USA > New York > New York State's prominent and progressive men : an encyclopaedia of contemporaneous biography, Volume I > Part 22
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Mr. Morgan has made a specialty of reorganizing railroad com- panies and restoring them to prosperity. Among the railroads with which he has thus been connected may be recalled the Albany and Susquehanna, in dealing with which he won a notable victory over strong opponents in 1869; the West Shore ; the Philadelphia and Reading; the Richmond Terminal and its successor, the Southern ; the Erie, the New England, and others. He has also done similar work in other departments of industry. For example, when the great publishing house of Harper & Brothers failed, in November, 1899, it was he, whose firm was the principal creditor, who took the lead in reorganization and in placing the company on a sound footing again. He has likewise been identified with the placing upon the market of large issues of government bonds. In 1877, in cooperation with August Belmont and the Rothschilds, he floated two hundred and sixty million dollars of four-per-cent. bonds. In February, 1895, the Belmont-Morgan syndicate successfully placed another great issue of United States bonds. Indeed, for years Mr. Morgan's firm has been recognized as one of the foremost in America for such enterprises.
The business corporations in which Mr. Morgan is interested as an investor and as a director include the National Bank of Commerce, the New York Central and Hudson River Railroad, the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railroad, the West Shore Railroad, the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad, the
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Pullman Palace Car Company, the Mexican Telegraph Company, the Western Union Telegraph Company, the Manufacturing Investment Company, the Federal Steel Company, the General Electric Company, the Madison Square Garden Company, the Metropolitan Opera House, and numerous others.
Mr. Morgan takes a keen interest in yachting, and for years has exerted a dominant influence over that fine sport in Ameri- can waters. He has been one of the chief patrons of the Ameri- can boats in the series of international races for the famous America's cup, and is largely to be credited with the success in keeping that coveted trophy on this side of the Atlantic. He is himself the owner of the Corsair, one of the largest and finest steam-yachts afloat. His patronage of grand opera, literature, and art, and his leadership in all movements for the higher wel- fare of his fellows, are well known.
The list of Mr. Morgan's benefactions to various good causes is a long and impressive one. He gave, in 1897, one million dollars to the Society of the Lying-in Hospital of the city of New York for a new building. He gave five hundred thousand dollars to the Auchmuty Industrial School; three hundred and sixty thousand dollars to St. George's Protestant Episcopal Church, New York, for its memorial parish house; a large sum, the exact amount of which has not been revealed, to the new Protestant Episcopal Cathedral in New York; a fine collection of gems to the American Museum of Natural History; twenty- five thousand dollars for the mortgage on the Protestant Episco- pal Church of the Redeemer in New York; a fine chapel at Highland Falls, New York, where he makes his summer home; ten thousand dollars to the public library at Holyoke, Massa- chusetts ; and twenty-five thousand dollars for the electric light- ing of St. Paul's Cathedral, London, England.
Mr. Morgan is a member of the Metropolitan, Union League, Century, Union, Knickerbocker, Tuxedo, Riding, Racquet, Lawyers', Whist, Players', New York Yacht, Seawanhaka-Corin- thian Yacht, and other clubs of New York, and of others else- where in this and other countries. He has been twice married, and occupies one of the foremost places in the social world of the American metropolis, besides being a welcome visitor wherever he may go about the world.
Leir P. Morten
LEVI PARSONS MORTON
G EORGE MORTON, or Mourt, born in Yorkshire, England, in 1585, and married, in 1612, to Juliana Carpenter, daughter of Alexander Carpenter, was the chief manager of the Mayflower enterprise in 1620. He did not come over in that vessel, but followed in the third Pilgrim ship, the Anne, in 1623, and settled at Middleboro, Massachusetts. He was the author of "Mourt's Relation," which book, published in London in 1622, gave the earliest account of the Pilgrim enterprise. From him the unbroken line of descent is traced as follows: John Morton, freeman of Plymouth, deputy to the General Court, and original proprietor of Middleboro; John Morton, Jr., master of the first public school in America, who married Mary Ring, daughter of Andrew Ring; Captain Ebenezer Morton, who married Mercy Foster, daughter of John and Hannah (Stetson) Foster; Ebenezer Morton, Jr., who married Hannah Dailey, daughter of Daniel and Hannah Dailey of Easton, Maine; and the Rev. Daniel O. Morton, who was graduated at Middlebury College, Vermont, in 1812, and who married Lucretia Parsons, daughter of the Rev. Justin and Electa (Frairy) Parsons.
Levi Parsons Morton, son of the Rev. Daniel O. and Lucretia Parsons Morton, was born at Shoreham, Vermont, on May 16, 1824, and was educated at the local schools and academy. He began his business career at Enfield, Massachusetts, removed thence to Hanover, New Hampshire, and next, at the age of twenty-one, became a dry-goods dealer on his own account, at Concord, New Hampshire. A few years later he removed to Boston, and finally to New York city, where he became the head of the leading dry-goods houses of Morton & Grinnell. In 1863 he opened an office as banker and broker, under the name of
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L. P. Morton & Co., with a branch in London known as Morton, Burns & Co. In 1869 George Bliss entered the New York house, which then became Morton, Bliss & Co., and Sir John Rose entered that in London, which became Morton, Rose & Co. These two names were thereafter, for many years, synony- mous the world over with financial strength and integrity. From 1873 to 1884 the London house was the European fiscal agent of the United States government, led the way in aiding the resumption of specie payments, and was the medium through which the Geneva award of fifteen million dollars was paid. The house of Morton, Bliss & Co. went into voluntary liquidation in 1899, and was succeeded by the Morton Trust Company, one of the chief financial institutions of New York.
Mr. Morton has long been a leader of the Republican party. He was elected to Congress in 1878, and made a most useful Representative. He declined nomination for the Vice-Presidency in 1880, and the next year declined appointment as Secretary of the Navy. In the latter year, however, he accepted appointment as minister to France, and in that office had a brilliant and use- ful career. In 1888 he was elected Vice-President of the United States, and for four years filled that place with dignity and honor. Finally, in 1894, he was elected Governor of New York State by the phenomenal majority of a hundred and fifty thousand, and gave the State an admirable administration.
Mr. Morton was married, in 1856, to Lucy Kimball, who died in 1871. In 1873 he married Miss Annie Street of New York, who has borne him five daughters. He makes his home in New York city, and at the splendid estate of Ellerslie, on the Hudson, and is a member of many of the best clubs and other organiza- tions. He possesses the degree of LL. D., given by Dartmouth College in 1881 and by Middlebury College in 1883.
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ROBERT FRATER MUNRO
R OBERT FRATER MUNRO was born on August 28, 1852, at Inverness, in the Highlands of Scotland, where his father was a well-known wool merchant. His mother's name was Margaret Frater, and his ancestors on both sides were sturdy farmers in the north of Scotland. Mr. Munro received his education in his native town, and commenced his business career there in the office of the Highland Railway Company.
At the age of twenty he went to London, for nine years. He chose the profession of public accountant, and having served the prescribed term of five years as clerk, and passed the neces- sary examinations, he was admitted a member of the Chartered Accountants in England and Wales. As clerk and later as managing clerk in the office of Messrs. Price, Waterhouse & Co., he had exceptional opportunities for experience in his profession. His work embraced the audit and examination of accounts of banks, railway companies, firms, and stock companies, the organization of companies, and the administration of trustee- ships, receiverships, etc. He received valuable training in his career as a chartered accountant in England, in the capacities of acting receiver and manager of various industrial enterprises.
In 1882 certain of his friends who were interested in American railroads prevailed on Mr. Munro to make a three years' trip to the United States, for the purpose of looking after their interests. Mr. Munro accepted the position of controller of the six railroads then owned by the Cincinnati, New Orleans and Texas Pacific Railway Company, with headquarters at Cin- cinnati. Within a few weeks after his arrival in this country, the overissue of capital stock of the Cincinnati, New Orleans and Texas Pacific Railway, by the secretary, was unearthed. This
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official died suddenly, having destroyed all his papers. This made the investigation very complicated, and Mr. Munro re- ceived much credit for unraveling and making plain what seemed a hopeless mass of entangled figures, wrapped up in the mazes of twelve different bank-accounts. At the end of three and a half years Mr. Munro resigned the office of controller and trav- eled for some months in the United States and Europe.
The American Cotton Oil Trust was organized about this time, and Mr. Munro was invited to join the enterprise, which he did, undertaking the task of consolidating the different properties and organizing the commercial part of the business. Trusts were then in their infancy, and the Cotton Oil was second to the Standard Oil. Later, owing to the public opposition to trusts, the American Cotton Oil Company was formed, and succeeded to the property and business of the Cotton Oil Trust. Mr. Munro is vice-president of the company. He is also a director, and a member of the executive committee. He is president of various companies allied to the American Cotton Oil Company, including the Union Oil Company, New Orleans; the American Cotton Oil Company, Cincinnati; the Robert B. Brown Oil Company, St. Louis; the National Cotton Oil Company, Texas ; the Mississippi Cotton Oil Company; the New Orleans Acid and Fertilizer Company ; and the Kanawha Insurance Company, New York. He is also a director of the W. J. Wilcox Lard and Refining Company, New York, and the N. K. Fairbank Com- pany, Chicago and St. Louis.
Mr. Munro is a member of the Washington Heights Club, the British Schools and Universities Club, and the Chicago Club. He is a life member and a manager of the St. Andrew's Society of the State of New York.
He married, in 1891, Miss A. Nada Swasey, daughter of the late John B. Swasey, a prominent merchant of Boston, with houses in Melbourne and London. Mrs. Munro is an accom- plished musician. Their only child is a son, William Frater Munro.
W. Dlllandow
WALTER D. MUNSON
F NOR many years a great and increasingly important share of the commerce of the United States has been in con- nection with the various countries, continental and insular, lying directly to the south, about the basin of the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea. Chief among the countries in question are, of course, Mexico and Cuba. Their proximity to the United States and the reciprocal needs and abilities to supply those needs have made them a natural part of the commercial system of this country, and have led to the establishment of great lines of transportation and travel between the ports of the United States and their chief ports.
Conspicuous among such lines is the well-known Munson Steamship Line, with its splendid fleet of vessels sailing from New York directly to Matanzas, Cardenas, Sagua, Caibarien, Nuevitas, Gibara, Puerto Padre, and Baracoa-the only direct line, in fact, to those ports. The founder and head of this line is Walter D. Munson, native of Connecticut.
At the outbreak of the Civil War Mr. Munson entered the military service of the nation, and through faithful discharge of duties in the field in various campaigns rose to the rank of major. With the return of peace he devoted himself to com- mercial pursuits, and was engaged therein for fifteen years in Havana, Cuba. Then, in 1882, he came to New York city and established the Munson Steamship Line.
In addition to the Munson Line from New York direct to Cuban ports, Mr. Munson has a line of steamers from Nova Scotia to Havana, and another from the Gulf ports of the United States to Havana. His ships carry a large proportion of the traffic between the United States and Canada on the one hand, and Cuba and
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Mexico on the other, especially of the sugar which is brought from Cuba to New York and Philadelphia and Boston.
Mr. Munson is president and a director of the Munson Steam- ship Line and of the Cameron Steamship Line. He devotes his attention to these interests, to the practical exclusion of all other business. He has not mingled in political activities, save to dis- charge the duties of a private citizen.
He is a member of the Grand Army of the Republic and of the New York Club. In the borough of Brooklyn, New York, where he makes his home, he is a trustee and treasurer of the Froebel Academy.
Mr. Munson is married, and his eldest son, C. W. Munson, is now associated with him in business, being vice-president of the Munson Steamship Line.
The passenger ships of the Munson Line sailing from New York are the Curityba, the Olinda, the Lauenburg, and the Ardanrose. These are large, stanch, full-powered steamships, admirably adapted for both passenger and freight traffic, with all appli- ances for speed, comfort, and safety. They run upon schedule time with marked regularity, and offer to the traveler, whether for business or pleasure, a most desirable means of reaching some of the most attractive and important Cuban cities directly from New York. The company also issues letters of credit for the security of its patrons. Its agencies are found in nearly all the chief cities of the world.
Same dixon .
LEWIS NIXON
"THE Nixon family, of Scotch-Irish extraction, came from the North of Ireland about 1710, and settled in New Jersey. There its members took an active and prominent part in social, business, and political affairs. Three generations ago four brothers of the family went to Virginia and settled in Lou- doun County. That was early in the present century. The grandson of one of them, Joel Lewis Nixon, married Mary Jane Turner, a member of the famous Fauquier family of Turners, well- known in the history of the Old Dominion. He was successively a farmer, school-teacher, merchant, justice of magistrate's court, and colonel of the Virginia militia.
Lewis Nixon, son of the above-mentioned couple, was born at Leesburg, Virginia, on April 7, 1861. His early education was acquired in private and public schools at Leesburg, including the Leesburg Academy. In 1878 he was appointed a cadet midship- man in the United States Naval Academy, at Annapolis, and in 1882 was graduated first in his class. Then, by arrangement be- tween the United States and British governments, he was sent to take a course in naval architecture, marine engineering, and gunnery at the Royal Naval College, at Greenwich, England. While in Europe he studied, under government orders, at all the great ship, gun, and armor works of England and France.
On his return to the United States, Mr. Nixon was ordered on duty at the famous shipyard of John Roach, at Chester, Penn- sylvania, in connection with the construction of the first four ships of the new United States navy, then in progress there. Next he served under the Chief Constructor at Washington, also in the Brooklyn Navy-Yard. Thereafter he was sent on duty to Cramp's shipyard, and placed on various boards, so that he
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was in a great degree identified with the design and construction of nearly the entire present navy of the United States. In 1890 he was intrusted by Secretary Tracy with the task of designing the battle-ships Oregon, Indiana, and Massachusetts.
In the fall of 1890 Mr. Nixon resigned from the naval service of the United States, and became the superintending constructor of the great ship-building works of Cramp & Sons, of Philadel- phia. He remained with that company until 1895, during which time it built the Indiana, Massachusetts, Columbia, Minneapolis, Iowa, and Brooklyn for the United States navy, and the Amer- ican Line steamers St. Louis and St. Paul, besides many other lesser ships. After his resignation he was still retained by the Cramps in a consulting capacity. He then purchased the Cres- cent Shipyard, at Elizabethport, New Jersey, where he has since built numerous vessels, including the Annapolis, Vixen, Man- grove, Monitor, Florida, and torpedo-boats O'Brien and Nichol- son, for the United States navy, the Holland submarine boat, various yachts, and numerous steamers for North, South, and Central America.
He is sole proprietor of the Crescent Shipyard, president of the International Smokeless Powder and Dynamite Company, vice-president of the New York Auto-truck Company, director of the Idaho Exploration and Mining Company, and trustee of the Webb Academy and Home for Ship-builders.
Mr. Nixon became a member of Tammany Hall in 1886, and is now, by appointment of Mayor Van Wyck, president of the new East River Bridge Commission, and is a member of the Tammany Hall Executive Committee. He is a member of the Union, Democratic, Press, Seneca, New York Yacht, Atlantic Yacht, and Richmond County Country clubs of New York ; the Metropolitan, and Army and Navy, of Washington ; the Rittenhouse of Philadelphia; the Mattano of Elizabeth, New Jersey ; the New York Chamber of Commerce, the New York Board of Trade and Transportation, and the Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers. He is also a fellow of the American Geographical Society.
He was married, on January 29, 1891, to Miss Sally Lewis Wood, a descendant of General Andrew Lewis of Virginia. They have one son, Stanhope Wood, born in 1894.
M. J. O'BRIEN
C YOLONEL M. J. O'BRIEN, president of the Southern Ex- press Company, has described the beginning of his business career as a case of "either fish or cut bait." That is to say, he was confronted by absolute necessity. At seven and a half years old he had lost his parents and was compelled to go to work to earn his own living and to contribute to the support of his sisters. It is not to be supposed that he at once accomplished both those aims. That was impossible. But he began in real earnest, and steadily worked his way toward such accomplishment.
His first occupation was that of attending to a printing-roller in the publishing-house of John Murphy & Co., in Baltimore, Maryland, for which he received a salary of twenty-five cents a week. At that time, also, he began to go to school, at first attend- ing a night-school, and later one conducted by the Sisters of Charity. Still later, when he was able to do it, he paid for instruction, for he was a strong believer in the best possible education. He declares that, if he had to live his life over again, his first aim would be to get a college education.
From the printing-house he went to a wholesale drug store, where he at first opened and swept the store and did similar jobs, but in time rose to be a fully qualified druggist. But all the time he had an increasing liking for the express business. So when he was old enough and strong enough for the work he went to the office of the Adams Express Company and applied for a job. So persistent was he that at last the manager told him he could have a job as driver of a wagon if he would go to Memphis, Tennessee, and would start thither the day after the next, to wit, the Fourth of July. The young man borrowed thirty dollars and started. Arrived at Memphis, he paid his last remaining twenty-five cents
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to a man for teaching him how to harness a horse, and then be- gan work as an expressman.
Out of his salary of thirty dollars a month he paid twenty-five dollars for board, and it was not easy to save enough to repay the loan on which he had gone to Memphis. In time he did so, how- ever, and then he kept on saving. In time he was promoted to be a shipping clerk, then cashier in the New Orleans office of the company. Various other establishments, including a bank, had made offers for his service, but he stuck to the express business.
When the Civil War broke out he was inflamed with patriotism for the South, and went to Baltimore, hoping there to join a Confederate regiment. But the express business was so heavy that he was persuaded to take a temporary appointment in the Washington office of the Adams Company. There he served for six months, and then made his way South and entered the Con- federate service on the gunboat Bienville. Before he saw any active service, however, the immature fleet was destroyed to pre- vent its falling into Union hands. Then he went to Richmond, hoping to get a commission for the field. But again he was per- suaded by the Confederate Secretary of the Treasury to reënter the express business, in special charge of shipments of money to Southern points. While thus engaged he was appointed by Robert Ould, Commissioner for the Exchange of Prisoners, to his bureau, and was attached to the staff of Major W. H. Hatch.
At the end of the war Colonel O'Brien promptly returned to the ways and occupations of peace. His first love had been the express business, and to it he proved faithful. Before the war, it may be remembered, the Adams Express Company did a gen- eral business throughout the South. But in 1860 Henry B. Plant, representing all the Southern stock-holders in that com- pany, purchased in their behalf all the rights, titles, contracts, etc., of the company in the Southern States, and thus organized a new corporation, known as the Southern Express Company. It was with this that Colonel O'Brien was connected during the war. The end of the war left that company undisturbed, and he retained his connection with it. He was for a time in charge of its interests at Atlanta. Thence he went to Augusta to be- come the confidential clerk of Mr. Plant, the president of the company. From this place he was soon promoted, in 1868, to be
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the general superintendent of the company. At a later date he became vice-president and general manager, and in those offices was for many years the active head of the corporation, for Mr. Plant had so many other important interests that he was able to give only a fraction of his time and attention to the express business.
As general superintendent and then as general manager Colonel O'Brien achieved the major part of the great development of the Southern Express Company. With characteristic energy he personally traveled all over the South, establishing new agencies, enlarging old ones, making contracts, and in general promoting the welfare and increasing the patronage of the company. At the time of Mr. Plant's death, in 1899, the company was doing business on nearly thirty thousand miles of railroad, and in nearly every town from the Potomac River to the Rio Grande. Colonel O'Brien received from time to time tempting offers from other express companies, and from railroads, banks, and other corpo- rations, to enter their employment on flattering terms, but un- hesitatingly declined them all, deciding to stick to the enterprise in which he had attained so great a measure of success.
Henry B. Plant died in June, 1899. At that time Colonel O'Brien was in Europe. He was informed by cable of Mr. Plant's death, and immediately returned home. On July 11, 1899, a meeting of the board of directors of the Southern Express Com- pany was held in New York city, and Colonel O'Brien was thereat elected president, to succeed Mr. Plant. That office he continues to fill, with the success and distinction that marked his service in other capacities for the same corporation.
Colonel O'Brien feels that he owed much to Mr. Plant for his encouragement, and he in turn is disposed to encourage and assist all worthy young men with whom he comes in contact. It is his creed that there is no royal road to success; circum- stances play their part in every man's career, but success de- pends more upon self than upon luck. Above all, he believes in and preaches the gospel of perseverance. "Stick to whatever you undertake after mature deliberation " is his motto, the value of which he has demonstrated in a signal manner in his own career.
DANIEL O'DAY
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