Henry F. Shoemaker
Henry Francis Shoemaker was an American railroad magnate and financier.
Early life
Shoemaker was born in Orwigsburg, Pennsylvania, on March 28, 1843. He was the second son of Mary Ann Shoemaker and John Wise Shoemaker, who invested in anthracite coal industry in Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania. His maternal grandfather was a coal operator of English and Scotch-Irish descent. The first Shoemaker was a Quaker who arrived in Germantown, Pennsylvania, from Holland in 1685, but was whose family came from the Palatinate region of Germany.Shoemaker attended Genesee Seminary, from which he graduated in 1861. While Simon Cameron obtained an appointment to the U.S. Naval Academy for Shoemaker through President Abraham Lincoln, he declined so he could see immediate action, eventually fighting in the Battles of Shiloh, Wrightsville, and Gettysburg, achieving the rank of First Lt. in the United States Volunteers.
Career
After his father's death in 1863, he took over management of his family's coal mines. During the 1870s, he expanded the family's interests into railroads and banking and moved to New York City in 1878.Shoemaker eventually owned the Cincinnati, Hamilton and Drayton Railroad, had a controlling interest in the Cleveland, Lorain and Wheeling Railway, and held directorships in the Texas Pacific Railroad, the Chatham National Bank, and the North American Trust Company.
Personal life
In 1874 Shoemaker was married to Blanche Quiggle. Blanche, the sole daughter of railroad magnate and diplomat Col. James W. Quiggle of Philadelphia, was a descendent of Richard Buffington, an agent for William Penn who came to Pennsylvania from England in 1675. After moving to New York City, they lived in a five-story residence at 21 West 53rd Street, called Villa D'Este, adjoining the residence of John D. Rockefeller. They spent their summers at "Restless Oaks", the Quiggle family estate in McElhattan, Pennsylvania and at "Cedar Cliff", an "opulent Victorian residence" in Riverside, Connecticut. Together, they were the parents of:- Henry Wharton Shoemaker, who married Beatrice Genevieve Barclay in 1907. They divorced and he remarried to Mabelle Ruth Ord in 1913.
- William Brock Shoemaker, who married Ella Morris De Peyster, a daughter of Frederic James De Peyster, in 1905.
- Blanche LeRoy Shoemaker, who married Alfred Wagstaff, a son of Alfred Wagstaff Jr., in 1907. They divorced and she married Donald Carr in 1921.