Financier: born in Spire,
Germany, April 11, 1835; received a collegiate education; came to the
United States in-1853; settled in
Chicago and
[
65]
became a newspaper correspondent; and went to the
Colorado gold region in 1859 as a writer for the Cincinnati
Commercial.
During the
Civil War he was a Washington correspondent for Western and Eastern papers.
In 1873 he purchased the
Oregon and California Railroad and the
Oregon steamship companies for German stockholders, and two years later became receiver, with
C. S. Greeley, of the
Kansas Pacific Railroad.
He then organized the
Oregon and Transcontinental Company, which gained control of the
Northern Pacific and of the
Oregon Railway and Pacific companies.
He was president of the
Northern Pacific in 1881-84, and chairman of the board of directors of the same company in 1889-93.
He bought the Edison Lamp Company, of
Newark, N. J., and the Edison Machine Works, of
Schenectady, N. Y., in 1890, and from these formed the Edison General Electric Company, of which he was president for two years. He was the author of
The Pike's Peak gold regions, and was a liberal promoter of educational, religious, and charitable institutions.
He died in
Dobbs Ferry, N. Y., Nov. 11, 1900.
