USA > New York > New York State's prominent and progressive men : an encyclopaedia of contemporaneous biography, Volume II > Part 14
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29
Mr. Hulme has not taken an active part in political affairs, but is prominent in many social organizations. He is a Free Mason, belonging to the University Apollo Lodge and St. Mary Magdalen Lodge. He is a member of the Magdalen College Boat Club, the Oxford University Boat Club, and the famous Leander Boat Club. In this country he is a member of the New York Athletic Club, the Manhattan Club, the New York Tandem
174
GEORGE BREEDON HULME
Club, the Brooklyn Whip Club, and the Yellowstone Gun Club.
From this list of clubs it will naturally and correctly be in- ferred that Mr. Hulme is a devotee of athletic sports. As a boy he was proficient in such sports, being an exceptionally fine runner. He won running races at all distances from one hundred yards up to two miles. He was also a champion football-player at quarter-back, and was thoroughly at home in the saddle.
In 1875 he was one of the organizers of the Oxford University Lawn Tennis Club, the first club in that now universal sport. For five years he ranked as the best cockswain on the Upper Thames, taking part in no less than ninety-eight eight-oared races, alone in which he was beaten only twice. In recent years he has been uniformly successful in the show-ring, and is said to have brought out more prize-winners than any other ex- hibitor. Among them the famous horses Superba, May Day, Greystone, Golden Rod, Blazeaway, Great Scott, Ganymede, Cracksman, Marksman, Lieutenant Wilkes, and Lord Brilliant. In 1897 he took to England six American-bred carriage-horses and exhibited them at the leading shows in that country. He exhibited in thirty-two classes and won thirty-five prizes, in- cluding the championship for the best stable of horses at the Crystal Palace Horse Show. By this achievement he removed the prejudice that had so long prevailed in England against the American trotter for carriage purposes. Mr. Hulme is an ac- complished driver of any sort of rig. He is fond of a four- in-hand, but his favorite team is a tandem. For some years he made a clean sweep of prizes in all the classes in which he exhibited, and his services are much sought after to fill the re- sponsible position of judge in the show-ring.
ALBERT GALLATIN HYDE
THE distinguished ancestry of Albert Gallatin Hyde is traced back to Sir Robert Hyde, Kt., of Norbury, England, in the time of Henry III. Ninth in descent from him was Lawrence Hyde of West Hatch, England, the progenitor of the famous Earl of Clarendon, and of Queen Mary (wife of William III) and Queen Anne. The eventual heiress of the line, Anne, daughter of Edward Hyde of Norbury and Hyde, married George Clark, Lieutenant-Governor of the province of New York, in 1736. The first of the Hydes in this country was William Hyde, who came over with the Rev. Thomas Hooker, first minister of Hartford, Connecticut, in 1633, and settled first at Newtown, Massachusetts, and afterward at Hartford, Connecticut. Before 1652 he removed to Saybrook, and in 1660 was one of the original proprietors of Norwich, Connecticut. In the sixth generation from him was Elijah Hyde, major in command of the Second Regiment, Connecticut Light Horse, in the War of the Revolu- tion. This regiment was distinguished for its gallantry at Bemis Heights and at Saratoga at the time of Burgoyne's sur- render. Major Hyde's son, Jonathan Hyde, settled in northern Vermont, and married Phœbe Fillmore, a descendant of one of the early settlers of Norwich, Connecticut. Her father was Septa Fillmore, a colonel of militia in the War of 1812 who fought at Plattsburg, and her mother was the daughter of a Mr. Edgerton of Norwich, Connecticut.
Albert Gallatin Hyde, son of Jonathan and Phœbe Fillmore Hyde, was born at Grand Isle, in the northern part of Lake Champlain, Vermont, on February 14, 1825. He spent his early life on his father's farm, at Grand Isle, and received such educa- tion as the common schools there could afford. He made good
175
176
ALBERT GALLATIN HYDE
use of his opportunities, however, especially in the direction of training his mind for practical dealings with the practical affairs of life.
At the age of sixteen years he began business life as a clerk in a store in his native town. There he remained for several years; then, in 1848, he came to New York city. His first employment in the metropolis was in the dry-goods house of Adriance, Strang & Co., at No. 2 Maiden Lane. After a service of eight years he became a partner in the firm of Skeel, Sweetzer & Co. Five years later, in 1861, he withdrew from that connection, and started in business for himself, under the name of A. G. Hyde, which was subsequently changed to that of A. G. Hyde & Co. From this business he retired in 1875, but in 1878 organized the firm of Hyde & Burton, manufacturers of cotton goods. On January 1, 1889, that firm was disconnected, and that of A. G. Hyde & Sons, consisting of Mr. Hyde and his two sons, was founded. It is still in prosperous existence.
Throughout a long and successful business career Mr. Hyde has maintained a fine integrity of character and has commanded the social respect and esteem of all who have known him. Cir- cumstances prevented him from taking part in the Civil War, but he was a loyal supporter of the government, and his family was represented by four brothers, residents of Illinois, who served in the army with distinguished gallantry at Forts Henry and Donelson, Pittsburg Landing and Shiloh, Corinth, and elsewhere. Two of them were killed in battle.
Mr. Hyde has long been a member of the Union League Club of New York, and in 1897 was on its executive committee. He has also been actively identified with the Protestant Episcopal Church. He is a member also of the Merchants' Club, the Larch- mont Yacht Club, the New York Yacht Club, and the New England Society.
He was married, in 1851, to Miss Marie Louise Shaw of New York. Of his five children two sons and one daughter are now living.
Ezward Gones
EDWARD CLARENCE JONES
THE storied hills of Wales were the home of the ancestors of the subject of this present sketch. Welsh stock has entered into the composition of the American nation in a liberal measure, and with good effect, and of it the family of Edward Clarence Jones is a part. Mr. Jones's father, John Perry Jones, a sea-captain, was the son of John Jones of Denbighshire. He was directly descended from the famous Tudor Trevor, Lord of Hereford, and founder of the tribe of the Morches, who died in 948. John Jones, it may be added, came from Llewyn Onu, Denbighshire. Captain John Perry Jones died in 1872. Mr. Jones's mother was, before her marriage, Miss Ellen J. Hovey, daughter of George Hovey of Nottinghamshire, England. She is still living.
Of such parentage, and inheriting the essential traits of both the races from which his parents came, Edward Clarence Jones was born in the city of New York, in 1865, and was educated there, first in the common schools and then in the College of the City of New York. In the latter institution he spent only two years, and then entered upon an active business career. His first engagement was in 1882, when he was only seventeen years old, as a clerk in a bankers' and brokers' house. He spent sev- eral years in that and similar positions, devoting his full atten- tion to that business, and mastering its details, with the purpose of presently engaging in it on his own account.
That purpose was accomplished in 1889. Mr. Jones was then only twenty-four years old. But he opened an office at No. 80 Broadway, as the head of the firm of Edward C. Jones & Co., and began competing for business and profits in the crowded money market of New York. His efforts were not in vain. The
177
178
EDWARD CLARENCE JONES
firm quickly gained the confidence of investors, including some very large ones, and having once secured it, never lost it. Its business in the placing of large city and State loans and issues of railroad, gas, telephone, street-railway, and electric-light bonds has been important. Practically all of its undertakings have been successful, and it stands to-day in a high and assured posi- tion in the financial world. In 1894 a branch house was estab- lished in Philadelphia, which has become an important factor in the business of that city, and in 1897 the main office was removed to its present quarters at Nassau and Wall streets. At the present time, at the age of thirty-five, Mr. Jones is one of the youngest heads, and perhaps the youngest, of an important financial house.
Besides his own immediate firm, Mr. Jones is interested in various other enterprises. He is vice-president of the Con- sumers' Gas Company, of Wilkesbarre, Pennsylvania, and a director of the Gas Company of Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, the Syracuse Rapid Transit Railway Company, of Syracuse, New York, the Wyoming Valley Electric Light Company, the Pitts- ton Gas Company, the Phillipsburg (New Jersey) Gas Company, the People's Telephone Company, of Wilkesbarre, Pennsylvania, the Bethlehem (Pennsylvania) Gas Company, and the Wilmington and Newcastle Railway Company, of Delaware, and among the many institutions in which he is a stock-holder can be men- tioned the Hamilton Bank, of New York, the Mercantile Trust and Deposit Company, of Baltimore, the York (Pennsylvania) Telephone Company, and the York (Pennsylvania) Electric Light Company. He has assisted in the reorganization of several large railway and other companies.
Mr. Jones is a member of the Metropolitan Club, the Repub- lican Club, the Manhattan Club, the Colonial Club, the Lawyers' Club, the New York Riding Club, the Suburban Riding and Driving Club, the Larchmont Yacht Club, the Riverside Yacht Club, and the Indian Harbor Yacht Club. He was married, in 1894, to Miss Adelaide Estelle Storms of this city.
Erwarkloner
EDWARD K. JONES
E DWARD K. JONES, a conspicuous figure among the young set of prominent lawyers at the New York bar, is a native of the State of Delaware. His ancestors were Welsh, of very distinguished lineage, being descended from a sister of Owen Glendower. His great-grandfather was Waitman Jones, a son of Guyffid ap Jones, an opulent merchant of Bristol. The latter married Jeanne Goslin, a daughter of a French Huguenot, came to America before the Revolutionary War, and played a prominent part in developing the State of Delaware, and espe- cially Sussex County. Mr. Jones's father was Dr. Waitman Jones, Jr., a distinguished physician and surgeon, and one of the physicians summoned to the aid of President Lincoln when the latter was assassinated.
Mr. Jones received his early training from private tutors. He subsequently entered the Columbian University at Washington, and after his graduation passed a year as a resident student at Magdalen College, University of Oxford, England. He after- ward traveled in Europe, and upon his return to the United States studied law, and was admitted to the bar at a somewhat earlier age than is customary. There was no question of his fitness to enter upon the practice of his profession, however. From the very first he showed himself well prepared by study and well fitted by natural qualities for the work of a lawyer. Soon after his admission to practice he removed to New York, deeming this metropolis the best field in which to seek distinc- tion. At that time one of the judges of the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia wrote to the judges of the Supreme Court of New York concerning him as follows :
"He is a young man of extraordinary merits, for whose wel-
179
180
EDWARD K. JONES
fare I feel a deep interest. His moral character and habits are excellent, his capacity and acuteness of mind are of the highest order, and he is filled with that spirit of ambition which usually leads to success. You will find him, besides, a man of rare scho- lastic and professional attainments, and possessed of the finest instincts of personal honor and manhood."
That was a high standard for a man to live up to, but none who came to know Mr. Jones accused him of falling short of it, or his sponsor of having overpraised him. Soon after taking up his residence in this city Mr. Jones entered the office of the firm of Coudert Brothers, one of the foremost in New York, and served it so well that he was after a time made a member of the firm. In January, 1892, he founded a firm of his own, in part- nership with Rafael R. Govin, under the style of Jones & Govin. This firm was eminently successful, and soon won a high stan- dard in the profession, not only in New York but throughout the country. In June, 1897, the Hon. James B. Eustis, then retiring from the post of United States ambassador to France, joined the firm, which then became known as Eustis, Jones & Govin. Since the death of Mr. Eustis the firm has resumed its former style of Jones & Govin.
Mr. Jones has been counsel in a large number of important cases, in both State and federal courts. His practice has been of a general character, but his success has perhaps been most marked in international and maritime law. He is counsel for the French Transatlantic Company, the French Cable Company, Messrs. Arthur Sewall & Co., the large and well-known shipping concern, and for many other firms and corporations. He has also at various times been engaged as special counsel for the French, Belgian, and Austrian governments. His distinction in his profession led the United States government, in 1898, to select him as its own special counsel in the cases of the prizes captured by the United States navy from Spain. In that capacity he performed valuable services for the government, and added to his already enviable reputation as a leader of the bar of the leading city of the Union.
John AsKamping
JOHN ADOLPHUS KAMPING
AM MONG the citizens of North German origin who have risen to conspicuous and honorable standing in the United States, John Adolphus Kamping is entitled to good mention. He comes from Hanover, where his ancestors lived for many generations. His father, Frederick Kamping, was a farmer and hotel-keeper, a man of fine character and intellectual force. The father died when our subject was between three and four years old, and the care of the four children then devolved upon their mother, Catherine Clara Kamping, a woman of ability and self- reliance. She soon brought them to this country. One of the children was drowned in Lake Erie, but with the remaining three she settled at Cincinnati, where she ultimately remarried, her second husband being Frederick Placke.
John Adolphus Kamping was born at Hanover, on March 29, 1842. At the age of five years he was brought to Cincinnati, and was educated in the public schools of that city, the Hughes High School, and the night high school. He also pursued some studies privately with marked diligence.
From his thirteenth to his seventeenth year he worked in a photograph gallery. Then, at the invitation of Rufus King, then president of the Cincinnati School Board, he applied for a teacher's certificate. He secured a principal's certificate, and took charge of a branch school. At nineteen he was full prin- cipal of a school, the youngest principal in that city. During the Civil War he was a member of the "Teachers' Company," which was formed as a home guard. The company was, how- ever, called upon for service at the front and responded cordially. From May to October, 1864, he was in service in Virginia, near Petersburg, in the One Hundred and Thirty-eighth Ohio Volun-
181
182
JOHN ADOLPHUS KAMPING
teers. Then he was honorably mustered out, and returned to his school.
In 1866 Mr. Kamping was induced, by glowing represen- tations, to forsake pedagogy and enter mercantile life. The particular department to which he was led was that of the im- portation of Italian goods. According to the promises held out to him he seemed certain to make a fortune in a few years. He, therefore, resigned his place in the Cincinnati schools, came to New York, and invested all his available capital in the new venture, in the firm of Lambert & Kamping. A year later Mr. Kamping had some interesting experience, but his partner had all the money.
After this disastrous venture Mr. Kamping tried various pur- suits with indifferent success. He was for a time a broker, and again a real-estate agent. At last he decided to try the legal profession, and with that end in view entered the Law School of New York University. He completed its course of study with creditable rank, and in 1877 was graduated and admitted to prac- tice at the bar.
As a lawyer Mr. Kamping has been successful. He has been counsel for several large corporations and estates, and also for the Woman's Mutual Insurance Company.
Besides his business and professional labors, Mr. Kamping found time to study vocal music, and attained enviable distinc- tion as a vocalist. He has been a leading member of the choirs of Trinity and the Collegiate Dutch Reformed churches. He has also made it a fixed rule to accomplish each year some lit- erary work, or something not directly connected with business, "on the theory that mind lives hereafter."
Mr. Kamping is a member of Lafayette Post of the Grand Army of the Republic, the Society of Medical Jurisprudence, the Alumni Association of New York University Law School, and vice-president of the Music Club, of which Anton Seidl was president.
He was married, on December 24, 1862, to Miss Cornelia Rey- nolds, daughter of Benjamin and Julia A. Reynolds, the latter a sister of William Dennison, the famous "War Governor" of Ohio. Two children have been born to him, both of whom died in infancy.
Geo. anErster
GEORGE ALEXANDER KESSLER
G YEORGE ALEXANDER KESSLER, son of Adolph and Charlotte Kessler, is of German ancestry. His paternal grandfather was an officer in the Prussian army in the War for Liberation against Napoleon Bonaparte. He participated in many battles with conspicuous valor, and received no less than six decorations for his brave conduct on the field.
The son of that veteran, and father of the subject of this sketch, Dr. Adolph Kessler, spent much of his early life in Mobile, Alabama, where he was a physician and surgeon. Soon after the outbreak of the Civil War he was in imminent peril of arrest and imprisonment as a Unionist and antislavery man. He succeeded in making his escape, however, and came to the North and offered his services to the national government. These were accepted, and during the war he was surgeon in charge of one of the United States hospitals in Baltimore, Mary- land. After the war he settled in New York city, filled several important offices, and attained high rank in his profession.
George Alexander Kessler was born in Mobile, Alabama, on January 23, 1863, but was soon brought to the North. He was educated in the public schools of New York city, in the College of the City of New York, and in the famous business college con- ducted by the late S. S. Packard.
While still in school he edited and published a paper called the "Enterprise." This print combined the characters of a newspaper and a trade journal, and attained a large circulation in the Nineteenth Ward and that part of New York city known as Yorkville.
After finishing his school training, Mr. Kessler engaged in the business of importing wines. In this he was successful, and in
183
184
GEORGE ALEXANDER KESSLER
time he became the representative in New York and the whole United States of the famous old champagne house of Moet & Chandon. As the head of the firm of George A. Kessler & Co., he has made the brands of that house's champagnes -" White Seal " and "Brut Imperial"- familiar as household words throughout the country wherever the best brands of wine are consumed.
Mr. Kessler has for years devoted his attention solely to the champagne business. He has not identified himself with other enterprises, and has taken no part in politics.
In the pursuit partly of business and partly of pleasure, he has made many extended journeys in the world, visiting almost all parts of Europe. On these travels he has exercised the ob- servation and discriminating taste of a connoisseur, and has secured innumerable mementos in the form of pictures, sculp- ture, works of art of various kinds, and bric-à-brac-vases, pearls, Chinese and Japanese curios, china, etc. His collections are artistically arranged in his apartments on Fifth Avenue, and form in themselves a veritable museum of art, of high merit and great value.
Mr. Kessler is a member of the Chamber of Commerce of the State of New York, the New York Board of Trade and Trans- portation, numerous clubs and other social organizations of the best class, and various charitable and benevolent bodies. He is not married.
Alexander P. Ketchum
ALEXANDER PHOENIX KETCHUM
LEXANDER PHOENIX KETCHUM was born on May 11, 1839, in New Haven, Connecticut, during a visit of his parents to that city. His father, Edgar Ketchum, was born in New York in 1811, and was well known as a lawyer and a public official for nearly half a century. He served as public adminis- trator and United States loan commissioner for a long period, was appointed by President Lincoln Collector of Internal Rev- enue, and at the time of his death, in 1882, was register in bankruptcy. He was a descendant of the Jauncey family, which traces back in a direct line to Rachel, daughter of Guleyn Vigne, who married Cornelis van Tienhoven, a secretary of the New Netherlands and a conspicuous member of the New Amster- dam settlement. Mr. Ketchum's mother was Elizabeth Phoenix, a daughter of the Rev. Alexander Phoenix, and a granddaughter of Daniel Phoenix, who was for twenty-five years treasurer of the city of New York, and was also a prominent merchant, and as chairman of the Delegation of Merchants delivered an address of welcome to President Washington upon his entry to the city, November 26, 1789, for the first inauguration. The Phoenix family is an old one in New York, Jacob Phoenix and his wife, Ann van Vleck, being mentioned in the list of members of the Dutch Church in 1686. Daniel Phoenix's father was the first of the family to depart from the original spelling of the name, which was Fenwicks.
Alexander Phonix Ketchum received his education in the College of the City of New York, from which he was graduated in 1858 with the degree of B. A. His scholastic record was of the highest. He was the orator of his class, and won prizes in oratory, drawing, and mathematics. For a year after graduation
185
186
ALEXANDER PHENIX KETCHUM
he was tutor of mathematics in the college, and in 1861 had the degree of M. A. bestowed upon him. The same year he took the degree of Bachelor of Laws in the Albany Law School.
Soon after the Civil War was declared Mr. Ketchum volun- teered for service, and was assigned to the staff of General Rufus Saxton, Military Governor of South Carolina. In 1865 he was transferred to the staff of General O. O. Howard, whom he served as acting assistant adjutant-general in Charleston and Washington, until his resignation from the army in 1867.
In 1869 he was appointed by President Grant Assessor of Internal Revenue, and a little later Collector of Internal Revenue. He was appointed, in 1874, a General Appraiser of the Port of New York, and was made Chief Appraiser under the adminis- tration of President Arthur.
Since retiring from official life Colonel Ketchum has devoted himself to the practice of law, making a specialty of the man- agement and conveyancing of estates and litigations in the United States courts involving customs revenue.
He is deeply interested in educational and religious affairs, is prominent in the Young Men's Christian Association, the Pres- byterian Social Union, the New York Collegiate Institute, and similar organizations. He was for four years president of the Alumni Association of the City College, and is president of the City College Club. He has been a member of the Board of Edu- cation, appointed by Mayor Strong, and later of the School Board for the boroughs of Manhattan and the Bronx. His clubs are the Republican of New York, the Republican Central and Lenox Republican of Harlem, the Alpha Delta Phi, and the Atlantic and New York Yacht. He is a member of the Numis- matic, Archaeological, and New England societies, the New York State Bar Association, and the Military Order of the Loyal Legion.
1
Eng by Williama New York
Edgar Ketchum
EDGAR KETCHUM
E NGLISH and Dutch, running back to early colonial times, was the American ancestry of Edgar Ketchum. On the pa- ternal side the line is traced to Guleyn Vigne, whose daughter Rachel married Cornelius Van Tienhoven. The daughter of the latter couple, Sarah, married John Jauncey Ketchum. The latter had a son of the same name, who married his cousin, Susanna Jauncey, and to them was born Edgar Ketchum, Sr., father of the subject of this sketch. Edgar Ketchum, Sr., who was born in New York in 1811 and died in 1882, married Elizabeth Phoenix. Her father was the Rev. Alexander Phoenix, son of that Daniel Phoenix who was the first treasurer of New York city after the adoption of the United States Constitution, and who delivered the address of welcome to Washington when the latter was inaugurated as President of the United States. The Rev. Alex- ander Phonix married Patty Ingraham, a member of the In- graham family which has given several judges to the bench and a famous officer to the navy.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.