Alonzo Clark Mather (April 12, 1848 – January 25, 1941) was founder and president of the Mather Stock Car Company, a U.S. firm that built and leased

railroad Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport that transfers passengers and goods on wheeled vehicles running on rails, which are incorporated in tracks. In contrast to road transport, where the vehicles run on a pre ...

freight car A railroad car, railcar ( American and Canadian English), railway wagon, railway carriage, railway truck, railwagon, railcarriage or railtruck (British English and UIC), also called a train car, train wagon, train carriage or train truck, is ...

s, especially

stock car Stock car racing is a form of automobile racing run on oval tracks and road courses measuring approximately . It originally used production-model cars, hence the name "stock car", but is now run using cars specifically built for racing. It ori ...

Birth and education

Alonzo Mather was born in

Fairfield, New York Fairfield is a town in Herkimer County, New York, United States. The population was 1,627 at the 2010 census. The town is named after Fairfield, Connecticut. The town is north of the village of Herkimer and east of Utica. The hamlet of Fairfiel ...

, in 1848; the second son of Dr. William Mather and Mary Ann (Buell) Mather. His father was a noted professor who traveled extensively, leaving his mother to raise him and his siblings. However, although Dr. Mather was away from home frequently for extended periods of time, he corresponded often with his family by mail. Alonzo Mather was a direct descendant of the Reverend Richard Mather, grandfather of

Cotton Mather Cotton Mather (; February 12, 1663 – February 13, 1728) was a New England Puritan clergyman and a prolific writer. Educated at Harvard College, in 1685 he joined his father Increase as minister of the Congregationalist Old North Meetin ...

. Alonzo Mather attended

Fairfield Seminary Fairfield may refer to: Places Australia * Fairfield, New South Wales, a western suburb of Sydney. **Electoral district of Fairfield, the corresponding seat in the New South Wales Legislative Assembly * Fairfield, Queensland * Fairfield, Victoria ...

, and upon graduation, was allowed to choose between continuing his education in college or entering the workforce in business. He chose to forego college and went straight into work in

Utica, New York Utica () is a city in the Mohawk Valley and the county seat of Oneida County, New York, United States. The tenth-most-populous city in New York State, its population was 65,283 in the 2020 U.S. Census. Located on the Mohawk River at the foot ...

, when he was 16. After gaining work experience there, he moved to

Quincy, Illinois Quincy ( ), known as Illinois's "Gem City", is a city in and the county seat of Adams County, Illinois, United States, located on the Mississippi River. The 2020 census counted a population of 39,463 in the city itself, down from 40,633 in 2010. ...

; and then to

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = List of sovereign states, Count ...

in 1875. He married Martha C. Johnson and had one daughter by her; Martha J. Mather on April 28, 1879. Shortly after his daughter's birth, his wife died. Alonzo Mather remarried after her death to Louise Eames.

Starting his own businesses

In Chicago, Mather started a wholesale business called Alonzo C. Mather and Company. It was while Mather was working here that he first developed a more humane

for the shipment of

livestock Livestock are the domesticated animals raised in an agricultural setting to provide labor and produce diversified products for consumption such as meat, eggs, milk, fur, leather, and wool. The term is sometimes used to refer solely to anima ...

by rail. Mather's design amenities for the livestock included feeding and watering facilities that had previously been unapplied to railroad rolling stock. By 1881, he had started the Mather Stock Car Company to build stock cars based on his design. Mather's stock car innovations were considered so valuable to livestock shipping that the American Humane Society awarded him a medal for the humane treatment of animals in 1883. Soon, Mather cars were in revenue service on a large number of railroads in North America. Mather recognized that many railroads would be willing to reduce their operating expenses by leasing rolling stock rather than purchasing or building it, so his company began leasing the cars that it produced — a practice that helped keep the company solvent through the Great Depression of the 1930s. Throughout his time in Chicago, Mather never forgot his home in New York. In 1893 he proposed a design for an international harbor on the waterways around Fort Erie, Ontario/ Buffalo, New York. Mather's plans included new electrical generation plants at the falls; his plans conflicted with those of other electricity companies in the area, and Mather's plan was eventually abandoned. The US-

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tota ...

Peace Bridge The Peace Bridge is an international bridge between Canada and the United States at the east end of Lake Erie at the source of the Niagara River, about upriver of Niagara Falls. It connects Buffalo, New York, in the United States to Fort Erie ...

was constructed at that location within his lifetime, but it was not based on any of Mather's plans.

Death and legacy

Upon his death in

Los Angeles, California Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the wo ...

, Alonzo Mather's estate totaled around US$5 million, $3 million of which was bequeathed to build the Alonzo Mather Aged Ladies' Home in Evanston, IL, and another $15,000 to build a new

Episcopal Episcopal may refer to: *Of or relating to a bishop, an overseer in the Christian church *Episcopate, the see of a bishop – a diocese *Episcopal Church (disambiguation), any church with "Episcopal" in its name ** Episcopal Church (United State ...

church in his family's home town of Fairfield, NY. The former headquarters of the Mather Stock Car Company; the Mather Tower still stands in Chicago's elegant downtown area. The tower was designated as a Chicago Historic Landmark in 2001. Mather LifeWays began as a gift distributed in 1941 from Alonzo's estate. Mr. Mather's interment location is at Forest Lawn, Glendale. It is a private room just to the left of the main entrance of The Great Mausoleum.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mather, Alonzo C. 1848 births 1941 deaths American people in rail transportation Businesspeople from Chicago