USA > New York > New York State's prominent and progressive men : an encyclopaedia of contemporaneous biography, Volume II > Part 13
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Apart from the dry-goods business, Mr. Hitchcock is a director of the Second National Bank and a trustee of the Franklin Savings Bank.
For many years he was a bachelor, and was supposed to be confirmed in that estate. But in January, 1892, he married the widow of the late John Ruszits, the millionaire furrier of New York.
HECTOR MORISON HITCHINGS
O NE authority said eloquence consisted in "Action ! action ! action!" Another declared that success was to be assured through " Audacity ! audacity ! audacity !" Why not add that success is also to be won through "Perseverance ! perseverance ! perseverance !" Certainly that is as true as either of the other statements, as the story of a man who stuck strictly to his call- ing will exemplify.
Hector Morison Hitchings was born at Gravesend, Long Island, New York, on December 12, 1855, the son of Benjamin G. Hitchings, a lawyer, and Catherine Newberry Moon Hitch- ings. His father came from Salem, Massachusetts, and was of New England ancestry, being the son of Benjamin Hitchings, a Salem sea-captain. His mother was of Holland Dutch descent, born in Brooklyn. He was educated at a private school at Amherst, Massachusetts, at another at Winchester, Connecticut, at Phillips Exeter Academy, and at Amherst College. After two years in the last-named institution he left it, in June, 1876, to enter his father's law office in New York city as a student. For three years he studied diligently under capable parental direc- tion, and then was admitted to practice at the bar, in Brooklyn, in September, 1879.
Thereafter, as we have said, he devoted his attention unwaver- ingly to his chosen profession. He was interested in politics, society, and other things, but not one of them was ever per- mitted to lead him away from his work in his office and in court. Thus he made sure of retaining all the clients he gained, and through almost every one he gained to secure others. For pre- eminently in law devotion to duty is the highest recommendation to patronage. His practice has from the first been chiefly in
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controverted cases, and during the sessions of court he has been almost daily in the court-room, arguing, examining, and in gen- eral trying cases.
His outside interests have comprised a school trusteeship at Gravesend for many years, and membership in the campaign committee of the Young Men's Republican Club, in 1884. He has also for some years been a member of the Session of the Brick Presbyterian Church, New York. His business connec- tions comprise the Hide and Leather Bank, the Hitchings Homestead Property, the Cuba Gold Mining and Milling Com- pany, the Ely and Ramsay Company, the Newark Hygienic Ice Company, Dan Tallmadge's Sons Company, and the Travelers' and Traders' Protective League. He has conducted cases before the Supreme Court of the United States, and, of course, before the highest State courts.
Mr. Hitchings made his home at Gravesend, with his par- ents, until the summer of 1884. At that time he was married to Miss Minnie Lyman, daughter of the Hon. John D. Lyman of Exeter, New Hampshire. Then he removed to Brooklyn, and lived for a time on the Hill, then on the Heights. Finally he removed to New York, where he now lives on West Ninety-third Street, near Riverside Drive. Three children have been born to him. The eldest is Christine, born in 1888 ; the second, Morison, was born in 1894, and is now deceased; the third is John Lyman, born in 1897. Mr. Hitchings is now the head of the firm of Hitchings, Palliser & Moen, of William Street, New York. He belongs to the Riverside Republican Club, the West Side Repub- lican Club, the Drug Club, the Society of Medical Jurisprudence, and the Alumni Association of Phillips Exeter Academy.
THOMAS DOYLE HOOPER
THOMAS DOYLE HOOPER is the son of William Richard Hooper and Elizabeth Victoria Hooper, his wife, the former of Scotch and the latter of English and Irish origin. Mr. and Mrs. Hooper were married in Baltimore, Maryland. Thence they moved to Washington, D. C., and thence to the village of East New Market, Maryland. In the last-named place they lived for more than thirty years, Mr. Hooper conducting the business of a dealer in boots and shoes.
Thomas Doyle Hooper was born to them at East New Market on January 14, 1864. His education was acquired in the local school, and was interspersed with hard work. At the age of fifteen years he had to leave school altogether and work for his living. His first employment was as a telegraph operator, and he was soon put in charge of the Western Union Telegraph Company's office at Cambridge, Maryland. Two years later, at the age of seventeen, he was transferred to the same company's office in Philadelphia. He remained there only six months.
His next move brought him to New York city, where he took charge of the private wire of a firm of stock-brokers. In the panic of 1884 the firm failed, and Mr. Hooper was thrown out of his place. He quickly secured another, however, in the office of the Baltimore and Ohio Telegraph Company. While he was thus employed, he was asked by another stock-brokers' firm to go to Newport, Rhode Island, and there take charge of its office. He accepted the offer, and went to Newport in June, 1884. Three months later he was at New Bedford, Massachusetts, where he had charge of the branch office of a New York firm of brokers. Not long afterward that firm failed, and he was again left with- out a place.
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Mr. Hooper then decided to become his own employer. It was in 1885, and he was just twenty-one years old. He opened a stock-broker's office of his own at New Bedford, and carried the business on with some success. He remained there until the winter of 1890-91, when he went to Baltimore, to try his business fortune there and to look after his parents' welfare. He spent a few years there, and settled his parents in a pleasant home for the rest of their lives, and in 1894 came to New York city.
It should be stated, however, that in 1893 he made a two months' visit to Chicago. He went thither to sell provisions, but he got there just in time to make a handsome fortune in a whirl of speculation which culminated in a serious panic in which many other fortunes were lost. It was that lucky stroke that enabled him to purchase a seat in the New York Stock Exchange and begin business on Wall Street.
Mr. Hooper has since 1894 made his home in New York. He is a member of the New York, Colonial, and other clubs in New York, the Wyandanch Club of Long Island, the Fairfield County Golf Club of Connecticut, the St. Andrew's Golf Club, the Westmoreland and Commonwealth clubs of Richmond, Virginia, and the Wamsutta Club of New Bedford, Massachusetts.
He was married in Baltimore, Maryland, on December 7, 1894, to Miss Louise Norris of that city.
ADOLPH C. HOTTENROTH
AP DOLPH C. HOTTENROTH was born in New York city, of German parents. He was graduated successively from the Courtland Avenue public school, the College of the City of New York, and the Law College of New York University. Soon after his admission to the bar he formed the partnership with which he is still associated, under the firm-name of Gumbleton & Hottenroth. He has a large and interesting practice in litiga- tions involving street-railroads, bridges, and the various depart- ments of the city's government.
Mr. Hottenroth is allied as counsel with the Twenty-third Ward Property Owners' Association, and the Alliance of Tax- payers' Associations of the Twenty-third and Twenty-fourth wards, and his successful agitation of such questions as the Five Cent Fare Bill, the building of the Third and Willis Avenue bridges, and others, early earned the respect and esteem of the residents of the North Side. He was notably active in the suit which compelled the Manhattan Railway Company to comply with the law requiring it to run through trains on both its Second and Third Avenue lines. Among other improvements beneficial to the North Side which Mr. Hottenroth has assisted in securing are : the retention of the Department of Street Improvements ; the building of viaducts over the tracks of the Harlem Railroad at One Hundred and Fifty-third, One Hundred and Fifty-sixth, and One Hundred and Fifty-eighth streets to Cedar Park, and from Melrose to Webster avenues; the reduction of assessments for the widening and improvement of East One Hundred and Forty-ninth Street, which established a precedent for the reduc- tion by the Legislature of the assessments on One Hundred and Sixty-first Street and Washington Avenue; the construction of
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the Botanical and Zoological Gardens in Bronx Park, and the final and speedy completion of the street system of the entire borough of the Bronx.
In 1893 Mr. Hottenroth was elected, on the Democratic ticket, a member of the Constitutional Convention, which had its ses- sions from May to September, 1894. Although one of the youngest members of the convention, he took a prominent part in all its proceedings, and in recognition of his ability as a speaker and a parliamentarian he was chosen to lead the minor- ity of the Committee on Canals in its fight for canal improve- ment. The minority of this committee made a report to the following effect :
First. They are of the opinion that it would be for the best interests of the State to further deepen the more important canals belonging to the State.
Secondly. The constitutional limitation of debt of the State to the sum of one million dollars should be removed, in so far as it might prevent the maintenance, repairs, and improvement of the canals, consistent with the most effectual service they might with reasonable expenditure be made capable of.
Thirdly. It should be made incumbent upon the Legislature to provide at least for the restoration of the canals, so that they may be made to give at least the full service originally intended ; for their immediate improvement with that end in view; and, also, for the lengthening of locks on the Erie and Oswego canals. Provisions should be made for the issuance of bonds sufficient for that purpose, the amount and character of which should be within just and proper limits, and which should be issued in a manner so as to spread the cost of im- provement over a number of years.
The railroad interests of the State made a powerful opposition to this report and its recommendations, but Mr. Hottenroth and his associates supported their propositions vigorously, and ulti- mately carried the day. Based on this report was the constitu- tional amendment passed by the convention, and at the following election carried by the largest majority ever received by a con- stitutional amendment. The expenditure of nine million dollars for improvements of the canals of the State was the result. Among other measures which he actively supported was one which provided for increased representation for the North Side districts in the State Senate and Assembly. In 1897 his party, mindful of his services in this and other matters, nominated and elected him as City Councilman from the Fifth District, borough of the Bronx.
JOHN WESLEY HOUSTON
TN the peninsula lying between the Chesapeake Bay on the one hand and Delaware Bay and the Atlantic Ocean on the other have been settled some of the oldest and worthiest families in America. Colonies were planted there in the early history of the land, including representatives of several European nations. The Houston family, which has dwelt there for more than two centuries, is of Scotch origin, and, possessing the char- acteristic traits of that race, has made its way on the peninsula, and indeed elsewhere in the United States, with profit to itself and with benefit to the community. In the last generation it intermarried with the family of Clifton, of English and Welsh origin, also long settled on the peninsula. From such union springs the subject of the present sketch.
John Wesley Houston, son of James and Caroline Houston, was born at Cedar Creek Hundred, Sussex County, Delaware, on February 21, 1857. His father was a fruit farmer, and his early childhood was spent amid rural scenes. At an appropriate age he was sent to school at Milford, Delaware, next to Williston Seminary, Easthampton, Massachusetts, and finally to Harvard University, where he was graduated, with the degree of A. B., in 1880. He then pursued a postgraduate course, and also a course in the law school, and in 1886 received in course the degrees A. M. and LL. B. Throughout his entire academic career he was noted as an admirable student, and he was graduated from the university magna cum laude, and from the law school cum laude. It may be added that, while he left the university in 1880, he did not enter the law school until 1883, as may be inferred from the dates of graduation. The interval of three years was spent in teaching in a boys' school of high grade at Cornwall-on-Hudson,
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New York, where his efficiency as a teacher equaled his own studiousness as a scholar.
With so admirable a scholastic preparation, Mr. Houston turned his attention to the practice of his profession. He came to New York city soon after his graduation from the Harvard Law School, and entered the office of Carter, Hornblower & Byrne, as a clerk. The next year, 1887, he was admitted to practice at the New York bar, and on January 1, 1888, he was made a member of the law firm of Carter, Hughes & Cravath. Three years of successful practice followed, and then, on January 1, 1891, he became a member of the present firm of Cravath & Houston, of No. 120 Broadway.
Mr. Houston has taken no part in politics other than that of a private citizen. He has held no political office, nor been a candidate for any. Under the new Federal Bankruptcy Law he has been a referee in bankruptcy, a place for which he is emi- nently fitted. He has devoted himself to the general practice of law, both civil and criminal, though of the former more than the latter.
Mr. Houston's social affiliations are numerous, and of high order. He is a member of the Bar Association of the City of New York, of the Southern Society, the Delaware Society, and the Lawyers', University, and Harvard clubs. He is not married.
JESSE HOYT
"THE name of Hoyt, long honorably identified with industry and commerce both in New York and throughout the nation, is of British origin, the family being descended from English and Scotch stock. The first home of the family in this country was in New England, but two or more generations ago it became associated with mercantile and social life in New York. James Moody Hoyt, who died at Norwalk, Connecticut, in 1854, was for more than half a century one of the leading merchants of this city, and a man of most exemplary character and influence, and his sons succeeded him in all those particulars.
One of the sons of James Moody Hoyt was born in the city of New York on March 12, 1815, and was named Jesse. He received a good education, and at the age of seventeen years began active business life as a clerk in the wholesale grocery house of C. & L. Denison. There his advancement was rapid, according to his deserts, and four years after entering the house he became a partner in the firm. Two years later, in 1838, he left that business to engage in the flour and grain business with his father, who had formerly been a member of the firm of Eli Hart & Co. Jesse Hoyt continued in business with his father until the latter's death in 1854, and then reorganized the firm under the name of Jesse Hoyt & Co., his partners being his two brothers, Samuel N. Hoyt and Alfred M. Hoyt, and Henry W. Smith. This firm rose to the foremost rank in its line of busi- ness, having important connections not only in all parts of the United States, but in Europe as well. Samuel N. Hoyt retired from the firm in 1858, but Jesse and Alfred M. Hoyt continued to conduct it with great success down to 1881.
Jesse Hoyt was a fine type of the enterprising and far-seeing
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merchant. He was interested in every movement for the devel- opment of the commercial greatness of New York, aiming con- stantly to make and to keep this city the undisputed commercial capital of the continent. Thus he took a most active interest in the Erie Canal, which he rightly reckoned one of the most valu- able feeders of this market from inland. He likewise paid be- neficent attention to the development of Western railroad sys- tems, desiring to see New York directly linked with all parts of the country. He bought great tracts of pine-land in Michigan and erected lumber-mills, and carried on an enormous traffic in their output. He built and operated lines of steamships on the Great Lakes. He built grain-elevators in Chicago, Milwaukee, and Jersey City. He purchased and improved real estate in many Western places, and built hotels and founded banks, nota- bly in Michigan and Minnesota. He was one of the builders of the Winona and St. Paul Railroad, now part of the Chicago and Northwestern system. He was also a builder and president of the Flint and Pere Marquette, the Milwaukee and Northern, and the Saginaw, Tuscola and Huron railroads. He was a director of several banks and insurance companies, and exerted a wide influence throughout the whole business world of North America. Such influence was always for progress and for honesty. There was no one whose credit stood higher. Nor was there any one who took a more kindly interest in advising and aiding young men just starting in business. Many a now successful business man owes his prosperity to the counsel and aid of Jesse Hoyt.
Mr. Hoyt died in this city on August 14, 1882, only a year after he had retired from the firm of which he had so long been the head.
CHARLES I. HUDSON
CHARLES I. HUDSON'S father, Isaac N. Hudson, was the son of a clergyman in Bradford, England. He came to this country in 1830, and became one of the foremost jour- nalists of the time preceding the Civil War. He was connected with a number of newspapers, as editor and manager, in the Eastern cities and in California, where he went in the early fifties. He was married, in 1851, to Cornelia A. Bogert Haight, a daughter of John Edward Haight, a prosperous merchant of New York.
Charles I. Hudson, their oldest son, was born in this city on August 20, 1852. He was educated in the public schools of New York, chiefly in Grammar School No. 13, of which the principal at that time was Thomas Hunter, who later became president of the Normal College. At the age of fourteen, how- ever, being then well advanced in his studies, the boy left school and began his business career in Wall Street. His first engage- ment was an auspicious one, being in the well-known house of S. M. Mills & Co. His salary at the beginning was only four dollars a week, but by the time he was nineteen years old it had been increased to fifteen hundred dollars a year. At the date of his entry into that house, Wall Street was in the midst of one of its greatest eras of speculation. The "flush times " following the Civil War were in full blast, and bankers and brokers, among whom Mills & Co. were leaders, were busy and prosperous. Young Hudson soon won a place in the confidence of his em- ployers, and was for much of the time their most trusted con- fidential messenger, especially between their office and that of Jay Gould. In this capacity it fell to his lot to execute a number of important transactions in so satisfactory a manner
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as to attract Mr. Gould's attention. The famous financier took an especial liking to him, and, as a token of his appreciation, Mr. Gould, in April, 1875, gave to Mills & Co., "for that active young man," a package of nine hundred shares of Union Pacific Railway stock. Within twenty days thereafter the sale of that stock netted Mr. Hudson about nineteen thousand dollars. This was the capital on which his fortune was founded. He at once purchased a seat in the Stock Exchange, and began a brokerage business on his own account.
In 1876 Mr. Hudson established the firm of C. I. Hudson & Co., his first associate being Henry N. Smith, a former partner of Jay Gould, and a man who had long been conspicuous in Wall Street. The firm has had several changes of partnership, but still exists under its original name. At present Mr. Hudson and Albert O. Brown and T. Henry Walter are its members, all of them being members of the Stock Exchange. They were one of the first brokerage firms to deal in the securities of large industrial corporations, and have built up an enormous business in this class of securities, which Mr. Hudson was largely instru- mental in introducing into the Stock Exchange and having admitted to regular quotation. In 1891 Mr. Hudson was elected on an independent ticket a governor of the Stock Exchange for a term of four years, and was reelected in 1896.
Mr. Hudson was one of the organizers of the Fourteenth Street Bank in 1888, and was for several years one of its direc- tors, also one of the organizers and directors of the Trust Company of America, organized June, 1899. He has few other connections outside of his Wall Street interests.
He is a member of the Union League, the New York Athletic, the New York Riding, Thousand Islands Yacht, and the Ameri- can Jersey Cattle clubs. He belongs also to the St. Lawrence River Association, and is a charter member and a director of the Oak Island Club.
He was married, in 1876, to Miss Sarah E. Kierstede of Scran- ton, Pennsylvania. They have four bright sons, Percy Kier- stede, Hendrick, Hans Kierstede, and Charles Alan Hudson. Their country home, the "Ledges," is one of the handsomest places among the Thousand Islands of the St. Lawrence River.
GEORGE BREEDON HULME
THE subject of this sketch is a native of England, and the descendant of two long lines of distinguished ances- tors. His father, George Hulme, was Court Chaplain to the King of Hanover, and was descended directly from Baron d'Haume, who came over from Normandy with William the Conqueror, and was man-at-arms to that puissant monarch. On the maternal side, Marion James of Wilcroft, Hereford, a first cousin of the present Lord James of Hereford, was descended from Henry I of England, and from the ancient line of Welsh kings.
George Breedon Hulme, son of George Hulme and Marion James Hulme, his wife, was born on August 27, 1855, at Shinfield, near Reading, Berkshire, England, and received a characteristic English education of the best class at Wellington College Public School and at Magdalen College, Oxford University. Wellington College was founded in memory of the Duke of Wellington, its corner-stone being laid by Queen Victoria in 1856, and the school being opened by her in 1859. It is in Berkshire, not far from Mr. Hulme's native place.
The young man was educated with a view to his entering her Majesty's service as a member of the corps of Royal Engineers in the British army. That plan had, however, to be abandoned, be- cause of the after effects upon his health of a severe attack of rheumatic fever. That was during his public-school career at Wellington College. It was after that, and in accordance with the changed plans, that he was sent to Oxford. There he pursued with success the liberal course of culture provided in ancient Magdalen College, and was graduated with the degree of B. A. from the university. Thereafter he spent two years in travel,
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chiefly in the various colonies of the British Empire, and then, in 1879, came to the United States.
Mr. Hulme came here to become a permanent resident and to identify himself with the republic. His scientific education, which he had acquired in prospect of engineering service in the British army, fitted him for the career of a civil engineer, and at that time the opportunities for entering upon such a career were numerous. He found employment at the hands of the Northern Pacific Railroad Company, and for several years de- voted himself to its service. In 1882 he went to Montana and took charge of a large land and irrigation company's affairs, which he managed with conspicuous skill. He was also at that time associated with the firm of H. Clark & Co., the builders of the Northern Pacific Railroad. Two years later he was ap- pointed receiver of the Yellowstone National Park Improvement Company, and managed its affairs profitably for two years, at the end of which time, thanks to his administration, it was able to be reorganized and taken out of the receiver's hands.
His career in the West was eminently successful, but Mr. Hulme did not mean that it should be a finality with him. On the contrary, he planned to come to New York, engage in enter- prises, and make it his home. This plan he executed in 1887. In that year he returned to New York and entered the real-estate business, than which there is scarcely any more promising or more potential. His success was immediate and marked. Since 1890 he has been the manager of the East Bay Land and Im- provement Company, of which General Egbert L. Viele is pres- ident. Besides that corporation, he is connected with the New Amsterdam Casualty Company, the American Manufacturing Company, and the Anglo-American Investment and Trust Cor- poration, Limited. In all these enterprises he is a forceful factor.
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