USA > New York > New York State's prominent and progressive men : an encyclopaedia of contemporaneous biography, Volume I > Part 2
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
9
10
CLARENCE DEGRAND ASHLEY
a writer upon financial and other topics, and has been for many years president of the Wabash Railroad Company. To them was born, on July 4, 1851, in their Boston home, the subject of this sketch.
Clarence Degrand Ashley received a typical New England education. After some preliminary instruction in New York city, whither his parents had moved in 1858, he was sent to the famous Phillips Academy, at Andover, Massachusetts, and thence to Yale. From the latter university he was graduated in 1873. He had then decided upon his profession, and in order to make his preparation for the practice of it as thorough as pos- sible he went to Germany, where he devoted special attention to the German language and at the same time entered the Univer- sity of Berlin, pursuing courses in Roman Law for two years. He then returned to his home in New York, and continued his studies, both in school and in an office. The latter was the office of Messrs. Scudder & Carter. The former was the Law School of Columbia College. He was admitted to the bar of New York in 1879, and the next year was graduated from Columbia Law School with its degree.
He now entered upon the practice of the profession in this city, in partnership with Mr. William A. Keener, under the firm- name of Ashley & Keener. It is interesting to observe that Mr. Keener has since become the dean of the Columbia Law School, as Mr. Ashley has of the university school. A few years later Mr. Ashley became a member of the firm of Dixon, Williams & Ashley, the senior member being a brother of the United States Senator of that name from Rhode Island. Upon the death of Mr. Dixon in 1891 the firm was reorganized under the style of Williams & Ashley. In the affairs of these firms Mr. Ashley was always an active and potent factor, and he par- ticipated in many important litigations. In 1898 Mr. Ashley became associated with a new firm, under the style of Ashley, Emley & Rubino, and is still actively engaged in practice with that firm as its senior partner and general counsel. As such he constantly advises in important corporation and railroad matters. Among his many clients are, or have been, the estates of the late Samuel J. Tilden, William B. Ogden, and Courtlandt Palmer, and the eminent statesman Galusha A. Grow of Pennsylvania,
11
CLARENCE DEGRAND ASHLEY
whom during six years of litigation he successfully defended against an attempt to invalidate his title to valuable coal prop- erty in Pennsylvania, formerly owned by the Brady's Bend Iron Company. He successfully contested the sale under foreclosure of the mining property at Houghton, Michigan, belonging to the Centennial Mining Company, and after several months of severe contest succeeded in bringing about a compromise whereby the rights of the stock-holders were preserved and the company reor- ganized upon its present strong basis. He has also for many years represented the Wabash Railroad Company in litigation, and advised that company upon many important questions. These are a few of the many matters of active practice which have occupied Mr. Ashley for years. It was not, however, his purpose to confine his activities entirely to the work of any law office, no matter how extended. His tastes were academic, and he soon began planning the establishment of a great school of law.
His plans were realized in 1891, when the Metropolis Law School was founded. Of that admirable institution he was not only one of the organizers, but also one of its chief instructors, a member of its board of trustees and of the executive com- mittee. For several years he did excellent work there, and the school flourished. It held sessions in the evenings, thus afford- ing facilities for study to many young men who were of neces- sity otherwise employed during the day.
But a few years later, and simultaneously, the Metropolis Law School inclined toward absorption into the New York University, and New York University decided upon such reorganization of its Law School as should bring the latter under university direc- tion. The natural and praiseworthy result was the consolidation of the two schools under the university head. Mr. Ashley was made vice-dean, and head of the evening department, a feature retained from the Metropolis School. This was in the spring of 1895. A year later Dr. Austin Abbott, the dean of the univer- sity school, died, and on September 16, 1896, Mr. Ashley was elected to succeed him.
In 1895 New York University conferred upon him the honor- ary degree of LL. M., and in June, 1898, he received the degree of LL. D. from Miami University.
JOHN JACOB ASTOR
"THERE is probably no name in America more thoroughly identified in the popular mind-and rightly so-with the possession and intelligent use of great wealth than that of Astor. For four generations the family which bears it has been fore- most among the rich families of New York, not only in size of fortune, but in generous public spirit and in all those elements that make for permanence and true worth of fame. The build- ing up of a great fortune, the establishment of a vast business, the giving of a name to important places and institutions, the liberal endowment of libraries, asylums, hospitals, churches, schools, and what not, the administration on a peculiarly gener- ous system of a large landed estate in the heart of the metropolis -these are some of the titles of the Astor family to remembrance.
It was a John Jacob Astor who founded the family in this country and made it great. In each generation since, that name has been preserved, and to-day is borne by its fourth holder. The present John Jacob Astor is the son of William Astor, who was the son of William B. Astor, who was the son of the first John Jacob Astor. He is also descended from Oloff Stevenson Van Cortlandt, who was the last Dutch Burgomaster of New Amsterdam before the British took it and made it New York ; from Colonel John Armstrong, one of the heroes of the French and Indian War; and from Robert Livingston, who received by royal grant the famous Livingston Manor, comprising a large part of Columbia and Dutchess counties, New York. He was born at his father's estate of Ferncliff, near Rhinebeck, on the Hudson, on July 13, 1864, and was educated at St. Paul's School, Concord, New Hampshire, and Harvard University. He was graduated at Harvard in the scientific class of 1888, and then
12
Eng by Withams New Yorke
For.
13
JOHN JACOB ASTOR
spent some time in travel and study abroad. He had already made extended tours through the United States, from New England to the Pacific coast. His subsequent travels have taken him into nearly every European and South American country, and he has not been content to follow merely the ordinary route of travel, but has made for himself new and interesting itineraries.
Upon his return to his native land Mr. Astor entered upon the manifold duties of a good citizen with whole-hearted energy. He first familiarized himself with the details of his own busi- ness, the management of his great estate. That, in itself, was a gigantic undertaking, but it was performed by him with thor- oughness. He also proceeded to improve his estate by the erec- tion of various fine new buildings, which are at once a source of revenue to him and an ornament to the city. He did not seek to avoid even the petty but often onerous duties of a juryman in the local courts, but in that and other ways showed himself willing to assume all the burdens, great and small, of an Ameri- can citizen. He entered into business relations with various enterprises, becoming a director of such institutions as the National Park Bank, the Title Guaranty and Trust Company, the Mercantile Trust Company, the Plaza Bank, the Illinois Cen- tral Railroad, the Western Union Telegraph Company, the Equi- table Life Assurance Society, the New York Life Insurance and Trust Company, the Astor National Bank, etc.
From an early age Mr. Astor manifested a decided inclination toward literary and scientific work. While at St. Paul's School he was the contributor of numerous articles of merit to academic publications. In 1894 he published a volume entitled " A Jour- ney in Other Worlds : A Romance of the Future." In this he dealt with the operations of a new force, styled "apergy," the reverse of gravitation. He adopted the theory that the conquest of nature would be - or actually had been - so far achieved that man had become master of the elemental forces of the universe. Thus air navigation had become a practical agency of communi- cation and transportation. Nor was navigation confined to our ordinary atmosphere. His daring voyagers traversed the inter- planetary spaces, and visited Jupiter as easily as we now cross the Atlantic. They found in the distant planets strange and lux-
14
JOHN JACOB ASTOR
uriant life, with singing flowers, extraordinary reptiles, spiders three hundred feet long, railroad trains running three hundred miles an hour, and, most marvelous of all, great cities with clean streets and good government. This remarkable literary and philosophical extravaganza attracted much attention, and was much praised by competent critics for its excellence of style, as well as for its daring imagination. It ran through many edi- tions here and also in England, and was published in France in translation.
Mr. Astor has long taken an active interest in military affairs, and his appointment as a colonel on the staff of Governor Morton, in 1895, was recognized as a most fitting one. In that office he did admirable service, and identified himself with the best inter- ests of the State troops. But a far more important service was before him. At the very outbreak of the Spanish-American War, on April 25, 1898, Mr. Astor visited Washington, had an interview with the President, and offered his services in any capacity in which he might be useful to the nation. At the same time he made a free offer of his fine steam-yacht, the Nourmahal, for the use of the Navy Department. The latter offer was declined with thanks, after due consideration, the navy officers not finding the yacht exactly available for their purposes. The tender of personal services was gratefully accepted, and on May 13, 1898, Mr. Astor was appointed an inspector-general in the army, with the rank of lieutenant-colonel. For the duties of this place his former experience on the staff of Governor Morton gave him especial fitness. On May 15 he went on duty on the staff of Major-General Breckinridge, inspector-general, his first work being a tour of inspection of the military camps which had been established in the South.
In that occupation Colonel Astor found plenty of work, much of it of a by no means pleasant character ; but he performed all of it with the zeal and thoroughness that have been characteristic of him in all his undertakings. There was no attempt to play the part of "gentleman soldier." The distinctions of wealth and social rank were laid aside at the call of the fatherland, and the millionaire became the unconventional comrade of every man, rich or poor, who was loyally fighting for the old flag.
After some weeks of duty in the United States, Colonel Astor
15
JOHN JACOB ASTOR
was ordered to Tampa and to Cuba with the first army of in- vasion, and did admirable service. He served with bravery.and efficiency during the battles and siege of Santiago, and was rec- ommended for promotion by his chief, General Shafter. He fell a victim to the malarial fever that prevailed there, but his robust constitution brought him safely through an ordeal which proved fatal to many of his comrades. After the surrender of Santiago he was sent to Washington as the bearer of important despatches and other documents to the President. At Tampa, on July 27, he and his fellow-travelers were stopped by the State sanitary authorities and ordered into quarantine for a few days. Colonel Astor took it philosophically, as one of the incidents of the campaign, disregarding the personal discomfort, and only re- gretting the delay in placing before the President the informa- tion with which he was charged. Finally the quarantine was raised, and Colonel Astor proceeded to Washington and delivered his message, and was enabled to do some valuable work for the War Department.
On August 11, the day before the formal signing of the proto- col of peace, but after the war was practically ended and the immediate restoration of peace was fully assured, Colonel Astor went on a furlough to his home at Ferncliff, and was enthu- siastically welcomed by his friends and neighbors of Rhinebeck and all the country round.
Worthy of record, also, is his gift to the government of the Astor Battery. At the outbreak of the war he offered to recruit and fully equip at his own expense a battery of light artillery. The offer was officially accepted by the government on May 26. The next day recruiting was begun. Volunteers flocked in with enthusiasm. On May 30 drill was begun. The next day saw the battery complete, with one hundred and two men and six twelve-pound Hotchkiss guns. The total cost of it to Colonel Astor was about seventy-five thousand dollars. After spending some time in drilling, the battery was sent across the continent to San Francisco and thence to Manila, where it arrived in time to take part in the operation against that city and in its final capture on August 13. The guns used by this battery were im- ported from England, and were the best of their kind to be had in the world. The uniforms worn by the soldiers were of the famous
16
JOHN JACOB ASTOR
yellow-brown khaki cloth, such as is worn by British soldiers in tropical countries. It was light in texture, cool and comfortable, and in all respects admirable for the purpose. The soldiers also had regular service uniforms, of blue cloth with scarlet facings. Colonel Astor's immediate connection with the battery ceased when he had paid the heavy bills for its organization and equip- ment, but it continued to bear his name, and its record in the nation's service abides as a lasting memorial of his generous and thoughtful patriotism, which led him to give his own time and labor, and to risk his own life, and also to give freely of his wealth to enable others to serve the government in the most effective manner. There are, indeed, few names in the story of the brief but glorious war of 1898 more honorably remembered than that of Colonel John Jacob Astor.
Colonel Astor was married, in 1891, to Miss Ava Willing of Philadelphia. She is a daughter of Edward Shippen Willing and Alice C. Barton Willing, whose names suggest many a chapter of worthy American history. Thomas Willing, a great-great-grand- father of Mrs. Astor, was Mayor of Philadelphia, and first president of both the Bank of North America and the Bank of the United States. He aided in drawing up the Constitution of the United States, and designed the coat of arms of this govern- ment. Another of Mrs. Astor's ancestors was the Hon. C. W. Barton, who in 1653 was a conspicuous member of the British Parliament. By this marriage Mr. Astor not only allied himself with a family of national distinction, but gained the life-com- panionship of a particularly charming and congenial woman. Mrs. Astor's native talents and refinement have been added to by careful education, well fitting her for the most exalted social position. She is, moreover, fond of and proficient in those open- air recreations and sports into which her husband enters with keen enjoyment. She is an expert tennis- and golf-player, and can sail a boat like a veteran sea-captain. She also possesses the not common accomplishment of being a fine shot with a rifle or revolver, and on more than one hunting expedition has given most tangible evidence of her skill.
Colonel Astor is a member of numerous clubs in this city and elsewhere, including the Metropolitan, Knickerbocker, Union, Tuxedo, City, Riding, Racquet, Country, New York Yacht, Down-
17
JOHN JACOB ASTOR
Town, Delta Phi, Newport Golf, Newport Casino, and Society of Colonial Wars.
In the fall of 1898 the nomination for Congress was offered to Colonel Astor in the district in which his city home is situated, but he was constrained by his business and other interests to decline it.
Colonel Astor spends much of his time upon the estate which was his father's and upon which he himself was born. This is Ferncliff, near Rhinebeck, on the Hudson River. It com- prises more than fifteen hundred acres, and extends for a mile and a half along the river-bank. About half of it is in a state of high cultivation, but much of the remainder is left in its native state of wild beauty, or touched with art only to enhance its charms and to make them more accessible for enjoy- ment. The house is a stately mansion in the Italian style of architecture, standing upon a plateau and commanding a superb outlook over the Hudson River, Rondout Creek, the Shawan- gunk Mountains, and the distant Catskills. A noteworthy feature of the place is the great series of greenhouses, twelve in number, in which all kinds of flowers and fruits are grown to perfection at all seasons of the year. Rhinebeck and its vicinity are the home of many people of wealth and culture, among whom the Astors are foremost.
The Astor home in this city is a splendid mansion built of limestone in the French style of Francis I. It stands at the corner of Fifth Avenue and Sixty-fifth Street, and is one of the chief architectural adornments of that stately part of the me- tropolis. It was designed by the late Richard M. Hunt, and is regarded as one of the masterpieces of that distinguished archi- tect. In this house each season some of the most magnificent social gatherings of New York occur, for, of course, in this city, at Newport, and wherever they go, Mr. and Mrs. Astor are among the foremost social leaders.
WILLIAM ASTOR
THE Astor family, long representative of that which is fore- most in America in wealth, culture, social leadership, and public spirit, was also typically American in its origin - or per- haps we should say in its renascence - on American soil. For there are various versions of its earlier history, some declaring it to have been of ancient and exalted lineage. However that may be, the present chapter of its history opens with a household of moderate means and moderate social rank, at Waldorf, in the grand duchy of Baden, Germany. A son of that family, John Jacob Astor by name, with no means apart from his character and indomitable will, came to America in the last year of the Revolutionary War, to seek a fortune. He found it in the fur trade with the Indians in the Northwest, and invested it and vastly increased it in New York real estate. He lived to be eighty-one years old, and was actively engaged in business in New York for forty-one years. The bulk of his fortune went to his son, William Backhouse Astor, who continued to increase it, and also to use it wisely for the benefit of his fellow-citizens. Then, in the third generation, came one of the best-known members of the whole family.
This was William Astor. He was a son of William B. Astor, and grandson of John Jacob Astor, the founder of the family in this country, and he amply inherited the best qualities of both. He was born in this city, in the old Astor mansion on Lafayette Place, adjoining the Astor Library, on July 12, 1829, and at the age of twenty years was graduated from Columbia Col- lege. Being of a frank and generous nature, respecting himself, loyal to his friends, and enthusiastic and proficient in athletic sports, he was one of the most popular men of his time in college.
18
The New York Fialeny Dr
Eng. bu Wilhams New York
19
WILLIAM ASTOR
On leaving Columbia, he made a long tour in foreign lands, especially in Egypt and the East, and thus gained a lifelong interest in Oriental art and literature.
Mr. Astor returned to this country, and at the age of twenty- four was married, and entered his father's office, then on Prince Street, as his assistant in administering the affairs of the vast properties in houses and lands -in this city and elsewhere- belonging to the family. In time half of that estate became his own by inheritance. He continued to pay to it the closest personal attention, and largely increased its value by improve- ments and by purchases of additional property. Thus he main- tained the tradition of the Astors, that they often buy but seldom sell land. At the same time, Mr. Astor possessed the happy faculty of so regulating his business affairs as to leave much of his time free for recreation and for social engagements. He was fond of country life and of farming, and indulged these tastes to the full on his splendid country estate, Ferncliff, at Rhinebeck, on the Hudson River.
He was also fond of the sea, and spent a considerable part of his time in yachting voyages. For this purpose he had built the Ambassadress, the largest and probably the finest sailing- yacht ever launched. In her he made many voyages. But this splendid vessel, built in 1877, did not satisfy him. He loved sailing, but wished to be independent of wind and tide. Accord- ingly, in 1884, he built the Nourmahal, a large steam-yacht with full rigging for sailing as well as steaming. After various coast- ing voyages, he planned to make a trip around the world in the Nourmahal, but did not live to carry out the scheme. The Nour- mahal was left to his son, John Jacob Astor, while the Ambassa- dress was sold to a Boston gentleman and was afterward put to commercial uses. Mr. Astor was the owner also of the famous sailing-yacht Atalanta, which won a number of important races, carrying off as trophies the Cape May and Kane cups. While not given to horse-racing, Mr. Astor was fond of fine horses, and was the owner of many thoroughbreds. Among these were " Vagrant," purchased by him in Kentucky in 1877 ; "Ferncliff," raised by him and sold as a yearling for forty-eight hundred dollars ; and a third which he bought in England in 1890 for fif- teen thousand dollars and sold the next year for double that sum.
20
WILLIAM ASTOR
One of Mr. Astor's most important business enterprises was his development of the State of Florida. He became interested in that State during a visit in 1875, and was impressed with the great material possibilities of it. He spent much of the next ten years in leading a movement for the rebuilding of the State and the development of its resources. He built a railroad from St. Augustine to Palatka, constructed several blocks of fine buildings in Jacksonville, and did many other works, besides enlisting the interest of various other capitalists in the State. So valuable were his services reckoned to the State that the Florida govern- ment voted him, in recognition of them, a grant of eighty thou- sand acres of land.
Mr. Astor was married, on September 23, 1853, to Miss Caroline Schermerhorn, daughter of Abraham Schermerhorn of New York, and a member of one of the oldest and most distinguished families of that city. For many years Mr. and Mrs. Astor were foremost in the best social gatherings of the metropolis. Their eminent purity of character, discriminating taste, refinement, and generous hospitalities made them the unchallenged leaders of the highest social life of New York city. Their favor assured, and was necessary to, the success of any movement which depended upon social favor. They were both most generous in their charities and public benefactions, and equally scrupulous in avoiding notoriety on account of them.
The children of Mr. and Mrs. Astor were the following: Emily, who died in 1881, the wife of James J. Van Alen of Newport, Rhode Island ; Helen, the wife of James Roosevelt Roosevelt ; Charlotte Augusta, who was married to James Coleman Drayton ; Caroline Schermerhorn, the wife of Marshall Orme Wilson; and John Jacob Astor, the fourth of that name and now the head of the family.
William Astor made his home in New York city, and at Rhinebeck, on the Hudson River. He died, universally re- spected and lamented, in Paris, France, on April 25, 1892.
,
-
WILLIAM DELAVAN BALDWIN
T THE Baldwin family, which through many generations was prominent in many ways in the Old World, was planted in North America by John Baldwin, who in early colonial times came over the Atlantic and was one of the first settlers in Ded- ham, Massachusetts. His descendants played a worthy part in the development of the colonies, and in the upbuilding of the nation, and are now to be found scattered far and wide throughout the States.
From John Baldwin is descended the subject of this sketch, William Delavan Baldwin, the well-known manufacturer and merchant. He was born at Auburn, New York, on September 5, 1856. His grandfather on the paternal side, Sullivan Bald- win, was a native of Bennington, Vermont, and lived for part of his life at Hoosac Falls, New York, where his son, Mr. Baldwin's father, Lovewell H. Baldwin, was born. Lovewell H. Baldwin removed, in his childhood, to Auburn, New York, and there made his home. His wife, Mr. Baldwin's mother, was Sarah J. Munson, the daughter of Oscar D. Munson and Sarah L. (Ben- nett) Munson.
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.