USA > New York > New York state's prominent and progressive men : an encyclopaedia of contemporaneous biography, Volume III > Part 4
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This important advance in the printing business changed the whole tenor of their business career. In 1816 they sold out their printing business, and devoted themselves, David to stereo- typing and George to type-founding, the two remaining in part- nership, however, until 1822, when David retired from business on account of impaired health.
George Bruce thereafter gave his attention entirely to type- founding, and placed and kept himself at the head of that in- dustry in America. He invented various new processes and new machines for use in the business, and also designed many new styles of type. As early as 1832 his models attracted attention and won favor for their beauty and utility, and for more than a generation he had no rival in the trade. When he was seventy-
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GEORGE BRUCE
eight years old he cut his last set of punches for great-primer script, and the work at that age was equal to the best ever turned out by an American type manufacturer. In association with his nephew and namesake he invented the type-casting machine which is now in all but universal use, it being the only one that has stood the test of long experience.
Mr. Bruce was a man of high intelligence and wide benevo- lenee as well as unswerving integrity. For many years he was president of the Mechanies' Institute and of the Type-founders' Association, of New York, and an active member and valuable supporter of the Historical Society, the Typographical Society, the St. Andrew's Society, and the General Society of Mechanies and Tradesmen.
He died in New York city on July 6, 1866, leaving a large fortune and a business of world-wide renown, which latter was carried on after his death by his eldest son, David Wolfe Bruce, who, after conducting it for more than twenty years, gave it to three of his employees.
THOMAS CORNER BUCK
THE ancestry of Thomas C. Buck is about as purely Ameri- can as that of any man can easily be. On both sides of the house his forebears were settled in this country among the very earliest colonists. The only exception to this rule is found in the case of his maternal grandfather, Mr. Frazier by name, who came hither from Scotland. A daughter of the latter, Mary B. Frazier, became the wife of John M. Buck of Frederick County, Maryland, and to them was born the subject of this sketch.
Thomas Corner Buck was born in Frederick County, Mary- land, on March 18, 1846. He received a good primary education, and then was sent to Milton Academy, in Baltimore County, Maryland, where his school education was completed. Next came the experimental education of practical business life. This he began in a elerkship in a Baltimore bank.
Upon his reaching his majority, in 1867, Mr. Buck left Balti- more and came to New York city to seek the larger opportuni- ties and, as he hoped, the greater measure of success to be found in the metropolis of the nation. He found his first employment as a clerk in the house of Hoyt & Gardiner, brokers. Later he filled a similar place in the house of Quinan & Enos. There his early training in finance in the Baltimore bank served him well, and he made steady progress in the mastery of the business and in the confidence and esteem of his patrons.
In 1870 Mr. Buek finished his probation as a clerk, and became a member of the firm of H. K. Enos & Co., brokers. The next year he purchased a seat in the New York Stock Exchange, and thenceforward for some years had a successful career as an operator in that great center of financial speculation.
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The Buck
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THOMAS CORNER BUCK
This eareer he voluntarily interrupted in 1878, when he sold his seat in the Exchange and went West to try his fortune in Chicago. Within the year he decided to return to New York, and did so return. In 1879 he rejoined the New York Stock Exchange, and has been a member thereof ever since. In the strenuous life of Wall Street he is entirely at home, and in all its varied and swiftly moving operations he is a confident and expert participant. In addition to the business of a broker he has acquired other interests in the New York business world. For a number of years he was a director of the Edison Eleetrie Light Company.
The temptation to enter political life comes with more or less force to most successful New York business men, and Mr. Buek has been no exception to the rule. He has, however, consistently and successfully resisted it, and has remained content with the discharge of his duties as a private citizen.
He has not identified himself conspicuously with club life, finding his inclinations more domestic than convivial. He is, however, a member of the Manhattan Club and of the Church Club.
Mr. Buck was married in early life, on November 2, 1869, in Chicago, to Miss Elizabeth C. Sharp of that city. Mr. and Mrs. Buek make their home in New York city, and their domestic life has been erowned with an interesting family of five sons, who bear the names respectively of Henry C., Thomas C., Ray- mond, Ainsworth, and Alan F. Buck.
CHARLES LUMAN BUCKINGHAM
C YHARLES LUMAN BUCKINGHAM, who has become prominent in New York, Washington, and the country at large as a practitioner of law, is descended from an old New England family which migrated from Connecticut to Ohio in the early days of the settlement of the "Western Reserve." The family was founded in America by Thomas Buckingham, who landed at Boston in June, 1637, and who in the next two years participated in the founding of New Haven and Milford, Connecticut. He was one of the "seven pillars" of the first church organized at Milford in 1639. His son, the Rev. Thomas Buckingham, was one of the founders of Yale College, and a member of the synod which met at Saybrook and formulated the plan of government of the Congregational churches. The line of deseent was continued directly through Thomas Buck- ingham III, Thomas Buckingham IV, Jedediah Buckingham, Thomas Buckingham V, Samuel Buckingham, and George Buckingham, to Charles Luman Buckingham, the subject of this sketch. The family was, in various generations, allied by mar- riage with the families of Hosmer Griswold, Parker, Clerk, Hib- bard, Babcock, and Andrews. Governor Buckingham of Con- necticut was a member of this family.
Thomas Buckingham V and his son Samuel Buckingham, respectively the great-grandfather and grandfather of the sub- ject of this sketch, moved from the old home in Connecticut to the " Western Reserve " in Ohio. There in the next generation George Buckingham was born and lived, and there, too, at Berlin Heights, Ohio, on October 14, 1852, Charles Luman Buek- ingham was born, the son of George and Ariadne (Andrews) Buckingham. He was educated first in the local public schools.
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CHARLES LUMAN BUCKINGHAM
Thence he went to the University of Michigan, at Ann Arbor, where he was graduated in 1875. Finally he pursued a course in law in the Law Department of the Columbian University, at Washington, D. C., from which institution he was also gradu- ated. While a student in the Columbian University he was also an examiner in the United States Patent Office.
Mr. Buckingham has made a specialty of patent law, for which his seientifie and engineering studies at the University of Michigan and his service in the Patent Office had afforded special preparation. In that branch of legal practice he soon attained success, and became counsel for many of the largest industrial corporations.
Mr. Buckingham has been leading counsel in some of the most important patent contests of the Western Union Tele- graph Company, the Thomson-Houston Electric and General Eleetrie companies, the Delaware & Atlantie Telegraph & Telephone Company, the American District Telegraph Com- pany, the Gold & Stock Telegraph Company, the American Speaking Telephone Company, the Schuyler Electric Company of Connecticut, and various others.
Mr. Buckingham is a member of various professional and social organizations in New York, Washington, and elsewhere. Among these two are the University Club of New York, the American Institute of Electrical Engineers, the American Asso- ciation for the Advancement of Science, the American Academy of Political and Social Science, the Metropolitan Club of Wash- ington, D. C., and the Ohio Society of New York.
SAMUEL BUDD
A CERTAIN Baron Jean Budd was a man of influence in th early days of the Franklin realm, and his descendants wer noted champions of civil and religious freedom in Normandy From that dukedom they went with William the Conqueror t England, and there maintained their prominence in political an social affairs. About 1632 two brothers, John and Joseph Budo came to New England and thus planted the family there. The settled at New Haven, Connecticut, and their descendant became scattered throughout Long Island, Westchester County New York, and elsewhere. A third brother, Thomas, came ove a little later, and founded the well-known Budd family of Bur lington, New Jersey. The family was also identified with th settlement of northern New Jersey, where Budds Lake preserve its name, and of central and northern New York and parts o Pennsylvania.
We may not here trace all its history down to the present time In the last generation, however, Hiram Budd and Catharine An Budd, his wife lived at New Paltz, Ulster County, New York Mrs. Budd being of the sturdy Dutch stock which settled th Shawangunk region in Ulster County. In the next earlier gen cration the family was united by marriage with that of De La Rue a French Huguenot family of New York State. The son of thi couple, therefore, is of mingled Norman, English, Dutch, an French blood.
Samuel Budd, son of Hiram and Catharine Ann Budd, wa born at New Paltz, New York, on December 26, 1835, and was edu cated in the public schools and the State Normal School at tha place. Ilis business career was begun in the employ of the firm of R. A. & G. H. Witthaus, in New York. He left them in 186
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SAMUEL BUDD
to engage in business on his own account as a dealer in men's furnishing goods, and soon made his two stores on Broadway veritable landmarks of that trade. He never removed his busi- ness from the place in which he started it, but remained at "the old stand " with uniform prosperity, commanding a fine measure of publie favor and the confidence of all with whom he had dealings.
Mr. Budd has held no political office, confining his political activity to a right performance of the duties of a private citizen. He has served the State, however, as an efficient member of the Seventh Regiment, National Guard, State of New York, and as captain of Company F of that famous organization. He is a charter member of the Seventh Regiment Veterans' Asso- ciation. Apart from that organization Mr. Budd is not known as a "elub-man," preferring to give his time to domestic and business life rather than to club life.
Mr. Budd was married, many years ago, to Mary Hudson Beach, a member of the old Hudson family of Shelter Island. They have six children now living, namely : Alvura, Harry A., Marie Hudson, Fai B., Elizabeth S., and Beatrice B.
The second child, and only son, Harry A. Budd, was at first an associate and afterward successor to his father, on the latter's well-earned retirement from active business life, and now con- duets the same successful trade under the old firm-name of Samuel Budd, at the same old stand.
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JAMES BUTLER
0 NE of the largest racial elements in this composite nation is that furnished from Ireland. For many a year there has been a steady stream of immigration into the United States from the Emerald Isle, of all sorts and conditions of people. Many are poor, and come hither as laborers, and of these some remain poor all their lives, while others find here opportunity of acquiring wealth far beyond the utmost dreams possible in the old coun- try. Others come hither with some means, and at once estab- lish themselves in comfortable positions. They enter all depart- ments of activity, as working-men, politicians, and members of business houses and the learned professions. In the present case we have an example of the class which begins with humble means, and by virtue of grit and shrewdness and energy makes its way steadily forward and upward to the foremost and highest ranks.
James Butler comes of good old Irish stock. His father was Matthew Butler, a farmer of County Kilkenny, Ireland, and his mother was Ann Kearney Butler. He was born in County Kil- kenny on February 9, 1855. That was after the Great Famine and the Young Ireland political troubles, when emigration from the island was attaining enormous proportions. The Butler family did not, however, join the exodus, but remained in Kilkenny. James spent his boyhood on his father's farm, obtaining mean- while a good education in the National School of the parish of the Rower, County Kilkenny.
At the age of twenty years, however, the young man decided to seek a career in some land where the opportunities of achieve- ment were greater than they were in Ireland at that time. So he joined the great army of emigrants that moved westward,
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JAMES BUTLER
and came to the United States. Here he had to begin where he had left off at home, as a farmer, obtaining a place on the farm of a Mr. Dresser, at Goshen Mountain, Massachusetts. Next he went to Urbana, Illinois, and secured employment in a hotel, the Driggs House. His third place was in the Sherman House, Chicago, and then, maintaining his steady progress, he came to New York as an employee of the Windsor Hotel. There he remained until the Murray Hill Hotel was opened, when he went to it. That was the extent of his hotel work.
Mr. Butler began business on his own account in 1882, as a grocer. His natural energy and shrewdness soon gave him a good start in it, and he has since continued in it, with more than ordinary success. He has become, also, a director of the Mutual Bank of this city, and is a member of the Produce Exchange and the New York Mercantile Exchange. He is a member of various social organizations, prominent among them being the Catholic Club and the Commercial Club. He has taken no part in politics beyond that of a private citizen.
He was married in this city, on September 26, 1883, to Miss Mary A. Rorke, a young lady of Irish ancestry, and they have five children now living, namely : Beatrice, Genevieve, James W., William M., and Pierce.
JOHN BYRNE
THE subject of this sketch, the son of John and Eleanor Byrne, comes of one of the most ancient Irish families, the traditions of which are carried baek as far as the year 737. The "O'Byrnes' country," the region where the family chiefly flourished, was in the counties of Wicklow and Wexford. O'Toole, the ancient King of Leinster (O'Toole married an O'Byrne), bequeathed his kingdom to an O'Byrne. The family figures prominently through the centuries in every resistance to English occupation and rule. There has rarely been a rebellion or a rising with which some O'Byrne has not been actively iden- tified. The father of John Byrne was an ardent patriot, as be- fitted his heredity, and in 1831 was forced to flee from Ireland with a price on his head, for complicity in the destruction of an English garrison near Dublin, engaged in guarding the tithe- books. He came to America, rescued from an open boat on the high seas by an American merchantman, and settled in Mary- land, where he married an American, a native of his adopted State. Mr. Byrne's profession was that of a civil engineer and railroad builder, but he gave it up, after some years in the United States, and became a prosperous farmer and planter.
John Byrne the younger was born on his father's plantation in Washington County, Maryland, over forty-five years ago. He received a good education in the public schools, in the Frostburg Academy, and under private instruction at his home. He was trained in an engineers' corps, filling several positions of more or less importance on railroads and in connection with coal-mines, until he had thoroughly mastered the science of railroading. In his subsequent career he became one of the prominent railroad
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JOHN BYRNE
and mining men in the country, and is at present identified with a large number of enterprises, both East and West.
For many years he was connected with Collis P. Huntington in railway interests in Kentucky, Ohio, and Virginia. He was president of the Scioto Valley Railroad Company, is now presi- dent of the Central New York and Western Railroad Company, the Shawmut Mining Company of Pennsylvania, and the Inte- rior Construction and Improvement Company of New York and Detroit, which is engaged in building railroads, gas-works, and natural gas lines ; a director in the Detroit City Gas Company, a trustee of the Emigrants' Industrial Savings Bank of New York, president of the Buffalo, St. Mary's, and Southwestern Railroad Company, and is interested officially and otherwise in various railroads and coal and gas companies.
In political affairs Mr. Byrne has never been prominent. He was a flood commissioner under Governor George Hoadley of Ohio, during the great inundation of the Ohio Valley in 1883-84, assisting in disbursing the moneys appropriated by the State, as well as those contributed by the charitable throughout the world, amounting to several hundred thousand dollars, serving without compensation or emolument. In 1896 he was elected president of the Democratic Honest Money League of America, which supported MeKinley and Hobart, and afterward, in 1898, helped to eleet Governor Roosevelt. Mr. Byrne still holds the office, and is as enthusiastie as ever in defense of sound-money principles.
He is connected with many charitable organizations, and is president of the Soldiers' and Sailors' Families' Protective Asso- ciation, which was formed to provide and care for the families of those soldiers and sailors whom the recent war sent into active service. The work of the association will continue as long as there is need of it.
Mr. Byrne, who is unmarried, is well known in the club world. He is a member of the Manhattan, Catholic, and Ohio clubs, and the Down-Town Association of New York, and the Detroit Club of Detroit.
LAURENCE J. CALLANAN
TAURENCE J. CALLANAN was born in Clonakilty, County Cork, Ireland, about sixty-five years ago. He gained a knowledge of the grocery and baking business in his father's large establishment, under strict discipline and no favors. To a quarrel with his father, and determination not to receive threatened punishment on his return from a business trip to Cork, was due his leaving home. Sending back most of the money from the sale of the goods, he sailed on the old ship Con- stitution from Liverpool, landing in New York in the fall of 1853. He had consigned himself without notice to his aunt, but found her awaiting him, she having received a letter from his father, which had beaten the old packet in transit and told of his running away, urging her to make him return. He declined to go back, and being willing to do anything not degrading or dishonest, he earned a few dollars at odd jobs, and got his first steady work with a gardener on Fifth Avenue. This ended with the busy season. Next, he found a five-dollar-a-month- and-board place in a grocery in Brooklyn. He stayed there some time, then went to New Orleans, where he became an entry clerk at good wages, but found living expensive and the associations not to his liking, so he returned to his old employer in Brooklyn, and afterward found employment with Peter Lynch, on Vesey Street, New York, in the store he now owns. A year later, hearing of a small store on Rector Street, he counted up one hundred and fifty dollars capital, notifying Mr. Lynch of his intention to start for himself. He got along very well for four years, when he was surprised by a visit from Mr. Lynch, who offered to lease him the large grocery store in Baxter Street, which had been occupied by his father-in-law, with the agency
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L. J. Callanan
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LAURENCE J. CALLANAN
of the real estate of which his father-in-law died possessed. He took the business, remaining in it until 1868, when Mr. Lynch offered him an interest in the firm of Peter Lynch & Co., James A. Kemp having been a partner since 1856.
Mr. Callanan married Miss Ellen Donovan of New York in 1861. With their little daughter, they moved to Vesey Street, living over the store. Four children were born there, and the most severe loss of his life, the death of his three eldest children within three weeks, occurred. The family then re- moved to Brooklyn, and thence to their present residence in West Eleventh Street, New York. Of eight children, one son only is living.
At the death of Mr. Lynch in 1874, the firm became Callanan & Kemp. Five years later Mr. Callanan bought the property, and built a new store over the old one, without stopping business for a single day-the first time this was attempted in New York. The adjoining building was purchased, and a new store erected, making a fifty-eight feet front by eighty-two feet deep, five stories in height. Mr. Kemp retired in 1896, Mr. Callanan purchasing his interest in the firm.
Mr. Callanan is a member of the Chamber of Commerce, the Board of Trade and Transportation, the Produce Exchange, the Mercantile Exchange, and the Retail Grocers' Unions of New York and Brooklyn. He is an ardent advocate of municipal re- form, and prominent in politics, without seeking office. In his three years' fight against encroachments upon sidewalks the Court of Appeals sustained his contentions. He urged the pres- ent rapid transit act, and the retention in power of the present commissioners, the passing of strict laws against food adultera- tions, and has given valuable service on committees before the city and State authorities in representing the interests of the «itizens.
He is a member of the Catholic Club, and of the American Catholic Historical Societies of New York and Philadelphia, and in behalf of deserving charity his work is well known. As a member of the New York Yacht Club and of the Atlantic Yacht Club he takes his greatest pleasure and recreation from care and business on his sloop Eclipse, an old-time but speedy boat, being always with the fleet on regatta days and on the cruises.
THOMAS C. CAMPBELL
MONG the successful men of affairs in New York are some who began their careers elsewhere, and came hither only when well started in life and its pursuits. They reckon to find here larger opportunities and higher planes of success than any lesser community can afford. A case in point is that of Colonel Thomas C. Campbell, who is now one of the well-known lawyers of the metropolitan bar. He is a native of the western part of New York State, having been born at Rochester, on April 25, 1845. His early education was acquired in the local public schools, and ended with the outbreak of the Civil War. On his sixteenth birthday anniversary he enlisted in the national army, being one of its youngest members. He served from the begin- ning to the end of the war, acquitting himself gallantly and skilfully in every capacity in which he was called upon to serve his country, and was honorably mustered out, at the age of twenty years, in the fall of 1865. When, in 1867, the Grand Army of the Republic was organized, with General Logan as commander-in-chief, Colonel Campbell was elected to his staff as quartermaster-general, and was appointed editor of the " Republic," the official organ of the order. He held this place until March, 1870, at which time he completed the studies at the Cincinnati (Ohio) Law School, which he had begun after leaving the army, and began the practice of his profession in Cincinnati.
In the meantime he had been, in 1868, elected a member of the City Council of Cincinnati, and in 1869 he was appointed Assistant Collector of Internal Revenue in that district. His career as a lawyer opened auspiciously. In 1871 he was elected prosecuting attorney of Cincinnati, and at the end of his term
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THOMAS C. CAMPBELL
was reelected. He soon was engaged as the retained counsel for the Cincinnati "Gazette " and the Cincinnati "Enquirer," and held those positions for ten years.
He was chosen by the Ohio State Republican Committee, in 1876, to prosecute the men charged in that year with election frauds, and, in behalf of Judge Cox, he successfully contested, before the Ohio Senate and Supreme Court, the election of the Hon. Judson Harmon, who has since been Attorney-General of the United States. He was also counsel for the Hon. Stanley Matthews, afterward United States Senator and justice of the Supreme Court, in his contest with General Banning, and was counsel for Governor Campbell of Ohio in his congressional con- test. He successfully defended Mr. Shellbaker, Chief of Police, for the shooting to death of Officer Chumley, and Controller Hoffman against the charge of reissuing one hundred and eighty thousand dollars' worth of bonds of the city of Cincinnati.
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