Cornelius Kingsland Garrison was a shipbuilder, capitalist, who greatly contributed to the development of shipbuilding sphere, transportation facilities of the Mississippi and municipal affairs.
Background
Cornelius Kingsland Garrison was of Huguenot stock. His paternal ancestor, Isaac Garrison, who was naturalized at New York in 1705, was an immigrant from Montauban, Guyenne, France.
Some of the family settled in New Rochelle, but one branch moved up the Hudson River to Putnam County, New York, and there acquired an extensive estate, called Garrison’s.
His great-grandfather, Beverly Garrison, moved to Fort Montgomery, Orange County, where his father, Oliver Garrison, who married Catherine Schuyler Kingsland, resided, and where he was born.
Education
In Cornelius’s infancy his father suffered serious financial losses, in consequence of which the son’s education was neglected and at an early age, he was dependent upon his own resources.
He was bright and energetic, however, and though, when he was thirteen years old he commenced to earn his living by working as a cabin boy on a Hudson River sloop, he continued to attend school during the winter months.
Career
In 1825, Garrison went to New York City where he remained for three years, devoting himself to the study of architecture and engineering. Moving subsequently to Canada, he entered the employ of the Upper Canada Company, was engaged in plan ning and constructing important public works in Ontario, and attained the responsible position of general manager of all the company’s Canadian business. In 1833, he resigned, owing to the apparent imminence of war between Great Britain and the United States, and on his return to the United States, settled at St. Louis. His experiences on the Hudson River in his youth caused him to turn his attention to the urgent need for the improvement of the transportation facilities of the Mississippi, and for some years he was engaged in designing, building, and running steamboats, and in organizing regular freight services to New Orleans and other ports. These enterprises, in spite of occasional heavy losses of boats and cargoes, placed him in affluent circumstances. At the commencement of the “gold” rush to California in 1849 Garrison proceeded to Panama and, considering it the important strategic point in the long journey to the gold fields, established a commercial and banking house there.
His foresight was justified by the great success of his venture and in 1852 he went to New York City in order to establish a branch. While he was there the Nicaragua Steamship Company intrusted to him the management of their Pacific agency at San Francisco at a salary of $60, 000 per annum.
On his arrival in San Francisco in March 1853, he found his employers’ affairs in great disorder, but within a short time he had reorganized the office, revitalized its services, and brought the organization to a high standard of efficiency and prosperity.
Chief of his financial enterprises was the banking firm of Garrison & Fretz, which became one of the strongest banks in California. In 1859, he decided to return to the East, and on his departure was presented with a gold dinner service as a mark of gratitude and respect from the citizens of San Francisco.
Settling in New York City, he again entered into the shipping business on a large scale - hence his title “Commodore” - initiating a steamship service between New York and Brazil and promoting extensive trading operations with other countries of South America.
He also became largely interested in public-utility corporations, particularly the Pacific Railroad of Missouri and the Wheeling & Lake Erie. He became president of the former upon its sale under foreclosure in 1876 and subsequent reorganization as the Missouri Pacific.
Achievements
Garrison's outstanding achievement, however, was in municipal affairs. Having made a marked impression on the people from the first, he was elected mayor only six months after his arrival. His tenure of office was remarkable for the permanent civic reforms which he brought about.
Before he relinquished office public gambling had been ended - never to reappear, and all his schemes for better government and efficient administration had been carried into effect, rendering his mayoralty one of the most memorable in the city’s history.
Politics
In the forefront of his program, Garrison placed the suppression of the notorious public gambling halls and the closing of theatres on Sunday. He also advocated reform of the school system, provision for better school-houses, industrial schools for juvenile delinquents and an extension of the basis of taxation.
Views
Garrison ardently supported the Pony Express transcontinental mail service, the projected Pacific railroad and telegraph line, and strenuously advocated a transpacific steamship service with the Orient and Australia.
Personality
Possessing a large fortune, Garrison's financial operations were of great variety and magnitude.
Toward the end of his life, he suffered losses, which caused him temporary embarrassment, but before his death, which occurred in New York City, he had extricated himself from his chief difficulties.
Endowed as he was with extraordinary foresight and intense energy and imagination, all his ventures were characterized by boldness of conception and pertinacity of prosecution.
He rendered invaluable aid to the cause of the Union during the war, in large part gratuitously.
His strong moral principles and his unassailable integrity induced confidence which was never misplaced, and his Old-World courtesy made him universally popular.
Connections
Garrison was married, on August 1, 1831, to Mary Noye Re Tallack, daughter of William Re Tallack.
On October 10, 1878, he was married to Letitia Willet Randall.
