USA > New York > New York City> Prominent families of New York; being an account in biographical form of individuals and families distinguished as representatives of the social, professional and civic life of New York city > Part 85
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Members of the Shoemaker family have always been numbered among the patriotic citizens of the Republic. Notwithstanding their original Quaker belief, Peter Shoemaker, the great- great-grandfather of this sketch, served in the Indian Wars of the Colonial period, and John Shoemaker, his son, was a soldier in the War for Independence. Both grandfathers of Mr. Henry F. Shoemaker, Henry Shoemaker and William Brock, were soldiers in the War of 1812, while he himself was an officer in the Union Army during the Civil War.
Other representatives of the family were among the first Pennsylvanians to engage in the work of developing the anthracite coal mines of that State. Colonel George Shoemaker, of Potts- ville, Pa., a great-uncle of Mr. Henry F. Shoemaker, made the earliest attempt to introduce anthracite coal in Philadelphia, loading nine wagons from his coal mines at Centerville, and carrying it by teams to Philadelphia, a distance of one hundred miles. But the people of that day regarded him and his fuel askance, and he was actually denounced for trying to foist upon them what appeared to be simply black stones. Colonel Shoemaker persisted, however, in his efforts to dispose of the coal, and suceeeded in selling two loads at the cost of transportation. The remainder he either gave away or marketed for a trifle to blacksmiths and others who promised to try it. But his troubles did not end with his disposal of the coal; and though he lost money and time in his efforts to introduce a fuel which has since aided so materially in making Pennsyl- vania one of the greatest manufacturing States of the Union, in raising Philadelphia to the position of one of the most prosperous cities in the world, and which, moreover, has been an inestimable boon to the country at large, the very people to whom he had given his coal asked the authorities of the city to arrest him for imposing on their credulity. Colonel Shoemaker was compelled to leave in haste, and only saved himself from "arrest by taking a circuitous route around the Quaker City on his way home.
Meanwhile, Mr. White, one of the owners of the Fairmount Nail and Wire Works, who had bought a load of coal from Colonel Shoemaker, was anxious to succeed in burning it, and with his men spent a whole morning in trying to ignite it for the purpose of heating one of his furnaces. Every expedient which the experimenters' knowledge of other fuels could suggest was tried, but to no purpose. Colonel Shoemaker's rocks apparently would not burn. Dinner time arriving, the men shut the furnace doors in disgust and abandoned the attempt. Returning from dinner they were astonished at the sight they beheld. The doors were red and the furnace was in danger of being melted down with a heat never before experienced. On opening it, a glowing fire was discovered, hotter than had ever before been seen in the furnace. The purchasers of the other loads also succeeded in using it successfully, and from that time on anthra- cite stone coal found friends and advocates; and the results of this success being published in
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the papers, added to its reputation and led within a few years to its general adoption as fuel. To the Shoemaker family, therefore, belongs the credit of initiating the anthracite coal industry of the country, which has become such a factor in its development, from a commercial and industrial standpoint, and from that time down to the present day their interests are largely and closely identified with the industry which representatives of their name and blood did so much to create.
John W. Shoemaker, Mr. Henry F. Shoemaker's father, was a noted operator in the anthra- cite coal region, possessing and working large mines at Tamaqua. The mother of Mr. Henry F. Shoemaker was Mary A. Brock, daughter of William Brock, also an extensive owner of anthracite coal lands. The Wyoming Valley branch of the family has been notably able and successful; and in the various localities in which the members of the different branches have made their homes, especially in Baltimore, Philadelphia and Cincinnati, they became people of prominence, leaving their impress on the social and business communities where they reside.
Mr. Henry F. Shoemaker was born in Schuylkill County, Pa., March 28th, 1845. He was educated in schools at Tamaqua, his native place, and in Genesee Seminary, New York. When General Lee, with the Confederate Army, invaded the State of Pennsylvania in 1863, Mr. Shoe- maker, who was then only eighteen years of age, promptly responded to the call of the Government for troops to defend the State. Enlisting a company of sixty volunteers from the workmen in his father's mines, he was elected Captain and took his command to Harrisburg, where it was mustered into the Federal service as part of the Twenty-Seventh Pennsylvania Volunteer Militia and was attached to the Sixth Army Corps. After this military experience, Mr. Shoemaker went to Philadelphia, in 1864, made that city his residence, and entered the wholesale coal shipping trade with one of the leading establishments of that city, and in 1866 began business on his own account as the senior member of the firm of Shoemaker & Mcintyre. In 1870, he formed the firm of Fry, Shoemaker & Co., and engaged in the business of mining anthracite coal at Tamaqua, Pa.
After a few years, he found that the transportation business afforded him wider opportunities than mining, and having disposed of his coal interests, he became in 1876 secretary and treasurer of the Central Railroad of Minnesota. In 1878, he took an active part in the construction of the Rochester & State Line Railroad, which afterwards became known as the Buffalo, Rochester & Pittsburg Railroad. In 1881, he added to his business ventures the banking house of Shoemaker, Dillon & Co., in Wall Street, New York. His transactions in the negotiation of railroad securities and properties since that time have been on an exceedingly extensive scale. He became interested in the Wheeling & Lake Erie Railroad in 1886, was president of the Mineral Range Railroad in 1887, chairman of the executive committee of the Cincinnati, Hamilton & Dayton Railroad in 1888, president of the Dayton & Union and the Cincinnati, Dayton & Ironton Railroad, vice-president of the Indiana, Decatur & Western Railway, and a director in the Cincinnati, Hamilton & Indianapolis, the Cincinnati, New Orleans & Texas Pacific, the Cleveland, Loraine & Wheeling, the Alabama Great Southern Railroad, and also of the English corporation controlling the latter in London, England, and of other railroads. Other large industries and enterprises have engaged Mr. Shoe- maker's attention and have had the benefit of his wide and successful business experience. He was at one time among the principal owners and a director in the New Jersey Rubber Shoe Company, which now forms part of the industrial combination formed under the title of the United States Rubber Company.
Since 1877, Mr. Shoemaker has been a resident of New York City. In 1874, he married Blanche Quiggle, of Philadelphia, daughter of the late Honorable James W. Quiggle, at one time United States Consul at Antwerp and afterwards United States Minister to Belgium. Their family consists of two sons and one daughter. Mr. Shoemaker is a member of the Union League, Lotos, Riverside Yacht and American Yacht clubs, and belongs to the Sons of the Revolution and the Grand Army of the Republic. His city residence is at 22 East Forty-sixth Street, his country residence being Cedar Cliff, on the shore of Long Island Sound, near Riverside, Conn.
508
EDWARD LYMAN SHORT
O NE of the passengers on the Mary and John, which arrived at Boston in 1634, was Henry Short, the ancestor of Mr. Edward Lyman Short. He settled in Ipswich, Mass., moved to Newbury, and was a delegate to the General Court in 1664, dying in 1673. His son was Henry Short, Jr., who, in 1692, married Ann (Sewall) Longfellow, widow of William Longfellow. Her father, Henry Sewall, was Mayor of Coventry, England, and five of his descendants were Judges in the Colony, three attaining the Chief Justiceship.
Charles Short, LL. D., 1821-1886, father of the subject of this article, was born in Haverhill, Mass., and graduated from Harvard College in 1846, was an eminent classical scholar and man of letters. In 1863, he became president of Kenyon College and professor of moral and intellectual philosophy. In 1868, he was appointed professor of Latin in Columbia College, and held that position till his death. In 1871, he was a member and secretary of the American Committee for the Revision of the New Testament. He published a number of works on classical philology and collected one of the largest private classical libraries in the country. In 1849, he married Ann Jean Lyman, daughter of the Honorable Elihu Lyman, 1782-1826, of Greenfield, Mass., and his wife, Mary Field, daughter of Robert Field. Elihu Lyman was graduated from Dartmouth College in 1803, became an eminent lawyer and influential citizen of Franklin County, Mass., being high sheriff, 1811-15, and was afterwards State Senator. The ancestor of the Lyman family, Thomas Lyman, of Navistoke, Essex, who died in 1509, married a great-grand- daughter of Sir William Lambert, whose marriage with Johanna de Umfreville, it has been said, united the two ancient and honorable lines of Lambert and Umfreville. It was their descendant, Richard Lyman, who came from High Ongar, England, in 1631, to Hartford, Conn. His great-great-grandson was Major Elihu Lyman, 1741-1823, a native of Belchertown, Mass., and a Captain in the expedition against Quebec under Montgomery and Arnold in 1775. He was the father of Elihu Lyman, the maternal grandfather of Mr. Edward Lyman Short.
Mr. Short was born in Philadelphia, September 30th, 1854. He was educated at schools in New York and at Phillips Academy, Andover, Mass., and was graduated from Columbia College in 1875 and from the Columbia Law School in 1878. He read law in the office of Foster & Thomson, was admitted to the bar in 1878, and since 1884 has been a member of the firm now known as Davies, Stone & Auerbach. His specialties are railway, corporation and insurance law, and he is general solicitor of the Mutual Life Insurance Company. He is a strong and logical speaker at the bar, and has appeared in many important railroad and other litigations, and has recently published an exhaustive work on the Law of Railway Bonds and Mortgages.
In 1887, Mr. Short married Anna Livingston Petit, whose family has been identified for generations with the social life of New York. Among her ancestors are Robert Livingston, the first Lord of Livingston Manor, Johannes de Peyster, John Roosevelt and Colonel Gerardus Beekman. Mrs. Short and her sister, Emily Petit, own a Dutch portrait of one of the first de Peysters who came to this country. On the paternal side, her family came from Bordeaux, where the ancient street of Nauté is named after them. Mr. and Mrs. Short have two children, Anna Livingston and Livingston Lyman Short. Their residence is in West Thirty-seventh Street, and their country home has been recently in Islip, Long Island. Mr. Short is a member of the Metropolitan, University, Calumet, Lawyers' and Church clubs, the Bar Association, the Columbia College Alumni Association, the Downtown Association, the Sons of the Revolution and the Society of Colonial Wars.
The eldest son of Dr. Charles Short, and brother of Mr. Edward Lyman Short, is the Reverend Charles Lancaster Short, of Worcester, Mass., and the youngest son is Henry Alford Short, Ph. D., a graduate of Columbia in the class of 1880. The Short coat of arms, a copy of which has been in the possession of the family since the emigration, bears this inscription : "He beareth sable a griffon passant argent and a chief ermine, by the name of Short."
509
JOSEPH EDWARD SIMMONS
B ORN in Troy, N. Y., a little over fifty years ago, Mr. Joseph Edward Simmons is another instance of the important part which the mingling of the Holland Dutch and New England blood has played in the State and City of New York, and of the position which representa- tives of the union of the two races hold in the present, as in the past, history of the metropolis. He is descended from Revolutionary ancestry, one of his great-grandfathers on the maternal side having been a soldier of the Continental Army. He was educated in the Troy Academy and in a private school and was graduated from Williams College in 1862. He studied also in the Albany Law School, receiving the degree of LL. B. in 1863, was called to the bar the same year and suc- cessfully practiced his profession in his native city until 1867.
Mr. Simmons' eminent success was, however, destined to be gained in other lines of activity than the law, while to a man of his capacity and energy New York City presented the true field for the exercise of his talents and ambition. In the year last mentioned, he removed hither and entered the banking business. Becoming a member of the New York Stock Exchange, he was in 1884 called to its presidency at a time when public confidence was disturbed, and even that institution-the most important business body of the country-felt the shock. His administration was eminently successful and his reëlection for a second term, in 1885, confirmed his title to the approval and gratitude of the financial public. In 1888, he became president of the Fourth National Bank of New York. In this position his success has given him a national reputation. He has taken a leading and influential part in the deliberations of the New York Clearing House Asso- ciation, and in 1896 received the highest compliment which can be paid by the members of his own profession in his election as president of the Clearing House. He is vice-president of the Chamber of Commerce, president of the Panama Railroad Company, and of the Columbian Line of Steamships. He is also interested in the philanthropic institutions of the city, being the treas- urer and one of the board of governors of the New York Hospital.
Nor has Mr. Simmons failed to win distinction in public life, though political ambition has found no place in his character. He has repeatedly refused to become a candidate for offices of distinction, even declining a nomination to the Mayoralty of New York when such nomination could have been considered equivalent to an election. On the other hand, he is one of the limited class of men of affairs who take an intelligent and useful interest in politics, and in 1881 he accepted the honorable and laborious position of a member of the Board of Education, becoming president of the Board in 1886. During a connection of nine years in this capacity with the city's educational system he labored unceasingly and successfully to extend and improve its scope, and was instru- mental in creating many beneficial changes, notably the conferring of collegiate powers on the Normal College for Women, the act of the Legislature to that effect having been passed by his personal influence. He also gave much attention to the College of the City of New York, a part of the city's fine educational facilities which owes much to his intelligent interest in its welfare. In short, the executive ability which has won him high place in the business and financial world has been unstintingly given to further the cause of popular education, and in a position which involved no small amount of personal sacrifice. When he relinquished his connection with the Board of Education, owing to exacting business engagements, he had gained the reputation of being the most efficient president that the Board had ever had.
Mr. Simmons is also distinguished in the Masonic Order, having served as grand master of the Grand Lodge of this State. He has traveled abroad extensively and, in addition to his residence in West Fifty-second Street, has a summer home at Monmouth Beach, N. J. He is a member, among other organizations, of the Metropolitan, University and Manhattan clubs, and of both the New England and St. Nicholas societies. He married Julia Greer, daughter of George Greer, of New York, and he has two children, Joseph Ferris and Mabel Simmons. In 1888, he received' the degree of LL. D., from the University of Norwich, Vermont.
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HENRY WARNER SLOCUM
O NE of the purchasers, in 1637, 01 Cohannet, afterwards incorporated in the town of Taunton, Mass., was Anthony Slocombe. In 1650, he was a juryman of the town; in 1654 a surveyor of the highways, and in 1657 a freeman. In 1662, he removed to Dartmouth, of which he was one of the first settlers, and in 1675 was killed in King Philip's War. He married a sister of William Harvey, of Taunton. Giles Slocombe, their son, was born in Somersetshire, England, and settled in Portsmouth, R. I., in 1638, becoming a freeman in 1655. Eliezer Slocombe, 1664-1727, in the third American generation, married Elephel Fitzgerald.
Benjamin Slocum, 1699-1726, son of Eliezer Slocum, was born in Dartmouth, Mass., and married Meribah, daughter of Ralph Earl. He was the father of John Slocum, who was born In Dartmouth, and settled in Newport, R. 1., in 1746, where he became a merchant. His wife was Martha Tillinghast, daughter of Pardon Tillinghast and Avis Norton, a daughter of Benjamin Norton. The grandfather of Martha Tillinghast was Philip Tillinghast, of Providence. Her grandmother was Martha Holmes, who was a granddaughter of Obadiah Holmes. Philip Tillinghast was a son of Pardon Tillinghast, a Baptist minister, of Beechy Head, Sussex, England, who came to Providence in 1645. The mother of Philip Tillinghast was Lydia Tabor, daughter of Philip Tabor, ofTiverton, R. I.
The next in line of descent was Benjamin Slocum, 1761-1805, who married Elizabeth Coggeshall. Born in Newport, he became a resident of Marietta, O. His son, Matthew Barnard Slocum, born in Newport in 1788, settled in Delphi, Onondaga County, N. Y., engaged in business, and married Mary Ostander in 1814.
Major-General Henry Warner Slocum, son of Matthew B. Slocum, and father of the subject of "this sketch, was a distinguished officer in the Civil War, and also had a notable career in political life. He was born in Delphi, N. Y., in 1826, entered the United States Military Academy in 1846, and upon graduation became Second Lieutenant of the First Artillery. After serving in the Florida War he resigned from the army in 1856, and was soon after admitted to the New York State bar. In 1858, he was a member of the Assembly. At the beginning of the Civil War he was appointed Colonel of the Twenty-Seventh New York Volunteers, and was wounded at the first battle of Bull Run. He was promoted to be Brigadier-General in 1861, and served in the Peninsular campaign with the Army of the Potomac, being present at Yorktown and at Gaines' Mill, Malvern Hill and other battles. He was engaged throughout the Northern Virginia campaign, and at Gettysburg commanded the right wing of the army. In 1864, General Slocum succeeded Hooker in command of the Twentieth Army Corps, and the same year was transferred with his command to the Army of the West. He was engaged in Sherman's march to the sea, and, in 1865, was placed in command of the Department of the Mississippi. At the close of the war, General Slocum returned to civil life, and in 1865 was nominated for Secretary of State of New York by the Democratic party, but was defeated in the election. Removing to Brooklyn in 1866, he was elected a member of the National House of Representatives in 1868, and again in 1870, and was president of the Brooklyn Board of Public Works in 1876. He died in Brooklyn in April, 1894. In 1854, he married Clara Rice, daughter of Israel and Dorcas (Jenkins) Rice, of Woodstock, N. Y. They had four children, Caroline, Florence Elizabeth, Henry Warner and Clarence Rice Slocum.
Mr. Henry Warner Slocum, the eldest son of General Slocum, was born in Syracuse, N. Y., May 28th, 1862. He was educated at Yale University, graduating from that institution in 1883. He studied law, and has been for many years engaged in practice. In October, 1888, he married Grace Edsall, daughter of Henry and Emma (Jerome) Edsall. Mrs. Slocum's mother was the daughter of Thomas Jerome, the eldest brother of Leonard Jerome. Mr. and Mrs. Slocum have two daughters, Gertrude and Nathalie Slocum. The family resides in East Fortieth Street. Mr. Slocum is a member of the Racquet and University Athletic clubs, and of the Military Order of the Loyal Legion.
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CHARLES STEWART SMITH
N every period of New York's history its merchants have been the real mainstay of the community, and from among them have come its natural leaders. A century ago, when the storms of the Revolution broke, New York merchants like Philip Livingston and Francis Lewis were foremost in adopting the patriotic cause. To-day, when the chief dangers to republican institutions are of a domestic character, the leaders of the business world in New York have been no less ready to come forward in the public interest.
In the revolt of intelligence and material interests against corruption and misgovernment, and in the movement for municipal reform, the city's merchants have taken a conspicuous part. No name is more likely to occur in this connection than that of Mr. Charles Stewart Smith, who in recent years has been an important factor in public affairs, and a spokesman at a juncture of great importance for the New York mercantile world as the head of a body which, for more than a century, has represented the financial, commercial and industrial interests of the city.
A New Englander by birth, Mr. Smith is descended from families that were among the earliest settlers of Massachusetts, Connecticut and New Jersey. Samuel Smith, his first American paternal ancestor, came, in 1634, with his wife, Elizabeth, from Ipswich, Suffolk, England, and settled at Watertown, Mass. In the following year, he moved to the valley of the Connecticut and was a founder of the town of Wethersfield, Conn., and represented that place in the General Court from 1641 to 1653. In 1659, he moved to Hadley, Mass., where he was also a representative from 1661-73, also a magistrate and Lieutenant of militia. His fourth son, John Smith, married Mary Partridge in 1663, and in 1676 was killed by the Indians in the Falls fight, while leading his com- mand with conspicuous valor. Benjamin Smith, his youngest son, born in 1673, and who was three years old at his father's death, was the great-great-grandfather of the subject of this article. He moved to Wethersfield, married Ruth Buck in 1700, and Josiah, his second son, born 1707, married in 1740 Mary Treat, daughter of Joseph Treat, a descendant of Richard Treat, one of the founders of Connecticut. James, the youngest son of this marriage, born in 1756, was the grand- father, and his fourth son, John, born in Wethersfield in 1796, the father, of Mr. Charles Stewart Smith. John Smith became a clergyman of the Congregational Church and married, in 1826, Esther Mary Woodruff and had seven children, of whom Mr. Charles Stewart Smith was the third.
The Treat family has already been referred to in mentioning the marriage of Mary Treat to Mr. Smith's great-grandfather, Josiah Smith. The family is of English origin, its American ancestor, Richard Treat, having been born in 1584 at Pitminster, Somersetshire, England. In 1615, he married Alice Gaylord, daughter of Hugh Gaylord, and it is presumed that he was one of the company which came to Massachusetts with Saltonstall in 1630. His name occurs first in 1641 in the records of Wethersfield, Conn. He was elected by the town of Wethersfield to offices of trust, and was in 1663 a member of Governor Winthrop's council. He was also a patentee and charter member of the Colony of Connecticut. Many of his descendants served in the French and Indian Wars and in the Revolution, being distinguished for their sturdy patriotism at the latter period.
Robert Treat, the second son of the pioneer, began his public career at the age of eighteen and thenceforward his life was spent in constant public service. As a Major, he was Commander- in-Chief of Connecticut's forces in King Philip's War. He was a deputy to the General Court, a magistrate for eight years, seventeen years Deputy Governor and fifteen years Governor. His great-grandson was Robert Treat Paine, signer of the Declaration of Independence. James Treat, the youngest brother of Governor Robert Treat, was a Lieutenant of the Wethersfield train band in the Indian Wars and held many public local offices at a time when to hold office was a patent of a good name and a title of honor. He was deputy from Wethersfield, 1672-1707, a member of the Council of Safety in 1689, commissioner in 1693-97, Justice of the Peace for Hartford County, 1698-1708, and a member of the Governor's Council, 1696-98. From him descended Mary Treat, who was the great-grandmother of the subject of this sketch.
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