USA > New York > New York state's prominent and progressive men : an encyclopaedia of contemporaneous biography, Volume III > Part 2
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In New York Mr. Backus became a forceful and conspicuous figure in the business and financial world. He was deeply inter- ested in the great railroad systems of the State, and participated in the management of some of them. About 1861 the stock- holders of the New York Central system became dissatisfied with its management and convinced that a change was desir- able. Thereupon Mr. Backus was placed upon a committee of investigation, consisting of five gentlemen, who painstakingly examined into the affairs of the road, including its finances and general management. Of this committee he was a most impor-
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tant member, and the disclosures reported, which were largely the result of his investigations and labors, brought about a com- plete revolution in the management and conduct of the road. Dean Richmond was installed as the new president of the road, and a new and far more prosperous chapter in its history was begun. From 1862 to 1865 Mr. Backus was the president of the New York and Montana Gold and Silver Mining and Discovery Company.
Mr. Backus's health began to show signs of impairment about 1856, and he accordingly withdrew, little by little, from active participation in the large affairs that had engaged his attention, and even was constrained by 1865 to give up the office he had previously occupied for the transaction of business ; nevertheless, his earnest interest in affairs, his valuable advice to others, and his kindly benefactions have kept him known and honored in the business world until the year of grace 1899.
For many years Mr. Backus was known as a conspicuously careful and accurate student of the Bible. He perused, with the commentators, sentence by sentence and word by word, the whole Bible once, the New Testament twice, and the four gospels three or four times, thus making himself an authority upon the Holy Book.
Mr. Backus married, in 1840, Harriet Newell, daughter of Ed- ward Baldwin of Utica, New York. She died as early as 1867, but Mr. Baekus never married again. Of their four children, two grew to maturity and survived them : Henry Clinton Backns, the well-known lawyer of this city, and Mrs. George E. Nearing of Syracuse, New York. After surviving for seven and a half weeks a stroke of apoplexy, Charles Chapman Backus passed from this life on February 13, 1899, having completed almost eighty-three years of most successful and respected existence.
HENRY CLINTON BACKUS
AMONG the State-builders of early New England the Backus family was conspicuous. Its founder in this country was William Backus, who came from England and settled at Say- brook, Connecticut, about 1635. He and his son Stephen were later among the founders of Norwich, in that State, in 1659, the elder Backus giving, with the consent of his fellow-settlers, that city its name; and in 1700 his grandson, Stephen, was the founder of Canterbury, also in Connecticut. His descendant, Timothy Backus, an ancestor of our subject, was a leading and dominant theological controversialist in New England about the middle of the last century. His child, Elisha Backus, was with "Old Put " at Bunker Hill, and fought through the Revolution- ary War, attaining the rank of major. After the war he re- moved from Connecticut to Onondaga County, New York, and settled at Manlius. His son, Elisha Backus, was a colonel in the War of 1812, and, at its close, became prominent in the arts of peace by developing the then new country of the central and northern parts of the State of New York with the stage-line with which he opened up the district, one hundred and fifty miles long, between Utica and Ogdensburg. A son of this later Elisha Backus, Charles Chapman Backus, was a well-known citizen of Utica, New York, being a member of the firm of Bennett, Backus & Hawley, publishers, who conducted the largest publishing- house and book-store then in New York State outside of its chief city, and issued the "Baptist Register," now the "Examiner," of New York city, then, as now, the leading newspaper of the Baptists in this country. He married Harriet Newell Baldwin, a daughter of Edward Baldwin and Anne Lewis, who both came from Wales in 1800, and settled in Utiea about 1805. Edward
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Cordially yours HenryClinton Backers
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HENRY CLINTON BACKUS
Baldwin was one of Utica's most highly esteemed citizens until his death, in 1871.
Charles Chapman Backus and his wife came to New York city to live about 1850, bringing with them their infant son, Henry Clinton Baekus, the subject of this sketch, who had been born at Utica on May 31, 1848. The son was educated in the public and private schools of this city, was prepared for college at Phillips Academy, Exeter, New Hampshire, and then was ma- trieulated at Harvard University, wherefrom he was graduated in the class of 1871. Two years later he was graduated from the Law School of Columbia University, and thereupon was admitted to the New York bar. He at once entered the office of Sanford, Robinson & Woodruff, but, a year afterward, that of Beebe, Wilcox & Hobbs. This latter firm had probably a more exten- sive admiralty practice in the federal courts than any other law firm, and in attending to it he gained much valuable experi- enee. His practice has not, however, been confined to any single branch of legal judicature. He has been counsel in many im- portant cases of a great variety of character, in the numerous branches of eivil or municipal law. He is much esteemed for his knowledge of constitutional history and law, and of international law; he is the legal adviser of several large estates; and though generally not practising criminal law, he successfully conducted at least one most noteworthy criminal case. This case, the State of Kansas rs. Baldwin, is worth recounting. In response to local elamor, the defendant had been prosecuted upon the charge of having murdered his sister, had been convicted, and had been sentenced to death. The case was vainly appealed to the State's Supreme Bench, when Mr. Backus, upon urgent solicitation. took up the case, prepared an elaborate brief, created a counter public opinion by causing the circulation throughout Kansas of vigorous editorial articles in the Albany " Law Journal," the New York "Tribune," and other papers, and finally induced the Governor to make a careful investigation of the case. The out- come was that the man's innocence was clearly established, and an unconditional pardon was granted to him.
Two incidents in the early life of Mr. Baekns should be noticed because they disclose the strong, resolute character which has been so useful to him and so helpful to others during his subse-
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quent life. While yet a youth he formed and commanded dur- ing the late War of the Rebellion a company in a regiment known as the "Mcclellan Grays," recruited from students in the public schools in New York city, who, though too young for legal enlistment in the volunteer army, were animated by such patriotic zeal as to organize for the purpose of protecting the national capital in case of attack upon it by the rebels in force, or for any sudden emergency of dangerous and extreme import to their country. About the same period he bravely and resist- lessly advocated the cause of the negro, and taught a class of colored children among the white children in the Sunday-school of a fashionable church in New York city, in the face of bitter and intense opposition, begotten of the malignant antipathy to the negro race then prevalent in much of the North as well as at the South. He was making speeches upon the public rostrum at sixteen years of age; and so meritorious was his course at this time of his life that it won for him the warm personal regard and friendship of several of the nation's heroes and great states- men of the war period.
Besides being one of the most successful practising lawyers in New York, Mr. Backus has long been conspicuous among political leaders. For more than ten years he was a member of the Republican county committee, and for five years served as a member of its committee on resolutions. While here he caused the constitution of the county committee to be so amended as to empower twenty-five enrolled voters in any assembly district to compel the primary election polls in that district to be kept open twelve instead of only six hours. In 1891 he was made a mem- ber of the executive committee of the county committee, and was elected leader of his party in his assembly district. By reason of a revolt against the previous leadership and manage- ment in the district, his delegation encountered a most bitter contest of five months' duration for its seats in the county committee ; but Mr. Backus triumphantly vindicated its claim to its seats, and his leadership was accompanied by a harmony and peace unknown for many years in the district. The follow- ing year, however, he declined reelection to the leadership when it was tendered to him. He has on numerous occasions repre- sented his district in county and State conventions of the
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Republican party. Various nominations for pubne office, among which have been for assemblyman, for surrogate, and for judge of the city court, have been offered to him ; but he has declined them all. He was nominated in 1893 to represent the Seventh Senatorial District in the State constitutional convention, but was defeated, the district being overwhelmingly Democratic. He obtained, however, the highest vote of all candidates running on the entire Republican ticket that year in that district. He was elected, in 1898, chairman of the delegation from his assembly district to the general committee of the Republicans of New York County, who combined in protest against the corrupt methods and imperious dietation of the previous management of the party in the county.
Apart from polities Mr. Backus has many interests of more than personal significance. He was one of the committee on the construction of the tomb and monument of Ulysses S. Grant, at the head of Riverside Drive, New York. He is a member of the city and State bar associations, of the Republican Club of the city of New York, of the Dwight Alumni Association, and of the Harvard Club of New York city. He is also an hon- orary member of the Railway Conductors' Club of North America, and a fellow of the American Geographical Society, in the information garnered and distributed and the enterprises advanced by which body he takes a scholarly interest.
His much-esteemed wife is a valued member of the board of managers of the New York Colored Orphan Asylum. Of two children born to them, one, a son, is living.
GEORGE CLINTON BATCHELLER
THE name of Batcheller in America dates back to the " good old colony days " of 1636, in which year Joseph Batcheller, with his wife and three children, came over from Canterbury, England, and settled at Salem, Massachusetts. This founder of the Bateheller family in America was a man of character, parts, and substance, who soon rose to prominence in the colony, and was the first Representative from Wenham in the General Court at Boston. One of his sons, Mark Bateheller, joined the colonial militia, and was killed in a battle with the Narragansett Indians in 1675.
A grandson of Joseph, Abraham Batcheller, removed from Salem to Sutton, Massachusetts, about 1751, took possession of a tract of a thousand acres of land, and divided it into equal por- tions among his ten sons on their attaining their majority. Two of these sons were among the minute-men who fought at Lexing- ton and Concord. One of these latter, Abner Bateheller, also served in the movement upon Dorchester Heights, which com- pelled the British to evacuate Boston. His son, Moses Batchel- ler, served in the War of 1812 on the ship Constitution -immor- talized in song and story as "Old Ironsides." His son, Moses Leland Batcheller, was the founder of one of the most noted scythe factories in the country, at Grafton, Massachusetts, afterward at Smithville, Rhode Island. And his son, George Clinton Batcheller, is the subject of the present sketch. Through his mother, Sarah Phillips, his grandmother, Polly Chase, and his great-grandmother, Prudence Leland. Mr. Batcheller is connected with the families of those names which have long been con- spicuous in New England.
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GEORGE CLINTON BATCHELLER
George Clinton Bateheller was born at Grafton, Massachusetts, on September 27, 1834, and was educated at the Grafton Gram- mar School and at the Barre Academy, Barre, Vermont, being graduated from the latter in 1855. He then entered the. dry- goods house of Turner, Wilson & Co., Boston, and spent two years with them. After the apprenticeship in trade, he came to New York and soon engaged in the firm of Nichols & Batcheller in the manufacture of hoop-skirts, corsets, and other articles of feminine attire.
From that partnership Mr. Batcheller withdrew in 1865, and organized the firm of Langdon, Batcheller & Co., in the same line of manufactures. Branch houses were established in England and other foreign countries, and the firm took a leading position in what became a vast and important manufacturing industry. In 1876 a large manufacturing plant was established at Bridgeport, Connecticut. Two years later Mr. Batcheller became the executive head of the business, and in 1892, by the retirement of his partner, he became the sole proprietor. Since that time he has been associated with his brother, William H. Bateheller, and George C. Miller. Under his management the business has steadily grown, so that the Bridgeport factory has had to be much enlarged. It now has a working force of about one thousand persons.
Business has not, however, monopolized all of Mr. Batcheller's attention. He has been active in various spheres of social life in New York. He is a member of the Colonial, Republican, and West Side Republican elnbs, and takes an active interest in their affairs. He is also a member of the West End Property-Owners' Association. As might be supposed, he is conspicuous in the New England Society, being a life member thereof, and in the Order of Founders and Patriots of America, and Sons of the American Revolution, of each of which he is a charter member. He is a member and officer of St. Andrew's Methodist Episcopal Church, and devotes much attention to the promotion of its work. He is a lover of fine horses and has a number of them in his stables. He is also a connoisseur and collector of works of art, having, among other valuable paintings, the portraits of George and Martha Washington painted by Sharpless at Mount Vernon in 1796. His literary tastes are indicated and gratified
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GEORGE CLINTON BATCHELLER
by the possession of an extensive and well-selected library, in which much of his leisure time is spent.
Mr. Batcheller is a close observer of men and affairs, and a good judge of human nature. To these qualities his business success may in great part be attributed. It has been his fortune to secure and retain a particularly devoted and efficient army of assistants and workmen, whose interests and his own are so inseparably associated that the prosperity of the one assures the prosperity of the other. Upon such a foundation his great business rests.
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OLIVER HAZARD PERRY BELMONT
A MONG the names which have been identified in this country with conspicuous leadership in many directions of human activity, there are few so well known as that of Belmont. For many years it has stood for great wealth, well secured and well used ; for eminent service to State and nation in political affairs ; for social prominence, well deserved and gracefully maintained; and for an important part in those manly sports which more and more are becoming a feature of American life.
The Belmont family, thus long distinguished for its wealth, influence, and social leadership, was founded in this country by August Belmont, a native of Alzey, in the Rhenish Palatinate. He was the son of a banker, and was himself a banker. He came hither at the age of twenty-one as the New York agent of the Rothschilds, whom he had already represented at Naples. He soon founded a great banking house of his own, which became famous as that of August Belmont & Co. He also became an American citizen, entered political life as a Democrat, did so good service as Chargé d'Affaires and Minister Resident at The Hague as to win the special thanks of the government at Wash- ington, and for twelve years was chairman of the National Democratie Committee. He had also a distinguished career in elub life and on the turf. He married Miss Caroline Slidell Perry, daughter of Commodore Matthew Calbraith Perry, who "opened " Japan to the world, and niece of Oliver Hazard Perry, the hero of the battle of Lake Erie, whose message, " We have met the enemy, and they are ours!" has become historie. The third of the four sons of Mr. and Mrs. Belmont received the name of his famous granduncle.
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OLIVER HAZARD PERRY BELMONT
Oliver Hazard Perry Belmont was born in New York city on November 12, 1858. He carly manifested many of the traits which had made his ancestors on both sides noteworthy. From the Belmonts he inherited determination, aggressiveness, a sense of justice and chivalry, and the faculty of using wealth and social leadership. From the Perrys he got his love of adventure and his fondness for the sea. This last trait led to his being sent to the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis to complete his education. Following his graduation there he served in the navy for some time, on active sea duty, on the Kearsarge, the Trenton, and other vessels. Both in the service and after he had left it he traveled widely, in almost all parts of the world, and on his travels he collected many objects of interest and beauty, with which on his return he adorned his mansion at Newport. The latter, known as Belcourt, has long been famed as one of the finest residences in the United States.
Mr. Belmont has long been a prominent figure in the best clubs and society at Newport and in New York, in which latter city he has a splendid home. He has paid much attention to driving, and has one of the finest stables of horses in this country. He has naturally retained a keen interest in the fame of his family, and has made each recurring anniversary of the battle of Lake Erie a gala-day at Newport.
In politics Mr. Belmont is a Democrat. He was for some years disinclined to serve as more than a private citizen, and held no public office, save that of Park Commissioner at New- port. In the hotly contested national campaign of 1900, how- ever, his unwillingness to assume publie office was overcome, and he was nominated and elected a Representative in Con- gress from the Thirteenth Congressional District of New York. His influence in the councils of his party has long been com- manding. In 1898-99 he rose to the foremost rank of national leadership as the advocate of harmony in the party which had been rent and distracted, and as the exponent of the principles of tariff revision, income tax, inheritance tax, public ownership of public works, direct legislation, anti-imperialism, and others which he deemed of greatest importance to the country, and best calculated to restore the Democratic party to power. He made speeches on these matters in many States of the Union, and
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OLIVER HAZARD PERRY BELMONT
established an illustrated weekly paper, the "Verdict," for the promotion of his political creed.
At the outbreak of the war with Spain, Mr. Belmont offered to build and equip for the government within ninety days a dynamite torpedo gunboat. The President in personal inter- views seemed inclined to accept the offer, but in the end it was declined.
Mr. Belmont was married January 11, 1896. Mrs. Belmont was formerly Miss Alva Smith, daughter of Murray Forbes Smith of Mobile, Alabama. She is of Kentucky ancestry, being a granddaughter of Governor Desha, who was one of the foremost men in the Blue-grass State in the days of Henry Clay. Mr. and Mrs. Belmont are of most hospitable disposition, and make their homes in New York and at Newport, centers of the most brilliant and cultivated social life.
JOHN ANDERSON BENSEL
TOHN ANDERSON BENSEL comes of mingled Dutch and Scotch stock, his father, Brownlee Bensel, having descended from the former, and his mother, whose maiden name was Mary Maclay, from the latter. He was born in New York city on August 16, 1863, and was carefully educated. He attended pub- lic and private schools in his native eity, and then, having manifested a decided aptitude and taste for engineering and kin- dred pursuits, entered the well-known Stevens Institute of Tech- nology, at Hoboken, New Jersey. There he passed through the thorough scientific courses of that school, and was thus prepared for the calling he had chosen.
On leaving school he began work in a humble capacity. His first engagement was as a rodman in the corps surveying the route of the new Croton Aqueduct, from Croton Dam to New York city. The work was hard, but the training was good, and the way was thus opened for more important engagements. For some years, indeed, his struggles were those characteristic of an ambitious young man in a workaday world, and his lot neither harder nor easier than is usual, or is to be expected, in the life of a practical engineer.
After a term of service with the aqueduct corps he resigned his place there to become a rodman on the Pennsylvania Rail- road's surveying staff. In the latter place he remained for five years, winning promotion to the rank of assistant engineer, and to that of assistant supervisor of the New York division. In the latter capacity he had charge of the tracks, yards, etc., between Jersey City and Newark.
It was in 1884 that Mr. Bensel was graduated from Stevens Institute. His work on the Croton Aqueduct was all done in
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JOHN ANDERSON BENSEL
that year, and before the end of the year he entered the employ of the Pennsylvania Railroad. He resigned his place under the railroad in August, 1889, to enter the Department of Docks of New York city, as assistant engineer. In this capacity he worked until the latter part of 1895. During the latter part of his service he had charge of all construction work on the North River water-front of the city, including the building of bulk- heads, sea-walls, doeks, piers, etc., as well as the supervision of a large amount of private work.
At the end of six years of this public service, Mr. Bensel re- signed his place to enter the private practice of his profession. For three years thereafter he was profitably busy. He was engaged as consulting engineer for the Central Railroad of New Jersey, for the inspection and valuation of its doek property. He was consulting engineer for the city of Philadelphia and for the Girard estate in that city, in the construction of the river- wall along the Delaware from Vine to South streets, of which structure he was the designer. He also designed various private piers along the Delaware at Philadelphia, and had charge of sundry other works in the harbor of that city. He was consult- ing engineer for the city of Newburg, New York, in the valua- tion of its water-front property occupied and owned by the Pennsylvania Coal Company.
Mr. Bensel became, on January 1, 1898, engineer-in-chief of the Department of Docks and Ferries of the city of New York, which place he still holds. He is a member of the American Society of Civil Engineers, the Engineers' Club, and the St. Andrew's Society. He was married to Miss Ella Louise Day, daughter of Henry Day of New York, in 1896.
GEORGE BLAIR
THE father and mother of George Blair were Germans, born
in Bavaria, near the banks of the Rhine. In that historic land the father pursued the trade of a stone-cutter. They came to this country some sixty years ago and settled in New York, and here, on June 30, 1846, George Blair was born. The family home was well known down-town, and Mr. Blair has lived prac- tically all his life south of Spring Street. He was sent to the public school in Grand Street, near Wooster Street, at the age of four years. At the age of nine years he began working, to sup- port himself, as errand boy and by selling newspapers, etc. What- ever education Mr. Blair has was largely acquired by constant reading of well-edited newspapers and books and by contact with the world, added to close observation of affairs. At a Lutheran Sunday-school, to which faith he belongs, he studied German, and in that language passed his examination for con- firmation. At the age of fifteen he entered a box factory, and in a year rose through all the grades to be a master workman.
Mr. Blair was a little over eighteen when, on September 5, 1864, he enlisted in the United States navy. The next month he was shipwrecked on the Carolina coast, but was rescued, and thereafter served in the West Gulf Squadron, under Admiral Farragut. A part of his service was aboard the gunboat Kenne- bec. He remained on duty until honorably discharged on July 10, 1865. The next year was spent in South America, and then he came back to New York, resumed the box business, and, at the age of twenty-one, was married to Miss Elizabeth Grenier, a native of Berlin, Prussia, and a member of a family honorably conspicuous in civil and military life.
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