James Boorman Colgate (March 4, 1818 – February 7, 1904), son of

William Colgate William Colgate (January 25, 1783 – March 25, 1857) was an English-American industrialist who in 1806 founded what became the Colgate-Palmolive company. Early life William Colgate was born in Hollingbourne, Kent, England, on January 25, 1783, ...

and Mary Gilbert, was an American

financier An investor is a person who allocates financial capital with the expectation of a future return (profit) or to gain an advantage (interest). Through this allocated capital the investor usually purchases some species of property. Types of in ...

and member of the Colgate family, founders of the

Colgate-Palmolive The Colgate-Palmolive Company, commonly known as Colgate-Palmolive, is an American multinational corporation, multinational consumer products company headquartered on Park Avenue in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. The company specializes in ...

conglomerate.

Biography

He was born in

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

and received his first training in the house of Boorman, Johnston, and Company. In 1852, he formed a partnership with Wall Street pioneer John Bond Trevor of the Glenview Mansion, and opened the banking house of Trevor and Colgate; this company dealt in stocks, securities and precious metals and regulated a large portion of the gold and paper exchange during the Civil War. He was one of the founders of the

New York Gold Exchange The New York Gold Exchange was an exchange formed shortly after the beginning of the American Civil War for the purpose of creating an open market for transactions involving gold and the government-created paper currency, the greenback. Establi ...

and was for several years its president. In 1873, the firm changed its name to J. B. Colgate and Company. His extensive loans to the federal government during the financial crisis of 1873 contributed materially to the reestablishment of confidence both in the United States and the markets of

Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...

. As a trustee of Colgate (formerly Madison) University, he for 30 years made almost annual donations to that institution, the development of which is due chiefly to his constant care and valuable advice. Colgate is also the

namesake A namesake is a person, place, or thing bearing the name of another. Most commonly, it refers to an individual who is purposely named after another (e.g. John F. Kennedy Jr would be the namesake of John F. Kennedy). In common parlance, it may ...

for the town of Colgate, a small

unincorporated community An unincorporated area is a parcel of land that is not governed by a local general-purpose municipal corporation. (At p. 178.) They may be governed or serviced by an encompassing unit (such as a county) or another branch of the state (such as th ...

in Steele County,

North Dakota North Dakota ( ) is a U.S. state in the Upper Midwest, named after the indigenous Dakota people, Dakota and Sioux peoples. It is bordered by the Canadian provinces of Saskatchewan and Manitoba to the north and by the U.S. states of Minneso ...

, founded in 1882. Colgate was the county's largest landowner, with that he purchased from the

Northern Pacific Railroad The Northern Pacific Railway was an important American transcontinental railroad that operated across the northern tier of the Western United States, from Minnesota to the Pacific Northwest between 1864 and 1970. It was approved and chartered b ...

in 1880.

Personal life

In 1844, Colgate married S. Ellen Hoyt of Utica, N.Y., by whom he had one son, William Hoyt Colgate. Ellen died in 1846 and on February 19, 1851, he remarried to Susan Farnum Colby, daughter of Gov. Anthony Colby and Mary Messinger Everett of New London, N.H. His children by the second marriage were Mary (1857–1936) and James Colby Colgate (1863–1944).

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Colgate, James Boorman Businesspeople from New York City American financiers 1818 births 1904 deaths 19th-century American businesspeople Colgate family