James Boorman Colgate

Background

James Boorman Colgate, the son of William and Mary (Gilbert) Colgate, was born on March 04, 1818 in New York City, New York, United States.

Education

Colgate attended school in the city and in Connecticut until he was about sixteen.

Career

About 1834 Colgate began to work in the commission house of Boorman, Johnson & Company. He went to Europe in 1841, and on his return the following year was employed by a wholesale dry-goods house. In 1852 he formed a stock-brokerage partnership with John B. Trevor, under the firm name of Trevor & Colgate. Five years later the firm added a bullion department, to which Colgate gave most of his time.

During the Civil War the firm served in some degree to regulate the ratio of value between gold and paper, thus preventing the hoarding of specie, and in various ways helped to sustain the credit of the government. In 1873 the name was changed to James B. Colgate & Company, which is still retained. During the earlier stages of the resumption of specie payments the firm conducted the largest specie and bullion business of any house in the United States. Colgate was one of the founders, and for a number of years the president, of the New York Gold Exchange and in his last years vice-president and a director of the Bank of the State of New York.

He was an advocate of the remonetization of silver during the years 1890-1897, and despite the adverse sentiment of nearly all his business colleagues, vigorously maintained his position with tongue and pen. With his partner Trevor he built the Warburton Avenue Baptist Church in Yonkers. He made many gifts to Madison University in Hamilton, New York, and in 1873, with the assistance of his brother Samuel, built and endowed in the same village Colgate Academy, thereafter serving for a number of years as the president of its board of trustees. On the combining, in 1890, of the University and the Academy, the institution was named, in honor of his father, Colgate University. He is said to have made a substantial gift to it every year, and during the period of thirty years to have given to it and to its predecessors more than a million dollars, as well as a substantial donation to Colby Academy, at New London, New Hampshire, the home of his wife.

Achievements

• James Boorman Colgate became the county's largest landowner and prosperous businessman. He was remembered as a founder of the banking house of Trevor and Colgate and of the New York Gold Exchange. He contributed generously to educational and religious institutions and was instrumental in the development of Colgate University, for which he almost 30 years made annual donations.

Religion

Colgate was a member of the Baptist Church.

Membership

Colgate had a wide range of interests and was a member and supporter of several societies for the furtherance of knowledge and art.

Connections

Colgate was married twice: first, about 1847 to Miss Hoyt of Utica, New York, who died a few years later, and, in 1857 to Susan F. Colby, who, with a daughter and a son, survived him.

Father:

William Colgate

Mother:

Mary (Gilbert) Colgate

Spouse:

Susan Farnum Colby

Spouse:

Ellen Hoyt