USA > New York > Portrait gallery of the Chamber of Commerce of the state of New-York : catalogue and biographical sketches > Part 4
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meet objections on that score, and then moved an amend- ment to the resolution from the Senate, in which, after appropriating the respective sums needed for the half year, he employed this phraseology: "and in that pro- " portion for any shorter or longer time, until Congress " shall act upon the subject." The passage here marked in italics fixes permanently, and without any fresh appro- priation, the expenditure for the collection of revenues until Congress shall otherwise order-a very important point, since it obviates the recurrence of any like embar- rassment to that the resolution was designed to cure. This resolution was finally adopted by a considerable majority, and became and it is now the law of the land.
His death was very sudden, and in this particular not unanticipated by him.
On Monday, the 3d of October, 1853, he had been as well as usual, and retired at his accustomed hour. He was sud- denly attacked, and before the physician could reach the house, or the family even be assembled, with perfect con- sciousness and perfect resignation, without a struggle and almost without a sigh, he breathed out his life in less than half an hour from the first attack of the paroxysm.
JAMES G. KING was simple in his tastes and habits, un- ostentatious, self-denying, considerate of others, actively benevolent, exact yet liberal in business, cheerful and in- structive as a companion, sought after and prized in society, but loving home with a fondness which years rather added to than weakened.
MOSES H. GRINNELL.
THE name of MOSES H. GRINNELL will long be remem- bered by the maritime and commercial interests of the United States, whether as merchant, Collector of the Port of New-York, bank President, legislator or citizen. Mr. GRINNELL's character was beyond reproach, and his busi- ness career of half a century shows a beautifully rounded
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life-a noble type of true manhood. He was one of that class who believed in honesty, not simply because it was the best policy, but because it was right to be honest. He was one of New-England's best sons. Born at New- Bedford, on March 3d, 1803, his childhood was spent among seafaring men, and at an early age he evinced a strong desire to brave the tempest, and obtain a share in what was then a profitable maritime business.
Before he was twenty years old he went from New- Bedford as supercargo to Rio de Janeiro, sold the goods there at a profit, then obtained a cargo of coffee and sailed to Trieste, at which place he sold the coffee. Here he left his ship, and, after making a commercial tour through England, returned to this country. His perceptive faculties were ever on the alert, and as he had an abiding faith in the magnificent future of America, he set about using his talents to open up and develop business intercourse with foreign lands. Naturally, his face was turned towards New-York, where there was a wider scope for his abilities and usefulness. Here he soon became known for his keen sagacity, boundless energy and unswerving integrity. He was regarded everywhere as a vigilant, enterprising and honorable merchant, and when he became a partner in a leading shipping firm, subsequently famous as the house of GRINNELL, MINTURN & Co., he and his partner soon made the firm known all over the world. Its name was a synonym for financial strength. It had two great lines of packets running from New-York; one to London and the other to Liverpool. Almost every port in the civilized globe knew the firm's vessels, all of which were of the finest construction. An authority states that the house of GRINNELL, MINTURN & Co. built more ships than any other American firm during the period when our maritime interests flourished. Mr. GRINNELL was always active in his efforts to obtain adequate internal improvements, to the end that our lakes and rivers could be utilized to the nation's benefit. As a citizen he was public spirited, and took a lively interest in all matters affecting the general welfare of the State and nation. On one or two occasions he accepted
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public office. In 1838 he was elected by the Whigs a member of Congress from New-York City, and it was believed by many that in 1856 he might have been elected Governor of this State, but for his refusal to accept the nomination. In that year, however, he was chosen one of the Presidential Electors at Large on the Republican ticket. In 1869 President GRANT appointed him Collector of the Port of New-York, and subsequently Naval Officer. Those who remember Mr. GRINNELL in his official capacity will recall his courteous manner and the creditable way in which he administered his important duties. His patient, painstaking industry led him to thoroughly consider the various tariff problems that came before him, and his decisions were characterized by a spirit of fairness and impartiality that won him the respect of the merchants. In other positions Mr. GRINNELL was equally appreciated. He was at one time President of the Union Club, and of the New-England Society. In 1850 DANIEL WEBSTER, his intimate friend, made one of his grandest speeches at the Annual Dinner of the New-England Society, at which Mr. GRINNELL presided. Nor did the multifarious duties of Mr. GRINNELL prevent him from taking an active part in chari- table affairs. Public institutions found in him a liberal giver. For many years he was one of the Commissioners of Charities and Correction, and gave much of his valuable time to that office. His purse was ever open to the poor and needy, and his reputation for sterling integrity and prac- tical charity led to his frequent selection as guardian and trustee of funds and estates ; and banks, insurance com- panies and similar institutions elected him in some cases president, and in others, director.
Mr. GRINNELL was one of the oldest members of the Chamber of Commerce, and was held in high esteem by its members. He was elected on February 3d, 1829, and retained his membership up to the time of his death. As a tribute to his high standing and his practical knowledge of questions which the Chamber was so often called upon to consider, Mr. GRINNELL was elected its President in
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1847, serving one year, and was again chosen for that office in 1849, retiring in 1852.
This beautiful tribute was paid by its members to his memory : "Devoid of envy and hatred, and never a bigoted partisan, he respected the convictions of those with whom he felt constrained to differ. His conscientious devotion to duty, truth and justice, his sterling integrity and freedom from selfishness, his open and manly bearing, his tender and comprehensive benevolence, his liberal and constant support of the institutions of learning and religion, shed a daily beauty over his life and diffuse a delightful fragrance around his memory. But though filling various stations of responsibility and influence in the course of an unusu- ally protracted career, and distinguished in all of them for foresight, probity, zeal and vigor, Mr. GRINNELL will probably be the longest remembered by his fellow-citizens for the skill, munificence and enthusiasm with which he fostered the growth in this country of that 'militia of the seas'-the mercantile marine-whereon a great maritime nation must largely depend for prosperity in peace and safety in war."
This useful life was brought to a close in this City on November 24, 1877, Mr. GRINNELL being then in his 75th year.
ELIAS HICKS.
ELIAS HICKS, son of VALENTINE and ABIGAIL HICKS, and grandson of ELIAS HICKS, the founder of the religious Society of Friends, which still bears his name, was born at Jericho, Long Island, on the 12th of June, (sixth month,) 1815.
The early education of Mr. HICKS was acquired in the country, where he remained until his sixteenth year, when he was sent to New-York, and entered the office of the celebrated house of SAMUEL HICKS, then heavily interested in shipping.
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From this he passed into the house of his father-in-law, ROBERT HICKS, and transacted a ship-chandlery business, under the title of ROBERT HICKS & SONS ; at a later period he formed a partnership with Mr. WILLIAM T. FROST, and conducted a large shipping business at 68 South-street, under the firm of FROST & HICKS. He soon distinguished himself by the energy of his character and his strong mer- cantile powers, and in May, 1852, at the early age of 32 years, was chosen President of the Chamber of Commerce, an honor sought for and prized for nearly a century by the most honored merchants of this commercial city.
Here, on the threshold of wide commercial influence, his health began to fail. His physical strength, for which he had been distinguished in early youth, rapidly deserted him, and he sank quickly under the insidious attacks of consumption. He died on the 9th January (first month) of the succeeding year, 1853, and his remains were carried to the country home of his ancestors and there buried.
PELATIAH PERIT.
PELATIANI PERIT was President of the Chamber of Commerce during a period of ten years, from 1853 to 1863, and took an active interest in all the discussions of that body, especially those which related to the financial policy of the United States at the beginning of the recent war.
The characteristics which Mr. PERIT exhibited through- out his long life illustrate the influences of heredity. He was the son of JOHN PERIT, merchant, and the descendant of one of the earliest ministers of the French Huguenot Church in New-York. His mother was a daughter of PELATIAHI WEBSTER, a graduate of Yale College in the year 1746, and a merchant in Philadelphia during the latter part of the last century. As early as 1776 Mr. WEBSTER printed an essay on the Evils of an Inflated Currency, and from that time on, during the organization of the independent government of this country, his counsels were frequently given to the public upon commercial and
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financial questions. WEBSTER'S "Political Essays " were reprinted in 1791, and have since been consulted by the principal writers upon the history of American finance.
PELATIALI PERIT was born in Norwich, Conn., June 23, 1785. At the age of thirteen years he entered Yale College, where he graduated in 1802. His elder brother, JOHN WEBSTER PERIT, (afterward a China merchant in Philadelphia,) preceded him in college by a single year. He came under strong religious influences while he was a student, and at the close of his course expected to study for the Christian ministry, but the purpose was given up because of the partial failure of his health. In his nineteenth year he became a clerk in an importer's house at Philadelphia, in the interests of which he made several voyages to the West Indies and South America. The writer of this sketch has heard him describe the pleasure which he had in escorting ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT about the City of Philadelphia, on the explorer's arrival from Mexico, when he came introduced to the house where young PERIT was engaged.
In 1809 he removed to New-York, and formed, with a kinsman, the firm of PERIT & LATHROP, but the partnership did not last long, and Mr. PERIT entered the house of GOODIIUE & Co., with which he remained connected until his retirement from business. The reputation of this firm is well known. They were engaged in shipping and commercial transactions with merchants in widely distant countries, and were the confidential correspondents of Messrs. BARING BROTHERS & Co., of London, Messrs. WILLIAM ROPES & Co., of St. Petersburg, and many other houses of distinction. The name of Mr. PERIT never appeared in the title of the firm, but his con- nection with it was well known, and the part which he had in conducting its wide correspondence kept him interested in the commercial progress of every country, and led to the maintenance of a wide personal acquaintance in different parts of the globe. His business life developed another element of his character-interest in religious and philanthropic enterprises, and particularly in everything
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which pertained to the advancement of Christian missions and the welfare of seamen. A mere enumeration of the unpaid positions to which he was called, and to which he devoted a great deal of time, would show how varied and how consistent were his labors for the good of his fellow- men. At different times he was President of the American Seamen's Friend Society, a trustee of the Sailors' Snug Harbor, and President of the Seamen's Bank for Savings. He was a director, likewise, of many of the missionary and benevolent societies to which the Presbyterian Church, the church of his life-long preference, gave its support. For forty years he was an officer of the American Bible Society, either as Manager or Vice-President.
He held but one political office. In 1857, when the peace of the City was seriously endangered by a contest between the " Municipal " and the " Metropolitan " police, he was appointed a member of the Board of Police Commissioners, where his fairness and good sense were serviceable in the restoration of order. After this end was secured he gave up the office.
In all the manifestations of his character, social, mer- cantile, religious and political, he was conservative. He was never led away by radical enthusiasm. Dr. LEONARD BACON, (whose commemorative discourse is printed in Hunt's Merchants' Magazine, for April, 1864,) truly said of him, that " rash and one-sided schemes of reformation were ever offensive to his judgment. Perhaps he was more charmed with the idea of defending and of perpetu- ating and perfecting the good which has descended to us from foregoing ages, than with the idea of finding out what there is in existing institutions that needs to be re- formed. Yet his sagacity, his good sense, his intelligent patriotism and his love of justice, guarded him against the error of those self-styled conservative men, who sacrifice the reality to the name, and become destructives for the sake of a false and foolish consistency. Not long before the last Presidential election there was a time when the immediate danger to the country seemed to be that the votes in the Electoral College might be so divided among
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four candidates as to throw the election into the House of Representatives, which would prolong the agitation from November to February, and would give to desperate men an opportunity for desperate measures. Mr. PERIT had never been an active politician. But deeply impressed with what seemed to be the most imminent peril of the country, he did not hesitate to commit himself publicly and unequivocally on the question of the hour, and as a conservative man to urge on conservative men the duty of terminating the agitation by giving their votes and their influence for the only candidate in whose behalf there was a possibility of obtaining a majority in the Electoral Colleges. So after- wards, when the long-meditated treason had become overt rebellion, and when the question was whether the national Government, without any considerable military force, with its Navy carefully disposed in the remotest seas, with its Treasury purposely empty, and its credit at a discount, could make any resistance, he was among the leaders in that movement of merchants and capitalists which brought forth millions of treasure to restore and confirm the credit of the country."
The influence of the Chamber of Commerce was very marked during the time of his continuous presidency, and especially in the early years of the Civil War. Mr. PERIT was constantly at his post as President of the Chamber, and was not infrequently called upon to lend the influence. of his name and character to meetings of a more public character. Two social events which occurred during his official term were very noteworthy, and gave him pleasant recollections, the reception of the Prince of Wales (then travelling as Baron RENFREW) and the reception of the first Japanese Embassy.
A few years before his death, Mr. PERIT began to throw off gradually the cares of business and station. He sold the property at Bloomingdale, (just north of the grounds of the New-York Orphan Asylum,) where for many years he had resided, and built a house in New-Haven, Conn. That place continued to be his home until his death, which
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occurred, after a brief illness, March 8, 1864, in his seventy- ninth year.
When he gave up active pursuits, Mr. PERIT determined to devote his leisure to the preparation of a history of American commerce, and he began to collect and arrange the papers requisite for such a work. He solicited from his correspondents their suggestions ; he was encouraged to proceed in his plan by a formal resolution of the Cham- ber; he wrote many pages ; but death came before he had made sufficient progress to justify the publication of the chapters he had prepared.
Mr. PERIT was twice married, first to Miss LATHROP, and after her death, to Miss MARIA COIT, both of Norwich, Conn. He had no children. His widow survived him many years. She was the daughter of DANIEL L. COIT, of Norwich, who for a short time, in the early part of the century, was a merchant in New-York, of the firm of HOWLAND & COIT.
Mr. PERIT was nearly six feet in height and well propor- tioned. His manners were reserved and dignified, and gave him a commanding presence in the public meetings where he was accustomed to preside. His addresses on such oc- casions were brief and pointed, showing, in the conciseness of their language, the influence of his business habits ; showing, also, in their clearness and propriety of ex- pression, the influence of the liberal education that he had received in early life. He was a constant reader of the reviews, and, to some extent, of historical and theolo- gical writings, but he is chiefly to be remembered as a man of affairs, whose mind was inspired by an intelligent and systematic interest in the progress of mankind. He was a patriot who desired that the name and influence of his country should everywhere support the best ideas in reli- gion, in morals, in politics, in diplomacy and in finance. The Calvinism of his Huguenot ancestry, and the financial scholarship of his grandfather were apparent throughout his long career .- DANIEL C. GILMAN, LL. D.
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WILLIAM E. DODGE.
WILLIAM EARL DODGE was born in Hartford, Conn., September 4th, 1805. He sprang from Puritan English stock-his American ancestor, WILLIAM DODGE, landing at Salem, Mass., in 1629. His father, DAVID LOW DODGE, was, at one time, a large importer and jobber in New- York, and took a prominent position in religious and charitable societies. His mother was a daughter of Rev. AARON CLEVELAND, of English and Scotch descent. While still quite young he entered a wholesale dry goods store in this City, and later became a clerk for his father, who built near Norwich, Conn., one of the earliest cotton factories in the country. When eighteen, he began to visit New- York regularly to make purchases for this establishment. In 1825 he became a permanent resident here, and, until his death, February 9th, 1883, was increasingly identified with the mercantile, benevolent and religious interests of the metropolis. In 1828 he married a daughter of ANSON G. PHELPS, a leading importer of metals, and, after five years, gave up his successful business in dry goods and joined his father-in-law in founding the firm of PHELPS, DODGE & Co., now one of the oldest houses in the United States.
Mr. DODGE was also extensively engaged in the lumber trade in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Georgia, Texas and Canada. He was active in creating the iron industries of Scranton, Pa., and the brass and copper factories at An- sonia, Conn. In the early history of the Erie Railroad he became a director, and remained on the Board until the road was completed. He was one of the originators of the Central Railroad of New-Jersey and of the Delaware, Lacka- wanna and Western System, and also of railroads in Texas. He was among the first to encourage the construction of elevated railways, and he was a subscriber to the original Atlantic Cable Company.
He served upon the Boards of some of the principal com- mercial and financial institutions of the City-among them
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the Mutual Life Insurance Company, the United States Trust Company, and the Western Union Telegraph Com- pany. For many years he was an officer of the Mercantile Library Association, and he joined the Union League Club soon after its organization.
In 1855 he became a member of the Chamber of Com- merce, and always took an active share in its proceedings. He had a profound regard for its influential and honorable position, and for its long career of usefulness. He was elected President in 1867, and retained the office eight con- secutive years. In the patriotic and vigorous efforts of the Chamber to sustain the Government during the war for the preservation of the Union, Mr. DODGE had a prominent part. Always conservative and conciliatory towards opponents, and alive to the demands of commerce and of humanity, he exerted his influence to avert hostilities. One of the last services of this character was to go as delegate to the " Peace Congress," which had been called to devise, if possible, some solution that might be acceptable to both North and South. When this, with every other proposal for just concession, failed, he henceforth advocated the suppression of rebellion at any cost.
Mr. DODGE was nominated in 1864 to represent the Eighth Congressional District, and, after a contested election of unusual length, secured his seat in the 39th Congress in time to share in the memorable deliberation relative to the reconstruction of the Southern States. In these measures he did not always vote with his party. While demanding the ratification of the constitutional amendments, he held to the wisdom of discontinuing military domination, and of admitting to office those qualified by intelligence, position and honest evidences of loyalty. At the same time he believed it best for the lately emancipated slaves not to be immediately enfranchised ; and, on the other hand, that they should not count in the basis of representation so long as they were deprived of the right of suffrage. In Congress, as elsewhere, Mr. DODGE opposed inflation of the currency, and advocated the necessity and advantages of a wise protective tariff in
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accordance with the " American system." He was urged to accept a renomination, but felt obliged to decline.
In the cause of temperance Mr. DODGE was recognized as a foremost leader. From early manhood he was engaged in persistent and judicious efforts to abolish the use of intoxicating liquors. During the last eighteen years of his life he was President of the National Temperance and Publication House. He stood a firm friend of the Indians, and in 1869 accepted an appointment to act as one of the Commissioners to carry into effect the "peace policy" inaugurated by President GRANT to reform the corrupt administration of Indian affairs, and to provide practical measures to civilize, educate and Christianize the long deceived and oppressed tribes. In the discharge of these duties he made an extended tour through the Indian Territory.
Mr. DODGE also labored unremittingly for the elevation of the colored people. He maintained that Christian education was indispensable in preparing the millions of freedmen for citizenship, and he therefore gave largely to institutions established for their benefit, especially to Lincoln University. He also left an educational fund to be used chiefly in raising up colored teachers and preachers.
His gifts to other institutions of learning in different parts of the country were constant and liberal, but his convictions of the immediate religious wants, particularly of the West, led him, for a series of years, to select and support personally a number of young men in theological seminaries.
What he attempted to do for institutions, churches, and almost every form of Christian effort in his own country, he desired to promote also in other lands. He was, for several years, a member of the Board of Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian Church, and for nearly twenty years the Vice-President of the American Board of Com- missioners for Foreign Missions. Although, as a member and elder in the Presbyterian Church, he cherished an intel- ligent preference for his own denomination, he loved to co- operate with organizations of a national and unsectarian
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character. He was a manager of the American Bible Soci- ety, the American Tract Society and the American Sunday School Union, and President of the American Branch of the Evangelical Alliance. He took a warm interest in Young Men's Christian Associations and in undenominational City missions. He often presented in public the claims of these various societies, and his presence on any platform, whether religious or secular, was always welcome. He was a ready speaker, presenting clear, practical, timely and forcible views, in an animated manner, and with a distinct, ringing voice.
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