and Pennsylvania road had been transformed; in July, 1871, assistant manager, and in August, 1874, general manager of the Pennsylvania Company's lines, including the Pittsburg, Fort Wayne and Chicago, formerly Ohio and Pennsylvania, so that thus, after twenty-five years, he became general manager of the very road on which he began his work as a surveyor's rod- man. In July, 1881, he became general superintendent of the Chicago and Northwestern Railroad. Since January 1, 1884, he has been general manager of the West Shore Railroad; from April, 1887, to July, 1890, he was president of the Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati and Indianapolis Railroad ; since July 1, 1890, he has been vice-president of the Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago and St. Louis Railroad; and since December 1, 1890, he has been general manager of the Beech Creek Railroad.
At the present time Mr. Layng is vice-president and general manager of the West Shore Railroad, vice-president of the C., C., C. & St. L. Railroad, general manager of the Wallkill Valley Railroad, general manager of the Beech Creek Railroad, vice- president of the Illinois Zinc Company, and a director of the West Shore Railroad, the New York & Harlem Railroad, the C., C., C. & St. L. Railroad, the Wallkill Valley Railroad, the New Jersey Junction Railroad, the West Shore & Ontario Terminal Company, the Lincoln National Bank of New York, the City Trust Company of New York, and the Iron City National Bank of Pittsburg, Pennsylvania.
With this imposing array of business interests, Mr. Layng has found no time for office-holding or for active participation in politics, apart from the duties of a private citizen. He is a member of the Union League, Metropolitan, and Transportation clubs, and the Ohio Society of New York.
Mr. Layng was married, on February 13, 1862, to Miss Agnes Means of Steubenville, Ohio. Their children are named Frank S., Addie M., Mary L., Agnes W., and James Dawson Layng, Jr.
J. EDGAR LEAYCRAFT
J. EDGAR LEAYCRAFT is a native of New York, and a son of the late Anthony D. Leaycraft, who was also of New York birth. He was born in the Ninth Ward, and his first education was had in the public school on Thirteenth Street, near Seventh Avenue. From it he was graduated to the Free Academy, which has since become known as the College of the City of New York. In the latter institution he was able to remain only one year, at the end of which he decided to bid farewell to school, and to enter practical business life.
His first engagement was in a broker's office on Pine Street. He was then a mere boy, and began with a boy's work and a boy's pay. But his diligence and application secured him advancement, so that at the age of eighteen years he was cashier and bookkeeper of a firm doing a large banking and brokerage business. Not long after this the firm dissolved, and he was compelled to look elsewhere for employment. He promptly decided to find it in an office of his own.
Mr. Leaycraft accordingly began operations in the business which has engaged his chief attention ever since. He opened on his own account a real-estate office on Eighth Avenue, near Forty-second Street. He was a stranger in that part of the city, with no friends and no patrons. But he started in to win them, and soon succeeded. He did a large business in selling and leasing, and secured the permanent management of a number of pieces of property. Year by year his patronage increased, until now he is said to have the largest in all that quarter of the city, as well as a splendid business in other districts. He represents the trustees and executors of a number of estates, and is agent for some of the most extensive personal and
228
229
J. EDGAR LEAYCRAFT
corporate estates in New York, as well as for a whole army of clients. He has successfully negotiated many important sales of property in various parts of the city, and has often been called to serve as an appraiser. He has for several years been a direc- tor, and for three years treasurer, of the Real Estate Exchange and Auction Rooms, Limited, and was one of the founders and first directors of the Real Estate Board of Brokers. These lat- ter places are indicative of the good will that is felt toward Mr. Leaycraft, and of the confidence that is felt in him, by his asso- ciates and rivals in the real-estate business.
Apart from his business, strictly speaking, though in a great measure because of his success and integrity in business, Mr. Leaycraft's interests are varied, numerous, and important. His regard for the real-estate business and his unceasing efforts to raise its standard naturally led him into the movement on the upper West Side of the city which culminated in the formation of the West End Association, of which he has been treasurer and a most influential and active member for a number of years. Similarly, he was among the first members of the Colonial Club, the chief social organization in that part of the city. He was chosen a member of its committee on site, and it is largely be- cause of his judgment and foresight that the club now possesses its fine club-house in an unsurpassed situation. Mr. Leaycraft maintains an active interest in the club, being a member of its board of governors, and also its treasurer.
Mr. Leaycraft has been for a number of years a trustee of the Franklin Savings Bank, and at the present time is a member of its finance committee and chairman of the committee in charge of the erection of its new building. He is a member of the Board of Trade and Transportation, the Chamber of Commerce of the State of New York, the Union League Club, the New York Historical Society, the American Museum of Natural His- tory, the Up-Town Association, the Merchants' Association, the Republican Club of the City of New York, of which he has for a number of years been treasurer, of the Colonial Club, as already stated, and of the West Side Republican Club, of which he has been president and a member of the executive committee since its foundation. He is a strong and consistent Republican, and has been a member of the County Committee of that party for
230
J. EDGAR LEAYCRAFT
some years, though he has never been an office-seeker nor a candidate for any office. In 1889, however, he was appointed by Governor Roosevelt a member of the State Board of Tax Com- missioners, a place for which his expert knowledge of real-estate values peculiarly fitted him. This appointment was made with- out solicitation by Mr. Leaycraft, or the exercise of any influence in his behalf, and was accepted by him at the Governor's request. Mr. Leaycraft has long been a member of the Methodist Epis- copal Church, and a member and officer of the Madison Avenue Church of that denomination. He is also treasurer of the New York City Church Extension and Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church, to the work of which he gives generously of his time, his labor, and his means.
From this brief outline of his busy and honorable career it will readily be concluded that Mr. Leaycraft has been, in the best sense of the term, the architect of his own fortunes, the builder of his own character and success. His unfailing integ- rity, his soundness of judgment, his devotion to business, his mastery of its principles and details, his energy, his foresight and enterprise, are chief among the elements which have attained for him the high success which he now enjoys, and which none of his rivals in business, not even those whom he may have far outstripped, can have just cause to begrudge him.
David Leventit.
DAVID LEVENTRITT
D AVID LEVENTRITT, justice of the Supreme Court of the State of New York, is a Southerner by birth, but a New- Yorker by education and long residence. He was born at Winnsboro, South Carolina, on January 31, 1845. When he was nine years old premonitions of troublous times in that part of the country were not lacking. The spirit of antagonism between North and South was steadily growing, and threatening to burst into violent conflict. In those controversies Mr. Leven- tritt's family took little actual part. But in 1854 his parents decided to remove to the North. Whether purposely or not, they thus avoided the cataclysm of war and disaster that pres- ently came upon the Palmetto State, and spent the remainder of their days in the peace and security of the Northern metropolis, and the boy grew up here as a New York boy.
He attended the public schools of the city, and thence pro- ceeded to the College of the City of New York, then known as the Free Academy. Throughout his school life he was noted as a fine student, and when he finished his course in the Free Academy he was graduated, in 1864, as the salutatorian of his class. He then adopted the law as his profession, and entered the Law School of New York University, or the University of the City of New York, as it was then called. There he was a diligent and receptive student, and he was in due time gradu- ated. Admission to practice at the bar followed, and then the young man opened an office and began work.
His excellent preparation and his natural gifts and aptitude assured him success. This was not won without hard work, but from that he did not shrink. He soon gained by practice a wide and valuable familiarity with all important branches of law,
231
232
DAVID LEVENTRITT
especially of commercial law. He was employed as counsel in many noteworthy cases, and achieved a high average of success, especially as a trial lawyer. In the last twenty years few law- yers in New York have appeared in court more frequently or to more successful purpose than he. He was special counsel for the city in the proceedings for condemnation of land for the Washington Park, in which the property-owners claimed more than fifteen hundred thousand dollars. After a hard legal and argumentative battle, the case was settled at less than half that figure.
Mr. Leventritt has long taken an active interest in politics as a Democrat and a follower of Tammany Hall. He was never an office-holder, however, until 1899, except as, by appointment, chairman of the Commission for the Condemnation of Lands for the new Third Avenue Bridge over the Harlem River. In the fall of 1898, however, he was nominated by the Democratic party for a place on the Supreme Court bench of the State. The campaign was a somewhat embittered one, but Mr. Leventritt ran ahead of his ticket, and was triumphantly elected. At the beginning of 1899 he took his place upon the Supreme Court bench, and was immediately designated as one of the justices of the Appel- late Term, a distinction not heretofore accorded to a judge during his first year of service.
Adolph dewischen
ADOLPH LEWISOHN
THE subject of this sketch was born in Hamburg, Germany, on May 17, 1849. Adolph Lewisohn comes of an old and honorable family, whose connection with mercantile affairs in Hamburg is part of that city's history. His father, Mr. Samuel Lewisohn, conducted a large business, with headquarters in Hamburg, but with connections which were world-wide. The importance of the American branch of the elder Mr. Lewisohn's business brought Adolph Lewisohn to this country as a young man, and he at once commenced to build up the foundation of that brilliant career which has brought him into the front rank of the business men of the metropolis. In early life Mr. Lew- isohn was a great student, and even in his boyhood a remarkable master of mathematical propositions, having been especially proficient in algebraic problems; and this faculty has largely been brought into play in later life, as applied to the serious matters always entering into extended business operations. Mr. Lewisohn's remarkable success is largely due to his wonderful judgment in selecting business associates, he having always been careful to surround himself with the very best material for whatever particular purpose there might be in point. The assistants with whom he thus surrounded himself, being con- trolled by the calm, judicial mind, the self-contained, forceful character of Mr. Lewisohn, have been no small aids in the devel- opment of the important business now represented by the pow- erful firm of Lewisohn Brothers, of which Adolph Lewisohn is general manager.
The possession of wealth, and the ability to enjoy all that wealth can purchase, are two distinct and separate things, not always found in happy combination ; but in the case of Mr. Lewisohn
233
234
ADOLPH LEWISOHN
this most happy result is achieved. As a lover of art in all its branches, as a connoisseur of paintings, as an educated master of the beauties of architecture, Mr. Lewisohn stands prominent ; and his knowledge in these directions, his refined tastes, and his appreciation of fine literature have resulted in a private life which affords not only happiness to himself, but delight to his family and to all those who are fortunate enough to be classed among his friends.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.