Jacob Tome

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Jacob Tome
Jacob Tome (page 18 crop).jpg
Born(1810-08-13)August 13, 1810
York County, Pennsylvania, U.S.
DiedMarch 16, 1898(1898-03-16) (aged 87)
Port Deposit, Maryland, U.S.
Resting placeHopewell Cemetery
Port Deposit, Maryland
NationalityAmerican
Occupation
  • Banker
  • Businessman
  • Philanthropist
  • Politician
  • Railroad executive
Known forTome School
Political partyUnion Republican[1]
Spouse(s)
Caroline M. Webb
​
​
(m. 1841; died 1874)​
​
​
(m. 1884)​
Children3

Jacob Tome (August 13, 1810 – March 16, 1898) was an American banker, philanthropist, and politician who died as one of the richest men in the United States.[2] He was the first millionaire of Cecil County, Maryland and an accomplished philanthropist, giving money to colleges, churches, and schools, including establishing the Tome School.[2]

Early life[]

Jacob Tome was born on August 13, 1810, in Hanover[2] or Manheim Township[3] in York County, Pennsylvania to Christina (née Badger) and Christian Thom.[3] At the age of 16, he worked for a farmer in York County; 15 months later, he became a superintendent of fisheries on Stony Island on the Susquehanna River.[3] In 1830, he worked for a manufacturer of tinware in Marietta, Pennsylvania, for two years, and then became a teacher in Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania.[3]

Career[]

Business career[]

In 1833, he moved to Port Deposit, Maryland to work at Boggs' Hotel. He moved to Philadelphia for a short time to take up bookkeeping, but returned to Port Deposit in 1834.[3]

In 1834, he and David Rinehart, a Marietta banker and lumber dealer, founded the Tome & Rinehart lumber company, which prospered and would last until 1853.[3] In 1849, he formed a partnership with the owners of the steamboat Portsmouth and Captain Masen L. Weems to establish the .[3] In 1855, he and John and Thomas C. Bond formed the Bond Brothers & Co. lumber company .[3] Through Bond Brothers & Co. and his own personal accounts, he invested in timber lands in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin.[3][1] With his nephew, J.W. Reynolds, he formed J. Tome & Co., a fertilizer and agriculture equipment company.[3]

He served as the president of the ; as a director of the , as a director of the Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore Railroad, and as a director of the Columbia and Port Deposit Railroad. He was also a large stockholder in the Delaware Railroad Company.[3]

Political career[]

He was a Union Republican and a supporter of Abraham Lincoln during the American Civil War.[1][3] In 1863 and 1864, he was elected to represent Cecil County in the Maryland State Senate.[3] In 1865, he was elected as the chairman of the Senate finance committee.[3] In 1871, he was nominated as the Union Republican candidate for Governor of Maryland, losing to William Pinkney Whyte.[3]

Banking career[]

In 1850, Tome obtained a charter for the Cecil Bank at Port Deposit. The bank quickly grew and became a national bank.[3] In 1868, he purchased the Elkton National Bank. In 1865, he opened a bank the National Bank in Fredericksburg, Virginia, which his nephew John Creswell became president of.[3][1] He owned stock in a number of Baltimore banks and a majority stake in the Citizens' National Bank of Hagerstown, Maryland.[3]

Personal life[]

Tome married Caroline M. Webb, an aunt of John Creswell, on December 6, 1841. Together, they had three children, but they all died in infancy.[4][1] She died on February 16, 1874.[4] He married Evalyn S. Nesbitt on October 1, 1884.[1][3] Evalyn Tome was the richest woman in the state of Maryland; after his death, she married Joseph Irwin France, a Senator and U.S. presidential candidate.[citation needed]

Philanthropy[]

Tome Memorial Methodist Church[]

He built the Tome Memorial Methodist Church in Port Deposit in 1887.[1][5] The church was closed on October 1, 2018.[5]

Dickinson College[]

Tome was a trustee of Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania from 1883 to 1898. He pledged $25,000 in 1883 for the construction of its first science building, the Tome Scientific Building.[2]

Jacob Tome Institute[]

Main article: Tome School

The Jacob Tome Institute was incorporated in 1879, and the school was first opened for students on September 17, 1894. His wife, Evalyn Tome, served as the president of the board of trustees.[3] In the last week of his life, Jacob Tome worked with Senators Austin Crothers and to give Maryland financial supervision over the school.[3]

Death[]

Tome died of pneumonia on March 16, 1898 at his home in Port Deposit at the age of 87. He was buried at Hopewell Cemetery in Port Deposit.[3] At his death, he owned about $89 million (about $2,768,612,000 today[6]).

Legacy[]

Maryland Route 276 in Cecil County was named the Jacob Tome Memorial Highway in his honor in 1961.[7]

References[]

  1. ^ Jump up to: a b c d e f g "A Millionaire Marriage". The Baltimore Sun. October 2, 1884. p. 1. Retrieved April 10, 2021 – via Newspapers.com.
  2. ^ Jump up to: a b c d "Jacob Tome (1810-1898) | Dickinson College". archives.dickinson.edu. 2005. Archived from the original on April 11, 2021. Retrieved April 10, 2021.
  3. ^ Jump up to: a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v "Death of Jacob Tome". The Baltimore Sun. March 17, 1898. p. 7. Retrieved April 10, 2021 – via Newspapers.com.
  4. ^ Jump up to: a b "Death of Mrs. Tome". The Baltimore Sun. February 17, 1874. p. 4. Retrieved April 10, 2021 – via Newspapers.com.
  5. ^ Jump up to: a b "Tome Memorial United Methodist Church". cecilcounty.net. Retrieved April 10, 2021.
  6. ^ 1634 to 1699: McCusker, J. J. (1992). How Much Is That in Real Money? A Historical Price Index for Use as a Deflator of Money Values in the Economy ofthe United States: Addenda et Corrigenda (PDF). American Antiquarian Society. 1700-1799: McCusker, J. J. (1992). How much is that in real money?: a historical price index for use as a deflator of money values in the economy of the United States (PDF). American Antiquarian Society. 1800–present: Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. "Consumer Price Index (estimate) 1800–". Retrieved January 1, 2020.
  7. ^ "Excerpt from Minutes of Meeting of the State Roads Commission" (PDF). S.R.C. Minutes District No. 2 Cecil County. Baltimore: Maryland State Roads Commission. May 24, 1961. Retrieved March 15, 2016 – via Maryland State Archives.
Party political offices
Preceded by
Hugh Lennox Bond 		Union Republican nominee for Governor of Maryland
1871 		Succeeded by
James Morrison Harris
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