USA > New York > New York State's prominent and progressive men : an encyclopaedia of contemporaneous biography, Volume II > Part 5
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On coming to New York city, Mr. Calvin soon became asso- ciated with the late Judge O'Gorman and Henry B. Anderson in some important municipal litigation, and he secured a conspicu- ous place among the lawyers of the metropolis. In April, 1876, he was appointed surrogate to fill a vacancy caused by the death of Surrogate Van Schaick, and in the following fall was elected to fill out the unexpired term, lasting until the end of 1881. In that office it was his lot to hear and dispose of many important cases, including the Stewart, Vanderbilt, Leslie, Merrill, Dickey,
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Seaman, Dancer, and Marks will cases, and the Astor, Gardiner, Stevens, Whitney, and Carman accountings. His official opin- ions in these and other cases fill much space in the legal reports, and are deemed standard and important law literature. Of them that eminent lawyer and critic, the late Austin Abbott, said : "They bear the impress not only of experience and clear insight into the questions discussed, but of great terseness and facility of expression, seldom found in judicial discussions. They are models of composition, as well as reliable precedents on all ques- tions which they discuss." Soon after his retirement from the bench, one hundred and seventy-five representative members of the New York bar gave him, in May, 1881, a dinner at Delmonico's, in order that they might thus express their high estimation of his judicial and personal character, and their commendation of " the ability, impartiality, and efficiency with which he had discharged his official duties." He has not been an active partizan, but has been a steadfast member of the Demo- cratic party.
Mr. Calvin was married, in June, 1852, to Mary Elizabeth Mer- rell of Watertown. She died in April, 1877, and two years later he was married to his second wife, Eliza Ann Weaver of New York. She died in September, 1886. He had no children by either marriage. Mr. Calvin has never been a club man, object- ing to such organizations on principle as detrimental to domestic interests. He is, however, a member of the Church Club, of the executive committee of the Church Temperance Society, and of the State and American Bar Association. He is a prominent and active member of the Protestant Episcopal Church. In June, 1881, he received the honorary degree of LL. D. from Hobart College.
JOHN CASTREE
MONG the numerous citizens of New York city of Irish origin there may have been some more conspicuously brought before the public eye, but there have been few, if any, of more sterling worth to the home of their adoption than John Castree.
Fintona, County Tyrone, Ireland, was his birthplace, where he first saw the light on February 17, 1811. His mother died in his infancy. His father, who had been a colonel in the British army, came over some years later and spent the rest of his life here. John was only three years old when he was brought to New York under his grandmother's care. He got his education in the public schools, and entered the grocery store of his uncle, James Beatty, as an errand-boy.
When he came to years of manhood he purchased the store from his uncle and conducted it on his own account. It was at the corner of Washington and Jay streets. After a time he moved it to the corner of Hudson and North Moore streets, then near the heart of the fashionable part of the city. He prospered greatly in his business, and presently began to look about for other channels into which to direct his energies. He invested in real estate, and then turned his attention to insurance and banking. The latter businesses were then just coming into importance in this country. The great fire of 1835 gave an impetus to insurance, for, while it nearly ruined the existing companies, it showed the need of a more extensive and stronger system of insurance. Mr. Castree became a stock-holder and also a director in the Irving, Globe, Commercial, and other com- panies. Of the last-named he was president, and when, in his administration, it voluntarily went out of existence, he wound
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up its affairs by paying dollar for dollar on all it owed, and left a handsome surplus to be distributed among the stock-holders. He was also president of the Irving Bank for some years.
The most important business connection of his life, however, was his presidency of the Irving Savings Institution. He man- aged its affairs with rare discretion and success, and made it not merely a sound business establishment, but in a high sense a benevolent institution. It was his pleasure to encourage habits of thrift in young men, and in doing so he started many a young man on a career of prosperity. He was also a member of the Society of Mechanics and Tradesmen, and of the Mercantile Exchange, and was deeply interested in the Metropolitan Mu- seum of Art.
Mr. Castree was a profoundly religious man. At the age of fourteen he was converted at the old John Street Methodist Episcopal Church, to which his grandmother belonged, and on November 29, 1828, he was received as a member of the Duane Street Church of the same faith, where he was a singer in the choir. In 1831 he left the church with many other members, and founded the Greene Street Church, where he was prominent in Sunday-school work. Two years later he removed his member- ship to the Vesey Street Church, and remained in it all the rest of his life, going with it to Seventh Avenue near Fourteenth Street, where it was known as the Central Methodist Church, and is now the Metropolitan Tabernacle. Besides his proficiency as a choir singer, he was a fine performer on the flute, violin, and violoncello.
He was twice married. His first wife was Clarissa Baldwin, daughter of Timothy Baldwin of Connecticut. He was married to her at Newark, New Jersey, in 1837, and she died in 1850, leaving him three daughters and one son, all of whom are now living. In 1855 he was married to Louisa Lynch. She died in 1888, and thereafter his own health rapidly failed. He died at his home in West Nineteenth Street, on September 11, 1890.
HardB. Chamberlin.
WARD BRYAN CHAMBERLIN
THE family of Chamberlin, or at least that particular family of that name which is under present consideration, was planted in this country two and a quarter centuries ago. That long space of time has, however, been spanned by only four generations, of which the fourth is still in strong middle age.
The progenitor of it was Jehu Chamberlin, who came hither from England in the year 1675. He was the great-grandfather of the subject of this sketch. Jehu Chamberlin had a son to whom he gave the name of Judah, and Judah Chamberlin in turn had a son to whom he gave the name of Calvin.
Calvin Chamberlin, a man of great versatility of talents and force of character, lived at Amenia, Dutchess County, New York, one of the most charming regions in the eastern United States, adapted alike to action and repose, to the pursuits of industry and to the contemplative retirement of the philosopher. Calvin Chamberlin, being a man both of thought and of action, appreci- ated all these qualities of his chosen home. He was in turn an inventor, a manufacturer, and a farmer, the broad fields of Dutchess County affording an unsurpassed opportunity for the latter pursuit. He entered business pursuits at an early age, and, while still a comparatively young man, amassed a fine for- tune, and thereupon retired from active business. With his wife, formerly Miss Charlotte Finch, he made his home at Amenia, amid ideal environments of wealth, taste, and beauty.
Ward Bryan Chamberlin, son of Calvin and Charlotte Cham- berlin, and in the third generation from Jehu Chamberlin, was born at Amenia, Dutchess County, New York, on June 25, 1843. His father's means and tastes, and his own aptitude, secured him an admirable education. This was acquired at various institu-
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tions, including the Pittsfield Institute, at Pittsfield, Massachu- setts; the Alger Institute, in Connecticut; the old college on College Hill, Poughkeepsie, New York; the University of the City of New York, now New York University; and the Law School of the last-named university.
The profession chosen by Mr. Chamberlin is indicated by the character of the institute in which his scholastic training was completed. Upon being graduated from the University Law School, he was promptly admitted to the bar, and has ever since been engaged in the practice of his profession. He has been in all these years a steady and hard worker, and has attained a goodly measure of that success which such efforts merit. The law firm of Ward B. & George F. Chamberlin, of which he is the head, with offices at No. 31 Nassau Street, New York, enjoys a large and lucrative practice, especially in matters pertaining to real estate - in New York one of the most important branches of the profession. The Messrs. Chamberlin are members of the Lawyers' Title Insurance Company, and are among its examin- ing counsel. They are also legal advisers to numerous estates, and other properties, owned by individuals and corporations.
Mr. Chamberlin has never been a "club-man " in the com- mon meaning of that term. He is, however, connected with a number of professional and social organizations of the best class.
He was married, in 1871, to Miss Elizabeth F. Barker, a daughter of James W. Barker, a retired merchant of New York. Their only child, Ward Bryan Chamberlin, Jr., is, at the date of this sketch, a student in Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey.
S. S. Clarkcom
JAMES SULLIVAN CLARKSON
J AMES SULLIVAN CLARKSON comes of English stock, traced back to the fifteenth century. He is of the same family as Thomas Clarkson, the English abolitionist, and also the Clarksons of Wiesbach, Cambridgeshire, several of whom were at different times in the faculty of Cambridge University. The Clarksons came to the United States in 1778, settling first in New Hampshire and afterward in Maine, where Coker F. Clarkson was born. He married Elizabeth Goudie, who was born in Brownville, Pennsylvania, of Scotch-Irish extrac- tion, and in 1820 moved to Brookville, Indiana, where, on May 17, 1842, their son, J. S. Clarkson, was born. At the age of twelve, having already worked at the printer's trade in the office of the "Indiana American," owned by his father, the boy removed with his father to a farm in Iowa. His education was gained in his father's Indiana newspaper office, and in the country schools of the Iowa prairies. He afterward taught school in Iowa for three winters.
From earliest boyhood Mr. Clarkson was an ardent abolitionist, and, while his father was a pro-slavery Whig, the son maintained on the farm a station of the "underground railway," aiding many slaves to escape to Canada. Three times, in 1861-62, he enlisted in the Union Army, but was rejected on account of a weakness of the lungs.
In 1866 he went to Des Moines as a printer in the office of the "State Register." In 1867 he became the paper's city editor, in 1868 the managing editor, and in 1870 proprietor, in part- nership with his brother, R. P. Clarkson. He edited the paper until 1889. Mr. Clarkson strongly advocated negro suffrage, and
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was the author of the plank in the platform in which Iowa, first of all the States, enfranchised the negro.
He was chairman of the Republican State Committee in 1869- 70; delegate at large from Iowa in the Republican National Conventions of 1880, 1884, 1888, 1892, and 1896, and became a member of the National Committee in 1884, to which place he was reelected three times. He was vice-chairman of the com- mittee in 1889, and chairman in 1890-92, and was on the executive committee during the entire sixteen years of his service. He was president of the Republican National League in 1891, and was reelected in 1892.
Mr. Clarkson organized and constructed the St. Louis and Des Moines Railway (since merged in the Wabash system), the Des Moines Northwestern, the Des Moines and Northern, and the Des Moines and Albia, since consolidated with the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Company. These companies, of all of which he was president, constructed three hundred and eighteen miles of railroad. He also organized and raised the capital for several large manufacturing corporations in Iowa.
Mr. Clarkson has steadily declined nominations for Congress, or any other elective office. He was appointed postmaster of Des Moines in 1870, but resigned before his term was out. He has declined no less than five foreign missions. At President Harrison's personal request, he accepted temporarily the position of First Assistant Postmaster-General in 1889, resigning after twenty months' service.
Mr. Clarkson is now a resident of New York, and has been for five years the president of the New York and New Jersey Bridge Company, which is to construct a bridge over the Hudson River at West Fifty-ninth Street.
Mr. Clarkson's wife was Miss Anna Howell, a native of Ohio. They have three sons, two of whom were educated at Harvard College. Mr. Clarkson has published two works in fiction, and is collecting material for a history of the United States west of the Mississippi River. He has also gathered much material for a history of printing and newspapers in America.
6. Strand lesz
ELMORE FRANK COE
T THE Coe family, long settled and well known in Connecticut, and in recent generations equally prominent in New York and Brooklyn, and in other parts of the United States, is of English origin. Its pioneers in this country came across the At- lantic in the sixteenth century, and settled in the then colony of Connecticut. With the interests and developments of that colony the family was actively identified, and it has since played a worthy part in the social and industrial affairs of the State.
In the early part of the present century Enoch Coe, a member of this family, was a prosperous farmer, living at Middlefield, Connecticut. He married Mary Birdsey, the daughter of another family well known in Connecticut history, and to them was born the subject of this sketch.
Elmore Frank Coe was born at Middlefield, on October 10, 1828, and received a good education in the schools of his native State. His early life was spent upon his father's farm, where he obtained a practical knowledge of agricultural matters which was of great service to him in the mercantile and manufacturing enterprises of his after life. For some time he utilized his own fine scholarship in teaching school in Connecticut. But before reaching his thirtieth year he decided upon pursuing a business career, and came to New York city to begin his enterprise.
His chosen field of business operations was the then compar- atively new but important one of manufacturing agricultural fertilizers. In this undertaking he was one of the pioneers. The house of E. Frank Coe, which he founded in 1857 for the manu- facture and sale of fertilizers, was one of the first in this country, and it speedily became and remained one of the foremost. Its goods attained a wide sale throughout the United States and did
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much to establish commercial fertilizers in the favor of farmers and gardeners. It has been said that Mr. Coe personally attained the greatest success known in the records of that trade. He combined within himself a thorough and practical knowledge of the business and its requirements, an indomitable and untiring energy, and a sterling integrity which literally made "his word as good as his bond " wherever he was known. To adapt a hack- neyed phrase, his enterprise filled a want which had already been long felt, and which was more and more keenly felt as time went on. The result was a career of high and unbroken prosperity. Mr. Coe remained in active control of the business he had founded for more than a third of a century. Then, in 1892, he retired from it to enjoy a well-earned rest, leaving the enterprise to be continued by the E. Frank Coe Company, which he had organ- ized for the purpose.
Mr. Coe made his home in Brooklyn, and was largely identified with the interests of that city. He was for many years a director of the First National Bank of Brooklyn. He had a large country estate, known as the Oakmere Stock Farm, at New Windsor, in Orange County, New York, one of the most famous horse-raising regions of the United States. There he kept a large number of fine trotting horses, and was an excellent judge of their qualities.
In New York Mr. Coe was a member of the Republican Club, the New England Society, the Board of Trade, and the Produce Exchange.
He was married, in 1860, in Philadelphia, to Miss Emma Harmstead. He died, literally "full of years and honors,"- the honors of friendship and esteem as well as of eminent success,- on October 8, 1895.
oway Estiloway lon
ELMORE HOLLOWAY COE
THE old Connecticut family of Coe, which was planted in that colony in the sixteenth century by colonists from England, is now widely distributed throughout various States of the Union, and for at least two generations has been well represented in the metropolis. Two generations ago the branch with which we are now concerned was settled at Middlefield, near Middletown, in the south-central part of the State of Connecticut, its head being Enoch Coe, a typical New England farmer of the old thrifty, intelligent school. To him and his wife was born a son who was named Elmore Frank Coe, and who became first a school-teacher and afterward one of the pioneers of the trade in manufactured agricultural fertilizers. Elmore Frank Coe spent most of his life in New York and Brooklyn, where he made his home and conducted his extensive business. He married Miss Emma Harmstead, who bore to him, at their Brooklyn home, a son, to whom they gave the name of Elmore Holloway Coe.
The latter, who is now the head of the family and of the great business with which the family is identified, was born on September 17, 1867, about ten years after his father had estab- lished his business interests in New York. He was educated in New York and Brooklyn, and then, in 1885, at the age of eighteen years, entered his father's office as an employee. There he familiarized himself thoroughly with general business methods, and with the special features and requirements of the fertilizer and manufacturing industry. In time he became his father's partner, and a member and officer of the E. Frank Coe Company when that corporation was organized to take the place of the old firm, in 1892. At that time, upon his father's retire-
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ment from active participation in the affairs of the house, he became practically the head of the corporation, and upon his father's death, in October, 1895, he succeeded him as its presi- dent. This place he still holds, and administers its duties with a high degree of success.
This house was established in 1857, and from a very small beginning has enjoyed a steady and healthy growth until now it is known as one of the leading houses in this line in the world. It may be said that the name "Coe" in connection with com- mercial fertilizers is a household word in all farming communities throughout the country. It is probably no stretch of the imagination to say that this house is generally credited with having made the greatest success in this line ever known in the trade.
Mr. Coe, Sr., who founded the house, was a very aggressive man, believing the possibilities before him almost unlimited. He was largely responsible for the introduction of commercial fertilizers in the Southern States, particularly in the cotton and sugar belt. He was one of the first to look for foreign markets, and this concern is now said to control a large share of the export fertilizer trade. The present company now pos- sesses all facilities for making fertilizers, and in addition are manufacturers of sulphuric acid, operating one of the largest and most modern sulphuric-acid plants in this country. This house never borrows a dollar or discounts a note, and thus enjoys the highest credit.
When the fertilizer combination was formed in 1899, the E. Frank Coe Company stayed out, and now conducts its busi- ness as a purely independent concern. The "Brooklyn Daily Eagle," in its issue of February 27, 1899, aptly referred to this in a special article, calling attention particularly to the fact that Mr. Coe announced his intention to carry on the busi- ness started by his father on the same independent lines as heretofore. "With one exception," said the "Eagle," "all the big fertilizer companies and firms of this vicinity have expressed their intention of entering the new combination. This exception is the E. Frank Coe Company of Barren Island, whose brands are the oldest and best known in the trade. Although efforts have been made to induce the Coe Company to enter the com-
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bination, they have been unsuccessful, and Mr. Coe has an- nounced his intention of continuing the business started by his father many years ago on the same independent lines as hereto- fore. Some time ago the fertilizer companies of the South At- lantic coast, south of Baltimore, combined, and as this has been found to have proved profitable, the northern coast companies are determined to put their business on the same paying basis, which is possible by reason of the many economies that can be brought about through the concentration of the business and re- duction of competition." The E. Frank Coe Company, however, did not worry about competition, and would not surrender its individuality, but remained an independent concern. Events have proved the wisdom of this course.
Mr. Coe has given his attention so largely to this business that he has not identified himself conspicuously with any other enterprise. Neither has he concerned himself in political affairs further than to discharge the duties of a citizen.
He inherits his father's fondness for fine horses, and is the owner and driver of a number of exceptionally good trotters of blooded pedigree.
Mr. Coe is a member of the Union League Club of New York.
CHARLES A. COLLIN
"THE prosperous and beautiful rural region of Benton, Yates County, in the lake country of western New York, was the native place of Charles A. Collin, a farmer's son. He was born there about fifty years ago, and was the second in age of six sons. The father was a fine type of the prosperous, intelli- gent, and ambitious farmer. Consequently, while the boys spent most of their early life upon the farm, accustoming themselves to its work, they also enjoyed the best educational facilities obtainable, and were all sent, one after the other, to Yale Uni- versity, and were all graduated from that institution.
Charles A. Collin was graduated from Yale in the class of 1866. He then followed the common course, and himself be- came, for a time, a teacher. For four years he taught in the Free Academy at Norwich, Connecticut, at the same time him- self studying law. In the spring of 1870 he was admitted to the bar of New London County, Connecticut, and at that time gave up school-teaching and prepared to devote his whole at- tention to the practice of his profession.
He did not, however, practice it at the place where he was first licensed to do so. On the contrary, he returned to New York State, settled at Elmira, and in the fall of 1870 was there admitted to the bar. For seventeen years thereafter he prac- tised law at Elmira with eminent success.
In 1887 a material change came over his affairs. He was then engaged as special counsel to the Governor of the State, the Governor at that time being his Elmira neighbor and friend, David B. Hill. He thus served all through the remainder of Governor Hill's administration, and also through that of his
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CHARLES A. COLLIN
successor, Governor Flower, his incumbency of that place end- ing in 1894.
At about the same time, in 1887, Mr. Collin was chosen to be a professor of law in the newly founded Law School of Cornell University, at Ithaca, New York. Two years later he was ap- pointed one of the Commissioners of Statutory Legislation by the Governor of the State, and performed the duties of that im- portant place until the change of administration at the end of 1894. In the spring of the following year, 1895, he resigned his professorship at Cornell University in order to come to New York city and devote all his attention to the practice of the law on a more important scale than thitherto.
Mr. Collin, on coming to New York, entered into a partnership with William F. Sheehan, who had formerly been Lieutenant- Governor of the State, when Mr. Hill was Governor, and with whom Mr. Collin had become closely acquainted at Albany while he was special counsel to the Governor. The firm of Sheehan & Collin was formed, with offices at No. 32 Nassau Street, New York. It has since had a highly prosperous career, its practice being largely in railroad and other corporation law. The firm is counsel for a number of important corporations.
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