Alexander Stewart Webb (banker)

Alexander Stewart Webb Jr. (February 5, 1870 – January 22, 1948)^[1] was an American banker and philanthropist who was prominent in New York society during the Gilded Age.^[2]

Alexander Stewart Webb Jr.
President of the ASPCA
In office 1937–1947
Preceded by	George Muirson Woolsey
Succeeded by	John D. Beals, Jr.
Personal details
Born	(1870-02-05)February 5, 1870 New York City, New York, U.S.
Died	January 22, 1948(1948-01-22) (aged 77) Mineola, New York, U.S.
Spouse	Florence Sands Russell ​ ​ (m. 1916; died 1941)​
Relations	William Webb (uncle) Henry Webb (uncle) James Watson Webb (grandfather)
Parent(s)	Anna Elizabeth Remsen Alexander Stewart Webb

Early life

Webb was born in New York City on February 5, 1870. He was the second son of eight children born to Alexander Stewart Webb and Anna Elizabeth Remsen (1837–1912).^[3][4] His siblings included,^[5] Helen Lispenard Webb,^[6] who married John Ernest Alexandre;^[7][8] Elizabeth Remsen Webb,^[9] who married George Burrington Parsons;^[10][11] Anne Remsen Webb, who did not marry and lived with her sister Caroline;^[12] Caroline LeRoy Webb, who also did not marry;^[13] William Remsen Webb, who died unmarried;^[14] and Louise de Peyster Webb,^[15] who married William John Wadsworth in 1904.^[16][17][18]

His maternal grandparents were Henry Rutgers Remsen and Elizabeth Waldron (née Phoenix) Remsen.^[16] His paternal grandparents were Helen Lispenard (née Stewart) Webb and James Watson Webb, a former regular army officer who was a well-known newspaper owner and diplomat (serving as U.S. Minister to Brazil in 1861).^[19] After his grandmother's death in 1848, his grandfather remarried to Laura Virginia Cram, with whom he also had several children, including William Seward Webb, a doctor and financier who was married to Eliza Osgood Vanderbilt (granddaughter of Cornelius Vanderbilt), and Henry Walter Webb, a railroad executive.^[20][21] His paternal great-grandfather, Samuel Blatchley Webb, served on George Washington's staff during the American Revolutionary War,^[19] and another great-grandparent was Sarah Amelia (née Lispenard) Stewart (herself the great-granddaughter of merchant Leonard Lispenard and a descendant of the Roosevelt family).^[20][22]

Career

In 1889, Webb began his career in finance as a messenger at Lincoln National Bank.^[23] He later worked for Metropolitan National Bank becoming secretary in 1900, which merged with First Chicago Bank in 1902.^[24] Thereafter, he became the secretary of the New York Trust Company in 1902, followed by vice-president in 1904 (Otto T. Bannard served as president).^[1] The New York Trust Company was a large trust and wholesale-banking business that eventually into Chemical Bank^[25] (today known as JPMorgan Chase),^[26] following the Panic of 1907.^[27]

In 1908, he returned to Lincoln National Bank as president,^[1] and served there until it was absorbed by the Mechanics and Metals National Bank.^[25] Beginning in 1922, he was vice-president of the Mechanics and Metals National Bank during which time it held a small ownership position in the Bank of Central and South America. The Bank was consolidated with Chase National Bank in 1926.^[2]

In 1927, he was chosen to serve as the president of the Seward National Bank,^[1] what was absorbed into the Bank of Manhattan Trust Company.^[2] Beginning in 1932, he was vice-president of the Bank of Manhattan Trust Company. Webb retired from his long career in finance in 1935.^[1]

Philanthropy

Webb was elected to the board of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, commonly known as the ASPCA, in 1915 and served for thirty-five years. In addition, he was chosen as treasurer in 1924 and served as president of the Society for ten years from 1937 until 1947.^[1]

He was also a member of the board of the American Humane Association and a founder, trustee, and treasurer of the Tuberculosis Preventorium for Children of New York.^[1]

Society life

In 1892, Webb was included in Ward McAllister's "Four Hundred", purported to be an index of New York's best families, published in The New York Times.^[28] Conveniently, 400 was the number of people that could fit into Mrs. Astor's ballroom.^[29]

He was a member of the St. Nicholas Society, the Empire States Society of the Sons of the American Revolution, the New York Society of Colonial Wars, the Connecticut Society of the Cincinnati (elected in 1912) and the New York Commandery of the Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States by right of his father's service in the Civil War.^[30] He belonged to the Piping Rock Club, the Meadow Brook Club, the Union Club of the City of New York, the Knickerbocker Club and the Manhattan Club.^[1]

Personal life

On May 10, 1916, Webb was married to Florence (née Sands) Russell (1871–1941),^[31] the widow of architect William Hamilton Russell.^[32][33] Florence was the daughter of James W. Sands and Eliza J. Sands and was the mother of William Hamilton Russell Jr.,^[34] a Harvard student at the time of their marriage, from her first marriage to Russell. Webb lived in New York City and had a home known as "The Oaks" in Roslyn, New York.^[1][35]

Florence's son William married Marie Johnson, the daughter of minister and financier Bradish Johnson and the grandson of industrialist Bradish Johnson.^[36][34]

His wife died in September 1941. After his wife's death, Webb and his sister Caroline lived at the Garden City Hotel in Garden City, New York.^[2] Webb died at Nassau Hospital in Mineola, New York on Thursday January 22, 1948.^[1][30][2]

Notes

1. "ALEXANDER WEBB, HEAD OF ASPCA, 77; Retired Financier, a Banking Executive Many Years, Dies -- Aided Humane Association". The New York Times. January 24, 1948. Retrieved 5 March 2018.
2. "A. S. Webb, 77, Former Banker And President of A. S. P. C. A." The Brooklyn Daily Eagle. January 24, 1948. p. 5. Retrieved 17 May 2018.
3. "GEN. A. S. WEBB DIES.; Officer Who Held the Bloody Angle at Gettysburg Succumbs to Old Age". The New York Times. 13 February 1911. Retrieved 5 March 2018.
4. "GEN. A. S. WEBB'S FUNERAL; Military Honors for Veteran Here and at West Point Burial". The New York Times. 16 February 1911. Retrieved 5 March 2018.
5. Moffat, R. Burnham (1904). The Barclays of New York: Who They Are And Who They Are Not,--And Some Other Barclays. R. G. Cooke & Company. p. 182. Retrieved 5 March 2018.
6. "MRS. J.E. ALEXANDRE DIES OF PNEUMONIA; Was Former Helen Lispenard Webb, Daughter of Civil War General--In Many Societies". The New York Times. 22 April 1929. Retrieved 5 March 2018.
7. "JOHN E. ALEXANDRE DEAD.; He Wanted His Daughter Married at His DeathbeduLicense Lacking". The New York Times. 23 August 1910. Retrieved 5 March 2018.
8. "Webb--Alexandre". The New York Times. 12 May 1887. Retrieved 5 March 2018.
9. "Mrs. George D. Parsons". The New York Times. 30 April 1926. Retrieved 5 March 2018.
10. "GEORGE B. PARSONS; Was President of the '82 Class at Columbia--Dies at 76". The New York Times. 30 June 1939. Retrieved 5 March 2018.
11. "Joined for Life.; the Wedding of Miss Webb and Mr. George B. Parsons". The New York Times. 15 November 1891. Retrieved 5 March 2018.
12. "MISS ANNE R. WEBB, ONCE WAR WORKER; Daughter of Gem A. S. Webb, Who Was the President of City College, 1869 to 1903". The New York Times. 13 July 1943. Retrieved 5 March 2018.
13. "DIED. WEBB--Caroline LeRoy". The New York Times. 8 October 1950. Retrieved 5 March 2018.
14. Antietam, New York (State) Monuments Commission for the Battlefields of Gettysburg, Chattanooga and (1916). In Memoriam, Alexander Stewart Webb: 1835-1911. J.B. Lyon Company, printers. p. 106. Retrieved 5 March 2018.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
15. "DIED. Wadsworth". The New York Times. 5 May 1910. Retrieved 5 March 2018.
16. Reynolds, Cuyler (1914). Genealogical and Family History of Southern New York and the Hudson River Valley: A Record of the Achievements of Her People in the Making of a Commonwealth and the Building of a Nation. Lewis Historical Publishing Company. p. 1457. Retrieved 5 March 2018.
17. "A Day's Weddings. WADSWORTH--WEBB". The New York Times. 26 October 1904. Retrieved 5 March 2018.
18. "MARRIED. Wadsworth--Webb". Army-Navy-Air Force Register and Defense Times. 36: 123. 1904. Retrieved 5 March 2018.
19. Browning, Charles Henry (1891). Americans of Royal Descent: A Collection of Genealogies of American Families Whose Lineage is Traced to the Legitimate Issue of Kings. Porter & Costes. p. 403. Retrieved 5 March 2018.
20. Webb, James Watson (1882). Reminiscences of Gen'l Samuel B. Webb of the Revolutionary Army. Globe Stationery and Printing Company. p. 6. Retrieved 5 March 2018.
21. The New York Genealogical and Biographical Record, Vol. XXIV. New York City: New York Genealogical and Biographical Society. 1893. p. 114. Retrieved 5 March 2018.
22. Whittelsey, Charles Barney (1902). The Roosevelt Genealogy, 1649-1902. Press of J.B. Burr & Company. p. 103. ISBN 9780722288979. Retrieved 5 March 2018.
23. Derby, George; White, James Terry (1948). The National Cyclopædia of American Biography: Being the History of the United States as Illustrated in the Lives of the Founders, Builders, and Defenders of the Republic, and of the Men and Women who are Doing the Work and Moulding the Thought of the Present Time. J. T. White & Co. p. 53. Retrieved 17 May 2018.
24. "Unite to Form $100,000,000 Bank". Chicago Daily Tribune. April 22, 1902. p. 1. Alternate Link via ProQuest.
25. Coast Banker. Coast Banker Publishing Company. 1922. p. 202. Retrieved 17 May 2018.
26. , Time magazine, June 15, 1959, archived from the original on February 1, 2011, retrieved 2012-08-12, Banker Harold Holmes Helm, 58, expansion-minded chairman of Manhattan's Chemical Corn Exchange Bank, long had his "loving eye" on the New York Trust Co. ... Last week Helm proposed a merger, swapping 1¾ shares of Chemical Corn stock for one share of New ...
27. Bruner & Carr 2007, p. 101
28. 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.
29. 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.
30. Sons of the American Revolution Empire State Society (1899). Register of the Empire State Society of the Sons of the American Revolution. The Society. p. 335. Retrieved 5 March 2018.
31. "Mrs. Alexander S. Webb". The New York Times. 11 September 1941. Retrieved 5 March 2018.
32. "MRS. F. S. RUSSELL TO WED.; Engaged to Alexander S. Webb, President of Lincoln Trust Co". The New York Times. 20 April 1916. Retrieved 5 March 2018.
33. "A.S. WEBB MARRIES MRS. W.H. RUSSELL; Bride's Son, a Harvard Student, Gives Her in Marriage at Her Home. AMID PALMS AND ROSES Relatives and Close Friends Only at Ceremony;-Bridegroom Is President of Lincoln Trust Company". The New York Times. 11 May 1916. Retrieved 5 March 2018.
34. "Miss Schildhauer to Wed Oct. 31". The Baltimore Sun. October 11, 1953. Retrieved 17 May 2018.
35. Social Register, Summer. Social Register Association. 1920. p. 323. Retrieved 17 May 2018.
36. "DEBUTANTES HONORED AT NEW YEAR'S BALL; Aimee G. Russell Leads Grand March at Dinner Event Here". The New York Times. January 2, 1941. Retrieved 17 May 2018.

Bibliography

• Bruner, Robert F.; Carr, Sean D. (2007), The Panic of 1907: Lessons Learned from the Market's Perfect Storm, Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, ISBN 978-0-470-15263-8

External links

• Alexander Stewart Webb Jr. at Find a Grave