Thomas William Ludlow was an American lawyer and financier. He served as a trustee at New York Life Insurance and Trust Company from 1830 to 1878.
Background
Thomas William Ludlow was born on June 14, 1795 in New York City, New York, United States, the second son of Thomas Ludlow, a well-known architect. Both his father and his mother (Mary Ludlow, a first cousin of her husband) were members of an old and prosperous New York family, whose founder, Gabriel Ludlow, had emigrated to the city in 1694 from Somerset, England. The family was strongly Episcopalian.
Education
At the age of sixteen Ludlow graduated in the class of 1811 from Columbia College. Thereafter, he studied law in the office of Martin Wilkins, a leader of the bar of that day.
Career
Ludlow had a short service in the New York militia during the War of 1812. Quite as important in the formation of his character and his mind was his constant association at home and among family friends with the best that the city offered socially and intellectually. He early acquired a taste for archeology and became an enthusiastic numismatist. Ludlow devoted himself to the general practice of law for but a short time. He soon became counsel for a number of wealthy corporations, among others the important Dutch banking house of Crommelin & Company, whose American representative he was. This work, the settlement of many large estates, and the management of his own extensive property filled all his time. His legal activities were increasingly subordinated to his operations as a financier. One of his earliest enterprises was the promotion of the New York Life Insurance and Trust Company, of which he was a trustee from its organization (1830) until his death. For long years he was a member of its committee on investments and in later life was one of its vice-presidents. For some years he was a trustee and, at the time of his death, vice-president of the National City Bank of New York. He was also a trustee of Columbia College from 1833 to 1836. During the depression of 1837-1839 President Van Buren appointed him to be a representative to place treasury notes in Europe. He carried out the commission successfully.
Like many other financiers of his day he took a lively interest in the development of railroads as promising fields for the investment of capital. In 1848 he became the first president of the Panama Railroad Company and was for some years one of its directors. His interest in other railroad enterprises appears to have been limited to their financial operations.
Achievements
Religion
Ludlow was a faithful and generous supporter of Episcopalian church throughout his life.
Politics
Ludlow was a Jacksonian Democrat. Though on intimate terms with the leaders of his party, he refused to share in the conflicts of the political arena. He declined all political offices.
Personality
Ludlow was considered more as a social leader than a financier
to the majority of New Yorkers of the ante-bellum period. His urbanity and charm, his high family connections, and his wealth placed him in the highest rank of New York society. In the pages of Philip Hone, one frequently sees him dining with the élite of the city and on occasions entertaining admirably at his country home near Yonkers.
Connections
Ludlow married Frances W. Morris in 1828. She died ten years before him. They had no children but adopted a son who was a namesake and distant relative of Ludlow.