Edward Prime

Edward Prime (December 10, 1801 – August 21, 1883)[1] was a New York banker who served as president of the New York Stock Exchange.

For the American clergyman and journalist, see Edward Dorr Griffin Prime.
Edward Prime
8th President of the New York Stock Exchange
In office
1835–1836
Preceded byR. D. Weeks
Succeeded byR. D. Weeks
Personal details
Born(1801-12-10)December 10, 1801
New York City, New York, U.S.
DiedAugust 21, 1883(1883-08-21) (aged 81)
Riverdale-on-Hudson, New York, U.S.
Spouses
Anne Bard
​
​
(m. 1827; died 1834)​
    Charlotte Wilkins Hoffman
    ​
    ​
    (m. 1836)​
    RelationsComfort Sands (grandfather)
    William Seton III (nephew)
    Parent(s)Nathaniel Prime
    Cornelia Sands Prime

    Early life

    Prime was born on December 10, 1801, at 54 Wall Street in New York City. He was the eldest son of Nathaniel Prime (1768–1840) and Cornelia (née Sands) Prime (1773–1852), who married in 1797. Among his sisters was Cornelia Prime (wife of Robert Ray, a brother-in-law of New York Gov. John Alsop King), Emily Prime (wife of U.S. Navy Capt. William Seton and son of Elizabeth Ann Seton), Matilda Prime (wife of Gerard Holsman Coster), and Laura Prime (wife of John Clarkson Jay, a son of Peter A. Jay and grandson of John Jay).[2]

    His maternal grandparents were Comfort Sands, the merchant, banker and Continental Congressman, and Elizabeth (née Cornell) Sands.[2] His paternal grandparents were Joshua Prime and Bridget (née Hammond) Prime.[2]

    Prime was educated at McCulluck's boarding school in Morristown, New Jersey, where his father and other family members were educated.[3]

    Career

    Five years before his birth, his father organized "Nathaniel Prime, Stock and Commission Broker" which made money buying and selling bank stocks before he opened his own private bank where he allowed customers to deposit money and then loaned it out.[4] In 1808, his father brought Samuel Ward III in as a partner and the firm was renamed Prime & Ward,[5] followed by his uncle Joseph Sands in 1816 when the firm became Prime, Ward & Sands.[6] In 1824, the firm was again reorganized as Prime, Ward, Sands & King when James Gore King became a partner upon his return from England.[7] After Sand's death in 1826, the firm became Prime, Ward & King.[8]

    In 1826, still a young man, Prime entered the firm and was made a partner of Prime, Ward & Co. upon his father's retirement in 1832.[8] His father, in ill health, committed suicide on November 26, 1840, by cutting his throat.[9] The firm collapsed in 1847,[10][11][12] and Prime established the firm of Prime & Co., which consisted of him and his four sons, where he worked until his retirement in 1867,[3][13] at which point his sons also retired.[1]

    Philanthropy

    Prime was one of the founders of the New York Eye and Ear Dispensary. He was also a vestryman in St. Philip's Church in Manhattan and a warden of Christ Church in Riverdale.[1]

    Personal life

    On September 18, 1827, he was married to Anne Bard (1804–1834). Anne was the daughter of William Bard, a lawyer who founded the New York Life Insurance and Trust Company. Anne's younger sister, Susan Bard, was the wife of Edward's first cousin, Ferdinand Sands, both being grandsons of Comfort Sands.[14] Before his first wife's death in 1834, they were the parents of four children:[14]

    • Cornelia Prime (1829–1869), who married German-born August Ahrens (1818–1869) in 1850.[14]
    • Nathaniel Prime (1830–1885), a Brevet Lieutenant Colonel who died unmarried.[14]
    • William Bard Prime (1832–1836), who died in infancy.[14]
    • Edward Prime (b. 1833), who married Annie Rhodes Gilbert (1856–1941), the widow of his younger half-brother in 1889.[14]

    After the death of his first wife in New York City on October 27, 1834, he married Charlotte Wilkins Hoffman (1808–1892) in 1836.[15][16]

    • William Hoffman Prime (1837–1881), who married Anne Rhodes Gilbert in 1879.[16]
    • Charlotte Prime (1838-1923), who married Leonard J. Wyeth in 1858.
    • Mary Catherine Prime (b. 1841), who married James A. Scrimper in 1868.[16]
    • Henry Prime (1847–1914).[16]

    An avid sportsman, he was said to have been the first to bring a pack of fox hounds to the United States, where he used to "hunt the fox in the woods of Long Island."[1]

    Prime died on August 21, 1883, in Riverdale-on-Hudson, New York.[1] After a funeral at Christ Church in Riverdale, he was buried at Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn.[3]

    References
    1. "Edward Prime". New-York Tribune. 23 August 1883. Retrieved 12 August 2019.
    2. Bergen, Tunis Garret (1915). Genealogies of the State of New York: A Record of the Achievements of Her People in the Making of a Commonwealth and the Founding of a Nation. Lewis Historical Publishing Company. p. 833. Retrieved 10 March 2018.
    3. Hall, Henry (1895). America's Successful Men of Affairs: The city of New York. New York Tribune. p. 527. Retrieved 12 August 2019.
    4. Burrows, Edwin G.; Wallace, Mike (1998). Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898. Oxford University Press. p. 445. ISBN 9780199741205. Retrieved 10 March 2018.
    5. Ward, John (1875). A Memoir of Lieut.-Colonel Samuel Ward, First Rhode Island Regiment, Army of the American Revolution: With a Genealogy of the Ward Family. New York. p. 1. Retrieved 10 March 2018.
    6. Wilkins, Mira (1989). The History of Foreign Investment in the United States to 1914. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. p. 657. ISBN 9780674396661. Retrieved 10 March 2018.
    7. "SAMUEL WARD PAPERS" (PDF). archives.nypl.org. New York Public Library. Retrieved 10 March 2018.
    8. Barrett, Walter (1885). The Old Merchants of New York City. Thomas R. Knox & Company. p. 10. Retrieved 10 March 2018.
    9. Strong, George Templeton (1952). Nevins, Allan; Thomas, Milton Halsey (eds.). The Diary of George Templeton Strong. Vol. I. The Macmillan Company. p. 152.
    10. "Notice". The Evening Post. 25 January 1847. Retrieved 12 August 2019.
    11. "Memento of Nathaniel Prime". New York Daily Herald. No. 17 December 1879. Retrieved 12 August 2019.
    12. Trent, James W. (2012). The Manliest Man: Samuel G. Howe and the Contours of Nineteenth-century American Reform. Univ of Massachusetts Press. p. 163. ISBN 978-1558499591. Retrieved 10 March 2018.
    13. "OFFICE OF PRIME & CO". The New York Times. March 6, 1867. p. 6. Retrieved 12 August 2019.
    14. Helffenstein, Abraham Ernest (1911). Pierre Fauconnier and His Descendants: With Some Account of the Allied Valleaux. Press of S. H. Burbank & Company. p. 95. Retrieved 12 August 2019.
    15. Hoffman, Eugene Augustus (1899). Genealogy of the Hoffman family : descendants of Martin Hoffman, with biographical notes . New York: Dodd, Mead & Co. Retrieved 17 November 2017.
    16. Lawrence, Ruth (1930). Colonial Families of America (PDF). New York: National Americana Society. Retrieved 10 March 2018.
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