USA > New York > New York State's prominent and progressive men : an encyclopaedia of contemporaneous biography, Volume I > Part 20
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Colonel McCook has by no means let his profession absorb all his attention and activities. He has played a conspicuous part in the social life of the metropolis, and has been most useful in promoting religious and educational interests. He has for some years been a trustee of Princeton University. He has also long been a leading member of the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church, and he was the prosecutor in the famous ecclesiastical trial of Professor Charles A. Briggs of the Union Theological Seminary. He is a member of the University, Union League, Union, City, Metropolitan, Harvard, Princeton, and Tuxedo clubs, the Ohio Society, the Bar Association, and the military order of the Loyal Legion. He has received the degrees of Master of Arts from Kenyon College and from Princeton University, Bachelor of Laws from Harvard University, and Doctor of Laws from the University of Kansas and Lafayette College. He is married to a daughter of Henry M. Alexander, one of the founders of the law firm of which he is a member.
THOMAS ALEXANDER MCINTYRE
T HERE need be no hesitation in guessing the ancestry of those who bear the name of McIntyre. Scotch it sounds, and Scotch it is, and Scotch in the sturdy virtues of the race are those who bear it. Ewan McIntyre has long been known as one of the foremost druggists of this city, and for many years presi- dent of the College of Pharmacy. He was married to Miss Emily A. Bridgeman, daughter of Thomas Bridgeman, a well- known writer on horticulture and practical horticulturist. They have a large family of sons and daughters, of whom the second son is the subject of this sketch. 1
Thomas Alexander McIntyre was born in this city on October 19, 1855, and received the best education the local schools could afford. His business career began in a clerkship in the grain and produce house of David Bingham. Afterward he entered the employment of David Dows, in the same line of business. In those offices he learned the grain trade so thoroughly that in 1878 he ventured to engage in it on his own account as the head of the firm of McIntyre & Bingham. The next year, on May 1, 1879, Henry L. Wardwell, who had been his fellow-clerk in the office of David Dows, and who was particularly well informed in the flour trade, joined forces with him in the firm of McIntyre & Wardwell. They had between them about forty thousand dollars capital, and with that they began a commission business at the Produce Exchange, in which they have continued down to the present time, and in which they have been exceptionally successful. For years the firm has been credibly reputed to be the largest dealers in grain in the United States. It has long purchased all the grain used by the Hecker-Jones-Jewell Milling Company, the largest concern of the kind in New York. Mr.
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McIntyre, indeed, was one of the organizers and is treasurer of that company, which has a capital of five million dollars.
Mr. McIntyre was also the organizer and is the vice-president and chairman of the executive committee of the great Brooklyn Wharf and Warehouse Company, which controls the bulk of the water-front facilities of that part of the metropolis. He is a director of the Corn Exchange Bank, vice-president of the Hud- son River Bank, vice-president and trustee of the Produce Ex- change Trust Company, a leading director of the International Elevating Company, director of the Cuban and Pan-American Express Company, director of the State Trust Company, and a member of the committee of management of the Royal Insur- ance Company. He owns a large tract of pine forest in North Carolina, where he has established, besides his mills and other works, a delightful winter home.
Mr. McIntyre has held no political office, but has long taken a keen interest in public affairs, and has labored earnestly for the cause of good government in State and nation. Generally he has been identified with the Democratic party, but in the na- tional campaign of 1896 he supported the Republican ticket, on the sound-money issue. He is one of the foremost members of the Produce Exchange and of the Chamber of Commerce. He belongs to the Metropolitan, Manhattan, Colonial, Reform, Lawyers', Down-Town, New York Athletic, New York Yacht, Suburban, Riding and Driving, and other clubs. His city home is on West Seventy-fifth Street, and is one of the finest man- sions in that fine part of the city.
Mr. McIntyre was married, in 1879, to Miss Anna Knox, daugh- ter of Henry Knox of the New York bar. They have several children. Mr. McIntyre is a member of the Fifth Avenue Pres- byterian Church and a generous supporter of its activities. His sterling integrity and genial qualities have won for him the con- fidence and esteem of all who know him, as his enterprising and energetic character and sound judgment have secured for him far more than ordinary business success.
JOHN SAVAGE MCKEON
J OHN SAVAGE MCKEON was born on February 3, 1845, in Brooklyn, New York. He is the son of James and Elizabeth McKeon, and his father was connected with the firm of C. W. & J. T. Moore & Co., well-known wholesale dry-goods merchants of New York city before the war. Both his parents were natives of Ballymena, Ulster County, in the north of Ire- land. They were very religious people, being adherents of that strictest of Presbyterian sects, the Church of the Covenanters.
Mr. Mckeon was educated in Public School No. 1, Brooklyn, on the corner of Adams and Concord streets, and was graduated therefrom in 1859, under Lyman E. White, principal.
At the early age of fourteen he entered the store of Joseph Bryan, clothier, at No. 214 Fulton Street. His position was a hard one, and for two years he was obliged to do heroic duty, working fifteen hours daily. The experience was a difficult one, but he found it to be of lifetime value.
In 1861 he engaged with Hanford & Browning, who at this time had large contracts for making clothing for the United States army. He remained with this firm and others for nine years.
In 1872 he formed a partnership with Edward Smith and Allen Gray of Brooklyn, manufacturers of clothing, under the firm name of Smith, Gray, Mckeon & Co. After six years in this connection he opened his present place of business at Broad- way and Bedford Avenue, in 1878, conducting a wholesale busi- ness in boys' clothing in connection with his extensive retail business. In January, 1898, he transferred his wholesale plant to Manhattan Borough, Nos. 696-702 Broadway, at the corner of Fourth Street.
Mr. Mckeon has been prominent in political affairs, but has
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steadily refused all nominations for public office. For two years he held the position of president of the Nineteenth Ward Repub- lican Committee, but of late years his many business responsi- bilities have precluded the assuming of other duties.
He is a director of the Amphion Academy Company, and of the American Union Life Insurance Company. He is a trustee of the Kings County Savings Institution, trustee and chairman of the finance committee of the Kings County Building and Loan Association, and trustee of the Eastern District Hospital.
In the club world Mr. Mckeon is well known. For two years he was president of the Union League of Brooklyn, his term expiring May 10, 1899, and he is now a member of the Board of Governors. He is a member of the Hanover Club and is a direc- tor of the Apollo Club. He is president of the Long Island Life- Saving Association, and has been for twenty years trustee and treasurer of the Ross Street Presbyterian Church, Brooklyn.
He was married, on May 10, 1866, to Miss Eliza Jane Eason of Brooklyn. They have been blessed with an interesting family of eight children - five sons and three daughters. Their names are John Wilson, Flora Eason, Mary Beatty, Robert Lincoln, James Elder, Isabella Cooper, Charles Augustus Wilson, and Harold Nisbet. Two of the sons and one daughter are happily married.
Mr. Mckeon is an ardent and devoted Mason of the thirty- second degree, and was made a Master Mason in Crystal Wave Lodge in 1867. He belongs to Kismet Temple of the Mystic Shrine. He is also a member of the Royal Arcanum, Franklin Council.
EMERSON MCMILLIN
E MERSON MCMILLIN was born near the village of Ewing- ton, in Gallia County, Ohio. His father was a manager of the iron furnaces in that neighborhood, and the boy was early initiated into the processes of that trade. Between the ages of twelve and sixteen he served an apprenticeship in the various occupations connected with the operation of iron-works. Mean- time he attended the local public schools with some irregularity, but easily kept himself at the head of his class in scholarship. Thus in boyhood he gained a good practical education, learned an important trade, and developed a splendid physical frame and a capacity for almost endless hard work.
The opening of the Civil War found him only seventeen years of age, and thus under the enlistment limit. Nevertheless he got himself accepted as a soldier, and served through the war. He was several times severely wounded, and was promoted for his bravery. Five of his brothers and his father were also in the army, and three of the brothers were killed.
At the end of the war he engaged in mercantile pursuits for two years, and then became a gas-works manager. In 1875 he began the manufacture of iron and steel, and between that date and 1883 was manager and president of various iron and steel works in the Ohio valley. His interest in the iron trade was maintained down to a few years ago. Between 1874 and 1890 he became the owner of a number of small gas-plants in the West. In the fall of 1888 he bought the Columbus (Ohio) Gas Company, and the next year consolidated the four gas companies of St. Louis, Missouri. At the time one of these four companies was selling gas at a dollar a thousand feet, and losing money ; another was selling it at a dollar and a half, a third at a dollar and sixty
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cents, and the fourth at two dollars and a half. After the con- solidation all gas was sold at about ninety-three cents, and still large profits were made.
Mr. McMillin's career as a banker began in 1891. On August 1 of that year the firm of Emerson McMillin & Co., bankers, began business at No. 40 Wall Street, New York. Since that date it has built up a large and profitable business in a field which is comparatively new in banking circles, namely, the pur- chase and consolidation of gas companies and the handling of their securities.
Soon after Mr. McMillin began this business in New York the East River Gas Company of New York was organized, and he was elected its president. It was under his immediate super- vision that the tunnel under the East River between Long Island City and New York was constructed, for the purpose of convey- ing gas from the works on Long Island to the consumers in New York.
Mr. McMillin, in 1892, negotiated the purchase and consolida- tion of the street-railways of Columbus, Ohio. His firm was also an important factor in the organization of the New England Gas and Coke Company of Boston, Massachusetts. Among other properties which the firm has acquired and reorganized in the last few years may be mentioned the St. Paul Gas and Elec- tric Company of St. Paul, Minnesota, the Denver Gas and Elec- tric Company of Denver, Colorado, the Columbus Natural and Illuminating Gas Companies of Columbus, Ohio, and the corre- sponding concerns in Madison and Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Grand Rapids, Jackson, and Detroit, Michigan, St. Joseph, Missouri, Long Branch, Asbury Park, and Redbank, New Jersey, and San Antonio, Texas.
Among the recent enterprises of Mr. McMillin's firm are the building of hydraulic works for the generation of electricity, near Quebec, Canada, and also near Montgomery, Alabama, and the construction of a similar plant in the vicinity of St. Paul, Minnesota, to supply electricity for use in that city.
CLARENCE HUNGERFORD MACKAY
"THE Mackay family, which for many years has been among the foremost in American business and social circles, is of comparatively recent settlement in the United States. It was founded here by John William Mackay, the mining and submarine- cable magnate, who was born in Dublin, Ireland, came to this country at an early age, and went to California with the "forty- niners " to seek and to find a fortune. He married Miss Marie Louise Hungerford, whose father, Colonel Hungerford, was a distinguished officer in the Mexican and Civil wars, and who was a direct descendant of Sir Thomas Hungerford of Farleigh Castle, England. Miss Hungerford was born in New York city.
To Mr. and Mrs. Mackay was born, in San Francisco, Califor- nia, on April 17, 1874, the subject of this sketch, Clarence Hun- gerford Mackay. His early life was largely spent in Europe, where his parents made their home for much of the time. His education, a most thorough one, was acquired first at Vangirard College, Paris, France, and afterward at Beaumont College, Windsor, England. At an early age he began to manifest some- thing of that taste and aptitude for business and finance which made his father so marked a man of affairs, and his inclinations in that direction were not discouraged. By the time he had reached the age of twenty years he had received an excellent collegiate training, and was ready for an active business life. This he began under the immediate direction of his father, than whom he could have wished no better preceptor.
Mr. Mackay entered his father's office in 1894. Two years later he had so far demonstrated his business ability that his election as president of the American Forcite Powder Manufac- turing Company was regarded as a fitting tribute to him and as
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giving promise of much good to that corporation. He filled that place with success for three years. In the meantime he became more and more closely connected with the great business interests of his father, including real-estate, mining, telegraphic, etc. He was elected a director of the Postal Telegraph Company and of the Commercial Cable Company, with which his father is identified, on February 25, 1896, and on January 21, 1897, he was elected a vice-president of both companies. To these great corporations and their ramifications his attention has since chiefly been given. He retired from the presidency of the Forcite Powder Company in February, 1899. A little later in the same year he organized the Commercial Cable Company of Cuba, and endeavored to lay a cable from the United States to Cuba, in competition with the one already existing. He asked for this no subsidy, nor any aid from the government, but merely permission to land the cable on the shore of Cuba. General Alger, the then Secretary of War, refused such permission, though many eminent authorities expressed the opinion that it ought to be granted without delay.
Mr. Mackay occupies a prominent position in society in New York, in California, and in Europe. He belongs to many social organizations, among them being the Union Club, the Knicker- bocker Club, the Racquet and Tennis Club, the New York Yacht Club, the Meadowbrook Club, the Westchester Country Club, the Lawyers' Club, and the Metropolitan Club, of New York, and the Pacific Union Club and the Bohemian Club of San Francisco.
He was married on May 17, 1898, his bride being Miss Kath- erine Alexandra Duer, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. William A. Duer of New York city. A daughter was born to them, at their home in New York city, on February 5, 1900.
JOHN WILLIAM MACKAY
JOHN WILLIAM MACKAY is of Scottish ancestry and Irish birth. He comes from that canny Covenanter stock which in Cromwell's time colonized the northern part of Ireland and made the province of Ulster the thrifty and prosperous community it has ever since been. He was born in Dublin, on November 28, 1831. Nine years later his parents brought him to America with them, and settled in New York city. Two years later the father died, and the task of caring for the children fell upon the widowed mother, who performed it nobly.
After acquiring a good common-school education, John was apprenticed to a ship-builder, and had to do with fitting out ships that were to go "around the Horn." Then the gold fever of 1849 broke out, and claimed him for its own. He went to Cali- fornia and worked with pick and shovel. He learned the whole mining business by practical experience, and lived a sober life, thus keeping body and mind sound, but remained a poor man. In 1860 he climbed over the Sierras into Nevada. At Gold Hill he made an investment which paid little. Then he looked over the Comstock Lode, and made up his mind that it contained vast fortunes. He began work at the northern end of it, sinking a shaft at Union Ground. But lack of capital hampered him, and he was constrained to form a partnership with two other young men who had been making money in business and specu- lation in San Francisco. These were James C. Flood and Wil- liam S. O'Brien. A fourth partner, James C. Walker, a practical miner, was also taken into the firm when it was formed in 1864. That was the beginning of the famous "Bonanza Firm." Mr. Walker dropped out in 1867, by which time their profits were over a million dollars, and his place was taken by James G.
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Fair. Mr. Mackay was the leading spirit. He persuaded the others to buy adjacent claims. When the lodes seemed to be worked out, it was he who insisted on going down to deeper levels. And so was developed one of the greatest mining proper- ties the world has ever seen. In six years the output was over three hundred million dollars, and the financial history of the world was changed. Mr. Mackay owned two fifths of these mines.
Mr. Mackay was the founder of the Bank of Nevada, and carried it through a loss of eleven million dollars, which it suf- fered through a " wheat corner " speculation of one of its officers in 1887. In 1884 he formed a partnership with James Gordon Bennett, of the New York "Herald," for the construction of some new Atlantic cables, and thus brought into being the great Commercial Cable Company, and the Postal Telegraph Com- pany, of which he has since been the head. He was urged in 1885 to accept election to a seat in the United States Senate, from Nevada, but declined it. He has given his wealth with a generous hand to numerous benevolent institutions, and ranks among the most public-spirited of citizens. Among his bene- factions is a large asylum for orphans at Virginia City, Nevada. He is a liberal supporter of the Roman Catholic Church, of which he is a member.
Mr. Mackay was married, in 1867, to Miss Hungerford, a daughter of Colonel Daniel C. Hungerford, who was a veteran of the Mexican and Civil wars. Mrs. Mackay is a woman of exceptional social culture and brilliancy, and has been for many years a conspicuous figure in the best society in New York, London, and Paris. She is also a generous patron of literature, fine arts, and benevolent works. Two sons have been born to Mr. and Mrs. Mackay, named John W. Mackay, Jr., and Clar- ence Hungerford Mackay.
WILLIAM MAHL
THE revolutionary period of 1848 in Europe caused the migra- tion of many of the subjects of those countries to the United States. Among them were Dr. William Mahl and his wife, for- merly Louise Brodtman, and their two children. Dr. Mahl had been a practising physician at Karlsruhe, Baden, and was de- scended from a family conspicuous in its devotion to the Protes- tant faith in the days of religious intolerance. His wife was a daughter of Carl Joseph Brodtman of Schaffhausen, Switzerland, one of the pioneers in lithography. Dr. Mahl, being politically proscribed, came to the United States and entered upon a promis- ing career in his profession, but fell a victim to yellow fever in New Orleans in 1856.
One of his two children was William Mahl, who was born at Carlsruhe on December 19, 1843. He was just beginning to ac- quire an education when his father died, and thereafter his in- struction and training were supervised by his mother, a woman of marked fitness for the task. The family was then settled in Louisville, Kentucky. In 1859 his mother died, and he was compelled to leave school and enter business life. His bent for mechanics secured him a place in the office and shop of a manu- facturer of mathematical instruments at Louisville. But in 1860 he left that calling and entered the service of the Louisville and Nashville Railroad, under Albert Fink, who was then the superintendent of the road and machinery department. Four years later he became chief clerk of the mechanical and road department of the Louisville and Frankfort and Lexington and Frankfort Railroad. His investigations and reports into the cost of operating railroads attracted the attention of others interested in these problems. The result of his researches was
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heartily acknowledged in the annual report of the Louisville and Frankfort and Lexington and Frankfort Railroad for the year ending June 30, 1865.
Two years later he was chosen to be auditor of that road, and he held that place, together with that of purchasing agent, until 1872. In the latter year he became associated with Colonel Thomas A. Scott, then president of the Texas and Pacific Rail- road. Mr. Mahl became auditor of that road, and after the panic of 1873 was made also its financial agent in Texas. At the close of 1874 he went back to the Louisville and Frankfort and Lex- ington and Frankfort. The latter road had fallen a victim to the panic, and was in a bad plight. He became auditor to its re- ceiver, and for the reorganized company, and thus served until 1879. Then he was elected general superintendent of the road, and remained in that place until the road was sold, at the end of 1881.
Early in 1882 he entered the New York office of C. P. Hunt- ington, and was, in 1896, appointed assistant to the president and controller of the Newport News and Mississippi Valley system of roads, consisting of six conjoined roads extending from New- port News, Virginia, to New Orleans. On Mr. Huntington's sale of this system, Mr. Mahl was appointed assistant to the president, and later controller of the Southern Pacific Company, which place he still holds. He is also assistant to the president of the Pacific Mail Steamship Company, and controller of the Mexican Inter- national Railroad Company, the Guatemala Central Railroad Company, the Newport News Ship-building and Dry Dock Com- pany, and several other enterprises. His field of observation embraces 9496 miles of railroad.
Mr. Mahl is a member of the Lawyers' Club of New York, the Bohemian Club of San Francisco, Louisville Commandery No. LI, Knights Templar, and other organizations. He was married at Louisville, in 1865, to Miss Mary A. Skidmore. They have four children, named Frederick William, John Thomas, Alice Mary, and Edith Virginia.
SYLVESTER MALONE
THE beautiful town of Trim, on the still more beautiful TE
Boyne River, in County Meath, Ireland, was the birth- place of one of the best-known and most-beloved priests of the Roman Catholic Church in America. There dwelt Laurence Malone and his wife Marcella; he a civil engineer, and a man of high attainments, she a woman of more than ordinary force of character. To them was born, on May 8, 1821, a son, to whom they gave the name of Sylvester, after Mrs. Malone's father, Sylvester Martin of Kilmessan. Sylvester was the sec- ond of three sons. He was educated at an academy of high scholarship, which was conducted by Protestants, but in which the utmost religious tolerance was inculcated by example as well as by precept. He remained true to the Roman Cath- olic faith of his parents.
In 1838, the Rev. Andrew Byrne of New York, afterward Bishop of Little Rock, Arkansas, visited Ireland in search of promising candidates for the priesthood. He met Sylvester Malone, became interested in him, and brought him to the United States. He reached Philadelphia, where the landing was made, on May 11, 1839. The young man immediately proceeded to New York, and entered the Seminary of St. Joseph, at Lafarge- ville, Jefferson County, New York. There he was educated for the priesthood. The next year the seminary was removed to Fordham, now a part of New York city. On March 10, 1844, Bishop Hughes consecrated three bishops in St. Patrick's Cathe- dral, and on that august occasion young Malone was miter- bearer. On August 15, 1844, he was ordained a priest of the diocese of New York. He first said mass at Wappingers Falls, New York. Then he was appointed to take pastoral charge of
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a parish in Williamsburg, now a part of Brooklyn, and in that place all the rest of his life was spent.
On Saturday, September 21, 1844, the young priest arrived at the scene of his life-work. The parish was then known as St. Mary's, but the name was soon afterward changed to Sts. Peter and Paul. In 1848 the present edifice was completed.
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