Person:Daniel Reid (8)

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Daniel Gray Reid (August 1, 1858– January 17, 1925)[1] was an American industrialist and philanthropist known as the "Tinplate King"

External Links

• For more information, see the EN Wikipedia article Daniel G. Reid.
• mrlinfo.org - Daniel Gray Reid - includes photo
• Richmond Hill, Irvington, NY - D.G. Reid's grand estate on the Hudson River - "... Daniel Gray Reed, "the tin plate king," and a native of Richmond, Indiana, renamed the property "Richmond Terrace" and imported to his new Irvington estate a fence which once surrounded the Centerville Courthouse. ..."
  • [see also Dan Tate, 8 Mar 2010 - What Happened to The Centerville Courtyard Fence? ]
• Daniel Reid's Carriage House

Daniel Gray Reid, abt 1900

1. ↑ ^{1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4} Jonni Sue Jessop Schilaty <Jonnialogy@aol.com>. Descendants of Adam Reid.
2.   Daniel G. Reid, in Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia.
3.   Daniel G. Reid, in The New York Times. (New York, New York).

   20 Jan 1925, p 21, col 3
   Attended by prominent men...funeral services for Daniel G. Reid,internationally known financier, who died suddenly Saturday after a brief illness were held in his apartment at 907 Fifth Avenue shortly after 10o'clock yesterday morning. The body will be interred this morning in Richmond, Ind. where Mr. Reid was born sixty-six years ago and where he started work as a messenger boy at $12.00 a month. In a servants room, not more than twelve or fifteen feet from the coffin was the "tin plate king's" little brown Pekingese "Wiggie" that Mr. Reid purchased as a pup in England fourteen years ago, and which, according to servants, had been his constant companion ever since. In fact, they said the financier and "Wiggie" were seldom separated. During his three-day illness "Wiggie" never left his bedside and since Mr. Reid's death has been crying almost incessantly. Although the door in the servant's chamber was closed and "Wiggie" neither heard no saw any part of the funeral service, she lay motionless on the bed throughout the burial, whining mournfully. 'She's been sick ever since Mr. Reid died,' one of the servants said. "There's no doubt that she realizes her master has gone. We don't know what to do to restore her to her normal condition." The regular Episcopal Service was read by the Rev. Dr. Ernest M. Stires rector of St. Thomas' Episcopal Church where Mr. Reid worshiped. Taking part also were twelve members of the church choir, who opened the service by singing "Abide with me" and brought it to a close with "Nearer My Godto Thee" In two rooms hung with costly paintings, sat Mr. Reid's friends,numbering almost 200, who came to pay their last tribute. Among them were Francis L. Hine, Chairman of the board of the First National Bank; James Spayer, banker; Bernard M. Raruch, R. A. C. Smith, John Golden, ex-Judge William M.K. Olcott, Joseph Hartman, Albert H. Wiggin, President of the Chase National Bank; Seward Prosser, President of the Bankers Trust Company; Townsend Morgan, Thomas Cochran of J. P. Morgan & Co.; ex Judge, Morgan J. O'Brien, James J. Davis, Secretary of Labor; Gates W. McGarrah, President of the Mechanics and Metals National Bank; William H. (BigBill) Edwards, Edward E Loomis, President of the Lehigh Valley Railroad;Frederick D. Underwood, President of the Erie Railroad Company; D.E. Pomeroy, Vice president of the Banker's Trust Company; Frank O Baker, Dr.S. Nelson Irwin, his personal physician for twenty-four years and others. A reminder of Mr. Reid's association with William B. Leeds, who, with Mr. Reid and W. H. Moore, organized the "tin plate trust" lay is the presence at the services of Mr. Leed's son, William B. Leeds Jr., husband of the Princess Xenis, Young Mr. Leeds is also a godson of Dr. Stires. Besides the company of notables there were present also a large group of servants and former servants as well as present and past chauffeurs in the financiers employ. His only daughter, Mrs. Henry J. Topping attended the funeral, accompanied by her husband, the son of John A. Topping, President of the Republic Iron and /Steel Company and two of their three children. Mr. and Mrs. Topping accompanied the body to its Indiana resting place. It left from Pennsylvania Station at 1:05 in the afternoon. Just before the train started, Secretary Davis, a life-long friend of Mr. Reid, announced that burial services would be conducted by the financier's home lodge of the Masonic order. Only a wreath of orchids and white roses adorned the large bronze coffin as it was placed aboard the private car.

4.   Mikesell, Joanna Hill. Daniel Gray Reid. Unpublished paper presented to Heritage Club, 1989. [Genealogy Collection R 929.2 R354m].

   [Title unknown. Available at Morrison-Reeves Library is a paper written on Daniel Gray Reid by Joanna Hill Mikesell in which she tells a little about the early life of DGR]
   "One of his first jobs was to pick potato bugs for which he earned five cents a quart," Mikesell wrote. After three years, he had saved $3.50, with which he bought a stem-winding Ingersoll watch. After a time, he traded it to a neighbor boy for three piglets. According to Mikesell, Reid swapped one pig for a shotgun, traded the second to his father for corn and buttermilk to fatten up the third pig, which he then sold for $33.75"
   
   Mikesell also writes DGR was "a messenger in the Second National Bank (now Star Bank) to help sustain his family after his father's death. By his early twenties, he was vice president of the bank. ... It was a sad three years for Mr. Reid; his son died in 1896, his mother in 1898, and the next year his wife, Ella."
   
   "By this time, Reid had begun to amass a fortune by partnering with William B. Leeds in a tin plate venture. Although the Tin Plate Company had been doing poorly and the stock was declining, Reid saw possibilities. After studying the costs and borrowing money to buy out the majority stockholders, he turned it into the first big successful tin plant in the country. Mikesell reports that Reid and Leeds developed a$50 million syndicate and went on to build an empire. In 1899, Reid moved to New York City to run the companies from an office on Wall Street."While he was becoming a multi-millionaire, he never forgot his ties with the city of his birth," Mikesell wrote. Reid donated about $240,000 for the building of Reid Memorial Presbyterian Church. The "Memorial" in that name refers to his parents, Daniel and Anna, and to his son, Frank. Reid also donated $40,000 toward the building of the YMCA. Earlham's Reid Field was named in his honor, recognizing his frequent gifts to the college. Soon after leaving Richmond, Reid saw the city's need for a larger hospital. He purchased 50 acres on the city's north side for $30,000 and, as a memorial to his wife and son, donated $100,000 to the building of the hospital. Cornerstones for Reid Memorial Hospital and Reid Memorial Presbyterian Church were laid Sept. 24, 1904. The hospital was dedicated, and was already serving its first two patients on July 27,1905. Reid's health began to decline in 1919. In January, 1925, he died in New York City at age 66. Reid's body was brought back to Richmond where he was laid to rest in Earlham Cemetery with his mother, wife and son. The hospital is located only minutes away from the Reid Mausoleum. Built with funds given in memory of his wife, Ella and son, Frank, the hospital also stands as a monument to Daniel Reid's undying love for both his family and his community."

5.   Daniel G. Reid, in Reid Memorial Presbyterian Church website.
6. ↑ Daniel Gray Reid, in Find A Grave.

   [includes mausoleum photo]

7.   Daniel Gray Reid, in Harrison, Mitchell Charles. Prominent and progressive Americans: an encyclopædia of contemporaneous biography; (1902). (New York: New York Tribune, 1902)
   1:273.

   The name and later career of the subject of the present sketch call to mind one of the most noteworthy developments of American industry under the encouragement of the American system of protection to domestic labor. Down to only a few years ago the manufacture of tin, that is to say of tin-plate, or sheets of steel coated with tin, was utterly unknown to the United States. The factories of Great Britain, especially of Wales, had a substantial monopoly of it. True, the steel plates could be produced in this country as well as anywhere else, and the tin for plating them could be brought hither from Singapore or elsewhere just as well as it could be taken thence to England. All other materials and appliances could also be secured here, and it seemed absurd to say that American workmen could not be trained to do the work as well as any others.
   
   But the industry was not undertaken. It was so well established in Great Britain, and wages of workingmen were there so much lower than here, that there seemed no prospect of profit in making tin plates here so long as the foreign-made plates could be imported duty free. Whenever a proposition was made to impose a duty upon foreign tin plates so as to give the industry a chance for development in the United States, the answer was made by opponents of protection that it would be futile, for tin plates could not, under any circumstances, be manufactured in this country. No matter how high the tariff were, it would merely increase the cost of the foreign plates without ever bringing a single American plate upon the market.
   
   Some Americans, William McKinley among them, thought otherwise, and determined to make the experiment. In 1890 a tariff law framed by Mr. McKinley was enacted, imposing for the first time a considerable duty upon foreign tin. It was greeted with a howl of denunciation, and the old cry of the impossibility of making tin plates in America was renewed. But the law was quickly vindicated. The industry was established. Year by year it increased by leaps and bounds. To-day it is as well established here as is the manufacture of steel rails, and American tin plates not only supply at a lower rate than before the bulk of the domestic demand, but are actually in demand for export for foreign countries.
   
   The man who chiefly organized this giant industry in the United States is Daniel Gray Reid, a man scarcely yet at middle age, though of long business experience. He was born on August 1,1858, at Richmond, Indiana, and was educated in the public schools of that place.
   
   Immediately upon finishing his schooling he sought a place in the business world, and found it in his native town. He was only fifteen years old when, in 1873, he entered the employment of the Second National Bank of Richmond. But his thorough schooling had fitted him for the work intellectually, and he found the work agreeable to his tastes. In such circumstances he naturally gave his employers good service, and won their favor. In turn promotion after promotion came to him, taking him through the various grades of service, in all of which he acquitted himself in a highly creditable manner. For no less than twenty-two years continuously he served behind the counters of that bank, giving up that work in 1895. He is still connected with the bank, however, as its vice-president.
   
   We have said that the tariff which started the tin industry in America was enacted in 1890. Among other concerns the American Tin Plate Company was promptly formed, and in 1891 Mr. Reid became a director of it, thus identifying himself with the new enterprise which was soon to grow to so vast proportions. Upon his retirement from the bank in 1895, he took active hold of the work of the Tin Plate Company, became treasurer of it, and began to ” push things.” Acting in conjunction with the Moore Brothers of Chicago, he soon effected a general consolidation of American tin interests in one great corporation, known as the American Tin Plate Company. This corporation, with a capital of fifty millions of dollars, had its headquarters in New York.
   
   It comprised in 1899 no less than thirty-six works in operation, with two hundred and seventy-two mills completed and seven more building, a total of two hundred and seventy-nine, besides two works with six mills being dismantled. The works were as follows :
   
   Standard Works, Bridgeport, Ohio, 8 mills; American Works, Elwood, Indiana, 20 mills; Anderson Works, Anderson, Indiana, 6 mills; Atlanta Works, Atlanta, Indiana, 6 mills; Banfleld Works, Irondale, Ohio, 4 mills; Beaver Works, Lisbon, Ohio, 6 mills; Blairsville Works, Blairsville, Pennsylvania, 2 mills; Britton Works, Cleveland, Ohio, 3 mills; Canonsburg Works, Canonsburg, Pennsylvania, 5 mills; Cincinnati Works, Cincinnati, Ohio, 4 mills; Crescent Works, Cleveland, Ohio, 6 mills; Cumberland Works, Cumberland, Maryland, 5 mills; Ellwood Works, Ellwood City, Pennsylvania, 5 mills; Falcon Works, Niles, Ohio, 6 mills; Great Western Works, Joliet, Illinois, 4 mills Hamilton Works, West Newton, Pennsylvania, 2 mills; Humbert Works, Counellsville, Pennsylvania, 6 mills; Irondale Works, Middletown, Indiana, 6 mills; Johnstown Works, Johnstown, Pennsylvania, 2 mills; La Belle Works, Wheeling, West Virginia, 10 mills; Laughlin Works, Martins Ferry, Ohio, 14 mills; Marshall Works, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 6 mills; Monongahela Works, Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, 14 mills; Montpelier Works, Montpelier, Indiana, 6 mills; Morewood Works, Gas City, Indiana, 8 mills; Morton Works, Cambridge, Ohio, 6 mills; National Works, Monessen, Pennsylvania, 8 mills; New Castle Works, New Castle, Pennsylvania, 20 mills; Neshannock Works, New Castle, Pennsylvania, 6 mills; Ohio River Works, Remington Station, Pennsylvania, 2 mills; Pittsburg Works, New Kensington, Pennsylvania, 6 mills; Pennsylvania Works, New Kensington, Pennsylvania, 6 mills; Reeves Works, Canal Dover, Ohio, 4 mills; Shenango Works, New Castle, Pennsylvania, 30 mills; Somers Works, Brooklyn, New York, 3 mills; Star Works, Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, 8 mills; United States Works, Demmler, Pennsylvania, 11 mills; and Washington Works, Washington, Pennsylvania, 4 mills.
   
   Mr. Reid was president of this great American Tin Plate Company down to the time of its absorption into the United States Steel Corporation, of which he is now a director. He is also a director of the National Steel Company, and of the Bankers’ National Bank, of Chicago ; vice-president of the Second National Bank ; and director of the Union National Bank, Richmond, Indiana, and a director of the American Steel Hoop Company. He has taken no public part in politics. He is a Mason, and a member of the Chicago, Union League, and Calumet clubs of Chicago.

8.   Daniel G. Reid, in Biographical and genealogical history of Wayne, Fayette, Union and Franklin Counties, Indiana. (Chicago, Illinois: Chicago : Lewis, 1899)
   p 320.

   Daniel G. Reid is now a resident of Chicago, but has been so closely identified with the interests of Richmond that the city feels a just pride in claiming him among her native sons. He stands today at the head of one of the leading industrial concerns of the county, being president of the American Tin Plate Company, and his prestige has been won through marked executive force, keen discrimination, sound judgment and unfaltering energy. To manage mammoth business interests it requires as great and skillful generalship as is manifest on the field of battle by him who leads armed hosts to victory. His campaign is no less carefully planned, and the tactics which he must follow to avoid competitors demands a nicety of decision unsurpassed by the army commander; at the same time if he would gain an extensive public patronage, his business methods must be so honorable as to be above reproach, for the public is a discriminating factor and quickly sets its stamp of disapproval upon any underhand methods. Daniel G. Reid has met every requirement of the business world in these regards, and has attained an almost phenomenal success, which illustrates the wonderful possibilities, which America affords her young men of energy, enterprise and ambition.
   
   Born in Richmond, in August, 1858, Daniel G. Reid is a son of Daniel and Anna (Dougan) Reid. The family is of Scotch-Irish lineage, and the grandfather of our subject, who also bore the name of Daniel Reid, was a native of Virginia, in which state he spent his entire life. He married Margaret Patterson, of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, who died in Richmond at an advanced age. Daniel Reid, father of our subject, was born in Rockbridge County, Virginia, February 5, 1799, and in 1821 took up his residence near New Paris, Preble County, Ohio whence he removed to Richmond in the fall of 1823. Here he engaged in clerking for some years, and in 1828 began merchandising on his own account, as a partner of Joseph P. Strattan, carrying on the business ten years. In 1829 he was appointed postmaster of Richmond, serving in that capacity until 1838, when he was appointed by President Van Buren as register at the land office in Fort Wayne, where he remained for about five years. He then removed to a farm in Allen County, Indiana, and in 1855 returned to Richmond, where he engaged in the grocery business with his son, William S., and N. S. Leeds until the firm changed to Reid & Vanneman. He remained in the store, but made his home upon a farm a mile and a half west of Richmond, where he was living at the time of his death, which occurred March 3, 1873. He was for many years a member and ruling elder of the United Presbyterian Church in Richmond, and his honorable, upright life commanded the respect of all with whom he came in contact. He was twice married, his first wife being by maiden name Letitia Scott, who died in Allen County, in 1854. They had seven children. In October of that year, Mr. Reid married Mrs. Ann Dougan, then a resident of Niles, Michigan, and they had two children: Daniel Gray, of this sketch, and Emma Virginia, wife of Oliver Bogue.
   
   Daniel G. Reid was educated in the public schools of Richmond. His father died when he was in his fifteenth year, and he was reared by his mother. At the age of seventeen he entered the Second National Bank as messenger boy, obtained his business training there and gradually won promotion until he was made teller, which position he resigned in 1895. He is still a director and vice-president of the bank, but though his opinions influence its management he takes no active part in controlling the daily routine of business. In 1892 he became interested in the American Tin Plate Company, owners of an extensive plant at Elwood, Indiana. In 1898, when the great tin plate trust was formed, he became a large stockholder and the president of the corporation, and now occupies that important position. He has always been of a speculative turn of mind, but where many would make injudicious investments and so lose their money, his tendency toward speculation is guided by a judgment rarely at fault and by a keenly discriminating mind.
   
   On the 13th of October, 1880, Mr. Reid was united in marriage to Miss Ella C. Dunn, of Richmond, Indiana. Mrs. Reid died on the 25th of June, 1899. In matters of public moment Mr. Reid is deeply interested, although he has never sought the preferment which he might easily attain in that line, he is content to gain leadership in business circles alone. The day of little undertakings in our western cities has long since passed, and an enterprise or industry is nothing if not gigantic. It is a master mind that can plan, execute and control a mammoth institution of the nature of the American Tin Plate Works, and the gentleman who stands at its head well deserves to be ranked among the most prominent businessmen of his adopted city, where only ability of a very superior order is now recognized.
   -----
   [Note of Caution: His mother's maiden name was Gray, NOT Dougan. She had been married before.]