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- America's Successful Men of Affairs: An Encyclopedia of Contemporaneous Biography
Volume I
S
Jonathan Sturges
page 634
JOHN JAY STUDWELL , merchant and banker, born in North Salem, Westchester county, N.Y., Dec. 2, 1813, died in Brooklyn, Dec. 12, 1884. Baird's History of Rye, N.Y., records the fact that his earliest American ancestor, Studwell , was one of the eighteen original proprietors of Rye. His father, Joseph Studwell , was a carpenter, and his mother, Rebecca Mead, who came from the Mead family of Greenwich, a type of New England character, full of faith and good works. Trained to his father's trade, he went from the plain old homestead with a Puritan mother's blessing and injunctions, and by his own labors, coupled with a good constitution and equally sound principles, rose to position and fortune. Occupied with his trade above the Harlem [p.634] River, he finally received an offer of capital and influence from a resident of Harlem, and availed himself thereof to the pecuniary advantage of both. Early in the '40s, he became a lumber merchant on Third avenue, near 128th street, selling his business later to William Colwell, who continued it for about fifty years. In 1842, Mr. Studwell moved to Brooklyn and resumed there the lumber business, which he managed with profitable results. About 1857, he became president of The Montauk Insurance Co., and later bought a controlling interest in The National City Bank of Brooklyn, of which he was president until his death. He was also one of the original directors and vice president of The Mechanics' Bank of Brooklyn and a director of The Brooklyn Gas Light Co., The Atlantic Avenue Railroad, and The Citizens' Gas Light Co. He joined no clubs and was for more than forty years a member of Sands Street Methodist Episcopal Church and steward and trustee at his death as well as trustee of The Brooklyn Hospital. During the Civil War, he served on the local Committee of Relief. For twelve years he sat in the Board of Supervisors of Kings county, being most of the time Chairman of the Committee on Accounts. In 1836, Mr. Studwell married Elizabeth La Farge Moore, daughter of Peter Moore, of Woodbridge, N.J. Their only child, Sarah Frances, is the wife of George W. Mead, the lawyer.
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1813 - 1884 (71 years)
