A Smith Henderson Mallory chronology
Compiled by Frank D. Myers
Glance up at the courthouse clock the next time you're on the square in Chariton and think briefly of Smith Henderson Mallory, whose gift to the people of Lucas County it was during 1894. He was the richest man Lucas County ever has seen, if his assets are counted in 21st Century terms; his mansion and its grounds, the Ilion, southern Iowa's grandest home. Entrepreneur and benefactor, he was the stuff of which legends are made.
But the Gods often are not kind to those they seem initially to bless. Denied descendants, no family remains to sing his praise. A significant portion of his fortune was dissipated when four years after his death a trusted protégé's embezzlement brought down the family bank, First National, in Lucas County's greatest financial calamity. His wife and daughter fled to Florida. Some years later, they removed his body and monument from the Chariton Cemetery and took those to Florida as well. His opera house burned, his mansion was demolished and his church, St. Andrew's, fell.
As passed the Mallorys, so passed the old families of Chariton who were their friends and may have aspired to be their social equals: the Copelands, the Temples, the Stantons, the Oppenheimers and many more. With them, went many memories.
And so Smith Henderson Mallory's legacy now is in the hands of those who remain: Relative newcomers who have come to love Lucas County as deeply as he did and descendants of its less grand but more substantial foundation, the farmers and others who have labored hard for much less.
1835: Smith Henderson Mallory is born on 2 December at Croton Mills, about 4 miles east of Penn Yan, Yates County, N.Y., southeast of Rochester. His father is Smith Legg Mallory and his mother, Jane (Henderson) Mallory. Smith is the eldest of six children. His younger siblings are: Jane M. Mallory (marries Edward S. Smith), Allen Mallory (marries Margaret Ellen Durfee), Meredith Mallory (dies young), Eleanor A. Mallory (marries John H. Harvey) and Albert Douglas “Bert” Mallory, 25 years younger than Smith (marries 1st at Chariton Susie Kubitshek and after their divorce 2nd Frances Bolton Hazen). Smith is educated at Penn Yan and at John W. Irwin's academy in Danbury, Conn.
1850: At age 14, Smith H. Mallory heads west to Batavia, Kane County, Ill. (just west of Chicago), where his paternal grandfather, Meredith Mallory, and an uncle, John Van Nortwick (who had married Smith Legg Mallory’s sister, Patty Maria Mallory), had settled during 1843. Van Nortwick was chief engineer in construction of the Galena & Chicago Union Railroad. Smith H. Mallory’s parents and siblings join their extended family at Batavia ca. 1852.
1851: During June, Smith finds a job as clerk in a store owned by P.J. Burchell at St. Charles, Ill. Dissatisfied as a clerk, Smith finds a job as axman with George W. Waite, first assistant engineer of the Galena & Chicago Union Railroad, in his corps of engineers; and in August, when Waite is selected to make surveys for the Aurora branch extension of the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy, Smith is promoted to rodman. After the completion of that road to Burlington, he is appointed engineer.
1857: Smith resigns his railroad position and goes into the real estate business at Fairfield, Iowa — just as the real estate boom of 1856 is collapsing, the first of only two known Mallory business failures.
Glance up at the courthouse clock the next time you're on the square in Chariton and think briefly of Smith Henderson Mallory, whose gift to the people of Lucas County it was during 1894. He was the richest man Lucas County ever has seen, if his assets are counted in 21st Century terms; his mansion and its grounds, the Ilion, southern Iowa's grandest home. Entrepreneur and benefactor, he was the stuff of which legends are made.
But the Gods often are not kind to those they seem initially to bless. Denied descendants, no family remains to sing his praise. A significant portion of his fortune was dissipated when four years after his death a trusted protégé's embezzlement brought down the family bank, First National, in Lucas County's greatest financial calamity. His wife and daughter fled to Florida. Some years later, they removed his body and monument from the Chariton Cemetery and took those to Florida as well. His opera house burned, his mansion was demolished and his church, St. Andrew's, fell.
As passed the Mallorys, so passed the old families of Chariton who were their friends and may have aspired to be their social equals: the Copelands, the Temples, the Stantons, the Oppenheimers and many more. With them, went many memories.
And so Smith Henderson Mallory's legacy now is in the hands of those who remain: Relative newcomers who have come to love Lucas County as deeply as he did and descendants of its less grand but more substantial foundation, the farmers and others who have labored hard for much less.
1835: Smith Henderson Mallory is born on 2 December at Croton Mills, about 4 miles east of Penn Yan, Yates County, N.Y., southeast of Rochester. His father is Smith Legg Mallory and his mother, Jane (Henderson) Mallory. Smith is the eldest of six children. His younger siblings are: Jane M. Mallory (marries Edward S. Smith), Allen Mallory (marries Margaret Ellen Durfee), Meredith Mallory (dies young), Eleanor A. Mallory (marries John H. Harvey) and Albert Douglas “Bert” Mallory, 25 years younger than Smith (marries 1st at Chariton Susie Kubitshek and after their divorce 2nd Frances Bolton Hazen). Smith is educated at Penn Yan and at John W. Irwin's academy in Danbury, Conn.
1850: At age 14, Smith H. Mallory heads west to Batavia, Kane County, Ill. (just west of Chicago), where his paternal grandfather, Meredith Mallory, and an uncle, John Van Nortwick (who had married Smith Legg Mallory’s sister, Patty Maria Mallory), had settled during 1843. Van Nortwick was chief engineer in construction of the Galena & Chicago Union Railroad. Smith H. Mallory’s parents and siblings join their extended family at Batavia ca. 1852.
1851: During June, Smith finds a job as clerk in a store owned by P.J. Burchell at St. Charles, Ill. Dissatisfied as a clerk, Smith finds a job as axman with George W. Waite, first assistant engineer of the Galena & Chicago Union Railroad, in his corps of engineers; and in August, when Waite is selected to make surveys for the Aurora branch extension of the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy, Smith is promoted to rodman. After the completion of that road to Burlington, he is appointed engineer.
1857: Smith resigns his railroad position and goes into the real estate business at Fairfield, Iowa — just as the real estate boom of 1856 is collapsing, the first of only two known Mallory business failures.
posted by Frank D. Myers at 9:18 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home