USA > New York > New York State's prominent and progressive men : an encyclopaedia of contemporaneous biography, Volume II > Part 21
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Two generations back Seth Perry was a captain in the War of 1812, became a general of militia, and afterward a member of the State Assembly and justice of the peace. His son, Cyrus Perry, father of Andrew, was a farmer and merchant, and was made Supervisor of the town in which he lived, and chosen to other places of influence and trust.
The Comstock family, also of English origin, was settled in Rhode Island. Some of its members also removed into Saratoga County, New York, in 1790, and the eldest born of William Com- stock and Mercy Sprague became the wife of Cyrus Perry.
Andrew Jackson Perry was born to this couple at Wilton, Saratoga County, New York, December 21, 1824. His early train- ing began among the traditions of the Revolutionary War, sev- eral members of his family having participated in that struggle, as the neighbors, including numerous Revolutionary pensioners, well remembered. Their impressions, followed as they were by the later ones of the War of 1812, gave a bent to his mind in the direction of an intense love of his country. Scholastically the common school (in which later he was a teacher), the academy at
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West Poultney, Vermont, and Union College, at Schenectady, were the sources of education, the period of which was for one year interrupted by a clerkship in a country store in Onondaga County, New York.
When he was twenty-one, he came to New York city and be- came a clerk in the law office of John Mason, and in 1848 was admitted to the bar. He forthwith began the practice of his profession, and has remained therein continuously ever since. He has, for the most part, conducted his business alone. For a time, however, he had as a partner Joseph S. Bosworth, prior to the latter's election to a place on the judicial bench. For more than half a century Mr. Perry has been a practising lawyer in New York, a length of service rivaled by few of his colleagues.
Mr. Perry has long been an active Republican in politics. For many years he has been one of the leaders of the party in Brook- lyn, where he resides.
Twice he has been a candidate for Representative in Congress, and once for Controller of the city of Brooklyn. During the administration of President Arthur he was General Appraiser of the Port of New York. He has also served as inspector and trustee and commissioner of schools in New York, and as mem- ber and president of the Board of Election in Brooklyn.
Mr. Perry was married, in 1858, to Miss Julia Olcott of Cherry Valley, New York. To this union he attributes much of any worthy results of a life given to an activity stimulated by the com- panionship, devotion, and intelligence of a worthy wife. They have had no children. During all their married life their home has been in Brooklyn, and for the last thirty-five years it has been in the same house, at No. 30 First Place. Prior to his mar- riage, Mr. Perry lived in New York.
Mr. Perry has not been conspicuously identified with business enterprises outside of his profession. He has, however, long been a prominent member of various benevolent, social, and other or- ganizations. Thus he is the president of the board of trustees of the Southern Dispensary and Hospital of Brooklyn, and is a member of the Brooklyn Club, the Hamilton Club of Brooklyn, the New England Society of Brooklyn, and Kane Lodge, Free and Accepted Masons, of New York, the Phi Beta Society, and of the Greek-letter society, the Delta Phi.
EDWIN MAIN POST
THE Post family is of Netherlands origin, having been transplanted to this country from Holland about 1650. In the last generation it was allied by marriage with the family of McLean, which, as the name indicates, is of Scottish origin, and which has played a conspicuous and honorable part in the his- tory of the United States. Justice John McLean will be remem- bered as having occupied a place on the bench of the Supreme Court of the United States for many years. His son, General N. C. McLean, also had a distinguished career. He married a daughter of Jacob Burnet, who was the chief justice of Supreme Court of Ohio, and from whom came nearly all the titles of real estate in a large part of the city of Cincinnati. In the last generation, Miss Caroline Burnet McLean, daughter of General N. C. McLean, married Henry A. V. Post, a banker of New York, and to them Edwin Main Post was born in Cincinnati, on January 6, 1870.
He was educated at the well-known Drisler School, in New York city, then for two years in Columbia University, class of 1892, and finally was for one year under a private tutor at Am- herst College.
His business career was begun as an office-boy in the old house of Josiah Macy's Sons, lard-oil merchants, on Front Street, New York. There he spent two years. Next he became secretary of the railroads controlled by W. V. McCracken, and confidential clerk in his office.
In 1896 he was engaged by the holders of the equipment bonds of the Iron Car Company to investigate and report upon the con- dition of that corporation's affairs. As a result of his investiga- tions, he advised a reorganization of the company. He drew up
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a new form of equipment mortgage, which was adopted, and or- ganized a new company, called the Express Coal Line of Georgia, to take title to the cars covered by the old bonds. The new securities were issued according to his plans.
Mr. Post began his career as a banker in May, 1897. He at that time formed a partnership with Edward R. Thomas, under the name of Thomas & Post, bankers and brokers, at No. 71 Broadway, New York.
He is now a director and secretary of the Louisville, Hender- son & St. Louis Railway Company, president of the Express Coal Line of Georgia, and of the Georgia Car Company, and a director of the Augusta Telephone and Electric Company, and of the Manhattan Car Trust Company. These are noteworthy places to be filled by a man who is yet far below middle age; but they are filled by Mr. Post not only acceptably and success- fully, but with so large a measure of ability, enterprise, and in- tegrity as to promise great things in his future career.
Mr. Post has taken no active part in political affairs beyond that of a private citizen. He has become a prominent and popular figure in the social life of New York, and is a member of many of the clubs. Among these may be named the Union Club, the Knickerbocker Club, the Lambs' Club, the St. Anthony Club, the Racquet Club, the Down-Town Club, the Tuxedo Club, the Seawanhaka Yacht Club, and the Larchmont Yacht Club.
He was married at Tuxedo Park, by Bishop Whipple of the Protestant Episcopal Church, on June 1, 1892, to Miss Emily Price. Two sons have been born to them : Edwin Main, Jr., on June 21, 1893, and Bruce Price, on February 9, 1895.
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AUGUSTUS PRENTICE
THE subject of the present biography affords an interesting example of a thorough New-Yorker, who has long been conspicuously identified with professional and business interests in the metropolis, who originated outside of the city and spent practically all of his life outside of it, so far as his home and domestic interests were concerned, until the suburban region where he lived was annexed to the city.
The family of Augustus Prentice is of English origin, but has long been settled in this country, and many of its members have risen to conspicuous and honored rank in various departments of public and private activity. It was planted here at least as early as 1631 by immigrants who settled in the New England colonies, and who did their full share toward developing those colonies from a savage state to that of high civilization and fit- ness for independent sovereignty. The particular branch of the family to which Mr. Prentice belongs established itself in the colony of Connecticut in the year 1700, and its present-day mem- bers are still largely to be found in that State. In the last generation one member of it was named Asa Prentice. He lived at New London, Connecticut, and was a man of means and cul- ture. He married Miss Annie Browning of Stonington, Connec- ticut, who was the daughter of William Browning of that place, a man of importance in the community, and a member of a family conspicuous in the history of that State.
Augustus Prentice, the son of this couple, was born at their home in New London County, Connecticut, on September 30, 1826. His parents intended that he should have the most thorough edu- cation obtainable. Accordingly, much care was bestowed upon his primary instruction at home and in school. He was in time sent
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away from home to the best schools of the day. One of these was at Springfield, Massachusetts, and another at Montpelier, Vermont. After pursuing courses at these institutions, he en- joyed the instruction of several of the best private schools espe- cially designed to fit him for entering college. In all these places of learning he showed himself an apt scholar, with promise of high attainments. Unfortunately, his health was not equal to hisin- tellectual ambition. It began to fail under the strain of study, and, in spite of all that could be done, he was compelled to lay aside his books. Thus his course of study, and perhaps the whole trend of his life, was changed.
Deeming the restoration of his health the most important thing to be attained, he went to Florida with that end in view, and lived there for two years. The change of scene and climate, as also of occupation, had the desired effect, and he returned to the North in excellent health. He then decided not to resume his academic course, as his studies had already covered a good knowledge of Latin and Greek obtained under private tutors, as well as many branches of English in the college curriculum.
He entered the law office of the Hon. Thomas W. Clerke, in New York city, as a student and a clerk. The choice was an excellent one. Mr. Clerke was one of the most prominent lawyers of the city at that time, and was afterward elevated to the bench of the Supreme Court of the State. The young man received in his office an excellent course of instruction in the text and theory of law, besides unsurpassed discipline and practical appli- cation of principles. He also received the invaluable influence of personal contact and intercourse with a lawyer of wide experi- ence and commanding ability. Thus his preparation for the practice of the law was more than ordinarily thorough, and when he was admitted to the bar he was admirably equipped for the work before him.
Mr. Prentice was admitted to the bar in New York city in the fall of 1851. In the spring of the following year he opened a law office of his own, and has from that time to the present, nearly half a century, been honorably and successfully engaged in the pursuits of his profession, in a city where the competi- tion is the keenest and the standard the highest, and where, accordingly, success means most. In his long career he has
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traversed a wide range of cases. His specialties have been com- mercial and corporation law, and he has been the counsel, per- manently or in special cases, of many important corporations, both here and in far-distant places. Among them may be men- tioned the Artisans' Bank and the St. Joseph and Denver City Railroad.
Mr. Prentice has taken little part in general politics, beyond that of an active and intelligent citizen devoted to the interests of city, State, and nation. In local affairs on Staten Island, where he has made his home, however, he has taken a more than ordinarily important part in public affairs. He was one of the founders of the Bank of Staten Island, and on its organiza- tion was elected president, which place he still holds. In the year 1865, acting upon his own initiative, and without even the knowledge of his neighbors, he drew up a charter for the vil- lage of New Brighton, where he lived. Then he invited a few of the leading residents of the place to meet with him, and hear the document read, and discuss its provisions. They were favor- ably impressed with it, and gave it their support. Still taking the lead in the matter, he personally attended to getting the charter enacted into law by the next Legislature in the following year. Upon the organization of the village under that charter, Mr. Prentice was elected its President. The charter proved not only workable, but eminently satisfactory, and remained in force, with some slight modifications suggested by the growth of the vil- lage, until New Brighton was absorbed into the city of New York.
Thus at last, after many years of suburban residence, and without removing his home, Mr. Prentice found himself, in 1898, not only what he had so long been, a business man of New York city, but also a dweller within the limits of the city. He remains to this day, however, the conspicuous and honored member he has been for a full generation of the local community which is his home.
ANTON ADOLPH RAVEN
THE subject of the present sketch might well claim to be the dean of cosmopolitanism in the most cosmopolitan of cities. He is of mingled English and Dutch parentage, was born in a Dutch colony in America, spent much of his early life in a Danish colony, and finally settled in New York. Moreover, his father, who was of English ancestry, was a merchant in the Spanish-American Republic of Venezuela, while his mother came of ancestors who came from Holland to New York State and thence removed to Curaçao, West Indies, where she herself was born.
Anton Adolph Raven, son of John R. Raven and Petronella (Hutchings) Raven, was born on September 30, 1833, at Curaçao, in the Dutch West Indies. His early years, until he was seven- teen, were spent in the Danish West Indies, where he received his education. Then he came to the United States to enter business life.
It was on January 4, 1852, that he entered the service of the Atlantic Mutual Insurance Company of New York city, and he has remained in that service, without interruption, down to the present time. He has, of course, enjoyed promotion from time to time, and thus has passed from the lowest rank to the highest. His successive steps may be recapitulated as follows :
In 1852 he began as a clerk; in 1865 he was appointed an underwriter; in 1874 he was appointed to be fourth vice-president of the company ; in 1876 he became third vice-president ; in 1886 he was made second vice-president. These were all appointive offices, but elective offices were near at hand. In 1895 he was elected vice-president of the company; and two years later, in 1897, he was elected president, which office he continues to hold.
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In so consistent and persistent a career, Mr. Raven has found neither time nor inclination to seek political preferment, and he has accordingly held no political office. His business interests have, however, extended outside of the company with which he has so long been identified, and he is now a director of the Atlantic Trust Company, the Home Life Insurance Company, and the Phoenix National Bank of New York.
Mr. Raven is a member of the Montauk Club of Brooklyn, New York, the American Museum of Natural History, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. He is a member and vice-presi- dent of the Society for Improving the Condition of the Poor in Brooklyn, and a member and recording secretary of the Ameri- can Geographical Society.
He was married in New York, in 1860, to Miss Gertrude Oat- man, who has borne him four children. These are as follows: William Oatman Raven ; Caroline Elizabeth MacLean, widow of the late Peter A. MacLean; Edith Raven; and John Howard Raven, professor of Hebrew and Old Testament exegesis in the Theological Seminary at New Brunswick, New Jersey.
CHARLES H. RAYMOND
0 NE of the best known and most universally esteemed life- insurance men in the eastern half of the United States is Charles H. Raymond, general agent of the Mutual Life Insur- ance Company of New York. He is the son of Benjamin C. Raymond and Lois P. Mather Raymond, both of whom were descendants of English ancestors who settled in New York State early in the seventeenth century.
Charles H. Raymond was born in Albany, New York, on January 24, 1834. He was educated in the Boys' Academy, and in Professor Charles H. Anthony's Classical Institute, of his native city. After leaving school he spent several years abroad, traveling extensively through the West Indies and South Amer- ica, and afterward in Europe. In 1857 he was in Paris, where the charm of the famous Latin Quarter took such possession of him that he was near to renouncing his native land and becom- ing a permanent resident of that romantic haunt of poetry and art. Mr. Raymond had, in early manhood, a decided bent toward literature, and has retained throughout his life a love for the best in art in its various expressions.
Returning to Albany, he was appointed by Superintendent William Barnes to a position in the newly organized State Department of Insurance, in which he later became deputy superintendent, succeeding the Hon. James W. Husted.
At the outbreak of the Civil War, Mr. Raymond, who was a member of the Albany Zouave Cadets, enlisted, with many other noted members of that gallant body, and went to the front. He served with distinction in the Louisiana campaign under General N. P. Banks.
On his return home, he was reinstated in the State Department
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of Insurance, but resigned after one year to accept the position of secretary of the Widows' and Orphans' Benefit Life Insurance Company of New York, which had just been organized, with the Hon. Lucius Robinson as president. On Mr. Robinson's resig- nation, Mr. Raymond was elected to succeed him. He contin- ued at the head of the company until its risks were reinsured in 1871. His administration of the affairs of the company was eminently successful, and he manifested a pronounced aptitude for insurance work, such as indicated it to be his most appropri- ate calling in the business world. Since that time, accordingly, he has devoted his business attention almost exclusively to it, with far more than ordinary success. His work has been highly profitable to himself, and has, at the same time, promoted the in- terests of the great corporation with which he is identified, and also the interests of the insurance world at large.
After the closing up of the affairs of the Widows' and Orphans' Benefit Company, Mr. Raymond became associated with the Mutual Life Insurance Company of New York, one of the largest insurance corporations in the world, through a copartnership with John A. Little, who was already connected with that company. The copartnership was mutually agreeable and profitable, but Mr. Little, after a time, retired from the business. Since that time Mr. Raymond has conducted the affairs of the office alone, having sole charge of the metropolitan general agency of the Mutual Life Insurance Company of New York, with offices at 32 Liberty Street, New York. He was first president of the Life Insurance Association of New York, and in 1892 was president of the National Association of Life Underwriters.
Mr. Raymond is a well-known club-man, and is a member of the Union League Club, the Army and Navy Club, the Loyal Legion, the Colonial Club, the Lawyers' Club, the Down-Town Association, the Southern Society, the Ardsley, the Morristown, and the Westminster Kennel clubs, the Fort Orange Club of Albany, the Maryland Club of Baltimore, the Suburban Riding and Driving Club, the American Museum of Natural History, and the American Geographical Society.
WILLIAM AUGUSTUS REDDING
THE ancestors of William Augustus Redding, on both sides of the house, were of English origin. His father, Charles I. Redding, was born at Buffalo, New York. His mother, Mary E. Redding, was a native of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The subject of this sketch was their only child. He was born in Philadelphia, on November 12, 1850, and spent his early life partly in that city and partly at Savannah, Georgia, and Mont- gomery, Alabama. He was educated in private schools in Phila- delphia until he reached the age of eighteen. Then he entered the employment of William E. and E. D. Lockwood, manufac- turers of paper collars and envelopes, in Philadelphia, and re- mained with them for five years, until 1873. During that period he devoted himself to diligent study of the law, utilizing his evenings for that purpose. His studies were under the direction of Henry R. Edmunds of the Philadelphia bar, and were to so good purpose that on October 11, 1873, he was able to obtain admittance to the bar for the practice of the profession. He was not, however, by any means, satisfied with his acquirements, and so, instead of entering upon the practice of the law, he re- sumed his studies in the Law School of the University of Penn- sylvania. From that institution he was duly graduated, in June, 1876, with the degree of LL. B.
With such preparation and experience Mr. Redding then began the practice of his chosen profession. Three years later, in September, 1879, he formed and became himself the senior member of the law firm of Redding, Jones & Carson, of Phila- delphia. This firm was from the beginning successful in a grat- ifying degree, and soon built up a large and lucrative business, and became one of the foremost in that city.
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Mr. Redding's attention was soon enlisted in the field of poli- tics. In November, 1884, he was a candidate for a seat in the Pennsylvania State-house of Representatives from Montgomery County, and was elected thereto for a term of two years. He took an active part in legislative work at the capital during the session of 1885-86, and won wide recognition as a skilful lawyer and a forceful and eloquent speaker. Early in his career Mr. Redding became interested in patent litigation, and made a spe- cial study of patent laws, by virtue of which he has become esteemed as a high authority on such matters, and is frequently called upon to conduct patent cases in various parts of the country. He is also a specialist in corporation law, while he has besides a large general practice.
Mr. Redding voluntarily severed his connection with the Phil- adelphia firm in the early part of 1887, and removed to New York, at first intending to devote his attention exclusively to patent and corporation law. A few years later, however, he decided to open a general law office, and with that end in view he organized the firm of Redding & Kiddle, of which he was the senior partner. The firm was afterward reorganized into its present form of Redding, Kiddle & Greely, and Mr. Redding still remains at its head. It has a large patronage in all branches of the law. Mr. Redding is counsel for a number of large cor- porations, and is much in demand as a patent and corporation lawyer in New York city and throughout the country.
Mr. Redding is a member of the Union League Club, Bar As- sociation, Engineers' Club, and Hardware Club, in New York, and of the Five o'Clock Club and Art Club and Bar Association, in Philadelphia. He was married in Philadelphia, on April 19, 1877, to Miss Lidie T. Allen, daughter of William H. Allen, of the firm of W. H. & G. W. Allen of that city. They have three children: Miss Edith A. Redding, Miss Helen E. Redding and W. Allen Redding.
BRADFORD RHODES
N EW YORK city is in many particulars the chief city of the United States, and, indeed, of the western hemisphere, but in no respect more markedly so than as the financial capital. In this respect it not only outranks any other city of this Union, but all other cities combined, its volume of clearing-house exchanges being actually greater than the aggregate of all other clearing- house exchanges in the United States. This impressive financial predominance has naturally attracted to New York ambitious financiers from all parts of the country, and has drawn into the circle of financial operations many men of parts who began life in other callings.
It is worthy of remark that one of the best-known names in New York banking life is that of a man who was born in another State and did not come hither until he had reached the years of manhood, and who, moreover, first engaged in another calling, and came to New York for the purpose of pursuing still another, before he was drawn into the active pursuit of financial affairs.
Bradford Rhodes is now deemed a thorough New-Yorker and a truly representative New York banker, and, through his editor- ship of a financial periodical and his contributions to the litera- ture of banking, is doubtless one of the most widely known of New York financiers. He was born, however, in the State of Pennsylvania, in Beaver County, on February 25, 1848. His education was acquired at local schools, and was made particu- larly thorough and comprehensive, though with no view to the pursuit of his present calling. On leaving school his first in- clination was toward being an educator himself, and for some time he was the principal of an academy at Darlington, Penn- sylvania. He developed, however, a taste for literary and espe-
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