History of the Board of Trade of the City of Chicago
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L I B RAFLY OF THL UN IVERSITY or ILLl NOIS 2>©\ C433K V- ^.-3 iiumnsHismicttsaiiyn HISTORY OF THE BOARD OF TRADE OF THE CITY OF CHICAGO EDITED BY CHARLES H. TAYLOR 7A^ THREE VOLUMES Illustrated VOLUME III CHICAGO ROBERT O. LAW COMPANY 1917 , PRINTED AND BOUND BY ROBERT 0. LAW COMPANY : -^^i in ft. A 3 INDEX Personal sketches in this volume are arranged in alpha- betical order, thus making an index of them unnecessary. A list of those whose portraits appear is as follows PORTRAITS PAGE Adams, Cyrus H 12 Andrew, Edward 15 Badenoch, John J 27 Bailey, Edward W 28 Baker, Alfred L 31 Brennan, Bernard G 49 Brennan, Patrick 50 Brosseau, Zenophile P 54 Brown, George D 57 Chandler, Reuben G 68 Conley, Morton L 74 Crighton, James 80 Cross, Albert E 83 Day, Winfield S 91 Delaney, Frank J 93 Dickinson, Albert 96 Dickinson, William loi Edwards, James A no Griffin, Joseph P 137 Grier, Thomas A 139 Hampe, William W 143 Hancock, John L 144 Hill, John Jr 154 Hudson, William E 1 59 Hulburd, Charles H 162 Jackson, William S 172 Keelin, Thomas W 176 Kemper, Albert J 177 Kempner, Adolph 178 Kettles, Robert P 180 KiDSTON, James 182 5 PORTRAITS PAGE Lake, William H 187 Lamson, Lorenzo J 188 LiCHTENBERGER, ChARLES, Jr I98 Lichtenberger, Christian 199 Linn, William R 200 Logan, Frank G 202 Maltby, Ernest V 211 McDougall, Alexander 219 Merrill, J. Charles F. 225 Montelius, George D 229 Mueller, Carl B 235 Noyes, David A 244 Pringle, Robert 262 Rang, Henry, Jr 266 Roberts, John 274 Rogers, Henry W 277 RosENBAUM, Joseph 279 RuMSEY, Israel P 281 Sager, Hiram N 287 Simons, Joseph 296 SOUTHWORTH, EzRA L 307 Steever, Jerome G 309 Stream, John J 312 Stuart, Robert 313 Sturtevant, Henry D 314 Swift, Theodore W 315 Taylor, Charles H 317 Wagner, Emil W 325 Ware, J. Herbert 328 Warren, William S 330 White, A. Stamford 335 Wilkins, John H 339 BIOGRAPHICAL Biographical Frank C. Abbey.—The vigorous and progressive little city of Monmouth, Warren county, Illinois, claims Mr. Abbey as one of its business men and as one of the influential exponents of the com- mission trade in grain, provisions, cotton and stocks in central Illi- nois, his membership in the Board of Trade of the City of Chicago dating from April 15, 1914. His initial experience in connection with the practical affairs of life was gained through the assistance which he early began to give in the work of his father's farm in Illinois, and he thus continued his active association with the funda- mental industry of agriculture until 1910, his educational advan- tages in the meanwhile having been those of the public schools. In that year he became active manager of the grain business of H. E. Whitler, and after retaining this position three years he became a representative of the well known Chicago grain firm of Lamson Brothers & Company. With this concern he remained until April, 1916, when he established his present independent commission busi- ness at Monmouth, a city which has been his home since 1914. Mr. Abbey is a Republican in politics, is a loyal and progressive citizen, even as he is a wide-awake business man, and he is affiliated with the Knights of Pythias and the Tribe of Ben Hur. He has been retained as a correspondent for not only Lamson Brothers & Company, of Chicago, but also for Ware & Leland, another promi- nent Chicago commission concern, but he has severed his alliances in these connections. Mr. Abbey was born and reared in Illinois, the date of his nativity having been November 13, 1874. He is a son of Henry M. and Margaret (Clark) Abbey, his father having been a native of the state of New York and having become one of the successful farmers and honored and influential citizens of his county. His death occurred in July, 1912. Hugh Adams.— It is essentially within the province of this pub- lication to pay special tribute of deference and honor to those ster- ling men who figured as pioneer members of the Board of Trade of the City of Chicago and who otherwise played large and influ- ential parts in the intense drama of civic and material progress that brought about the development of the great metropolis of the West. The real prizes of existence continue to go, as they have always gone, to those who do their work conscientiously, who adjust them- selves wisely to conditions and events, who love in loyalty, who are true in personal stewardship and who live in wise and cheer- ful optimism. One of the honored pioneers of the Board of Trade 9 HISTORY OF THE BOARD OF TRADE was the late Hugh Adams, whose life was full and strong, who de- veloped a great soul and noble character and who gathered a host of real friends, besides which he achieved material success of en- during and worthy order and left a quiet but benignant impress upon the history of the city in which his interests and activities were long centered. A scion of one of the patrician old colonial families of America, he well upheld the prestige of the name which he bore, and in his long and useful life he poured true values into the crucible that tries the gold of humanity. Mr. Adams repre- sented a distinct and potent force in the development and upbuild- ing of the grain trade in Chicago, and may well be classified among the leaders in the initial movements that brought eventual pre- eminence to the city in connection with this all-important line of industrial enterprise that touches the very vital life of the nation, of all nations. The significance of the characteristic influence ex- erted by Hugh Adams in connection with the early operations of the Board of Trade is measurably indicated in the resolutions that were adopted by that body at the time of his death, which occurred on the 10th of March, 1880, and the context of these resolutions properly find perpetuation in this memoir: "Whereas, It has pleased the Divine Providence to remove suddenly from our midst, by death, Mr. Hugh Adams, for over twenty years a member and formerly a Director of the Board; therefore. Re- solved, That in the decease of Mr. Adams we recognize the loss of one of the oldest and most valued members of our Association, and one who, by his unswerving integrity as a merchant and by his genial disposition and pleasant demeanor, endeared his mem- ory to us in no ordinary measure." Hugh Adams was born in Rockbridge County, Virginia, on the 10th of February, 1820, and thus his death occurred exactly one month after he had celebrated the sixtieth anniversary of his birth. He was a son of James and Sarah Adams, and a grandson of John Adams, who was a son of John Adams St., the founder of the family in Rockbridge County, Virginia, where his stately old home, at Timber Ridge, was a center of the courtly and dignified hospitality that characterized the fine old Southern regime. The Virginia or Southern branch of the Adams family, as taken in contradistinction to the historic family of the same name in New England, found as its original American progenitor Robert Adams, whose ancestors were allied with the nobility of England and whose descendants took rank among the patrician first families of the historic Old Dominion, Virginia. The following quotation bears its own significance and authority. "This branch of the Adams family has produced many distinguished Americans, including statesmen, soldiers in three American wars, professional and business men." John Adams Jr., of Rockbridge Baths, son of John Adams, of Timber Ridge, first wedded Jane Hutcheson, who was of Scottish ancestry, and after OF THE CITY OF CHICAGO 11 her death he married Margaret Mcllhenny. There were eight children by the first marriage, and their descendants are now scat- tered largely thpough the southern and western states. The eldest son, James, married Sarah McCroskey, and their fourth son was he to whom this memoir is dedicated. Hugh Adams was reared under the benign conditions of the ancient regime in historic old Virginia, and was afforded excellent educational advantages; the while he became thoroughly imbued with those sterling principles and fine social qualities that significantly marked the Virginia gen- tleman of the "old school." Though he never failed in his appre- ciation of the patriarchal attractions of the fine old commonwealth in which he was born and reared, the vigorous spirit of Mr. Adams led him to seek a wider field of endeavor, though he had become a prosperous merchant in Virginia. Germane to the sentiments and progressiveness which finally led to his establishing his residence in Chicago are the following statements from a previously pub- lished review of his career: "Hugh Adams came of that stock which produces pioneers, and in 1857 he sought a wider horizon by removing with his family to Chicago, which was then little more than a village. It took an optimistic spirit to have even obscure prescience of the magnificent future in store for the Illinois set- tlement at the foot of Lake Michigan, but Mr. Adams was a man who looked beneath the surface of things, and measured possibil- ities by other standards than those required for small undertak- ings. In 1859 he founded the grain commission house that has had a virtually continuous history to the present time and that is still operated by members of his family. He became one of the first members of the Chicago Board of Trade, with which he continued to be connected until his death." It may further be noted that in establishing himself in the grain commission trade, in 1859, as noted above, Mr.