USA > New York > Portrait gallery of the Chamber of Commerce of the state of New-York : catalogue and biographical sketches > Part 17
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During the Civil war Mr. ROBERTS was a firm supporter of the Government, and made liberal contributions towards raising and equipping regiments, and providing for the
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wounded. The poor always found in him a friend, and he spent large sums in numerous charities.
In early life Mr. ROBERTS took a deep interest in political affairs, and was known as a HENRY CLAY Whig. Between Mr. CLAY and Mr. ROBERTS the most friendly relations existed, and continued until the death of that illustrious statesman. Mr. ROBERTS was urged to accept several promi- nent offices under the Government, all of which he declined. In 1865 he consented to stand as the Republican candidate for Mayor of this City, and was believed by many to have been elected, but the result was decided in favor of his opponent by a small majority.
Mr. ROBERTS was an intense lover of art, and in him artists found a liberal and encouraging friend. In his large collection of paintings will be found many master-pieces of ancient and modern times. The portrait of Mr. ROBERTS is from this collection, and it becomes peculiarly interesting at this time, when the members of the Chamber are advo- cating measures for the restoration to its former prestige of the shipping of the country, for it should be remembered that the enterprise and sagacity of Mr. ROBERTS contributed in a large degree in making the United States in his day the first among the maritime nations of the world.
Mr. ROBERTS was elected a member of the Chamber of Commerce July 6th, 1865, and continued his membership until his death, which occurred in this City September 11th, 1880, in the sixty-eighth year of his age.
RUFUS PRIME.
RUFUS PRIME was born at No. 42 (now No. 54) Wall- street, in the City of New-York, January 28th, 1806, and was the second son of NATHANIEL PRIME, of the banking house of PRIME, WARD & KING. RUFUS PRIME entered Yale College in 1825, but left before graduating and entered mer- cantile life. Afterwards, with ARCHIBALD GRACIE, Jr., and JOHN C. JAY, he established the firm of ARCHIBALD
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GRACIE & Co., which conducted a general commission busi- ness for many years. At a later period he became a partner in the banking house of CHRISTMAS, LIVINGSTON, PRIME & COSTER, from which he retired in 1841. Mr. PRIME was one of the founders of the Union Club of this City. For fifty- two years he had been connected with the Chamber of Com- merce, having been elected a member October 1st, 1833. He died at his country home, at Huntington, L. I., October 15th, 1885, leaving four children-a daughter and three sons. Mr. PRIME was a man of genial disposition, and although he led a somewhat uneventful life, he neverthe- less took a deep interest in all questions affecting the general good of the community.
GEORGE T. TRIMBLE.
GEORGE THOMAS TRIMBLE, the eldest child of RICHARD and ANN (ROBERTS) TRIMBLE, was born at Morrisville, Bucks County, Pennsylvania, August 17th, 1793.
His parents removed to Newburgh, N. Y., in 1800, and he was educated at the Newburgh Academy, the Friends' Boarding School at West Town, Pa., and the school of Dr. JOHN GRISCOM, in Little Green Street, now Liberty Place, New-York City. Soon after leaving school he en- tered the counting-house of BUCKLEY & ABBATT, flour merchants, in Front Street, near Dover, and remained with them until he became of age. In May, 1815, he began business on his own account as a flour and grain com- mission merchant at 25 South Street, and in August, 1817, became a member of the firm of BYRNES, TRIMBLE & Co., composed of THOMAS S. BYRNES, SILAS WOOD and himself. This was some years before the opening of the Erie Canal, when the chief supplies of breadstuffs for this market came from Pennsylvania and Virginia, and the firm for several years was among the largest receivers of flour and grain from tide-water, Virginia, Mr. Wood residing at Freder- icksburg to promote that part of the business. They
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became, also, owners and managers of several merchant ships, and in 1818 established the second or "Star" Line of Liverpool packets, the old or " Black Ball" Line having been started a year or two earlier by ISAAC WRIGHT & SON and JEREMIAH THOMPSON. Mr. TRIMBLE became deeply interested in the management of these ships, for which his regular and punctual habits and somewhat masterful dis- position well fitted him ; and to the zeal and energy with which he devoted himself to conducting the packet service is due no small share of the reputation attained by the old "Liverpool Liners."
In 1821 he paid his first and only visit to England, in the course of which arrangements were made to transfer the consignment of the line at Liverpool to WILLIAM and JAMES BROWN & Co., with which house his friend, JOSEPII SHIPLEY, had recently become connected. The relation then established grew into one of mutual esteem and confi- dence, and continued in unbroken cordiality as long as Mr. TRIMBLE remained in business.
Mr. BYRNES died in 1826, but the business was continued under the same name until 1831, when Mr. WooD, having returned to this City to take an active share in its manage- ment, the firm became WOOD & TRIMBLE, and so continued until its final dissolution, September 11th, 1835, after the sale of their shipping interest to ROBERT KERMIT. Subsequently Mr. TRIMBLE became interested with some of his old captains in several transient ships, which he managed for a number of years, but retired from business entirely in 1848.
He was elected a member of the Chamber of Commerce November 6th, 1827, and took an active part in its affairs for twenty years, serving on its Committees, and visiting Albany and Washington on special occasions to represent the views of the Chamber on questions of legislation affect- ing the commerce of New-York.
He was, from conviction, a Free Trader, and, as such, was elected Vice-President May 2d, 1843, but declined to serve.
No notice of Mr. TRIMBLE, however slight, would be
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complete without reference to his interest in the educa- tional and charitable institutions of New-York.
In 1818 he became a trustee of the Free School Society, afterwards the " Public School Society," and for thirty-five years was unremitting in his devotion to the cause of com- mon school education. He was Treasurer of the Society for several years and its last President, serving until its dissolution in 1853.
From 1823 to 1860 he was a trustee of the New-York Dispensary.
In 1846 he was elected a Governor of the New-York Hospital, and was President of the Society from 1858 until his death in 1872. By virtue of that office he became a trustee of the Roosevelt Hospital on its organization in 1864, when he was elected its Treasurer, and continued in charge of its finances for the rest of his life.
The only financial institution with which he was con- nected was the Bank for Savings, of which he was a trustee from 1854 to 1872.
He never sought an office, and never held one from which he received any pecuniary compensation or advan- tage.
Mr. TRIMBLE was by birthright and education a member of the Society of Friends, and his ideas of life were founded on their distinctive principles. He believed in moderation in all things, and, although "diligent in business," was not eager for gain, but gave freely of both time and money to such practical work as he thought conducive to the welfare of the community.
His uprightness of character and his faithful performance of every duty he assumed, gave him the respect and confi- dence of all who knew him. He died at his residence in this City, May 16th, 1872, in the seventy-ninth year of his age.
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ISAAC SHERMAN.
ALTHOUGHI few are more worthy of a place in the Chamber of Commerce, yet, if his wishes could have been consulted, it is doubtful if the subject of this sketch would have allowed his portrait to adorn its walls, so great was his aversion to personal distinction.
Mr. SHERMAN was a merchant of rare ability, and met with a full measure of success. He was born in Peters- burgh, Rensselaer County, New-York, January 25th, 1818. His family removed to the western part of the State when ISAAC was quite a lad. In April, 1840, he engaged in the business of lumber and staves at Buffalo, and about 1843 he married Miss ELIZABETHI WETHIERELL, by whom he had two children, daughters, one of whom, the youngest, died at a tender age.
Being a prosperous business man, and having acquired a local reputation for sagacity and political knowledge, he was induced by his friends to run for member of Assembly from Erie County in 1845, and for Mayor in 1846 and 1847, but was beaten by his Whig competitors. These results seemed to satisfy his aspirations, as he never afterwards was a candidate for political office, although he was Presi- dent of the Young Men's Library Association of Buffalo in 1849. This corporation, now the Buffalo Library, is the most prosperous literary institution in Western New-York.
After acquiring a moderate fortune, Mr. SHERMAN closed up his business, and, with his wife and daughter, visited Europe.
Coming to New-York in the spring of 1853, he purchased the stave business of the late WILLIAM DENNISTOUN, and associated with him BENJAMIN F. ROMAINE, forming the house of SHERMAN & ROMAINE. Four years later, JOHN P. TOWNSEND and HENRY WIBIRT, clerks of the house, were admitted to an interest in the business, though the firm name remained unchanged.
For nine years this firm carried on the largest business in the sale of rough staves for exportation that was ever
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done in the country. In some years the quantity sold and exported to nearly every foreign port amounted to 14,000,000, or equal to 240 full cargoes for vessels, each of 400 tons burden ; but as they were not always loaded by full cargoes, about a thousand vessels per annum were supplied with quantities sufficient for storage with other merchandise and as dunnage throughout the ships.
In 1862 the house dissolved, Mr. ROMAINE retiring temporarily from business. Mr. TOWNSEND founded the present house of DUTTON & TOWNSEND, and Mr. SHERMAN established the firm of SHERMAN & WIBIRT, which was continued for four years, when they dissolved, and Mr. SHERMAN finally retired from active business in 1866.
During Mr. SHERMAN's commercial career he was a leader in his branch of business, and met with uniform success. His keen insight and unerring sagacity made him master of every situation, although giving little appa- rent attention to details.
Besides his commercial ability, he stored his mind with useful knowledge ; he studied the political and legal history of his country and the lives of its public men, and becom- ing a warm admirer of THOMAS JEFFERSON, adopted his political creed for his own guidance.
He was a free soil Democrat in 1848, and became a Re- publican when it was a national party. He procured the nomination of JOHN C. FREMONT for the Presidency, and managed with ability his political campaign in 1856.
He admired the character of ABRAHAM LINCOLN, and heartily favored him for the Presidency in 1860; after the election, Mr. LINCOLN offered him the portfolio of Secretary of the Treasury, but he preferred to be his counsellor with- out official designation, and it is safe to say there was no person, outside the City of Washington, who rendered more intelligent service, or whose opinions were oftener sought by the President.
He opposed the bill offered in Congress, in 1861, to issue legal tender notes to circulate as money, and suggested heavy taxation in various forms as the best plan for raising revenue to carry on the war, and only assented to the law,
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after the immediate and pressing needs of the Government made it necessary.
He always believed that the necessity need not have arisen, had the taxes, which were afterwards levied, been imposed earlier, and maintained that the war could have been carried to a successful conclusion with currency on a specie basis without a violation of the Constitution. He considered the "greenbacks " (legal tender notes) a forced loan from the people, and urged their retirement by the Government after the close of the war, and that preparation should be made for resumption on a gold basis.
He joined the Union League Club the year of its organ- ization, in 1863, and continued a member until his death ; there his talks on financial topics were highly esteemed, and were listened to with pleasure. His reputation as an authority on the laws of taxation, in October, 1874, in- duced the Assembly Committee on Ways and Means, of this State, to request him to appear before it, when he made an exhaustive argument, which showed extraordinary knowledge and research, in which he favored the exclusive taxation of real estate and the franchises of a few specified moneyed corporations and gas companies. His fame as a political economist induced the Trustees of the University of Rochester, in 1880, to confer upon him the degree of Doctor of Laws, in which institution, some years before, he had founded a scholarship of political economy.
Mr. SHERMAN was frank and hearty in his manner, but his aversion to notoriety caused him to decline every office or place on Committees, either in the Chamber of Com- merce, of which he was for many years a member, or else- where, but his advice and counsel were often sought and freely given ; the powers of his mind were extraordinary ; capable of grasping almost any subject, and none of im- portance were indifferent to him; he was a true patriot, and had a high idea of public duty.
He died in this City, January 21st, 1881, leaving a widow and a married daughter .- JOHN P. TOWNSEND.
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SIMEON B. CHITTENDEN.
SIMEON BALDWIN CHITTENDEN was born on the 29th of March, 1814, in the little town of Guilford, New-Haven County, Connecticut. He was the son of ABEL CHITTEN- DEN and ANNA HART BALDWIN. His family was founded in this country in 1639, by WILLIAM CHITTENDEN, a native of Cranbrook, County of Kent, England, who was one of the first settlers of Guilford. Mr. ABEL CHITTENDEN died while his son was still young, and the boy began his busi- ness life in his fourteenth year as a clerk in a store in New- Haven, whither he was persuaded to go by his pastor, under whom he was at the time preparing to enter Yale College. From that time his schooling was confined to such as he could give himself in the scant leisure of a life of hard work ; but it may be said here that this difficult schooling served to develop mental qualities of a very high order, and that both as a speaker and a writer in his maturer years he was the master of a clear, cogent, and often brilliant style, that his range of expression, the accuracy of his reasoning, the logical order of its development and the luminousness of his illustration were such as a trained scholar might envy. It may be added, also, that he showed throughout his life a keen appreciation of the value of education, and that the generosity of his gifts, when he had gained wealth, to promote education was only equalled by the intelligence and foresight with which they were directed.
After a few years of business in New-Haven, Mr. CHIT- TENDEN established himself in the wholesale dry goods trade in New-York in 1842, and remained in it until 1874, when he retired, shortly after his election to Congress from the Third (Brooklyn) District of New-York. During that time his career was an honorable and a prosperous one. He passed unscathed through the commercial and financial crises of 1846, 1857 and 1873, and won a reputation for scrupulous observance of his obligations, as well as for courage, sagacity and activity. He became connected with a number of financial institutions, was for nearly thirty-three
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years an active member of the Chamber of Commerce, and a Vice-President from 1867 to 1869 ; one of the founders of the Continental Fire Insurance Company and of the Conti- nental Bank ; a Trustee of the United States Trust Com- pany, a Director of the Union Ferry Company, and in several railway companies, and President of the New- Haven and New London Railroad Company. During the war for the Union he was one of the originators of the Union Defence Committee of New-York, and of the cor- responding organization, the War Fund Committee, of Brooklyn.
In 1874 Mr. CHITTENDEN was elected to Congress for the short session of the 43d and the full term of the 44th Congress, and was subsequently re-elected to the 45th and 46th Con- gresses. He served in all seven years. In politics he was an Independent Republican. During this period, his party, though controlling the Presidency and the Senate, was in a minority in the House of Representatives. Mr. CHIT- TENDEN naturally took an active part in the discussion of the currency and fiscal questions which, from 1874 to 1831, held the attention of Congress and the country. His ser- vices to the cause of sound finance, not only at this time, but during the long and troubled period, from the close of the civil war to the time of his retirement from active life, were various and valuable. He had been familiar, at an early stage in his business career, with the banking system of New-England, and particularly with the methods of con- tinuous redemption through the agency of the old Suffolk Bank. He had acquired a very clear and comprehensive conception of the functions of a credit currency, of the conditions of its safety and usefulness, of the limitations within which it could properly be employed, and of the obligations that it involved. His sensitive and vigorous conscience, which, in his personal affairs, made the scru- pulous fulfillment of every contract of the most imperative importance, caused him to appreciate more clearly than most the duty imposed on all institutions claiming the right to use their notes as money. No one understood better than he the immense advantages to the community
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at large of currency of this kind. His keen and quick intellect perceived that it was absolutely essential to any adequate accomplishment of the work of exchange in com- munities so varied, so active, so widely scattered as those of the United States. But he perceived with equal clear- ness the dangers attending it. His conception of the principles of sound banking was the basis of his view of the duty and policy of the Government in dealing with the use of its notes as money.
In January, 1874, at the Baltimore meeting of the Na- tional Board of Trade, he outlined his view in the follow- ing resolution : "That all national banks shall be required to provide for the redemption of their notes in legal tenders at the chief points of specie imports and exports, and that the simplest and best method for securing an elastic cur- rency will be found in the removal of all restrictions upon the circulation of national bank notes, secured, as now, by the deposit of United States bonds for the redemption thereof." In supporting this resolution, he explained that it involved the withdrawal and cancellation of legal ten- ders in proportion as bank currency was issued. These ideas were in part embodied in the subsequent legislation of Congress, but the provision for bank note redemption was not made complete, and that for the withdrawal of the United States notes was abandoned.
After his election to the House of Representatives, and when the restriction on bank issues, properly secured, had been removed, Mr. CHITTENDEN urged unceasingly and with great force the policy and the necessity of reaching real specie payments through the restoration of the right to fund United States notes in interest-bearing bonds. In February, 1876, he said : " A mountain of vicious legal tender debt confronts us. We can neither get round it nor provide for it in a lump. We must hew it away to the level of truth, honor and common sense, and there, and there only, can we stand to rebuild and restore the waste places. We must fund the legal tender debt. And why not ? Are these notes not an unnatural product ? Were they not born of an extreme exigency, now happily passed
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away, when the noise of battle was on land and sea ? Was it not explicitly provided when they were first issued that they should at all times be fundable at the option of the holder? Would their authors or Congress have tolerated them for a moment but for such a promise ?"
Had this simple, effective and honorable course been adopted, even at that Jate date, the country would have been saved some serious evils, and the direct menace of other and worse evils. Congress was not, however, to be persuaded. It would do no more than it was forced to do. The demoralization of paper money had so enfeebled and confused the public mind and conscience that it could not see, or, seeing, would not take the straight and narrow way. Under the dictation of this perverted sentiment the right to fund the United States notes had been repudiated, the redemption and cancellation of the notes had been stopped, and when the day for resumption under the Act of 1875 approached, Congress weakly and wickedly ex- punged the provision for the withdrawal of notes pari passu with that of bank currency, and provided that the notes redeemed after 1879 should be re-issued and kept afloat. In this last provision Mr. CHITTENDEN'S clear judgment perceived the crowning act of folly and bad faith. On the floor of the House he exposed its nature again and again, with convincing plainness of statement, and de- nounced it with the most searching and indignant condem- nation.
On the 19th of January, 18SO, he said : "The United States owe $346,000,000 of legal tender war debt, payable on demand. We boast of paying it in good faith since January, 1879, but in truth we have not paid one dollar of it yet. We owe just as many dollars on that account to- day as we did in May, 1873." "When legal tender notes are presented and redeemed, what then ? You say it is honest payment of the war debt. I deny it. You do not speak the truth. We boast of resumption for a full year, but we have not paid a dollar of the legal tender debt in that time ; not one. The moment my ancient ten-dollar note, which I exhibited at the Speaker's desk two or three
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years ago, was redeemed, Secretary SHERMAN straightway forced a new loan of like amount from some other person, and put the disgraced rag afloat again. Such is the law ; the Secretary must obey it." "The individual, firm, bank or railroad paying its debts, as the United States Govern- ment now pays its debt, would be without credit, exposed to derision."
So convinced was Mr. CHITTENDEN of the viciousness of the Act of Congress directing the re-issue of the "re- deemed " legal tenders, in a time of profound peace, when every condition was lacking that had been pleaded in justification of the original issue in time of war, that he, in agreement with Gen. BENJAMIN F. BUTLER, holding the opposite view, brought a test case to secure a judgment of the United States Supreme Court upon the constitu- tional authority of Congress to make such enactment. The counsel employed by him were WILLIAM ALLEN BUTLER, Esq., and the Hon. GEORGE F. EDMUNDS. The decision was favorable to the authority of Congress, but, in effect, it fully sustained Mr. CHITTENDEN's position, that there was no authority in the Constitution for the exercise of this power, for the Court was obliged to read the authority into the Constitution by implication. It held, in substance, that the Federal Court was possessed, as a sover- eign Government, of all the rights of sovereignty exercised by other Governments at the time it was established, unless these were explicitly excluded ; that the right to make its own notes legal tender was such a sovereign right, and was not definitely forbidden, and was, therefore, possessed. The judgment of the ablest and most authoritative Consti- tutional lawyers in the Union pronounced this doctrine to be practically revolutionary, completely changing the na- ture of the Constitution. It was so. The sound common sense, the trained perception of the business man, combined with his rectitude, disclosed to Mr. CHITTENDEN the mon- strous nature of this innovation. If, in later years, Congress shall use the power thus recognized, putting the property of every man at its mercy, in the mischievous manner that is possible, it will be to the credit of the merchants of
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New-York, that one of the most earnest and one of the acutest of those who saw the peril in advance and fought it unwearyingly, was from their own ranks.
It is hardly necessary to add, that while in Congress Mr. CHITTENDEN opposed with all his influence the policy of the unlimited coinage of depreciated silver in legal tender dollars. It was largely due to his efforts that the restriction finally placed upon the coinage was adopted, and that the policy of the Treasury afterwards kept the coinage at the minimum amount of $2,000,000 worth of bullion per month.
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