Fairfax Stuart Landstreet (1861-1931)

From the Redemption of New York, published 1902.

   A native son of Virginia who made his political and business fortunes in both West Virginia and New York state, Fairfax Stuart Landstreet accumulated a fortune through his being a past director and General Manager of the Davis Coal and Coke Company. While well-known in business circles during the early part of the 20th century, Landstreet also had minor involvement in political affairs of the time, being a delegate-at-large to the Republican National Convention of 1904 from West Virginia.

  Fairfax S. Landstreet was born in Fauquier County Virginia on June 17, 1861, a son of the Rev. John Landstreet, a former Confederate Army chaplain who had been in the service of Gen. Jacob Ewell Brown Stuart. Fairfax attended schools local to his place of birth and as an adolescent was sent by his parents to finish school in Baltimore, Maryland. After the completion of his schooling, Landstreet took on a position as clerk with the Davis Coal and Coke Company of West Virginia, owned by former U.S. Senator and 1904 Democratic Vice-Presidential candidate Henry Gassaway Davis (1823-1916). Landstreet married in December 1886 in Piedmont, West Virginia to Mary Davis (Senator Davis's niece), and the couple later had two children, Fairfax Stuart Jr. (1895-1929) and Mary Davis (birthdate unknown).

   Throughout the 1880s and early 1890s, Landstreet climbed the ranks of the Davis Coal and Coke Co., and in 1893 assumed the position of General Manager, with the company headquarters being located on Broadway in New York City. In addition to that post, Landstreet served as General Manager of the West Virginia, Chesapeake, and Potomac Railway's Company coal department. Prominent in banking in addition to his railroad and coal interests, Landstreet held the presidencies of the National Bank of Davis, West Virginia, and the Tucker County Bank.

  Landstreet's long-term connection with the Davis Coal and Coke Co. (amongst other endeavors) gained him a wide circle of acquaintances in both West Virginia and New York, and the 1904 Redemption of New York notes that his "eminently successful management of this, as well as other properties, has served to bring him into prominence, and to achieve for him a place in the foremost rank of New York's business men."

                                The 1904 West Virginia delegation to the Republican National Convention.

  In June 1904 Landstreet served as part of the West Virginia delegation to the Republican National Convention in Chicago that nominated Theodore Roosevelt for the Presidency. Following his service as an RNC delegate, Landstreet continued his successful career in business, becoming chairman of the board of the New York Dock Company, as well as the Pennsylvania Coal and Coke Company. He held both of these positions until his death on February 5, 1931, at the Union Memorial Hospital in Baltimore. He was 69 years of age and his cause of death was due to heart disease, as per the 1931 edition of the Mining Congress Journal. He was later entombed at the Landstreet family mausoleum at the Southampton Cemetery in Southampton, Long Island.

From the New York Sun, February 6, 1931.

Beveridge Colin Dunlop (1879-1961)

From the March 2, 1951 edition of the Orangetown Telegram.

   A one-term New York State Assemblyman and businessman in the county of Rockland, Beveridge Colin Dunlop was one of the aforementioned county's most highly regarded citizens. Bestowed a truly unusual first name upon his birth, Dunlop didn't let his odd name keep him from having a successful career in both business and politics. One of nine children born to Scottish immigrants John and Jeannie (Beveridge) Dunlop, Beveridge C. Dunlop was born in Paterson, New Jersey on April 28, 1879. 

  Bestowed the name "Beveridge" due to it being his mother's maiden name, Dunlop and his family resided in the Paterson area until 1887, when they moved to Rockland County, settling in the town of Spring Valley. He received his education in schools local to that town and around 1892 relocated back to New Jersey with his family. He graduated from the State Street High School in Hackensack in 1895 and thereafter returned to Spring Valley to join the family business.

  John Dunlop Sons Inc. was one of the largest silk manufacturing companies in New York and New Jersey and had a branch established in Spring Valley by John Dunlop in 1887. He retired from the business in 1890 and the company was taken over by the two eldest Dunlop sons, George and John. Beveridge joined this company when he was still a young man and continued to be connected with the company until it closed its doors in 1937. Beveridge served as a vice president and secretary of this company, and in addition to his involvement, he was instrumental in the manufacture of rayon (artificial silk) for many years. In 1927 he was named as a vice president and director of the North American Rayon Corporation and four years later became a vice president of another rayon manufacturer, the American Bemberg Corporation in New York City. 

   At the dawn of hostilities with Spain in 1898, Dunlop joined in the war effort, enlisting in the New Jersey Volunteer Infantry regiment at Hackensack. This company was later encamped in Florida for a time, but Dunlop's time in the outfit was short-lived. A fellow serviceman of his, Mr. George M. Edsall, recalled that Dunlop became seriously ill at the camp after eating spoiled beef, and that "his condition became so serious that his family chartered a special train equipped with two nurses to bring him home from the camp." Despite his illness, Dunlop later entered the military once again, serving with the Y.M.C.A's "Rainbow Division" during the First World War. Following his service in the Spanish-American War, Dunlop married in Albany on September 6, 1904, to Anna Norton Marvin (1880-1980), with whom he would have four children, John (born 1906), Janet (born 1909), Dudley Marvin (1913-1962) and Mary Dunlop Dedel (1916-2004). 

   With his name firmly established in the Rockland community, Dunlop entered state politics in 1913 when he announced his candidacy for the New York State Assembly. Although formerly a Republican, Dunlop jumped aboard the then-popular Progressive Party bandwagon, running on that party's platform. On election day 1913, he eked out a narrow victory over Democratic candidate Frederick Grimme with a vote of 4,347 to 4,287. Taking his seat in January of the new year, Beveridge Dunlop was named to the house committees on Ways and Means, Public Printing, and during his service is listed by a state assembly report as introducing legislation advocating the establishment of a "Minimum Wage Commission to protect minors under eighteen years of age and women from employment at wages insufficient to supply a necessary cost of living and maintain the health, morals and efficiency of the workers, defining the powers and the duties of the commission and appropriating $25,000."

   Dunlop ran for a second term in the assembly in 1914 and again was the Progressive Party nominee. He was defeated for reelection in November of that year, garnering 1,463 votes to winning Democratic candidate Frederick Grimme's total of 3,481.  

Dunlop's portrait from the 1914 New York Red Book.

  While he may have lost his assembly seat, Dunlop continued to be active in the public affairs of Rockland County, being named as a Republican Presidential elector in 1916. He continued an active schedule throughout the remainder of his life, holding an impressive number of positions in businesses located throughout New York and New Jersey, including the directorship of the U.S. Testing Company in Hoboken, director of the First National Bank of Spring Valley, director of the Allied Products Corporation of Suffern, New York and was a trustee of the Manhattan Savings Bank. Dunlop was also the chairman of the Spring Valley Board of Education for several years.

This portrait of Beveridge Dunlop appeared in a 1960 edition of the Orangetown Telegram.

  In addition to his business activities, Dunlop maintained a membership in the Athelstan Lodge #839 of the Free and Accepted Masons and was honored as a Past Master of that lodge. Active in the American scouting movement, Dunlop served as an Honorary President of the Rockland County Council of the Boy Scouts of America during the 1940s. The Pearl River Orangetown Telegram also notes that he was "an ardent sportsman and has hunted game in all parts of the country." Beveridge Dunlop died on July 2, 1961, at age 82. He was survived by his wife Anne, who, following her death at age 99 in 1980, was interred at the Brick Church Cemetery in New Hempstead, New York.

Cadalzo A. Dockstader (1861-1944)

   Possessing a truly unique first name, Cadalzo Dockstader was a locally prominent citizen in both St. Joseph County, Michigan, and later, Syracuse, New York. Born in Nevada County, California on July 2, 1861, Cadalzo was one of three children born to Giles Fonda and Mary Louise Keller Dockstader. Giles and his wife had migrated from Michigan to California sometime previously, and at some point following their son's birth removed back to the Michigan area, settling in the county of St. Joseph.

  Cadalzo Dockstader enrolled at the Michigan State Agricultural College at East Lansing, graduating from this school in August 1882. A short while later he became engaged as a druggist in the city of Three Rivers, becoming a partner of Henry Hall in the pharmacy office of Hall and Dockstader. Their business is recorded as being "one of the oldest drug stores in Three Rivers" as well as being dealers in peppermint oil. Dockstader himself is referred to as a "dealer in domestic essential oils, farmer and druggist" in a publication by his Alma mater. In the late 1880s, Dockstader married Eva Belle Jackson (1865-1917) with whom he would have one daughter, Mary Jane (1889-1922). 

  While prominent as a druggist in his community, Dockstader gained further notoriety in 1896 when he was elected Mayor of the city of Three Rivers, which had been incorporated as a municipality a short while before. Dockstader was the second man to serve as mayor of the city (succeeding Marvin H. Bumphrey) and held office from April 1897 to April 1899. Two years after his term as Mayor had concluded, Dockstader won election as a Probate Judge for St. Joseph County, serving on the bench until 1905. 

   A few years after the conclusion of his term as judge, the Dockstader family removed from Three Rivers to Syracuse, New York, where they would reside for the rest of their lives. Within a few years of his relocation to the Empire State Dockstader had established business roots in Onondaga County, becoming an "apple orchidist" and was Secretary of the Onondaga Orchid Co. in the town of Fabius. He served in the capacity of Secretary-Treasurer of the North Syracuse Light and Power Company during the early 1920s and in addition to the proceeding held the Presidency of the Cicero State Bank at Cicero, New York for an indeterminate length of time. Eva Dockstader died of an undisclosed illness in Syracuse in November 1917 at age 52, and Cadalzo never remarried following her death. Five years following his wife's passing Dockstader was dealt another tragedy when his only daughter Mary Jane died at age 33. 

  In 1929 Dockstader reentered the political forum, launching a campaign for Mayor of North Syracuse, New York. Dockstader ran as a "non-partisan candidate" and faced off against Republican Ernest Conway during the contest. On election day Dockstader emerged victorious, besting Conway by a close vote of 312 to 302. Two newspaper snippets concerning the election (both of which appeared in the Syracuse Journal in March 1929) are located below. Dockstader's one term as Mayor ended in 1931, and it is worth noting that he is the first oddly named politician profiled here on the site who served as a Mayor in two different states.

  Little else is known of Dockstader's life after he left office, and one can presume that he carried on with his earlier agricultural and banking interests in Onondaga County. Cadalzo Dockstader died at the Duryee Nursing Home in Syracuse on December 15, 1944, at age 83 and was shortly thereafter cremated. His remains were later interred at the North Syracuse Cemetery. The rare portrait of him shown above was found in the 1895 work Headlight Flashes Along the Michigan Central Line, which highlighted important civic and business leaders in the Three Rivers area.

From the December 16, 1944 edition of the Syracuse Journal.

Kester Winfield Staib (1865-1915), Kester Ulm Snyder (1891-1961)

Portrait from the Middletown Daily Times

   Hailing from the small town of Hancock in Delaware County, New York, Kester Winfield Staib's career on the New York political stage was quite brief, lasting all of a few months. His placement here on the site rests on his short tenure as Mayor of the city of Middletown, New York in 1903, after which he removed to New York City to begin a new career as an architectural draughtsman.

   Born in Peakville, New York in 1865, Kester Winfield Staib was one of two sons born to Henry and Adaline Fuller Staib. Kester and his family moved to New York City shortly after his birth and it was here that he attended school. Staib later studied at the Hancock Union School and went on to graduate from the Lowell Business School in Binghamton.

   On October 17, 1892, Staib married in New York to Ms. Mary Kane, and they later became the parents of one daughter, Virginia Fuller Staib (born 1901). The Staib family moved to Middletown, New York sometime in the mid-1890s, where Kester became employed as a roadmaster's clerk in the chief engineer's office of the Ontario and Western Railroad. Staib later left this employ and was elected as a Democratic alderman for Middletown, later becoming President of the Common Council of that city in the early 1900s.

  In February 1903 then Mayor of Middletown George W. O'Neil (1851-1936) resigned after serving only three months in office. As president of the Common Council, Kester Staib assumed the position of Mayor and served out the remainder of O'Neil's term, which concluded at the end of 1903. Staib did not run for his own term as Mayor in 1904 and Aaron J. Hornbeck won that year's election. Staib returned to life as a private citizen and underwent a career change of sorts when he removed back to New York City in 1904. Here he began the study of architecture and later designed houses in both New York and New Jersey, while also being engaged in the manufacture of a "leading window device" with his father. Staib's obituary also lists him as being a member of the "police force of the Croton aqueduct"  as well as being a foreman at the Monhagen Hose Company.

  Kester Winfield Staib died at his home in Brooklyn on July 20, 1915, at age 49. The cause of death was listed in his Middletown Daily Times obituary as a result of "acute indigestion", and his remains were later removed to his native town of Hancock for burial in the St. Paul's Cemetery. Staib's wife Mary and daughter Virginia both survived him.

 From the 1915 Middletown Times.

                      An obituary for Staib appeared in the Middletown Daily Times on July 22, 1915.

Portrait from the Kansas Government Journal.

   A lifelong resident of Kansas, Kester Ulm "K.U." Snyder represented Johnson County in the Kansas State Senate for two terms beginning in the late 1940s. Born on September 9, 1891, in Ashland, Kansas, Kester U. Snyder was the son of William Kester and Della Amanda Snyder. Known by the nickname "Kess", Snyder would study at the Kansas State Agricultural College until 1914, whereafter he left to join the U.S. Navy. He would serve in the Navy during the First World War and upon returning to Kansas engaged in farm work.

  In the early 1930s Snyder enrolled at the Kansas City School of Law and following his graduation practiced law in both Kansas and Missouri. In 1948 he was elected to the Kansas State Senate from that state's 6th district and would serve two terms, the last concluding in 1953. He would later run an unsuccessful candidacy for Probate Judge of Johnson County and died at Bucyrus, Kansas on March 30, 1961, at age 69. He was survived by his second wife Mina (1898-1997) and was interred at the Mount Moriah Cemetery in Kansas City, Kansas.