

THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



[July 1, 1915. 



THE OBITUARY RECORD. 



F. \ M Vi'.i'W VN 



FRANK A. MAGOWAN. 



Actraordinar; career came to a tragic end when, 

 in June 17. Frank \. Magowan died, of cerebral 

 hem. .nh. me, at St. Mary's I !• >spita! at Hoboken, Now Jersej 

 He I ! lying unconscious in the street nearly a 



week earliei ai d after being taken to the hospital only regained 



ci mscii His n e s v 

 lung enough to 

 tell who he u as. 

 Ilis son. Poii- 

 ald, of Trenton, 

 w a s notified 

 a n d immedi- 

 ately went to 

 I Poboken a n d 

 saw that every- 

 thing possible 

 was done for 

 his father 's 

 Ci 'inn >rt T h e 

 funeral, winch 

 was p r i v a t e. 

 was held from 

 D o n a 1 d Ma- 

 gowan's home 

 in I r e n t o n. 

 Four children, 

 Donald, Spen- 

 cer and Frank, 

 of Trenton, and 

 Mrs. W. U 

 Burden, who li\es in Astoria, Long Island, survive him. 

 Mr. Magowan's career in the industrial world, though com- 

 paratively brief, was i xcecdingly brilliant. From about 1886 to IN 1 4 

 he was the head and front of the commercial and political life of 

 Trenton He was elected Mayor of the city and was prominently 

 mentioned for the governorship of the state. He was a man of 

 wonderful physical force and untiring energy, and everything he 

 undertook seemed immediately to succeed. He was born in Tren- 

 ton about 55 years ag and after graduating from the public 

 schools became a salesman for his father. Allan Magowan. who 

 had ven identified with the rubber industry for some years. 



It may not be out of place to devote a few lines to the elder 

 Vlagowan, lie was a man of sterling worth in every way. and 

 his association with the rubber industry extended over a period 

 of 60 years. He became connected in 1850 with the Xew England 

 Car Spring Co.. located in New York. At the outbreak of the 

 Civil War he was associated with the Xew Jersey Car Spring 

 & Rubber Co. in Richmond, and. being known to be a rubber 

 expert, be was impressed bj the Confederate government into its 

 e ind among other duties was directed to make torpedo 

 fuses. But being a i'er\ strong Union man and having taken no 

 oath to the Confederacy, he saw to it that his fuses would never 

 harm the Unii n I rces, for he carefully punctured them all before 

 thej were covered with insulation. After a year or so he secured 

 a permit to come North as an exchange prisoner He accumulated 

 quite a fortune, which, however, in the lit. r '90 swept away 



in the financial troubles in which his son became involved. But 

 later he established another rubber factory in Xew Jersey and 

 with it until bis death in 1911. 

 I i.mk Magowan first became identified with the rubber in- 

 dustry in an important way in 1880, when, with his father and 

 two i thers, be incorporated the Trenton Rubbei < '.o < tne rubber 

 company, however, was not enough for his growing ambition, 

 and wr; soon be incorporated two additional rubber manufac- 

 turing companies, one the Empire Rubber Co.. the other the 

 Easteri Rubber Manufacturing Co. But no one industry could 



monopolize his exhaustless energy. Early in the '90s he had be- 

 come president of the Central Jirscv Traction Co., which was 

 formed to project a through line of electric railway from New 

 York to Philadelphia, president of the Trenton Watch Co., general 

 manager of the Trenton Potteries Co., president of the Trenton 

 Oil Cloth Co.. beside controlling several other large and suc- 

 cessful industrial concerns. 



Bui m 1894 bis fortunes took a sudden turn. At that time the 

 foreman of one of his rubber mills brought an alienation suit 

 against him, and in the following year Mr. Magowan and the 

 woman involved disappeared from Trenton and were located some 

 time later in Oklahoma. From that time on his fortunes were 

 as rapid in their decline as a few years earlier they had been in 

 their upward course. In the next three or four years all the large 

 interests he had secured became dissipated. In 1898 he sought 

 to retrieve his place in the business world by forming a $10,000,000 

 syndicate of rubber plants, but in this he was unsuccessful. A 

 few years later, in 1905, he took out a patent on a flexible inner 

 tube which was to revolutionize the tire industry, and in the same 

 year he incorporated the Pneumatic Ball Tire Co., with an 

 authorized capital of $3,000,000. But this did not materialize into 

 an active company. 



In fact, from the time of his abrupt leaving of Trenton in 1895 

 he never was able to rehabilitate himself in the industry in which 

 in some years he was such a dominant figure. 



Mr. Magowan was a man of unusual type and varied charac- 

 teristics. His ability as a worker and organizer was great, but 

 his appetites were greater — so much so that once in control they 

 wrecked him financially and physically. A millionaire at twenty, 

 a waif at fifty, is a sad record. His friends — and he had many, 

 too — often voiced the belief that with all of his brilliancy, he was 

 not finite responsible, and that is perhaps the most charitable and 

 reasonable way to view his varied and stormy career. 

 ADOLF GREG0R SPEYER. 



Adolf Gregor Speyer, founder and partner of Speyer & Grund, 

 Frankfort-on-the-Main, died on May 14 last. Mr. Speyer was 

 80 years old. and had been actively connected with the rubber 

 industry for the past 20 years. 



JAMES W. KELLEY. 



After an illness of several months, James W. Kelley died at 

 his home in Framingham Center. Massachusetts, June 9, at the 

 agi ' f fifty-five. 



Mr. Kelley went to Akron as a young man of twenty-two and 

 became a clerk in the office of The B. F. Goodrich Co. He 

 gradually worked his way up to an official position in the com- 

 pany. Even as a young clerk, he had the greatest confidence 

 in the future of the Goodrich company and invested all his 

 spare savings in its stock Me even borrowed money for this 

 same purpose, and as a result in time became one of its large 

 stockholders, and with the great increase in the value of his 

 holdings, he became a man of considerable wealth. 



After remaining with the Goodrich company for twenty-five 

 years, he retired from active work eight years ago, devoting two 

 years to foreign travel with his family. He then re- 

 turned and made his home in Framingham Center, Massa- 

 chusetts. During his career in Akron, he found time for church 

 work and charitable enterprises, and also served on the Akron 

 Board of Education. \fter his return from his travels six 

 i i: -. ago, he devoted himself very largely to philanthropic work. 

 lis wife was Miss Xettie Ferriot, of Akron, who, with a 

 daughter. Louise, survives him. 



GEORGE H. KENDRICK. 



George H. Kendrick. president of the Massachusetts Packing 

 & Belting Co.. of Boston, lost his life in the accident in Long 

 Island Sound on June 13. when the Metropolitan Line steamer 

 "Bunker Hill." on which he was returning from a building 

 trades convention at Atlantic City to his home in Quincy. was 

 rammed by the yacht "Vanadis," owned by C. K. G. Billings. 



