USA > New York > New York State's prominent and progressive men : an encyclopaedia of contemporaneous biography, Volume I > Part 23
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D ANIEL O'DAY, the well-known operator in oil, manufac- turer, and banker, is of Irish origin. He was born in Ireland on February 6, 1844, the son of Michael O'Day. When he was only a year old he was brought to the United States by his family, which joined in the great tide of migration which at that time set hither from Ireland. His entire life has, therefore, practically been identified with this country.
The family, on coming hither, settled at Buffalo, New York, and in the public schools of that city Daniel O'Day acquired his education, and in that city began his business career. His boy- hood was cast in the days of the oil excitement, when men were "striking oil " and making fortunes in a day. He was only ten years old when the Pennsylvania Rock Oil Company was organ- ized and began operations at Oil Creek, Pennsylvania. For four years that concern struggled along with varying fortunes, and then it leased its land, near the present site of Titusville, Penn- sylvania, to a few of its stock-holders for their private enterprise. They set Colonel E. A. Drake to work on it, drilling an artesian well. He first tried to dig a well in one of the old timbered pits which had been abandoned by the oil-seekers, but he was baffled by quicksands. Then he started to drive an iron pipe down in a new place. At the depth of thirty-six feet he struck bed-rock. Thereupon he engaged men to drill the rock, and for month after month the tedious work went on. On August 29, 1859, the drill entered an open crevice in the rock, six inches deep. That was only sixty-nine feet down. The next day the well was found to be nearly full of oil.
That was the first striking of oil. It was the signal for such a rush as not even the finding of gold in California or in the
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Klondike could boast. Speculators and operators flocked thither from all over the country. Farm-lands were in a twinkling worth more than city lots. Much of the effort was ill directed and fruitless ; but enough of it was successful for the develop- ment of one of the most gigantic industries of the world.
The city of Buffalo was near enough to the oil region to feel the full force of the " boom," and young Mr. O'Day did not take long to decide upon trying his fortunes in the new field. He was twenty years of age when he went into the oil region of Pennsyl- vania, not as a speculator nor as an operator, but to seek employment in the oil transportation business. In that he was successful, and before many years had passed was in a position in which he could himself begin to direct an important business.
The transportation of the crude oil to refineries, the latter often at a considerable distance, was at first effected by railroad, the oil being inclosed in tanks, casks, or other receptacles. But in time the idea of pumping it, or letting it flow by gravity through pipes laid across the country, was successfully devel- oped. In this work Mr. O'Day was a pioneer. In 1873-74 he began constructing pipe lines in the oil-producing regions. The first of these extended from the oil-fields of Clarion County, Pennsylvania, to Emlenton, Venango County, Pennsylvania, and was known as the American Transfer Line. It was highly suc- cessful, and following it Mr. O'Day built various other such lines. In time the process of consolidation, so familiar in other industrial enterprises, came into play. The various pipe lines were consolidated under a common management and operated in harmony. Thus the American Transfer Lines were merged into the United Pipe Lines system, and the latter is now in operation as the gathering system of the National Transit Company.
The last-named corporation was organized in 1883, and now owns a vast network of trunk and local lines, extending over nearly all of the oil-producing region of the eastern part of the United States. Mr. O'Day was a prominent factor in the organi- zation of it, and he has been its vice-president since 1888.
Mr. O'Day has not confined his attention to the oil transporta- tion business. He founded and is the senior partner in the Oil City Boiler Works, a large and prosperous manufacturing con- cern. In 1888 he entered the oil-producing field, as organizer
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and president of the Northwestern Ohio National Gas Com- pany. This corporation has a capital of six million dollars, and owns extensive tracts of land from which it produces oil and natural gas. It has also an extensive system of pipe lines for conveying its products to consumers.
Mr. O'Day's financial standing and high repute have naturally caused him to be associated with banking interests. He has for many years been the president of the People's Bank of Buffalo, New York, in which city he has ever maintained a deep interest, and he is a director of the Seaboard National Bank of New York city, and of several other banks in Buffalo and Oil City. In these and all other business relations he is universally respected for his ability and integrity. He is regarded as a most efficient executive officer and as a safe and sagacious business man.
Mr. O'Day makes his home in New York city, where he has a fine house on West Seventy-second Street. He is a member of the Engineers', Lotus, and Manhattan clubs of New York, of the Buffalo Club of Buffalo, and of the Duquesne Club of Pittsburg, and other social organizations.
ALEXANDER ECTOR ORR
A LEXANDER ECTOR ORR comes from the famous Scot- tish clan of MacGregor, a branch of which removed from Scotland to Ireland in the latter part of the seventeenth century, settling in the province of Ulster. In the last generation Wil- liam Orr of Strabane, County Tyrone, married Mary Moore, daughter of David Moore of Sheephill, County Londonderry, and to them, at Strabane, on March 2, 1831, Alexander Ector Orr was born.
It was intended that he should enter the East India Com- pany's service, and a presentation to its college in England was obtained; but at the age of fifteen an accident occurred which kept him on crutches for three years, and that plan had to be abandoned. As soon as he was able he resumed his studies with the Rev. John Hayden, Archdeacon of the diocese of Derry and Raphoe. In 1850, his physician recommending a sea voyage, he crossed and recrossed the Atlantic in a sailing-vessel, and thus visited several of the seaboard cities of the United States. He was so favorably impressed with them that in the autumn of the following year he returned to New York, and obtained a situa- tion in the office of Ralph Post, a shipping and commission merchant on South Street. Later he served in the office of Wallace & Wicks, and finally, in 1858, entered the office of David Dows & Co. In 1861 he was admitted to partnership in the latter firm, where he has amassed a fortune, and has exerted a commanding influence in the affairs of the city and nation.
Mr. Orr is one of the foremost members of the Produce Exchange. He has twice been its president, and was secretary of the committee that had charge of the work of erecting its
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building. He was for eight years chairman of its arbitration committee, and one of those who perfected its gratuity system.
In 1872 Mr. Orr was elected a member of the Chamber of Commerce of the State of New York, and after serving upon some of its important committees was in 1889 made its first vice- president. This position he held till 1894, when he was elected president, and continued in that office for five successive years.
Mr. Orr is a member of the American Geographical Society, the Down Town Association, the City Club, the Hamilton Club of Brooklyn, the Marine and Field Club, the Atlantic Yacht Club, and other organizations. He is also a director of numer- ous banks and trust, insurance, and railroad companies. He is a member of the Protestant Episcopal Church, a trustee of its cathedral and schools at Garden City, Long Island, and treasurer of that diocese.
Mr. Orr was a trustee of the fund left by the late Governor Tilden to found a public library in New York, and took an active part in consolidating that estate with the Astor and Lenox libraries into the "New York Public Library."
One of the most important public services rendered by Mr. Orr has been in connection with the rapid-transit enterprise in New York under municipal ownership. He has been President of the Board of Rapid Transit Commissioners since its creation by the Legislature, and has been foremost in directing the labors of that body which, after years of effort, were crowned in the early part of 1900 by the adoption of the plans of the com- missioners, and the letting of a contract for the construction of a great system of underground rapid transit. Work upon this vast enterprise was actually begun with public ceremonies, in which Mr. Orr took fitting part, on March 24, 1900.
Mr. Orr was married, in 1856, to Miss Juliet Buckingham Dows, daughter of Ammi Dows, a member of the firm of David Dows & Co. She died a few years later, and in 1873 he married Margaret Shippen Luquer, daughter of Nicholas Luquer of Brooklyn. She is a member of the Shippen family, which for two and a half centuries has been prominently identified with the city of Philadelphia and State of Pennsylvania. Mr. and Mrs. Orr have three children : Jane Dows Orr, now Mrs. I. B. Vies ; Mary Orr; and Juliet Ector Orr, now Mrs. A. H. Munsell.
Morten POth
NORTON PRENTISS OTIS
T THE founder of the Otis family in this country was John
Otis, who came from Hingham, England, a few years after the Mayflower Pilgrims, and settled in Massachusetts. Later generations of the family made their home in Vermont, and there, at Halifax, Norton Prentiss Otis was born, on March 18, 1840. His family made several changes of residence during his boyhood, and his education was acquired in various places, including Albany, New York, Hudson City, New Jersey, and Yonkers, New York.
His father, Elisha G. Otis, who was the inventor of the modern elevator, had founded in 1855 a small elevator factory. The son entered that factory in 1858 and learned the business. His father died in 1861, and then the son, in partnership with his brother, Charles R. Otis, took full charge.
The whole capital of the firm was then less than two thousand dollars ; the plant was inadequate; and the Civil War made the time seem unpropitious for a business venture. Nevertheless, the young men persevered, and succeeded. They invented and patented various devices for the safety of passengers on the elevators, and these gave them an advantage over competitors. Year by year their business increased. Year by year the output of their factory improved in quality and design. To-day the business of the company is world-wide. Wherever there are modern buildings there are elevators, and wherever there are elevators the name of Otis is known. The firm was long ago incorporated, Mr. Otis becoming its treasurer. He became its president on the retirement of his brother in 1890. On January 1, 1899, the Otis Elevator Company was organized, taking over the property patents and business of Otis Brothers & Company
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and a number of other manufacturing concerns in the same line, and Mr. Otis, wishing to be retired in a measure from the cares of active business, was made chairman of the board of directors, retaining, however, the position of president of the Otis Electric Company.
The factories of the corporation are at Yonkers, New York, covering several acres of land, and employing seven hundred men. It is said that three fourths of the elevators now in use in New York are of Otis Brothers' make, while a large proportion of them is also to be found in other large cities throughout the world. Among the notable elevators made by Otis Brothers are those in the Eiffel Tower, in Paris; twelve, of twelve thousand pounds capacity each, for carrying loaded trucks with teams attached, at Glasgow, Scotland; one in the Catskill Mountains that carries a railroad train up an incline seven thousand feet long in ten min- utes; and one running to the top of Prospect Mountain, Lake George. The first great improvement in elevator-building was the introduction of steam-power in 1866. Some ten years later hydraulic power was utilized. At a still later date electricity was brought into use. In all the successive steps Mr. Otis has taken a keen interest, and has himself been a prominent factor.
Mr. Otis has for many years made his home in the city of Yonkers, New York, where the factories of his company are sit- uated. In 1880 he was elected Mayor, and gave the city an admirable administration. In 1883 he was elected a member of the State Legislature. He has also been urged a number of times to accept a nomination for Congress, but for business rea- sons was obliged to decline. ' In 1898 he was appointed by Gov- ernor Black a member of a commission of sixteen to represent the State of New York at the Paris Exposition of 1900, and he was unanimously elected its president. In New York city he is well known, and he is a member of the Engineers' Club, the Ful- ton Club, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York city, and of the Amackassin and Corinthian yacht clubs of Yonkers.
Mr. Otis was married to Miss Lizzie A. Fahs of York, Penn- sylvania, on December 25, 1877.
FRANCIS ASBURY PALMER
THE power of wealth and the importance of sound finance to the welfare of all legitimate business have long been truisms. They are the ready explanation of the influence and exceptional rank enjoyed by the banker in the community. Indeed, in the largest sense, the money power is one of the great powers of the world, since kings and nations are often forced to shape their courses according to the will of the great inter- national bankers, who literally hold the purse-strings of govern- ments in their hands. In the business or industrial community no tyranny is exercised by the banker. His influence is benefi- cent. It is for him to promote business, to conserve financial integrity, and to make and keep the old saying, "sound as the bank," a vital and significant truth.
The career of a man who was the founder and has for more than half a century been president of one of the foremost banks in the foremost city of the Western world is, therefore, marked with especial interest as that of one who has had a more than ordinary important share in promoting the welfare of the com- munity, and who is in an exceptional measure identified with the financial and commercial greatness of the metropolis.
Francis Asbury Palmer comes of old English stock, from which he doubtless inherits the characteristics which have con- tributed to the great success he has attained. His first American ancestors were among the Pilgrims who founded a new nation on the North Atlantic coast. For some generations they were settled in New England, and were identified with the develop- ment of those colonies, while at the same time, from the disci- pline of pioneer life, they themselves received a further develop- ment of those traits of character which make for leadership
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among men and for mastery over material obstacles. From New England they migrated into New York, and settled among the picturesque hills of Westchester County.
At the old village of Bedford, in that county, on the famous Bedford Road, which in ante-revolutionary times was already a great highway from the banks of the Hudson River to the Con- necticut valley, a village which has been the home and birthplace of many a man of note, dwelt in the last generation Lewis Palmer, a farmer, and Mary, his wife. There to them was born a son, on November 26, 1812, to whom they gave the name of Francis Asbury Palmer. The boy grew up on his father's farm, and attended the local schools, finishing his education in the long- noted Bedford Academy.
On reaching manhood he came to New York city, and entered business life. His natural aptitude and his force of character secured for him a good degree of success, and before he had " come to forty year " he was able to enter upon the work with which his name is inseparably identified. It was in 1849 that the National Bank of New York city was organized. He was at once made its first president, and has retained that place down to the present time. Amid all the financial fluctuations and panics the metropolis has known, he has held the bank true to the even tenor of its way, with undiminished prosperity.
To this business Mr. Palmer has devoted the chief attention of his life. He was, however, called into public service for a time, in 1871 and 1872, when he was Chamberlain of the city of New York, and had the custody of the city's funds.
Mr. Palmer has long been identified with the Congregational Church, and has liberally contributed to the promotion of various religious works.
He was married, on October 30, 1834, to Miss Susannah Shel- don, who is now deceased. He has no children.
STEPHEN SQUIRES PALMER
N "OT many men have a wider range of business interests, or are identified with a greater number of corporations, than the subject of the present sketch.
Stephen Squires Palmer, who was named after his grand- father, is of French Huguenot descent on the paternal side, and of English descent on the maternal side. His father, the late David Palmer, was a prominent business man of New York city, and was vice-president of the National City Bank. Mr. Palmer, the subject of this sketch, was born in New York city on De- cember 7, 1853, and was carefully educated at a number of pri- vate schools. It was his plan to enter college, but on the very day of his final entrance examination his only brother died, and he gave up his collegiate ambition.
Instead of going to college he went into business as an em- ployee of Moses Taylor & Co., the famous commercial house of New York, and has ever since been identified with those inter- ests, being at the present time a trustee of the Moses Taylor estate.
His business interests, however, as already stated, have greatly widened, until the list of them is a phenomenally long one. Thus, Mr. Palmer is president of the Palmer Land Company, the Green Bay and Western Railroad Company, the New Jersey Zinc Company, the St. Louis and Hannibal Railroad Company, the Washington Assurance Company, the Harvey Steel Com- pany, the Kewaunee, Green Bay and Western Railroad Company, the New Jersey Zinc Company of Pennsylvania, and the Palmer Water Company; he is a trustee of the Farmers' Loan and Trust Company of New York ; he is a treasurer of the Cayuga and Susquehanna Railroad Company; and he is a director
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of the American Washer and Manufacturing Company, the Bayonne and Greenville Gas Light Company, the Colonial As- surance Company, the Consolidated Gas Company of New York, the Dickson Manufacturing Company, the Empire Zinc Com- pany, the Fort Wayne and Jackson Railroad Company, the Lackawanna Iron and Steel Company, the McNeal Pipe and Foundry Company, the Mexican National Railroad Company, the Mineral Point Zinc Company, the National City Bank of New York city, the New Jersey Magnetic Concentrating Com- pany, the New York Mutual Gas Light Company, and the Valley Railroad Company, besides the various corporations already mentioned of which he is also president.
With this multiplicity of business interests, Mr. Palmer has still found time to take an interest in politics, but has held and sought no public office.
He is a member of the Union League, Metropolitan, Players', New York Yacht, Tuxedo, Lawyers', and Down-Town clubs, of New York, the Essex County Country Club of New Jersey, and other social organizations.
Mr. Palmer's wife died some years ago. He has one son, who is a student at Princeton University.
Eng by E. G. Williams & Bro. MY
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JOHN EDWARD PARSONS
JOHN EDWARD PARSONS, who has long been recognized as one of the leaders of the New York bar, is of English ancestry. His father, Edward Lamb Parsons, was born in Eng- land, and was a member of a family which, though temporarily residing in Lancashire at the time of his birth, had for many generations lived at Cubington and Stoneleigh, in Warwickshire. The elder Mr. Parsons came to this country when he was a young man, and engaged in business in New York. He lost his life in a shipwreck in January, 1839, when on his return home from a visit to England. He married Matilda Clark, daughter of Ebe- nezer Clark of Wallingford, Connecticut, and to them was born, in New York city, on October 24, 1829, the subject of this sketch.
The early education of Mr. Parsons was obtained at the board- ing-school of Samuel U. Berrian, at Rye, in Westchester County, New York. Thence, in 1844, he proceeded to the University of the City of New York, as New York University was then called. That institution was then in its early years, and was presided over by Chancellor Theodore Frelinghuysen. Mr. Parsons pur- sued its regular course, which was a high one for those days, and was graduated in 1848. It may be added that he was elected a member of the council of the university in 1865, and occupied that place for about thirty years.
The year after his graduation from the university Mr. Parsons began the study of law in the office of James W. Gerard, who in his day was one of the most distinguished lawyers of New York, and in 1852 he was admitted to practice at the bar. He opened his first office on January 1, 1854, on his own account. On the first day of May following he formed a partnership with Lo- renzo B. Sheppard. In the following July Mr. Sheppard was
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appointed by Governor Horatio Seymour to be District Attorney of the city and county of New York, and he thereupon appointed Mr. Parsons to be his assistant. Mr. Parsons filled that place until the end of that year, and then retired from it; and he has never since accepted public office.
A history of Mr. Parsons's law practice would be in large mea- sure a history of the bar and courts of New York for the last half century. He has won great success; he has practised in nearly all departments of the law, and he has been conspicuously asso- ciated with many of the most noteworthy cases. Among these last may be mentioned the suit of Dunham vs. Williams, which involved the title to disused roads laid out in those parts of New York State which were settled by the Dutch; that of Story vs. the elevated railroad companies, which was stubbornly fought for many years, and in which finally the Court of Appeals decided that the companies were responsible to the owners of abutting properties for injury thereto; the Hammersly, Burr, Merrill, Fayerweather, and Tracy will cases; and the famous " boodle " case of Jacob Sharp, the street-railroad builder.
Mr. Parsons was one of the leading lawyers in the litigation connected with the downfall of the notorious Tweed Ring. He was counsel to the committee of the State Senate which reported in favor of declaring Tweed's seat vacant ; counsel be- fore the Assembly committee of investigation into the Kings County frauds ; counsel before the Assembly committee in the case of Henry W. Genet; and participated in the trial of Genet for complicity in the Tweed Ring frauds. He is a leader in the reform movement which led to the impeachment of the judges who had been corruptly subservient to Tweed; he was selected by the New York City Bar Association as one of its counsel in the initiatory proceedings before the judiciary committee of the Assembly ; he was one of the counsel for the prosecution in the impeachment trial of Judge Barnard ; and he also took part in the trial of Judge McCunn and in the proceedings against Judge Cardozo.
Mr. Parsons has devoted himself largely to corporation law, and has been counsel for a number of important business organ- izations. He was counsel for the Sugar Trust, and has been counsel for its successor, the American Sugar Refining Company,
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since its organization. In that capacity he has figured in the litigation and legislative and congressional investigations which followed the formation of the Sugar Trust.
Despite the demands of his professional work, Mr. Parsons has found much time to devote to benevolence and philanthropy. His long service in the New York University council has already been mentioned. He was one of the organizers of the New York Cancer Hospital, and has been its president from the beginning. He is president of the Woman's Hospital of the State of New York, and has been president of the. New York Bible Society. He is a member of the executive committee of the New York City Mission and Tract Society, the American Trust Society, and the Board of Home Missions of the Presbyterian Church, an original member of the board of trustees of the Cooper Union, and a member of the board of the American Bible Society.
Mr. Parsons is a member of the Century Association, the Uni- versity, Players', Metropolitan, Riding, City, and Turf clubs of New York, and of the Lenox Club of Lenox, Massachusetts. He is a member and officer of the Brick Presbyterian Church of New York. He is much interested in mission work among the poor children of New York, having been for twenty years and more at the head of a large mission school, and maintaining at his own expense a country home for poor children at Curtisville, Massachusetts, at which a hundred children are entertained at a time during the summer. He has a fine home of his own in New York city. He also has a country home at Rye, Westchester County, New York, on an estate long owned by his family, and another at Lenox, Massachusetts, where his place, "Stonover," is one of the most attractive homes and one of the finest model farms in that delightful region.
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