USA > New York > New York state's prominent and progressive men : an encyclopaedia of contemporaneous biography, Volume III > Part 22
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The untiring activity and energy with which he addressed himself to the business of the firm may be partially estimated from the fact that during his connection with that house, in a period of a little more than thirty years, he made no fewer than ninety-six trips across the Atlantic Ocean, or more than three transatlantic voyages a year! This extraordinary record showed how unerringly his early instincts, when he was holiday- making with his mother, pointed toward his true business vo- cation in life.
This long and intimate familiarity with the foreign trade fitted Mr. Sherwood in an exceptional degree for the service of the government in the Customs Department. President McKinley accordingly appointed him, in July, 1897, to be an Assistant Appraiser of Merchandise at the port of New York. Mr. Sherwood accepted the appointment, and entered promptly upon the work involved, in which he has ever since been steadily engaged. In that important capacity he has acquitted himself in a manner amply justifying his high reputation for ability and probity and vindicating the confidence reposed in him. He may be regarded as a typical " business man in politics," or rather in the public service, and as one proving the value of such appoint- ments to the welfare of the public.
Apart from this official place, Mr. Sherwood has had little to do with political matters, save to discharge faithfully and intelli- gently his duties as a patriotie citizen.
He has not in late years been a club-man. Formerly he belonged to a number of the best social organizations in New York including the Union League, the Army and Navy, and the
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New York clubs, and the New England Society of New York. But upon his marriage he resigned from them all, acting upon the principle, which he has ever since followed, that his home is the best of clubs.
Mr. Sherwood was married, on February 10, 1877, to Elizabeth Kneeland Van Zandt, daughter of the Hon. JJacob Barker of New York. He has no children.
JACOB SHRADY
N AMES are often transplanted from one country to another, and from one race and tongue to another Somtimes they remain unaltered, giving to the roll of the community a polyglot sound. Sometimes they are changed to conform with the language of the new land in which they are settled, to such a degree as almost to lose their original characteristics. Such is the case with the name at present under consideration. The Shrady family, which now appears, in name as well as in all other respects, to be entirely Americanized, traces its origin to Johann Schrade and his wife, the latter born Schaeffer, who came to this country from Württemberg, Germany, about 1715. They lived for a time in Boston, and then came to New York, where they spent the rest of their lives. They had two daugh- ters and a son, John, who married Anna Barbara Eplin, whose father had come from Baden, Germany. John Schrade, or Shrady, as he began to style the family name, was an active Revolutionary patriot in the city of New York, and was a pris- oner of war for a time in the old Sugar-house, but escaped therefrom in disguise. Of his ten children the third was a son, named John, who was a schoolmate of Washington Irving, and a soldier in the War of 1812. He married Margaret Beinhaner, whose father had come from Vienna, Austria, and had a daugh- ter and four sons. Of the latter, two, John and George F., have attained eminence as physicians, and the others, Jacob and Wil- liam, as lawyers.
Jacob Shrady, just named, was born in this city on March 24, 1839, and received a thorough education in the public schools, University Grammar School, New York University, and Cohim- bia College. He also had, at the age of twelve years, a brief
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experience in a broker's office, which was of value to him in after life, but which did not ineline him to follow the broker's bsi- ness. While he was a law student he wrote a number of sketches for the famous old " Knickerbocker Magazine," under the pen- name of " Nellie Sinclair," and numerous letters for newspapers. Among his earlier writings were " Ramblings on the Hudson," " The Old Coat," and " A Day in a Law Office." He received from New York University the degree of A. M., and from Colum- bia Law School that of LL. B.
In May, 1863, Mr. Shrady was admitted to the New York bar, and since that time has devoted himself closely and with marked success to the practice of his profession. He has figured in a number of interesting medicolegal eases, and has read before professional societies several papers on such subjects, which have been published, and have attained wide circulation as authorita- tive expositions of the points involved. Among these may be mentioned " The Stenecke Will Case " before the Medicolegal Society, and "Mental Unsoundness as Affecting Testamentary Capacity" before the Society of Medical Jurisprudence. He made an address, also published, before the Sons of the Revolu- tion, on "The Battle of Ridgefield." He is also known as a elever and witty after-dinner orator.
Mr. Shrady has always been an earnest Republican in politics, and has interested himself in the welfare of that party in New York and Brooklyn. He has been chairman of the district asso- ciation of his assembly district, and often a delegate to county and congressional conventions, but has not held nor sought publie office.
He is a member of the Sons of the Revolution, the St. Nicho- las Society, the Republican Club, the Brooklyn Art Guild, the Harlem Republican Club, and the alumni associations of New York University and Columbia Law School. He has been mar- ried twice. His first wife was Emma M. Grigg, whom he married in November, 1871. After her death, in September, 1882, he married Miss Jennie Kempton. He has two daughters, Florence M. Shrady and Marjorie F. Shrady.
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EDGAR OSCAR SILVER
THE paternal ancestors of Edgar Oscar Silver came from England in early colonial times, settling in New England. His two great-grandfathers Samuel Silver and Samuel Nichols fought in the Revolutionary War. His grandfather Arad Silver, born in 1793, was one of the pioneer settlers of northeastern Ver- mont, and established at Bloomfield, on the Connecticut River, a home which remained until recently in possession of the family, and there the subject of this sketch was born. His father, Albert A. Silver, was born in Bloomfield in 1834, and, while following the occupation of a farmer, he gave to his six children every facility and encouragement within his power in the direction of liberal education. The maternal ancestors of Mr. Silver were chiefly English and French Huguenot, with an admixture of Ulster blood from the north of Ireland. His great-grandfather James Jenne and his wife were among the first settlers in Orleans County, Vermont, where his descendants still reside.
Edgar Oscar Silver, eldest son of Albert A. Silver and Sarah Warren (Jenne) Silver, was born at Bloomfield, Vermont, on April 17, 1860, and at the age of twelve years removed with his parents to his mother's native town, Derby, Vermont. He was educated in the public schools of Bloomfield and Derby, in the Derby Academy, in the Waterville (now Coburn) Classical In- stitute at Waterville, Maine, in Colby University at Waterville, and in Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island. At Brown he was editor-in-chief of the " Brunonian " and president of the Young Men's Christian Association, and generally took a lead- ing part in student affairs. He was also elected to Phi Beta Kappa, and was graduated with the degree of A. B. in 1883, and in 1886 received the degree of A. M.
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He was a scnool-teacher at Coventry, Vermont, when he was sixteen years old. The next year he taught a graded school at West Charleston, Vermont. Between his course at Colby and that at Brown he taught a grammar school at Claremont, New Hampshire. Thus he earned money enough for the greater part of his college expenses. Immediately after his graduation from college Mr. Silver entered the employ of Messrs. D. Apple- ton & Co., the well-known New York publishers. Less than two years later he left that house to open in Boston, on April 21, 1885, the business which has since developed into the im- portant publishing house of Silver, Burdett & Co., in which his two brothers Elmer E. and Albert A., Jr., are also asso- viated. This firm was incorporated on April 1. 1892. ever since which date Mr. Silver has been its president and general manager. In the fall of 1897 Mr. Silver removed his business headquarters to New York.
Mr. Silver is a trustee of Brown University ; president of the American Institute of Applied Music of New York : chairman of the Board of Trustees of Shaw University (for colored men und women) at Raleigh, North Carolina ; and a trustee of Roger Williams University (colored) at Nashville, Tennessee; of the Derby Academy at Derby, Vermont, and of the New England Baptist Hospital in Boston. He has been an active member of the National Education Association for many years ; he was a member of the International Congress of Publishers which con- vened in London in 1899, and has traveled in Europe and other countries. He makes his summer home at Derby, Vermont, on his " Fairmedes Farm," which he established there in 1892.
Mr. Silver is a member of the Aldine Association, the Phi Beta Kappa Gradnates' Association, and the Brown University Club, of New York; of the University Club and the Vermont Association, of Boston ; of the New England Society of Orange, New Jersey ; and of the Republican Club of East Orange, New Jersey. He was married in Providence, Rhode Island, on Jan- try 4, ISSS, to Miss Susan Florence Maine of North Stoning- ton, Connecticut, a graduate of Wellesley College, class of 1886. They have six children : Katherine, Anvie Lonise, Edgar Oscar, Jr., Helen Florence, Priscilla Warren, and Susan Geraldine.
CHARLES EDWARD WINGATE SMITH
THE great tide of immigration from the four corners of the earth which incessantly flows into the port of New York is in a measure rivaled -far surpassed in quality at least - by that of domestic migration, which year by year brings hither ambitious and effective men from all parts of the United States, seeking the larger opportunities and loftier possibilities afforded by the metropolis. Some of these are only returning to what was the home of their fathers. Others come of the stock that originally settled in distant colonies, remained in other States of the nation, and only in this generation seeks the great center of North American business life.
To the last-described class belongs Charles Edward Wingate Smith of No. 71 Broadway, New York, who has won for himself an assured and respected place in the financial world as a broker. Mr. Smith is a gentleman of sterling integrity and superior ability in his particular line, having the entire confidence of his patrons. He is of purely Southern origin. His remote ancestors came from England and settled in the colonies at an early date. His father's family was identified with Virginia for many gen- erations, and then moved southward into the Palmetto State. His mother's ancestors first settled in New England, and then removed to the South. Two generations ago the two lines came together in South Carolina. There, in the last generation, John E. Smith was born, and was married to his wife, Mary E. Smith, who was also of South Carolina nativity. Mr. Smith was a farmer by occupation, at Marion, in Marion County, on the his- toric soil by the Great Pedee River.
At Marion, of such parentage, Charles Edward Wingate Smith was born on September 18, 1852. He was first educated at local 306
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schools; then prepared for college at the Union Academy, in Robeson County, North Carolina, just across the border from Marion County ; and finally finished his academie career at the Randolph-Macon College, in Virginia; thus in his birth and education spanning the three historie Southern States.
Mr. Smith's early life was spent upon his father's farm, where he diligently performed the duties incidental to the life of a farmer. It was not until he was seventeen years old that he saw his way clear to securing a higher education and to fitting himself for a business career. Then he went to the Union Academy for a few months, paying his tuition by working out- side of school hours. Finding that unsatisfactory, he left the academy for a time, and taught a small ungraded school, where out of his small salary he was able by dint of great economy to save a few dollars. With such savings he returned to the acad- emy and paid his tuition for a few more months. Again he became teacher of a small country school, and again he saved every cent that could be spared. Thus he accumulated enough to enable him to enter Randolph-Macon College and to pursue a course of study there. In 1875, at the age of twenty-three, he left college and returned for a third time to the school-teacher's desk. He was appointed principal of the high school at Lan- rinburg, North Carolina, and held that place three years. During that time he was married.
Mr. Smith gave up the school in 1878 to return to what had been his occupation before he went to school. His wife had received from her father the gift of a farm, and he devoted him- self for the best part of two years to cultivating it. At the same time he began to be interested in the agricultural fertilizer busi- ness as an agent. Finding the latter more profitable than farm- ing, he presently devoted his whole attention to it, and became a dealer in fertilizers, on a large scale, at Laurinburg and at Wilmington, North Carolina.
A considerable degree of prosperity was attained by Mr. Smith in that business, and he had fair prospects of a successful career in it. But he looked to larger undertakings in a larger place. Accordingly in 1883 he sold out his business in the South, and came to the North. He settled in New York city, where he has been ever since.
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In New York Mr. Smith found himself in the financial capital of the nation, and he himself decided to engage in financial pur- suits. He opened an office as a broker, and quickly evinced his aptitude for that business. He devoted his chief attention to negotiating the sale of stocks and bonds put upon the market by railroad companies and other substantial corporations. As a rule he thus finances the entire issue of such a security, and thus plays an important part in the market of investment scrip.
Mr. Smith is a broker pure and simple, and nothing more. His business is confined to bankers and similar capitalists, who alone are able to deal in the entire issues of securities which he places upon the market. He has deemed it wise to refrain from official connection with the enterprises whose securities he sells, and his name is not, therefore, on the directories of any corpora- tions, with one or two exceptions, recently being connected as temporary treasurer with the American Gold & Copper Mining Company and the Consolidated Copper Company. These com- panies are developing large mining properties in Arizona. Neither has he found the time nor felt the inclination to become an office-holder or office-seeker, or to take any part in political affairs beyond that of a private citizen. He is not a club-man, finding it more to his taste to devote all of his spare time to his family, of whom he is very fond.
Mr. Smith was, as already stated, married while he was prin- cipal of the high school at Laurinburg, North Carolina. The wedding occurred on September 27, 1877. His bride was Miss Fanny Roper, daughter of Colonel James T. Roper of Lanrin- burg. She has borne him five children, as follows: Sara Mar- garet Smith, James Turner Roper Smith, Mary McBride Smith, Charles Edward Wingate Smith, Jr., and John Willis McArn Smith.
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FRED DE LYSLE SMITH
1 THE subject of the present sketch is descended from Isaac Smith, a man of English and Welsh ancestry who lived at Glastonbury, Connecticut, and was an active participant in the Revolutionary War. He married Ruth Hollister, and had four children -Elizur, Zephaniah, Asa, and Ruth. Zephaniah married Hannah Hickok, and was the father of the five "Glastonbury Smith Sisters," two of whom, Julia and Abby, became noted for their resistance to what they deemed taxation without repre- sentation, permitting their property to be sold rather than pay taxes on it. Elizur Smith married Elizabeth Simons, and had three children, one of whom, George, became a prominent and much-beloved minister of the Protestant Methodist Church in Washington County, New York. The Rev. George Smith mar- ried Hannah Temple, and had a son, Horace Smith, who be- came a carriage manufacturer and dealer in farm produce, and who is now living in Brooklyn, New York. Hannah Temple, wife of the Rev. George Smith, was descended from Abraham Temple, who came from England and settled in Massachusetts in 1636. Horace Smith, named above, married Calista Jane Bab- coek, a woman of great force of character and loveliness of dis- position. She was descended from the Babcock family of Rhode Island, which was related to the Sherman family from which General William T. Sherman came, and from the Clements family, of Dutch - and probably royal-origin, of Dutchess County, New York.
Fred De Lysle Smith, son of Horace and Calista Babeoek Smith, was born on October 4, 1856, at North Hebron, Wash- ington County, New York. He was educated at the North Hebron Academy; at the Eastman Business College, Pough-
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keepsie; at the Troy Conference Seminary at Poultney, Ver- mont; at Williams College, where he was graduated with the degree of A. B. in 1883, after a brilliant career as a student ; and in the Law Department of the Columbian University, Washing- ton, D. C., from which he received the degrees of LL. B. and LL. M. in 1885.
At eleven years of age his parents removed from North Hebron to Poultney, and there, at the age of fourteen, he was employed in a general store. Thence he went to Eastman's Business Col- lege; thence to a dry-goods house at Troy; thence to the Conference Seminary and College. While at the Columbian University he was private secretary to General William B. Hazen.
Mr. Smith came to New York city in the fall of 1885, and en- gaged in the practice of law. For six years he was associated with the counsel of the Bell Telephone Company, at the same time building up a private practice. In 1892 he opened offices in the Equitable Building, from which he removed to his present quarters in the American Surety Building. He has conducted a general law practice, but has paid especial attention to corpora- tion, commercial, and probate law. He is counsel for a number of large corporations, and has otherwise a wealthy and impor- tant clientage. His success has been marked, and his general standing in the profession is high.
In college Mr. Smith was a member of the Zeta Psi Fraternity, and is now president of its alumni association. He is also a member of Phi Beta Kappa, Phi Delta Phi, the New York Law . Institute, the New York State Bar Association, the Society of Medical Jurisprudence, the Williams College Alumni Associa- tion of New York (of which he is secretary), the Brooklyn Young Republican Club, and the Union League Club of Brook- lyn. He was married, on April 27, 1887, to Miss Florence Hamilton, daughter of Dr. John W. Hamilton and niece of Dr. George Ryerson Fowler of Brooklyn. She died on February 5, 1888. On December 16, 1890, he was married to Miss Ella Louise Leveridge, daughter of Charles E. Leveridge of Eliza- beth, New Jersey.
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FRANK JULIAN SPRAGUE
F RANK JULIAN SPRAGUE, electrical engineer of New York city, was born in Milford, Connecticut, on July 25, 1857, the son of David Cummings and Frances Julia (King) Sprague. He comes of good English stock, dating back to early colonial times. He received his early education in the common schools of North Adams, Massachusetts.
In 1874 he won a competitive appointment to the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis, and was graduated with honors in 1878. His first long cruise was around the world, sailing on the Richmond and acting as special correspondent of the Boston "Herald " during General Grant's visit to the East. On his return he went to Newport, where he built his first motor at the torpedo station, then joined the Lancaster, and was the naval representative at the Electrical Exhibition in London in 1882. Shortly afterward he resigned, and, after a year with Mr. Edison, he formed the Sprague Electric Railway and Motor Company, giving especial attention to the development of sta- tionary motors and electric traction.
In 1886 he commenced experiments on the Manhattan Elevated Railway, and in 1887 took several contracts for electrically equipping street-railways, one of these being at Richmond, Vir- ginia. The installation of this latter road, attended by most dis- couraging circumstances, and carried through only by untiring efforts and sacrifices, marked a new epoch in street-car service, for the Richmond plant was the first practically to demonstrate the feasibility of electric tramways, and its success led, during the next six years, to the transformation of five sixths of the existing lines into electric systems. To Mr. Sprague more than to any other man is due this extraordinary development. Among
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many features introduced by him at Richmond and St. Joseph, all of which are now standard, are : universally movable trolley ; fixed motor-brushes for both motions of the car ; single reduction motors centered on the axle and flexibly supported ; double motor equipments, with entire weight available for traction and sym- metrically distributed ; bonded tracks with supplemental wire; series-parallel control ; and two motors controlled by a single con- troller from either end of the car.
Henry Vreeland, in his "One Hundred Years of Progress," states that the four epochs in street-railroading were John Ste- phenson's first car, Halliday's cable, Sprague's electric railway development, and Henry Whitney's consolidation methods.
The principles Mr. Sprague introduced into electric railway work, and the unexampled development of the electric systems employing them, together with his subsequent work, have estab- lished him as one of the foremost living engineers.
In 1889 the Edison Company absorbed the Sprague Company, and Mr. Sprague soon resigned, forming the Sprague Electric Elevator Company, and began a struggle for the supremacy of the electric against the hydraulic elevator, a bitter contest for five years, resulting in a combination after the electric elevator had established itself. Its progress in the United States was supplemented in 1897 by the largest contract of its kind ever given, namely, that for forty-eight elevators for the Central London Railway.
In the spring of 1897 Mr. Sprague took the contract for changing over the equipment of the South Side Elevated Rail- way of Chicago into an electric railway on a new system which he called the "multiple unit " system, in which individual cars are wholly or in part electrically equipped in such manner that they can be made up into train combinations of any length, and controlled from any desired number of points.
Shortly after a new Sprague Electric Company was formed and took over the South Side contract, which was successfully carried out in the face of many predictions of failure.
Mr. Sprague's work has been essentially constructive. He was a pioneer in the stationary motor business, built the first successful modern trolley railway, developing most of the essen- tials, invented the modern method of motor suspension, built the
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first electrie locomotive ear and the first large electric locomotive in this country, built the first high-speed electric elevator and the largest elevator plant in existence, has equipped the highest office building in the world, and originated and first reduced to practice the multiple unit system. He has given much time and thought to the study of the rapid-transit problem in New York city, and is an authority on the subject. Mr. Sprague is an ex-president of the American Institute of Electrical En- gineers, and a member of various scientific and engineering societies. He is a member of the University and several other clubs, and in politics is an independent Republican.
THOMAS ELLIOT STEWART
THE ancestors of Thomas Elliot Stewart were natives of T Ireland, a nation which has contributed a fuller quota of bright men to the population of the United States than any one other European state. Both of his parents were born in the town of Randalstown, County Antrim. Their names were James N. Stewart and Mary Elliot Stewart, and after their marriage, in 1813, they came to America, and settled in New York city, where Mr. Stewart followed the trade of a cabinet- maker.
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