Roswell Pettibone Flower (August 7, 1835May 12, 1899) was an American politician who served as the 30th

governor of New York The governor of New York is the head of government of the U.S. state of New York. The governor is the head of the executive branch of New York's state government and the commander-in-chief of the state's military forces. The governor ...

from 1892 to 1894. He also served two terms in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1881 to 1883 (NY-11) and from 1889 to 1891 (NY-12).

Biography

He was born on August 7, 1835, to Nathan Monroe Flower and Mary Ann Flower, the sixth of nine children. As a youth, he worked in odd jobs, which enabled him to cover the cost of his education at a local village school. He graduated from high school in 1851, and for a short period thereafter he worked as a teacher in a district school. In 1853, he became Deputy Postmaster of Watertown, New York, at a salary of $600 a year, and after six years had saved $1,000 and opened with a partner a jewelry store. Two years later, he bought his partner out and continued in this business until 1869. In 1869, Henry Keep, a former President of the

New York Central Railroad The New York Central Railroad was a railroad primarily operating in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes and Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The railroad primarily connected New York metropolitan area, gr ...

, was dying and asked Roswell Flower, whose wife was a sister of Keep's wife Emma, to manage the $4,000,000 estate for his widow. Flower asked Keep for guidance on who he could trust and named a business associate,

Daniel Drew Daniel Drew (July 29, 1797 – September 18, 1879) was an American businessman, steamship and railroad developer, and financier, one of the " robber barons" of the Gilded Age. Summarizing his life, Henry Clews wrote: "Of all the great oper ...

. Keep replied, "He is as honest a man as there is in the State of New York, but for fear that somebody else will cheat, he will always begin first." The business brought Flower to

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 ...

where he became known as a shrewd financial administrator and opened the banking house of R. P. Flower & Co. He was elected as a Democrat to the

47th United States Congress The 47th United States Congress was a meeting of the legislative branch of the United States federal government, consisting of the United States Senate and the United States House of Representatives. It met in Washington, D.C. from March 4, 1881, ...

to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of

Levi P. Morton Levi Parsons Morton (May 16, 1824 – May 16, 1920) was the 22nd vice president of the United States from 1889 to 1893. He also served as List of ambassadors of the United States to France, United States ambassador to France, as a United States H ...

upon his appointment as Minister to France, and served from November 8, 1881, to March 3, 1883. He was also elected to the 51st and 52nd United States Congresses, and served from March 4, 1889, to September 16, 1891, when he resigned upon his nomination for governor. He was Governor of New York from 1892 to 1894, elected in 1891, the last one to serve a three-year term. During his term, he signed into law the creation of the City of Niagara Falls. In the years after his term as governor, Flower gained a reputation as a canny investor and attracted the attention of traders and investors from all over the United States. As a result of this strong following, Flower possessed an extraordinary capability to influence market sentiment. His aggressive move on Brooklyn Rapid Transit drove the share price of this company from $6 to over $130 a share in a relatively short period of time. The dramatic rise of this stock was widely credited with triggering the bull market that ran from 1898 to 1899. Flower was Chairman of the

Cornell University Board of Trustees Cornell University is a private Ivy League research university based in Ithaca, New York, United States. The university was co-founded by American philanthropist Ezra Cornell and historian and educator Andrew Dickson White in 1865. Sin ...

from 1897 to his death in 1899. Flower was president of the New York State Agricultural Society in 1899. He died of a

heart attack A myocardial infarction (MI), commonly known as a heart attack, occurs when Ischemia, blood flow decreases or stops in one of the coronary arteries of the heart, causing infarction (tissue death) to the heart muscle. The most common symptom ...

on May 12, 1899, in Eastport, New York, at the Long Island Country Clubhouse. His death disrupted the planned purchase by a consortium of investors, including Flower and William Henry Moore, of the steel-related holdings of

Andrew Carnegie Andrew Carnegie ( , ; November 25, 1835August 11, 1919) was a Scottish-American industrialist and philanthropist. Carnegie led the expansion of the History of the iron and steel industry in the United States, American steel industry in the late ...

about a year and a half before

J. P. Morgan John Pierpont Morgan Sr. (April 17, 1837 – March 31, 1913) was an American financier and investment banker who dominated corporate finance on Wall Street throughout the Gilded Age and Progressive Era. As the head of the banking firm that ...

purchased the same interests in the deal that formed U.S. Steel.

Legacy

A monument to Flower, designed by noted sculptor

Augustus Saint-Gaudens Augustus Saint-Gaudens (; March 1, 1848 – August 3, 1907) was an American sculpture, sculptor of the Beaux-Arts architecture, Beaux-Arts generation who embodied the ideals of the American Renaissance. Saint-Gaudens was born in Dublin to an Iris ...

in 1902, is located on lower Washington Street at Watertown. It is in the Public Square Historic District, listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...

in 1984. The Roswell P. Flower Memorial Library was built in 1903–04 as a memorial to Flower. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1980.

References

External links

''Off-Hand Portraits of Prominent New Yorkers''
by Stephen Fiske (re-published by BiblioBazaar, LLC, 2009, , , pages 148ff) ives wrong birthyear "1838", and misstates relation to Keep {{DEFAULTSORT:Flower, Roswell Pettibone 1835 births 1899 deaths Democratic Party governors of New York (state) American Presbyterians People from Theresa, New York New York (state) postmasters Democratic Party members of the United States House of Representatives from New York (state) Politicians from Watertown, New York 19th-century members of the United States House of Representatives Chairs of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee