Alexander Ector Orr b.1831 d.1914 - v1

One of Strabane’s most famous sons, Alexander Ector Orr (b.1831 d.1914) known as the 'Father of the New York Subway' was honoured with the unveiling of an Ulster History Circle blue plaque in his hometown of Strabane, Co. Tyrone, Northern Ireland.

The plaque was unveiled on Wed 21 Aug 2024 by Deputy Mayor of Derry and Strabane District Council, Alderman Darren Guy. The plaque was mounted on Strabane Credit Union building at 13-15, Bowling Green which is very close to where Orr’s original home used to be located.

 

Largely forgotten in Ulster history, many people will never have heard of this man but if you ever get the oppertunity to travel on the New York subway you should know known of his lead role in the foundation of the subway system which opened on 27 October 1904, after a construction period of four years.

 

The story of Alexander Ector Orr’s life begins in Strabane, he was born on 2 March 1831 in the parish of Camus. His father was a prominent Strabane buisness man, William Orr (b.? d.3 April 1835) who had migrated to Strabane from Scotland in the seventeenth century. His mother was Mary Moore (b.c.1809 d.22 Oct 1850) both are buried in Patrick Street Graveyard, Strabane along with other family members.

 

The Strabane Morning Post - 7 April 1835

On Friday last, after a protracted illness which he bore with much resignation, William Orr, Esq, aged 50 years. Seldom, indeed, have we had occasion to record the death of an individual, so generally and deservedly esteemed as Mr Orr. The inhabitants of this town, as a mark of their respect, closed their shops and suspended every kind of business until after the funeral which took place yesterday morning at Ten o’clock. His remains were followed to the grave by all the respectable people in the town and neighbourhood.

Cut off in the prime of life, and midst of usefulness, the removal of Mr Orr will long be felt in Strabane --

His extensive property (particularly in the town) gave him great influence, and that influence he invariably and promptly exercised in promoting every useful and benevolent object. He was an indulgent Landlord, a sincere and unostentatious friend, and his general disposition was characterized by integrity, independence, and generosity.

 

The family lived at the Bowling Green, Strabane were mainly for the merchants of the town lived, many of the houses still remain to this day, however sadly, Alexander’s home was demolished many years ago, a large Victorian three-story house, complete with coach houses, stabling and offices.

His father owned grain stores, yards and land on the Main Street of Strabane. Alexander was one of 4 children.

1. Patience Orr (b.1818 d.1911) married John Munn Jnr (b.1818 d.1869) and had at least 7 sons and 4 daughters.

2. Sarah Anne Orr (b.1827 d.?) lived in Derry, Co. Londonderry in 1901.

3. Alexander Ector Orr (b.1831 d.1914).

4. Margaret Orr (b.1834 d.?) married Alexander Munn on 8 July 1859, in Hamilton, Lanarkshire, Scotland. They were the parents of at least 5 sons and 2 daughters. She lived in Brooklyn, Kings, New York in 1910.

 

An early premature death in 1835 of his father William, when Alexander was 4 years old, saw the family leave Strabane and move to L/Derry where his mother Mary had relatives.

 

Later on 20 Oct 1842, Alexander’s sister, Patience married the son of the Mayor of L/Derry, John Munn Jnr. (b.1818 d.1869) at the First Presbyterian Church, 6 Upper Magazine Street, L/Derry where the service was conducted by the Rev. William McClure (b.1802 d.1874).

 

Alexander, at the age of 19-year-old while traveling in the United States in 1850, was so favorably impressed that he returned the next year to New York City to live. He worked as a clerk in several commission houses before obtaining a position in 1858 with David Dows Sr. (b.1814 d.1890) & Company, a significant player in the grain industry. Thirty years had passed since David Dows first formed a freight brokerage company with his nephew, John Dows Mairs (b.1827 d.1881) who mother was Mary Mairs (b.1801 d.1831).

With the death of John Dows (b.1797) his elder brother and partner on 21 Feb 1844 and with an estate in Irvington to maintain, David had amassed an enormous enterprise that he then shared with his other brother, Ammi Dows (b.1803 d.1875), Alexander Orr’s future father-in-law.

Based along Brooklyn’s East River waterfront, when Orr joined the Dows company it was already the largest Eastern receiver of flour and grain routed from Chicago to New York. Dows’ silos and warehouses held more than 3.5 million bushels of grain, making them the largest exporters of grain to European ports. Dows storage facilities near the New York Naval Shipyard housed much of the South’s tobacco crop. As the company expanded, Orr became a partner in 1861 and vice-president, leading the firm’s operational aspects.

 

Alexander marries his 1st wife, Juliet Buckingham Dows (b.1834 d.1872), on 11 Oct 1856 in Brooklyn, Kings, New York. Julia was born on 23 Sept 1834, in Utica, Oneida, New York. Her father, Ammi Dows (b.1803 d.1875), brother of David Dows, was 30 years old when Juliet was born and was a significant flour and grain merchant, this greatly enhanced Alexander’s power and prominence. Her mother was Jane E. Wilbor (b.1811 d.1870), who was 23 years old when Juliet was born.

 

Alexander & Juliet had at least 5 daughters.

1. Jane Dows (Orr) Nies (b.3 Sept 1857 d.16 Sept 1918) married 3 Sept 1891 James Buchanan Nies (b.22 Nov 1856 d.18 June 1922).

2. Mary Moore Orr (b.1860 d.1935) Unmaried, died 7 Sept 1935, City Of London, England.

3. Minnie Orr (b.1862 d.?) Unmarried, death date unknown.

4. Juliet Ector (Orr) Munsell (b.1865 d.1948) married 28 Nov 1894 Albert Henry Munsell (b.1858 d.1918). They had 2 sons and 3 daughters.

5. Jenny Orr (b.1858 d.?) Unmarried, death date unknown.

 

Albert Henry Munsell was born in Boston, Massachusetts on 6 Jan 1858 and died 28 June 1918. Albert was an accomplished artist and distinguished professor at what was then known as the Massachusetts Normal Art School in Boston (today’s Massachusetts College of Art and Design or “MassArt”) from where he graduated in 1881. He was hired as an instructor shortly thereafter and was later appointed lecturer in Color Composition and Artistic Anatomy. Albert taught at the institution for 37 years. He took a brief leave from 1885-1888 to study art in Paris at L’Ecole des Beaux Arts, where he won several awards for his work.

Although best known for his 1905 book, ’A Color Notation’ and his later book and precursor to today’s ‘Munsell Books of Color’, his 1915 edition ’Atlas of the Color Solid’. He was also an inventor who holds several patents for a Color-Sphere and Mount, artist’s easel, and photometer. He also developed his own Munsell Crayons in 1906, which were sold by Binney & Smith Company in 1926 and were then referred to as Munsell Crayola Crayons. Munsell’s work in developing a systematic approach to teaching and communicating was influential in evolving color science theory at the turn of the century and served as the basis for today’s color matching technology.

Munsell married Julia Orr on 28 Nov 1894 in Kings, New York (now known as Brooklyn), they had five children:

James Flynn (b.1895 d.?)

Alexander Ector Orr Munsell (b.1895 d.1988).

Margaret Munsell Hamilton (b.1897 d.1985).

Juliet Dows Munsell (b.1898 d.1938).

Elizabeth Christian Munsell (b.1903 d.1931).

 

Although he was only 60 years old when he died, his legacy lives on at Munsell Color Company established in 1917, and at the Rochester Institute of Technology, Munsell Color Science Laboratory.

Albert was buried at plot, Sagamore 105 C, South Street Cemetery, Portsmouth, Rockingham County, New Hampshire.

 

Alexander Ector Orr Munsell (A.E.O. Munsell) was born 13 Sept 1895. His maternal grandfather, Alexander Ector Orr having died in 1914, bequeathed $1,481,363. (or about $47 million or £35,094,077 today) to his grandson. In addition, Munsell received several hundred thousand more dollars from an aunt in 1919. Playing the stock market, he built up an even greater fortune, bragging that he had earned $100,000 in a single day before the big crash. Even after Black Tuesday of 1929, he still had over $1 million. Alexander Ector Orr Munsell was set for life. He was wealthy before the big stock market crash and still wealthy after it.

 

Munsell, was nicknamed, ‘Mr. Moneybags’, was a 1918 Harvard graduate who had studied abroad. He married on 29 May 1917, in Wellesley, Norfolk, Massachusetts, Margaret Jean Dodd (b.1893 d.1983), who was a member of the class of 1916 at Wellesley. After his father’s death on 28 June 1918, he took over the Munsell Color Company, although he later stated that he operated it at a financial loss. When WWI broke out, Munsell joined up as a member of a Boston medical corps unit. After the war, he returned to his life in high society.

In a 1935 interview, he claimed that he underwent a transformation that began in March of 1931. “Suppose that you saw a girl and right off you felt you had something in common with her. Well, that’s what happened to me with regard to people less fortunate than I, I discovered that I had something in common with the poor man. And I just wanted to get rid of all my money.” And that is exactly what he did.

Mr. Munsell's wealth in 1933 totaled more than $1 million (nearly $17 million adjusted for inflation), when he give half to charity over a 15-month period and the remainder to his wife and three sons.

In the New York Times on 1st February 1936 it stated that his wife had gone to Reno, Nevada to file a suit for divorce against her husband. Three years later on 25 May 1939 he married his second wife, Ellen Louise Dawson (b.1906 d.?) in Fredericksburg, Virginia.

 

In 1951, he inherited a further $650,000 from his widowed mother, and, according to a daughter who lived with him, Barbara Coale Munsell (b.1928 d.2004), possibly from his 2nd marriage, he gave that away also.

 

Alexander Ector Orr Munsell spent his remaining years working with organizations that helped out the poor and elderly in New York City, as well as those that promoted nuclear disarmament. He explained that he wanted to experience ''the reality of being poor.''

He was 92 years old when he died of a heart attack in May 1988 at Beekman Downtown Hospital, New York.

He was survived by his his three sons, Alex Ector Orr Munsell (b.1918 d.2002), David D. Munsell (b.1920 d.2004) and Steven Cushing Munsell (b.1923 d.1992), and two sisters, Elizabeth Kanevski (b.1903 d.1988), and Margaret Hamilton (b.1897 d.1985).

Alexander was buried at Sec 73, Lot 22684, Green-Wood Cemetery, Greenwood Heights, Kings County, New York.

 

Charles Alexander Munn (b.1852 d.1903) emigrated from L/Derry, Ireland, in 1870. His uncle, Alexander Ector Orr helped him get establish in the slaughterhouse and wholesale provisions business of Munn, Orr & Company in New York, which the Munns expanded to Chicago in 1875.

 

Charles Alexander Munn married Caroline “Carrie” Louise Gurnee Armour (b.1853 d.1922) on 3 May 1885 in Cook, Illinois.

Charles Alexander Munn, Jr. (b.1885 d.1981) aka Mr Palm Beach, was born in Chicago, Illinois, the oldest child afterwhich, they moved on to Washington, DC, where his other siblings were born, (a) Gurnee R. Munn, (b) Caroline ‘Carrie’ Louise Munn Waterbury, (c) Ector Orr Munn, and (d) Gladys Mildred Munn Pulitzer.

 

Between 1875-76 Orr served, alongside John Bigelow (b.1817 d.1911), Daniel Magone Jr. (b.1827 d.1904) and John D. Van Buren Jr. (b.1838 d.1918) on a commission appinted by Governor Samuel J. Tilden (b.1814 d.1886), to investigate the management of New York state canals, which exposed a group of corrupt contractors and their political supporters who defrauded the State of New York by overcharging for repairs and improvement of the state's canal system.

Orr was frequently called before the state legislature to advise on transportation and marketing problems.

 

This extremely talented and hard-working Strabane man, is the type of immigrant who helped to make America great, had amassed a fortune for his endeavours and lived on Ramsen Avenue in Brooklyn which was described as a landmark property.

His knowledge and ability were sought by many banks, insurance companies and railways and at one time, he was on the board of some 29 companies giving conscientious service to each.

 

Intense interest in the business and a remarkable energy soon made him the dominant member of the firm, a force in the Exchange, and a recognized authority in his field. He helped reorganize the Produce Exchange, 1871-72, and was chairman of its important arbitration committee, a leading organizer of its Benefit Assurance Society and its Gratuity Association, secretary of the building committee which erected the three-million-dollar Exchange's home, and he served as president, 1887- 88. He provided similar service to the State of New York, Chamber of Commerce, aided in the erection of its new building, and served as vice-president, 1889-94, and as president from 1894-99.

 

His wife, Juliet died on 18 July 1872, in New York City at the age of 37, and was buried, Lot 1095, Section 43, Green-Wood Cemetery, Kings, New York.

 

Alexander’s second marriage was to Margaret Shippen Luquer, (b.1835 d 1913) whom he married on 25 Nov 1873. Her father was Nicholaus Luquer, Jr. (b.1811 d.1864) and her mother Sarah Lea Lynch Luquer (b.1809 d.1887). They had no children.

 

He served as chairman of the "citizen's movement" which elected Seth Low (b.1850 d.1916)

mayor of Brooklyn in 1881, and he took a leading part in other reform movements in local New York politics.

By 1887 he was President of the Produce Exchange and Chairman of the Chamber of Commerce.

 

1894 saw Orr appointed President of the new Rapid Transport Commission and he served on this board until 1907. During this time, plans were created for a subway system which Alexander strongly advocated. It was natural that he was elected to finance and overseen the building of the New York subway system in 1904. The initial 9.1 mile-long (14.6km) line ran from City Hall in lower Manhattan to 145th Street and Broadway in Harlem.

With 472 stations and 619 miles (1112km) of track, 8,500 trains daily, carried 1.5 billion passengers annually, and reported to be the safest passenger underground system in the world.

 

Alexanders 2nd wife, Margaret died at 8.30am on Sunday, 6 July 1913 aged 89, at her home at 102, Remsen Street. Funeral service was held at 11.00am on Tue 8 July at Christ Epicosical Church, Clinton & Harrison Street, Brooklyn. The funeral service was officiated by Rev. William DeForest Johnson (b.1869 d.1925) and assisted by Bishop George Herbert Kinsolving (b.1849 d.1928). Margaret was buried at Lot 22684, Section 73, Greenwood Heights Cemetery, Brooklyn, Kings County, New York.

 

Commercing during Stephen Grover Cleveland's (b.1837 d.1908) second term as President of the United States which began on 4 March 1893, Orr provided encouragement and powerful support to the president's sound money policies.

Orr's knowledge and ability were sought from by many banks, insurance companies, and railways; at one point he was on the Board of Directors of 29 Companies. He served as director of the Long Island Historical Society, the Society for the Reformation of Juvenile Delinquents, the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Long Island State Hospital and lastly of the New York Life Insurance Company, when at the age of seventy-five he entered upon the task of rehabilitating its affairs and reputation.

He was treasurer for nearly fifty years of the Long Island Diocese of the Protestant Episcopal Church, managing its many complicated funds, and contributing large amounts to them.

 

At the age of 83, Alexander Ector Orr died on Thursday 4th June 1914 leaving a vast fortune which was valued at more than 10 million dollars which was bequested to his nephews in L/Derry and various organisations in America. He was buried with his 2nd wife, Margaret at Lot 22684, Section 73, Green-Wood Cemetery, Brooklyn, Kings County, New York.

 

The day after his death, the New York Public Service Committee unanimously passed a minute that the name of Mr Orr would "always be linked with the development of rapid transit facilities in New York."

His portrait hangs in the New York Chamber of Commerce as a tribute to the Strabane man whose enthusiasm and drive did so much for New York.

To quote a newspaper publication from 1974, 60 years after his death ‘Alexander Ector Orr - The Tyrone man who put New York on the right rails’.

 

On Wednesday, 21 Aug 2024, a blue plaque was unveiled outside of the Credit Union building

13-15, Bowling Green.

Speaking after the unveiling of the blue plaque, Alderman Darren Guy said: “The blue plaque is a wonderful way to celebrate our links with the US and to highlight the important role that many local people played in the foundation of the US nation.

Alexander Ector Orr was hugely significant in the development of the New York transport network, and he should be remembered here in his home town where I hope more people will now find out about his significant achievements.”

 

Chairman of the Ulster History Circle, Chris Spurr, said: “Alexander Ector Orr is known as ‘the Father of the New York Subway’ for arranging the financing and construction of this major rapid transport system which opened almost 120 years ago in October 1904. "The Ulster History Circle is pleased to commemorate this prominent New York businessman and financier with a blue plaque near his birthplace at the Bowling Green.

"The Circle is grateful to Derry City and Strabane District Council for their financial support towards the plaque, and to Strabane Credit Union for their kind assistance."

 

There are currently eleven other blue plaques located in the Strabane area, honouring George Sigerson, Ezekiel J. Donnell, Annie Russell Maunder, Dr. George Sigerson, Robert John Welsh, William Starrat, John Dunlap, James MacCullagh, Cecil Francis Alexander, Oliver Pollock, and Brian O’Nolan.

 

Done