The Humphreys family in America - citizen hylbom blog

Children I by ist marriage):
19". I. WiLLARD Jewell**; m. Brown; sealed at Rrookline, Mass.; had children.
(By 2d marriage):
zc. II. Harriet Maria,^ b. i8 Oct., 1835; ni. Baker; settled at Brookline, Mass.;
had children.
FAMILY 2rA
21". Asahel Willard' Humphreys [i6«] (Asahd jezveii^ Coi. wniiam,^ Capi.
John,'' Hopeslil/,^ Elder James,' Jonas') was born in Winchester, N. H., 30 Oct., 1838.
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He was
educated, primarily, at the public schools of Winchester, N. H., and subsequently at Lawrence
Academy, Groton, Mass.. and at Kimball Union, Meriden, N. H. After leaving school, he entered
the counting room of Little, Brown & Co., the well known publishers, of Boston, where he remained
until 1 86 1, when he was made assistant cashier of the Ocean Bank, of New York. The latter
position he resigned to connect himself with the iron interests, entering the service of the Sterling
Iron and Railway Company, of which he soon became the treasurer, and subsequently the president.
In 1864 this company acquired the ownership of the twenty-five thousand acres of land, with all
the mines and furnaces upon it, which constituted the Sterling estate, in Orange and Rockland
counties. New York, and on which were erected almost the earliest iron works in this State; where
the second Peter Townsend made the first cast-steel in this country, the great chain put across
the Hudson river to prevent the ascent of the British during the Revolution, all of the anchors
for the first navy of the new American Government, and for a long term of years the charcoal
iron which was required in the construction of the steam engines of the United States Government.
The Sterling Iron and Railway Company, with Mr. Humphreys as its principal business official,
largely extended the operations carried on at Sterling, by developing new mines, building railways,
and making other important improvements; and so well known did he become in connection
with the iron interests that he was urgently requested by the late Hon. Horace Greeley, then
an active member of the American Institute, to prepare for it an address on iron and its manu-
facture, which he delivered in October, 1870, and which was published in full in the daily Tribune,
covering a page of that paper, and reprinted in all the journals and periodicals devoted to metallurgy
and engineering in this country and Europe. He was for several years one of the Board
of Managers of the American Iron and Steel Association, and was the third member in the United
States of the Iron and Steel Institute of Great Britain. The degree of Master of Arts was conferred
upon him by the faculty of Williams' College in 187^, and he is a director of several corporations
and railways. Always a thorough-going Republican, ho has never had any liking for politics, and
has not been active as a politician. He is a member of the Union League Club, of New York;
the American Association for the Advancement of Science; the British Association for the Advancement
of Science, the American Institute of Mining Engineers, and the N. Y. Chamber of Commerce.
He went to Brooklyn to live in 1867, and later became interested in its social and benevo-
lent institutions and entcrprizcs. He was chosen chairman of the member's committee of the
Long Island Historical Society, and subsequently became the treasurer and a director of that
institution. He was also chosen a member of the Board of Managers of the Brooklyn xVssociation
for Improving the Condition of the Poor, and a director of the Union for Christian work. In 1S79
he was appointed one of the trustees of the New York and Brooklyn Bridge.
He married 3 June, 1863, Miss IMary L. Cunningham, dau. of John Robinson Cunningham,
of Westmoreland County, Pa., and Caroline Willey, of Boston, Masa.
Child:
22". I. WiLLARD CUNNINGHAM, 9 b. 15 June, 1S67; now (1SS6) a student rf Columbia College
and University of Berlin (Germany).