USA > New York > New York State's prominent and progressive men : an encyclopaedia of contemporaneous biography, Volume II > Part 22
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Bradford Rhodes,
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BRADFORD RHODES
cially for journalistic work, and aspired to do such work in the largest and most promising field. Accordingly, in 1872 he repaired to New York city and entered upon general newspaper work.
It was not long before he was deeply impressed by the magni- tude of the financial interests of New York, and he conceived the idea of establishing a high-class periodical which should be devoted exclusively to such matters. Putting this happy idea into execution, he established "Rhodes' Journal of Banking" in 1877, and soon made it one of the foremost financial papers of the country. In 1895 he purchased and consolidated with it the "Bankers' Magazine," calling the united publications by the latter name. The " Bankers' Magazine," established in 1845, is the oldest and most widely circulated bankers' publication in the United States. It is regarded as the authority on all banking and monetary matters. He is now the editor and publisher of the periodical, and also of the "Bankers' Directory " and the " Bankers' Reference Book."
He was a member of the State Assembly for three years, in 1888, 1889, and 1890, and secured the enactment of the "anti- bucket shop" law and several important amendments to the banking laws. He was chairman of the committee on banking during his service in the Legislature. A nomination for Con- gress was offered to him in 1892, but he declined it.
Mr. Rhodes is president of the Mamaroneck, N. Y., Savings Bank, a member of the New York Chamber of Commerce, the Union League Club, the Larchmont Yacht Club, the Republican Club, and a member of the executive council of the American Bankers' Association.
He was married, on February 27, 1878, to Miss Caroline A. Fuller. His home is the Quaker Ridge Farm, Mamaroneck, New York.
JOHN LAWRENCE RIKER
THE name of Riker takes memory back to ancient days, when Hans von Rycken and his kinsman Melchior took part in the first crusade, as leaders of a goodly company in the army of Walter the Penniless. Hans von Rycken was then Lord of the Manor of Rycken, in Lower Saxony, to wit, the country at the mouth of the Elbe River. For many gen- erations the Rycken family was conspicuous and numerous there, in Holstein and Hamburg, and also in Switzerland. In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries it became established in Am- sterdam, and played a leading and worthy part in the history of the Netherlands in those stirring times. The Ryckens were loyal supporters of William the Silent in his memorable struggle against the tyranny of Spain, and amid the vicissitudes of that long contest they lost much of their fortune. In time, how- ever, when a New Netherlands colony was established at the mouth of the Hudson River, some members of the family came hither to seek new fortunes in the New World.
Foremost among these was Abraham Rycken, who received from Governor Kieft in 1638 the allotment of a large tract of land in the Wallabout, and who had a place of business on Manhattan Island at what is now the corner of Broad and Beaver streets. In 1654 he received a grant of a farm at Bowery Bay, and thereafter lived upon it. Again, on August 19, 1664, Governor Stuyvesant gave him a patent of an island in the East River, or Sound, then called Hewlett's Island. It was thereafter known as Rycken's or Riker's Island, and re- tains that name to this day. It remained in the possession of the family until 1845, when it became the property of the city of New York.
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Abraham Rycken married Grietie, daughter of Hendrick Har- mensen, and had nine children, from whom practically all the Rikers in the United States are descended. One of his sons, Abraham Riker, married Grietie, daughter of Jan Gerrits Van Buytenhuysen and his wife, Tryntie Van Luyt, Hollanders, and inherited the family estate. He left the place in turn to his son, Andrew Riker, who married Jane, daughter of John Berrien. His children were prominent in the Revolutionary War, all three of his sons serving with distinguished gallantry in the patriot ranks. The youngest of these, Samuel Riker, was for a long time prisoner in the hands of the British. After the war he became prominent in civil life on Long Island, was once a member of the State Assembly, and for two terms was a Representative in Congress. He married Anna Lawrence, daughter of Joseph Lawrence of the well-known Long Island family of that name, and had nine children, several of whom became prominent in public affairs. One of them, Richard Riker, was District Attorney of New York, and afterward and for many years one of the most honored Recorders the city has had. Another was Andrew Riker, a ship-owner, captain of the privateers Yorktown and Saratoga in the War of 1812. The youngest of the sons of Samuel Riker was John Lawrence Riker, who was born in 1787, and was educated in Flatbush, Long Island, in the famous old Erasmus Hall School. He studied law in the office of his brother, Richard Riker, the Recorder, and practised the profession for more than half a century. He made his home on the old family estate at Bowery Bay, Long Island, and was twice married. His wives were sis- ters, daughters of Sylvanus Smith, a prominent citizen of North Hempstead, Long Island, and a descendant of James Smith, who came to New England with Governor Winthrop. The Smiths had settled at Hempstead a few years after the Rikers settled at Bowery Bay, and received their patent from the same Governor Kieft.
A son of John Lawrence Riker's second wife, Lavinia Smith, is the subject of the present sketch. He was born at Bowery Bay in 1830, and received his father's full name, John Law- rence Riker. He was carefully educated in the Astoria Acad- emy, under Dr. Haskins, and under private tutors at home.
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Upon completing his education, he selected a business career, and entered upon it in New York city, where for many years he has ranked among the foremost merchants of the metrop- olis.
Mr. Riker was married in 1857 to Miss Mary Anne Jackson, and has seven children now living. These are John Jackson Riker, Henry Laurens Riker, Margaret M. Lavinia Riker, Sam- uel Riker, Mattina Riker, Charles Lawrence Riker, and May J. Riker.
The city home of Mr. Riker is at No. 19 West Fifty-seventh Street. He has also a summer home at Seabright, New Jersey, where he spends much of his time. He is a member of nu- merous social organizations, including the Holland and St. Nicholas societies, the Sons of the Revolution, and the St. Nicholas, Union League, Metropolitan, City, Riding, New York Yacht, Seawanhaka, Corinthian Yacht, and New York Athletic clubs.
Sith B.Robinson
SETH BANISTER ROBINSON
SETH BANISTER ROBINSON is the son of Seth Banister Robinson, who was a prominent importing merchant of New York, and who was descended from Thomas Robinson, who came from England and settled at Scituate, Massachusetts, as early as 1640, was deacon of the Second Church there, and represented that town at the General Court at Plymouth in 1643. Other ancestors were Edward Denison, father of Major-General Denison, who served in King Philip's War ; Thomas Dudley, sec- ond Governor of the colony of Massachusetts Bay, and signer of the charter of Harvard College ; and Colonel Seth Banister of the Revolutionary army. Mr. Robinson's mother was Caroline Maria Lee, daughter of Daniel F. Lee of New York, and a descendant of John Lee, or Leigh, who came from England in 1634, and settled at Agawam, now Ipswich, Massachusetts.
Mr. Robinson was born in New York city on June 14, 1866. He was educated at private schools, at Columbia College, 1884- 1886, at the Columbia College School of Political Science and Law School, 1890-93, and at the New York University Law School, Postgraduate Department, 1898-99. He has these de- grees : Ph. B., Columbia, 1891; A. M., Columbia, 1892 ; LL. B., Columbia, 1893; and LL. M., New York University, 1899.
At the end of his sophomore year in Columbia College, on June 14, 1886, Mr. Robinson was bereft of his father by death. Thereupon he gave up the idea of completing his college course, and devoted his attention to carrying on the business left by his father. His father, who was an importer of buttons and trim- mings, started this business in 1862; and was one of the first to make a specialty of those goods. For many years as a leader in his line he carried it on at No. 388 Broadway, under the firm-
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name of S. B. Robinson & Co. Mr. Robinson continued this business under the same name, first at No. 388 Broadway, and afterward at No. 48 Howard Street, until February, 1890, when he sold it out, and began the study of law. In those few years of merchant life he purchased all his goods himself, visiting France, Germany, and Austria twice each year for the purpose, and disposing of them through his salesmen to the foremost retailing houses of New York and other cities.
The class which Mr. Robinson entered in the Columbia Law School was the last to be under the instruction of Professor Theodore W. Dwight, and the first to spend three years under Professor William A. Keener. During his first year in the law school he took enough studies in the college proper and in the School of Political Science to complete his junior and senior years of college work and secure the baccalaureate degree in philosophy. His one year's law-clerkship, which was then re- quired for admission to the bar, was spent partly in the office of Odle Close and Judge William H. Robertson of White Plains, N. Y., and partly in that of Percy L. Klock of New York. He was admitted to the bar in New York city on June 29, 1892.
Mr. Robinson's office is at No. 203 Broadway. He is attorney for the Merchants' Exchange National Bank, one of the attorneys for the Chase National Bank, the New York representative of a number of out-of-town banks, and one of the examining counsel of the Lawyers' Title Insurance Company of New York.
Mr. Robinson was a member of the Alpha Delta Phi Frater- nity in college, and is now a member of the Alpha Delta Phi Club of New York. He is also a member of the Alumni Asso- ciation of Columbia College, of the New England Society of the City of New York, and of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York. He is a member of the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church, and attorney for its Chinese Sabbath School. He is a charter member of the Loyal Legion Temperance Society of New York, and was for some years its first vice-president and one of its trustees.
He was married, on May 18, 1899, to Miss Caroline Graydon Martin, daughter of the late John C. and Mary J. Martin of New York, and an alumna of Vassar College, class of 1896.
EDWARD LEIGHTON ROGERS
TT is a far cry from Smithfield to Wall Street, and from the days of Bloody Mary to the present. Yet such are the curiosities of descent that we shall find a direct ancestral link, or chain, between the two. The family of Rogers has long been a prominent one in England. It has produced many men of distinction in various walks of life. Few of these are better known than John Rogers, the first of the Marian martyrs. He was a Cambridge student, the translator of the " Matthews Bible," and a London rector. Immediately after Queen Mary's accession to the throne, he preached a vigorous sermon against Roman Catholicism, which proved practically to be his own funeral ser- mon. He was forthwith arrested, kept in prison for some time, and then publicly burned at the stake at Smithfield, the first of the long line of martyrs of that reign.
Of such ancestry was the Rogers family which was at a later date transplanted from England to New England, and which has played no small part in the development of this nation. In the last generation Edward Y. Rogers of New Jersey is well remem- bered as one of the leaders of the bar and a prominent politician. He was an. " Old Line Whig," and then, following the lead of Horace Greeley, became a Republican, and was a conspicuous member of the National Republican Convention at Chicago in 1860, at which Abraham Lincoln was nominated for the Presi- dency of the United States.
The subject of this sketch, Edward Leighton Rogers, a son of Edward Y. Rogers, was born at Rahway, New Jersey, 1850, and, after being educated at private schools, he subsequently devel- oped an inclination toward business, especially toward finance. At the age of twenty years, therefore, he sought and found an
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engagement in Wall Street, and from that time to the present has been continuously occupied with the fascinating operations of that great center of finance and speculation.
It was in 1870 that Mr. Rogers entered Wall Street. Five years later he became a member of the New York Exchange, and thus qualified himself for full participation in all the operations of the Street. For some years he worked alone, with gratifying success, and steadily built up a reputation for integrity and skill. In 1885, however, he formed the firm with which he is now iden- tified, under the name of Rogers & Gould. Mr. Rogers is the head of it, and his partners are William S. Gould and Alexander H. Tiers, with Charles T. Barney as special partner. Mr. Bar- ney is president of the Knickerbocker Trust Company, and is a tower of strength to the firm. The firm of Rogers & Gould is well known in Wall Street, and conducts a large and profitable volume of brokerage business.
Mr. Rogers has devoted his attention, in a business way, ex- clusively to his Wall Street operations, and accordingly has not identified himself with any outside corporations or enterprises. Neither has he held nor sought public office, but has confined his political activities to discharging the duties of a private citizen.
Mr. Rogers is not widely known as a club-man. He is, how- ever, a member of the Century Association, one of the most desirable social organizations in New York.
Eng. by E. G.Withams & Bro. N.Y
WILLIAM H. ROWE
THE phrase, "captain of industry," is often misused. It is applied unthinkingly to those who amass wealth with little regard to the means employed by them. A man of great wealth may be without title to it, because he secured his wealth by speculation. His money may have been created by industry, but he did not thus win it. Other men labored, and he entered into the fruit of their labors. On the other hand, one may be a great industrial leader and yet remain a poor man. Such a one, despite his lack of wealth, is a true captain of industry.
Most satisfactory of all, however, is it to apply the term to one who has devoted his career to industrial pursuits, and has secured for himself a substantial pecuniary reward for his exer- tions. The true captain of industry is the successful industrial- ist ; especially he who founds, develops, and improves industrial enterprises, so as to increase the scope of operation and to give employment and profit to large numbers of his fellows. Swift's often-quoted saying about the benefit to the race of making two blades of grass grow where only one grew before is fully appli- cable to the man who gives two men profitable occupation where only one could find it before.
The history of America is largely an industrial history, and the great names with which it is starred are largely those of captains of industry. These facts had their origin in the genius of the race and in the needs of the land. Nothing has been more noteworthy than the way in which the United States has come to the fore as a producing nation, and as a producer not only of raw material, but of highly finished manufactured goods. All the fabrics of wool, cotton, silk, linen, and what not, as well as metal, glass, and chinaware, have long been produced in the
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United States in a perfection rivaling that of the output of the Old World, and not infrequently surpassing it.
It will be of interest to follow, in brief outline, the career of one of the most conspicuous of the industrial leaders, in one of the most important trades in that Empire State which has, on the whole, probably contributed more to the industrial and com- mercial greatness of the nation than any other single one.
One of the foremost American manufacturers of the last gen- eration was William H. Rowe of Troy, New York, who was born at Hartford, New York, on November 7, 1837, and died on April 21, 1898. He was the founder and for many years presi- dent of the great corporation of William H. Rowe & Son, which ranked as the largest knit-goods manufacturing concern in the United States. He was also president of the Wayside Knitting Mills of Troy, and of the Amsterdam Knitting Company of Amsterdam, New York, a director of the National State Bank of Troy, of the Troy Waste Manufacturing Company, of the Merchants' National Bank of Glen Falls, New York, and of the Glen Falls, Sandy Hill and Fort Edward Railway Company, and president of the New York Casualty Company of New York.
Mr. Rowe thus became, through his numerous and various business interests, one of the best-known and most influential men in that part of the State. It was only natural, therefore, that he should be selected by his fellow-citizens for political pre- ferment. On various occasions he was urged to accept nomina- tion for office, or appointment thereto, and thus to add public service of a political character to his other labors. All such propositions, however, he invariably declined. He deemed him- self better fitted to serve his fellow-men as a great leader of in- dustry, and as a discriminating dispenser of charities, than in any political office. So to the end of his life he remained in a private station, fulfilling with intelligence and painstaking care the duties of a citizen.
Apart from his vast business he was a man of great activity for the welfare of his fellow-men. He was a devoted member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and president of the board of trustees of the Fifth Avenue Church of that denomination in Troy. He was a director of the Mohawk and Hudson River Humane Society, a trustee of the Young Men's Christian Associ-
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ation of Troy, and a trustee of the Methodist Episcopal Church of Hartford, New York. He rebuilt the Hartford church edifice into a beautiful memorial of his deceased daughter, Lucy Wood Rowe, and also built, at a cost of over thirty thousand dollars, as another memorial of her, a fine house on Fourth Street, Troy, as a home for the Mohawk and Hudson River Humane Associa- tion, which was completed in 1896. The home is now devoted to the uses of that association, whose beneficent work is largely in the direction of the prevention of cruelty to children. Mr. Rowe also gave the Salvation Army a fine lot and building, worth twenty-two thousand dollars. Mr. Rowe was also presi- dent of the "Home" in New York city, a splendid charity sheltering destitute girls. He was also a trustee of Syracuse University.
Mr. Rowe was, as we have said, a leader in the knit-goods manufacturing industry of the United States, being at the head of some of the largest work therein. He kept himself fully abreast of the times in all the industrial movements and devel- opments, and was therefore not slow to perceive the significance of the great system of industrial combination which has become so marked a feature of the age. He quickly put himself in line with it, and was the foremost factor in bringing about, in the closing years of his life, the consolidation of a number of leading establishments in the knit-goods trade, with an aggre- gate capital of thirty million dollars, thus forming one of the largest combinations of the kind in the United States.
Mr. Rowe was married to Miss Frances J. Wood, daughter of John P. Wood, who survives him. She bore him a son, Wil- liam H. Rowe, Jr., who became his partner in business, and, on his death, succeeded him in the direction of all his vast and varied enterprises.
WILLIAM H. ROWE, JR.
THE subject of this sketch is the only surviving son of the late William H. Rowe, the widely known and highly esteemed manufacturer, financier, and philanthropist of Troy, New York. The elder Mr. Rowe was born on November 7, 1837, at Hartford, Washington County, New York. His father, who was a farmer and a man of extremely modest means, died when William was eight years old, and the boy's educational advantages were thenceforth limited to a few terms in the district school during the winter months. He began his business life at the age of sixteen, in a country store, first as a clerk and later as a partner. In 1872 he went to Troy, where he became interested in the manufacture of knitted goods, by which he amassed a large fortune. At the time of his death he was president of the Wayside, the Eagle, and the Amsterdam Knitting Mills, and was officially connected with a large number of manufacturing concerns, banks, and other corporations. Just before his death he was prominently before the trade as the originator and promoter of the recently formed combination of American knit-goods manufacturers, which includes some fifty mill-owners from the Hudson and Mohawk valleys and Vermont, extending as far as North Caro- lina and Virginia.
Mr. Rowe was a very religious man, and his gifts to charitable organizations and churches were princely. The Methodist Epis- copal church and parsonage at Hartford, New York, were erected as a memorial to his daughter, as was also the building used by the Mohawk and Hudson River Humane Society at Troy. Mr. Rowe presented to the Salvation Army at Troy a twenty-five- thousand-dollar building, and gave large sums to the Young Men's Christian Association, the Woman's College Settlement of
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Trillium of Pins for
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New York, and many others. He died suddenly at Atlantic City, New Jersey, on April 21, 1898. His widow, who was Miss Frances J. Wood, and to whom he was married in 1866, survives him.
Their son, William H. Rowe, Jr., the subject of this sketch, was born at Hartford, New York, on November 30, 1868. He was educated at Fort Edward Institute and Syracuse University, Syracuse, New York. He did not finish his college course, but at an early age elected to begin his business training. He went to work under his father's direction to master the details of the various enterprises with which the elder Mr. Rowe was con- nected, and to which he was expected to succeed. The young man showed remarkable business aptitude from the start, and was soon taken into partnership, under the firm-name of W. H. Rowe & Son. Upon the death of his father, Mr. (now Colonel) Rowe came into control of all of his interests, and is now president of the Wayside Knitting Company of Troy, which operates one of the largest plants of the kind in the country. Colonel Rowe and his mother own over five sixths of the capital stock. Col- onel Rowe is president of the Eagle and Red Star Mills of Rockton, New York; treasurer of the Van Brocklin and Stover Company of Amsterdam, New York, which owns the Montgomery and Clermont mills; vice-president of the United Waste Com- pany ; director in the Central National Bank; and treasurer of the Office Supply Company of Troy, New York. He is also president of the Hope Knitting Company of Troy, which oper- ates one of the finest mills in the United States. The capital stock is controlled by Colonel Rowe and the estate of the late Roswell P. Flower.
Colonel Rowe has been prominent in municipal affairs in Troy, and is esteemed one of the most public-spirited men in that city. In 1896 he was offered the Democratic nomination to the State Senate, and in the fall of 1898 was asked to become the party candidate for Congress, but was obliged to decline both honors, his business affairs requiring his undivided attention. For the same reason he refused to allow his name to be carried before the convention in 1894 as a candidate for Mayor of Troy. As a public speaker Colonel Rowe has many gifts, and were his busi- ness responsibilities less he would undoubtedly take a prominent
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place in state and national politics. The only office he has ever accepted was that of World's Fair Commissioner, to which he was appointed in 1892. When Roswell P. Flower assumed office as Governor of New York he appointed Mr. Rowe assis- tant quartermaster-general on his staff, with the rank of colonel.
Colonel Rowe spends most of his time in New York city. He is connected with a large number of benevolent and charitable associations, and has not only been a generous contributor, but has held office in many, although of late press of business has obliged him to resign several offices. He is a trustee of the Syracuse University, national director from New York State in the Children's Home Society, which has its headquarters in Chicago, president of the New York City Rescue Band, treasurer of the Federation of Churches in New York city, treasurer of the Home for Crippled Children of New York city, member of the executive committee of the Ecumenical Council of the Board of Foreign Missions of all the New York city churches, and trea- surer of the Lucy A. Wood Rowe Memorial Association of Troy. He recently resigned the presidency of the Young Woman's Col- lege Settlement of New York city.
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