Successful Hopkins

Successful Hopkins
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America's Successful Men of Affairs: An Encyclopedia of Contemporaneous Biography

Volume I H

Robert Emmet Hopkins

page 320

ROBERT EMMET HOPKINS, petroleum producer, is a native of the town of Pompey, Onondaga county, N.Y., where he was born, March 24, 1833. His parents were Hezekiah and Susan Hopkins, farmers. His grandfather, Hezekiah Hopkins, came from Connecticut in 1802 to Pompey, situated then in what was little more than a primeval wilderness, helped bring the region into some state of civilization, became a man of influence, and during the War of 1812 served his country as Captain of Militia. The father and mother of Robert E. Hopkins died before the lad was nine years old and left their boy to make his way in life mainly by his own efforts The manner in which he has worked out his own destiny should encourage every young man who is compelled to face the stern realities of life at an early age, to put forth his utmost efforts to accomplish a like result.

 

America's Successful Men of Affairs: An Encyclopedia of Contemporaneous Biography

Volume I H

Robert Emmet Hopkins

page 320

After an education in the local academy, Mr. Hopkins left Pompey at the age of seventeen, and began his career, as do so many other men afterward prominent in affairs, in school teaching, first in Ohio and then in Pompey. At the age of twenty, the young man settled in the village of Brewerton on Oneida Lake in Central New York, and spent several years there in the lumber business. The life of the woods and the mill brought to him sturdy health and the spirit of active enterprise. In 1861, he received an appointment as Under Sheriff of Onondaga county, but this place he resigned in 1862 in order to recruit a company of Union volunteers for the 149th N.Y. Infantry. Receiving a commission as Captain in that regiment, he went to the front with his command, and saw much arduous service in the Army of the Potomac during the next two years.

May 3, 1863, he was captured by the Confederates during the bloody battle of Chancellorsville and was incarcerated in Libby prison in Richmond. An exchange of prisoners having been effected, he returned to the regiment July 14th, 1863, and commanded the 149th during the winter of 1863-64, being promoted to the rank of Major, Jan. 20, 1864. Long continued ill health, however, the result of privation in the field, compelled him to resign his commission July 3, 1864, and he returned to the North.

 

America's Successful Men of Affairs: An Encyclopedia of Contemporaneous Biography

Volume I H

Robert Emmet Hopkins

page 321

His place at home had been filled, and after a short delay Major Hopkins went to Titusville, Pa., in May, 1865, to engage in the lumber business and prospect for petroleum. The petroleum industry was then in the early stages of its development, and he made little progress in that special field until 1869, but he then met with much success. He continued actively employed in petroleum producing for a number of years. [p.321] One of the great problems with which the people of the oil regions had to contend at that time, was the transportation of their oil to market. Railroad charges were excessive and relief was urgently demanded. In 1878, Mr. Hopkins was instrumental in a daring solution of this question, and in the organization of The Tide Water Pipe Co., a corporation having a capital of $2,000,000, the first to lay a pipe line for the transportation of crude petroleum to the Atlantic seaboard. This enterprise was entered upon as an experiment, and the line terminated at first at Williamsport, Pa.; but its entire success and great value to the producers were soon demonstrated, and have since resulted in an extension of the line to the Kill von Kull, which flows into the harbor of New York opposite Staten Island. The pipe line now transports 3,000,000 barrels of crude petroleum yearly from the oil regions to the markets of the Atlantic coast. From the beginning of this company, Mr. Hopkins has been one of its managers and its very capable and hard-working treasurer. He remained a resident of Pennsylvania until May, 1890, but then removed his family to Tarrytown, N.Y., which has since been his home. His business headquarters are in this city.

 

America's Successful Men of Affairs: An Encyclopedia of Contemporaneous Biography

Volume I H

Lewis Marx Hornthal

page 321

Feb. 17, 1886, Mr. Hopkins married Fannie W. Chambers, of Newtown, Pa., and has one son, Robert Emmet Hopkins, jr. He is highly esteemed by the business community of New York city, and has been elected to membership in two or three social organizations, including the Loyal Legion and the Union League club.

 

America's Successful Men of Affairs: An Encyclopedia of Contemporaneous Biography

Volume I H

Collis Potter Huntington

page 338

In Sacramento, he commenced business under the name of C. P. Huntington, but afterward established the well-known hardware house of Huntington & Hopkins, which has continued up to the present day. Numerous anecdotes are told of the marvelous genius for business evinced by Mr. Huntington while trading at No. 54 K street. He studied the market carefully and bought in large quantities when supplies were low and sold in lesser quantities when the prices were high. He was ready to buy almost anything, which was not perishable, at some price or another, and it used to be said of him in those days that if a man could not sell a thing any where else, he could always get cash from Huntington. In 1856 the firm had a fortune.

 

America's Successful Men of Affairs: An Encyclopedia of Contemporaneous Biography

Volume I H

Collis Potter Huntington

page 339

The faith of the four men, Huntington, Hopkins, Stanford and Crocker, is illustrated by the characteristic way in which they solved the first problem of construction, when they agreed to pay personally for the labor of 800 men on the road for one year, and pledged their private fortunes to meet the obligations they assumed. The construction race with The Union Pacific, which was rushed westward while The Central Pacific was pushed eastward, created unbounded excitement and enthusiasm as the wires flashed across the continent daily the progress made. The tremendous strain, the anxieties and difficulties of this construction can never be adequately told. Freights, prices of material and wages rose enormously, and the necessity of paying in gold coin in California at a time when gold was at a high premium was an aggravating feature of these difficulties. A hundred discouraging problems arose, under the burdens of which the builders, had they been ordinary men, must have been crushed; but with Mr. Huntington an unlimited capacity for work, natural powers which had never been impaired by the use of tobacco or liquors, and the rugged physical vitality which was the outgrowth of heredity and early training carried him safely through the ordeal.[p.339]

 

America's Successful Men of Affairs: An Encyclopedia of Contemporaneous Biography

Volume I S

James Owen Sheldon

page 588

ISRAEL SHELDON, merchant, born March 22, 1797, originated in Pawtucket, R. I., and died in Orange, N.J., Sept. 23, 1884. The descendant of an old and patriotic family, he graduated from the academy in Woodstock, Conn., and entered mercantile life first in Providence and then in Wilmington, N. C., as clerk for S. & A. B. Arnold, shipping. merchants. Energy, good sense and honesty secured for him speedy recognition, and caused him to be sent while young to the West Indies as supercargo of a provision ship. Trading expeditions to South American countries led to exciting adventures, owing to local revolutions. He was once taken prisoner. Returning: to North Carolina, he made his name there a synonym for honesty, sagacity and energy. During eight years, he was clerk of the court in Hyde county, N. C., and in 1834, emigrated to Alabama, and engaged in business, with success. The outbreak of the Civil War sent him North and he lost much of his property in consequence. In New York, he resumed business with characteristic energy and his knowledge of the cotton market and the value of corporate shares enabled him to gain a second fortune. He was a large operator in Western lands and gas stocks. Mr. Sheldon was married several times. He had no son. Four daughters were born to him, Mrs. Robert W. Aborn, who died [p.588] in 1860; Mrs. Woolsey R. Hopkins, Mrs. William M. Franklin, and Georgianna E., wife of John S. Tilney.

 

America's Successful Men of Affairs: An Encyclopedia of Contemporaneous Biography

Volume I W

William Whitlock

page 727

STEPHEN VAN CULEN WHITE, stock broker, is a native of Chatham county, N. C., where

he was born, Aug. 1, 1831. His mother, Julia Brewer, was a direct descendant of Oliver Cromwell and a member of an old North Carolina family, while his father, Hiram White, was a farmer and on his mother's side descended from members of the Society of Friends in Pennsylvania, who moved South after the American Revolution. In 1831, the family being hostile to slavery, moved to Jersey county, Ill., and Stephen spent his boyhood in what was then a wilderness. His first earnings came from the sale of furs, the product of his own traps. Graduating from Knox college in 1854, he went to St. Louis, served as a bookkeeper in a wholesale store, studied law, and was admitted to the bar, Oct. 4, 1856. He practiced his profession with success in Des Moines, Iowa, until 1856, and then removed to New York and helped Charles B. Marvin establish the stock brokerage and banking firm of Marvin & White. Two years later, the firm retired from business. Mr. White joined the Stock Exchange in 1869 and went on alone until 1882, when the house of S. V. White & Co. was organized with several partners. Meanwhile, there had been in 1872 a serious setback and a recovery of lost ground, with full payment of debts. Mr. White's operations in stocks were for a long period among the most daring and successful in the street. One speculation in Lackawanna stock made him a rich man. In 1891, he failed for a million dollars. He resumed business with $50,000 capital, being released from obligations upon a verbal promise to pay, made about a million dollars in 1892 at the Stock Exchange, paid every debt in full, and found himself again a man of fortune. This was one of the most extraordinary incidents in Wall street. In politics a Republican, Mr. White has figured since 1856 in public affairs. He has been a Park Commissioner of Brooklyn and became a member of the Lth Congress. He has been receiver of The Grocers' Bank and The Sugar Trust, and long treasurer of Plymouth church in Brooklyn, and is a member of the Stock Exchange, the Union League, Lincoln, Hamilton and Brooklyn clubs in that city and the Lawyers' club of New York.  Feb. 24, 1857, he was married to Eliza M., daughter of Hiram Chandler, and their children are Jennie Chandler, who married Franklin W. Hopkins, and Arthur White.  

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