USA > New York > New York State's prominent and progressive men : an encyclopaedia of contemporaneous biography, Volume II > Part 26
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
Charles Steinway, the pioneer, married Miss Sophia Millinet, and to them was born in this city, on June 3, 1857, a son whom they named Charles Hermann Steinway. He was educated
333
334
CHARLES HERMANN STEINWAY
carefully, partly in this city and partly in Germany, with a view to his entering the firm and maintaining the business with which the family was identified. Then he was apprenticed to the trade of practical piano-building, mastering thoroughly every detail of it, even the humblest and most laborious. At the age of twenty years he entered the business office of the firm, and the next year was elected vice-president of the company. His uncle, William Steinway, who was one of the founders of the firm, was president. On November 30, 1896, the latter died, and Charles H. Steinway was promoted to fill his place as presi- dent, and has ever since held that office.
Besides the arduous duties of the headship of the Steinway firm, Mr. Steinway performs those of vice-president of the Citi- zens' Savings Bank of New York, director of the Pacific Bank, and director of the company of N. Stetson & Co., Philadelphia. He is a member of the Manhattan Club, the New York Athletic Club, the German Liederkranz, the Chamber of Commerce, and the Larchmont Yacht Club. He was mar- ried on October 10, 1885, to Miss Marie A. Mertens, daughter of Mr. William Mertens, a partner in the banking firm of L. von Hoffmann & Co., and has two children - Charles Fred- erick Mertens Steinway and Marie Louise Millinet Steinway. It may be added that under Mr. Steinway's direction the famous house fully maintains its old reputation among mu- sicians, and is still increasing its patronage among the best classes of purchasers of musical instruments. It now has an enormous manufacturing plant at Steinway, in Astoria, Long Island. The settlement is made up chiefly of the workers in the factory and their families, and it has been the ambition of the firm to make and keep it a model manufacturing town. In this enterprise Mr. Steinway takes deep personal interest, and is as popular among the hosts of employees as the Steinway pianos are among the musicians of the world.
Charlestive
6
CHARLES CRAWFORD STEVENSON
A MAN who has engaged in many enterprises with varying success, and at last has gained high success in his one chosen calling, is Charles Crawford Stevenson, the well-known public accountant of this city. He is of English ancestry, and is the son of the late Charles Stevenson and Sarah Stevenson (born Forbes) of Norfolk, Virginia. He was born at Norfolk some sixty years ago, and received a good education in the local schools, to which he added by studious and observant habits in after life.
His business career was begun at the age of fifteen. During a school vacation he was induced to enter the establishment of a retail dry-goods merchant at Norfolk. This proved not greatly to his liking, and he soon exchanged it for the place of assistant agent of the Adams Express Company at that place. The next year, when he was sixteen, he was engaged by the firm of Wil- liams, Staples & Williams, a large shipping house. He had been with that firm about a year when its bookkeeper was sent to Cuba on a special commission for the purchase of sugar. Young Stevenson was promoted to his place, and thus was advanced to the full charge of the office. Unhappily, the firm not long after- ward failed, and thus his career with it, which had seemed most promising, was interrupted. A Baltimore house next offered him an engagement as supercargo on a vessel going to Antigua, in the West Indies. He accepted it and served the firm satisfac- torily. On his return to Norfolk, he was engaged by the firm of James M. Smith & Brother, a large shipping house. Thence he went to a similar house in Baltimore, and in turn left it to enter the employ of Thomas J. Carson & Co., dealers in provisions. He remained with the last-named house until the outbreak of
335
336
CHARLES CRAWFORD STEVENSON
the Civil War. He had gone South as its representative in 1860, but the next spring was obliged by the beginning of hostilities to return to Baltimore. He successfully settled up all the South- ern business of the house, and then, in 1863, came to New York.
In this city, Mr. Stevenson was successively engaged in a number of businesses before he settled into his present profit- able calling. His wide experience in various lines of business and his natural aptitude for careful reckoning led him to begin work on his own responsibility as a professional accountant. In this enterprise he soon achieved a most gratifying success. His skill became widely recognized, and he was engaged in many cases of the first magnitude. In 1879-80, when the city of Eliz- abeth, New Jersey, through reckless over-expansion, became all but bankrupt, he was selected to examine the books of its finan- cial officers and to straighten out the affairs of that department. This he did so satisfactorily, under appointment from the Su- preme Court of the State, that he was made city treasurer for three years. Another important case was that of the publishing firm of A. S. Barnes & Co., in which he was selected to ascertain the interest of the late A. S. Barnes in the business at the time of his death. This was a task requiring the exercise of excep- tional judgment and skill. One of the heirs objected to his report, but the report was fully sustained by Justice Barrett of the Supreme Court.
Mr. Stevenson was married, in 1855, to Miss Ruth A. Griffith of Baltimore, who bore him six children. She died in 1878. In 1882 he was married a second time, to Miss Eliza Mitchell of Elizabeth, New Jersey. She died November 4, 1896.
THOMAS STURGIS
THE good old New England name of Sturgis was first planted in this country in 1630, at Yarmouth, on Cape Cod. Early in the eighteenth century the family removed to Barnstable, also on the Cape, where the old homestead yet stands. As shipmas- ters and merchants they helped to create the China and East India trade, and were identified with it for several generations. Captain Thomas Sturgis, the grandfather of the subject of this sketch, was one of the first American seamen to double the Cape of Good Hope and raise the American flag in the China Sea. He was the leader of the people of Barnstable in a successful defense against the British ships in the War of 1812, and later, at the request of General Washington, brought to this country from France in his ship the Marquis de la Motier, the young son of Lafayette. His son William, born in 1806, became a leading wholesale merchant and importer of dry-goods in this city. He married Elizabeth Knight Hinckley, also a member of an old New England family, which settled on Cape Cod early in the sev- enteenth century. One of her ancestors was Governor of the Bay Colony (Massachusetts) in colonial times, both before and after the administration of the English Governor, Sir Edmund Andros.
Thomas Sturgis, son of William and Elizabeth Sturgis, was born in this city on April 30, 1846, and was educated in the public schools, chiefly at Grammar School No. 40, in East Twen- tieth Street. Following the bent of his father, he became, at the age of sixteen, a clerk in a wholesale dry-goods house. The Civil War was then in progress, but being too young to go to the front, he joined the Twenty-second Regiment, New York State Militia (then just organized by Colonel Lloyd Aspinwall),
337
338
THOMAS STURGIS
to get some preliminary training. In the spring of 1864, how- ever, when eighteen, he entered the army, and served until the end of the war. He received from Governor Andrew of Massa- chusetts a commission as first lieutenant and adjutant of the Sixtieth Regiment, Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, and was post-adjutant in charge of the prison for Confederate soldiers at Camp Morton, near Indianapolis, Indiana, in the summer and autumn of 1864. On the muster out of this regiment, he was commissioned first lieutenant in the Fifty-seventh Regiment, Massachusetts Volunteers, then commanded by Brigadier-Gen- eral N. B. McLaughlen. With this officer he served in various staff positions as aide-de-camp and assistant adjutant-general, at brigade and division headquarters in the Ninth Army Corps. He was taken prisoner at the battle of Fort Steadman, before Petersburg, Virginia, and was confined in Libby Prison, Rich- mond, was exchanged, and served in the army until the troops were disbanded in the summer of 1865.
Mr. Sturgis reëntered business in New York in 1865, but in the spring of 1868 went West and became a stock-raiser in south- west Missouri. He was general land agent of the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad for the southwest counties of that State, and, in connection with Governor Fletcher of Missouri, secured for the railroad the right of way through the Indian Territory on the thirty-fifth parallel. In 1878 he went to Cheyenne, Wyoming, and for fifteen years was engaged in farming, cattle- and sheep- raising, banking, mining, railroad, and irrigation enterprises. He helped to organize and was president of the Stock Growers' Na- tional Bank at Cheyenne, and of the Cheyenne and Northern Railroad; was for fourteen years secretary of the Wyoming Stock Growers' Association, and of the National Cattle Growers' Association. He was a member of the Upper House of the Terri- torial Legislature, and chairman of the Republican Central Com- mittee of the Territory.
In 1888 Mr. Sturgis returned for a second time to his native city, and reëntered business here. He became a general con- tractor for the construction of buildings, etc., and is prominent in that important line of business. He is also connected as director and stock-holder with the Consolidated, Knickerbocker, and American Ice companies of this city, and with the Wyo-
339
THOMAS STURGIS
ming Development Company and the Cheyenne Gas and Electric Light Company. He was appointed a civil-service commissioner of this city by Mayor Strong in 1896, and later in the same year fire commissioner, holding the latter office until the end of Mayor Strong's administration. In May, 1899, Governor Roosevelt appointed him a member of the reorganized board of managers of the New York State Reformatory at Elmira, of which board he was elected president.
Mr. Sturgis is a member of the Military Order of the Loyal Legion and the Grand Army of the Republic, of the Union League, Republican, and New York Athletic clubs, the Century Association, the Down-Town Association, the New England So- ciety, and the Theodore Roosevelt Republican Club of the Twen- tieth Assembly District of this city. He was married, on June 9, 1880, to Miss Helen Rutgers Weir of this city, and has four children : Thomas, Jr., Helen Rutgers, William Bayard, and Reginald Hinckley.
Mr. Sturgis helped to frame and secure the enactment of the Animal Industry Law, under which a bureau of that name was created in the Agricultural Department at Washington. He drafted and secured the passage of the Animal Industry Law of Wyoming. He was a member of the Citizens' Committee of Twenty-five which investigated the primary election frauds at the time of Mayor Strong's election. He organized the McKin- ley League of the Twentieth Assembly District in February, 1896, and was a member of the Republican County Committee. His firm built the first large, modern, model tenement-houses in this city in 1897, on West Sixty-eighth and Sixty-ninth streets.
EDWARD ARTHUR SUMNER
E DWARD ARTHUR SUMNER comes of old New England stock. On the side of his father, John A. Sumner, his ancestors came from Kent and Oxfordshire, England, their his- tory dating back to the times of the Plantagenets. To the Revolutionary army the family contributed Major Job Sumner of the Massachusetts line, Colonel John Sumner of the Connec- ticut line, and more than a score more soldiers. Later members have been Governor Increase Sumner of Massachusetts, Senator Charles Sumner, General Edwin V. Sumner, U. S. A., General Samuel S. Sumner, U. S. A., Captain George Sumner, U. S. N., Colonel Edwin M. Sumner, U. S. A., and Governor George Sumner of Connecticut. On the side of his mother, Helen Brooks, Mr. Sumner is descended from Baron John Moulton, who went to England with William the Conqueror and fought at Hastings.
The subject of this sketch was born at Rome, New York, on November 3, 1856. His early years were spent in the West, where his father was a successful banker. He was prepared for college at the Middletown (Connecticut) High School, and in 1878 was graduated at Wesleyan University, Middletown, with the degree of A. B., and with special honors in oratory and history. He has since received the degree of A. M. from the same uni- versity. For five years after graduation he was principal of the Gildersleeve Portland School, in the meantime studying law. In 1882 he passed his examinations and was admitted to practice at the bar of Connecticut. He continued, however, his studies under the direction of Justice Culver of the Supreme Court of Connecticut, until, in 1885, he was admitted to the bar of New
340
341
EDWARD ARTHUR SUMNER
York. On March 5, 1889, he was admitted to practice at the bar of the Supreme Court of the United States.
Mr. Sumner practised law for a time in the West, and then settled in New York. He has made a specialty of commercial and corporation law, and is esteemed one of the ablest trial law- yers and advocates at the New York bar in that important department. Among his noteworthy cases was that of the National Oil Company vs. the St. Paul Gas Light Company, before the United States Circuit Court, for breach of contract involving five million gallons of crude oil. He won the case for his clients, and secured the largest damages ever given in a case of that sort. His entry into the United States Supreme Court was effected as counsel in the John Blair railway cases. Mr. Sumner has also been counsel for the Sir Thomas J. Lipton fund for the relief of sick and wounded American soldiers in the Spanish War. He has received from Sir Thomas, in recognition of his services, an exquisite gold case, inlaid with the colors of the Royal Ulster Yacht Club, and those of the yacht Shamrock, which Sir Thomas built as a contestant for the America's Cup in 1899.
Mr. Sumner is a Republican in politics, and has frequently gone upon the stump in political campaigns, but has held no public office. He belongs to the New York State Bar Association, the Calumet, New York Yacht, New York Athletic, West Side Republican, and Marine and Field clubs, the Psi Upsilon fra- ternity, the New England Society of New York, and the Sons of the American Revolution.
He was married, on November 29, 1885, to Miss Martha Dick- enson of Northampton, Massachusetts, who has borne him three children : Robert Brooks Sumner, now deceased, Richard Erle Sumner, and Margaret Helen Sumner.
EDWARD THOMPSON
E DWARD THOMPSON, son of John and Ann Thompson, is a native of the north of Ireland, where his father fol- lowed the occupation of a builder. He was born on August 21, 1845, and was educated in the schools of his native land and of New York, to which city he came in his fifteenth year. His early inclinations were toward a mechanical trade, and he began to learn that of a machinist, with no other expectation than to follow it all his life. An accident, however, made a complete change in his affairs.
He had been studying and working at the machinists' trade for about three years when he was severely injured by an acci- dent, and had to be taken to a hospital. The hospital chanced to be St. Luke's, with which the Rev. Dr. Muhlenberg was iden- tified. Mr. Thompson made Dr. Muhlenberg's acquaintance, and was so strongly attracted to him that, on recovery from his inju- ries, he remained at the hospital in attendance upon him for several years. In 1867 he left the hospital and went to the St. Johnland Home, on Long Island, which had been founded by Dr. Muhlenberg. There he filled the place of outdoor superin- tendent for a number of years.
Mr. Thompson remained at St. Johnland until 1882, when he became interested in the publication of law-books, and estab- lished himself in that business at Northport, New York. The business was highly successful, and, now known as the Edward Thompson Company, incorporated, it ranks among the largest concerns of the kind in the world. He also interested himself in oyster culture and fisheries, which play so important a part in the industries of Long Island. He became the president of what is probably the largest oystering company on Long Island. In
342
Edward Thompson
343
EDWARD THOMPSON
1885 he began the erection of fish hatcheries, including houses, pounds, etc., at Smithtown, Long Island, and later organized what is known as the Rasapeague Club, on the Nisuguage River. This club, which is limited to eight members, has a fine, large club-house.
His prominence as a business man naturally led to his partici- pation in local affairs of public moment. He was chosen Excise Commissioner, and also Assessor, of the town of Huntington, Long Island, and then President of the village of Northport. His interest in and expert knowledge of fish and fisheries also led to his appointment, on April 4, 1895, as one of the five Fish- eries, Game, and Forest Commissioners of the State of New York, which place he continues to fill. He has sought no other public or political places, but has preferred to devote his attention to business interests and to the welfare of the community of which he is so conspicuous a member.
Mr. Thompson is at the head of the Edward Thompson Com- pany, publishers of law-books, above mentioned ; president of the board of directors of the Northport Yacht Club; president of the Northport Electric Light Company, the Northport Steam- boat Company, and the Northport Real Estate and Improve- ment Company; and director in the Northport Bank, and in the Northport Oyster Company. Other organizations with which he is identified are : the Wyandauch Club of Smithtown, Long Island ; the Albany Club of Albany, New York ; the New York State Society for the Protection of Game; Manhattan Lodge, Free and Accepted Masons, No. 62, of New York, and Asharoken Chapter, U. D., of Northport.
He was married, in 1874, to Miss Sarah M. Buchanan, who has borne him one child, a daughter.
JOHN QUINCY UNDERHILL
THE family of Underhill has for many years been numerous, important, and honored in various parts of the United States. It was originally settled in this country in the New England colonies. Some generations ago, however, a branch of it was by easy transition planted in Westchester County, New York, with ramifications in New York city, Brooklyn, and Long Island. In Westchester County it remains to-day one of the most widely known and honored families. The first of the name in this country was Captain John Underhill. He came hither from England in 1630 and settled in New England, though he appears also to have spent some time in New York and to have extended his energies thither, for he was a leader of the New York as well as the New England colonists in various wars with the hostile Indians. His children and their descendants intermarried with many of the prominent families of New Eng- land and New York, and gradually became scattered throughout all the colonies.
One of the direct descendants of John Underhill, in the seventh generation, was George W. L. Underhill. He belonged to the branch of the family which had some generations before settled in Westchester County, New York. He himself lived in that county, and was a farmer and the proprietor of a village " general store." In Westchester County, especially at New Rochelle and elsewhere in that region, are many families of French Huguenot and Holland Dutch origin. Miss Julia A. Barker, who became the wife of George Underhill, united in herself both those estimable strains of blood. The couple lived, after their marriage, at New Rochelle.
To George W. L. and Julia Underhill was born, at New Ro-
344
EL qua
345
JOHN QUINCY UNDERHILL
chelle, on February 19, 1848, a son, to whom they gave the name of John Quincy Underhill. Designing him for a business or pro- fessional career, they sent him to the best local schools at New Rochelle and elsewhere in Westchester County, and afterward to the Free Academy in New York, now known as the College of the City of New York. In those institutions he obtained an excellent general education, of an eminently practical character.
His first business experience was gained as a clerk in the office of the Westchester Fire Insurance Company. With this insti- tution he remained, rising steadily, step by step, through pro- motion for merit, until he became secretary of the company. That place he held with acceptability for twenty years. Then he was made vice-president and treasurer of the same company, and still, after ten years' tenure, fills those places. In addi- tion, he has for some time been prominently connected with the Bank of New Rochelle.
Mr. Underhill has always taken an earnest interest in public affairs as a citizen, though he has not sought any public office. He has accepted, however, election to various offices which his fellow-citizens thought he could fill to their advantage. Thus he has been a Commissioner of Sewers in New Rochelle, mem- ber of the Board of Education, village trustee, and President of the village. In the fall of 1898 he was elected a Representative in Congress, as a Democrat, from the Sixteenth District of the State of New York.
Mr. Underhill is a member of a number of social organizations of high character, among which may be mentioned the Man- hattan and Democratic clubs of New York city, the New York Athletic Club, the Larchmont Yacht Club, and the New Ro- chelle Yacht Club. He is well known throughout Westchester County and in New York, and is everywhere esteemed as a rep- resentative business man and citizen of the best type. He was married, in 1872, to Miss Minnie B. Price of Sag Harbor, Long Island, New York. They have an only child, Anna Barker Un- derhill.
GEORGE URBAN, JR.
MONG the active leaders of the commercial life of western New York a conspicuous place is held by George Urban, Jr., of Buffalo. His father, formerly the head of the firm of Urban & Co., who retired from active business affairs in 1885, was one of the pioneers in the flour and milling trade of Buffalo. For more than half a century the name of that firm has been widely and honorably known in the flour trade of the country, and has indeed been a veritable household word.
George Urban, Jr., was born on July 12, 1850, in a house just opposite the Urban Mill, in Buffalo. He was educated in the public schools of his native city, thoroughly, and with a view to the practical business use of his acquirements. His ambition was to follow after his father in commercial and industrial life. With this end in view he entered, at the age of eighteen, his father's office, where he showed marked aptitude for the busi- ness. He mastered its details, and acquired a comprehensive grasp of it in both the manufacturing and commercial directions. Two years later, in 1870, he was made a member of the firm, and soon became a potent force in the direction of its affairs. For many years he was his father's partner, and identified himself fully with the sound and conservative yet enterprising and pro- gressive methods which had contributed to his father's great success. In 1885 the elder Mr. Urban retired from the firm, and his son became his successor as the active head of it.
The duties of this business have not by any means monopolized Mr. Urban's untiring energies. He has been prominent in many of the undertakings which have contributed to Buffalo's great- ness and to the development of the western part of the Empire State. Thus he is president of the Buffalo Loan, Trust and
346
groveland
2
347
GEORGE URBAN, JR.
Safe Deposit Company; of the Cataract Power and Conduit Company of Buffalo, which has in charge the distribution in Buffalo of power derived from the Niagara River; and of the Buffalo and Niagara Falls Electric Light and Power Company of Niagara Falls, New York; and he is a director of the Mer- chants' Bank of Buffalo; of the Bank of Buffalo; of the Buffalo German Insurance Company; of the Buffalo Commercial In- surance Company; of the Ellicott Signal Company; and of the Pan-American Exposition Company of Buffalo. Promptly appreciating the possibilities of electrical power and light- ing, he identified himself with various corporations having the development thereof in view. He is now vice-president of the Buffalo General Electric Company, and a director of the Buffalo Railway Company, and the Depew Improvement Com- pany. To all these enterprises he has given much attention and labor, and his connection with them has been marked with the intelligence, enterprise, judgment, and integrity which always deserve success and generally command it.
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.