USA > New York > New York State's prominent and progressive men : an encyclopaedia of contemporaneous biography, Volume II > Part 10
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Mr. Dutcher was a practitioner in all the courts of New Jer- sey, in both civil and criminal cases. In 1861 he was associated with the United States District Attorney for that State in a trial for murder committed on Long Island Sound, the chief issue being whether the federal government, or the governments of New York and Connecticut, had jurisdiction over those waters. The court held in favor of the former, and the prisoner was convicted.
In 1876 Mr. Dutcher was counsel for the property-owners in the great case concerning assessments for street improvements in Elizabeth. The assessments were invalidated, according to Mr. Dutcher's contention, and the bankruptcy of the city fol- lowed.
In New York Mr. Dutcher has not practised in criminal cases, and has not held any public position. He has devoted himself to the practice of civil law, and to real-estate, corpo- ration, and patent law in particular. Of late years his atten- tion has largely been given to the management and settlement of estates. He is counsel for several corporations, and is fre- quently consulted as an authority on corporation law.
Mr. Dutcher has been married twice, both of his wives being now deceased. He makes his home with his son, Alfred Carr Dutcher, who is in the service of the federal government, in the New York custom-house.
CHARLES PHILIP EASTON
TN scarcely any respect is New York city more the center, capital, and metropolis of the North American continent than in that of its legal profession. Nowhere else are lawyers so numerous, nowhere is the competition among them so keen, nowhere is the standard of ability so exacting, and nowhere are the possibilities of success so vast and enticing. In such circum- stances it is natural that the bar of New York should prove a potent magnet, attracting to itself many ambitious men from this city and from all parts of the land. Among these are many who have attained eminence elsewhere, and who come to New York to crown their careers, and also many who are just start- ing in the profession, and who elect to begin at the top, as it were-at least, in the place where the highest distinction is to be attained, and also the hardest labors are to be performed.
The bar of New York thus attracts each year many young men, including some of brilliant intellects and high attainments in scholastic life. At the present time there are not a few of these who have only recently been enrolled in the legal profes- sion, who are just beginning to make themselves felt as forces therein, but whose abilities promise to make them, ere long, worthy successors of those many others who have grown old and distinguished in the profession, and who have given to the bar of New York its unchallenged preeminence. Among such, Charles Philip Easton, the subject of this biography, stands high in the estimation of his associates. English and Welsh ancestors unite in Mr. Easton's lineage. His parents were Frederick J. Easton, a prosperous cotton broker of this city, and Isabel J. Williams Easton Both were natives of New York city.
Charles Philip Easton was born at No. 152 West Thirty-fourth
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Street, New York, on October 18, 1866. He received a careful education under private tutors, and at two good preparatory schools, Tyler's School, at Brattleboro, Vermont, and the Betts Military Academy, at Stamford, Connecticut. Finally he entered the Law School of Columbia College, from which he was gradu- ated in 1889. For a few months following his graduation he read law in the office of Sullivan & Cromwell of New York, of which firm the late Algernon S. Sullivan was then senior part- ner. Mr. Easton was admitted to the bar in May, 1889, and on December 1 of that year he opened a law office at No. 206 Broadway, where he remained for a number of years. In De- cember, 1898, he removed his office to No. 43 Cedar Street, his present occupancy.
Mr. Easton has a large and rapidly growing clientele, and although he does a general law practice, he is becoming more and more identified with corporation and probate work, and will probably make a specialty of these branches in the course of time. One of the most important of his recent labors was as counsel for the receiver of the Stuyvesant Safe Deposit Com- pany, which was one of the oldest in New York city, and the first safe-deposit company to be dissolved. Many new and in- teresting points of law were involved, and Mr. Easton received much praise for the thoroughness and intelligence of his work as counsel.
Mr. Easton is a member of the Ardsley, the Players', and the Strollers' clubs. He is a deep student of literature and the drama, and is an enthusiastic lover of art. He is quiet and dig- nified in his manners, a hard worker, ambitious, and undoubtedly one of the most promising of the younger members of the city bar.
Mr. Easton takes little part in politics, and has never aspired to public offices. He is greatly interested in the advancement of education and the enlightenment of the lower classes through intellectual development, and, although still a young man, has done much to further these objects. He is a member of the Yonkers Board of Education, is first vice-president of the Yonkers Historical and Library Association, and is otherwise prominent in the social and public life of Yonkers, where he makes his home. Mr. Easton is an unmarried man.
NEWMAN ERB
DOLPHUS L. ERB and his wife, formerly Miss Esther Peck, came to the United States from their native land, Germany, about 1852. They soon went to the West, and were among the pioneer settlers of the State of Kansas. They brought with them to this country their son, Newman Erb, who had been born to them on June 16, 1850. The boy was sent, when he became old enough, to an excellent school in St. Louis, Missouri. There he was educated to be a lawyer, and was in due time admitted to the bar.
During the troublous times of 1872 in Arkansas, Mr. Erb went to that State as the correspondent of a St. Louis news- paper. Finding what he deemed a good opening for his talents in Arkansas, he decided to remain there. He accordingly gained admission to the bar, and opened an office at Little Rock. There he began the practice of his profession, and continued in it with gratifying success for ten years. In that time he acquired a wide reputation as a shrewd and safe counselor and a success- ful corporation lawyer. He was not neglectful of the other calling on which he first went to Arkansas, but established the Little Rock "Daily Herald," and also a newspaper printed in the German language. With these he was identified as pro- prietor and editor for several years.
Mr. Erb became, in 1881, a director of the Kansas City, Spring- field and Memphis Railroad Company, now known as the Kansas City, Fort Scott and Memphis, and was appointed its chief attor- ney for Arkansas and Tennessee, with headquarters at Memphis. In 1885 he was appointed receiver of the Memphis, Selma and Brunswick Railroad, and completed its line from Memphis to Holly Springs, Mississippi. It subsequently became a part of the
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main line of the Kansas City, Memphis and Birmingham Rail- road, of which company he became a director and chief attorney for Tennessee and Mississippi.
Mr. Erb was, in 1887, placed in charge of the construction of the Kansas City, Wyandotte and Northwestern Railroad, and was made vice-president and general manager of the company. Under his direction the road was completed from Kansas City to Beatrice, Nebraska, with branches to Leavenworth and other points. Later he was appointed sole receiver of this road and of the Kansas City and Beatrice Railroad. In 1894 he was appointed receiver of the street-car lines of Leavenworth, Kan- sas, which lines he combined, rebuilt, and converted into a com- pact, modern electric-railway system. On reorganization of the company he became its president.
Meantime, in 1892, Mr. Erb had become interested with Rus- sell Sage in the Chattanooga Southern Railway Company, and was appointed temporary receiver thereof. He is now a director of the reorganized company. In the same year he became chair- man of the bondholders' reorganization committee of the St. Louis, Cape Girardeau and Fort Smith Railway, and is now presi- dent of that company, reorganized as the Southern Missouri and Arkansas Railroad Company. He was appointed special master, by the Federal Court, in the foreclosure proceedings against the Chicago, Kansas and Nebraska Railroad, now part of the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific system, which involved the sum of twenty-seven million dollars. His findings were approved and not appealed from.
Mr. Erb is now president of the New York Suburban Water Company, the Mamaroneck Water Company, and counsel for and director of other corporations. He has lived in New York city since 1892, and has been identified with many corporate interests there. He was in 1894 receiver of the private banking house of Coffin & Stanton. He belongs to a number of the best clubs in New York city.
FRANK HARVEY FIELD
D ESPITE the fact that "westward the course of empire takes its way," and that consequently an army of young men have marched to the West to grow up with the country, it sometimes happens that young men come from the West back to the East, to seek fortunes or distinction in professional life. Such is the case with Frank Harvey Field, the well-known lawyer of New York and Brooklyn. He comes of the Field family, which was settled at Northfield, Massachusetts, in early colonial days. No less than twelve members of that family fought with Stark at Bennington. Two generations ago Lucius Field removed from Northfield to Troy, New York, where his son, Cornelius R. Field, was born, thence to Brooklyn, and finally to Janesville, Wisconsin. His son Cornelius married Miss Sarah E. Henry of Albany, New York, and was for a time settled in Chicago, but afterward came to New York and became cashier of the American Stoker Company.
Frank Harvey Field, son of Cornelius R. and Sarah E. Field, was born in Chicago, on August 17, 1863. He was educated in the public schools of Highland Park, in the suburbs of that city, and then came to New York to study law in the Law School of Columbia University. From that institution he was graduated with the degree of LL. B. While a law student he was com- pelled to maintain himself by working in a telegraph office and for an insurance company.
Shortly before admission to the bar Mr. Field entered the law offices of Arnoux, Ritch & Woodford, and remained there until 1890. In that year he formed a partnership with Edward S. Peck, at 261 Broadway, New York, which lasted until May 1, 1898. Since the latter date he has practised alone at 215 Mon-
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tague Street, Brooklyn, with conspicuous success. He is counsel for the Edison Electric Illuminating Company of Brooklyn, the Citizens' Electric Illuminating Company, the Municipal Electric Light Company, the Williamsburg Trust Company, Journeay & Burnham, the American Stoker Company, the Brooklyn Baptist Church Extension Society, and other large corporations and individuals. He has also been counsel for the Kings County Republican General Committee, and for the New York "Sun " in its litigation with labor organizations. He is a director of the Williamsburg Trust Company, the Citizens' Electric Illumi- nating Company, Journeay & Burnham, and the American Stoker Company.
Mr. Field has held no strictly political office, but has long taken an active interest in political affairs as a Republican. He has been for two terms president of the Brooklyn Young Repub- lican Club, one of the foremost political organizations in Brook- lyn, and is a recognized leader of the party in Kings County.
Mr. Field is a member of various social and professional organizations, including the Brooklyn Club, the Crescent Club, the Union League Club of Brooklyn, and the Hardware Club of New York. He is a passed regent of De Witt Clinton Council of the Royal Arcanum, and has been for many years a trustee and secretary of the Brooklyn Bar Association. He is a deacon and superintendent of the Sunday-school of the Washington Avenue Baptist Church, and has taken a leading part in the work of that church, locally and throughout the country. He has been presi- dent of the Baptist Young People's Union of Brooklyn, presi- dent of the same union of New York State, and vice-president of the same union of America. He is also vice-president of the Board of Management of the Central Branch of the Brooklyn Young Men's Christian Association.
On June 3, 1890, Mr. Field was married to Miss Mary L. Snif- fen of Brooklyn. They have now three children : C. Reginald Field, Ruth Field, and Paul Field.
BENEDICKT FISCHER
B ENEDICKT FISCHER was born at Oberschopfheim, Baden, on March 21, 1840. His father was Bernard Fischer, a wheelwright by trade and a government collector of taxes by partial occupation. His mother was Caroline Beiser Fischer. They came to this country in 1855, after the boy had acquired an ordinary school education and had learned his fa- ther's trade. In New York the boy first got employment in his uncle's curled-hair factory, at two dollars a week. Next, he got a place in a varnish factory, at four dollars a week. This busi- ness he left to be a salesman for a tea, coffee, and spice firm, at seven dollars a week. This pay was soon increased to twelve dollars.
It was in the spring of 1861, when he was just twenty-one years old, that he set up a business of his own in the tea, coffee, and spice line. He had just thirty-two dollars capital. But he had knowledge of the business, and much energy, and by the end of the first year he had a paying business estab- lished, owned his horse and wagon, and had a few hundred dollars besides.
Unfortunately he then fell sick and had to trust the business to some one else. Six months later he had no capital left, and was a thousand dollars in debt. But his creditors offered him still more credit. Thus he was enabled to go on. In time he paid all his debts, and was getting on more prosperously than ever, when a business panic occurred, which completely crushed his establishment. It wiped out all his capital again, and put him more than twenty thousand dollars in debt. He formed a partnership so as to get the needed capital, and soon paid off all his debts and got the business on a profitable basis. At the
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present day the firm of B. Fischer & Co. is one of the leading tea, coffee, and spice houses in New York city.
This, however, was not to mark the limit of his industry. In 1874 he was led by a friend to take some interest in the manu- facture of encaustic tiles, a business then in its infancy in the United States. He at first loaned his friend money to prosecute the business, but after a time resolved to take it into his own hands. The first experiments were made in a little pottery with two small kilns, at Zanesville, Ohio. They seemed insignificant to some, but they convinced Mr. Fischer that the enterprise could be made to pay. So he organized the American Encaustic Tiling Company, Limited, and became himself president of it. A new factory was built, with six kilns, and was run to its full capacity. From time to time it was enlarged until all the available land at that site was built upon.
By this time it was seen that tiles could be made in this coun- try in competition with those of Europe. Mr. Fischer therefore began, in 1890, the building of a large new factory on a more commodious site, at Zanesville. It was finished in the spring of 1893, and then Governor (now President) McKinley, with his entire staff, came over from Columbus and presided at the open- ing ceremonies, in the presence of more than twenty thousand people. This great factory covers nearly seven acres of ground, and employs between six and seven hundred work-people. There are thirty-odd kilns, which can turn out monthly over two hundred and fifty thousand square feet of finished tiles, equal in quality to any in the world, and for all sorts of uses.
Mr. Fischer, besides being president of this company, is vice- president of the Mauser Manufacturing Company, of which he is one of the organizers, is head of his old tea, coffee, and spice house, and is largely interested in real estate.
R. C. FLOWER
THE family of which R. C. Flower is to-day one of the most conspicuous members has for generations been prominent in public and social affairs in England, where it is still settled in London and at Stratford-on-Avon. Two of Mr. Flower's cousins, Charles and Edgar Flower, are gratefully remembered for having built and given to the town of Stratford the Shakspere church, school, theater, and monument, with an endowment for their maintenance. Another cousin, recently deceased, was Sir William Flower, who was surgeon to the Queen, president of the Zoologi- cal Gardens of London, and a friend and co-laborer of Tyndall and Huxley.
Two generations ago one of the family, who had been a leader of the antislavery campaign in Great Britain, came to this country and settled at Albion, Illinois. He brought over a large colony of Englishmen, all stanch antislavery men, and settled them in Edwards County, Illinois, and it was that colony and its descen- dants that chiefly restrained southern Illinois from joining the secession movement in 1861. One of the sons of the pioneer Flower remained at Albion, and was the father of a family of distinction. One of his children was the Rev. George E. Flower, a leading minister of the Church of the Disciples; another, B. O. Flower, was editor of the " Arena Magazine," and is now editor of the "New Time"; another, Mrs. Elizabeth Flower Willis, has for years been a prominent elocutionist; and yet another is the subject of this sketch.
R. C. Flower was born at Albion, Illinois, on December 16, 1849. For five years he was instructed by a private tutor, and then went to the Northwest University, at Indianapolis, Indiana, where he pursued courses and took degrees in both law and
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medicine. He began the practice of the law, but was compelled to quit it because of the failure of his voice. Thereupon he turned his attention to medicine, and through advertising and correspondence secured a numerous patronage in all parts of the country. For more than sixteen years he had an average of seventeen thousand patients, including one thousand in the remote State of Texas. Through this practice and the sale of proprietary medicines he amassed more than one handsome for- tune. He lost large sums of money, however, partly through becoming security for others, and partly through investments to which he was not able to pay personal attention. All enterprises to which he did give personal attention resulted satisfactorily.
While engaged in medical practice he became more and more interested in other business. He became an investor in Western real estate and in iron-mines and smelting-works. He also be- came interested in finance, and ultimately decided to withdraw from medical practice and devote himself entirely to banking and other business pursuits. This he did with eminent success and to his great personal satisfaction.
Mr. Flower became, on August 1, 1899, the head of the firm of R. C. Flower & Co., bankers, at No. 33 Wall Street, New York. There he does a large business in dealing in State and municipal bonds, negotiating mortgages and loaning money on Western real estate, and other legitimate operations. The firm is a recog- nized and important power in financial circles in New York and throughout the country. Mr. Flower is also a director and vice- president of the Atlantic Trust and Deposit Company of Balti- more, Maryland.
Down to 1897, Mr. Flower had lived on Commonwealth Avenue, Boston. Since that date he has made his home in New York, at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. He was married, on December 21, 1869, to Miss Ella N. Nicholson of Jeffersonville, who died on August 22, 1875, leaving him two sons : A. D. Flower, now of Monterey, Mexico; and Jewel Flower, a lawyer of New York. He was again married, on July 3, 1877, to Miss Mayde M. Man- full of Alliance, Ohio, who has borne him a daughter, Miss Evan- geline Flower.
JOHN FOX
J OHN FOX was born of Irish parentage at Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada, on June 30, 1835. About five years later his parents removed to New York, and soon after his father died, leaving a widow and three children, of whom John was the second, and afterward the main support. John attended a public school in the First Ward until he was fourteen years old, when he was obliged to go to work. He was apprenticed to the trade of block- and pump-making. At nineteen years old he became foreman over a hundred men, and three years later was made master block-maker in the Brooklyn Navy-Yard. He remained there, doing excellent work, until August, 1861, when he was removed for political reasons.
The next year saw Mr. Fox fully started in local politics, in which he has since played an important part. He was a Demo- crat, and was elected by that party alderman of the First District, in 1862. Being a loyal supporter of the Union in the war, he organized the firemen of his district as aids to the police during the Draft Riots of 1863. In 1864 he was elected Super- visor of the County of New York, and was active in raising troops for the Federal Army. In 1866 he was elected to Con- gress from the Fourth District, and became a strong supporter of President Johnson's administration. Two years later he was reelected, but at the end of his second term positively refused further nominations.
Mr. Fox was a member of Tammany Hall, but in 1869 he revolted against the Tweed Ring, and for nearly a year published a paper, the New York "Free Press," devoted to exposing its frauds. He was one of the Committee of Seven-the others being Augustus Schell, John Kelly, John Winthrop Chanler,
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Edward J. Donnelly, Miles Andruss, and William C. Connor-for the reorganization of the Democratic party of this city. In 1873 he was elected to the State Senate. He was a strong sup- porter of Samuel J. Tilden, and at the National Democratic Convention of 1876 joined with Edward Cooper and William C. Whitney, fellow-delegates from New York, in voting for him as the Presidential candidate. He also supported Mr. Tilden at the convention of 1880. Mr. Fox was chosen by Mr. Tilden to manage his campaign in this city in 1876, and did so with great success. In 1877 he was one of the organizers of the Young Democracy, afterward known as the Irving Hall Democracy, and in 1878 led the campaign which resulted in the election of Edward Cooper as Mayor. He has frequently been a delegate at State and National Conventions of the Democratic party. For many years he was a member of the State Committee, and in 1875 was chairman of the State Executive Committee. During all the years of his active participation in politics he has been a member of Tammany Hall, though not always in harmony with that organization. He has twice been president of the Demo- cratic Club, and declined a third election, suggesting as his suc- cessor Roswell P. Flower, who was chosen.
Mr. Fox is a member of the Roman Catholic Church, and is devoted to its interests. He was instrumental in obtaining for the Roman Catholic Foundling Asylum its charter and the gift of the land on which it was built. He also procured the legisla- tion through which it was made practically self-supporting. He has been prominently identified with other charitable enter- prises of his church. For more than twenty years he was engaged in business as a manufacturer of and dealer in iron and other metals, but in 1896 he retired, transferring his business interests to his son, John Fox, Jr.
ROBERT MASON FULLER, M. D.
R OBERT MASON FULLER was born at Schenectady, New York, on October 27, 1845. His father, John Irwin Ful- ler, was a merchant and banker at Schenectady, and afterward a piano manufacturer in New York. His mother was formerly Miss Louisa Gardner of Madison County, New York. On his father's side he is descended from the family of Robert Emmet, the Irish patriot, and on his mother's side from Holland Dutch stock, her grandfather having been Dr. John F. Ries, a surgeon in the Revolutionary War.
Dr. Fuller was educated at the Union School at Schenectady, and at the age of sixteen years was graduated and came to this city to study pharmacy and chemistry. Some months later he went back to Schenectady, entered Union College, and was grad- uated there in 1863, having completed the course in chemistry under Professor C. F. Chandler. Next he studied under Dr. Wil- liam N. Duane of Schenectady, and Dr. James H. Armsby of Albany, and received his degree as Doctor of Medicine from the Albany Medical College in December, 1865. While at this col- lege he took a special course in toxicology, and invented the method of using the photographic camera in connection with chemical analysis. He succeeded in making photographs of crystals of arsenious acids, which were afterward used with effect in a notable trial for murder by poisoning.
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