Rutters

James Pollock and “In God We Trust”

February 5, 2015 in Rutters, Uncategorized 2 Comments Tags: Genealogy, Governor James Pollock, In God We Trust, Know Nothings, Pennsylvania State University, Sunday Schools

Portrait of James Pollock by John F. Francis

James Pollock was my wife’s third great grand uncle. He was the uncle of Sarah Pollock, the wife of James H. Rutter.

James Pollock was born on September 11, 1810, in Milton, Northumberland County, Pennsylvania, of Scotch-Irish Presbyterian parents. He graduated from the College of New Jersey (Princeton University) with a bachelor’s and master’s degree, both with highest honors. (He later became President of Princeton’s Board of Trustees.) He returned home to set up a law practice. He was appointed a judge and a district attorney, and in 1844 was elected to the U. S. House of Representatives, where he served three terms. While he was in Washington, he shared a boardinghouse with Abraham Lincoln and they became friends.

Pollock was keen on technology. He supported Samuel Morse and his idea for a telegram and was in the room when the famous message, “What hath God wrought” was received. He also pushed for the construction of a transcontinental railroad; in 1848 he said, “At the risk of being considered insane, I will venture the prediction that, in less than twenty-five years from this evening, a railroad will be completed and in operation between New York and San Francisco, California.” It was finally completed in 1869.

After the left the House, Pollock was appointed a federal judge in Pennsylvania. In 1854 the Whigs nominated Pollock for the governorship of Pennsylvania. He was also supported by the Nativist Know-Nothings (of which Samuel Morse was a member) who were anti-slavery.

Inauguration of Governor James Pollock

Pollock defeated the Democratic candidate, and began selling off the obsolete public works of the state, the canals and portage railroad which were outmoded by the new railroads and which were beset by corrupt administration. These works had been a drain on the public treasury. Pollock reduced state debt and lowered taxes. He chartered State Normal Schools and Pennsylvania State University and located it in the middle of the state.

In 1855 in thanksgiving for the harvest and the preservation of the country from war, Pollock signed a Thanksgiving Proclamation, which concluded:

Acknowledging with grateful hearts these manifold blessings of a beneficent Providence we should “offer unto God thanksgiving, and pay our vows unto the Most High.”

Under the solemn conviction of the importance and propriety of this duty, and in conformity with the wishes of many good citizens, I, James Pollock, Governor of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, do herby appoint Thursday, the 22^nd of November next, as a day of General Thanksgiving and Praise throughout this State; and earnestly implore the people that, setting aside all worldly pursuits on that day, they unite in offering thanks to Almighty God for his past goodness and mercy; and beseech him for a continuation of his blessings.”

In the prelude to the War between the States, the country was convulsed by the controversy over the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which would undo the anti-slavery provisions of the Missouri Compromise. Pollock served as head of the Pennsylvania delegation at the Washington Peace Conference in 1861 and attempted to avert war. He was unsuccessful.

Pollock was a man of great Christian faith. He presided over the American Sunday School Union from 1855 until his death. It was said ‘he was always eager to do his Lord’s business with earnestness and dispatch’ and while conscious of the power of his masterful mind and loving heart, his fellows managers ‘most appreciated his depth of consecration.’

In 1861 Lincoln appointed Pollock the Director of the U S. Mint in Philadelphia.

in his 1863 report to the Secretary of the Treasury, he [Pollock] wrote, “We claim to be a Christian nation—why should we not vindicate our character by honoring the God of Nations…Our national coinage should do this. Its legends and devices should declare our trust in God—in Him who is “King of Kings and Lord of Lords.” The motto suggested, “God our Trust,” is taken from our National Hymn, the Star-Spangled Banner.” The sentiment is familiar to every citizen of our country—it has thrilled the hearts and fallen in song from the lips of millions of American Freemen. The time for the introduction of this or a similar motto, is propitious and appropriate. ‘Tis an hour of National peril and danger—an hour when man’s strength is weakness—when our strength and our nation’s strength and salvation, must be in the God of Battles and of Nations. Let us reverently acknowledge his sovereignty, and let our coinage declare our trust in God.”

Oh! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Between their loved homes and the war’s desolation!
Blest with victory and peace, may the heaven-rescued land
Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation.
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: “In God is our trust.”
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

He died on April 19, 1890; his reputation of honesty and integrity was recognized even by his enemies. In the funeral sermon, the Rev. John Hemphill proclaimed:

I look back over fifty years of American history, and I can find no man as conspicuous as he in civic life, who can claim precedence of him in all the qualities that go to make up a noble, moral manhood. For fully half a century he was exposed to influences which have wrought the undoing of thousands, but he kept “his garments unspotted from the world.” He could have died a millionaire, but, loathing alike the bribe giver and the bribe taker, he died with clean hands and a clean soul, leaving to his children, and to his children’s children, and to the whole Church of God, the glorious heritage of a “good name” which is far better than “great riches.”

His tombstone monument appropriately reads:

“James Pollock 1810-1890 ‘In God We Trust’”

At a website there are dozens of memorials to Pollock. One is

Honoring you on your 121st anniversary in heaven.

And another, by a great, great great grandniece:

Perhaps we will meet in Heaven dearest Uncle. May you rest in peace. It took me a long time to find you, but I am proud to have done so.

The Railroad Rutters

February 4, 2015 in Rutters 1 Comment Tags: Chancellorsville, Genealogy, James H. Rutter, Nathaniel Rutter, New York Central, Willaim Vanderbilt, William Rutter

The Rutters were involved in the railroad business for generations.

William Edward Rutter was my wife’s third great grandfather. He was involved in the transition between horse carriages and railroad carriages.

The Elmira Car Works was founded at Elmira, New York, in 1851 by William E. Rutter, as a car repair shop servicing the newly constructed New York & Erie Railroad. A year later it began to build cars.

Elmira Car Works’ founder, William E. Rutter (1812-1882), was born in Providence, Rhode Island, and had learned the trade of carpenter in Baltimore. (One source says he was an experienced carriage builder.) In the early 1830s he went to work for the Boston & Providence Railroad, and later became master mechanic on their Stonington line. He moved to Elmira only a little before opening his plant.

In 1848 he sold his plant to the Erie railroad, but stayed on as manager.

His sons were William Rutter (?-1854), Nathaniel Rutter (1841-1863) and James H. Rutter (1836-1885), from whom my wife is descended.

William Rutter died young. He had a heart attack on October 18, 1854 when he was responding to a fire with Young America Hose Company.

Nathaniel Rutter enlisted as a second lieutenant in the 107^th New York Regiment, “Campbell Guards.” He rose to the rank of captain December 31, 1862, fought in the first battle of Antietam, was killed by a shell at the battle of Chancellorsville on May 1, 1863. He was twenty-two. Col Colbey described him as “a worthy and competent officer.”

The 107^th New York

This regiment, known as the Campbell Guards, was recruited in the counties of Chemung, Schuyler and Steuben, rendezvoused at Elmira, and was there mustered into the U. S. service for three years, Aug. 13, 1862. It was a fine regiment, noted for its efficiency and discipline, the first regiment from the North organized under the second call, and the first to arrive at Washington, in acknowledgment of which it received a banner from the state and a personal visit from the president. It was raised by two patriotic members of the legislature, Robert B. Van Valkenburg, and Alexander S. Diven, who became colonel and lieutenant-colonel, respectively. It left the state on Aug. 13, 1862; was stationed in the defenses of Washington for a month; was then assigned to the 1st division (Williams), 12th corps (Mansfield), and fought its first battle at Antietam, where it was heavily engaged, losing 63 in killed, wounded and missing. The veteran Gen. Mansfield fell, mortally wounded at Antietam, and Gen. Henry W. Slocum succeeded to the command of the corps. The regiment was again heavily engaged at the disastrous battle of Chancellorsville, where the brunt of the fighting fell on the 3d and 12th corps, and lost in this action 83 killed, wounded and missing, among the killed being Capt. Nathaniel E. Rutter.

James H. Rutter was my wife’s great great grandfather. He was born February 3, 1836 in Lowell, Massachusetts. He studied at the Scholfield Business School and At the age of 18, in 1854, he started his career as a clerk in the fright office of the Erie Railroad. The next year he became chief clek in the freight office of the Williamsport and Elmira Railroad. In 1857, at the age of twenty-one, he became chief clerk in the Chicago freight office of the Michigan Central and Northern Indian Railroad. In 1858 he became freight agent of the Chicago and Milwaukee Railroad. In 1860 he was back in Elmira as the stationmaster of the Erie Railroad. In 1864 he became freight agent in Buffalo of the Erie Railroad, and in 1866 the assistant general freight agent.

While testifying about railroad rates, he impressed William H. Vanderbilt, who hired him in 1870 as the General Freight Agent of the New York Central with the salary of $15,000 a year ($250,000 in 2015 dollars). In 1877 he became a director of the New York Central, in 1880 Third Vice-President, and in 1883, at the age of forty-seven, President of the New York Central.

William Vanderbilt had been in poor health, (high blood pressure, mild stroke); he had sons, but knew that Rutter was more intelligent and competent.

Mark Twain was scheduled to meet Rutter in 1885 to interest him in investing in the printing telegraph and the typesetter that Twain hoped would make his fortune, but Rutter was ill with diabetes at his house in Irvington and died on June 27, 1885.

At the same time, unbeknownst to each other, his wife Sarah Pollack Rutter was dying of brain inflammation. She died the next day, June 28, 1885.

They were buried from St. Thomas Church in New York at the same service. They left several children. They named one Nathaniel, after his uncle who had died at Chancellorsville, and ever afterwards there have been Nathaniels in the family. Their son, Nathaniel Enzie Rutter, was my wife’s great grandfather.

Paul Gibert Thebaud Sr. and the Servant Problem

January 30, 2015 in Genealogy, Rutters 2 Comments Tags: Edward Kern, Genealogy, Hillair, Paul Gibert Thebaud

The Thebaud family is distantly related to the Alexandres. The wealthy Catholic families of New York tended to intermarry, just as the Quaker families did. Paul Gibert Thebaud Sr. (1866-1925) was the husband of sister-in-law of the great grandmother of my wife. Paul Sr. married Mathilde Eugenie Reynal on June 16, 1889 in St. Francis Xavier. It was a spectacle:

The white marble altar was covered with candles; twenty priests in rich vestments and a hundred choristers thronged the chancel; the Archbishop [Corrigan] in vestments of white and gold and wearing his jeweled mitre, performed the ceremony, while the bridal procession, composed of twelve ushers, twenty bridesmaids, and the bride, leaning on her father’s arm, swept up the broad centre aisle to the superb wedding march from Lohengrin, rendered by a full string orchestra with organ accompaniment.

The bride’s dowry was $1,000,000 ($26,000,000 in 2015 dollars) and she also received 300 presents from the 3,000 guests:, including a complete dinner service in gold and silver.

Mathilde was the sister of Nathaniel Reynal, the second husband of Sarah Caldwell (my wife is descended from her first husband, Nathaniel Rutter), and that is one way my wife is related to the Reynals, about whom much will be said in later blogs.

A distant relationship, but the families kept up contact, and a Mrs. Thebaud was the godmother of my wife’s uncle Teddy. When, as a child, he received a present from her, he asked his mother, “Who is ‘the bawd?’”

Paul Sr. was a commission merchant with the firm Paul G. and Paul L. Thebaud, which had been founded as Bouchard, Thebaud and Co. in 1789. Paul Sr. did well for himself. A taste for big houses runs through all the family He had a town house on Madison Avenue, and decided to build a mansion in White Plains. While he was building it he stayed in White Plains, with friends, the Howard Willets.

There a crime, which sounds like it had been plotted by P.G. Woodhouse, affected the tranquility of the Thebauds.

Mr. and Mrs. Edward Kern, Sr., a Swiss couple, worked for the Thebauds. Their son, Edward Jr. was visting them and caught Mr. Thebaud’s eye. Edward was hired as Thebaud’s valet. The elder Kern had spent a year in the Tombs in 1895-1896 for swindling. Kern was also a small time crook. He had been convicted of forgery in Switzerland and under the name of Emil Brown he served a year for forgery. All of this was of course unknown to the Thebauds.

Edward Kern, Jr.

Marie Pollion

Kern had met the wife of a French waiter, the lovely Madame Marie Pollion, in Switzerland in 1896.

They both ended up in New York, and resumed the affair. But he needed some cash to finance the escapade. After working a few weeks at the Thebauds, he knew that Mrs. Thebaud had a fortune in jewels.

On Saturday December 28, 1901, the Thebauds went to visit Willets in White Plains. Kern accompanied them, but returned to the city on the pretense of having forgotten the razors. He emptied the strongbox, which contained mostly stickpins (275 of them), but did not find the main jewels.

Kern put the jewels in a satchel, caught the 11:30 PM train to White Plains and fell asleep. Mr. Thebaud was also in town and boarded the same train and got into the same car. He saw Kern asleep with a satchel at his feet. Thebaud thought he should teach Kern a lesson about being careless, so he had a trainman hide the satchel. When Kern woke up, he explained to Thebaud that he had forgotten the razors and had returned to get them. He was horrified to discover the satchel missing. Thebaud gave him a reproof and handled the satchel back to Kern – the satchel, Thebaud later realized that contained his stolen stickpins.

Kern then took the other jewels, a pear-shaped diamond (worth $20,000 then, $500,000 in 2015 dollars) and a pearl ($15,000 then, $350,000 in 2015 dollars). On Sunday morning he feigned illness and was allowed to take the Willets’ horse and buggy to the station to get a train to see a doctor.

The Thebauds and the Willets went to mass. By the afternoon Kern had not returned, and Mrs. Thebaud looked for her jewels, and discovered her diamond and pearls were missing although a brooch valued at $50,000 ($1,500,000 in 2015 dollars) was still there. She called the Madison Avenue townhouse, and the housekeeper discovered that the strong box was empty and the jewels gone.

The Thebauds called the police. A disconsolate Mr. Edward Pollion also came to the police. His neighbors had told him that his wife had run away with a young man, a valet , who had been a frequent visitor when Mr. Pollion was not home. Mrs. Pollion had not known (she later claimed) about the theft, but she agreed to go to a pawnshop with Kern and claim the jewels were hers. They got $700, all the cash the pawnbroker had on Sunday, on jewels valued at 30,000 and planned to escape to Switzerland. The police tracked and arrested Mrs. Pollion as she was biding farewell to friends. She had both her and Kern’s clothes with her. The pawnbroker, as soon as he had seen the account of the robbery, had called the police, police went to the pawnshop and recovered most of the the jewels that had been stolen.

The police identified Mrs. Pollion, Edward Kern, Sr. and Edward Kern, Jr. from the Rogues Gallery.

Kern met two fellow criminal, one of whom had met him at a race track and recognized him as the thief of the Thebaud jewels. Kern pled for silence and promised to split the loot. They traveled under assumed names, Theodore Manners (Kern), A. P. Howe, and P. Mars.

The three checked into a hotel in New Orleans. When Kern/Manners was out one evening, the other two asked that their trunks be brought down and checked out of the hotel. They later said they planned to have Kern file a claim for stolen property and get money from the hotel, but they either did not inform Kern of this plan or he forgot it – or, of course, they were lying. They went to two train stations to try to get a train out of town, but they were too late. They rowed a skiff across the Mississippi to Gretna and waited to catch the first morning train.

Meanwhile Manners-Kern returned to the hotel and discovered his fellow crooks and the loot gone. He reported the theft to the police. The police searched for the thieves, and a newsboy in Gretna reported two men were acting suspiciously. The police arrived and arrested them and informed Manners-Kern that he could come to reclaim his possessions. He was reluctant.

When he confronted the other two, one said “You have turned us in, you scoundrel.” He told the police: “This is Edward Kern, valet and thief, who robbed Paul Thebaud in New York.” The police looked in the valise and found $2,500 of jewelry which matched the description of the Thebaud jewels. Kern insisted he was Theodore Manners from Chicago.

Paul Thebaud and one of New York’s finest, Detective Kelly, arrived in Gretna to identify Kern and reclaim the jewels. Rumor had gotten around that Thebaud had offered a $10,000 reward for the jewels, but this was only a rumor. The sheriff refused to release Kern until Thebaud forked over the $10,000, and Thebaud refused to do that, because he had never promised it. Negotiations followed, and Thebaud made a gift of $250 to the Gretna police department.

Thebaud returned to New York, and Kelly and Kern were waiting in the train station to get the through train when Kelly spotted two pickpockets whom he knew, and lit off after them. He collared one immediately, and chased the other for half a mile before he collared him.

Kern pleaded guilty in April 1902 and got four and a half years in Sing Sing. The comrades who had gone off with his trunk were charged with theft, on the principle that thief one had priority over thief two. In June 1902 Kern tried to get them off by claiming that he had instructed them to take the trunk out of his room and meet him in Atlanta, where they were to divide the spoils or return his property. The judge was not impressed, and sentenced the two to three years of hard labor. After early release from Sing Sing, Kern resumed a spectacular career of con artistry , made the mistake of antagonizing William Randolph Hearst, and died in a hotel room after taking cyanide.

To add to the Thebauds’ troubles, at the same time the robbery was occurring the house that they were building caught fire and was totally destroyed. But Thebaud went ahead with new plans and built Hillair, which was completed in 1904.

The Architectural Record had an extended description of Hillair:

The house itself, facing south, is seen a distance of several miles away, and is a fairly true example of Georgian architecture. The plan being symmetrical, a necessity in this style, it has the usual porch, but on the rear or south front, and not at the entrance which is on the north. The material from which “Hillair” is built is Indiana limestone of the gray variety the surface of the walls being of coursed ashlar. The original design shows a house of brick, with the same limestone trim, cornice and columns as now exist. The change to stone enhances the general good appearance, and is in fact more in keeping with the design. The semi- hexagonal “porte-cochere” on the north is a reasonable departure from the Georgian period, and is distinctly eclectic in character, but entirely reasonable in its purpose and form. The classical character of the period is well exhibited in the entablature and columns of the Ionic order, on every side of the house. The owner insisted on a veranda surrounding the entire plan etc. etc. etc.

All was not well in the Thebaud establishment. The firm failed in 1907 because of the failure of a corresponding firm in Central America, although the Thebauds’ personal fortune was not affected.

In 1907 another catastrophe hit the family, one which I will cover in the blog about Paul Gilbert Thebaud Jr.

Mr. and Mrs. Thebaud separated in 1911, and he gave her the house and $20,000,000 ($500,000,000 in 2013 dollars). He died in 1925.