USA > New York > New York State's prominent and progressive men : an encyclopaedia of contemporaneous biography, Volume I > Part 31
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His boyhood was spent at his father's home, at Taunton, Mas- sachusetts, where he attended school. He was fitted for college at Bristol Academy, and under the private tutorship of Dr. Henry B. Wheelright of Harvard. He entered Harvard in 1861, and
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was graduated in 1865 at the head of his class. Then he took up the study of law, at first under the Hon. Edmund H. Bennett, who was afterward dean of the Law School of Boston University, and then in the Harvard Law School.
Having completed his law studies, Mr. Tweed came to New York, where he was admitted to practice at the bar in 1868, and began work. His first engagement was in the office of Evarts, Southmayd & Choate. He was in its employ for a few years, and on January 1, 1874, became a member of that distinguished firm. That connection was maintained until January 1, 1883, when he withdrew from it to become general counsel for the Central Pacific Railroad Company, the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway Company, and associated corporations. Afterward, upon its organization, he became counsel for the Southern Pacific Company, and he is now the counsel for that company and for the various allied and acquired corporations which compose its giant railway system ; for the Central Pacific Railroad Company ; for the Mexican International Railroad Company ; for the Pacific Mail Steamship Company ; and for various other corporations.
The performance of the duties connected with these engage- ments is sufficient to monopolize the major part of any man's attention, even of so diligent and competent a practitioner as Mr. Tweed. It is not to be wondered at, therefore, that he has re- frained from participation in political matters, save as a private citizen, and has never sought nor accepted public office.
Mr. Tweed is a member of numerous social organizations. In college at Harvard he belonged to the Institute of 1770, the Nat- ural History Society, the Hasty Pudding Club, and Phi Beta Kappa. Afterward he was a member of the Somerset Club and the Eastern Yacht Club in Boston. In New York city he is a member of the Century Association, the Metropolitan, University, Harvard, Players', Riding, Down-Town, Corinthian Yacht, and Seawanhaka-Corinthian Yacht clubs. He belongs also to the Royal Clyde Yacht Club of Glasgow, Scotland.
He was married, at Windsor, Vermont, on October 27, 1881, to Miss Helen Minerva Evarts, daughter of the Hon. William M. Evarts, formerly Secretary of State of the United States. They have four children : Helen, Harrison, Katharine Winthrop, and Mary Winthrop.
Clandu llt.
CORNELIUS VANDERBILT
TE THE name of Vanderbilt, which has long been associated with ideas of great wealth, stanch patriotism, generous phi- lanthropy, social leadership, and generally admirable citizenship in the republic, is evidently of Holland Dutch origin. The family that bears it, however, has been for many generations settled in this country, and perfectly " Americanized " in the truest senses of the term. The family first arose into national prominence in the middle of the nineteenth century. Its head at that time was Cornelius Vanderbilt of Staten Island, best known as Commodore Vanderbilt. Beginning as a farmer at New Dorp, Staten Island, New York, he presently became interested in steamboats on the Hudson River and elsewhere, and then in the New York and Harlem and the New York Central and Hud- son River railroads. At the time of his retirement from busi- ness he was one of the richest men in the country, and the head of one of the greatest railroad systems in the world.
Commodore Vanderbilt was succeeded, as the head of his great enterprises, by his son, William H. Vanderbilt. The latter con- tinued the policies established by his father, and greatly extended the Vanderbilt influence in the railroad world, and increased the size of the Vanderbilt fortune. He married Miss Kissam, daughter of a leading New York banker, in whose banking house Mr. Vanderbilt had been for a time employed. Commodore Vanderbilt had made the name of the family synonymous with wealth, and had won for it an enviable reputation for patriotism by his fine support of the government in the Civil War. Mr. and Mrs. William H. Vanderbilt first gave it high social leadership in New York city. They built the famous brownstone "Vander-
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bilt houses " on Fifth Avenue, which for years were one of the wonders of the city, and were afterward surpassed only by houses built by later members of the same family.
William H. Vanderbilt died in December, 1885, leaving four sons and four daughters. His successor as the head of the family and the head of the great railroad and other interests of the family was his eldest son, Cornelius Vanderbilt. The lat- ter proved a most able business man, and materially added to the wealth of the family. He also identified himself with many religious, educational, and philanthropic works. He was a valued promoter of the Young Men's Christian Association movement. His gifts of buildings and endowments to Yale and other colleges, and to hospitals and churches, aggregated millions of dollars. He built at Fifth Avenue and Forty-seventh Street, New York, one of the most splendid private residences in the world, and at Newport one of the most sumptuous of summer homes. He married Miss Alice Gwynne, daughter of a well-known lawyer of Cincinnati, Ohio. Cornelius Vanderbilt, the second of the name, died on September 12, 1899, leaving five children. His first child, William H. Vanderbilt, had died while in his junior year at Yale. The second was Cornelius, third of the name, the subject of this sketch. The others, in order, were Gertrude, now the wife of Henry P. Whitney of New York, Alfred Gwynne, who was gradu- ated at Yale in 1899, Reginald C., and Gladys M. Vanderbilt.
Cornelius Vanderbilt, the third in direct line to bear that honored name, was born in New York city on September 5, 1873. He was educated at St. Paul's School, Concord, New Hampshire, and at Yale University. His rank as a scholar was high, and he was popular and influential in the social life of the university. In his junior year he was treasurer and secretary of the St. Paul's Club, composed of former students at St. Paul's School, and in his senior year he was a member of the Scroll and Key Society. In 1895 he was graduated with the degree of B. A. Afterward, having a decided bent for scientific and mechanical pursuits, he studied at the Sheffield Scientific School of Yale, and there received, in 1898, the degree of Ph. B., and in 1899 that of M. E. (Mechanical Engineer).
It was only natural, in view of the history of his family for three generations before him, that Mr. Vanderbilt should develop
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a strong practical interest in railroads. While he was in the Sheffield Scientific School he made railroad locomotives a special study, and came to the conclusion that there was room for further improvement in the construction of such engines, es- pecially in respect to the fire-box. Upon leaving the institution, he decided to put his theories into actual practice. He therefore secured an engagement in the service of the New York Central and Hudson River Railroad Company, the great corporation with which his family had for three generations been identified. He at first worked as a draftsman in the office of the superin- tendent of motive power and rolling stock, and there perfected his plans for a new engine. Then he was transferred to the car and engine shops at Albany, and personally worked at the con- struction of the locomotive. When completed, the engine was put to several severe trials, and then into regular work on the Mohawk division of the road, and proved entirely successful. Mr. Vanderbilt also designed some improvements in tugboats, and other mechanisms, and has served the railroad company efficiently in a variety of directions.
Mr. Vanderbilt is a member of several prominent professional and social organizations, but has devoted his time and attention more to business than to mere diversions. He is a member of the Knickerbocker Club, the Metropolitan Club, the New York Yacht Club, and the Seawanhaka-Corinthian Yacht Club. He is also a member of the Engineers' Club of New York.
He was married, on August 3, 1896, to Miss Grace Wilson, the ceremony taking place at the residence of the bride's father, in New York city. Mrs. Vanderbilt is the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Richard T. Wilson, who came to New York many years ago from the South, and have been prominent members of the best society. Another of their daughters is Mrs. Ogden Goelet of New York, and a third is Mrs. M. H. Herbert of England, and one of their sons married Miss Carrie Astor of New York. Rich- ard T. Wilson is the head of the firm of R. T. Wilson & Co., bankers of New York, one of the foremost financial houses in the city.
Mr. and Mrs. Vanderbilt make their home in New York. They have two children : Cornelius, born on April 30, 1898, and Grace, born on September 25, 1899.
ALFRED VAN SANTVOORD
THE Empire State of New York wears its title by various rights. It is foremost in population, in wealth, in indus- try, and in business generally among its fellow-commonwealths of the Union. But perhaps in no respect is its imperial rank more strongly and vitally marked than in that of commerce. This applies to both domestic and foreign trade. For many years about two thirds of all the exports and imports of the whole nation passed through the single port of New York. To- day the proportion of exports has fallen off to one half of the whole, or a little less, but the proportion of imports is still main- tained. New York is thus not only the foremost port of the United States, but it has a greater commerce than all other ports put together.
Intimately connected with this foreign trade, and indeed largely the cause of it, is the enormous inland trade of New York, by way of the great highways of traffic that cross the State. New York has the supreme advantage over all other States of fronting upon both the Atlantic Ocean and the Great Lakes, and of hav- ing a splendid harbor on each. Another unrivaled advantage is found in the Hudson River, broad, deep, and commodious for commerce, opening a great highway from the ocean far up into the heart of the continent, and thence, by means of its natural and artificial tributaries, connecting with the inland seas which wash the shores of the richest Western States. It has long been a truism that the Erie Canal and the Hudson River were the sources of New York city's greatness. That means they were the sources of the commercial greatness of the State, and, we may confidently add, of the United States. And the men who opened up that great highway of trade were the commercial pioneers and founders and builders of the present greatness of the
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nation. With such a man, and the son of such a man, we have to deal in the present brief biography.
The Holland Dutch were the first settlers of New York, both the city and the eastern part of the State, including the Hudson valley and some of the region lying west of it, and their descen- dants are numerous and dominant in many localities there to this day. They have for generations been honorably and effec- tively identified with the substantial development of the commu- nities in which they are settled.
Alfred Van Santvoord, or Commodore Van Santvoord, as he is familiarly known, comes directly from a vigorous and virile stock. His father was Abraham Van Santvoord, one of the pioneers of the transportation business on the Hudson River, and a man of eminence in commercial, political, and social affairs. At the time of the War of 1812, Abraham Van Santvoord was presi- dent of the then village of Utica, New York, and one of the most influential men in that part of the State. In those times of storm and stress the Village Corporation of Utica issued an amount of fractional currency, and specimens of this, bearing the signature of Abraham Van Santvoord, president, are still treasured by the subject of this sketch as precious relics. The elder Van Sant- voord had also at that time a contract with the federal govern- ment for supplying munitions of war and for transporting them. When the Erie Canal was opened, Abraham Van Sant- voord extended his operations to it, and was one of the first to send boats along that invaluable highway. He removed his headquarters from Utica to Rochester in 1821, and finally, recog- nizing the supreme importance of the port of New York, he established himself there, with quarters in Jersey City, on the New Jersey shore of the harbor.
Of such paternity Alfred Van Santvoord was born, at Utica, New York. He obtained an excellent common-school education in the public schools, and then, at an early age, became his father's assistant in the canal and river transportation business. For this he was well fitted, and to it his inclination strongly turned. The result was that his life has been largely identified with that business, and with connecting lines of railroad trans- portation.
He began work for his father as a clerk. His diligence and
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aptitude soon won him promotion and an interest in the busi- ness, and in time he became his father's successor as the head of the business. At that time he was prominently connected with the old People's Line of Hudson River steamers, in which he was associated with Daniel Drew. After succeeding his father he became interested in an independent line of boats on the Hudson, which he presently developed into the now famous Albany Day Line. He also owned the steamer Mary Powell, which he sold to her present owners. He controlled a line between New York and Albany, and built and operated some of the largest and best freight-towing boats on the river. During the Civil War he chartered a number of boats to the federal government for mili- tary and naval use. Among these was the River Queen, which won a place in history as the meeting-place of Abraham Lincoln and Alexander H. Stephens when they had their famous confer- ence at Fortress Monroe. Mr. Van Santvoord's popular title of Commodore has been derived from his prominent connection with shipping interests.
Mr. Van Santvoord has a multiplicity of business interests, to which he has consistently preferred to devote his attention rather than to seek political preferment, though the latter bas often been well within his reach. He is president and chief owner of the Albany Day Line of Hudson River steamers, and a director, and one of the most influential in each board, of the Delaware and Hudson Canal Company, the Albany and Susquehanna Rail- road, the Catskill Mountain Railroad, the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul Railroad, the New York and Harlem Railroad, and the United Railroads of New Jersey. He was one of the organ- izers of the Lincoln Safe Deposit Company, and was vice-presi- dent of each institution from its inception down to a recent date. He still remains a director of each. He is also a director of the Cairo Railroad, the Cherry Valley, Sharon and Albany Railroad, the Equitable Life Assurance Society, the Fourth Ave- nue Street Railroad of New York, the Lake Champlain Steam- boat Company, the Lake George Steamboat Company, the Otis Elevating Railroad Company, and the Spuyten Duyvil and Port Morris Railroad.
Mr. Van Santvoord has long been an expert and enthusiastic yachtsman. In lieu of a country residence he keeps the fine
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steam-yacht Clermont, named after Fulton's first steamboat, and with his family spends much of his time upon it. His city home is in West Thirty-ninth Street, New York, and it is a center of enjoyable domesticity and of refined social life. He is a member of various clubs and other organizations, including the Union League, Century, St. Nicholas, Seawanhaka Yacht, Atlantic Yacht, and New York Yacht clubs, the American Museum of Natural History, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
He was married many years ago to Miss Anna Townsend of Albany, who died about eight years ago. She bore him four children. Of these one was a son, Charles Townsend Van Sant- voord, who became associated with his father in business and was a man of great promise and fine achievements. He became manager of the Albany Day Line, and was apparently destined for still more important trusts when he died suddenly a few years ago. The other three children are Mrs. Eben E. Olcott, Mrs. Wilton Merle Smith, wife of the well-known New York clergyman of that name, and Miss Anna Van Santvoord.
Mr. Van Santvoord has always been a man of essentially domestic tastes, finding most pleasure in the company of his family and friends, and even in advanced years continues to enjoy to the full the society of young people. He is also much in- terested in benevolent enterprises. Among his many acts may be mentioned the building, under his supervision, of the new Colored Home and Hospital in New York, an institution in which his wife had manifested a deep interest.
Mr. Van Santvoord possesses a good library and a valuable collection of works of art, though he has not made a specialty of acquiring such properties. He has in his long and active life made many friends among the foremost business and public men of New York and other States. Among these was the late William H. Vanderbilt, between whom and Mr. Van Santvoord an intimacy of many years' standing existed, which was termi- nated only by Mr. Vanderbilt's death. Although, as stated, he devotes much of his time to his city home and the steam- yacht which is his movable summer home, he also visits Long Branch, Saratoga, and the Catskills each year - places which have long been familiar and favorite resorts of his, and where he is always sure of a hearty welcome from hosts of friends.
ALDACE FREEMAN WALKER
N EW ENGLAND has contributed men of " light and leading " to all businesses and professions and to all parts of the Union. Most of these naturally trace their origin to the Massachusetts and Connecticut colonies, the lines subsequent thereto diverging in many directions. The Walker family, for example, was set- tled at Lynn, Massachusetts, in 1630, and thence moved to other parts of Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Vermont. At West Rutland, in the last-named State, lived, fifty years ago, Aldace Walker, D. D., a Congregational minister, and Mary Ann Baker Walker, his wife; and there, on May 11, 1842, Aldace Free- man Walker, their son, was born.
He was educated at local schools, at Kimball Union Academy, Meriden, New Hampshire, and at Middlebury College, Middle- bury, Vermont, from which he was graduated in the summer of 1862. He had for a year been impatient to get out of college and into the army, and at once enlisted in a Green Mountain regiment, in which he served through the remainder of the war. In the summer of 1865 he came back to Vermont and began the study of law, first at Wallingford and then in the office of the Hon. George F. Edmunds at Burlington. His law studies were completed at Columbia College, New York, and he was admitted to the bar and began the practice of his profession in this city. In 1873 he returned to Vermont and entered an office in his native city of Rutland, where he practised law successfully for the next fourteen years as a member of the firm first of Prout, Simons & Walker, and then of Prout & Walker.
Mr. Walker was called from his law office in April, 1887, to be- come a member of the Interstate Commerce Commission at Washington, and was one of the two Republican members of
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that body as it was originally constituted by President Cleve- land. Two years later he resigned his place, and went to Chicago as chairman of the Interstate Commerce Railway Asso- ciation. Afterward he became chairman of the Western Traffic Association, and subsequently commissioner of the Joint Traffic Association. On September 1, 1894, he was appointed one of the receivers of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad and allied lines. Since January 1, 1896, he has been chairman of the board of directors and executive committee of the reorgan- ized railway company, with Eastern offices in New York, where he now resides, holding also a similar position in relation to the auxiliary companies of the Atchison system, embracing in all about two thousand miles of road.
Mr. Walker was a member of the Vermont State Senate in 1892-93, but has held no other political office. His army record from 1862 to 1865 was as follows: Entered as first lieuten- ant, Eleventh Vermont Volunteers (afterward First Artillery, Eleventh Vermont Volunteers) ; promoted to be captain, major, and lieutenant-colonel ; brevetted lieutenant-colonel for services in the Shenandoah Valley at battles of Opequon, Fishers Hill, and Cedar Creek. In 1895 he was chosen commander of the Illi- nois Commandery of the Military Order of the Loyal Legion. Besides the Loyal Legion, he is a member of the Metropolitan, Colonial, and Lawyers' clubs of New York, and of the Chicago Club. He has received the academic degrees of A. M. and LL. D.
In September, 1871, Mr. Walker was married to Miss Kath- erine Shaw of Wallingford, Vermont. They have three children, Roberts, Harold, and Ruth Elsa.
JOHN HENRY WASHBURN
NHE family of Washburn is one that occupied a conspicu- ous place in England during the Civil War of the time of Charles I. It was then settled at Washbourne, Whychenford, and Evesham, in Worcestershire, and was strongly attached to the royal cause. John Washburn of Whychenford, the then head of the family, exhausted his fortune in the service of the king, and was among the Cavaliers who were taken prisoners at the battle of Worcester. His cousin, another John Washburn, of Evesham, came to this country, and as early as 1832 was set- tled at Duxbury, Massachusetts. He became the first secretary to the Governor and Company of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. His descendant in the seventh generation was Royal Washburn, pastor of the First Congregational Church of Amherst, Massa- chusetts, who married Harriet Parsons, a descendant of Cornet Joseph Parsons, who came from England and settled at Spring- field, Massachusetts.
John Henry Washburn is the son of this couple, and also a descendant of Francis Cooke, one of the Mayflower company, and of Governor William Pynchon. He was born at Amherst, Massachusetts, on October 27, 1828, and was graduated at Am- herst College in the class of 1849. Afterward he read law with Foote & Hodges at Rutland, Vermont, and with B. F. Agan at Granville, New York. He did not, however, enter upon the practice of the legal profession, but turned his attention to the insurance business.
His first engagement was as a clerk in the office of the Wash- ington County Mutual Insurance Company, in 1850, and in 1854 he was secretary of the Bridgeport Fire and Marine Insurance Company. In 1859 he entered the office of the Home Insurance
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Company of New York, one of the foremost insurance corpora- tions in the country, and has ever since been identified with it. Beginning in a subordinate place in its office in 1859, he became its assistant secretary in 1865, its secretary in 1867, and its vice- president in 1886, which office he has held ever since that date. His reputation as an authority on insurance matters is wide- spread throughout the nation. He has been president of the Tariff Association of New York, twice president of the Associa- tion of Western Underwriters, known as the "Union," and twice president of the New York Board of Fire Underwriters. His address before the Underwriters' Association of the Northwest, in 1888, has become a standard treatise on the business. Mr. Washburn has other business interests, being a director of the Chatham National Bank, the New York Mutual Savings and Loan Association, and the New Amsterdam Casualty Company, all of this city. He has held no political office. He is inter- ested in various religious and philanthropic works, being a member of the Broadway Tabernacle Church, and a corporate member of the American Board of Commissioners of Foreign Missions. He is a member of the Lotus and City clubs, the Chamber of Commerce, the Board of Trade and Transportation, of which latter he is vice-president, the New England Society, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Amherst College Alumni Association, the Sons of the Revolution, the Society of Colonial Wars, the Society of Mayflower Descendants, the Order of Founders and Patriots, and the Society of Descendants of Colo- nial Governors.
Mr. Washburn was married on October 17, 1853, and has one son, William Ives Washburn, a practising lawyer of this city.
WILLIAM IVES WASHBURN
"THE first secretary of the Massachusetts Bay Colony was John Washbourne, the founder of the Washbourne, or Washburn, family in America. From him, in direct line, the subject of this sketch is descended. He is descended also from Francis Cooke, who was one of the Mayflower Pilgrims. On his mother's side he comes in direct descent from William Ives, who was one of the original signers of the New Haven Compact. All these colonists were from England, and played leading parts in the development of the new land. Of their descendants, ancestors of William Ives Washburn, no less than forty-nine took active part in the various colonial wars. In the generation immediately preceding that of our subject, and still surviving, John Washburn is a conspicuous business man of New York city, being vice-president of the Home Insurance Company. He married Jane Ives, and to them at Bridgeport, Connecticut, on August 30, 1854, William Ives Washburn was born.
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