USA > New York > New York State's prominent and progressive men : an encyclopaedia of contemporaneous biography, Volume I > Part 24
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WILLIAM FREDERICK PIEL, JR.
THE father and mother of William Frederick Piel were both born in Germany. The father came to the United States in August, 1842, and settled in Indianapolis, Indiana, where he has resided ever since. He was engaged in various mercantile pur- suits down to 1867. In that year he entered the starch-making industry, and has since that date devoted his attention to it.
William Frederick Piel, Jr., son of William Frederick and Eleanore C. M. Piel, was born in Indianapolis, on December 25, 1851. As soon as he was of school age he was sent to the paro- chial school, and there remained until he was nearly fourteen years old. Then he went to Purdy's Commercial College, Indian- apolis, and was there graduated. Next he attended the North- western Christian University, now Butler University, until 1867. At that time his father organized a company to build and operate a starch factory, and he thereupon left school and became book- keeper for the concern. This company was known as the Union Starch Factory.
For years Mr. Piel was thus engaged. He was bookkeeper and general assistant to his father in conducting the business, and at · times went upon the road as a traveling salesman of the products of the factory. He also, when it seemed desirable, took part in the work in the factory, and thus gained a comprehensive know- ledge of all departments of the business.
The original factory building was abandoned in 1873, and a new one was erected. At the same time the style of the firm was changed to that of W. F. Piel & Co. In 1882 Mr. Piel became a partner in the business. Again in 1886 there was another radical change. The firm was incorporated as the
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William F. Piel Company, and Mr. Piel was made vice-president, treasurer, and general manager of it.
In 1890 the National Starch Manufacturing Company was organized. It purchased practically all of the important starch factories in the country, twenty in number, and combined their businesses under one general management. Of this corporation Mr. Piel was at once made vice-president and chairman of the executive committee.
At a later date Mr. Piel was elected president of the National Starch Company, which place he still holds. Thus his entire business career has been spent in the starch and glucose industry, with the exception of nine months in a bank. He has made this business a life study, and has witnessed all the stages of its development from a rudimentary estate to its present command- ing proportions. Nor has he been merely a witness. He has himself been one of the foremost leaders in this great develop- ment of industry and has contributed to it more than most of his contemporaries. He has attained his present place through his own energy, integrity, discretion, enterprise, and general business ability, and has, likewise, through the same masterful character- istics, largely contributed to bringing it to its present great proportions.
Mr. Piel is now president of the National Starch Manufactur- ing Company, and is connected officially with the Piel Brothers' Manufacturing Company of Indianapolis (makers of children's carriage and ratan-ware), and Kipp Brothers Company of Indian- apolis, importers and dealers in fancy goods and druggists' sundries. He is a charter member of the Indianapolis Board of Trade, has been one of its directors or governors from its organ- ization, and was its vice-president in 1889-90.
He is a member of the Lincoln Club of Brooklyn and an associate member of the U. S. Grant Post, G. A. R., of Brooklyn.
Mr. Piel was married at Indianapolis, on June 18, 1874, to Miss Elizabeth M. Meyer of that city, who has borne him eight children: Luda C., Eleanore J. E. (deceased), Theodore L. W. (deceased), Alfred L., Elmer W., William W., Erwin L. (de- ceased), and Edna H. Piel.
Mr. and Mrs. Piel have since 1890 lived in Brooklyn, New York.
WINSLOW SHELBY PIERCE
THE THE name of Pierce is a familiar one in nearly all parts of the United States, and is to be met with frequently in national and colonial history, back to the earliest times. The precise date of its transplantation to these shores from England is not known. This, however, is apparently beyond doubt : that it was brought hither some time prior to the year 1630, and that the first American bearer of it came from North- umberlandshire, England. The family quickly rose into deserved prominence in the affairs of the New England colonies, where it was originally planted, and became allied by intermarriage with many other leading families of colonial days. Among these connections were those with the families of Fletcher, Bancroft, Barron, Prescott, and, as is indicated by the given name of the subject of the present sketch, Winslow. All these families have retained to the present day a goodly measure of their old ability and influence, not only in the communities in which they were first planted, but in State and nation at large.
The last generation of the Pierce family contained a member named Winslow Shelby Pierce, a native, as had been many of his forebears, of the city of Boston. He entered and practised for a time the medical profession in that city, and attained an enviable rank in it. Before reaching middle age, however, he joined the rising tide of westward-moving New-Englanders, and established himself for a time in Illinois. Thence he was borne still farther westward by the great gold rush of 1849, and be- came one of the pioneers of California. To the development of that Territory into a State he contributed much, and he became himself Controller of the new State. Thence, in turn, he came back eastward, as far as Indiana, where he made his
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home for the remainder of his life. He married Jane Thomson Hendricks, a member of the well-known Hendricks family of Indiana, of which State she was a native. Her ancestors were Scotch, Dutch, and French Huguenot, some of them being set- tlers in Pennsylvania contemporaneously with William Penn. They settled in the Ligonier Valley, some of them afterward moving into Ohio and Indiana.
Winslow Shelby Pierce was born at Shelbyville, Shelby County, Indiana, on October 23, 1857. He received his early education in the public schools of Indianapolis. From the high school there he went to Pennsylvania College, Pennsylvania ; and he studied law at the University of Virginia in the summer of 1878. He was graduated from the Law Department of the University of Michigan, in the class of 1879, and then took a postgraduate year at Columbia College, New York.
Mr. Pierce, with this ample preparation, was admitted to prac- tice at the bar of New York in February, 1883, and since that date has been continuously engaged in the pursuit of his profes- sion. He has largely been interested in the legal affairs of cor- porations, and has made special studies of corporate law. He is regularly engaged as counsel for a number of large concerns. Among them may be mentioned the Missouri Pacific Railway Company, and the Texas and Pacific Railway Company, for each of which he is general attorney, and the St. Louis Southwestern Railway Company, and the Union Pacific Company, for each of · which he is general counsel.
He has held no public office, and has taken no part in political affairs beyond that of a private citizen.
Mr. Pierce is a member of various clubs, among which may be mentioned the Lawyers', the New York Athletic, the Metropoli- tan, the Atlantic Yacht, and the Riding Club.
He was married at Baltimore, Maryland, on October 14, 1891, to Miss Grace Douglass Williams. They have four children, namely : Allison Douglass Pierce, Winslow S. Pierce, Jr., Grace Douglass Pierce, and Helen Bancroft Pierce.
GILBERT MOTIER PLYMPTON
"THE descendant of old colonial families, and the son of the distinguished army officer, Colonel Joseph Plympton, a Mexican War veteran, Gilbert Motier Plympton was born on January 15, 1835, at the military post of Fort Wood, Bedloes Island, New York harbor, where the statue of Liberty En- lightening the World now stands. At five years old he was at Fort Snelling, Minnesota, beginning his education with the chaplain of the fort for tutor. Next he was at Sacket Harbor, New York, where he attended a private school. When his father went to the Mexican War he was sent to live with his uncle, Gerard W. Livingston, and his aunt, Anna de Peyster, at Hackensack, New Jersey. After the war he went, with his father, to Jefferson Barracks, Missouri, and then entered Shurt- leff College, Alton, Illinois. He left that institution on a promise of appointment to a cadetship at West Point, and pur- sued preparatory studies therefor in New York. But the promised appointment failing, he, at his father's request, studied law, and was admitted to the bar in November, 1860. The next year he entered the law school of New York University, and was graduated LL. B. in 1863.
His father had died while he was a student, and his mother and sisters were left in his charge, his two brothers and the hus- bands of his two sisters having entered the army at the be- ginning of the Civil War. Mr. Plympton offered his services to the government, gratuitously, to instruct the newly enlisted re- cruits and officers, but his services were not required. He asked for a commission in the army, but was persuaded by his family not to press the matter, as all the other male members of his family were already in the war.
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In his legal career Mr. Plympton had at first a general prac- tice, and later devoted himself to cases in the federal courts and United States Supreme Court. He was eminently successful, but never had real fondness for the profession, which, indeed, he had entered only to please his father.
In 1889, having earned a competence, and finding his health impaired, he retired from the legal profession, and in 1892 organ- ized the banking-house of Redmond, Kerr & Co. of New York, to which he has since devoted his attention.
Mr. Plympton was married, in 1863, to Miss Mary S. Stevens, daughter of Linus W. Stevens, a well-known merchant of this city, who was the first colonel of the Seventh Regiment of New York. One son was born to them, who died in infancy, and one daughter, Mary Livingston Plympton, who is now living. He has been a director of various corporations, and is a member of numerous clubs and societies, among which may be named the St. Nicholas Club, of which he was one of the founders, the Union, Metropolitan, Riding, Westchester Country, and New York Yacht clubs, the Down-Town Association, the Sons of the Revolution, the Society of Colonial Wars, the Society of the War of 1812, the Colonial Order of the Acorn, the St. Nicholas Society, the New York and the American Historical societies, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Botanical and Zoological societies, the Chamber of Commerce, and others. His city home is on West Fifty-second Street, where he has a fine library. His summer home is at East Gloucester, Massachusetts.
Mr. Plympton has written much for the papers and magazines of the day, and has also published a number of pamphlets, in- cluding a biography of his father, and a history of the Plympton family.
EDWARD ERIE POOR
THERE is still standing in Rowley, Massachusetts, an old house which was built in 1639 or 1640, by John Poore, who came from Wiltshire, England, in one of the earliest emigra- tions, and settled in Newbury, Massachusetts. A grant of thirty acres of land was given to him in the neighboring town of Row- ley, whither he removed, and where, in 1684, he died. His son, Henry Poore, born in the old homestead at Rowley, fought in King Philip's War, was made a freeman of Newbury, and became one of the wealthiest men in the colony. Other members of the family are mentioned in the history of Massachusetts as brave soldiers and worthy citizens. In the sixth generation from the original immigrant was Benjamin Poor, an eminent Boston merchant. He was born in 1794, and married in 1824 to Aroline Emily Peabody of Salem, Massachusetts. The Peabodys are among the best-known families of the State. They descend from Lieutenant Francis Peabody of St. Albans, Herts, England, who came to America about 1635, and became a large landowner in the towns of Topsfield, Boxford, and Rowley, Massachusetts. His wife belonged to the Forsters, famous in the border history of Scotland. Their descendants were prominent in all the sub- sequent annals of the colony and State of Massachusetts. George Peabody, the banker and philanthropist, was a member of the family.
Edward Erie Poor, the son of Benjamin E. Poor and Aroline E. Peabody, his wife, was born in Boston, on February 5, 1837. He was a student in the public schools of that city, and then went directly into business instead of pursuing a collegiate course. He entered, in 1851, the dry-goods commission house of Read, Chadwick & Dexter of Boston, and remained with it until 1864.
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In those years he acquired familiar acquaintance with practical business methods, and, being promoted from time to time to more lucrative places, amassed a considerable capital of his own. He was thus enabled in 1864 to engage in business on his own account. He accordingly came to New York city and opened a dry-goods commission house. For a year he conducted it alone. Then, in 1865, he became a member of the firm of Denny, Jones & Poor. Eleven years later the firm was trans- formed into Denny, Poor & Co., under which style it continued until June 30, 1898, at which date it was changed to Poor Brothers, the members of the firm being two sons of Mr. Poor.
Mr. Poor became interested in banking at an early date, and was for many years a trustee of the Union Dime Savings Bank. In 1886 he was elected a director of the National Park Bank, in 1893 he was elected one of its vice-presidents, and in 1895 was elected president of that important financial institution. He was one of the incorporators of the Dry-goods Bank, is vice- president of the Passaic Print Works, Passaic, New Jersey, and one of the oldest members of the Chamber of Commerce. He is a member of the Union League, the Military, the Merchants', and the Manhattan clubs.
Mr. Poor was married, in 1860, to Miss Mary Wellington Lane, daughter of Washington J. and Cynthia Clark Lane of Cam- bridge, Massachusetts. They have seven children : Edward Erie, Jr., James Harper, Charles Lane, Frank Ballou, Horace F., Helen, and Emily C. Poor.
The two elder sons are associated with their father in business ; the third, Dr. Charles Lane Poor, is a professor in Johns Hop- kins University; and the elder daughter is the wife of W. C. Thomas of Hackensack, New Jersey. Mr. Poor has a fine coun- try place at Hackensack, and when in New York lives at No. 16 East Tenth Street.
HENRY WILLIAM POOR
H ENRY WILLIAM POOR, whose name is identified the world over with railroad statistics and information, is a New-Englander of old England antecedents. All his ancestors on both sides of the family came from England and settled in Massachusetts in early colonial days, and they and their descen- dants were actively concerned in the building of the nation. His great-grandfather, Ezekiel Merrill, was one of the minute-men at the time of Lexington, and was present, as a commissioned officer, at Burgoyne's surrender. After the war he went to Maine, and built the Merrill House at Andover, near the Range- ley Lakes, which is now one of the country-seats of the subject of this sketch. Of the illustrious Benjamin Franklin, Mr. Poor's great-great-uncle, no other mention than his name is needed. Mr. Poor's father, Henry V. Poor, was a lawyer in Maine, and then for many years editor of the " American Railroad Journal " in New York. In 1865 he retired from business, but since then has written a number of financial works of great value.
Henry William Poor was born at Bangor, Maine, on June 16, 1844. At five years old he was brought to New York city and educated there until he was ready for college. He was graduated from Harvard in 1865, and at once made New York his home and the scene of his business activities. He at first became a clerk in a stock-broker's office, and learned that business so rapidly and so well that in 1868 he felt emboldened to start an office of his own, for dealing in railroad and other securities, under the firm- name of H. V. & H. W. Poor. He then associated himself with C. E. Habicht in the importation of railroad iron.
At the same time, in 1868, the young man established the now famous annual publication known as "Poor's Railroad Manual."
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This work is the world-wide authority on the finances and gen- eral condition of every railroad in the United States. Mr. Poor has in addition to it published many other statistical works of standard value.
Mr. Poor entered the banking business in 1880, in the firm of Anthony, Poor & Oliphant, which has from time to time changed its style until it is now H. W. Poor & Co., Mr. Poor being senior partner. The house has had a prosperous career, and is esteemed among the most trustworthy in the city. It represents many great foreign corporations, has acted as financial agent of several important railroads, and has issued more than one hundred million dollars of railroad bonds. In 1890 Mr. Poor became a member of the New York Stock Exchange, and has since that time individually done a large business there. He is president of the Kansas City and Pacific Railway, and a director of the Missouri, Kansas and Texas Railway, the Sherman, Shreveport and Southern Railway, the Bank of the State of New York, the United States Casualty Company, and other corporations.
He is a member of many clubs, including the Union League, University, Harvard, Lawyers', Players', Country, Tuxedo, Down- Town, Riding, American Yacht, Seawanhaka Yacht, Aldine, Grolier, Barnard, Lotus, City, Arkwright, New York Athletic, and other prominent clubs of New York, and the Algonquin Club of Boston. He also belongs to the Sons of the American Revo- lution, the New York Historical Society, the New England Society of New York, the American Institute of Fine Arts, the New York Geographical and Statistical Society, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the American Museum of Natural History, the Symphony Society, the Oratorio Society, and the Musical Art Society of New York, and the Hakluyt Society of London. As these associations indicate, he is a man of scholarly and artistic tastes. He is the possessor of one of the finest private libraries in New York, and takes much pleasure in it. He is also fond of out-of-door sports of all worthy kinds, and was himself in youth noted for his athletic prowess.
Mr. Poor was married, on February 4, 1880, to Miss Constance Brandon, and is the father of four children : Henry V. Poor, born in 1880; Edith Poor, born in 1882; Roger Poor, born in 1883 ; and Sylvia Poor, born in 1892.
HENRY SMALLWOOD REDMOND
N the first half of the nineteenth century two prominent citi- zens of New York were William Redmond and Goold Hoyt. The former was an importer of linen fabrics from the north of Ireland, of which country he was a native. He was one of the founders of the Union Club of New York, and was an officer and director of many important business corporations. Goold Hoyt was one of the foremost New York merchants of his time, and was related to many leading families of New York, Boston, and Philadelphia. Mr. Redmond married Mr. Hoyt's eldest daughter, and to them was born a son, Henry Redmond. The latter, on reaching manhood, married Miss Lydia Smallwood, daughter of Joseph L. Smallwood, a prominent cotton merchant of New York.
Henry Smallwood Redmond is a son of Henry and Lydia Smallwood Redmond, and was born at Orange, New Jersey, on August 13, 1865. Until he was sixteen years of age he was edu- cated at home, at Norwalk, Connecticut, and at the Maryland State College. He went to the last-named institution to prepare for admission to the United States navy, but a change in the administration caused him to lose his opportunity of appoint- ment.
From the navy Mr. Redmond turned his attention to finance. He began as a clerk in the firm of Morton, Bliss & Co., where he remained for eight years, making rapid advancement in both proficiency and place. He paid especial attention to studying investment securities, and displayed marked aptitude in master- ing all the details of the banking business. Thus he soon came to be known as an authority on investment securities and their intrinsic values.
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In 1889 Mr. Redmond decided to start in business on his own account, and did so. A little later he purchased a seat in the New York Stock Exchange. In May, 1892, in partnership with Henry S. Kerr and Gilbert M. Plympton, he organized the bank- ing house of Redmond, Kerr & Co., to which firm Thomas A. Gardner was afterward admitted. From the outset the success of this firm was noteworthy, and it soon won the confidence of the entire financial community.
Mr. Redmond was prominently identified with the work of reorganizing the Northern Pacific Railroad in 1897, and was at that time a director of that road. He is now a director of the Trust Company of America, of the Fidelity Trust Company of Newark, New Jersey, and of many other corporations.
Mr. Redmond is a Republican in politics, but has been too much engrossed in business to take any active part in political affairs beyond that of a private citizen.
He is a member of numerous clubs and other organizations. Among those to which he belongs are the Union Club, New York Yacht Club, Racquet and Tennis Club, Knickerbocker Club, Lawyers' Club, Players' Club, Country Club, Larchmont Yacht Club, Carteret Gun Club, Seawanhaka Yacht Club, Philadelphia Club of Philadelphia, the Blue Mountain Forest Game Club, and the Chamber of Commerce of the State of New York.
ISAAC LEOPOLD RICE
TSAAC LEOPOLD RICE, son of Maier Rice, a teacher, and Fanny Rice, his wife, is descended from small landed pro- prietors in Bavaria and Baden. He was himself born in Rhenish Bavaria, at Wachenheim, on February 22, 1850. In 1856 he came to this country, however, and his career has ever since been identified with it.
His early education was acquired in the Central High School of Philadelphia, an admirable institution of college preparatory rank. Later he went to the Law School of Columbia College, New York, and was there graduated LL. B. cum laude, in 1880. He also took the prizes in constitutional and international law.
At the conclusion of his college course Mr. Rice devoted some years to literary and educational work. He was, in 1882-83, lecturer of the School of Political Science at Columbia Univer- sity. He was also an instructor in the Columbia Law School, in 1884-86.
Mr. Rice then took up the practice of law, devoting himself chiefly to railroad and similar practice, and thus more and more became interested in railroads and other industrial enterprises, at first as counsel and then as a director. Thus he became in- terested in the great combination of lines now constituting the Southern Railway. He was also for a time the foreign repre- sentative of the Philadelphia and Reading Company.
Mr. Rice is now deeply interested in the development of elec- tric appliances. He was, from the commercial point of view, the founder of the electric storage battery, electric-vehicle, and electric-boat enterprises. At present he is president of the fol- lowing corporations : the Electric Boat Company, the Electric Launch Company, the Holland Torpedo Boat Company, the
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Electrodynamic Company, the Chicago Electric Traction Com- pany, and the Forum Publishing Company. He is vice-president of the Lactroid Company, and of the Guggenheim Exploration Company, and chairman of the board of directors of the Electric Axle Light and Power Company. He is a director of the Elec- tric Storage Battery Company, the Electric Vehicle Company, the Siemens-Halske Electric Company of America, the Pennsyl- vania Electric Vehicle Company, and the Consolidated Rubber Tire Company.
This multiplicity of business interests has not prevented Mr. Rice from becoming known in social affairs. He is a member of the Association of the Bar, the Lotus Club, the Lawyers' Club, the Harmonie Club, the Columbia Yacht Club, the Union League Club of Chicago, the New York Press Club, the Manhattan Chess Club, the Franklin Chess Club of Philadelphia, and the St. George's Chess Club of London, England. As may be supposed from the latter affiliations, Mr. Rice is a devotee of the game of chess, and has attained great proficiency in it. He invented the new chess opening known as the Rice gambit. He has been umpire at a number of international chess matches, and presented a trophy to be played for at international universities chess tournaments.
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