Ellwood Walter (businessman)

Ellwood Walter (August 16, 1803 — May 7, 1877) was president of the Mercantile Mutual Insurance Company[1] in New York for 28 years. The Mercantile Mutual Insurance Company was organized in April 1844. He was also secretary of the New York Board of Marine Underwriters since 1849.[2] He insured Cornelius Vanderbilt and many American Steamship companies during the 19th century.

Ellwood Walter
Born
Ellwood Walter

(1803-08-16)August 16, 1803
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, US
DiedMay 7, 1877(1877-05-07) (aged 73)
Bronx, New York, US
NationalityAmerican
OccupationInsurance, Underwriting, Marine insurance
Spouse(s)Deborah Coggeshall
Children6

Early life

Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to a Quaker family.[3] Walter married Deborah Coggeshall on August 9, 1827 in New York City. They had six children: Elizabeth, Thomas, Anna, George, Ellwood Jr., and Sarah Walter.[4] His daughter Sarah married Thomas Burling Hallock (1838–1924) at the Walters' home in Brooklyn Heights.[5] In his early life, he was an editor of a weekly newspaper, The Ariel: A Literary and Critical Gazette, published in his hometown Philadelphia.[6][7]

Career
The Mercantile Mutual Insurance Company

In 1827 Walter started and edited a newspaper in Philadelphia which was a weekly.[8]

By 1845 Walter was secretary of the Mercantile Mutual Insurance Company located at 35 Wall Street, New York. In 1847 he became a Vice president of the insurance company, and in 1853 he became its President.[8] Walter had been associated with the Mercantile Mutual Insurance Company for 28 years.[9]

Walter was secretary of the New York Board of Marine Underwriters. In 1845, an unofficial Pilot Commission was established with two representatives from the Marine Underwriters and three from the Chamber of Commerce. Pilot boats working under the Underwriters' Commission took on licensed pilots and proved to be more insurable because of their strict rules and regulations. By 1846, the Underwriters' Commission became the official body for governing the pilot service.[10]

In 1854, when Cornelius Vanderbilt was creating steamships, it was hard to get Marine insurance for the new design. Walter made a visit to Vanderbilt's house. After their meeting, Vanderbilt put $1,000.000 into the Mercantile Mutual Insurance Company. Once people got word that Walter was insuring the Vanderbilt ships, everyone wanted to insure them.[11]

The New York pilot-boat Ellwood Walter, No. 7 was named after Walter.[12][13] The ship carried cargo between Boston Massachusetts and New York.[14]

In October 1861, Walter became a trustee of the Nautical School for the harbor of New York. Its purpose was to educate boys in seamanship and navigation.[15] In May 1869, George W. Blunt became a trustee (along with Walter) of the Nautical School for the harbor of New York.[16][17]

On May 14, 1871, Walter was elected as Vice-President of the New York Seamen’s Association. The association was to help provide the “moral, mental, and social improvement of the seamen; to elevate their character and efficiency as a class, and to protect them from impositions and abuses at home and abroad.” $20,000 dollars was raised to build a building for the Seamen's Association. The building would contain a reading room and library.[18] In 1876, there was an act to authorize the transfer of the property of the New York Seamen's Association to the American Seamen's Friend Society and to dissolve the New York Seamen's Association.[19]

In 1872, Walter was reported in the The Gardener's Monthly and Horticultural Advertiser for having an apple tree that also had fully formed pears. In an apparent "freak of nature", the limbs of one tree intertwined with another creating a branch that had both pears and apples growing on it.[20]

Walter was described as a man of "distinguished presence" and "great personal dignity" who had for his time "considerable wealth".[3] Walter was one of the leading members of the Quaker mercantile community.[21]

Death

On May 7, 1877, at the age of 75, Walter died at his residence in Englewood, New Jersey.[22] He was buried from the Friends meeting house on Schermerhorn street at the Quaker Cemetery in Brooklyn, New York.[23][24]

His residence near Englewood was put up for sale, which had 28 acres of land and a large house.[25]

Post death

The Mercantile Mutual Insurance company went out of business in 1880.[21]

References
  1. "The Mercantile Mutual Insurance Company". Madison Wisconsin Daily State Journal. 10 April 1862. Retrieved 20 July 2020.
  2. The United States, Libellants, Vs. Brig Lilla & Cargo: Circuit Court of the United States]
  3. Mary Hallock Foote (1972). A Victorian gentlewoman in the Far West; the reminiscences of Mary Hallock Foote. The Huntington Library. p. 64.
  4. FamilySearch Details
  5. The Burling Books: Ancestors and Descendants of Edward and Grace Burling, Quakers (1600-2000), page 729
  6. "The Dangers of Sailing in High Latitudes". The Ariel: A Literary Gazette, Volumes 1-2. Ellwood Walter. 1827. p. 130. Retrieved October 25, 2019.
  7. "The Week - Ellwood Walter". The Baltimore Underwriter: A Monthly Publication Devoted to the Interest Of Insurance. BOMBAUG H & RANSOM PUBLISHERS AND PROPRIETORS No 3 POST OFFICE AVENUE BALTIMORE. 1877. p. 802. Retrieved October 25, 2019.
  8. "Obituary Elwood Walter". Philadelphia Inquirer. 9 May 1877. Retrieved 20 July 2020.
  9. The United States Insurance Gazette and Magazine, edited by G. E. Currie, November 1, 1868 to May 1, 1869
  10. Pilots The World Of Pilotage Under Sail and Oar by Tom Cunliffe. WoodenBoat. 2001. ISBN 9780937822692. Retrieved Nov 7, 2019.
  11. THE AMERICAN STEAMSHIP. Los Angeles Herald. 39. 1893. p. 1. Retrieved October 26, 2019.
  12. "The Pilot-Boat Elwood Walter, No. 7". The New York Times. New York. 16 May 1853. Retrieved 2020-07-16.
  13. "Launch Of A Pilotboat". New York Daily Herald. New York, New York. 30 April 1853. Retrieved 2020-07-16.
  14. "Arrived". New York Times. 30 October 1861. Retrieved 20 July 2020.
  15. Annual Report of the Chamber of Commerce of the State of New York, 1861-62, Page 21
  16. Elventh Annual Report of the Chamber of Commerce of the State of New York, 1869, Page 6
  17. Annual Report of the Chamber of Commerce of the State of New York, 1874, Page 192
  18. Minutes of Board of Apportionment of the City and County of New York, 1871, page 154
  19. "LIST OF GENERAL ORDERS". Documents of the Senate of the State of New York, Volume 6. JEROME B PARMENTER STATE PRINTER. 1876. p. 12. Retrieved 2020-07-16.
  20. "A Pear Fruit from the Apple Tree". The Gardener's Monthly and Horticultural Advertiser. 5 (11): 343. November 1872.
  21. The Weekly Underwriter: An Insurance Newspaper, Index to Volume One Hundred and six, January 7, 1922 to June 24, 1922
  22. The Interests of Insurance In All Its Branches, January–June, 1877, page 302
  23. "Elwood Walter". The New York herald. New York, N.Y. 1877-05-08. p. 10. Retrieved 2020-09-09.
  24. Find A Grave, Memorial: 159248324
  25. New York Herald, Sunday, February 9, 1879
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