USA > Pennsylvania > Prominent and progressive Pennsylvanians of the nineteenth century. Volume II > Part 15
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JOHN JAY GILROY.
is Grand Treasurer of the Grand Commandery of Knights Templar of Pennsylvania, having been elected thereto unanimously. He is Past Thrice Potent Grand Master of the Philadelphia Lodge of Perfection, Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, and holds equally high offices in other branches of Masonry.
In 1870 Mr. Gilroy was united in marriage to Florence, third daughter of the late William H. Williams, formerly a banker of Pittsburg, but at that time President of the Bullock Printing Press Company. They have had four children, three of whom are now living with Mr. Gilroy at his home. In the affairs of the finan- cial organizations with which he has been so long identified and in the development of the various beneficial and social organiza- tions Mr. Gilroy finds his chief interests at the present time, and by reason of his active career and long term of service he is num- bered among the progressive men of Pennsylvania.
JOHN GRAHAM.
IN no State in the Union has progress along important lines of manufacturing and commercial industries been more pronounced than in Pennsylvania. There are scores of towns in the Keystone State which give ample evidence of the vigorous stock that goes to constitute the Commonwealth; and many of the cities of Penn- sylvania are the homes of men who have made themselves known near and far by reason of their excellent qualities as business promoters, and their sterling worth as citizens. One particular line of enterprise which seems to have been fostered in Pennsyl- vania more thoroughly than in any other State is the street rail- way extension under the modern methods of electric traction. According to authoritative computation the cities and towns of this State more numerously and more readily took advantage of the inventions of the men who perfected these systems than those of any other. In Wilkes-Barre there is one of the finest traction lines of its size anywhere. This is owing as much to the efforts and active work of John Graham, the Treasurer and General Manager of the Wilkes-Barre and Wyoming Valley Traction Com- pany, as to any other factor. Mr. Graham is a model official, one of the best known business men of that section of the country, and at the same time a man who has served his district's best interests with honor in the Legislature. Mr. Graham, in short, is most prominently identified with the interests of the Wyoming Valley.
JOHN GRAHAM was born in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, August 4, 1843, on a farm about two miles east of Newville. He unites in his parentage the most notable traits of the Scotch-Irish
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people, from whom he is descended through several generations. After a home training, which did much to mould his after career in life, he was sent to the common schools of Cumberland County, where he received his education. Upon leaving school he was sent to a commercial college, and there took a thorough course in busi- ness training, acquiring that keenness of judgment which so thor- oughly helped him in later years to gain success. In 1866 he removed to Newville, when but twenty-three years of age, and he spent a year traveling in the West in order to complete his knowl- edge of business in certain lines. Upon returning home he was offered a position in the National Bank of Newville, for his abili- ties had impressed the officials of that institution to such an extent that they deemed his addition to their force an excellent one. He served as Teller in the Newville Bank for a period of five years, during which time his method of business was uniformly marked by superior skill and judgment. In 1876 Mr. Graham engaged in the tanning industry, which at that time offered splendid oppor- tunities for the investment of capital and the reaping of profits. For thirteen years he carried on a large tanning establishment, and made a splendid success of it. In the meantime Mr. Graham became known throughout his county as a thorough-going business man and a citizen of the most desirable type. In politics he always made himself felt on the side of those measures that were calculated to improve the condition of his people and advance their interests. These qualities finally bore fruit in an honor which was given him by his fellow citizens in 1883, when he was elected to the Pennsylvania Legislature to represent Cumberland County. He served during the sessions of 1883-85, and was quite an active legislator during that period. Since that time Mr. Graham has been most active in street railway management, for which he seems to be admirably fitted; so much so, in fact, that he has taken the affairs of the Wilkes-Barre and Wyoming Valley Traction Com- pany straight along the highway of success. He went to Wilkes- Barre in the fall of 1890, and soon became interested in the organization of the traction company there. That district offered unexcelled opportunities for the establishment of a first-class trol-
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ley system, and Mr. Graham was one of the first to recognize the fact. He was one of the promoters and organizers of the com- pany, and at the present time is one of its Directors, and also its Treasurer and General Manager. In these offices Mr. Graham has exercised to their fullest extent his excellent judgment in business matters, and his clear-sightedness as an executive director.
In Cumberland County John Graham is recognized as a man of splendid talents, and one who is a credit to his home and his native State. Beyond this, those who know him best say that his course of usefulness has not yet reached its zenith, and that his district will yet have even better things to say of him.
adolph Grant
ADOLPH GRANT.
N the ranks of the industrial leaders of Pennsylvania there are not a few men who began their business life with practically nothing in their pockets, and every obstacle in the way of success. Adolph Grant, the subject of this biography, who twenty years ago started to win his way to prosperity in the city of Phil- adelphia, almost penniless, is one of these men. The results, how- ever, of early training and a good education were that he went into the commercial battle well armed to win success, and for a period of several years, during which time he gained great expe- rience in a practical way, he forged to the front as one of the leading business men of Philadelphia. Of late years Mr. Grant has taken an even greater impetus, and he is now the employer of upwards of one thousand men, while his name is familiar all through Pennsylvania as that of a sterling business man, and one who is the possessor of many admirable qualities, indicated in both public and private life.
ADOLPH GRANT was born in London, England, August 9, 1858. His father's Christian name was Samuel, and his mother's maiden name was Bluma Manne. In his youth Adolph Grant went to the public schools, where he obtained a primary education, after which he was sent to the Firnsbury College, acquiring there a pretty thorough schooling. Mr. Grant began life as a wage earner first in 1879, when he entered into the business world in a modest capacity. His early life reads like a romance, and serves to illustrate the fact that youth, combined with determina- tion, especially when backed up by a natural energy and ability, will surmount all obstacles and eventually forge to the front.
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Twenty years ago Adolph Grant began his career in Phila- delphia with only fifteen cents in his pocket and scarcely enough to comfortably clothe him to his back. He slept his first night in Franklin Square. In 1881, after having passed several stages in the business life which he shortly before began, Mr. Grant became connected with the firm established by James Ritchie. The firm's business consisted of the manufacturing of slate mantels, tile work, plain and ornamental grates, fenders and brass goods, and it was one of the largest of its kind in the country. Mr. Grant, whose experience in this line became really exhaustive, remained with this house until 1888, and, in September, 1892, when the present co-partnership was formed, he again entered into this field in a more ambitious manner. The firm, which is now known as Adolph Grant & Company, transacts an immense business yearly, and is one of the foremost of its kind in the country. The offices are at 1901, 1903 and 1905 Germantown Avenue, and at 1908, 1910 and 1912 North Fifth Street, where the details of the trade are chiefly transacted, but, at the same time, the firm has offices in other cities in this country and Europe. The firm of Grant & Company enjoys the reputation of paying the highest wages in its line, and, as Mr. Grant has seven hundred men in his employ, in his mantel, tile and mosaic departments, the position which he occupies in the world of labor, as well as in the front of commercial affairs, is a notable one. The firm's greatest specialty is, probably, marble and mosaic work, in which new patterns and designs are con- stantly being developed. Work of this nature is visible at the Philadelphia and Reading Terminal, Hanover Hotel, Hotel Ritten- house, Hotel Metropole, Hotel Walton, German Hospital, the Union League, the Weightman Building, the Masonic Temple, the Bell Telephone Building, Betz Building, and a number of other import- ant and finely constructed and finished edifices. In fact, during the year 1896 alone the work of Mr. Grant's firm extended over a million two hundred thousand dollars. Mr. Grant is now the sole owner of the business, having bought out Mr. Ritchie in 1896. This is another evidence of the progressive tendencies of the man who began life in Philadelphia with nothing to his name.
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ADOLPH GRANT.
Not alone as a business man, and a leader in the manufac- turing and commercial affairs of Pennsylvania, is Mr. Grant known, but he has won recognition in other fields as well. He served as School Director of the Nineteenth Ward for several terms, resign- ing from that office in 1895, on account of removal to another ward. Mr. Grant is President of the Hotel Hanover Company. In the building of other edifices and structures, he has been an active oper- ator, and he is now the owner of sixty-eight properties in Philadel- phia. He has also considerable interests in coal mines and slate mines, as well as marble quarries, in all of which he gives employ- ment to a large number of men. Mr. Grant's capacity for work, his foresight and excellent judgment were utilized several years ago, when he acted as Chairman of the depositors of the wrecked Bank of America. He took out the warrants for Work, Pfeiffer, Duncan and McFarland, all of whom were brought to the law largely through his efforts. He was Chairman of the Committee of the Financial Union, and brought their officers to justice. In a word, Mr. Grant has been, ever since his youth and his entrance into the business field, one of the most active men in his community, exhibiting his interest in all affairs of a public nature, at the same time devoting his time and attention largely to the legitimate increase of his own business.
In May, 1881, Mr. Grant was married to Marietta Bass, of Moncton, New Brunswick. They have had three children : Ger- trude, aged fourteen; Granville, aged twelve, and Gordon, aged six years. Mr. Grant resides in a beautiful home at the south- east corner of Fifteenth and Westmoreland streets, Philadelphia, and there he spends a large portion of his leisure time in the midst of his family.
H. K. GRANT.
T HE material prosperity of Pennsylvania is largely due to the efforts of the men whose sagacity and foresight have led them to profit by the State's immense mineral wealth, and who, in developing its natural resources, at the same time furthered their own fortunes. The coal regions of the State have had few men more active and more favorably known in business and in social circles than H. K. Grant, one of Scranton's first residents, and for a number of years a prominent business man of Philips- burg, but who is now enjoying deserved rest from labors well performed.
HEZEKIAH KING GRANT was born in Vernon, Connecticut, on the 4th day of July, 1831. He was the second son of Judge Sandford Grant, who was born in January, 1800, and Anna King. The first few years of his life were spent in Vernon, after which the family removed to Belvidere, New Jersey. Here they remained for a short time, when the father entered the firm of Scranton, Grant & Com- pany, which was composed of the senior Grant, George W. Scran- ton, Selden T. Scranton and Philip H. Mattes. This company was formed to exploit the iron and coal fields of Pennsylvania. After looking the State over thoroughly for a desirable field for operations, they centered their attention in a little hamlet, then known as Slocum Hollow. This was in 1841, and to-day a city of a hundred thousand people stands as a monument to their energies and efforts. Slowly, but surely, the city grew from a humble beginning, taking its name, Scranton, from the senior member of the firm. Here Mr. Grant's family lived for many years afterwards, and the elder Grant rose to high prominence in
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HK Grant
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its affairs, having been at one time a highly reputed Judge on the Bench of its courts. The subject of this review is probably the only person now living who formed the original colony of Scranton in 1841. His boyhood, after he reached the age of ten, was spent in that city, and in its public and private schools he laid the foundation for an education which was subsequently so largely added to in the great school of experience that Mr. Grant has now a fund of information possessed by few college graduates. This was largely acquired in travel, and there is scarcely a part of the North American continent that he has not visited. Trips to Canada have been frequent, and a few years ago he made a visit to Cuba, in whose affairs he has ever manifested the deepest interest. After leaving school, he made his first entrance in the business world, as a clerk in his father's store, and under the able tuition of his father, who had always been an eminently successful business man he acquired those habits of thrift, indus- try and application which have since so conspicuously marked his career.
In 1854, even the budding city of Scranton not affording him sufficient opportunity for his ambitions, he turned his face to the favored lands of the West, going to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where he entered the employ of what was then the Milwaukee and Watertown Railroad, but is now known as the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul Railroad. In their offices in Milwaukee he began his career as a clerk, but so pronounced were his abilities, and so indefatigable his application, that in three years he had risen to the position of General Freight and Passenger Agent of the line, a post which he filled with general satisfaction. Factional fights among the stockholders, however, interfered with Mr. Grant's further progress, and the interests with which he had identified himself lost control of the road. Seeing no further prospects of advancement at the hands of the other party, he resigned his position and moved to St. Louis, where he engaged in mercantile pursuits for three years. About this time the war broke out, and, sectional animosities being particularly strong in Missouri and party feeling running high, he removed to Chicago, where, for
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two years, he continued a prominent figure in the business world. Finally, however, he concluded to return to Scranton, and engage in the business in which so many fortunes had been made. Accordingly, in 1865, he returned to his boyhood home, and, from that time until 1880, was one of the most prominent figures in 'the coal industry of his section. In the latter year he removed to Huntingdon, and, in connection with the Huntingdon and Broad Top Railroad, entered the coal business, which he pursued for a year, at the end of which time he removed to Philipsburg, where he has since made his home. Mr. Grant continued dealing in coal on an extensive scale until about 1896, when he retired on a comfortable competence.
In September, 1860, Mr. Grant was married to the eldest daughter of Jonathan E. Arnold, one of the most prominent lawyers of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. They had one child, who lived six months. Mr. Grant has been a widower for more than twenty years. He was made a Mason soon after attaining his majority, and has ever since been prominent in the affairs of that great organization.
Nelson I havea
NELSON Z. GRAVES.
HE opportunities offered by a career in the indus- trial world have frequently proven more fascinat- ing to a young man endowed with natural abilities and determined qualities of mind than those afforded by a participation in the affairs of pro- fessional life. Although he was trained for the law, Nelson Z. Graves, the subject of this biography, preferred the activities of mercantile life, and, in consequence, as a manufacturer he has achieved a distinct success. Mr. Graves, whose products are recog- nized throughout the country as superior in their class, comes of a distinguished family. He was given a good start in life by a splendid education, but, at the same time, such success as he has won has been achieved through his individual merit and his untiring adherence to the principles of business. In private life his record is as praiseworthy as his business career has been active, and he is accounted a leader among those men who deserve all the smiles .which fortune has bestowed upon them.
NELSON Z. GRAVES was born August 24, 1849, in Clinton, Sampson County, North Carolina. He is the son of Luke C. Graves, of Vermont, and Charlotte Katurah Handy, daughter of Dr. Thomas K. Handy, of Newark, Delaware. Mr. Graves, in himself, comprises a branch of a very distinguished genealogical tree, being descended, through his father, from the Graves family of England, who can count four centuries back; and of the Henrys of Virginia, on his mother's side. He is of Scotch- English extraction, and can point to numerous ancestors who attained recognition in their several professions or as statesmen and leaders in public life. He was prepared for college at Clinton
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Academy and at an early age entered Davidson College, North Carolina, where for two years he pursued his course of study, attaining high honors in his class. Thence he went to Middlebury College, Vermont, where he finished his college course and graduated with honors in the class of 1868, being especially proficient in the languages. Upon his graduation he received an appointment as Professor of Languages in Ellicott's College, Ellicott's Mills, Maryland, where he continued to teach until he had accumulated sufficient money to enable him to enter Columbia College Law School, of New York City. Though he attended this institution for some time, he was led to adopt mercantile pursuits, and with characteristic decision and energy, giving up the study of law, he was soon immersed in the activities of business life, in which he has secured, by his untiring zeal and ability, remarkable suc- cess and risen by his own splendid management to the position he now occupies as a leader among the business men of the State. His first business association in the line in which he has been rewarded with such marked success was with Charles C. Phillips, manufacturer of varnish and japans. During the four years of his connection with this firm, by his energy and enterprise, he so increased the business that its income was doubled, and with con- fidence born of success he began business for himself in 1882, under the style of N. Z. Graves, manufacturer of varnish and japan, and erected his plant at the corner of Twentieth and Tasker streets. Later he purchased the property at Broad and Geary streets, and, having incorporated his business as N. Z. Graves & Company, he combined the varnish and japan business with the manufacture of paints and colors, with two plants, which had now become amongst the largest and best equipped in this country. This immense business has, from its inception, been under the immediate and direct supervision and direction of Mr. Graves, and its abundant success demonstrates the rare ability which has made him a leader among the manufacturers of the country.
As President of N. Z. Graves & Company, Incorporated, Mr. Graves has found his entire interest ever since that firm was
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NELSON Z. GRAVES.
organized ; and he has always declined all other connections as director or otherwise with any other corporations or companies. His only and chief interest has been to produce one of the largest establishments in his line anywhere and to so perfect his own plants that they would continue in the front rank. However, he takes quite an interest in the general affairs of his city and State and as a member of the Trades League does much to advance the interests of Philadelphia. He is also a member of the Fair- mount Park Art Association and of the Board of Trade and is a member of the Philadelphia Bourse. While necessarily interested in the administration of municipal affairs, Mr. Graves has never been a candidate for any office or public honor, preferring rather to devote his time to the development of his largely increasing business.
On April 14, 1874, Mr. Graves was married to Miss Ida Johnson, daughter of Alfred Johnson, of Clinton, North Carolina. This union was blessed with three children, two boys and one girl, the latter deceased six years ago. The death of this daughter was a severe blow to Mr. Graves, and to a certain extent it changed the entire course of his life. His two sons, Ferdinand J. Graves and Nelson Z. Graves, Jr., the former a student in Prince- ton College in the Junior Class, and the latter connected with his father's establishment at Twentieth and Tasker streets, are his chief companions when the time and circumstances permit. Both are admirable young men and give much promise of following the course marked out by the praiseworthy career of their father. Mr. Graves is a member of the Manheim Cricket Club and is one of the incorporators of the Polyclinic Hospital. He is also an honorary member of the New York Board of Trade and Transpor- tation.
STEPHEN GREENE.
ROM the ranks of no class of manual laborers have more prominent men arisen to positions of eminence than from the workers in the printing trade. Conspicuous among the prominently suc- cessful master printers of Pennsylvania is the subject of this biography.
STEPHEN GREENE was born in Bainbridge, Chenango County, New York, on the 25th day of September, 1831, the youngest of three brothers, the sons of Nathan W. and Mary Greene, all of whom he now survives. In 1834 the family moved into interior Pennsylvania, residing successively in Marietta, Columbia and Washington, Lancaster County, finally locating in Columbia in 1842. He attended select schools in Marietta in 1835-36. In the winter of 1836-37, when the public schools were organized in the State under the act of 1834, he attended the first that were opened in Marietta, and subsequently those of Columbia and Washington, finally ending in the highest school of Columbia, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, in the year 1845. In the summer months he also had the benefit of the best private schools that were accessible.
With these educational advantages, and possessing a retentive memory, quickness, energy, perseverance and system, he had made such advancement that, when but in his sixteenth year, in the winter and spring of 1846-47, he was called from his home, then in Columbia, to engage in teaching a public school in Hellam Township, York County. The compensation of teachers was so small, however, that the young teacher decided that a wider and more remunerative field of usefulness would be secured by a thor-
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ough mastery of the printer's art. This was in the fall of 1847, after attending an examination near Landisville and obtaining a teacher's certificate. He at once proceeded to Harrisburg, Dauphin County, walking from Landisville to Middletown, and making the balance of the journey by canal boat. Here he secured a position in the printing office of the Pennsylvania Intelligencer.
The result of the State election was disastrous to the Whigs, the Democrats making a clean sweep of the State. This so injuri- ously affected the patronage of the Intelligencer that the proprietor was unable to meet the expenses of publication, and the press- man, with other journeymen, dismissed themselves. In addition to acquiring proficiency in setting type, he was then employed in printing the newspaper, afterwards becoming an expert hand- pressman, as well as a skilful compositor.
The usefulness of the Intelligencer had ceased, the circulation was small and the business unprofitable. In May, 1848, after spending little more than six months in this office, he returned to his home in Columbia. He immediately secured employment in the office of the Columbia Spy, where he remained until July, 1849, when he came to Philadelphia and was engaged as a com- positor on "piece-work" in the office of William S. Young, on Sixth Street, below Arch. Here the pecuniary results were unsat- isfactory, so that, whenever work could be secured, he was em- ployed in the night at setting type on the Daily News.
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