LeGrand Lockwood

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LeGrand Lockwood

LeGrand Lockwood (born August 14, 1820 in Norwalk , Connecticut , † February 24, 1872 ) was an American banking and railroad tycoon.

Life

LeGrand Lockwood's family moved to New York when he was twelve years old. At the age of 18 he got into banking. In 1842 he married Ann (a) Louise Benedict. The marriage resulted in several children, including sons LeGrand Lockwood Jr., Williston B. Lockwood, Henry B. Lockwood and Edward Eugene Lockwood, the three eldest of whom professionally merged with their father. Lockwood, who was already director of a steamship line to San Francisco that the Vanderbilt empire had built after the California gold rush , founded his company Lockwood & Co. in 1857, was also active in the railroad business and became one of the country's first millionaires.

Lockwood-Mathews Mansion

A few years before his death, LeGrand Lockwood had a house with 62 rooms built according to plans by Detlef Lienau in Norwalk , which is known today as the Lockwood-Mathews Mansion and was already considered the “finest residence in this country” at the time.

No sooner was this "country house" occupied, from which Lockwood could control some of the businesses that made him rich - the Norwalk-Danbury Railroad ran along the property line and the Horse Railroad in Norwalk, which West Avenue used on the other side of the property, he had himself founded in 1862 - as on 24 September 1869 the Black Friday , the gold prices fell sharply. Lockwood had to sell its ten million dollar stake in the Lake Shore and Michigan Railroad to Vanderbilt to keep his own business alive.

In 1872, LeGrand Lockwood developed pneumonia and died within a few days at the age of 52. In 1873 the company Lockwood & Co., which was initially continued by his older sons, had to liquidate and in 1874 the time of the Lake Shore & Michigan Railroad came to an end. Lockwood's widow first sold his art collection. She couldn't hold the Norwalk property either; it initially fell into the hands of the Vanderbilts and was sold to Charles Drelincourt Mathews in 1876.

The Heritage

After Lockwood's death, bitter legacy debates flared up and lasted for decades. An April 6, 1895 article in the New York Times reported that Lockwood's son Edward Eugene, who was penniless in Austin, Texas at the time, tried to litigate his uncle James H. Benedict and his brother's widow LeGrand Lockwood Jr., Kate H. Lockwood. Lockwood's widow Ann Louise had been the heir and legal representative of Edward Eugene, who was then underage, when his father died. When Ann Louise Lockwood died in 1882, her rights went to her son LeGrand Lockwood Jr. and to her brother James H. Benedict. During the trial, the latter stated that he had never had a fortune to manage for Edward Eugene, because one never came into his hands. With this, however, he got caught up in contradictions, because when he took over his function as legal representative of Edward Eugenes, he had apparently still spoken of the need to manage money. On the other hand, the newspaper article points out that LeGrand Lockwood, who was one of the victims of Black Friday in 1869, had spent more than a million dollars on his property in Norwalk shortly before this crisis and had apparently really lost the rest of the fortune: "It is claimed [...] that the elder Lockwood was caught in the panic prior to his death and left nothing but debts."

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ http://www.vernonjohns.org/nonracists/nemogul.html
  2. ↑ Archived copy ( Memento of the original from October 22, 2004 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / freespace.virgin.net
  3. ↑ http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?_r=1&res=9B01E5DC133DE433A25755C0A9629C94649ED7CF
  4. ↑ http://www.vernonjohns.org/nonracists/nemogul.html
  5. ↑ Archived copy ( Memento of the original from October 22, 2004 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / freespace.virgin.net
  6. ↑ http://www.vernonjohns.org/nonracists/nemogul.html
  7. ↑ http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?_r=1&res=9B01E5DC133DE433A25755C0A9629C94649ED7CF
personal data
SURNAME Lockwood, LeGrand
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American entrepreneur and banker
DATE OF BIRTH August 14, 1820
PLACE OF BIRTH Norwalk , Connecticut
DATE OF DEATH February 24, 1872