Charles G. Francklyn
Born
Charles Gilbert Francklyn

(1844-04-18)April 18, 1844
Newcastle, England
DiedJanuary 11, 1929(1929-01-11) (aged 84)
New York City, New York, U.S.
EducationVictoria College
Spouse
​
​
(m. 1869)​
Children2
Parent(s)Gilbert Francklyn
Jane Cunard Francklyn
RelativesSamuel Cunard (grandfather)

Charles Gilbert Francklyn (April 18, 1844 – January 11, 1929) was an American capitalist and industrialist who was based in New York society during the Gilded Age.

Early life

Francklyn was born near Newcastle in England on April 18, 1844.[1] He was the son of Colonel Gilbert William Francklyn and Sarah Jane (née Cunard) Francklyn (1821–1902).[2][3]

His maternal grandfather was Samuel Cunard, the Canadian shipping magnate who founded the Cunard Line.[4] His uncle was Sir Edward Cunard, 2nd Baronet,[5] and his first cousin, Sir Bache Cunard, 3rd Baronet lived at Nevill Holt Hall and was married to Maud Cunard.[6] His great-grandfather was pro-slavery apologist Gilbert Francklyn, who owned plantations in Tobago and Jamaica.[7][8]

Francklyn was educated in Bath, England and at Victoria College in the Island of Jersey.[9]

Career

At the age of 16, he began working for his grandfather's Cunard Line in Halifax, Nova Scotia.[1] After the death of his uncle in 1868, Francklyn became the Line's agent in New York, staying in the role until the agency was incorporated in 1880 and taken over by Vernon H. Brown & Co.[10]

In 1878, he organized the Municipal Gas Light Company, of which he was the first president. In 1884, Francklyn and Harrison E. Gawtry led the merger of six gas companies (including his Municipal Gas Light Company, the New York Gas Light Company, the Manhattan Gas Light Company, and the Metropolitan Gas Light Company) which combined into the Consolidated Gas Company, of which he was a member of the first board of trustees.[1] Consolidated Gas later purchased Thomas Edison's Edison Illuminating Company and became known as the modern day firm of Consolidated Edison. Before his retirement, he would also serve as president of the Central Union Gas Company.[1]

Francklyn also commissioned one of the first residential gas ranges in the United States, built to his specifications for $275 in Baltimore, Maryland.[1]

Real estate and mining

Francklyn owned mining investments in Utah (including the Horn Silver Mining Company of which he was president),[11][12] Colorado, San Domingo and the West Indies as well as considerable stock in St. Louis and Pacific Railroad (which later became the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway).[13]

In 1882, he purchased 637,440 acres (2,579.6 km2) of railroad lands for $887,000 in Carson County, Texas and adjoining counties to form the Francklyn Land and Cattle Company, not far from Cornelia Adair's JA Ranch.[13] The lands were later sold to the White Deer Lands Trust of British bondholders in 1886 and 1887.[14][15] By January 1886, a ferocious blizzard, in addition to overspending on livestock, fencing, and living quarters, forced the ranch into bankruptcy.[7]

In 1887, Francklyn was arrested at his home in New York on charges of fraud by his cousin, Sir Bache Cunard, who alleged that Charles had embezzled $3,000,000 that Francklyn was to have invested on behalf of Cunard.[16] The litigation, which lasted for several years (Francklyn was represented by John Notman of Butler, Stillman & Hubbard,[17] resulted in the sale of his Elberon, New Jersey residence,[18] and a libel lawsuit by Francklyn to The Times.[7] Eventually in 1889, Cunard withdrew his lawsuit,[19][20] when the parties reached an agreement, the terms of which were not publicly revealed.[21]

Society life

In 1892, Francklyn and his wife were included in Ward McAllister's "Four Hundred", purported to be an index of New York's best families, published in The New York Times.[22][23] Conveniently, 400 was the number of people that could fit into Mrs. Astor's ballroom.[24] He was one of the original members of the Knickerbocker Club (founded in 1871) and was also a member of the Union League Club and a life member of the St. George's Society.[1]

The Francklyns had a twenty-room "cottage" at the Elberon, New Jersey section of Long Branch directly on the ocean,[25] designed by Charles F. McKim of McKim, Mead & White.[26] In 1881, when President James Garfield was shot by Charles J. Guiteau, the president was taken to Francklyn's cottage,[27] along with his doctors, nurses, and family, to recover.[28] The president died at the cottage shortly thereafter on September 19, 1881.[29] The cottage was later sold in 1889,[18] and eventually burned down on June 14, 1920.[26]

After they sold their New Jersey cottage, they built another summer home in Southampton, New York on Ox Pasture Lane, originally known as Red Croft, in 1897.[7] They had the home for thirty years, helping to make the beach town a fashionable resort among wealthy New Yorkers.[1]

Personal life

In August 1869,[9] Francklyn was married to Susan Sprague Hoyt (1845–1932).[30][31] Susan was born at 94 Fifth Avenue and was the daughter of Edward Hoyt, the head of Hoyt, Sprague & Co., and Susan (née Sprague) Hoyt.[32] Her father's family was from Stamford, Connecticut and among her many prominent family members was uncle William Sprague IV, the Governor of Rhode Island during the Civil War and great-uncle William Sprague III, a U.S. Representative, U.S. Senator and also the Governor of Rhode Island.[30] Together, they lived at 15 Washington Square and were the parents of:[1]

  • Gilbert Francklyn (1870–1957), an executive with the Consolidated Gas Company who did not marry.[33]
  • Doris Francklyn (1887–1959),[34] a poet and teacher who lived in Southampton and who did not marry.[35][36]

Francklyn died at his home, 160 East 91st Street in New York, on January 11, 1929.[1] His funeral was held at St. George's Chapel in Stuyvesant Square and he was buried in Southampton.[37]

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 "C.G. FRANCKLYN DIES; BUILT GAS INDUSTRY; Bought Waste Product, Which Proved to Be Naphtha, for One Cent a Gallon. DEVELOPED THE GAS RANGE Grandson of Founder of Cunard Line Loaned House at Elberon, N.J., Where Garfield Died. Refuse Was Naphtha. Interested in Ranches and Mines" (PDF). The New York Times. January 12, 1929. Retrieved 8 December 2018.
  2. ↑ "DIED" (PDF). The New York Times. December 28, 1902. Retrieved 8 December 2018.
  3. ↑ Bulletins and Other State Intelligence. 1862. p. 2437. Retrieved 8 December 2018.
  4. ↑ "Sir Samuel Cunard". Archived from the original on 3 October 2016. Retrieved 20 December 2010.
  5. ↑ "No. 22235". The London Gazette. 1 March 1859. p. 953.
  6. ↑ Thom's Directory of Ireland. 1876. p. 271. Retrieved 8 December 2018.
  7. 1 2 3 4 Euler, Laura (September 6, 2017). "Explore Redcraft, an Extraordinary Home in Southampton". www.danspapers.com. Retrieved 8 December 2018.
  8. ↑ "Francklyn, Gilbert (1733-1799) Member of Council of Tobago". discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk. The National Archives | The Discovery Service. Retrieved 8 December 2018.
  9. 1 2 Who's Who in Finance. Joseph & Sefton. 1911. p. 574. Retrieved 8 December 2018.
  10. ↑ "THE CUNARD'S JUBILEE YEAR. A RETROSPECTIVE GLANCE AT ITS PROSPEROUS CAREER" (PDF). The New York Times. July 4, 1890. Retrieved 8 December 2018. To-day completes the fiftieth year since the establishment of the Cunard Steamship Line, during which period of half a century its wonderful immunity from disaster entitles it to the proud record of having never lost the life of a passenger.
  11. ↑ "AN UNEXPLAINED ASSET. THE DISSATISFIED HORN SILVER MINING COMPANY STOCKHOLDERS" (PDF). The New York Times. September 24, 1887. Retrieved 8 December 2018.
  12. ↑ "PRESIDENT FRANCKLYN OUSTED" (PDF). The New York Times. October 4, 1888. Retrieved 8 December 2018.
  13. 1 2 Sheffy, Lester Fields (2011). The Francklyn Land & Cattle Company: A Panhandle Enterprise, 1882-1957. University of Texas Press. p. 6. ISBN 9780292785861. Retrieved 8 December 2018.
  14. ↑ Anderson, H. Allen (2010-06-12). "Francklyn Land and Cattle Company". Handbook of Texas Online. Texas State Historical Association. Retrieved 16 December 2010.
  15. ↑ "Duncan Ranch History". The Duncan Ranch. Archived from the original on 2011-07-08. Retrieved 16 December 2010.
  16. ↑ "ACCUSED BY HIS COUSIN WHY MR. FRANCKLYN IS IN LUDLOW-STREET JAIL. SIR BACHE CUNARD CHARGES HIM WITH APPROPRIATING HIS FORTUNE—A MINING COMPANY TAKES A HAND" (PDF). The New York Times. October 22, 1887. Retrieved 8 December 2018.
  17. ↑ "MR. FRANCKLYN'S DEFENSE" (PDF). The New York Times. November 13, 1887. Retrieved 8 December 2018.
  18. 1 2 "FRANCKLYN COTTAGE TO BE SOLD" (PDF). The New York Times. May 13, 1889. Retrieved 8 December 2018.
  19. ↑ "SIR BACHE CUNARD'S SUIT" (PDF). The New York Times. October 9, 1888. Retrieved 8 December 2018.
  20. ↑ "SIR BACHE CUNARD'S SUITS" (PDF). The New York Times. November 12, 1889. Retrieved 8 December 2018.
  21. ↑ "CUNARD WITHDRAWS HIS SUIT" (PDF). The New York Times. November 14, 1889. Retrieved 8 December 2018.
  22. ↑ McAllister, Ward (16 February 1892). "THE ONLY FOUR HUNDRED | WARD M'ALLISTER GIVES OUT THE OFFICIAL LIST. HERE ARE THE NAMES, DON'T YOU KNOW, ON THE AUTHORITY OF THEIR GREAT LEADER, YOU UNDER- STAND, AND THEREFORE GENUINE, YOU SEE" (PDF). The New York Times. Retrieved 26 March 2017.
  23. ↑ Patterson, Jerry E. (2000). The First Four Hundred: Mrs. Astor's New York in the Gilded Age. Random House Incorporated. p. 216. ISBN 9780847822089. Retrieved 1 June 2018.
  24. ↑ Keister, Lisa A. (2005). Getting Rich: America's New Rich and How They Got That Way. Cambridge University Press. p. 36. ISBN 9780521536677. Retrieved 20 October 2017.
  25. ↑ Rutkow, Ira (2006). James A. Garfield: The American Presidents Series: The 20th President, 1881. Macmillan. p. 125. ISBN 9781466827929. Retrieved 8 December 2018.
  26. 1 2 Foster, Feather Schwartz (29 June 2015). "President Garfield's Train". Presidential History Blog. Retrieved 8 December 2018.
  27. ↑ "THE PREPARATIONS AT ELBERON. THREE COTTAGES IN READINESS FOR THE USE OF THE PRESIDENTIAL PARTY" (PDF). The New York Times. September 5, 1881. Retrieved 8 December 2018.
  28. ↑ "EVERYTHING READY AT ELBERON.; THE FRANCKLYN COTTAGE PUT IN ORDER FOR ITS GUEST--BUILDING A RAILROAD TO THE DOOR" (PDF). The New York Times. September 6, 1881. Retrieved 8 December 2018.
  29. ↑ "THE NATION'S DEAD CHIEF; PRESIDENT GARFIELD'S BODY TAKEN TO WASHINGTON. A SORROWING CROWD WITNESSES ITS DEPARTURE FROM ELBERON-- THE DEAD MAN'S FACE GHASTLY AND SCARCELY RECOGNIZABLE-- BRIEF RELIGIOUS SERVICES IN THE FRANCKLYN COTTAGE. THE JOURNEY TO THE CAPITOL. PRESIDENT ARTHUR'S JOURNEY. ARRANGEMENTS IN CLEVELAND. A TALK WITH PRESIDENT HINSDALE. DR. AGNEW'S STATEMENT. YOUNG JAMES GARFIELD VERY ILL. A PROMISE OF SUPPORT. A DISPATCH FROM MR. JOHN WALTER. HANGING GUITEAU IN EFFIGY. GRIEF IN THE SOUTH. THE NATION'S DEAD CHIEF PRESIDENT GARFIELD'S BODY TAKEN TO WASHINGTON. GRIEF IN THE SOUTH". The New York Times. September 22, 1881. Retrieved 8 December 2018.
  30. 1 2 "MRS. C. G. FRANCKLYN IS DEAD AT AGE OF 86; Widow of Consolidated Gas Co. Founder President Garfield Died at Her Shore Home" (PDF). The New York Times. April 7, 1932. Retrieved 8 December 2018.
  31. ↑ Depew, Chauncey M. (2013). Titled Americans, 1890: A list of American ladies who have married foreigners of rank. Bloomsbury Publishing. p. 103. ISBN 9781783660056. Retrieved 8 December 2018.
  32. ↑ "Mrs. Charles Gilbert Francklyn (ca. 1846-1932)". www.nyhistory.org. New-York Historical Society. Retrieved 8 December 2018.
  33. ↑ "GILBERT FRANCKLYN" (PDF). The New York Times. June 16, 1957. Retrieved 8 December 2018.
  34. ↑ "DIED" (PDF). The New York Times. August 7, 1959. Retrieved 8 December 2018.
  35. ↑ "FOR THE SAKE OF CHARITY. Southampton Cottagers Plan a Series of Tableaus Vivants" (PDF). The New York Times. July 1, 1906. Retrieved 8 December 2018.
  36. ↑ "MISS DU PONT'S PLAY GIVEN BY CHILDREN; Pupils of Miss Doris Francklyn Present "At the Agency" in Southampton" (PDF). The New York Times. September 9, 1930. Retrieved 8 December 2018.
  37. ↑ "C.G. FRANCKLYN'S FUNERAL; Delegations From Clubs and Consolidated Gas Company Present" (PDF). The New York Times. January 15, 1929. Retrieved 8 December 2018.
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