USA > New York > New York state's prominent and progressive men : an encyclopaedia of contemporaneous biography, Volume III > Part 24
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In addition to his partnership in his own banking house, Mr. Thalmann is connected as a director or otherwise with numerous other enterprises of the best class in various parts of the world. Among these may be named the following: director of the Bir- mingham & Atlantie Railroad Company, the Colorado Fuel & Iron Company, the De La Vergne Refrigerating Machine Com- pany, the Florida Central & Peninsular Railroad Company, the Frankfort-American Insurance Company, the Georgia & Ala- bama Railroad Company, the Gruson Iron Works, the Magde- burg Fire Insurance Company of New York, the Omaha Water
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Company, the Richmond Trust & Safe Deposit Company, and the Thuringia-American Insurance Company ; trustee of the Aachen & Munich Fire Insurance Company, the Bavarian Mortgage & Exchange Bank of Munich, the Frankfort Marine Accident & Plate Glass Insurance Company, the Frankfort Transport, Glass & Accident Insurance Company, the Magde- burg Fire Insurance Company of Magdeburg, the Munich Rein- surance Company, the Thuringia Fire Insurance Company of Erfurt, and director and vice-president of the Haiti Telegraph & Cable Company.
Mr. Thalmann has sought and has held no political office. He is a member of various social organizations, including the Liederkranz, Lawyers', Midday, and Harmonie clubs of New York. He was married at Cologne, Germany, in 1881, to Miss Anna Michaelis, who has borne him two sons.
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J. J. Thiry
JOHN HENRY THIRY
"THE kingdom of Belgium was the native land of the subject of this sketch, although he was born there while Belgium was still a part of the kingdom of the Netherlands. His ances- tors were prosperous and prominent members of the community. devoutly religious and fervently patriotic. His father, John Baptist Thiry, was by occupation a dyer, farmer, and general merchant. His mother's maiden name was Anne Marie Dussart.
John Henry Thiry was born at L'Eglise, Belgium. on Deeem- ber 30, 1822. He was educated in the public schools and the Normal School, and in 1845 was graduated with honor from the latter institution. He then began work as a teacher. Within two years, however, he relinquished that calling, to accept a place in the office of the Minister of Public Works. He remained in the employ of the government until 1859, and then resigned his place to realize a dream of his life in coming to the New World.
Being a lover of books, and himself an accomplished man of letters, upon reaching New York he engaged in the book busi- ness, in a small store at the corner of Canal and Centre streets, which he rented for six dollars a month. In a few years he had one of the largest stores in the city, occupying the whole block on Centre Street from Canal to Walker Street. After thirteen years he retired from the business and removed to Long Island City, where he has since lived. Beginning in 1884, he served two terms as School Commissioner of Long Island City. In that office he effected many improvements in the school system and was instrumental in having the schools of Long Island City placed under the care of the regents of the State University.
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Mr. Thiry is entitled to grateful remembrance as the father and founder of the School Savings Bank system in America. He in- troduced it into the Long Island City schools in 1885. It has now spread to five hundred and twenty-six schools in ninety- seven cities, in fifteen States, and has resulted in the saving and depositing of $1,286,288.58. This splendid work has greatly in- culcated thrift and business methods among thousands of Ameri- can children. At the request of the Hon. W. T. Harris, United States Commissioner of Education, Mr. Thiry, in 1893, made an exhibit of the work and merits of this system at the Chicago World's Fair, and the Jury of Award granted him a medal and diploma in recognition of his distinguished services.
Mr. Thiry is vice-president of the Universal Provident Insti- tution, which meets in Paris every five years, and a member of the American Social Science Association, the Council of Super- intendents (of schools) of the State of New York, the National Educational Association, the Jefferson Club, the National Chari- ties Association, and the Knights of Columbus, and was in 1896 one of the twenty organizers of the New York State Association of School Boards.
He was married in Belgium, on March 24, 1853, to Miss Ernes- tine de Samolane, who bore him two sons, Raphael and Joseph. She died on June 16, 1896. On February 23, 1898, he married again, his second wife being Miss Margaret O'Connor, who has borne him a son, John H. Thiry, Jr., born on March 17, 1899.
Mr. Thiry, though now well advanced in years, still retains the vigor of youth in mind and body, and a keen interest in the things that concern the welfare of his fellow-men. He actively sympathizes with all movements for the betterment of society, especially those of an educational character, and those pertain- ing to the cultivation of habits of thrift. His fortune, though not large, is sufficient to provide the comforts and intellectual equipments of a most attractive home, and to enable him fre- quently to exercise in a practical manner those humanitarian principles which are at once the delight and adornment of his life.
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J. CAMPBELL THOMPSON
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York city, and remained there more than six years. During the last two years of that period he received an interest in the patronage of the office.
Mr. Thompson began practice on his own account in 1896, as senior member of the firm of Thompson & Maloney, in New York city, and soon secured a profitable clientage. He had the honor of fixing the responsibility of the city for the acts of the Street Cleaning Department, in the case of Quill vs. the Mayor, which was the only case ever decided by the Appellate Court in this State on that subject. He has frequently acted as counsel for the Metropolitan Street Railway Company, and tried negli- genee suits in its behalf. He has also a large general practice in almost all branches of law.
Mr. Thompson is fond of athletic sports, and is himself a noted athlete, having rowed in his college boat crews, and taken part in championship foot-ball and cricket games. He is an expert cross-country rider, having formerly been a prominent member of the Meath and Fermanagh hunt clubs. He now has a stable of fine horses, and is accounted one of the best four-in-hand drivers in New York.
In 1896 Mr. Thompson married Miss Dorothy Crimmins, the youngest sister of the Hon. John D. Crimmins of New York. She died, childless, about a year after the marriage, and Mr. Thompson remains a widower.
He is a member of various social organizations, in the affairs of which he is a potent force, and in the gatherings of which he is a welcome participant. Among these may be mentioned the Manhattan Club, the New York Athletic Club, the Suburban Riding and Driving Club, and the British Universities Club. He is a Democrat in politics, but has held no publie office, and has not busied himself in politics beyond exercising the duties of a citizen.
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ROBERT MEANS THOMPSON
T THE subject of the present biography is of mingled Scotch and Scotch-Irish origin. Among his ancestors in Scotland were some who bore the name of Wallace, and there is a tradi- tion in the Thompson family of descent from William Wallace, the national hero of Scottish history. However that may be, it is well established that the Wallaces from whom the Thompsons are descended dwelt at Elderslie, the home of William Wallace.
To come down to more recent times and to the authentic record of the family, it is to be noted that in 1740 one John Mc- Clure came from Scotland to America, and settled in North Carolina. Thenee he removed to Chester County, Pennsylvania, and obtained there a grant of land, at Uwehland, from the heirs of William Penn. Some of that land is still held by his deseen- dants, and it is an interesting circumstance that it is held under the original charter from Penn, no deed of it ever having been made, but all transfers having been effected by grant, will, or inheritance. A granddaughter of John MeClure, named Mary MeClure, married the Rev. William Kennedy, a Scotch-Irishman, pastor of the church in the Scotch-Irish village of Corsica, in Jefferson County, Pennsylvania, and to them a daughter was born, to whom they gave the name of Agnes. She became the wife of John J. Y. Thompson, who, as aforesaid, was a descen- dant of a branch of the Wallace family of Scotland, and who was a grandson of the Rev. John Jamieson, a Scotch Presbyterian minister, who had a useful and well-known career as a mission- ary among the Indians in Pennsylvania, Virginia, and North Carolina. John J. Y. Thompson was for many years a lay judge of the County Court of Jefferson County. Pennsylvania.
To Judge John J. Y. and Agnes Kennedy Thompson was born.
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at Corsica, Jefferson County, Pennsylvania, on March 2, 1849, a son, to whom was given the name of Robert Means Thompson. He was educated in the local schools at his native place, and at Elder's Ridge Academy, in Indiana County, Pennsylvania. Then, in 1864, he received an appointment as midshipman, and was ordered to the United States Naval Academy, at Annapolis, for instruction, and studied in that institution for a term of four years. He was an admirable student, and was graduated. with distinction in 1868, standing tenth in a class of eighty. He was at once detailed to duty in the navy, and saw his first service in West Indian waters. In 1869 he was commissioned an ensign and in 1870 a master. In 1871 he served on the Wachusett in the Mediterranean, and then, in October of that year, resigned his commission.
Returning home, he decided to enter the legal profession, and, after some study in a law office, was admitted to the Pennsyl- vania bar in 1872. He had not, however, all the preparation he wanted, so he went to Cambridge, Massachusetts, and entered the Dane Law School of Harvard University. There he pursued his studies to good effect, and was graduated, in 1874, with the degree of LL. B.
Mr. Thompson began legal work in Boston. For a time he was assistant reporter of the Supreme Court of Massachusetts, and practised his profession at the same time. He became inter- ested in politics, and in 1876, 1877, and 1878 was a member of the Boston Common Council. Then he turned his attention to other business enterprises, and presently devoted himself entirely to them, and laid his law books aside. His most important business work was done as the manager of the Orford Copper Company. This is one of the largest concerns of the kind in the world, and the chief producer of nickel in this country. As president of the company, Mr. Thompson has not only succeeded in effecting the economical smelting of copper ore in large quan- tities, but has organized the nickel industry in this country on a profitable basis, producing that metal in large quantities, of the best quality, and at a low price. The importance of this enter- prise to the nation is inestimable, nickel being so largely used by the government for naval armor-plate and for other purposes. Through his achievements in these lines Mr. Thompson has won
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undisputed rank among the foremost practical metallurgists in the United States, and indeed in the world.
Mr. Thompson is a member of the Metropolitan Club of Washington, D. C., and of a number of the best New York clubs. among them being the University, Players', Racquet, Engineers', New York, United Service, New York Athletic, Century Associa- tion, Down-Town Association, and others. He has long made his home in New York, on East Fifty-third Street, where he has a handsome house. His summer home is in the ancient, quaint, but now eminently fashionable village of Southampton, Long Island.
He was married, in 1873, to Miss Sarah Gibbs, a daughter of William Channing Gibbs of Newport, Rhode Island, a former Governor of that State. Mrs. Thompson is a granddaughter of Mary Channing, who was an aunt of the famous preacher, Wil- liam Ellery Channing. She is also a great-granddaughter of John Kane of Albany, New York, and in the seventh generation of descent from the Rev. Jonathan Russell of South Hadley, Massachusetts, who gave the regieides Goff and Whalley shel- ter in his home for a number of years. Mr. and Mrs. Thompson have one child, a daughter, who bears the name of Sarah Gibbs Thompson.
Mr. Thompson was not the only member of his family in the present generation who entered the military service of the nation. Three of his brothers, older than himself, were sol- diers in the Federal Army in the Civil War. These were John Jamieson Thompson, Albert C. Thompson, and Clarence Russell Thompson. The last-named was killed in the great battle of Malvern Hill. The second was wounded in the second battle of Bull Run. Since the war he has lived in Ohio, and was for three terms a Representative in Congress, and is now United States district judge for the Southern District of Ohio.
MIRABEAU LAMAR TOWNS
F EW lawyers in the city or borough of Brooklyn have at- tained greater popularity than the subject of this sketch, who, as his second name indicates, is of Southern origin, and, as his first name does not indicate, was educated chiefly in Ger- many. Mirabeau Lamar Towns was born in Russell County, Alabama, in 1852, the scion of an old American family. His father was a noted man in those parts, and his mother was a daughter of another noted man, David Rose. The boy received his earliest instruction in Atlanta, Georgia, and then, at the age of fourteen, was sent to Berlin, Germany. There he entered the Frederick William Gymnasium, one of the best schools in that city, presided over by a brother of the famous historian Von Ranke. Thence he passed on to Tübingen University, where he was graduated a Doctor of Laws. Finally he went for a couple of years to Vevey, Switzerland, to study French and Italian. By virtue of such training he became not only an able lawyer, but a scholar of broad and cosmopolitan culture.
Mr. Towns had scarcely attained his majority when he came home to Georgia and was admitted to the bar. He found little encouragement in the practice of his profession in the South, however. His literary attainments and his proclivities toward wit and poetry were all but wasted there. So he presently came North, and settled in Brooklyn. At that time one of the suc- cessful lawyers of that city was Ludwig Semler, a German by birth and a Democrat in politics. Both these circumstances commended him to Mr. Towns and commended Mr. Towns to him. They formed a partnership which lasted until Mr. Semler was elected city controller. Since that time Mr. Towns has been in practice alone. Mr. Semler's practice had largely been
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in the police courts. Mr. Towns found that class of work prof- itable, but he soon extended his practice to the higher walks of the profession, until he had an extensive practice in nearly all departments of legal action.
In polities Mr. Towns is a Democrat, and he has often been conspicuous in the affairs of that party. He has, however, held no office save that of delegate to the Constitutional Convention of 1894, in which body he made his mark as a fearless and earnest debater. His lack of political preferment is possibly due to the advanced character of many of his opinions, which are radical almost to the extent of socialism. He is a believer in extending the suffrage to women, and in the stricter regulation of the opera- tions of combined capital.
Mr. Towns has long been known as the " poet-lawyer." This appellation arose from his facility for rhyming, and from his ovca- sionally illuminating the tedium of court proceedings by putting an argument, a brief, or an appeal into verse. This has in no- wise impaired the solid merit of his legal work. He has estab- lished a number of important legal precedents, such as that a wife can sue another woman and collect damages for the aliena- tion of her husband's affections. It has fallen to his lot to conduct a number of divoree cases, in which he has been distin- guished for the chivalry of his manner and the earnestness of his vindication of domestic integrity.
Mr. Towns is a member of the Montauk Club, the Royal Arcanum, and various other social organizations. He has a fine home on Eighth Avenue, Brooklyn, near Prospect Park, and is a familiar and welcome figure in the social life of that borough.
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FERDINAND CHARLES TOWNSEND
THE name of Townsend, or Townshend, as it was formerly spelled, is a familiar one in English and Scotch history, not a few of its bearers having risen to distinction in one capa- city or another. It was transplanted to the North American colonies at an early date, and thereafter figured conspicuously in their annals. The family settled at what is now known as Oyster Bay, Long Island, about the year 1640, and quickly be- came of more than local note, its members playing a creditable part in many of the affairs of the country at large. In the last generation Charles E. Townsend pursued with eminent success for more than thirty-five years the business or profession of an expert accountant in New York city. In that calling he was intimately associated with many important investigations. He married Miss Louise Massa, a descendant of the well-known Italian family of that name. Miss Massa's father came to this country in 1820, and spent much of his life here, but was a staff- officer of Garibaldi's in that illustrious liberator's campaigns for the redemption of Italy from Bourbon tyranny.
The son of Charles E. and Louisa M. Townsend, named Ferdinand Charles Townsend, was born at the family's suburban home, at Edgewater, Bergen County, New Jersey, on January 23, 1869. After receiving a good primary education he was sent to the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn, New York, where he pursued a valuable course of study. At the age of eighteen years, however, in the spring of 1887, he left school and applied himself at once to a practical business career. His inclinations and abilities tended strongly toward the profession in which his father had achieved so gratifying a measure of success, and ac- cordingly he went straight from the Polytechnic to his father's
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office, at No. 31 Nassau Street, New York. There he began as a elerk, and filled that position for several years, and then rose to be his father's assistant. Subsequently he became cashier and accountant in the law office of Messrs. Davies, Short & Town- send, afterward Davies, Stone & Auerbach, but finally returned to his father's office as his partner, remaining with him thus until the latter's death, which occurred in April, 1894.
Since his father's death and up to date of July 1, 1900, Mr. Townsend conducted alone his business as expert accountant, at first in the old offices and then at No. 44 Pine Street, New York. He has been eminently successful, and has been engaged in many important examinations and accountings. Among these may be mentioned the famous Broadway and Seventh Avenue Railroad ease, and the subsequent trial of the " Boodle Alder- men "; the accounting of the estate of Edward Mott Robinson, father of Hetty Green, which was in litigation for many years ; the Vermont Marble Company, of which the Hon. Redfield Proctor was President ; the reorganization of the Walter 1. Wood Mowing & Reaping Machine Company, of Hoosick Falls, New York, and St. Paul, Minnesota ; the New York Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children ; and many others.
On July 1, 1900, Mr. Townsend associated with himself Samuel M. Dix, well known in business circles in New York and Chicago, under the firm-name of Townsend & Dix, at the Pine Street offices. The firm are auditors for many large corporations throughout the United States, and have made a specialty of the organization of accounts for the constituent companies of a large number of manufacturing combinations.
Mr. Townsend is president of the Young Men's Christian Association of the Borough of Richmond, of the Clifton Boat Club and the Clifton Tennis Club of Staten Island ; trustee and treasurer of the S. R. Smith Infirmary of Staten Island; and a member of the Staten Island Club and other organizations. In 1897 he received as an accountant a certificate of C. P. A. from the State Board of Regents without examination.
He was married in 1893, in Brooklyn, to Miss Cara Lewis Gates. They have two daughters, Ruth Maverick Townsend and Marion Raynham Townsend. They reside at No. 60 Townsend Avenue, Clifton, Staten Island.
ALFRED GWYNNE VANDERBILT
THE name of Vanderbilt has, in the United States, for four generations been associated with almost boundless wealth and business influence. It does not stand, however, for wealth acquired by a mere lucky stroke of fortune, but rather for that amassed by virtue of unflagging industry and judicious percep- tion of the fitness of means to ends. The family has, in brief, grown in wealth from generation to generation because of its identification with the expanding industrial and commercial interests of the city, State, and nation.
As the name indicates, the Vanderbilt family is of Dutch origin. It was first planted in the United States early in the eighteenth century, and for many years was settled on Staten Island, where, indeed, some of its members are still to be found. There the Vanderbilts pursued a hardy, laborious, out-of-doors life, chiefly as agriculturists or as seamen. They thus developed characteristic traits of thrift and industry, and fitted themselves for success in the struggles of life. Such traits were transmitted from one generation to another, and remain strong and dominant at the present time.
Three generations ago the name Vanderbilt became a con- spicuous one in the business world. It was then borne by Cor- nelius Vanderbilt, the eldest son of an eldest son. He was born on Staten Island in 1794, the son of a farmer, who carried his produce to the New York market in his own sail-boat. He grew up in the same occupation, and excelled in all its labors. As a lad he was athletic and daring, both as a horseman and as the master of a boat. At eighteen years old he was well established in business for himself, owning his own boat. A year later he married his cousin, Sophia Johnson, and then began to turn his
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attention more to commerce than to agriculture. He became captain of a steamboat plying between New York and New Brunswick, New Jersey, and ultimately became the head of a considerable coasting trade, with headquarters at New Bruns- wick. He removed to the latter place and there opened a hotel. By the time he was a little past fifty years old he was a wealthy steamship-owner, and in 1853 he went to Europe with his family in the ship North Star, which he had built for the purpose. Next he built the first railroad on Staten Island, and began other railroad enterprises. In 1860 he bought the stock of the New York and Harlem Railroad at six or seven dollars a share, made himself president of the road, greatly improved it, and by 1864 had the stock worth two hundred and eighty-five dollars a share. He was not a mere speculator, and was certainly the very oppo- site of the "railroad wrecker" then as since too conspicuous in the business world. He was a railroad builder, who took pos- session of a weak, dilapidated concern, reorganized and rebuilt it, infused new life into it, connected it with other roads so as to form an important trunk line, and so made it incomparably more profitable to its owners and more serviceable to the public than ever before. Such was the work which Commodore Van- derbilt did on the New York and Harlem Railroad, making it the prime link in the destined chain which now stretches across the continent. The Harlem Railroad was thus the foundation of the great Vanderbilt railroad system and its colossal for- tune. The New York Central and Hudson River roads were soon consolidated, and the whole system passed into the con- trol of Commodore Vanderbilt. During the Civil War he rendered great services, with steamships, etc., to the national government. For many years he was one of the most con- spienous and forceful figures in the business and financial world. exerting a dominant influence in Wall Street, and being a con- testant in some of the most noteworthy financial battles ever waged in that famous scene of business strife. At the time of his death, in 1877, he was one of the richest men in America. His fortune was estimated at one hundred millions of dollars, chiefly in railroad properties.
Cornelius Vanderbilt was succeeded as head of the family and of the great railroad interests by his son. William H. Van-
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ALFRED GWYNNE VANDERBILT
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