August i, 1909.] 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



385 



The Late Robert D. Evans. 



WHILE the late Robert D. Evans, of Boston, had not 

 been actively interested in the rubber industry for a 

 dozen years, his relation to it for more than half his 

 life was so important and so extensive as to call for a record 

 at length in a journal devoted to the trade, now that the time 

 has come for writing the story of his life. As a result of being 

 thrown from his horse at his summer home at Beverly, Massa- 

 chusetts, Mr. Evans was taken to the Massachusetts Homeo- 

 pathic Hospital, where he died on the evening of July 6. 



Robert Dawson Evans was born September 30, 1845, in Bos- 

 ton, to which city his family had removed from St. John, New 

 Brunswick. After having been graduated from the English 

 High School he found employment as a clerk for the Hall Rubber 

 Co., in Boston, of which Henry A. Hall was the proprietor. At 

 that time Charles M. Clapp, further to be mentioned here, was 

 the bookkeeper in that house. When the civil war came on, young 

 Evans enlisted in the Thirteenth Mas- 

 sachusetts Volunteers, which joined the 

 Army of the Potomac. He was twice 

 wounded in service. After the war Mr. 

 Evans went into the employ of Mr. 

 Clapp, who had become a rubber manu- 

 facturer, operating the Aetna Rubber 

 Mills, at Jamaica Plain. In 1870 he and 

 Levi Ladd became partners in the 

 firm Clapp, Evans & Co., which con- 

 tinued 10 operate the Aetna mills. 



Mr. Evans left the firm in 1872 and 

 formed the Eagle Rubber Co., which 

 established a small factory. Associ- 

 ated with him was George H. Hood, 

 who left in 1878 to form the Boston 

 Rubber Co., and Henry W. Burr, who 

 was superintendent and later went in 

 a similar position with the Para Rub- 

 ber Shoe Co. Mr. Burr had been some 

 time at the Aetna mills. The story is 

 that Mr. Evans had become the prin- 

 cipal owner of the Moulton patent on 

 wringer rolls, which was strongly at- 

 tacked by parties in New York, and 

 that Mr. Clapp, fearing that the patent 

 could not be sustained, was averse to 

 helping to support it. The Eagle Rub- 

 ber Co., therefore, was organized to 



carry on the manufacture of wringer rolls, the patent litiga- 

 tion over which ended in favor of Mr. Evans. 



In 1873 the American Rubber Co. was organized, by Mr. 

 Evans, strictly* as a jobbing concern, selling the products of 

 the Eagle company and taking the agency for the Meyer Rubber 

 Co., footwear manufacturers. The two companies were con- 

 solidated and in 1877 a large factory was established at Cam- 

 bridgcport and the manufacture taken on of rubber footwear 

 and mackintoshes. This factory was burned in December, 1881, 

 and Mr. Evans demonstrated perhaps more strikingly than at any 

 time before his capacity to overcome difficulties, by the prompt 

 rebuilding of the factory and the resumption of business. 



When the United States Rubber Co. was organized, through 

 consolidating a dozen factories, the American Rubber Co. was 

 one of the most important concerns embraced. Starting with 

 $200,000 capital, the .'\merican company had acquired capital 

 and surplus amounting to $3,500,000, and its productive capacity 

 was rated at $3,500,000 a year. The United States Rubber 

 Co. was distinguished by being the largest industrial corpora- 

 tion that had then been formed in America. Its author ed 



The L.^TE Robert D.^wson Ev.^ns 



capital was $50,000,000 and the original issue $26,947,000. Al- 

 though the companies combined under its charter were older than 

 the American Rubber Co., and most of them headed by men 

 who had longer been in the industry, Mr. Evans was the unan- 

 imous choice for the office of president, to which he was elected 

 October 15, 1892. In addition to filling this office, his position 

 in the corporation was that of director of the purchase of raw 

 material and manufacturing, just as Colonel Colt was legal 

 director and Mr. Flint director of finance. 



When it seemed desirable later to widen the scope of the 

 United States Rubber Co., by further amalgamation of the trade, 

 the presidency was offered to Joseph Banigan to gain his adhe- 

 sion to the plan, and he filled the office for several years, 

 resigning on March 4, 1896. Mr. Evans was at that time first 

 vice president and general manager of the company and suc- 

 ceeded to the presidency, to which he was reelected for a full 

 term. All was not harmony in those 

 days, and Mr. Evans declined re- 

 election in 1897. On June 6. 1898, 

 when he retired from the presidency of 

 the American Rubber Co., which had 

 retained its corporate e.xistence mean- 

 while, and of which he had filled the 

 head office for nineteen years, it be- 

 came known that he had severed his 

 connection with the rubber industry. It 

 was common report that his large hold- 

 ings in the United States Rubber Co. 

 had been purchased by a syndicate 

 headed by James R. Keene, whose suc- 

 cessful disposal of the same was long 

 an interesting story in Wall street. 



The proceeds of IMr. Evans's rub- 

 ber shares he invested successfully in 

 mining stock, at first in copper. He 

 was influential in the organization, in 

 1899, of the L'nited States Mining Co., 

 operating in Utah, of which he was 

 at one time president. The company 

 is now controlled through the owner- 

 ship of the majority of its stock by 

 (he United States Smelting, Refining 

 and Mining Co., organized in 1906 with 

 $75,000,000 capital. Mr. Evans until 

 just before his death was a director in 

 each. He was currently reported a few months ago to have 

 sold the larger part of his shares in the latter company for $4,650,- 

 000 in cash. Mr. Evans was one of the principals in the Yuba 

 Consolidated Gold Mines Co., a gold dredging enterprise in 

 California, organized by him and capitalized at $12,000,000. His 

 dividends from this company are mentioned as having been 

 $650,000 a year, and his income from the copper companies enough 

 more to make a total of $1,000,000 a year. 



Mr. Evans was interested in other companies than those 

 named, including the Boston-Bolivia Rubber Co., engaged in 

 forest rubber exploitation in South America, and in a rubber 

 planting enterprise in Mexico. Since the filing of his will for 

 probate, at Salem, Massachusetts, his estate, left wholly to his 

 widow, has been estimated at $12,000,000. 



Mr. Evans was a resident of Boston except while holding 

 the office of president of the United States Rubber Co. On 

 removing to New York for the first time he sold his house 

 on Beacon street, Boston, to Mr. Elisha S. Converse. Later 

 he owned a notable residence at No. 17 Gloucester street, corner 

 of Commonwealth avenue, in which he formed a collection 



