James Shewan
Born(1848-01-06)6 January 1848
Rora, Aberdeenshire
Died7 May 1914(1914-05-07) (aged 66)
New York, New York
Resting placeWoodlawn Cemetery
OccupationBusinessman
Spouse
Ellen Curley
​
(m. 1870)​
Children5
Signature

James Shewan (6 January 1848 - 7 May 1914) was a Scottish-American businessman who made his fortune in real estate in the United States. He was the founder of the largest dry dock and ship repairing facility in the Port of New York.

Early life

Shewan was born on 6 January 1848 in Rora, Aberdeenshire in Scotland. He was the son of Agnes (née Robertson) Shewan (1815–1891) and James Shewan (1819–1854), who died when he was four years old.[1]

Career

After attending school for only a few years, Shewan apprenticed to a ship carpenter. He first traveled to Greenland, where the ship was held by the ice for three and a half months. After his return, he went to London followed by a trip to Singapore with his uncle who was a sea captain. For four years, he traded in tea at various ports in China, Japan, and Australia.[1]

In 1869, he sailed from Yokohama to New York City where he started a dry dock and ship repair business, first called Shewan & Palmer and later known as Shewan & Jenkins. In 1877, Shewan bought out Jenkins and became the sole owner of the business, which he renamed James Shewan & Sons.[1] After his death, his sons ran the business and during World War I, the shipyard had the largest tonnage capacity of any dry docks in America.[2] The company was one of the six New York yards that merged into United Shipyards in 1929. Edwin later sold the business to Bethlehem Steel (where it became "27th St. Works" 40°39′46″N 74°00′19″W / 40.662901°N 74.00517°W / 40.662901; -74.00517[3]) and retired.[4]

Personal life

In 1870, Shewan married Ellen Curley (1850–1934), a native of Cardiff in Wales.[5] Together,[6] they had three daughters and two sons, including:[1]

  • Nellie Shewan (d. 1940), who lived at 1170 Fifth Avenue and did not marry.[7]
  • Ada Shewan Galvin Chambers.
  • Agnes Shewan (1881–1974), who later became the Marquise Rizzo dei Ritii after her marriage to Marquis don Guglielmo Rizzo dei Ritii in 1928.[8] She owned Shewan's Plumbush estate in Cold Spring, New York.[9]
  • James Shewan Jr. (1869–1926), who married Jessica Brown (1886–1935).[10] His daughter, Patricia Carrington Shewan, married Count Jacques de Sibour (nephew of Jules Henri de Sibour).
  • Edwin Arthur Shewan (1877–1945)[4]

James owned an estate in the Hudson Valley opposite West Point known as Inverugie (named after a small village in Aberdeenshire, Scotland that lies on the entrance to the River Ugie just north of Peterhead) and the Plumbush estate in Cold Spring.[11][12]

Shewan died at his home, 43 Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, on 7 May 1914 and was buried at Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx.[13] His business passed into the hands of his sons.[14][1] Upon the death of his widow in 1934, she left her entire estate, valued at several million dollars, to her three daughters and nothing to her son, stating: "they are amply provided for and have such splendid prospects for further bounty that none of them needs and gift, legacy or bequest from me."[5]

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 MacDougall, Donald John, ed. (1917). Scots and Scots' Descendants in America. Caledonian publishing Company. pp. 354–355. Retrieved 5 February 2016.
  2. ↑ "JAMES SHEWAN DIES AFTER OPERATION Was President of Boro Drydock Concern--Ill Three Days". The Brooklyn Daily Eagle. 14 December 1926. Retrieved 25 June 2019.
  3. ↑ "Third Naval District (Cochrane Collection)".
  4. 1 2 "E.A. SHEWAN DIES; OF DRYDOCK FIRM; Official of a Merged Company Dead at 67--Business Was Founded by His Father" (PDF). The New York Times. 7 March 1945. Retrieved 25 June 2019.
  5. 1 2 "DAUGHTERS INHERIT THE SHEWAN ESTATE; Two Here and One in France Get Several Millions Under Their Mother's Will" (PDF). The New York Times. 3 May 1934. Retrieved 25 June 2019.
  6. ↑ The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Europe in the Age of Enlightenment and Revolution, The Met/ Bradford D. Kelleher, 1987 - page 159
  7. ↑ "Deaths" (PDF). The New York Times. 12 October 1940. Retrieved 25 June 2019.
  8. ↑ Agnes Rizzo Shewan Bequest, Alison McQueen, Empress Eugénie and the Arts. Politics and Visual Culture in the Nineteenth Century, Ashgate Publishing, Ltd., 2011 - page XV e page 288
  9. ↑ Yarrow, Andrew L. (27 January 1989). "Some Other Inns in New York and Connecticut". The New York Times. Retrieved 25 June 2019.
  10. ↑ "JAMES SHEWAN DEAD; Owner of Brooklyn Dry Docks Dies in Post-Graduate Hospital" (PDF). The New York Times. 14 December 1926. Retrieved 25 June 2019.
  11. ↑ Sheila Buff, Insiders' Guide to Hudson Valley - 1st Edition, Guilford- Connecticut, 2009; page 67
  12. ↑ Caledonian. Caledonian Publishing Company. 1919. p. 422. Retrieved 25 June 2019.
  13. ↑ "Died" (PDF). The New York Times. 9 May 1914. Retrieved 25 June 2019.
  14. ↑ "James Shewan & Sons" v. U.S. March 2nd 1925, https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/267/86.html
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