USA > New York > New York state's prominent and progressive men : an encyclopaedia of contemporaneous biography, Volume III > Part 18
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HERBERT FRANCIS MUNN
A GENERATION ago " King Cotton " was a familiar phrase to every ear. The great Southern staple product seemed to outrank all other agricultural products of the country in im- portance. To-day "King Cotton" has lost something of his supremacy. Other products have grown up into equally com- manding proportions. Still, cotton holds its place as one of the foremost products of the United States, and is to-day equally important to the plantation and to the mill, and to the merchant who stands between them.
A generation ago the foremost firm of cotton merchants in New York was that now known as S. Munn, Son & Co. It was established in 1844, and has thus had a noteworthy career of more than half a century. For many years, prior to the forma- tion of the New York Cotton Exchange, that firm was the repre- sentative one in the business. It was looked to as the accepted authority on " spot cotton " quotations, and its citations of prices were regularly reported in the financial and market papers of the day.
The New York Cotton Exchange was organized on Angust 15, 1870. It had at the beginning one hundred members, the firm of Munn & Co. being conspicuous among them. It was incor- porated on April 8, 1871, and since that time has had a pros- perous and influential career, uniting within itself the chief interests of the cotton trade upon the American continent. The firm of S. Munn, Son & Co. still holds a leading rank among those engaged in the trade. Indeed, it has enlarged and ex- panded its scope of operations and influence. It is by no means confined to operations in cotton, but does a general business in grain, coffee, etc., besides dealing in general stocks and condnet-
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ing a banking business. Its age and well-established reputation for trustworthiness make it one of the representative banking and brokerage establishments of the metropolis.
This firm is now composed of Abram Godwin Munn, Jr., Her- bert Francis Munn, Samuel Godwin Munn, and Harry T. Munn. The Munn family has for some generations been settled in New Jersey, with its chief home at Hackensack. It was there that Abram Godwin Munn, Jr., the present head of the firm, was born. It was also there that his son and partner, the subject of this sketch, was born.
Herbert Francis Munn was born at Hackensack, New Jersey, on November 16, 1868, the son of Abram Godwin Munn, Jr. He was educated in the public schools of Hackensack, which, like those of all that part of New Jersey, are of exceptionally high rank. There he acquired an education that was at once liberal in a purely academic sense and that was highly practical in a business sense.
His inclinations were unmistakably toward a commercial and financial career, such as that of his father and other members of the family had been before him. Accordingly, on leaving school, he entered the office of S. Munn, Son & Co., in a subordinate posi- tion, and began the task of learning the business. This he ac- complished with thoroughness and with a noteworthy degree of speed, and soon was admitted into partnership, in which capacity he not only enjoys the profits of the firm, but himself materially contributes to its prosperity. He has as yet sought no public office or other outside interest, but devotes his attention entirely to the business of the firm.
Mr. Munn is a member of the Cotton, Coffee, and Produce ex- changes, and an associate member of the Liverpool Cotton Asso- ciation. He belongs to the Colonial, New York Athletic, Field and Marine, and Atlantic Yacht clubs.
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WILLIAM DENNISTOUN MURPHY
A AMONG the men who have attained conspicuous rank in the social, business, and political worlds before passing the meridian of life, William Dennistoun Murphy is to be honorably mentioned. His patronymie savors of Irish origin, and it was indeed from the north of the Emerald Isle that his paternal great-grandfather, John Murphy, came to this country in 1781. The latter was an officer in the British army, and served in the French and Indian War, after which he settled in New York and betook himself to the pursuits of peace. His grandson, William D. Murphy, father of our subject, was an antislavery leader, an original Republican, and a patriotic speaker during the Civil War. The latter married Ann Letitia Goodliff of Utica, New York. It may be added that through his father's mother, Lydia Cornish, Mr. Murphy is descended from Thomas Cornish, a founder of Newtown, Long Island, in 1650, and one of the earliest English settlers in New Netherlands.
William Dennistoun Murphy was born in this city on January 4, 1859, and was educated here, at the Anthon Grammar School and Dolbear's Commercial College. After leaving school he spent several years in foreign travel and literary and artistic pursuits. He then entered business as a real-estate dealer and operator in Wall Street, in both of which lines he has made himself prominent by his success. He was one of the original members of the Real Estate Exchange and Auction Rooms, organized in 1884, and has served on several of its important committees.
He took an interest in politics at an early age, and was a leader in the reform movement in the Twenty-first Assembly District in the carly eighties, and was twice elected first vice-president of
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the Republican organization in that district. He helped to organize the Federal Club, in 1887, and was successively chair- man of its board of governors, vice-president, and chairman of its committee on consolidation in 1891, when it was united with the Republican Club. Of the latter organization he has been secretary, treasurer, and chairman of the committee of its annual Lincoln dinners. He has been an officer of the Enrolled Repub- licans of the Twenty-first Assembly District, a member for three years of the Republican County Committee, a delegate to many State and county conventions, and one of the first panel of the sheriff's jury. He has, however, invariably declined to become a candidate for any public office.
One of Mr. Murphy's favorite pursuits is that of photography. He has carried a camera over more than thirty thousand miles of travel in America and Europe, and has amassed one of the most noteworthy collections of pictures in the world. He was president of the New York Camera Club, and was instrumental in consolidating it with the Society of Amateur Photographers into the Camera Club of New York, of which latter he has three times been president, to the great advancement of its interests. He has frequently lectured on photographie and art topics before clubs and other assemblages.
Mr. Murphy is a member of the St. Nicholas Society, the New York Historical Society, and the Chamber of Commerce, and has been president of the Baptist Social Union of New York, in addition to the organizations above mentioned. He was mar- ried, on January 17, 1881, to Miss Rosalie Hart, daughter of James B. Hart of Philadelphia, and they now have one child, William Deacon Murphy.
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JAMES B. MURRAY
TAMES B. MURRAY is the eldest son of Bronson Murray of New York city, and Anne E. Peyton of the old Virginia family of that name, and a grandson of the late Colonel James B. Murray, also of New York city. His father was the founder and chief financial support of the Industrial League, which started the movement for securing from the United States gov- ernment grants of land to the various States for the establish- ment of State colleges.
James B. Murray spent much of his early life abroad, study- ing in Paris and Dresden. Then he entered Columbia College, pursuing parts of both the regular academic course and the scientific course of the School of Mines at the same time. Under this burden his health failed, and toward the end of his junior year he was compelled to leave college. Going West, he took charge of some of his father's property there. When his health was restored he entered the Law School of Columbia College, was graduated in 1875, and was thereupon admitted to the bar. For several years he was associated with the firm of Paddock & Cannon, but in 1877 opened an independent office.
Paradoxical though it may seem. litigation has been but a small part of Mr. Murray's law business. He has devoted his attention chiefly to the management of estates. In connection with these, however, he has occasionally had to engage in law- suits, such as will and equity cases, and in them he has usually been successful. In several bankruptcy, will, and other cases argued in court by Mr. Murray, novel points have been involved and decided in his favor. Chief among these was a case in the Court of Appeals, in which Joseph H. Choate was opposing counsel. A residence had been devised by a married woman,
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under a power in a deed of trust (which gave her a life estate in the property, with remainder to her heirs if she failed to appoint), to her three daughters "so long as any two" should "remain single and unmarried," with directions to her trustee one year after the marriage of the second daughter to sell the property and distribute the proceeds among all her heirs "then living." After the marriage of one daughter suit was brought to partition the property among all the heirs, on the ground that the will was void. The General Term had held in effect that as the second daughter might never marry, the daughters took a fee in the property liable to be terminated only in the event of such marriage; and as the power of sale was not to be exercised until after that event, it might never become operative, and being a naked or discretionary power, it did not suspend the alienation of the property, and the will was consequently valid. Mr. Murray argued that the limitation to the daughters was equivalent to during the spinsterhood of the two who first mar .. ried, which, like an estate during widowhood, was but a life estate, and the daughters therefore did not take a fee, but merely life estates during two successive lives ; that incorporating the will into the deed of trust (as it was executed under a power in the latter) disclosed a remainder limited upon three successive life estates, the last of which was consequently void under the statute; and that the power of sale was a power in trust, sus- pending alienation for more than two lives from the date of the trust deed, and hence void. The Court of Appeals, sustained this position, and, directed a partition of the property among all the children. (122 N. Y., 604.)
Mr. Murray has taken an active interest in politics. In the last Presidential campaign he contributed to a portion of the press an article on the consequences of free-silver coinage, demonstrating from our own history the impossibility under free coinage of maintaining two standards in use at one time. It was widely published about two weeks before the election, and was most effectively used by some as an editorial.
Mr. Murray is a member of the University, City, Reformed, Down-Town, Seawanhaka Yacht, Larchmont Yacht, and Delta Phi clubs, the City Bar Association, and various other organ- izations.
T. Stalotid Mycro
THADDEUS HALSTED MYERS
TI THADDEUS HALSTED MYERS was born at Yonkers, New York, on August 31, 1859. His father, John Kirtland Myers, was a partner in the dry-goods house of Halsted, Haines & Co., and retired from that firm to become the president of the Pacific Mutual Insurance Company, being also a director in the Manhattan Company, and actively interested in many of the city charities. The first of the family in this country came over with the second palatinate emigration in 1710. Dr. Myers's paternal great-grandfather was Colonel Joseph Myers of Herkimer County, New York, who served in the War of the Revolution, and was prominent in the early polities of Herkimer County. Dr. Myers's mother's name was Sarah Louise Halsted, and her ancestor, Tim- othy Halsted, came from England in 1657. He was nearly related to Admiral Sir William Lawrence Halsted, K. C. B., of the British navy. The family lived at Hempstead, Long Island, for about a hundred years. Then Dr. Robert Halsted removed to Elizabeth, New Jersey. He attended the wounded at the battle of Mon- mouth, and later was arrested as a pronounced patriot, and confined in the old sugar-house prison in this city. His son, William M. Halsted, Dr. Myers's grandfather, was well known in business cireles, and was a governor of the New York Hospi- tal, of Bloomingdale, and of other charitable institutions.
Thaddeus Halsted Myers began his education in the public schools of Yonkers. He spent one year in the Williston Semi- mary, Easthampton, Massachusetts, and entered Yale College in 1877, where he was graduated in 1881. While in college he was a member of the Sigma Epsilon, the Alpha Kappa, and the Psi Upsilon fraternities, and of the Seroll and Key Society. He entered the College of Physicians and Surgeons, and was gradu-
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ated in 1885. Successfully passing a competitive examination, he served on the surgical staff of St. Luke's Hospital for eighteen months. For a year after this he was house physician in the New York Foundling Hospital. After this he took charge of a class in that branch in the Roosevelt Hospital Dispensary, which he resigned, after two years, to take charge for two years of the surgical class in the Presbyterian Dispensary.
In 1887 he began to be interested in orthopædie surgery, and became assistant surgeon to the New York Orthopedic Dispen- sary. Later he was made attending surgeon to that dispensary, and then was made assistant to the surgeon-in-chief of the hos- pital and dispensary. He is now consulting surgeon in this institution. Since 1889 he has been attending orthopædie sur- geon to St. Luke's Hospital. He is also consulting orthopædic surgeon to the Lying-in Hospital, the Foundlings' Hospital, and the House of the Annunciation, New York city, the St. John's Riverside Hospital, Yonkers, and All Souls' Hospital, Morris- town, New Jersey. His practice is now confined exclusively to orthopædie surgery.
Dr. Myers is the author of several papers and monographs bearing on orthopædie conditions, among them "Pott's Disease of the Spine in Pregnancy," "Pressure Paralysis," " Congenital Dislocation of the Hip," "Non-tubercular Inflammations of the Spine," papers on club-foot, hip-joint disease, lateral dislocation of the knee, and descriptions of a number of new instruments of use in this department of surgery.
He is a member of the University Club of New York, the Cen- tury Association, the Yale Club, the Academy of Medicine, the New York State and the New York County Medical societies, the Pathological, the Lenox Medical and the New York Medico- surgical societies, and the American Orthopaedic Association.
Dr. Myers was married, on October 6, 1897, to Miss Sarah Hawley, daughter of Henry E. Hawley of Ridgefield, Connecti- cut, and has a son, Halsted Hawley Myers, born on May 27, 1899.
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Elion norton
ELIOT NORTON
TITHE name of Eliot Norton, in both given name and surname, suggests much that is worthy of memory in New England history. The Norton family traces its descent from the Rev. John Norton of Stortford, Hertfordshire, England, who came to Massachusetts early in the seventeenth century, and, after a most distinguished career in both religious and civil life, died in Boston in 1663. His nephew John Norton was pastor of the church at Hingham, Massachusetts, and also had a distinguished career. Some generations later Andrew Norton, a Harvard graduate, was one of the foremost theologians of New England in the first half of the nineteenth century. His son Charles Eliot Norton was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1827, and was graduated at Harvard in 1846. After a number of years spent in mercantile life and in foreign travels, he devoted him- self to literary, artistic, and educational work. During the Civil War he edited the papers published at Boston by the Loyal Publication Society, and afterward he was joint editor, with James Russell Lowell, of the " North American Review." He has published many works of standard value, and has had a dis- tinguished career as a publicist and as a lecturer on art at Har- vard University.
The name of Eliot became distinguished in the first half of the last century in the person of Sammel Atkins Eliot, a Harvard graduate, a prominent merchant of Boston, and in 1837-39 Mayor of that city. He was successor of Robert C. Winthrop as a Representative in Congress, was treasurer of Harvard Col- lego, and was the author of several works. His son Charles William Eliot, who was born in Boston in 1834 and was gradu- ated at Harvard in 1853, has had one of the most distinguished
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educational careers of this generation. Beginning as a tutor at Harvard in 1854, he became president of that institution in 1869, and in the subsequent third of a century has developed what was a comparatively small college into the greatest of American universities, and has done perhaps more than any other man of his time for the general progress of higher education in America.
The subject of the present sketch, Eliot Norton, is a cousin of President Eliot and a son of Professor Charles Eliot Norton. He was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on July 1, 1863, at the time when his father was editing the papers of the Loyal Publi- cation Society, and after a thorough preparatory education was sent to Harvard University, from which he was graduated with the degree of A. B. in the class of 1885. He then entered the Law School of Harvard, and was graduated from it. Upon leav- ing the university he began the practice of his profession in New York city. At first he was a member of the firm of Van Schaick & Norton, then of Van Schaick, Norton & Quimby, and finally, as at present, of Van Schaick & Norton, again his partner being Eugene Van Schaick, a member of an old New York family. The offices of the firm were formerly at No. 100 but are now at No. 135 Broadway. The practice of the firm is general in char- acter, though it has gained prominence through some important suits over brokerage and stock transactions, and has dealt much with corporation law.
Mr. Norton is president of the Northwestern Steamship Com- pany, which runs a line from Montreal to Liverpool, and is also officially connected with the Union Surety & Guaranty Com- pany, and with the Life Association of America.
He is a member of various leading social organizations, includ- ing the University, Grolier, Lawyers', and New York Athletic clubs, and the Bar Association. His home is at No. 468 Lex- ington Avenue, New York.
Hope Norton
EVERMONT HOPE NORTON
A KENTUCKIAN of mingled English, German, and Irish ancestry, educated in Virginia, settled in New York, and interested in important business enterprises in various parts of this Union and in South America, may well be reckoned a citizen of the world.
The father of Evermont Hope Norton was Presley Evermont Norton of Russellville, Kentucky, a member of the firm of Nor- ton, Slaughter & Co., cotton brokers and commission merchants of New York, and president of the Paducah and Memphis Rail- road Company. Of his four brothers, one was president of the Louisville and Nashville Railroad Company, one was a judge of the Supreme Court of the State of Missouri, and the other two were bankers at Louisville, Kentucky. Presley E. Norton mar- ried Miss Lillie Hope of Mobile, Alabama, a lady of Irish descent. related to Sir Beresford Hope, the eminent publicist, and to Lord Hope of Hopetoun.
Of such parentage Evermont Hope Norton was born, at Louisville, Kentucky, on October 10, 1873. After careful pre- paratory education, he was sent to the University of Virginia, and remained there during the years 1891-95, pursuing sue- cessfully both the regular academie course and the full course of the law department. He ranked high as a student, and was one of the leaders of the university in all athletic sports.
On leaving college, Mr. Norton promptly turned his attention to business. He came to New York in January, 1896, and entered a broker's office, where he remained until the following September, when, having familiarized himself with Wall Street methods, he formed a copartnership with Harry G. Tunstall, under the firm-name of Norton & Tunstall, with offices at 34
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and 36 Wall Street, for the transaction of a general banking and commission business in stocks, bonds, grain, and cotton, a seat on the New York Stock Exchange having previously been purchased. On December 1, 1897, the firm removed to the Mechanics' National Bank Building, at 33 Wall Street, where it still remains. In March, 1898, Mr. Norton purchased, in his own name, a seat on the New York Cotton Exchange, thus more perfectly qualifying the firm for the prosecution of its business, whose facilities and stability were still further increased by the purchase, on September 1, 1899, of an additional seat in the New York Stock Exchange by Mr. Norton, thus giving the firm two board members. The patronage of the firm has been of the best character, and its operations have been more than ordinarily successful. It has thus come to command the confidence of both speculators and investors, and has made itself a material force in the affairs of the Street.
This prosperous and profitable business has not, however, by any means monopolized Mr. Norton's entire attention. His inclination ran, like his father's, in the direction of railroading. Accordingly, in September, 1897, he purchased a controlling in- terest in the Michigan Traction Company, and became a director and vice-president thereof.
In October, 1898, the firm financed the building of the Colum- bus, Lima and Milwaukee Railway, and the work of construc- tion has since been carried on under their supervision.
For a number of years there has been a marked strengthening of commercial and industrial relations between the United States and various South American states. The capital and engineer- ing skill of this country are needed for the best development of the resources of those states, while the almost inestimable oppor- tunities of profit there are most engaging to the far-seeing busi- ness man. Mr. Norton was quick to see the opening of a way to success and fortune in that part of the world. About Feb- ruary 1, 1899, therefore, he purchased a large interest in the Ecnador Development Company, a corporation which has in hand the general development of the material resources of that rich state, and which has obtained from the government of Ecuador exclusive concessions in railroad, tramway, electric- light, mineral, and other valuable rights. He was forthwith
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made a director of the company, and then its president, estab- lishing its headquarters at 33 Wall Street. At the same time he acquired a large interest in and became a director of the Guayaquil and Quito Railway Company, which is proceeding to establish rail communication between Guayaquil, the principal seaport of Ecuador, and Quito, its capital, a distance of about three hundred and forty miles.
On September 1, 1899, Mr. Norton purchased a large interest in all the leases, plant, and equipment of the American Mining Company, which controlled the mining rights in about forty aeres of the finest lead- and zine-producing land in the famous Galena-Joplin zine district, and organized the American Zine Mining Company, of which he is vice-president and director.
On October 31, 1899, Henry G. Tunstall retired from the firm, and Mr. Norton associated with him, in the business to which he succeeded, his cousin William P. Norton, under the firm-name of E. H. Norton & Co.
Mr. Norton has not engaged himself with political affairs, beyond discharging the duties of a citizen. He has partici- pated to a considerable extent in the best club and social life of the city, and has retained all his earlier interest in athletic sports. He is a popular member of many organizations, among them being the Lawyers' Club, the New York Athletic Club, the Seawanhaka-Corinthian Yacht Club, the Atlantic Yacht Club, and the Riverside Yacht Club.
He entered the ranks of the army of Benedicks on May 1, 1899, being married on that day, at St. Louis, Missouri, to Miss Lily Morrison Carr of that city.
JOSEPH W. OGDEN
THE family of Ogden has been conspicuous in the annals of New Jersey, and indeed of the colony which preceded that State, since early times. In the Revolutionary War it occupied a leading place, and various members of it took an honorable part in that struggle. In the last generation the Rev. Dr. Joseph M. Ogden was a widely known and influential clergy- man, for some time settled at the ancient village of Chatham, in the Passaic Valley. He married Miss Emeline Atwood, a mem- ber of another old New Jersey family, and to them the subject of the present sketch was born.
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