USA > New York > New York state's prominent and progressive men : an encyclopaedia of contemporaneous biography, Volume III > Part 13
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Dr. Robert Hunter, the subject of this sketch, was of the English branch of the family, and was a lineal descendant of Governor Hunter. His father, Dr. James Hunter, an English physician and surgeon, with his wife, Elizabeth Story Hunter, and a young family, removed to Canada in 1826. Dr. Hunter
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became an influential member of the Reform party of Upper Canada, and entered actively into the struggle to obtain respon- sible government, which culminated in the rebellion of 1837. Himself suspected of complicity, Dr. Hunter was arrested and tried for high treason, but was honorably acquitted of the charge. Disgusted with his Canadian experience, he moved to Lewiston, Niagara County, New York, and became an American citizen. Three of his sons were educated to the profession of medicine.
The youngest, Robert, was born at Heaton Hall, near York, England, on June 14, 1826. He attended school in Geneva, New York, and began his medical studies under his father. He was graduated from the Medical College of the University of the City of New York, March 4, 1846, and went from it to London and Paris for additional study. Returning to New York city, he established himself in a practice which he continued uninter- ruptedly for over fifty years.
He was always a radical and an original thinker on medical subjects, and as early as 1850 openly repudiated the then uni- versally accepted theory of consumption as an inherited disease of the blood and the general system, contending, on the con- trary, that it was a local disease of the lungs acquired by colds. He wrote a number of papers and monographs on lung diseases, and established and edited the "Specialists' Journal of Diseases of the Chest."
He introduced the practice of inhalation as the only rational means of reaching the lungs with healing remedies, and invented the first inhaling instrument ever employed for that purpose in the profession. For forty years he gave his exclusive attention to the lungs and their diseases, and had a record of over sixty thousand cases treated by him. Since 1890 all of his doctrines have been accepted, and are now taught in the medical schools of all civilized countries.
Dr. Hunter was married, in 1846, to Miss Sarah Barton, daugh- ter of the Rev. King Barton. They had a family of eight sons and four daughters, all but five of whom survive. Dr. Hunter died in 1899.
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E. Francis Style
E. FRANCIS HYDE
E. FRANCIS HYDE, lawyer and financier, is descended from New England colonial stock. His first American ancestors were William Hyde, who was one of the first settlers of Hartford, Connecticut, in 1650, and, on the maternal side, John Mead, an early settler at Greenwich, Connecticut, in 1660. His great-grandfather Captain James Hyde was an officer of Connecticut troops in the Revolution, and was a grandson of Samuel Lothrop, commander of a Connecticut regiment at the siege and capture of Louisburg. Mr. Hyde's maternal grand- father, Ralph Mead, with whom his father was associated in business, was one of the foremost New York merchants of his time.
Mr. Hyde was born in New York on June 23, 1842, the son of Edwin Hyde, and was educated partly in New York and partly at Middletown, Connecticut. He was graduated from the New York Free Academy, or College of the City of New York, in 1861, and then entered the Law School of Columbia College. In the interval between his two years in the Law School he served for three months in the United States Army, in Virginia. He was graduated in 1863, and entered the law office of Enoch L. Fancher, where he remained for five years. By that time he had built up a large practice, and he formed a partnership with his brother Clarence M. Hyde, which lasted for many years and was marked with much prosperity in legal practice, particularly in matters pertaining to corporations, stocks, wills, and estates.
After a long career at the bar Mr. Hyde turned his attention partly to finance. He was in 1886 elected a vice-president of the Central Trust Company, and since that time has devoted
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himself largely to its affairs. The Central Trust Company, of which he has now for so many years been an officer, is well known as one of the foremost financial concerns in New York.
In addition to his ardnous business undertakings, Mr. Hyde has long taken an active and beneficent interest in musical matters, and has been a valued patron of high-class orchestral music. Since 1854 he has been an attendant at the concerts of the New York Philharmonie Society, and since 1888 he has been president of that admirable organization. He is also a fellow of the Philharmonic Society of London, being probably the only American who has been elected to that honor. He has accumulated one of the choicest musical libraries in America, and at the semi-centennial anniversary of the Philharmonic Society in 1892 he delivered a noteworthy address upon the society and its work, in the Metropolitan Opera House in New York. Theodore Thomas in 1896 orchestrated and dedicated to Mr. Hyde one of Bach's violin sonatas, and the composition was played by the Philharmonie Society with much approval in the following season.
Mr. Hyde has paid much attention to benevolent and religious work. Nearly thirty years ago he was chosen an elder in the Presbyterian Church, and he is now a member of the Presby- terian Board of Church Erection, and of the New York Sabbath Committee, a manager of the American Bible Society, and a trustee and treasurer of the Princeton Theological Seminary. He is likewise identified with numerous social organizations, including among others the Metropolitan, Riding, Union League, Republican, City, and Down-Town clubs of New York, the Century Association, the Bar Association, the Order of the Sons of the Revolution, and the Society of Colonial Wars.
Mr. Hyde was married, in 1868, to Miss Marie E. Brown, daughter of Albert N. Brown, a prominent merchant of New York.
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Charles C. Kalfbrick
CHARLES CONOVER KALBFLEISCH
T THE old doctrine of the perseverance of the saints finds a worldly parallel in the perseverance of racial types and names. The original Dutch settlers of New Amsterdam were few in number and conservative in manner. One might have thought they would be quickly submerged, and lost in the vast flood of English and others who presently flocked to New York. But such was not the case. They amply held their own, and to this day, while fully Americanized in spirit and ambition, they form a distinct and most vital element of our population. Dutch families have maintained their names and individuality, and, instead of being dominated by the more numerous masses of other nationalities about them, have impressed themselves indel- ibly upon the city and its life and institutions. There is no element of our much-mixed nation, and especially of the su- premely cosmopolitan city of New York, more worthy of note for its energy, integrity, and strength in all good works, than that which came from the sturdy little state on the shore of the North Sea.
Not many families have come hither from Holland in later years to reinforce the Old Guard of original Knickerbockers. Those few who have done so, however, amply maintain the noble char- acteristics of their predecessors. Among those who have come during the present century, and have already put the stamp of their individuality upon the society and business of their new home, one of the foremost is the family of Kalbfleisch. It was brought hither in the person of Martin Kalbfleisch of Flushing, Holland, who at the age of eighteen sailed for the Dutch East Indies in an American ship, and was thus led to seek closer ac- quaintance with this country, and finally to make it his home.
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CHARLES CONOVER KALBFLEISCH
He eame hither in 1826, being then twenty-two years old, and soon began the manufacture of chemicals in the upper part of New York city. His business outgrew its first quarters, and lie removed first to Connecticut, and then to Greenpoint, Long Island. In the latter place he established, in 1842, works which soon became one of the most important of the kind in the whole country. He made his home in Brooklyn, and was twice Mayor of that city, Representative in Congress, and one of the leaders of the city in business enterprises and in numerous movements for the public good.
Martin Kalbfleisch married Elizabeth Harvey, a lady of Eng- lish birth, and had several sons, who continued his business in the firm of Martin Kalbfleisch's Sons. One of them, Charles Henry Kalbfleisch, married Josephine Conover of New York, and had a son and a daughter. The daughter is now married to John Howard Adams of New York. The son was born in New York, on July 30, 1868, and was named Charles Conover Kalbfleisch. He was educated at Columbia University and Columbia University Law School, receiving the degrees of A. B. in 1891, A. M. in 1892, and LL. B. in 1893. He was admitted to the bar in June, 1893, and has since practised his profession with success in New York city.
Mr. Kalbfleisch has held no political office, though he takes a keen interest in eivic and national affairs. He devotes much of his attention, outside of the practice of his profession, to litera- ture, and especially to the collection of choice and rare books. He is a member of the Grolier Chib, the Dunlap Society, the Players' Club, and the Bar Association, besides, of course, the Columbia College Alumni Association. He was married at Babylon, Long Island, in October, 1897, to his cousin, Miss Maud Kalbfleisch, daughter of Franklin H. Kalbfleisch.
EDWIN STEWART KELLY
T THE family of Edwin Stewart Kelly came from Scotland and from the north of Ireland, - a stock which has contributed much of sterling worth to the upbuilding of this nation,-and has been settled for many years in Ohio. There, in Clark County, in 1824, was born Oliver Smith Kelly, the son of a farmer. The boy grew almost to manhood on the farm, becoming accustomed to the usual farm-work of those days, and then apprenticed him- self to learn the trade of a carpenter and builder. After four years of diligent apprenticeship and journeyman work, he en- gaged in the business of a carpenter, builder, and contractor on his own account, and for fourteen years pursued it with marked success and with substantial profit. For a part of this time he was settled in California, in the early years of that State, when there was a great demand for building operations of all kinds.
With the capital secured in this business Mr. Kelly then de- voted his attention to the manufacture of grain reaping-machines at a time when this latter business was developing into vast proportions. He established himself at Springfield, Ohio, founding there the Springfield Engine & Thresher Company, of which he himself became president. Later the concern was reorganized and incorporated, and took the name of the O. S. Kelly Company. Under this name it now enjoys great pros- perity. It mannfactures engines for farm use, reapers, threshers. and road-rollers. The works are extensive, and give employment to several hundred men, and have a large and valuable annual output of agricultural and other machinery.
In addition to being the head of this important industry, Oliver Smith Kelly is a large owner of real estate and buildings in Springfield, Ohio, and is interested in one of the national
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banks of that city. He is active in all directions calculated to promote the public welfare. He has been Mayor of Springfield, and has held various other public offices with marked accepta- bility. He was married, in 1847, to Miss Ruth Ann Peck of Springfield, who bore him two sons.
Edwin Stewart Kelly, the younger of these sons of Oliver Smith and Ruth Peck Kelly, was born at Springfield, Ohio, on April 17, 1857. After receiving a thorough primary and second- ary education in the local schools, he went to Wooster Univer- sity, at Wooster, Ohio, and was there graduated in the class of 1878. He determined thercupon to pursue a business rather than a professional career.
Three years after leaving college, in 1881, Mr. Kelly began business. His first enterprise was in the wholesale coal trade, and he pursued it with much success for a period of thirteen years. Then, in 1894, realizing the vast possibilities which lay in the use of india-rubber for the tires of vehicles, he turned his attention thereto and began the manufacture of solid rubber tires. It was he, more than any one else, who developed that business to its present great proportions. At the present time on carriages of all sorts in cities rubber tires are the rule and non-rubber the exception. He is now vice- president of the Consolidated Rubber Tire Company, of which Isaac L. Rice is president, at No. 40 Wall Street, New York, and devotes his time and energies to the promotion of its interests.
Mr. Kelly was married, on June 7, 1881, to Miss Martha Linn, and has four children : Ruth, Leah, Oliver, and Martha.
THOMAS BAKEWELL KERR
THE paternal ancestors of Thomas Bakewell Kerr were of Scottish origin. They came to America about the year 1740, and made their home in Northampton County, Pennsyl- vania, among not a few other fellow-Scots, who aided largely by their thrift and enterprise in developing that colony into the great State it has since become. In 1800 some members of the family, including the great-grandparents of our subject, removed from Northampton to Washington County, in the same State. In the second generation thereafter, John Kerr, born early in the present century, was educated at Washington College in 1834 became a trustee of that institution, and vice-president of the board, was for forty years a director of the Western Theo- logical Seminary of the Presbyterian Church at Allegheny, Pennsylvania, and was a leading minister of the gospel of the Presbyterian Church. He married Anne Bakewell Campbell, who was also of Scottish ancestry. She was a daughter of Dr. Alan Ditchfield Campbell, who was a son of William Camp- bell of Mauchline, Scotland, who came to America in 1798. Dr. Campbell was one of the founders of the Western Theological Seminary and a member of its faculty. His brother, William Henry Campbell, was for many years president of Rutgers Col- lege, New Brunswick, New Jersey.
Thomas Bakewell Kerr, son of the Rev. John Kerr and Anne Bakewell Kerr, was born at Monongahela City, Pennsylvania, on May 1, 1849. He was carefully educated in the primary and intermediate branches, and then was sent to the Western Uni- versity of Pennsylvania, at Pittsburg, where he was graduated in 1867. His bent being toward the law, he next became a stu- dent in the law office of Bakewell & Christy, at Pittsburg, and
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in due time was admitted to the practice of that profession at the bar, in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, in July, 1870. He remained for a little longer a law clerk in that office, and then, in 1871, was admitted to partnership in the firm, which became known thereafter as Bakewell, Christy & Kerr. Later it became Bakewell & Kerr, and was thus known from 1873 to 1887. In the last-named year Mr. Kerr became general counsel for the Westinghouse Electric Company, and in 1888 removed his office and his home from Pittsburg to New York city. Two years later he formed a partnership with Leonard E. Curtis, and resumed the general practice of the law. In the meantime he had been admitted to the bar of the United States Circuit Court in 1872, the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania in 1880, and the Supreme Court of New York State and the Supreme Court of the United States in 1890.
Mr. Kerr is, or has been, counsel for the Westinghouse Air Brake Company, the General .Electric Company, the Westing- house Electric and Manufacturing Company, the Carnegie Steel Company (Limited), the Steel Patents Company, the Standard Underground Cable Company, the Luxfer Prism Patents Com- pany, the American Dunlop Tire Company, Morgan & Wright, Flint, Eddy & Co., and various other corporations. He had charge of the Westinghouse interests in the great patent litiga- tion with the Edison Electric Company, one of the greatest cases of the kind on record.
Mr. Kerr was, in college, a member of the Phi Gamma Delta Fraternity, and now belongs to the Union League, University, and Lawyers' clubs of New York, the associations of the bar of New York and of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, the Duquesne Club of Pittsburg, and the Englewood Club and Englewood Field Club of Englewood, New Jersey. He was married, on November 9, 1871, to Miss Clara Dilworth, daughter of William Dilworth, Jr., of Pittsburg. They now have four children : Mary Mason, John Campbell (Princeton, 1896), Lois, and Clarence Dilworth (Princeton, 1901).
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FAIRFAX STUART LANDSTREET
"THE suggestion of the " Old Dominion "which is conveyed in the name of Fairfax Stuart Landstreet is fully verified in the record of him who bears it. He is a native of Virginia, and through his mother, Mary G. Landstreet, is descended from the famous old Fairfax and Lindsay families of that colony and State. His father, the Rev. John Landstreet, was a minister of the Methodist Episcopal Church South, and was a chaplain in the Confederate army in the Civil War. The Landstreet family was originally French Huguenot, and went from France to Hol- land to escape persecution. Two generations ago members of it came from Amsterdam to America and settled in Baltimore, where Mr. Landstreet's grandfather was a merchant and a sol- dier in the War of 1812.
Mr. Landstreet was born in Fauquier, Virginia, on June 17, 1861. and was educated in the schools and high schools of Balti- more, Maryland. At the age of eighteen years he entered mer- cantile life as a clerk at some coal-mines in West Virginia, owned by Messrs. Davis and Elkins. since United States Senators from that State. That was in 1879, and Mr. Landstreet has ever since maintained his connection, in some way, with Messrs. Davis and Elkins. For two years he was teller in the Davis National Bank at Piedmont, West Virginia. Then he became superintendent of Messrs. Davis and Elkins's coal-mines in West Virginia, and filled that place for a number of years prior to 1893. In the latter year he became general manager of the Davis Coal & Coke Company of West Virginia, and directed its extensive oper- ations for three years with marked success. In 1896 his duties were so extended as to give him direction of all the company's operations, including sales and shipment as well as mining and
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coking. He has continued in the successful exercise of such re- sponsibilities and powers down to the present time.
In addition to being general manager of the Davis Coal & Coke Company, Mr. Landstreet is also general manager of the West Virginia Central Railway's coal department, vice-president of the Davis National Bank of West Virginia, vice-president of the Citizens' Trust & Guaranty Company of West Virginia, secre- tary of the Buxton & Landstreet Company of West Virginia. and director in Tucker County Bank, Parsons, West Virginia. He is likewise a director of all the corporations above named, and also of the Marshall Coal & Lumber Company of West Virginia, the Kerens Coal & Coke Company of West Virginia, the Small Hopes Mining Company of Colorado, and the Lead- ville Consolidated Mining Company of Colorado.
These varied and multitudinous business interests have left Mr. Landstreet no time - even had he the inelination - for ae- tive participation in polities beyond the duties of a citizen, and accordingly he has held and has sought no publie office.
Mr. Landstreet has become a familiar figure in the business and social life of New York city, and is in it a member of the Colonial, Lawyers', and New York elubs. He also belongs to the Merchants' and Maryland clubs of Baltimore, Maryland.
He was married, in December, 1886, to Miss May Davis, daughter of William R. Davis of Piedmont, West Virginia.
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Machance & Jam
WILLIAM DANIEL LANE
P ROMINENT among the business men of New York city is William Daniel Lane, a native of the Green Mountain State. He is of English ancestry, and the son of Charles D. Lane and Anna Sandford Lane. His father was a farmer at Cornwall, Vermont, and there the subject of this sketch was born in 1855. His early education was gained at the local public school. Thenee he was sent to the high school at Middlebury, Vermont, to a seminary at Montpelier, and finally to the Burr and Burton Seminary at Manchester, Vermont, where he took a college preparatory course and was graduated in 1876.
Mr. Lane's first business pursuits were along lines similar to those of his father. He had a farm at Middlebury, where he made a specialty of growing seeds for seed dealers and for the Agricultural Department of the government at Washington. Later he became proprietor of large greenhouses at Middle- bury and at Rutland, Vermont.
About 1896 Mr. Lane devoted his attention almost exclusively to organizing, constructing, and managing semi-publie cemete- ries. He has done this somber but essential work in many large eities in the United States. He has been connected with ceme- teries in Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington, Erie, Boston. Buffalo, and Syracuse. He personally organized associations at Johnstown, New York; Gloversville, New York; Amster- dam, New York ; Coxsackie Station, New York; Glens Falls. New York ; Troy, New York ; Washington, D. C .; and Nor- folk, Virginia. He is president of the Dellwood National Cemetery, and his other business interests are partly indicated by his presidency of the International Railway Equipment Im- provement Company. Mr. Lane has made three trips to Cuba
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in the interest of his asphalt-mines, and is associated with a number of wealthy Cubans in establishing cemeteries on modern and improved lines, the work being done under his direction. At present he is interested in large graphite-mines in Essex County and coal-fields in Ohio.
Mr. Lane has a particularly wide circle of friends in business and social life, and is a member of the Transportation Club of New York. He is a prominent member of the order of Free and Accepted Masons, in the thirty-second degree, and a Noble of the Mystic Shrine. Mr. Lane finds much pleasure and reerea- tion in out-of-door sports, especially shooting and fishing, in which he is exceptionally expert. He possesses great capacity for work, and has shown remarkable ability in organization and direction.
Mr. Lane married Miss Nellie Louisa Kelly of Danby, Ver mont, in 1876.
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FRANK R. LAWRENCE
F RANK R. LAWRENCE, the well-known and successful lawyer, was born in New York in 1845, and was educated for the bar. He traveled extensively abroad, entered practice about 1870, and soon became widely known in his profession, appearing constantly in court in many important litigations. He became chairman of the board of examiners of applicants for admission to the bar, and was active in bringing about reforms in methods of legal study and examination.
Having identified himself with the Masonic fraternity, he was elected, in 1885, to its highest office, that of Grand Master. The fraternity was then heavily in debt, the Masonic Temple in New York, erected to maintain an asylum for widows and orphans, being so mortgaged that the building of the asylum had been deferred for more than forty years. Mr. Lawrence instituted a movement for the payment of the debt, and served for four suc- cessive terms, during which time the debt was entirely paid and funds were provided to erect the asylum, which now stands near the city of Utica. Mr. Lawrence declined a fifth election as Grand Master, and retired in 1889. His services are commem- orated by appropriate tablets in the Masonic Hall in New York and the asylum at Utica.
In 1889 Mr. Lawrence became president of the Lotus Club, one of the best-known clubs in the United States, upon the retirement of Whitelaw Reid, who had been appointed by President Harrison as Minister to France. Mr. Reid had been one of the founders of the club and its president for many years. The change was viewed with much interest, the club being so largely composed of artists, actors, journalists, authors, and men of distinction as to render its presiding office a position of much
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difficulty. Under Mr. Lawrence the club has maintained the high reputation established under his predecessor. He still remains its president, having thus far been elected for fourteen successive years. During Mr. Lawrence's presidency the club has bought a new house, attained high financial prosperity, doubled its membership, and maintained and enlarged a reputa- tion for broad hospitality. Mr. Lawrence is known both in and out of the club as an eloquent and popular after-dinner speaker. His portrait, painted by Felix Moscheles, hangs in the club- house.
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