In an urban community of any considerable proportions there is almost certain to exist an element, the members of which, while not holders of public office, are nevertheless looked upon by the people generally as public men. In times of uncertainty, when the public mind is distressed with problems that seem doubtful of solution, as well as in periods of calamity or commercial adversity, when the masses are tending toward panic, a word from the leaders of this element brings assurance to all the people, and their admonitions are promptly heeded. When a celebration is to be held, these citizens need only lend their names and the public is immediately assured of its success.
Prominent in the group of Baltimoreans who have won recognition as belonging to this rather restricted class there is one whose name shines with especial lustre - Mr. Eugene Levering. For so many years has he been a leader in movements and agitations for public good, that his name has almost come to be accepted as an official stamp of excellence; the endorsement of Mr. Levering to a public or private enterprise is conclusive evidence of its merit and honesty.
Eugene Levering and his twin brother Joshua were born in Baltimore on September 12, 1845; and almost the whole of Eugene's life has been spent in his native city. His father, also Eugene Levering, helped to found that coffee business which for many years was a considerable factor in spreading the commercial reputation of Baltimore. The family traces its descent from Wigard Levering, who came to America from Germany in 1685 and settled at Germantown,
Pennsylvania. Parental training in its various directions, industrial, intellectual and spiritual, showed its influence in the development of Eugene Levering as a boy and a youth. His ancestors were lovers of liberty; and very early in Ufe this love of liberty expressed itself in a measure of self-reliance, in thought and action. He had the faculty of concentration in a marked degree even as a boy; and in out-door sports, of which he was fond; in skating, gunning, etc., he applied that enthusiastic energy which made him the leader of his coterie.
He attended the best private schools of the day - Rippard's, McNally's, and Dalrymple's - until July, 1861, when, because of financial conditions consequent upon the outbreak of the Civil War, he left school, a mere boy of sixteen years of age, and entered the office of Levering & Co. as a clerk. Here, by steady application and the use of every opportunity, he became prepared to assume the responsibilities of the business which were unexpectedly thrust upon him in the summer of 1866, when illness incapacitated both members of the firm. Although not yet twenty-one years of age, young Levering met the trying demands successfully, and, after the death of his uncle in July of that year (1866), he was admitted to the new firm of E. Levering & Co., which consisted of Eugene Levering, Sr., and three of his sons: William T., Eugene, and Joshua.
Although the senior partner died in 1870, his will provided for a continuance of the firm for five years, and the withdrawal of his interest and the closing of the estate at that time - his three sons to be executors of the estate. The management of the sons had been so successful, that at the close of the period of limitation, the estate had doubled in value. In 1875 the new firm of E. Levering & Co. was created, Eugene Levering continuing as directing partner until 1902, when he withdrew from mercantile business, to give his undivided attention to his financial interests. In 1886 the firm opened a house in Rio, Brazil, and a year later Mr. Levering visited this important branch of the business, which received the benefit of his personal supervision and control until his withdrawal from mercantile pursuits.
Mr. Levering "started life" early along all lines. He joined the church as a youth, began business as a young man, and on January 23, 1868, in his twenty-third year, married Mary E., daughter of James D. Armstrong, of Baltimore, by whom he has had three children. Through his entire life Mr. Levering has been essentially a man of domestic tastes and habits, and has built up around him a home life characterized by cordial hospitality and Christian principle. From 1858, when he was converted, under the ministry of Richard Fuller, D.D., of the Seventh Baptist church, until the present, he has been continually active in religious work. He has been a Sunday School teacher since 1863. In " accepting the truths of the Bible as the basis of one's own living and of his relations to his neighbor," he illustrates his belief by his life and his Christian activity. In 1871, he withdrew from the Seventh Baptist church to enter the Eutaw Place Baptist church as a constituent member thereof, and was elected a deacon, which office he continues to fill. His enthusiasm was largely the determining factor in the establishment of several Baptist churches by the Baltimore Baptist Church Extension Society, of which organization he has been president for fifteen years or more. The Fuller Memorial and North Avenue Baptist churches owe their establishment largely to his personal influence and energy. His work for his church and his denomination is not performed by substitute; he faithfully and personally attends to it and regards his accumulated wealth as a providential means for service to God and good to his fellow-men. He has been identified, however, not only with religious work, but with many philanthropic, educational and benevolent organizations, the object of which is to uplift the people and incite them to higher aims and holier purposes. Benevolent institutions, indeed, occupy a generous share of his thought and service. He holds such offices as president of the Society for the Improvement of the Condition of the Poor; treasurer of the Society for the Suppression of Vice; vice-president of the Charity Organization Society; and vice- president of the Home for Incurables ; besides others of a similar nature. In 1893, he purchased a large building on Fayette street, in the center of the city, and, after remodeling and furnishing it he opened it as a workingmen's lodging house, which is still carried on successfully.
Mr. Levering has been interested in educational matters for many years. Since 1873, he has been a member of the Board of Trustees of the Columbian University at Washington, District of Columbia - now known as the George Washington University - and a trustee since 1899, of the Johns Hopkins University. In the year 1889 he presented the sum of $20,000 to the last named institution for the erection of a building for the use of the Young Men's Christian
Association of the university - this being the fourth building especially erected for such use in any college or university - and it has proved admirably adapted for a religious and social center of student life. At the same time, he provided for an annual course of lectures on religious topics to be given in the building, which during its continuance of ten years included many stimulating discussions of religious truth.
With a judicial cast of mind and strong convictions as to the duties of a citizen, Mr. Levering has never hesitated to side with what he considered the right in political matters. He was a strong Unionist during the Civil War, but later voted the Democratic ticket, until 1884, when he became a Prohibitionist. He continued to vote the ticket of this party until free silver became a national issue, when he voted the Republican ticket. In local politics Mr. Levering has been an outspoken and unconditional Independent, believing in the absolute separation of municipal government from all state or national questions. While never holding any political office, he has frequently rendered important services to his native city. In 1890, he served on a commission appointed by Mayor Davidson to examine into the various departments of the city government, and in 1897, he served on a committee appointed by Mayor Hooper to investigate the condition of the poor, and again in 1904 on one of the committees appointed by Mayor McLane immediately following the great fire of that year. From its organization, in 1893, Mr. Levering has been a member of the Municipal Bath Commission, and in 1897 he became its chairman. He was elected a member of the Board of Trade of Baltimore, the oldest commercial body of the city, in 1873; became vice-president thereof in 1892, and served as its president from 1894 to 1900. He was one of the organizers of the Merchants' and Manufacturers' Association and, in the early years of that organization, was a useful member. In 1878, Mr. Levering, though only thirty-three years of age at the time, was chosen president of the National Bank of Commerce, and still holds that position. The bank under his administration has become one of the strongest in the city. He took a prominent part in the organization of the Baltimore Trust and Guarantee Company in 1890; has been a member of the executive committee of its Board of Directors since its foundation, and in 1905 was elected first vice-president of the company. Mr. Levering is a director of the United States Fidelity and Guaranty Company and a member of its executive committee, and a member of the executive committee of the Baltimore Clearing House Association. With all these responsibilities and demands of a busy, active life, he keeps in constant touch with the times. In the Young Men's Christian Association campaign of 1906 to raise S500,000 for a building, Mr. Levering was one of the most active as well as one of the most successful of the enthusiastic campaigners who won such a signal victory: an evidence that although
the busiest among the busy, he has yet time to give for the service of his fellow-men.
