Solomon Sturges (1796 - 1864)

Born 21 Apr 1796 in Fairfield, Fairfield, Connecticut, United States

Ancestors

Husband of Lucy (Hale) Sturges — married 14 Aug 1823 in Glastonbury, Connecticut, United States

Descendants

Died 21 Oct 1864 at age 68 in Zanesville, Muskingum, Ohio, United States

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Biography

Birth and Parentage

Solomon Sturges was born on April 21, 1796 in Fairfield, Connecticut, USA. He was the eighth child and fourth son of Dimon Sturges and his wife, Sarah née Perry. ^[1][2]He grew up in an industrious and frugal household where the value of hard work and thrift were understood. ^[1]

Education, Life and Career

He was educated at the district school and then sent to the naval academy to study navigation, following in his eldest brother Eben's footsteps, to sea. ^[1] He was not yet fifteen when he embarked with Eben on a cargo ship bound for Georgetown D.C. The voyage to Chesapeake Bay however, was a rough one, and suffering from intense sea-sickness, Solomon decided that a life at sea was not for him. He accepted the invitation of Elisha Williams, a wealthy Georgetown merchant, to take up a position in his counting room, where he happily remained for two years. In 1812, Williams retired and Solomon took up a position as clerk in the Georgetown grocery store of John Hersey. ^[1]When Washington was threatened by a British attack, he joined a voluntary artillery company defending Fort Washington on the Potomac. ^[1]

Among his fellow privates in this service were George Peabody, afterward eminent as a banker and philanthropist, and Francis Key, the author of "The Star Spangled Banner." In the meanwhile, his brother Eben had retired from an eventful and dangerous naval career and had gone into business with his sister Sarah's husband Ebenezer Buckingham in Mansfield, Ohio. ^[1]

When Solomon's company returned to Georgetown, he found a letter from Ebenezer,

inviting him to come out to Ohio and enter his store as a clerk. This he decided to do and the journey was taken in the spring of 1814.^[1]

After an eventful and difficult journey, Solomon arrived in Ohio and became clerk to his brother-in-law. The next four years were spent developing his business experience, for which Ebenezer gave him ample opportunity. ^[1]

Solomon Sturges

In this portrait, painted about 1835, Solomon is seated before a window with a glimpse of the old mill and wooden bridge across the Muskingum at Zanesville, Ohio, and the "dug road" under the bluff on the Putnam side of the river.^[1]

By 1845 he was paying tax in Antrim Township, Wyandot County, OH, on 267 acres of real estate. ^[3]

Random Profile Photos Image 37

Solomon went into banking and grain shipping.

Sturges, Buckingham & Co

In 1855, the Sturges family had an enormous, 130' high elevator, named 'A' elevator built by Joseph T. Moulton, to contain 800,000 bushels of grain.

With a key location adjacent to the Illinois Central railyards and the River's mouth, Moulton's structure nearly doubled the city's storage capacity.^[4]

In the Annual Report of Board of Trade of the City of Chicago for the Year Ended December 31, 1863, the warehouse belonging to Solomon's grain company (Sturges, Buckingham & Co) was listed, located at the I.C.R.R. (Illinois Central Railroad) Depot Grounds, alongside the grain elevator recorded as belonging to his son William.^[5]

Within two years Moulton built a second structure, fifty percent larger, on an adjacent site. At 130’ tall, Sturges and Buckingham’s so-called “A’ and “B” elevators represented the state of the art in elevator construction. Grain was shoveled from Illinois Central cars into hoppers next to and below the tracks. From there, conveyer belts fitted with metal scoops carried it to a narrow cupola at the structure’s peak, where they discharged grain into two stacked boxes. The first, a “garner,” held a thousand bushels. When full, it discharged into a hopper below that weighed the batch and allowed a grader to take a sample for inspection. Depending on the quality, graders could then direct the incoming shipment tw a specific bin below by a rotating chute, ensuring that each bin would contain grain of equal quality.20 The elevators could then discharge weighed, graded grain into ships through chutes on the wharf side. The Illinois Central elevators symbolized the technical prowess of Chicago’s grain market and, visible for miles from the Lake and standing at the mouth of the River, they came to signify the city itself to passengers arriving by ship and beyond. When the future King Edward VII of Great Britain visited Chicago in 1860 he stopped at Elevator “A” and watched, awe-struck, as full trains emptied their grain.^[6][7][8]

Nobody could have known, least of all the Prince of Wales himself, that his future queen, Alexandra, would be godmother to Solomon Sturgis's granddaughter's eldest son, Alexander Victor Edward Paulet Montagu.

Marriage and Family

On August 14, 1823 he married Lucy Hale, in Glastonbury, Connecticut, United States.

Death and Burial

He died on Friday 14 October 1864 and was buried at the Woodlawn Cemetery where his wife Lucy was also buried, in Zanesville, Muskingum, Ohio, U.S.A. An impressive obelisk marks the spot where 'one of the wealthiest men of the West' lies.^[9]

"Rich men die and go to the grave as do the beggars. Solomon Sturges of Chicago the richest man in the Northwest, whose property was estimated by millions, died on Friday, aged 69 years."

A week after his death, the following appeared in the Zanesville Courier (21 October 1864):

Mr. Sturges was a man of great simplicity and transparency, yet a decidedly positive character. He put on no airs and with him there was no disguise; what he thought he uttered, what he felt he manifested unequivocally and strongly, yet never with the intention of wounding another's feelings. If with his nervous temperament and quick excitability he sometimes appeared harsh and overbearing, it was only because he wished to be frank and decided. He was a kind and generous neighbor, an upright and worthy citizen, honest and honorable in all his transactions with men. Close and sharp at a bargain, yet when 'swearing to his own hurt, he changed not,' but fulfilled the letter and spirit of his contracts. Those who had befriended him were never forgotten, but were remembered with the liveliest gratitude, and those who shared his confidence ever found in him a firm, steadfast and reliable friend. He could appreciate a noble character, and such had a warm place in his heart. He was a keen observer of men and things, read character with wonderful facility and though some- times mistaken, often at a glance, judged men with surprising accuracy.^[1]

Sources

1. ↑ ^{1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 1.8 1.9} Buckingham, Ebenezer, (1907)., Solomon Sturges and his descendants; a memoir and a genealogy. New York: The Grafton Press. Retrieved from the Internet Archive (Here;) Accessed 2 Jan 2023.
2. ↑ Ward, George K., (1910)., Andrew Warde and his descendants, 1597-1910: being a compilation of facts relating to one of the oldest New England families and embracing many families of other names, descended from a worthy ancestor even unto the tenth and eleventh generations. New York: A.T. De La Mare Printing and Publishing Company. Retrieved from the Internet Archive (Here;) Accessed 2 Jan 2023.
3. ↑ The history of Wyandot county, Ohio, containing a history of the county; its townships, towns, churches, schools, etc.; (p.675)., Pub: Chicago: Leggett, Conaway & co., Retrieved from the Internet Archive (Here;) Accessed 2 Jan 2023.
4. ↑ Leslie, Thomas. (2020). Chicago’s Other Skyscrapers: Grain Elevators and the City, 1838-1957. Journal of Urban History. 48. 10.1177/0096144220925446. Retrieved from ResearchGate.net (Here;) Accessed 2 Jan 2023.
5. ↑ Annual Report of Board of Trade of the City of Chicago for the Year Ended December 31., Vol. 5, (1863)., Retrieved from Google e-Books (Here;) Accessed 2 Jan 2023.
6. ↑ Public Domain:Figure 03. Sturges and Buckingham Elevator “A.” Joseph T. Moulton, 1855. The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Photography Collection, The New York Public Library. "Elevator A. C.M. & St. P.R.R." The New York Public Library Digital Collections. 1850 - 1930. Retrieved from digital collections (Here;) Accessed 2 Jan 2023.
7. ↑ Albert Edward, Prince of Wales, visits Chicago and Mayor "Long John" Wentworth introduced the Prince in his usual arrogant style. Retrieved from Digital Research Library of Illinois History (Here;) Accessed 2 Jan 2023.
8. ↑ Engleheart, Gardner D. Journal of the progress of H.R.H. the Prince of Wales through British North America; and his visit to the United States, 10th July to 15th November. London?, s.n., ?, (1860) Pdf. Image 95. Retrieved from (Here;) Accessed 2 Jan 2023..
9. ↑ Memorial page for Solomon Sturges (21 Apr 1796–14 Oct 1864), Find a Grave Database and Images. Find a Grave Memorial ID 6159570, citing Woodlawn Cemetery, Zanesville, Muskingum County, Ohio, USA; Maintained by Robert (contributor 46505507). Retrieved from Find a Grave (Here;) Accessed 2 Jan 2023.

• Lichtman, Ethel M., (2009)., Ethel Sturges Dummer: A Pioneer of American Social Activism. Pub: iuniverse. Retrieved from Google Books (Here;) Accessed 1 Jan 2023.

• Solomon Sturges: Grain Elevator: (Here;) Accessed 1 Jan 2023.

• The Prairie Farmer: Volumes 9-23 (1862)., Retrieved from Google e-Books (Here;) Accessed 2 Jan 2023.

• Andreas, Alfred Theodore., (1884)., History of Chicago. From the earliest period to the present time, Vol.1., Pub: Chicago, A. T. Andreas. Retrieved from the Internet Archive (Here;) Accessed 2 Jan 2023.

• Andreas, Alfred Theodore., (1884)., History of Chicago. From the earliest period to the present time., Vol.2., From 1857 until the fire of 1871. Pub: Chicago: A. T. Andreas. Retrieved from the Internet Archive (Here:) Accessed 2 Jan 2023.

• Results for Solomon Sturges in the British Newspaper Archives. Retrieved from the BNA (Here;) Accessed 13 Jan 2023.