USA > New York > Portrait gallery of the Chamber of Commerce of the state of New-York : catalogue and biographical sketches > Part 16
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iarily at least, some success. Too close application, how- ever, weakened his eyesight, and for some months he was unable to pursue his labors. About this period the junior partner in the publishing house of GREENOUGH & STEBBINS was changed, and GREENOUGH & BURRILL, the new firm, removed their business to Haverhill. Soon afterwards Mr. TILESTON bought out the interest of Mr. GREENOUGH, and the business was continued by BURRILL & TILESTON, the latter assuming the editorship of the Merrimack Intelli- gencer, of which the firm were the proprietors.
At the age of twenty-one he was selected by his old em- ployers to superintend the printing of an American edition of King JAMES' Translation of the Bible, and this edition displays evidence of painstaking care and great ability. In 1815 he took entire charge of the publishing and printing business of the firm named. But the most important part of Mr. TILESTON's career was yet to come. Prior to the war of 1812 Massachusetts was a commercial but not a manufac- turing State. She bought liberally of English goods, and readily found a market for her surplus breadstuffs and fish. The State was opposed to a protective tariff, while South Carolina earnestly contended for it. The war of 1812 caused great changes, by which Massachusetts lost her market, her surplus capital was driven out of employment, and she became a manufacturing State. Haverhill became a manufacturing centre, and the merchants there having decided to establish a permanent agency in New-York, proposed to Mr. TILESTON, in conjunction with Mr. SPOF- FORD, who resided in the same town, to proceed to New- York to receive consignments. This proposal was accepted, and thus the firm of SPOFFORD & TILESTON was formed in this City, in the year 1818, and its career is detailed at some length in the previous sketch of Mr. SPOFFORD.
In 1840 Mr. TILESTON was elected President of the Phenix Bank, and continued in that office until his death. Hismind was evenly balanced, his industry knew no tiring, and his sagacity, skill and promptness gave him many advantages in mercantile transactions. Mr. TILESTON died suddenly, in this City, on February 29th, 1864, in the seventy-first
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year of his age. His forty-six years of active business life called for and deserved the following tribute which the Chamber of Commerce paid to his memory at a meeting held March 3d, a few days after his death :
During the last twenty years his influence in this Chamber and elsewhere has been constantly extended to those charitable and public movements and measures which have made our City justly celebrated.
Resolved, That in his decease the mercantile commu- nity has lost an estimable member, the young merchant a valued friend, and the City of New-York one of the active supporters of its commercial greatness.
Resolved, That in our varied forms of intercourse with the lamented deceased, we can all bear testimony to his in- dustry, energy, sagacity and ability ; to the skill and courage with which he foresaw or adopted and entered into well- considered and productive plans of enterprise and improve- ment ; to the promptitude, punctuality and fidelity with which he pursued such plans and performed his engage- ments, and to his liberal public spirit.
Resolved, That after a long intimacy with him, we express with gratitude our appreciation of his virtues as a citizen and friend, his probity of character and his genial, social qualities.
COMFORT SANDS.
COMFORT SANDS was born at Sands' Point, on Long Island, February 26th, 1748. He came of an English family, that in former times had been most active in the settlement of Virginia and the Bermuda Islands, and a member of which, HENRY SANDS, had, in 1632, emigrated from Yorkshire and settled in Boston as a merchant, dying there in the year 1651.
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HENRY SANDS brought with him a son or nephew, JAMES SANDS, who, in his eighteenth year, followed the celebrated ANNE HUTCHINSON to the Dutch settlements, near New-York, and when that lady, together with four- teen of her family, were murdered by the Indians, he took refuge in the Providence Plantations, seated himself in the Colony, and married the daughter of JOHN WALKER, a man historically distinguished as one of the eighteen per- sons associated with ROGER WILLIAMS in founding Rhode Island.
In 1660 JAMES SANDS, having sold his lands in Provi- dence, joined Doctor JOHN ALCOCK and others in the pur- chase and settlement of Block Island. The history of his life there, so quaintly told by the old historian of the In- dian Wars of New-England, shows clearly the sturdy character of one whose religious enthusiasm in early life had separated him from family and friends, and whose later life was passed as the leader and protector of an iso- lated community, always at war with French privateers, buccaneers and Indians.
In 1695 three of the sons of JAMES SANDS took up lands on Long Island, at what is now Sands' Point, and from JOHN, the eldest, descended, in the third generation, the subject of this sketch.
COMFORT SANDS was one of seven sons. He obtained such an education as was afforded by a good school at Hempstead, and, on his father's death, in 1760, he came to New-York, where, after some training as a clerk by his elder brother, he entered the counting room of JOSEPHI DRAKE, a merchant then doing business in Peck Slip.
In 1769 he entered into business as a merchant, on his own account, a little later associating with himself CHRIS- TOPHER ROSEVELT as a partner, and in the same year he married Miss SARAH DODGE, the daughter of WILKES DODGE, and grand-daughter of THOMAS HUNT, of Hunt's Point.
During the very earliest stages of active opposition to the measures of Parliament, the name of COMFORT SANDS is to be found among those who guided and led the people
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into open revolution against Great Britain, for as early as 1765 he was of the small party which in the night removed ten bales of the obnoxious stamped paper from a brig just arrived from London, (then lying at the foot of Burling Slip,) and assisted in burning the paper on the beach, near Col. RUTGERS' place.
In 1769 he signed the pledge of the " Associated Mer- chants" not to import from Great Britain until the Acts imposing duties on tea, paints and glass should be re- pealed.
In 1774 Congress met in Philadelphia and resolved on a general "non-importation ;" and, to carry this into effect, created a Committee of Sixty, of which COMFORT SANDS was an active member.
In May, 1775, after the battle of Lexington, he was chosen one of a Committee of One Hundred, nominated by Congress to carry the public measures into execution ; and on the 7th of November, in the same year, he was elected one of the twenty-one members of the Provincial Congress, and served till July 1, 1776.
On the 10th of January, 1776, he was chosen a member of the Committee of Public Safety, and, at the request of the Committee, sent three vessels to the West Indies to procure powder, arms and medicines. The largest of the vessels he owned was taken on the voyage, the first vessel captured by the enemy in the war.
In 1776 COMFORT SANDS was again elected to the Pro- vincial Congress, by which body he was unanimously appointed Auditor-General of the Province of New-York. In consequence of the resolution in Congress of May 15, 1776, a body of the most distinguished citizens of New- York was elected, COMFORT SANDS being one of the num- ber, to form a Constitution for the State of New-York in particular, and the United Colonies in general. They as- sembled in New-York ; but the English having taken the City, they met as they could at White Plains and at Kingston.
In all these public trusts COMFORT SANDS had no hope of that reward which ever attends a successful military
:
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career. His labors during the war were constant and arduous, full of responsibility and weighted with care.
When the war broke out he was most happily situated as to his private affairs, having already made a fortune by mercantile ventures. He saw clearly that the path of peace would lead him to the highest pinnacle of success. The larger part of what he had already gained was invested in ships, therefore, a war with the greatest naval power on earth promised him only ruin ; but laying aside every con- sideration of self, he ventured all in the cause of the Col- onies-his time, his efforts and his fortune ; and these gifts which he so freely offered, his country as freely accepted.
COMFORT SANDS was one of these to whom the Govern- ment, during those trying times, looked most anxiously for encouragement and support ; on whose efforts the Con- gress depended, for finding ways and means to carry on the war; to secure the public peace ; to sustain the armies in the field; to carry out such measures as would tend to insure success, and finally lay broad and deep the basis of an independent State.
In all political disruptions the temper and inclination of the people must ever be a great factor in the desired solu- tion of the problem of the settlement of the State. Apart from military operations, success in revolution generally depends upon a comparative few, whose wealth, faith and courage are the powers which sustain a provisional govern- ment. It was the good fortune of the Colonies, during the war of the Revolution, to possess a number of citizens endowed with the highest character and abilities ; and COMFORT SANDS was happy in being intimately associated in his public duties with HAMILTON, JAY, LIVINGSTON and others, whose names have become the synonym of all that is noble, exalted and patriotic. With WASHINGTON he was on friendly terms, and by him greatly respected. By ROBERT MORRIS he was highly valued, as one on whom the Government could depend in times of its sore financial distress. To EDWARD LIVINGSTON he was as a brother, acting with him at all times for the common cause.
The end of the war found COMFORT SANDS much crippled
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in his resources, and, like many others, he continued to be long harassed in adjusting his claims with our Govern- ment, then in a chaotic state and almost bankrupt. In 1783, however, he was still a young man, but his abilities and public services had secured for him the friendship of the foremost men of the country, and he took rank as an important and influential citizen. He re-established his mercantile business on a larger scale, his ships being among the first to show our flag in foreign ports, and he lent his aid in promoting public institutions of utility to commerce and to the State.
On April 20th, 1784, Mr. SANDS was elected a member of the Chamber of Commerce, its Second Vice-President May 7th, 1793, and its President May 6th, 1794, and served in that office until May 1st, 1798.
With ALEXANDER HAMILTON he was associated in found- ing the Bank of New-York, and acted with him on the first Board of Directors. His own funds deposited in that institution from July, 1795, to November, 1797, amounted to $3,443,873, a phenomenal sum in those days, but illus- trative of the vast mercantile business he had developed.
The date of the " Berlin Decree " of NAPOLEON found the ships of COMFORT SANDS at sea or in foreign ports. Many of them were seized and condemned, and this spoli- ation by the French proved his ruin. In June, 1801, he was declared a bankrupt under the harsh and unsettled laws of that day-a settlement with his numerous and powerful creditors took place, and the final accounting yielded a surplus of $118,000, a result, the Court said, of which there was no other instance on record.
About 1786 COMFORT SANDS joined his brother in the purchase and development of an estate, consisting mainly of a large part of the site of the present City of Brooklyn, and that City still boasts, among those of her most distin- guished citizens, the name of JOSHUA SANDS.
After the settlement of his estate in bankruptcy he re- tired from mercantile life, and passed much of his time at his country seat at the then small village of Newark, in New-Jersey.
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His first wife having died in 1795, he married, in 1797, CORNELIA, the daughter of ABRAM LOTT, who had been Treasurer-General of the Province of New-York. By that lady he had three children, one of whom, ROBERT CHARLES SANDS, who died early in life, was distinguished for his learning and literary abilities. Of the children by his first wife, two sons died in France, and only by one son, JOSEPII SANDS, was the family continued in the male line.
In appearance COMFORT SANDS was tall, of a clear florid complexion and prominent features ; in character he was firm, open and unsuspecting, generous to friends, relatives and dependents, and liberal of his time and property in all matters pertaining to the public good.
In constitution he was perfect, knowing nothing of ail- ment or illness, and capable of performing any amount of work. His life was one long scene of industry and activity as a public man, as a merchant, and as the father of a very large family. He was well fitted for the times in which he lived.
Mr. SANDS died at Hoboken, New-Jersey, September 22d, 1834, in the eighty-seventh year of his age.
JAMES BOORMAN.
JAMES BOORMAN was born in Headcorn, County of Kent, England, April 23d, 1783, and arrived in this country, with his parents, September 1st, 1795. Within a year after- wards his father died, leaving a widow and five children, of whom JAMES was the eldest. It was the custom at that time for some merchants to take young men as apprentices, and to receive them as inmates of their families. JAMES BOORMAN, shortly after the death of his father, became con- nected with the firm of BETHUNE & SMITH, and resided with DIVIE BETHUNE, so honorably known in the early annals of this century. At the age of twenty-two he entered into part- nership with Mr. BETHUNE, and continued in that relation for about eight years. At thirty he established the firm of
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BOORMAN & JOHNSTON, and entered upon that career of mercantile success which lasted for more than half of a century.
This firm occupied a prominent place in the mercantile community, and it passed through all the vicissitudes of commercial life without a stain upon its character, or any impeachment of its integrity. For many years BOORMAN & JOHNSTON had almost the entire control of the Dundee trade, and their transactions in Swedish iron and Virginia tobacco were at that time on a gigantic scale.
Mr. BOORMAN was a man of high character, possessed of an indomitable will, guarded by sound sense and comprehensive judgment-qualities which, in their com- bination, made him a representative merchant of this country. Mr. BOORMAN was interested in many of the great enterprises of his day. He was the prime mover in the construction of the Hudson River Railroad, and was actively engaged in its affairs until the road was opened for traffic on October 3d, 1851. At the first meeting of the Board of Directors, held March 4th, 1847, he was elected Vice-President of the Company. On June 11th, 1849, he was elected President, which office he resigned October 7th, 1851, but continued a member of the Board of Directors. Mr. BOORMAN was also one of the founders of the Bank of Commerce, and his name heads the list of the first Board of Directors of that Institution. In 1855 he retired from active business, and devoted his leisure to the various charitable institutions of the City, in several of which he served either as President or Vice-President.
Mr. BOORMAN was a member of the Chamber of Com- merce for nearly fifty years. On May 7th, 1839, he was elected Second Vice-President of the Chamber, and on January 10th, 1840, First Vice-President, and served until May 4th, 1841, when he declined a re-election. He died in this City January 24th, 1866, in the eighty-third year of his age.
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JOHN J. PHELPS.
JOHN JAY PHELPS, one of the old merchants of New- York, was born in Simsbury, Conn., October 10th, 1810, in a house still standing and in the possession of his family. He was descended from WILLIAM PHELPS, an English emigrant of 1630, and could boast that all his an- cestors in lineal descent were born, lived, died and were buried in the same old Connecticut town. In this line all were honest and reputable. One, JOSEPHI, was sent thirty times to the Assembly of that State ; another, DAVID, was a Revolutionary Captain, whose adventures are a tradi- tion of the family. Mr. PHELPS, in boyhood musings, made up his mind to a career of wider experience than that generally led by his Simsbury forefathers. So he set off at fourteen, with sturdy courage, to make his own way in the world. After the Connecticut fashion of the day, his first wish was to secure an education. To the regret of both, his father found it impossible to send him to Yale College, so the disappointed boy determined to seek his education in the next best school, that of the printing press. He went to New-Haven, found employment on the Eagle ; was very homesick, but persisted ; wrote edito- rials, put them under the editor's door, and had much secret pride in seeing them used. He was industrious, moral and aspiring. He had nothing of youth, except its innocence and hope. It was not strange that he won. Before his majority he was enabled to buy the New-Eng- land Review, a journal of dignity and influence, published in Hartford, Conn. He conducted it, in partnership with GEORGE D. PRENTISS, who was afterwards the famous editor of the Louisville Journal. PRENTISS & PHELPS, boys themselves, gave employment in this office to various other boys, who rose to prominence. WHITTIER, the poet, was one of their best journeymen printers. Besides the Review, they published several books, notably the life of HENRY CLAY. Most of this biography was written by COLTON,
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but many of the chapters were written by Mr. PHELPS himself. About this time he married Miss RACHEL PHIN- NEY, a daughter of Colonel GOULD PHINNEY, a wealthy glass manufacturer of Dundaff, Penn. This was the end of his literary career. He moved to Dundaff and joined with Colonel PHINNEY in his various enterprises. But litera- ture, ceasing to be his occupation, became his pastime. He wrote nearly all the matter of a weekly paper printed in the village, delivered addresses on the fourth of July and other occasions, and was the one always sought for when village needs required a tongue or a pen.
Just as the consciousness of powers larger than the field took him from his farmer home, it took him from his wife's home, and, closing all business connections with Colonel PHINNEY, he went, with varied experience and respectable savings, to New-York. AMOS R. ENo, his cousin, accom- panied him, and the two young strangers put up the sign of ENO & PHELPS and began, in an humble way, to sell dry goods to country merchants. Their honesty, ability and persistent devotion to their business made it, after STEWART's, the most influential firm in that branch. A score of large establishments sprang from the ruins, and there are many mansions on Fifth Avenue, now the homes of those who began their business life as clerks for ENO & PHELPS. The great fire of 1835 burned them out ; but it was only a temporary halt in a triumphant progress. The firm of ENO & PHELPS was dissolved on January 1st, 1845, and both partners retired with fortunes thought large in those moderate days.
Mr. PHELPS was too young and active to retire yet from business, and he very soon afterwards, on January 1st, 1846, formed the firm of PHELPS, CHITTENDEN & BLISS, which imported and sold dry goods at No. 12 Wall Street. This adventure, too, was successful. Mr. PHELPS retired from it on January 1st, 1849, with larger resources and with a purpose to employ them, and to find his own occupation in buying and improving real estate in the City of New- York. Among the more conspicuous of these investments was the purchase of the Broadway Tabernacle, and of
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the crown of Murray Hill, on which latter, in connec- tion with his kinsmen, ISAAC N. PHELPS and WILLIAM E. DODGE, he erected, in 1852-53, the large free-stone mansion, where he lived and died. He also built the large structure at Rector Street and Broadway, then the largest in the City, and various warehouses in Park Row, in Liberty, Church and Warren Streets and in other thorough- fares. He early recognized the value and beauty of free- stone and was the first to introduce its use into the City of New-York.
He found another field of activity, for which he seemed singularly well fitted, in promoting corporate interests that would benefit the City. Two of these were the Erie and the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railway Compa- nies. He was one of the directors of the Erie at the time of its completion, and received the formal and engrossed thanks of the City for his share in that great undertaking. But it was in developing the great coal fields of the Lacka- wanna Valley, and constructing and managing the system of transportation, by which coal could be brought from them to tide water, that Mr. PHELPS showed greatest pa- tience and sagacity and won highest praise. He was the first President of the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Road, and maintained his connection with and supervision over it up to the time of his death. His life was a busy one in these directions. He was a director in the City, Mercantile and Second National Banks. Of the last two he was one of the founders. He was a trustee in the Farmers' Loan and Trust Company, in the United States Trust Com- pany, in the Bank for Savings, now located in Bleecker Street, and in various other organizations of the kind. Of the best judgment, of an integrity beyond suspicion, he was a model trustee, and was constantly sought for to act in fiduciary capacities. While largely absorbed in these businesses, he never neglected the obligations which every conscientious citizen feels to society, the church and his country. At the breaking out of the war, the preservation of the Union became his chief concern. He aided by service on Committees, by generous contributions, and en-
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thusiastically supported the Union League Club, whose object was to make loyalty fashionable.
In the Chamber of Commerce, the New-England Society, the Historical Society and all similar institutions he was a member. .
He disliked the roughness of practical politics, but never failed to vote for and to contribute to the party he thought in the right. He ran for office once only. A contingency seemed to make it his duty to run for State Senator on a Citizens' ticket in the district where he lived. He received a good vote, but was not elected, nor did he expect to be.
He retired from business, as we have seen, at an early age. He resumed it temporarily and nominally for the purpose of adding the strength of his name to one of the remnants of his old firm, and for a year or two after the panic of 1857 the name of PHELPS, BLISS & Co. was seen on the front of 340 Broadway, the great mercantile palace he had built years before on the site of the Tabernacle.
Mr. PHELPS had worked too hard, and at fifty years of age his health was broken. He spent the last eight years of his life in travel, in study in the quiet of his library and in the enjoyment of the society of his friends. Of admira- ble capacity, of stainless honor, enjoying the respect of all and the affection of his friends, he waited patiently for his summons, and died peacefully on the 12th day of May, 1869, in the fifty-ninth year of his age. He was buried among his ancestors in Simsbury, Conn.
MARSHALL O. ROBERTS.
MARSHALL O. ROBERTS was one of New-York's most enterprising merchants and ship-owners. He was born in this City on March 22d, 1813. His father, OWEN ROBERTS, was a physician, and came to this country from Wales in 1798. Before MARSHALL was eight years old his father and mother died. At the age of fourteen he became a clerk in the ship chandlery of WILLIAM SPIES, at a salary of three
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hundred dollars a year. Three years later Mr. SPIES died, and his successor, finding young ROBERTS intelligent and useful to him in his business, continued him in his employ and doubled his salary. By extreme frugality MARSHALL saved a large part of his income, and at the age of twenty he was enabled to start business for himself. His store, which was also his home, was at Coenties Slip.
The Battery was then the fashionable place for the resi- dences of the prominent merchants, who used to go at an early hour to Fulton Market for the family supplies. Pas- sing young ROBERTS' store their attention was attracted by the industrious habits of the enterprising youth, and they were accustomed to stop and pass a kindly word, until finally they became so interested in his welfare as to offer him pecuniary aid when he saw an opportunity for a profit- able investment. Through their assistance he was enabled to enlarge his business, and by degrees he obtained to a great extent the control of the Russian hemp market. By operating in Naval Stores and from his careful study of the Whale Fishery, he was able to supply the Gov- ernment with oil at prices which defied competition. His unceasing vigilance, his acquaintance with the commercial needs of the country, his energy and fidelity to every engagement, gave him unbounded credit, and enabled him to undertake those enterprises which led to the accumulation of the large fortune he left at his death. From his building of the Hudson River steamer, "Hen- drik Hudson," a marvel at the time, to the construction of the Texas and Pacific Railway, there was scarcely a project of steam navigation or railway transit in the United States in which he was not an active participant. The discovery of gold in California in 1849 gave full scope to his ability in foreseeing and seizing an opportunity for almost boundless profits from trade with that newly- acquired territory. He was one of the chief promoters of the Atlantic Cable enterprise.
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