Oroondates Mauran

Mauran was born in Barrington, Rhode Island, the eighth child of Joseph Carlo and Olive (Bicknell) Mauran.[1] His father commanded two armed ships during the American Revolution.[2]^: 183

He moved to New York City when he was 19 to become a merchant. Together with his partner Samuel Coates, he established the firm Coates & Mauran which owned ships that carried cargo from New York to the West Indies.[3] In 1822, he also entered into a venture to run regularly scheduled ships between New York City and Charleston, South Carolina.[3][4]

Mauran bought a 50% stake in the Richmond Turnpike Company, which had been founded by Staten Island resident and United States Vice-President Daniel D. Tompkins. The company also operated the first steam boat ferry between Manhattan and Staten Island which became known simply as the Staten Island Ferry.[5][6]

In 1848 he was involved in a court case related to one of the Turnpike ships, the Sampson,[7] which also had participated in a ramming battle with a rival ferry on September 2, 1838.[8] It was alleged in court that Mauran expressly approved of the ramming and even expressed regret the captain had not sunk the rival Wave.[9]

Mauran and Cornelius Vanderbilt gained control of the Turnpike company in 1838 after Thomkins died. However the Richmmond Turnpike Company was set to expire (having a limited duration by statute) so the partners assigned the equipment and real estate leases to themselves. The whole affair was bogged down in the courts for years[10] but the $50,000 annual profit made the business worth fighting for.[11] Mauran managed the company as President.[9] The same year Mauran died, Vanderbilt bought from his estate his shares in the Staten Island Ferry for $80,000.[5]

Mauran married Martha Eddy[3] in 1814 in Providence, Rhode Island. She was the daughter of Samuel Eddy, a Member of Congress, 1819-1825 and Rhode Island Chief Justice, 1827-1835. They had a daughter Josephine, (d. 1858) who married Oliver Wolcott Gibbs, Rumford Professor at Harvard.[12] Their eldest son, James Eddy Mauran (1817-1888), married Alice Cooper, a niece of James Fenimore Cooper. James became a noted bibliophile, linguist, antiquarian, and expert on heraldry. He was President of the Redwood Library in Newport, Rhode Island. [13]

Mauran lived in Manhattan in winter and on Staten Island in the summer. He purchased his Staten Island residence on Grymes Hill in 1831.[14]

He was part of the founding of the first Italian Opera House in New York at the corner of Church and Lombard streets, opened November 18, 1833 at a cost of over $100,000. The theatre burned down in 1839 after being unsuccessfully offered for sale at time when opera was a novelty in America.[2]^: 183[11] He was one of the oldest members of the Union Club of the City of New York.[11][15]