John was born on August 27, 1825 in Sammonsville, New York, United States, fifth of the eight children of Myndert and Rachel (Sammons) Starin. He was of old Dutch stock, a descendant of Nicholas Ster, who emigrated from Holland to New Amsterdam in 1696 and about 1705 moved up the Mohawk Valley to a settlement called German Flats.
His father developed extensive manufacturing interests in Sammonsville and was the founder of Fultonville.
After attending Esperance Academy, John Starin began to study medicine with Dr. C. C. Yates, an Albany doctor, but, preferring business, returned in 1845 to his brother's drug store at Fultonville, where he served also as postmaster, 1850-53.
In 1856 John Henry Starin moved to New York and began to manufacture toilet articles. There the difficulties he met in shipping his products called his attention to the complete lack of system in handling freight around New York. The situation was a chaotic one, the result of the insular position of Manhattan, accentuated by the fact that several railroads started on the Jersey side of the Hudson.
In 1859 he organized a general freight agency, the Starin City River and Harbor Transportation Lines, and soon won the support of Vanderbilt and other railroad officials, who realized that a centralized system would mean economy. At first he used canal boats for transshipping freight. During the Civil War the government relied on his organization for the moving of men, munitions, and supplies, and it is said that his quick work once saved a regiment from starvation. After the war he rapidly increased his equipment of lighters and tugs.
In 1866 he invented the car float, by which a freight train could be broken into parts and the cars carried across the harbor - a system that, with few modifications, is still extensively used. He was, in fact, responsible for most of the important solutions of the problem of handling freight down to the time of his death.
In addition, he owned and operated passenger and freight lines on Long Island Sound. Having purchased Glen Island (formerly Locust Island), off New Rochelle on the Sound, he made it into a summer resort intended to rival Coney Island and linked it to New York City with a line of excursion steamers, on which he annually gave free trips to war veterans, police, firemen, newsboys, poor women, and other groups from the city.
To build and repair his "navy" he had a shipyard, iron works, and drydock on Staten Island. Until the very end he kept active daily control of his wide-spread activities from his office on Pier 13, North River.
He had several estates, one at his old home in Fultonville, another in a remote part of the Adirondacks on Hamilton Lake, and a third, "Folly Island, " on the South Carolina coast, where he had a herd of 4, 000 Angora goats.
He died on March 22, 1909 in New York City.
John Henry Starin devised special facilities for handling grain and coal, and built up the largest "harbor marine" in the country, if not in the world. He was president of the Saratoga Monument Association and its most active supporter, president of the Holland Society, vice president of the Union League Club. He also deserves much credit for establishing New York's subway system. He was an original member of the Rapid Transit Commission of the city, 1894-1907, and served as vice president, 1895-1907. More than once he was prominently mentioned for governor.
A strong Republican, he sat in Congress for an upstate district from 1877 to 1881, declining a third term.
Opposed to the building of more elevated and surface lines, he fought hard for the subways, construction of which was begun on March 24, 1900. It is said, too, that by his firm stand against all the rest of the board he prevented the traction interests from securing a monopoly of the franchises.
He married Laura M. Poole of Oriskany, New York, on January 27, 1846. He was survived by a son and two daughters, his wife and two sons having predeceased him.
