Nelson Ludington

Ludington was born on January 18, 1818, in Ludingtonville in Putnam County, New York,[1] as the fourth of sixteen children.[2] He was a direct descendant of William Ludington of the Ludington family.[1][3] His grandfather was Henry Ludington.[1][3][4]

Ludington took courses at the Tucker Hill Academy in a neighboring county.[1][5]

Ludington's training for the business world started at a general store in Cold Spring, New York, a town located along the Hudson River.[1][5] He later became a clerk in a dry goods store in New York City, receiving further training in the retail business.[1][5] In 1839 he joined his older brother, Harrison Ludington, his uncle Lewis Ludington, and Harvey Burchard in the firm Ludington, Burchard and Company.[1][4][6] After two years Nelson Ludington purchased Burchard's share of the business, and changed the name of the firm to Ludington and Company.[5] Ludington sold his ownership share to the other partners in 1848.[1]

Ludington started in the lumber industry with Daniel Wells Jr. and Jefferson Sinclair in 1848 in a new firm called N. Ludington & Co. He recognized that the rapid expansion of western towns around the Great Lakes would increase market demand for lumber, so he bought up large tracts of timber lands.[6] Ludington constructed sawmills at Marinette and Escanaba, Michigan.[6] For the first few years of N. Ludington & Company, the main docks and lumber yards of the firm were in Milwaukee and was the main distribution point to places throughout the United States via shipping on the Great Lakes.[6]

Escanaba (originally called Flat Rock) was one of the places where Ludington established a sawmill.[7][8][9][10] He named the settlement.[11] Locals suggested it be named after the nearby river, known as the "Escanawba" by the local Ojibwa Indians, referring to the smooth, flat rocks on the river bottom.[12] His hired surveyor, Eli Parsons Royce, entered the name on the town design schematic, as he understood it from a local Indian.[12]

In 1863, Ludington became a director of the Fifth National Bank of Chicago, and later its president, before it became the National Bank of America. He accumulated a considerable fortune.[13]

Ludington married Charlotte J. and they had two daughters.[2] He died on January 15, 1883, in Chicago.[14][15]

His daughter Mary financed the Ludington Building in Chicago.[16]

• Conard, Howard Louis (1893). "Western Industrial Development: Nelson Ludington, Lumberman and Banker". National Magazine: A Monthly Journal of American History. Magazine of Western History Publishing Company. For thirty-five years he was the executive head of the firm, and later of the corporation which bore his name, and during that time a vast industry, and one which yielded splendid fortunes to nearly all those interested in it, was built up.
• Hall, Henry, ed. (1896). America's Successful Men of Affairs: The United States at large. New York tribune.
• Hotchkiss, George Woodward (1894). Industrial Chicago: The Lumber Interest. Goodspeed Publishing Company.
• "Nelson Ludington". Dictionary of Wisconsin biography. The State Historical Society of Wisconsin. 1960.
• Nursey, Walter R. (1890). The city of Escanaba, Michigan, U. S. A., 'the iron port of the world'. A history of its growth, with a description of its industries, resources, commercial position, climate and topography. Lew A. Cates.

• Dickson, Karl (2002). Stories of Small Town Sports. K. Dickson. Nelson Ludington gave the name of the city of Escanaba, Michigan.
• Dunathan, Clint (1963). The Century book. Photo Offset Printing Co. Nelson Ludington gave the name of the City of Escanaba.
• Johnson, Willis Fletcher (1907). Colonel Henry Ludington: A Memoir. Printed by his grandchildren Lavinia Elizabeth Ludington and Charles Henry Ludington : New York. ISBN 978-0548540381.
• Krog, Carl Edward (1971). Marinette: biography of a nineteenth century lumbering town. University of Wisconsin. In 1867 Stephenson acquired three-eights interest in the Nelson Ludington Company. The following year ... In 1883, after the death of Nelson Ludington, Stephenson became president, acquiring a controlling interest in the firm.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Nelson Ludington.

• Ludington Family Papers