USA > New York > New York State's prominent and progressive men : an encyclopaedia of contemporaneous biography, Volume II > Part 24
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The greatest past work which Dr. Shaffer has accomplished lies in the success of the Orthopedic Hospital, for this great work will always be regarded as a monument to his strong per- sonality and unremitting energy, as well as to the kindness of his friends, whose faith in him led them to contribute so largely to its pecuniary support. In this work Dr. Shaffer was most generously supported by the founders. It seems only proper to say, however, that although upheld by those who had made large contributions to his work, he felt his usefulness was so far im- paired by the arbitrary rulings and conduct of some of the new trustees that he resigned. He did so, however, also in response to a desire to enter a wider field of work, as foreshadowed in an address which he delivered before the National Conference of Charities and Correction, held in New York on May 23, 1898, in which he said : "The educational and charitable system of the State should be adapted to meet the demands of this class of crippled and deformed as fully as are those for the deaf, dumb, the blind or the insane." A study of this matter, while he was still connected with the Orthopedic Hospital, led to the conclu- sion that there was a large number of afflicted and deformed children, especially in the State at large, for whom no provision existed. In the autumn of 1899, with the assistance of J. Adri- ance Bush, a bill was drafted, and early in 1900 was presented to the Legislature. In spite of opposition the bill became a law, and Governor Roosevelt appointed as managers the Right Rev. Henry C. Potter, D. D., Bishop of New York, J. Hampden Robb, J. Adriance Bush, George Blagden, Jr., and Dr. Shaffer. The law provides for a salary for the surgeon-in-chief, but Dr. Shaffer absolutely declined to receive it. On the contrary, he has become a contributor to a special fund which he has raised to supplement the fifteen thousand dollars which the State appro-
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priated for this work. The hospital has been located at Tarry- town, New York.
Dr. Shaffer was born on February 14, 1846, at Kinderhook, New York. His great-grandfather came from Holland to Man- hattan Island, and established a paper-mill on the island about 1760. His grandfather was born in New York city in 1773, and his father, the Rev. James Newton Shaffer, was born in Greenwich, Connecticut, in 1811. Dr. Shaffer's paternal grandmother was a Newton. On his mother's side, he was descended from the Hales and Melmans of Ulster County, his mother being Jane Emeline Hale, daughter of Mayor Lewis Hale of Glasco, New York. Dr. Shaffer married, in 1873, Margaret H. Perkins, daughter of the Hon. William Perkins of Gardiner, Maine. They have one son, Newton Melman Shaffer, Jr.
Among the books which Dr. Shaffer has written may be men- tioned "Pott's Disease-Its Pathology and Mechanical Treat- ment "; "The Hysterical Element in Orthopaedic Surgery"; "Brief Essays on Orthopedic Surgery"; and many other essays which have appeared in the leading medical journals both at home and abroad. He is a member of the University and Century clubs, the New York Academy of Medicine, the Ameri- can Orthopedic Association, the Neurological Society, the Con- gress of American Physicians and Surgeons, etc.
WILLIAM F. SHEEHAN
THE name of Sheehan savors of Irish origin, and in the present case the indication is correct. In the last gener- ation William Sheehan and his wife, Honora, were natives of County Cork, Ireland. They were, however, brought to the United States in their childhood, and it was here that they were educated and married. Mr. Sheehan adopted the business of a contractor and engineer, and settled in the western part of New York State. There he pursued his calling with varying success, and there his children were born.
One of the children born of this parentage is William F. Sheehan, who has long been known as a shrewd political leader, the holder of high public office, and a more than ordinarily successful lawyer. He was born in the city of Buffalo, New York, on November 6, 1859. His early education was acquired in the common schools of that city, and from them he pro- ceeded to St. Joseph's College, a Buffalo institution of high rank. Necessity, however, drove him to lay aside his books at an early age to begin the practical work of life. For a time he worked in the humble, but by no means unenlightening, capacity of a newspaper boy, selling papers on the streets of Buffalo.
His native bent, however, like that of so many of his race, was toward the law and politics. He cherished that ambition even while he was selling newspapers, and omitted no oppor- tunity of studying to prepare himself for such a career. The many difficulties and obstacles in his path were one by one overcome by his indomitable spirit and unfailing energy, and at the last, in January, 1880, before he was twenty-one years of age, he was able creditably to pass his examinations and gain
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admittance to practice at the bar. For fifteen years thereafter he followed his profession in the city of Buffalo, with a grati- fying degree of success.
At the same time he was active in politics, and became the leader of the Democratic party in Erie County and all that part of the State. He was first elected a member of Assembly from Erie County in 1884, for the Legislature of 1885, and was suc- cessively reëlected in each of the six ensuing years, thus having seven years of service in the Assembly. For six of those years, beginning with the Legislature of 1886, he was the Democratic leader of the Assembly, and in the Legislature of 1891 he was Speaker of the Assembly.
This noteworthy career in the Legislature was interrupted in the fall of 1891 by his election to the office of Lieutenant-Governor of the State on the ticket with Roswell P. Flower as Governor, and he accordingly was removed from the Assembly to be pre- siding officer of the State Senate in the years 1892, 1893, and 1894.
At the end of his term as Lieutenant-Governor, Mr. Sheehan removed to New York city and there engaged in the practice of his profession. He is now thus engaged, as a member of the firm of Sheehan & Collin, consisting of himself, Charles A. Col- lin, Thomas L. Hughes, and Charles H. Werner. He was, it may be added, the New York State member of the Democratic National Committee from 1891 to 1896, and chairman of the executive committee of the Democratic State Committee in 1892 and 1893. His law firm is now counsel for the Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company, the Kings County Electric Light and Power Company, the Colonial Trust Company, the Brooklyn Union Elevated Railroad Company, and other large corporations.
Mr. Sheehan is a member of the Manhattan, Democratic, Lawyers', Lotus, Transportation, Brooklyn, and Catholic clubs. He was married, on November 27, 1889, to Miss Blanche Nellany.
HENRY SIEGEL
THE story of Henry Siegel's career resembles those fictitious ones which are often constructed " to point a moral or adorn a tale," and yet, by actually surpassing them in interest, gives emphasis to the old saying that "truth is stranger than fiction." Certainly never in fiction was there conceived a more noteworthy example of a man starting at the foot of the ladder in business, and by sheer force of ability and character climbing to the top- most round.
Henry Siegel was born at Eubigheim, Germany, on March 17, 1852, the eighth of ten sons of Lazarus and Zerlina Siegel. His father was a farmer and burgomaster of the town, a man of ster- ling character and methods. One by one the sons, having grown to manhood, came to the United States, and several of them, set- tling in Washington, entered the Federal Army and did good service in the Civil War. Henry was the last of all to come. He landed in this country on July 12, 1867, a boy of fifteen, with a German common-school education. He stayed in New York for a week, and then went to Washington, where he got employment in a clothing store, at the salary of three and a half dollars a week. He remained there four years, with various promotions and increases of salary, until he was getting fifteen dollars a week. During all this time he attended night-school, and spent his spare time studying. Then he went to Parkersburg, Penn- sylvania, and was employed in his brother's store there for two years, and then he and his brother, as partners, established a new store at Lawrenceburg, Pennsylvania. A few years later they sold out and went to Chicago, where their great business career was to begin.
Their first venture in Chicago was in the firm of Siegel, Harts-
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Photª by Siegel. Cooper & Co. Chicago.
The Lewis Pub. Co. Chicago.
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feld & Co., manufacturers of ladies' cloaks. For this house Henry Siegel went on the road as a traveling salesman for eight years. Thus he not only contributed greatly to the prosperity of that firm, but gained an extended acquaintance with mer- chants all over the country, which has since been of much value to him. In the fourth year of its existence the firm became that of Siegel Brothers, Mr. Hartsfeld selling his interest to the other partners. During his connection with this manufacturing firm Mr. Siegel was a close student of the retail trade in dry-goods, etc., and formed the plan of himself engaging therein on a gigantic scale.
This plan was put into execution in 1887, when he withdrew from the manufacturing firm, formed a partnership with Frank H. Cooper, a successful merchant of Peoria, and, on May 28, opened a huge "department store " at the corner of Adams and State streets, Chicago. The venture was from the first success- ful, and an enormous patronage was soon secured. On August 2, 1890, the store was burned, but soon the business was reëstab- lished on a more imposing scale than ever in the "Big Store," covering a block on State Street, between Van Buren and Con- gress streets - the biggest store, it is said, in Chicago, and assur- edly one of the most popular and profitable. Five years later another "Big Store" was opened on Sixth Avenue, New York, in a fireproof building 465 × 200 feet in area and seven stories high, costing four million dollars. These are the two gigantic enterprises of which Mr. Siegel is the head and soul. Of every detail of them he has constant supervision, and upon every department he impresses his own integrity and energy.
Mr. Siegel was married, on April 25, 1898, to Marie Vaughan Wilde, whose new book, " Tulips and Clover," was published on her wedding-day.
ALEXANDER J. C. SKENE
TT is authentically related in Scottish history that in the year
1010, as he was returning from a great victory over the Danes at Mortlach, King Malcolm II. was attacked by a wolf, and might have suffered from the ferocity of the animal, but a younger son of Donald of the Isles, seeing the danger, thrust into the wolf's mouth his own hand, armed with a dagger, or "sgian" (skene), and stabbed it to the heart. For this ser- vice the king gave to the young man all the lands which form the parish of Skene, in Aberdeenshire, and the right to armorial bearings ornamented with three daggers and three wolves' heads. From this defender of his sovereign came the great Skene fam- ily, which through many generations has been among the most eminent in Scotland, in peace and in war.
Alexander J. C. Skene, a direct descendant of the founder of the family, was born in Fyvie, Aberdeenshire, Scotland, in 1838. He was educated in Aberdeen, but paid more attention to ath- letics to outdoor sports, and to practical study of animal life and nature than to text-books. At the age of nineteen years he came to America, and entered the University of Michigan. There his early bent for medical studies was gratified, and he continued those studies at the Long Island College, Brooklyn, New York, where he was graduated M. D. in 1863. He was at once appointed assistant to Dr. Austin Flint, professor of the institutes and practice of medicine and clinical medicine. But the Civil War was then at its height, and the blood of the first Skene was hot within the young doctor. He joined the Union Army and went to the front. There he served as a surgeon, and at the end of the war came back to the Long Island College and became an adjunct professor in that institution, with which he has since, until 1899, been constantly identified.
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Dr. Skene was for many years the dean of the Long Island College, and also professor of gynecology, in which latter branch of medicine and surgery he is, by general consent, one of the world's greatest authorities. His voluminous " Treatise on the Diseases of Woman " has become a standard work on that subject in America and Europe, and has no superior in the Eng- lish language. He has also written much for the best medical journals and reviews, and sometimes for the leading newspapers. He has served as president of the New York Obstetrical Society, the American Gynecological Society, and for the Medical Soci- ety of Kings County.
Dr. Skene has long had a large private practice, and has been esteemed as a consulting physician above most of his contempo- raries. He is famed for his skill as an operating surgeon, and has been the hero of many marvelous performances. A number of years ago he built for himself, in Brooklyn, a fine private sana- torium, for the treatment of those suffering from the diseases to which he pays special attention. This institution, constructed and equipped in the most perfect manner known to modern sci- ence, is Dr. Skene's especial pride, and to it and its work he gives much of the best attention of his life. In 1899 he became the head of a great hospital for working-women, which was then incorporated and is about to be built by public-spirited citizens of Brooklyn. At that time he resigned his place at the head of the Long Island College Hospital.
For relaxation from professional cares, Dr. Skene turns some- times to nature - he has a summer home in the Catskills -and sometimes to the sculptor's studio, for he is an artist in marble of no mean ability. He has also written a novel or two which have commanded wide attention. His wife is an accomplished musician, and their home on Brooklyn Heights is the seat of charming culture. As an instructor in college Dr. Skene has been notably successful. By his patients he is loved and trusted in more than common measure; and by the simplicity and unostentatious beneficence of his life he has made himself a blessing and an honor to the community and to the world.
AUGUSTUS KELLOGG SLOAN
THE president of the Jewelers' Association and Board of Trade of New York, Augustus Kellogg Sloan, is of Ohio birth and New York State ancestry. His father, Kellogg Gay- lord Sloan, who married Mary Ann Tomlinson, was a native of Cherry Valley, New York, and pursued the calling of a carriage- builder at Syracuse, New York. He has formerly lived at Cleveland, Ohio, and there the subject of this sketch was born, on September 3, 1838. When he was five years old his parents removed to Syracuse, and there he attended the public schools until he was thirteen years old.
Then he went into business. His first occupation was as an office boy in a fancy-goods bazaar, at a salary of a dollar and a half a week. A year later he went into the office of a cigar factory as office boy. There he spent a year, and then came to the city of New York.
His first engagement in the metropolis was with the old firm of Carter, Pierson & Hale, on Maiden Lane, close by his present well-known offices. That was in 1854. He worked hard and faithfully, and showed much capacity for the jewelry business. In consequence he found himself in the line of promotion, and soon rose to be a salesman. On the outbreak of the Civil War, he enlisted in the Ninth Regiment, New York Volunteers. But the day before his regiment was ordered to the front his plans were materially changed. He deemed it desirable to with- draw from the service and remain in business. The firm with which he was engaged then made him its bookkeeper. After the capture of New Orleans he was sent thither, in 1862, by the firm on a special errand. He had to go, of course, by water. On the way the ship was wrecked on one of the Bahama Islands, and he
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was stranded there for a month before he could get a vessel to take him to Havana. There he was again detained for a week. Finally he made his way on to New Orleans.
During his absence the firm filled his place as bookkeeper with another man, but gave him a good place as traveling salesman. This he filled until 1867, when he was admitted to partnership in the firm, which was known as Carter, Howkins & Dodd. Later Mr. Dodd withdrew, and the firm became Carter, Howkins & Sloan. Upon the retirement of Mr. Howkins it became Carter, Sloan & Co. In 1896 Mr. Sloan withdrew from the firm, and a little later became president of Sloan & Co. under the reorgani- zation.
Mr. Sloan is also president of the Sloan & Chase Manufactur- ing Company, Limited, of Newark, New Jersey, a director of the American Waltham Watch Company, of the Mutual Realty and Loan Company, and of the Jewelers' Security Alliance, and, as al- ready noted, president of the Jewelers' Association and Board of Trade. His social and other connections include being a director and treasurer of the Long Island Country Club, a trustee of the Metropolitan Savings Bank, of the Clinton Avenue Congrega- tional Church, Brooklyn, and of the Aurora Grata Association, and treasurer of the Aurora Grata Consistory, a thirty-third- degree Mason, and a member of the Oxford Club, Brooklyn, the Aurora Grata Club of Brooklyn, and the Underwriters' Club of New York.
Mr. Sloan was married, in 1865, to Miss Julia Voris, who bore him four children : Mary Florence, Lillian Augusta, Frank Theodore, and Jennie Voris. She died, and some years later he was married a second time, to Miss Mary A. E. Cromwell of Skaneateles, New York, who bore him one son, Augustus Kellogg Sloan, Jr.
FRANK SULLIVAN SMITH
THE western part of the State of New York has been ex- ceptionally prolific in men of leadership in business and professional life and in public affairs. Some of them have had distinguished careers as lifelong residents of their native re- gion. Others have found their best opportunities and attained their highest achievements in other places, especially in the me- tropolis and business capital of the State. Among these may be classed Frank Sullivan Smith. He is a native of the western part of the "southern tier" of New York counties, having been born on October 14, 1851, at Short Tract, in the town of Granger, in the northern part of Allegany County, and in the upper part of the beautiful Genesee valley. His parents were Dr. William M. Smith and his wife, Adaline Weeks Smith. At ten years of age the boy had an opportunity to see something of the Civil War, since he spent the latter part of 1861 and the early part of 1862 with the Eighty-fifth Regiment of New York Volunteers, of which his father was surgeon. He was prepared for college at Angelica Academy, and was graduated at Yale in 1872. He served as school commissioner of the First District, Allegany County, New York, until 1876. On April 7 of that year he was admitted to the bar, and at once became a member of the firm of Richardson, Flenagin & Smith, at Angelica. During the next four years he took an active part in the work of the District Attorney's office, his partner, Mr. Flenagin, being District Attorney.
He was attorney for the Genesee Valley Canal Railroad Com- pany during the construction of the road between Olean and Rochester, and for its lessee, the Buffalo, New York and Phila- delphia Railroad Company, from 1881 until 1887. He was presi- dent and general counsel of the Alleghany Central Railroad from
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its formation in 1881 until its consolidation with the Lackawanna and Pittsburg in 1883, and was vice-president and general counsel of the latter until December, 1884.
In the spring of 1887 the trustees of Cornell University in- vited him to take charge of its Law School, as dean of the faculty: He declined the offer, preferring to remain in the active practice of his profession.
He was a delegate to the Republican National Convention in 1884, and secretary of the Republican State Committee from 1887 until 1891. He was general counsel of the Scioto Valley and New England Railroad Company from its formation until its absorption by the Norfolk and Western in 1890; attorney for the receivers of the Richmond and Dansville Railroad Company from 1893 until 1894; and has been vice-president and general counsel of the Central New York and Western Railroad Com- pany since its formation. He has been successively a member of the firms, at Angelica, of Richardson, Flenagin & Smith, Richardson & Smith, Richardson, Smith & Robbins, and Smith, Rockwell & Dickson, and is now a member of the firm of Smith & Dickson, at Angelica.
Mr. Smith came to New York in the fall of 1887. Since opening his New York office, he has had charge of much important litiga- tion, notably in relation to the East and West Railroad Company, of Alabama; the Schuyler Electric Company of Connecticut; the Pittsburg, Shenango and Lake Erie Railroad Company; the Michigan Gas Company ; and the Alleghany and Kinzua Rail- road Company, in all of which he has been successful.
He is a member of the New York State Bar Association, the Association of the Bar of the City of New York, the Loyal Le- gion, the Yale Club, the University Club, the Barnard Club, the Republican Club of the City of New York, the Society of Medical Jurisprudence, and the Triton Fish and Game Club.
Mr. Smith was married, on October 17, 1877, to Miss Clara A. H. Higgins, daughter of O. T. Higgins of Rushford, New York.
ST. CLAIR SMITH
THE subject of the present sketch is a fine example of Ameri- can cosmopolitanism in ancestry. On his father's side he comes from a blending of English and Scotch-Irish stocks, effected in the early colonial days of this country, while on his mother's side he traces descent from some of the old Holland Dutch families that long ago settled in New Jersey. They are good stocks, all of them, and all have contributed much to the latter-day greatness of their adopted home. St. Clair Smith is the son of Henry Montgomery Smith and Catherine Forshee, his wife. He was born in the town of Throop, in Cayuga County, New York, on March 15, 1846. His father was a farmer, and he was brought up through boyhood as a farmer's son. His early edu- cation was gained at the district school. Then he went to the Cayuga Lake Academy at Aurora, and afterward taught in the high school at Auburn while further prosecuting his own studies. While doing this double work he lived at his father's home, and made the trip to Auburn and back daily, a distance of four and a half miles. At the age of twenty-one he determined to become a physician, and accordingly began studying in the office of Dr. W. M. Gwynn. The next year he entered the Homeopathic Medical College in this city, and was there graduated in 1869. While yet an undergraduate he was an assistant to the regular physician of the Children's Hospital of the Five Points House of Industry, and immediately after graduation he succeeded his principal in his place. Afterward he was appointed successively attending physician and medical superintendent at the mission, in which latter capacity he still continues to serve. The year after his graduation (1870) he opened an office for the general practice of his profession in Brooklyn, and a year later was
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chosen to be resident physician at the Brooklyn Maternity. In 1872 he formed a professional partnership with Dr. T. F. Allen, and removed to New York city, where he has since remained.
He was soon called back to his Alma Mater as an instructor. He was appointed lecturer on materia medica in the Homeo- pathic College in 1872, and held the place for five years. Then he was made adjunct professor in the same department. From 1879 to 1881 he filled the chair of professor of physiology, and in 1881 and 1882 the chair of diseases of children. In the autumn of 1882 he was made full professor of materia medica, dividing the chair with Professor T. F. Allen, the senior pro- fessor in that department. From that place he went to the associate chair of theory and practice, and finally, three years later, to the senior chair in that department, which he still occu- pies. He has an enviable reputation as a practitioner, especially in diagnosis, and is frequently sought in consultation by his fellow-physicians. His naturally retiring disposition is generally regarded as the cause of his not having been a more voluminous contributor to current and standard medical literature, his career certainly not being lacking in suggestive and instructive data.
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