USA > New York > Noted living Albanians and state officials. A series of biographical sketches > Part 8
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ANDREW S. DRAPER.
common sentiment of the people will gradually come to ap- preciate, authorize and direct the things necessary to be done in order that the capital of money and brains invested in the schools shall be most profitably employed."
" Yet, if we compare the work of the last year and the in- telligence and spirit which has characterized it with that of preceding years ; if we compare the public school work of New York, its progress and its prospects, with the public school work of states all about us, it is not difficult to find abundant occasion for congratulation and encouragement."
On the whole, the results of Judge Draper's labors as superintendent of public instruction have been highly ap- proved by the most competent and successful educators, from college presidents down to common school teachers. The work in his department at the capitol moves on with the greatest regularity and completeness, where he is ably assisted by his deputy, Hon. Charles R. Skinner, and others. The large, varied, and daily increasing correspondence is promptly attended to, and no one has just reason to com- plain of neglect, amidst all the manifold duties performed in the office.
The versatility of Judge Draper's genius is worthy of note here. He has proved himself capable as a lawyer, a legis- lator, and an educator, in the last of which he has, perhaps, won his brightest laurels; for it is doubtful whether the state ever had a more accomplished and efficient Superin- tendent of Public Instruction.
Rather retiring in his manners, without the least outward show, courteous in his treatment of all persons having busi- ness relations with the department, Judge Draper, at the same time, seems to be engrossed in the responsible and onerous duties of his special public service.
JAMES W. EATON.
TRULY representative Albanian who has contributed largely to the architectural adornments of the city of his adoption, and whose name will always be favorably as- sociated in the construction of the new capitol, is James W. Eaton. His life is specially interesting and instructive as presenting the more solid characteristics which are essential in the formation of a type of true manhood - a type which will ever be a blessing to any community. He was born at Somerville, N. J., not far from the city of New Brunswick, on the 22d of August, 1817. His ancestors were among the Puritans of the old Massachusetts Bay colony, who in 1629, with five shiploads of colonists under their leader, John Endicott, landed at Salem and Charlestown, just nine years after the settlement at Plymouth. Here, breathing the purer air of liberty in civil and ecclesiastical matters than they enjoyed in the old world, actuated by a spirit of piety, and filled with noble impulses, they engaged manfully in the trials and struggles incident to pioneer life in a new wilderness land.
The father of the subject of this memoir was Josiah Eaton, a native of Keene, N. H., who after living several years in the old granite state removed to New Jersey and took up his residence in the town of Somerville. The
emulation
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mother of James W. Eaton was Gertrude MacEll, born in New Jersey, and of Scottish-German origin. Both parents were persons of high character and were faithful followers of the apostolic advice - "diligent in business, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord." They were not, how- ever, fully satisfied with their New Jersey home, and with a view of enlarging their sphere of activity and providing bet- ter for their family they gathered up their little household effects in the year 1828, and slowly sailed up the Hudson, landing on the shores of the old Dutch city of Albany. As he looked upon the ancient structures of the city old Josiah Eaton, who was a stone mason by trade, thought he would soon find plenty of work to do in replacing crumbling foun- dations or in laying new ones. And so he told his wife they would make Albany their permanent residence. In this decision he acted wisely. When the family reached here their son James W. was but eleven years of age, but he was not brought up to eat the bread of idleness. He soon commenced to learn the occupation of his father. The pecuniary means of the Eatons were at that period quite limited, but by hard work and strict economy they managed to make a comfortable living.
For several years young Eaton worked at his trade in the summer, and atttended the old Lancaster school during the winter, besides enjoying a brief period of instruction at a private school. He was as diligent in his studies as he was faithful and industrious in his trade, and succeeded in ac- quiring a good practical education in the ordinary branches, which was to be of the greatest advantage to him in carrying forward the more important works of his business life.
Mr. Eaton worked steadily at his trade until he reached the age of twenty-three, and had saved a little money from
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his hard earnings, when he settled down in life as a young married man. In 1840 he was happily united in marriage to Miss Eliza M. Benner, who after a companionship of fifty years still lives to be " a crown of glory " to her husband.
Of their two surviving children, Calvin Ward Eaton was formerly a member of the firm of VanSantford & Eaton, lum- ber dealers, while James Webster Eaton, Jr., a graduate of the Albany Boy'sacademy and of Yale college, is the senior part- ner of the well-known law firm of Eaton & Kirchwey, whose offices are established in the Tweddle building, Albany.
Not long after his marriage Mr. Eaton embarked in the contracting and building business, which he followed with success. In this he found a congenial and profitable occu- pation, in which he has continued to devote his best ener- gies. When he commenced his building operations he was thoroughly prepared for his work by years of previous ex- perience and study in masonry and architecture. He went to work with a strong will and a determination to succeed. His reputation as a builder rapidly increased, and to-day over five hundred buildings, both public and private, are standing monuments of his enterprise, energy and mechanical skill. In the line of beautifying the city by handsome structures he set an example which has been care- fully imitated by the younger architects. He had already achieved a high reputation as a first-class builder, when a new field of labor was offered to him. In 1874, the com- missioners of the new capitol, consisting of Hamilton Harris, William C. Kingsley, William A. Rice, Chauncey M. Depew, Delos DeWolf and Edward A. Merritt, nominated and ap- pointed him superintendent of construction of the new capi- tol " subject to the consent and approval of the governor." And on the Ist of June of the same year Governor John
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A. Dix gave " such consent and approval." Mr. Eaton held this office through the administrations of Governors Dix, Tilden, Robinson and Cornell until the position itself was abolished in 1883. His superintendency gave great and general satisfaction to all parties, and it may moreover be asserted that in the midst of political changes in the execu- tive department of the state he performed his services in a manner which reflected the highest credit upon his character as an upright, honest and faithful public servant.
Retiring thus honorably from his efficient superinten- dency of the new capitol building, Mr. Eaton found time to devote himself to the improvement of his own real estate matters, and to the erection of various private residences. He has managed his own affairs with discretion, and en- hanced the value of public property. And now, having at- tained the height of his worldly ambition, he is passing a serene age in the bosom of his family and among his friends, enjoying the fruits of a life devoted to the development and prosperity of the city of his early adoption.
Mr. Eaton early united with the church, and is at present a leading member of the First Methodist Episcopal church of Albany.
In politics he is a republican, having cast his first presiden- tial vote in 1840 for General William Henry Harrison, and his last, in 1888, for his grandson General Benjamin Harrison.
Of a naturally vigorous constitution, with a kindly dispo- sition, modest and retiring in his manners, Mr. Eaton be- longs to that class of the older school of gentlemen - sons of daring pioneers, whose ranks are greatly thinned year by year by the hand of death, but whose works and labors of love will long remain as an inspiration to struggling, earn- est, rising young men.
DUDLEY FARLIN.
T HE RECORDS of American biography furnish numer- ous instances of persons rising to high and honorable stations in life, commanding the respect and admiration of the public and performing many noble deeds in the interests of humanity. Among the causes which operate to produce this grand result are natural talents, constant industry, strict economy, high moral principle, with the many golden op- portunities afforded by our free institutions for the encour- agement and development of material and intellectual great- ness. Albany has its fair share of representative men of this class ; and among the list we have one who is now a resident of this city - a public-spirited man, actively engaged in some of its large business concerns - Dudley Farlin, general freight agent of the Delaware and Hudson Canal Company's railroad, president of the Young Men's association, etc.
He was born on the 20th of December, 1835, in the town of Warrensburgh, Warren county, N. Y. In that rura1, healthful, romantic region he passed his earliest days under the watchful care of affectionate parents. He is a son of Myron B. Farlin and Harriet W. Farlin, both of whom have passed away.
His father was for several years engaged in the lumber business at Warrensburgh, where he was highly respected
Dudley Jardin
3.21.14 & Co Albany NY
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by all who knew him for his many excellent traits of char- acter. His grandfather, Dudley Farlin, one of the first set- tlers of Warrensburgh, was well-known in social and political circles. He was sheriff of Warren county in 1821 and in 1828 ; was member of the assembly in 1824-5 ; a democratic elector at large in 1832 - when General Jackson was re- elected president of the United States-and member of congress in 1835-7.
Dudley Farlin, the subject of this sketch, was educated at private schools and academies, and under private teachers. His quick perception enabled him readily to grapple with and master those practical branches which are indispensable in a business calling. In fact, he may be said to have been a born business man. His youthful aspirations all lay in this line, and when he early set out to engage in the toils and conflicts of a busy life he possessed only a moderate capital, but with it a great deal of pluck, energy and perseverance. The geniality and honesty of the boy also drew around him warm friends, whom he held by strong and lasting ties.
He was only too glad to do something for himself in a pecuniary way, and found his first employment as a clerk in a store at Warrensburgh, kept by James W. Bishop, and now owned and occupied by A. T. Pasco & Son as a harness shop and store. Here he worked for several years, having for his associate clerk the late A. C. Emerson, father of the present state senator from Warren county. Both these young clerks conducted themselves so faithfully and effi- ciently that they soon gained the full confidence and esteem of their employer.
Mr. Farlin's motto was always to attend closely to busi- ness, believing that honest industry would be rewarded, and that " the hand of the diligent maketh rich."
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On leaving the store of Mr. Bishop, when about eighteen years of age, he was encouraged with the experience he had gained to go forward in the ways of business, and deter- mined to succeed on the basis of right principles. Having a great desire to see more of the world as well as to engage in larger fields of operation he visited California in 1866, and then sailed for Oceanica, spending seven years in Aus- tralia, New Zeland, Papua, Celebes, etc., and returning to his native land in the summer of 1872.
In 1875 his connection with the Delaware and Hudson Canal Company's railroad began. He served at first as as- sistant general freight agent, but his rare business qualities soon caused his elevation to the position which he now holds, not of " necessity but of a willing mind " for his su- preme love of business activities. To him an inactive life would be like a lingering death.
Mr. Farlin is truly an indefatigable worker, and spends most of his time in his office in the Delaware and Hudson railroad building, faithfully discharging his duties as the head of the freight department - duties which are of large extent and often of an intricate nature. He makes all the contracts of the company, not only for the state of New York, but throughout the United States. The responsibility of such a position, as any one must see at a glance, is very great, and demands the utmost vigilance and closest thought. But all his daily office labors are performed with an ease, regularity and thoroughness that must surprise any one who is in the least acquainted with the nature and extent of the work. Nothing is done in con- nection with freight for the Delaware and Hudson railroad without his knowledge and consent.
In 1882 Mr. Farlin became interested in the Virginia Oil
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DUDLEY FARLIN.
Company, and subsequently in the Kentucky and Tennessee Oil and Mineral Company, and the Lima Oil Company of which he was president and principal stockholder, and which he recently sold for $800,000. He has also been prominently identified with a number of electric light companies. He is president of the Edison Light and Power Company of Al- bany ; The Norwich, N. Y., Illuminating Company; Coopers- town Electric Light Company; The Merchants' Oil Com- pany ; The Manhattan Oil Company, and The Albany Oil Company.
The large and flourishing Manhattan Oil Company is one in which Mr. Farlin takes special interest and pride in de- veloping its resources. Its production is already 4,000 bar- rels daily ; its output is 3,700 barrels daily ; while in a few weeks its production will be 5,500 barrels daily and its out- put 5,000 barrels daily. It has 445 cars contracted and 375 on track, and owns 35,000 acres of oil territory.
Mr. Farlin is also a director of the Ballston Electric Light Company. He was recently chosen president of the Ken- tucky and Tennessee Oil and Mining Company, whose pos- sessions include petroleum, cannel coal, live oak and poplar timber and 300,000 acres of land in Kentucky and Ten- nessee. This new and enterprising company is capitalized at $600,000. Its petroleum output alone is expected to greatly exceed that of the Lima Company, which was 80,000 barrels a month. Its principal office will be in Al- bany, with branches in New York city and Rugby, Tennessee.
Mr. Farlin has been truly a successful man in all the busi- ness relations of life ; and he is doubtless well pleased that his now ample means enable him to accomplish with a gen- erous hand so much good for his fellow-men. His sympa- thies are, especially, on the side of true young men who are
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NOTED LIVING ALBANIANS.
struggling, as he was formerly compelled to do, to reach higher places of trust and responsibility in life; and many such he has encouraged by his words and aided financially. His own remarkable success has given him none of that con- ceit so often conspicuous in others who have risen from small beginnings in worldly affairs to wealth, exchanging the bleak winter of adversity for the genial summer of pros perity. In 1889 Mr. Farlin crossed the Atlantic, and made a flying tour through England, Scotland, Ireland, etc. Re- turning home after a few months' absence he met with one of the most cordial receptions among his fellow-citizens ever given to an Albanian.
Mr. Farlin is in heart-felt sympathy with all that tends to elevate and refine the tastes of our citizens by the dissemina- tion of sound literature. In the spring of 1890 he was elected president of the Young Men's association, in an ex- citing contest by a splendid majority, receiving a plurality of 634 out of 1, 158 votes cast. His name will be a tower of strength to that noble association, and he will carefully watch over its best interests and rejoice in its increasing prosperity.
In personal appearance Mr. Farlin is of a rather stout build, with broad shoulders and a massive forehead indica- tive of the ability to perform much severe and protracted mental labor and to carry on different works, simultaneously, without confusion or distraction of mind.
But one of the most striking elements in his character is his kindly disposition, his extreme generosity and unbounded liberality, with a most courteous, gentlemanly bearing toward all, "both high and low, both rich and poor." At the same time he is naturally of a very modest, unassuming turn of mind, shunning publicity in his many kindly deeds
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as much as many others court it. The great success of his public and private business interests shows his superior qualifications as a manager of corporations and companies, while the happy combinations of the best qualities of the head and heart have made him one of the most popular men in Albany. In social life he is as successful as he is in the financial world, and is held in the highest esteem by all who know him. He is at the same time a close observer of human nature and human actions, and in his business affairs as well as in his works of beneficence he seldom makes a mistake. His generous promptings come wholly from the heart, and he seems to find the highest pleasure in doing good, seeking, in the discharge of his stewardship, to merit the divine approval, " Well done, good and faithful servant."
In 1862 Mr. Farlin married a Tennessee lady who, like himself, possesses a benevolent disposition, noble Christian virtues, and "a meek and quiet spirit." Mr. and Mrs. Far- lin make their present home at the Kenmore hotel in this city. They have no children living.
DOUW HENRY FONDA.
N ALBANIAN who has long been actively and suc- cessfully engaged in an important, special commercial interest in this city, and who, at the same time, has taken an active part in the promotion of sound education and municipal prosperity is Douw H. Fonda, the popular, enter- prising wholesale druggist, of Nos. 70 and 72 State street.
Born on the 10th of September, 1831, in the picturesque village of Fonda, N. Y., he comes from a substantial line of Holland ancestry, noted in the olden times, some of whose members have held important and responsible public positions in this state, and aided largely in the development of the ma- terial and intellectual resources of the country. He is a son of the late G. T. B. Fonda, a highly esteemed citizen of the town of Fonda, N. Y. The maiden name of his mother was Rachel Polhemus, who was married to Mr. Fonda about the year 1829, and who died July 5, 1844.
His grandfather was Douw Adam Fonda, also of Fonda, N. Y., who was a member of the assembly from the counties of Montgomery and Hamilton in 1833, and who died July 5, 1855, leaving a high record as a useful, honorable, pub- lic-spirited citizen. His great-grandfather was Adam Fonda, ' a son of Douw Fonda, an early settler of Fonda, which in his time bore the Indian name of Caughnawaga. He ex-
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DOUW H. FONDA.
perienced many of those hardships which fell to the lot of the original settlers of this country. But he faced the dan- gers which surrounded him with a brave heart, until struck down by merciless, savage hands. In 1780, during the revo- lutionary war, this old pioneer was killed by the Indians in one of their stealthy, murderous attacks upon the defenseless inhabitants of the Mohawk valley. His memory will always be venerated by his descendants who rejoice in the posses -. sion of a goodly heritage, so long protected from the toma- hawk and the scalping-knife.
His great-great-grandfather was Jellis Adam Fonda, who was born in 1668, and who married a daughter of Peter Winne, of Albany, N. Y., in 1695. Jellis Douwse Fonda was the first of the name in the Mohawk valley. He appears to have been a resident of Beverwyck (Albany) as early as 1654, only thirty-one years after the erection of old Fort Orange by the West India Company. We find that his wife's name was Hester, who in 1666, was the widow of Barnet Gerritse.
Douw H. Fonda, the subject of this memoir, received the rudiments of his education in the common schools of his native place. He diligently improved the intellectual ad- vantages afforded him in the old school-house, with a view, principally, of early fitting himself for some useful, practical business. The opportunity soon came, when he was to go forth a youthful adventurer and engage in the stern realities of life, and grow up to manhood with settled principles of activity and integrity.
Leaving the parental roof before he had reached his four- teenth year, he came to Albany and served as a messenger boy in the assembly in the winter of 1845, when Horatio Seymour was speaker of the house. On the adjournment of that legislative session he went to New York city and
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filled a clerkship in a dry goods store for two years. In 1847 he found employment as a rodman in a corps of civil en- gineers, on the old Utica and Schenectady railroad for two years more. In 1849 he took a position under the late Hon. Webster Wagner, as assistant at Palatine Bridge. He remained with Mr. Wagner until September, 1853, and was greatly esteemed by him for his steady, industrious and faithful characteristics.
Before the close of 1853, immediately after the organiza- tion of the Spraker bank of Canajoharie, young Fonda, then twenty-two years of age, secured the position of teller in the new institution, and after two years' service in this capacity he was promoted, chiefly on account of his readi- ness and correctness in figures and his uprightness as a young man. In 1855 he was elected cashier of the Spraker bank, and for twelve years continued to discharge the duties of that responsible position in a careful, thorough, business- like manner, and with more than ordinary ability. Always at his post of duty, gentlemanly in his deportment and obliging in his manner, he was regarded as a model cashier by those with whom he came in contact in business matters.
At the close of this long period of creditable service in the bank, Mr. Fonda concluded to embark in the drug trade as the great work of his life and as being still more suitable to his taste; and, accordingly, on the 2d of May, 1865 -a day memorable in the history of Albany, when the remains of Abraham Lincoln lay in state in the capitol - he came to Albany and shortly afterward started out in his new business in company with Thomas Bagley, under the firm name of Fonda & Bagley. The venture was a suc- cessful one, and for thirteen years the house did an excel- lent business in its wholesale trade. In 1878 this firm
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DOUW H. FONDA.
was dissolved and that of Douw H. Fonda & Co. formed, which firm continued in existence until the 21st day of Jan- uary, 1889, when a new incorporated company was organized, of which Douw H. Fonda is the able and efficient president.
In the midst of his confining mercantile duties, Mr. Fonda has found time to attend to educational matters in Albany. Early in 1880 he was elected a member of the board of public instruction, and for five years in all, served the best interests of education in this capacity. One of his first efforts, when a member of the board, was his introduction of a reso- lution, the ultimate object of which was to make the public school library free to all citizens - a resolution which was carried into successful operation, in 1881, with the election of a librarian.
For twenty years Mr. Fonda has been a member of the Masonic society, Temple lodge, No. 14. He is also a mem- ber of the Fort Orange club, the Albany club, the Holland society, a trustee of the reserve fund of the New York State Relief association, a director of the Life Union Insur- ance Company of New York city, etc. He has been a member of the church and congregation of the State Street Presbyterian church for over twenty-five years.
He has been twice married. The maiden name of his first wife was Mary A. French of Canajoharie, N. Y .; that of his present wife, Ellen A. Barker of the same place. He is the owner of the original Fonda mansion at Fonda, N. Y., a relic of the olden time, around which many interesting associations cluster in the minds of the descendants of this sturdy old race.
Mr. Fonda's career is an ideal one, especially, in a busi- ness point - an admirable illustration of what a young man of correct habits and honorable dealings may attain to 16
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