User:Postdlf/William James (businessman)

[Portrait by Ezra Ames (1768-1836) about 1822. Original in the Union College Permanent Collection. This image copied from Google Books preview of A Place in History: Albany in the Age of Revolution, 1775-1825 By Warren Roberts p. 245. Artist and public domain status identified by New York State Museum ]

William James (December 29, 1771 - December 19, 1832) was an Irish-born American businessman, banker, and prominent citizen in Albany, New York. At the time of his death, he was one of the wealthiest men in the United States, and said to have been the second richest man in New York, after John Jacob Astor. He was the grandfather of novelist Henry James and psychologist William James.

Known as William James of Albany.

Early life and growth of business
[from ancestry.com: born in Cork - unverified] Birthdate December 29, 1771 in Ireland.

James was born the second son of a Scots-Irish farmer in Ulster, Ireland. His family farm was in Bailieborough, in County Cavan.

Having no hope of inheritance, and intending to make a living as a merchant, he emigrated to the United States in 1789, at the age of eighteen. He settled in Albany, New York in 1793, where he started out as a clerk in a dry goods business. Within two years, he owned his own store, as a tobacco merchant. He added another store in 1797, and by 1805 he owned five stores and a tobacco factory.

In 1804, at the age of 33, he was named director of the newly-founded New York State Bank, where he oversaw the financing of projects such as the Albany Turnpike. He helped organize the Albany Savings Bank in 1820, the second incorporated savings bank in New York, and was named first vice president upon its incorporation on March 25.

The Erie Canal and real estate investments
He turned to real estate investment after handing over management of his businesses to others in 1818. He purchased land all across the state, from New York City to Buffalo, in towns that were along the Erie Canal, then under construction. His largest purchase was made in 1824, of a 250 acre plot known as the Walton Tract in what would become the center of Syracuse, incorporated the following year.

Participated in February 7, 1816 meeting at Tontine Coffee-House to petition the Legislature for the construction of the canal; James was one of ten signatories; the Legislature passed an Act in April.

"financed the Erie Canal." I don't know what this means.

Named vice president of the Albany Chamber of Commerce and Public Improvement, December 5, 1820.

On April 5, 1823, the New York Legislature passed an act authorizing the construction of the Albany Basin; James was named one of the commissioners, authorized to take subscriptions [what does this mean?] for the project.

James was a trustee of Union College. The school faced continuing funding problems, and in 1825, James loaned it $100,000, at the request of its president, Eliphalet Nott. This secured James a mortgage on the university at 6.5% interest, "meaning, in effect, that he owned Union College."

James was made "chairman of the committee of the citizens of Albany" for organizing a celebration of the Erie Canal's completion and opening in 1825. Chairman of the Committee of Citizens of Albany. As part of the celebration, James gave a public address in the New York State Capitol in Albany, on November 2, 1825. His speech, which placed the canal's construction in the context of the American Revolution as one of the greatest achievements of the new nation, was the longest of the day.

He eventually amassed a fortune, primarily through his involvement in the construction of the Erie Canal.

Family
James had eleven children by three wives. [from ancestry.com, http://trees.ancestry.com/tree/15468343/person/267291956: first wife = Elizabeth Tillman (1774 - 1797); Mary Ann Connolly, (1777-1800); Catherine Barber (1782-1859)] verify in Hastings

Of those, Henry, the second surviving child of his third wife, Catherine Barber, has received the most attention from historians, in part because he was the father of the psychologist William James, the novelist Henry James, and the diarist Alice James.

As a child, Henry suffered severe burns in a fire that ultimately cost him his leg. Catherine recounted James' anguish over his son's injuries and surgery, though Henry would later describe his father as having been emotionally distant, absorbed with work, authoritarian, moralistic, and patriarchal. He recounted an incident in which his father, seeing a woman walking towards his house, told her that his wife was out; the woman was his wife.

Henry rebelled against his father after starting school at Union College. He was an extravagant spender and an intemperate drinker, and indulged all the more after warnings from his father to reform. He left school to write for a Unitarian paper (an offense to the Presbyterian William James), though he returned to graduate in 1830.

Another son, William (1797–1868), became a minister. Wasn't this son disowned too? Wrong kind of minister?

Henry named William James after William James of Albany.

Death and estate
James contracted typhus and died in Albany in 1832, during an epidemic that passed from Asia to North America. He was buried in the Presbyterian burial ground on State Street in Albany, and later reinterred at Albany Rural Cemetery.

From contemporary obituaries in (unidentified) Albany newspapers: "William James, an eminent Albany merchant, died Dec. 19, 1832, aged 62 years. He long occupied a conspicuous place among the merchants of this city and as a liberal and enlightened citizen.  Prosperous almost beyond parallel, his career exemplified how strong and practical intellect, with unremitting perseverance will be accompanied by success.  Of unaffected manner, generous, hospitable, public spirited, open ever to the claims of charity, prompt to participate in any enterprise of general utility or benevolence, Mrs. James enjoyed, as he deserved, the sincere respect and esteem of his fellow citizens, and his loss was rightly considered a public calamity." "Mr. William James expired about three o'clock this morning. Mr. James came to this city in 1793, dependent upon his industry for his means of subsistence..."

His estate in 1832 is estimated between $1.2 million and $3 million.

James' will was extremely complicated. He had 14 surviving descendants--eight children and six grandchildren--and provided that his estate be divided into 12 equal parts. For those descendants who were not yet 21, however, he left it to the discretion of his trustees to determine whether they were morally worthy of receiving their bequest upon reaching maturity. The two sons excluded from the estate, Henry and William (eldest son from first marriage), were granted only annuities derived from interests earned upon "rents and profits."

Henry was given by far the smallest distribution from James' will of any of his children; the will further delayed distribution of the estate's assets for twenty years and allowed the executors to deny bequests to anyone they judged to have led a "grossly immoral, idle or dishonorable life." Henry and his siblings sued the estate; the will was voided and James declared to have died intestate in 1836. Henry thus received his full inheritance, which "gave him leisure for life, and thereby made possible the unusual educations of his sons," Henry and William James.