George I. Seney

George Ingraham Seney (May 12, 1826 – April 7, 1893) was a New York City banker, art collector, and benefactor. He was the father of symphonic music executive Mary Seney Sheldon.^[1]

Biography[]

George Ingraham Seney was born in 1826 in Newtown (now called Elmhurst, Queens) in what was then Queens County, Long Island. After studying at Wesleyan University, he completed his baccalaureate education at New York University, graduating in 1846.^[1] He lived for much of his life in Brooklyn. After a career as a New York City banker, he died in 1893 in Manhattan.

Seney married Phoebe A. Mosier in 1849, and fathered ten children.^[1] He is best remembered for amassing a substantial collection of pre-Impressionist 19th-century European and American paintings,^[1] some of which he gave to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The donation included works by George Inness and Francis Davis Millet.^[2]

As president of the Metropolitan Bank (New York City), Seney was situated to become a financier of newly chartered railroads. Charters organized or financed by banker Seney and his Seney Syndicate included the East Tennessee, Virginia and Georgia Railway and the Nickel Plate Road.^[1] Seney's financial career reached its height in October 1882 when the Seney Syndicate sold the Nickel Plate to New York Central interests for $7.2 million in gold.

The Metropolitan Bank failed, however, in 1884. This permanently shadowed the remainder of Seney's life and career. He was forced to sell most of his art collection in auctions held in 1885^[3] and in 1891.^[4]

Legacy[]

Seney's bank was a financial backer of the Detroit, Mackinac and Marquette Railroad, a developer of real estate in the Upper Peninsula of the U.S. state of Michigan, and the railroad named one of its depots after the New Yorker. The depot became the logging town and resort village of Seney, Michigan, and the regional name gave birth to the Seney National Wildlife Refuge.^[5]

When Dakota Territory representative (and later South Dakota senator) Richard F. Pettigrew traveled east in the late 1870s to find investors for a flour milling venture in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, Seney was interested and helped bankroll the Queen Bee mill, which ruins still stand above the city's namesake falls. An island a short distance upstream was a popular gathering spot in the city's earlier days, and it was soon renamed Seney Island (however, the island later disappeared after the river's channel was altered to increase the flow to a hydroelectric plant built just north of the mill).^[6]

Seney, in 1881, endowed the construction of what is now Seney Hall at Oxford College of Emory University. In the same year he was a key founder and backer of what became the NewYork-Presbyterian Brooklyn Methodist Hospital in Park Slope.^[1]

The Somerset Inn- Bernardsville, New Jersey[]

Seney decided it was time to move permanently to the mountain and acquired the Hampton House boarding house from Francis Oliver in 1871, feeling the home and area could be developed and attract even more visitors to the Bernardsville area. He called his new acquisition the Highland House and began to expand the house the property that ultimately became a luxurious destination hotel. The Highland House would later become the prestigious Somerset Inn. Over time, the Inn grounds would cover over 850 acres.

The main part of the Inn was five stories tall, faced in a southerly direction at its center, provided grand views being at one of the highest elevations on the mountain. (800 feet above sea level). The Inn could accommodate up to 500 guests. It was noted also that there were "no marshy swamps, so there weren't mosquitos." Warmed by steam, equipped with elevators, and lighted by gas, It was said that even Thomas Edison visited the Inn as a guest.

On May 6, 1908 at about 1:30am, a fire of unknown origin took the Somerset Inn right down to 20 chimneys and little else. It was just weeks before the June 1st season opening. It had been said that the "Watchman" wasn't on post and was down in the village when the fire broke out. The fire was said to have been seen for miles as it was near the top of the Bernardsville mountain. In an instance, the place that built what is referred to as "the mountain colony" was gone. It was never replaced and the land was eventually sold off in parcels.

Bernardsville, New Jersey[]

Seney was also instrumental to the creation of the Somerset Hills County Club, the relocated Essex Hunt Club, and the Somerset Hills Bridal Path Association. George was a founding member of St. Bernard's Church. In 1880, Seney gave a donation of land and a frame church to the Methodist Church , a gift valued at $10,000, located a short distance east of the intersection, at the intersection of Church and Wesley. The church was dedicated on June 27, 1880. Many don't know he also built and donated the Seney Hospital in Brooklyn which is known now as New York-Presbyterian Brooklyn Methodist Hospital in Park Slope.

References[]