New Haven, Connecticut, United States
Timothy Lester Woodruff entered Yale College in 1875.
New Haven, Connecticut, United States
Timothy Lester Woodruff entered Yale College in 1875.
Timothy L. Woodruff was born on 4 August 1858 in New Haven, Connecticut, the son of John and Jane Lester Woodruff. His father was a clockmaker with little education but with a considerable ability for practical politics and was a member of Congress, 1855-1857 and 1859-1861. Timothy was orphaned by the death of his mother, when he was two years old and of his father eight years later.
Timothy Lester Woodruff entered Yale College in 1875. He was obliged to repeat his junior year and left college in 1879. In 1889 he received an M.A. degree and was enrolled as a graduate with his class. Subsequently, he took a commercial course at Eastman's National Business College in Poughkeepsie.
In 1881 Timothy Lester Woodruff removed to Brooklyn and obtained employment as a clerk in the warehousing division of Nash & Whiton, salt and provision merchants. He advanced rapidly to a leading position in the firm, which he reorganized as the Worcester Salt Company. Meanwhile, he had developed a warehousing and wharfage business of his own. At a favorable opportunity, he sold it and invested the proceeds in a diversified group of companies, the most important being the Smith-Premier Typewriting Company, in which he had a controlling interest. Before the close of the century, he was also president of the Provident Life Assurance Co., of the Maltine Manufacturing Company, and a director of the Pneumo-Electric Company at Syracuse, of a paper mill on the upper Hudson, and of two banks. With few exceptions, the distribution of his investments remained unchanged at his death.
His political career began when moved to Brooklyn. His work in the organization attracted the attention of Thomas C. Platt who made him a member of his board of strategy. As park commissioner of Brooklyn in 1895, he gained great popularity by advocating the construction of good roads and bicycle paths. The next year he was elected lieutenant-governor for the first of three successive terms. He acquired control of the Kings County organization by 1897, healed factional rifts, and made it the chief stronghold of the Republican party in the metropolitan area. His rule over it, maintained chiefly by his personal popularity, was benevolently autocratic.
Woodruff was also the first president of the Adelphi College Board of Trustees, serving from 1896-1908. During this time he was responsible for petitioning the New York State Board of Regents in 1896 to allow the college to be attended by both male and female students. After stepping down as president of the Board of Trustees, he remained active in the college and continued corresponding with the college's founder, Charles H. Levermore. They discussed topics ranging from school events to providing the school with typewriters from one of the several typewriter companies Woodruff was involved with.
In 1900 he was a candidate for the vice-presidential nomination, which was given to Roosevelt. His ambition to be governor was disappointed in 1904 when Platt lost control of the organization to Benjamin B. Odell.
When Roosevelt's friends defeated Odell two years later, Woodruff became chairman of the state executive committee. He conducted the gubernatorial campaign for Charles E. Hughes acceptably but opposed him after the election on many matters of policy. He was ousted from the chairmanship after considerable difficulty and delay. In 1912 he joined the Progressive Party. While speaking at a fusion rally in the interest of John Purroy Mitchell's candidacy for mayor he was stricken with apoplexy and died a few days later.
Woodruff's most notable political achievement was his position as New York's Lieutenant Governor for three terms from 1897-1902. During and also largely after his time as Lieutenant Governor he actively served in the Brooklyn Young Republicans, the Montauk Club, the Lyons Republicans, the New York Republican State Committee (of which he was chairman from 1906-1910), and the Union League Club.
Timothy's political career began when he joined a Republican club on first moving to Brooklyn.
During his political career, Woodruff was very enthusiastic about agricultural affairs. He aggressively promoted the protection of the New York wilderness, including protection from deforestation and devastating damming.
Obviously a man who appreciated nature, Timothy Woodruff also frequently visited his camp in the Adirondacks named "Kamp Kill Kare" where he often brought friends, family, and fellow politicians. He named a lake at the camp Lake Kora, after his wife Cora.
Woodruff had two wives, a daughter, and a son. His first wife, Cora, became gravely ill for quite some time before dying in 1904. She was buried beside their first child, a daughter named Minerva who died as an infant. A year later, Woodruff married Isabel Morrison. Woodruff's son John also attended Yale, but the correspondence between father and son revealed that John was at times irresponsible and a disappointment to his successful father. John later married and participated in some of the same businesses that his father was active in.
