USA > New York > The men of New York: a collection of biographies and portraits of citizens of the Empire state prominent in business, professional, social, and political life during the last decade of the nineteenth century, Vol. II > Part 5
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recent years in connection with various high offices, and his appointment was widely approved.
General McCook is a prominent member of the Union League Club and of the Republican Club. He belongs also to the Ohio Society and to the Loyal Legion. He is very much liked by a multi- tude of friends in all parts of the country.
PERSONAL CHRONOLOGY-Anson George Mc Cook was born at Steubenville, O., October 10, 1835 ; was educated in public schools in Ohio ; studied law in Steubenville, and was admitted to the bar in 1862 ; served in the Union army throughout the war ; was United States assessor of internal revenue at Steubenville, 1865-72 : was member of congress from the 8th New York district, 1877-83 ; married Hettie B. Me Cook of Steubenville June 3, 1886 ; was secretary of the United States senate, 1883-93 ; has been chamberlain of the city of New York since August, 1895, having been appointed to that office by Mayor Wm. L. Strong.
benry Cooman Potter, seventh bishop of the Protestant Episcopal dio- cese of New York, belongs to a dis- tinguished and talented family. His father, Alonzo Potter, was a bishop in the Episcopal church for twenty years, and attained wide renown for his ad- ministrative genius and surpassing intel- lectual powers. Born at Schenectady, N. Y., about sixty years ago, the present bishop obtained his preparatory educa- tion at the Philadelphia Academy of the Episcopal church. This was supple- mented by a course at the Theological Seminary of Virginia, from which he graduated in 1857. Receiving deacon's orders in the same year and priest's orders the next year, he served as rector of Christ Church, Greensburg, Penn., from July, 1857, until May, 1859. At the latter date he was transferred to Troy, N. Y., where he had charge of St. John's for the next seven years. In 1863 he was chosen president of Kenyon College, Gambier, Ohio, but declined the office. His father had been the virtual president of Union College for several years, and Kenyon would un- doubtedly have benefited greatly from Bishop Potter's administration. had he thought it wise to undertake the charge.
After an interval of two years in Boston as assist-, ant minister of Trinity, which Phillips Brooks
afterward made famous in all Christian lands, Bishop Potter became rector of Grace Church, New York city, in May, 1868. For sixteen years he labored in that pastorate, attaining wide influence both within and without the church. In 1883 his uncle, Bishop Horatio Potter, who had then pre- sided over the diocese of New York for twenty-two years with rare ability and success, asked for an assistant ; and the General Convention of the church, sitting in Philadelphia at the time, unani - mously elected Dr. Henry C. Potter to the posi- tion. He was consecrated October 20, 1883, in the presence of forty-three bishops and three hun- dred clergy. By formal instruments the aged bishop, already failing in health, resigned the entire care of the diocese into the hands of his assistant. This responsibility the latter has continued to bear
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HENRY CODMAN POTTER
ever since, having succeeded to the full title on the death of Bishop Horatio Potter January 2, 1887. The diocese is the largest in the United States in point of population, its territory containing over
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2,000,000 souls. More than 200 parishes and chapels, nearly 400 clergy, and about 60,000 com- municants, are included in Bishop Potter's diocese ; and about $3,000,000 is obtained therefrom every year for the support of the church.
.Dr. Potter is naturally one of the chief members of the house of bishops. For many years he was a manager of the board of missions; and from 1866 until 1883 he was secretary of the house of bishops. Union College conferred upon him the degree of A. M. in 1863, that of D. D. in 1865, and that of LL. D. in 1877 ; and Trinity College made him an LL. D. in 1881 and a D. D. in 1883.
PERSONAL CHRONOLOGY- Henry Cod- man Potter was born at Schenectady, N. Y., May 25, 1835; was educated at the Episcopal Academy in Philadelphia, and at the Theological Seminary of Virginia, whence he graduated in 1857 ; was rector of Christ Church, Greensburg, Penn., 1857-59, of St. John's, Troy, 1859-66, and of Grace Church, New York, 1868-83; was assistant bishop of the diocese of New York, 1883-86, and has been bishop thereof since 1887.
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William L. Strong, reform mayor of New York city for the term 1895-97, and previously prominent in the business and financial world, was born in Richland county, Ohio, somewhat less than seventy years ago. Like so many other eminent men, Mayor Strong made his way to fame and . fortune without the aid of a college education. He attended the common schools of his native county, but had no further scholastic opportunities. It is clear, however, that much of the value of the higher education comes from the disciplinary train- ing therein received ; and this advantage Mayor Strong obtained in ample measure in the long and rigid business experience of his youth and early manhood. Losing his father at the age of thirteen, he was thrown thenceforth on his own resources to a large extent. Becoming clerk in a dry-goods store in Wooster, Ohio, and afterward, at a better salary, in Mansfield, Ohio, he not only maintained himself, but contributed materially to the support of rela- tives. Having concluded that New York city offered advantages in a business way superior to those of any inland town, the future chief magistrate betook himself in 1853 to the metropolis. He first obtained employment with L. O. Wilson & Co., dealers in dry goods, with whom he remained as a salesman for four and a half years. After their failure in the crash of 1857 he obtained a clerkship in the dry-goods house of Farnham, Dale & Co. Learning every part of the business, and acquiring
a larger and larger share of responsibility in its affairs, he rose steadily from one executive position to another until he finally became the head of the firm; and in 1870 the style of the old concern, which had already undergone radical changes, adapted itself completely to the new facts by taking the form "W. L. Strong & Co." The firm has had a prosperous career since Mr. Strong became its head, and has long ranked among the leading con- cerns of the country in its important line of trade.
In New York city a man cannot become a great leader in one kind of business without finding plenty of opportunities to employ his talents in other fields as well. This fact is strikingly brought out by the long and significant list of enterprises with which Mayor Strong has concerned himself. He was presi- dent of the Central National Bank - a position in itself sufficient to absorb all the business energy of the average man - and is now vice president of the New York Security & Trust Co. The list of his directorates takes one over a wide range of financial activity, covering the Erie railroad, New York Life Insurance Co., Mercantile Trust Co., Plaza Bank, and Hanover Fire Insurance Co. Add to this the fact that he is treasurer of St. John's Guild, and a few other things in various institutions, and his capacity as an executive man of affairs may be in some degree appreciated.
Colonel Strong - to use his common but wholly honorary title - was all this long before the fall of 1894, and the fact was widely known in business circles ; but his sudden elevation at that time to the mayor's chair brought his character and his history into strong relief. The fierce light which beats upon a throne is less intense than the calcium glare of hostile fire turned upon the candidate for high political honors. In this case the test was more than usually severe from the peculiar circumstances of the New York city election in 1894. The startling revelations of corruption in the police department of New York made by the Lexow com- mittee had roused the citizens to vigorous action ; and at a meeting held in Madison Square Garden in September, 1894, a non-partisan "Committee of Seventy " was appointed to frame a platform defining the principles of good municipal govern- ment, and to select candidates for the leading offices soon to be filled. Colonel Strong was chosen by this committee to carry the standard of the reform- ers. A greater honor than this in the range of municipal politics can hardly be conceived.
Elected to the mayoralty of the chief city of the nation after a campaign remarkable in many ways, Colonel Strong came to the office unpledged to
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any one, with a clean record, and determined to fulfill so far as in him lay the letter and the spirit of the platform underlying his election. His term of office has still some time to run, but enough has been accomplished already to justify the statement that Mayor Strong's administration will inark an epoch in the government of New York city. Two great departments of munici- pal economy - those of street cleaning and of police - have been thoroughly reorganized, and raised to a plane of high efficiency ; large amounts of money have been saved in various branches of the service ; and the administration gen- erally has been characterized by purity of motive, business-like execution, and substantial success.
In the social world Colonel Strong has naturally been a prominent figure for many years. He has been president of the Ohio Society of New York, and is now president of the Wool Club; he is also vice president of the Union League Club, where he is exceedingly popular. He is a member of various other promi- nent clubs, including the Metropolitan. Republican, New York Athletic, Colo- nial, and Merchants.' He belongs like- wise to many associations devoted to science and art.
PERSONAL CHRONOLOGY --- William L. Strong was born at Loudenville, O., March 22, 1827 ; was a clerk in dry- goods houses in Ohio and New York city, 1842-62 ; married Mary Aborn of New York city April 25, 1866 ; was a member of the firm of Sutton, Smith & Co., 1863- 69, and has been head of the dry-goods house of W. L. Strong & Co. since Janu- ary 1, 1870 ; was elected mayor of New York city in 1894 for the term 1895-97.
Benjamin Jf. Cracy has been prominent in public life ever since he ran for the office of district attorney in Tioga county over forty years ago, and carried his new Whig ticket to success in a Demo- cratic stronghold. As a young man he had a dis- tinguished career in the Southern Tier, and crowned it with a brilliant war record. Since then he has nationalized his fame, and has gained a secure posi- tion among the jurists and statesmen of the country.
Born in Owego, N. Y., during Jackson's second year in the White House, young Tracy acquired an excellent general education in the common schools
and academy of his native town. He then read law in a local office, gained admittance to the bar in the year of his majority, and began his long carcer as a lawyer by trying cases in the village court. Becom- ing favorably known in this way, he received the nomination for the office of district attorney in
WILLIAM L. STRONG
November, 1853, and carried the day. He was re- elected three years later, defeating the Democratic candidate, Gilbert C. Walker, afterward governor of Virginia. The two were personal friends, though political foes, and they formed a law partnership just after the election. In 1861 a combination of Republicans and war Democrats sent Mr. Tracy to the state assembly, where he at once took a high stand as a debater and efficient legislator.
In the spring of 1862 Governor Morgan made Mr. Tracy one of a committee to promote volunteer- ing for the Civil War in the counties of Broome, Tioga, and Tompkins. After personally recruiting two regiments, the 109th and the 137th, Mr. Tracy accepted the coloneley of the former, and reported
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for duty at Baltimore. In the spring of 1864 his regiment joined the 9th corps of the Army of the Potomac, and participated in the battle of the Wil- derness. Exhausted by his exertions in the fight, Colonel Tracy was carried off the field near the close of the battle ; but he refused to go to the hospital,
BENJAMIN F. TRACY
and continued to lead his men throughout the three days' fight at Spottsylvania, Quite collapsing after this, he was forced to recover his health at the North, where he was put in command of the military post at Elmira, N. Y. Ten thousand prisoners were there at that time ; and twelve years later the accu- sation was made in the house of representatives by a member from Georgia that cruelties equal to those of the southern prisons were practiced at Elmira. Colonel Tracy replied at length in denial of the charge, and his defense was convincingly sustained by some of his own political opponents.
Entering the law firm of Benedict, Burr & Bene- diet in New York city after the close of the war, Mr. Tracy has ever since been prominent at the New
York bar. His name has appeared on one side or the other of many celebrated cases, including the Tilton-Beecher trial ; and his clients have included some of the largest individual litigants and most im- portant corporations in the land. His practice has been somewhat interrupted by reason of judicial and political office-holding ; but he has been able during much of the time, by leav- ing to others routine and detail work, to take charge of many important cases.
Taking up once more the public life of Mr. Tracy, we have first to note his appointment in October, 1866, as Unit- ed States district attorney for the eastern district of New York. During the first two years of his term he gave particular attention to the prevention of revenue frauds by whiskey distillers, drawing up for this purpose a bill, afterward enacted into law, which secured for the national treasury in one year 850,000,000 in- stead of the $13,000,000 collected in the previous twelvemonth. In Decem- ber, 1881, he was appointed by the gov- ernor of New York an associate justice of the state Court of Appeals : the ap- pointment was made to fill a vacancy, and he held the office until January, 1883.
As secretary of the navy throughout President Harrison's administration, Mr. Tracy has become best known in his later life. At once on taking office he entered zealously into the work of re- building the United States navy. The necessity for this had already been recognized by the government, and something had been accomplished in this direction ; but it is largely due to Secretary Tracy's efficient efforts that the United States, at the close of Harrison's administra- tion, ranked sixth among the great navar powers of the world. When he took charge of the depart- ment, armor-clad construction had just begun, three armored vessels having been launched in 1888; but so rapidly did he push on the work that when he resigned his portfolio the navy contained thirteen such vessels, and several more were ready for service within the year. The plan for maintaining a naval militia in the seaboard states also received his active support ; and he was instrumental in securing from congress, in March, 1891, an appropriation for the armament of these forces.
PERSONAL CHRONOLOGY-Benjamin Franklin Tracy was born at Oreegy, N. Y., April
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MEN OF NEW YORK-MANHATTAN SECTION
26, 1830; was admitted to the bar in Mar. 1851 ; married Delinda E. Catlin of Owego in January, 1851 ; was district attorney of Tioga county, 1854- 59 ; was elected to the state assembly in 1861 ; served in the Union army, 1862-64; was United States district attorney in eastern New York, 1866-13; was associate justice of the state Court of Appeals, 1881-83 ; was secretary of the navr, 1889-933 ; has practiced lar in New York city and Brooklyn, with some interruptions, since 1865.
frederick fanning Aver, a son of Dr. James C. Ayer of Lowell, Mass .. was born in that city about the middle of the century. His ancestors on the paternal side were conspicuous patriots in the Revolution, and in the second war with England. On his mother's side he is related to the great New York merchant, Horace B. Claflin. He received an excellent education in the public schools of Lowell and at St. Paul's School, Concord, N. H. His father was heavily interested in the mills of Lowell ; and for that reason, as well as on other accounts, was desirous of having his son obtain a practical training in the op- erating rooms of the factories. Enter- ing the Suffolk Cotton Mills, accordingly , at Lowell, Frederick acquainted himself minutely with every stage of the manu- facturing process. The knowledge thus obtained was invaluable to him in later life.
After leaving the mill Mr. Ayer con- tinued his preparation for college, and completed the same in time to matric- ulate at Harvard with the class of 1873. Graduating with honor in that year, he spent some time in Europe, traveling . with his father ; and then entered the Harvard Law School. His first case after admittance to the bar was one in which his father was seriously concerned, and he handled his part of it with so much ability that his father gave him a check for $10,000. This was not so bad for one's first professional fee.
Since Dr. Ayer's death in 1878, Fred- erick has had the chief care of the family estate. Inheriting a large interest in the property, he has made important investments on his own account, and has been called upon to serve as an officer in various cor- porations. He is now a director in the Lowell &. Andover railway, the Lake Superior Ship Canal
Railway & Iron Co., the Portage Lake & River Improvement Co., the Tribune Association of New York, the J. C. Ayer Co., and the Tremont and Suffolk mills of Lowell.
Mr. Ayer is a man of scholarly and cultivated tastes. He has taken a lively interest in public questions, and has studied them in a thorough-going way. He is not a bigh protectionist, but favors a moderate tariff. Long before the crisis of 1896 he saw clearly the dangerous condition of our currency, and deprecated carnestiy all attempts to debase the standard of value. Some years ago he interested himself in effecting a reform in the corporation laws, by which minority representation might be more adequately obtained. In 1885 a bill to secure this result was introduced in the Michigan legislature. Mr. Ayer made an address in support of the measure
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FREDERICK FANNING AVER
so effective that the bill became law. Similar bills have since been passed in other states, and the evil that both Mr. Ayer and his father so vigorously combatted has been greatly mitigated. Mr. Ayer
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MEN OF NEW YORK - MANHATTAN SECTION
is a pleasing public speaker. He belongs to several of the most attractive metropolitan clubs, including the Union League, Harvard, and Merchants'.
PERSONAL CHRONOLOGY -- Frederick Fanning Aver was born at Lowell, Mass., September 12, 1851; graduated from Harvard University in
MILO MERRICK BELDING
1873 ; studied at the Harvard Law School, and was admitted to the bar in 1875 ; since his father's death in 1878 has been occupied with the care of the family estate, and with his duties as director in a number of corporations.
Milo Merrick Selding, one of the foremost silk manufacturers in the world, was born in Ash- field, Mass., sixty-four years ago. His family has been honorably prominent in America for two and a half centuries, running back to one Richard Beld- ing, who lived at Wethersfield, Conn., as early as 1640. After obtaining the rudiments of knowledge at Shelburne Falls Academy, not far from his native town, and building up a vigorous physical constitu-
tion by active work on a farm, Mr. Belding at the age of seventeen began his business life by borrow- ing $20 from an uncle, and setting himself up as an itinerant silk merchant. He bought his product from a manufacturer ac Northampton, Mass., and sold the goods in the towns near his home. After working for the firm of W. M. Root & Co. of Pittsfield, Mass., until 1858, he bought a team of horses and a wagon, and resumed on a larger scale his earlier vocation of a traveling merchant.
Accumulating experience and capital all the time, Mr. Belding felt able in 1863 to establish with two brothers a silk house in Chicago, and another in New York city two years later. In 1866 they decided to manufacture their own product, and leased for that purpose a single floor of a mill in Rockville, Conn. Three years later they were able to buy the whole mill, and afterward enlarge it. In 1874 they built a second mill at Northampton, Mass., and later one at Belding, Mich., a flourishing place firmly founded on the industries created and sustained by the Belding brothers. The firm of Belding Brothers & Co. now has five large silk mills in operation, branch houses at ten principal cities, over 3000 employees, and a mammoth trade. The house is regarded, indeed, as the largest silk-manufacturing concern in the world.
At the head of such a firm, Mr. Beld- ing has naturally found scant leisure for other occupations. He has been able, nevertheless, to exercise an intelligent supervision over various outside enter- prises. He is president of the Livonia Salt & Mining Co. of Livonia, N. Y., where salt is obtained by mining instead of evap- oration, and where 3000 tons a day have been produced. The St. Lawrence Marble Co. at Gouv- erneur, N. Y., is another of his enterprises. He also has large interests in mining and timber lands in North Carolina and Tennessee, in certain Har- lem-valley mines, in a Montana ranch, and in vari- ous commercial undertakings. He helped to organ- ize the Commonwealth Insurance Co. in 1887, and is now its vice-president ; and he is president of the American Union Life Insurance Co. He is one of the very few men who can carry on simultane- ously a number of large enterprises, giving to each more efficient management than most men could provide in exclusive service.
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Mr. Belding's clubs, to which he is a welcome but rather infrequent visitor, include the Colonial and Merchants' Central. He belongs also to the American Geographical Society, the Chamber of Commerce, and the Sons of the Revolution.
PERSONAL CHRONOLOGY - Milo Mer- rick Belding was bern at Ashfield, Mass., April 3, 1833; was educated at Shelburne Falls ( Mass. ) Academy; began business as an itinerant silk mer- chant in 1850 ; married Emily C. Leonard of Ash- field, Mass., Aprit 1, 1856 ; began the manufacture of sitk in 1866, and is now head of the corporation of Belding Brothers & Co. : is president of the Livonia Salt & Mining Co., the St. Lawrence Marble Co., and the American Union Life Insurance Co., and vice president of the Commonwealth Fire Insurance Co.
Reese Carpenter, one of the prominent self-made men of Westchester county, New York, was born in the town of North Castle, near what was then known as Mile Square, and is now called Armonk. The family cottage is still standing near Wampum lake. His father was David Carpenter, his grandfather Rees Carpenter, and his great-grand- father William Carpenter, who owned a large estate in Byrum Valley over one hundred years ago. His mother was Anns Bailey Owen, daughter of John Owen of Somers, Westchester county, who was the first paper manufacturer in that part of the country, and made the first bank-note paper used by the state of New York. Her grandfather, Joseph Owen, who married Ruth Woolsey, a direct descendant of Cardinal Woolsey, lived in Bedford in the same county, and fought in the revolutionary war. This ancestral patriotic service made the great-grandson, Reese Carpenter, eligible to membership in the Sons of the Revo- lution, to which he was admitted in 1888.
Born amid rural conditions, Reese Carpenter enjoyed only the seanty edu- eational opportunities afforded by the typical country school of the mid cen- tury. Finding little profit and less satis- faction on the farm. the young man at the age of seventeen embarked for himself in the meat and butchering business, and in three years had saved money enough to launch out in larger ventures. Going to New York at the age of twenty,
he served a six months' clerkship in an iron store, and then started in the iron business for himself. The enterprise was successful from the first, and became increasingly important, until at the end of twenty years Mr. Carpenter was recognized as a prominent manufacturer of new appliances for rail roads, with specialties in railroad signals and im- proved car tracks.
In recent years Mr. Carpenter has been remark- ably successful in promoting various cemetery enter- prises. He has persistently maintained that the beautiful and cheerful in art and nature should take the place of funereal gloom in the surroundings of the public memorials of the departed. In 1890 he successfully inaugurated Kensico cemetery, destined to be one of the largest and most beautiful eeme- teries accessible from New York city. Selecting
REESE CARPENTER
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