Oroondates Mauran

Oroondates Mauran (1791-1846) was a businessman in New York City who owned steamship and ferry operations.

Early life

Mauran was born in Barrington, Rhode Island, the eighth child of Joseph Carlo and Olive (Bicknell) Mauran.[1] His father commanded two armed ships during the American Revolution.[2]: 183 

Business career

He moved to New York City when he was 19 to become a merchant. Together with his partner Samuel Coates, he established the firm Coates & Mauran which owned ships that carried cargo from New York to the West Indies.[3] In 1822, he also entered into a venture to run regularly scheduled ships between New York City and Charleston, South Carolina.[3][4]

Mauran bought a 50% stake in the Richmond Turnpike Company, which had been founded by Staten Island resident and United States Vice-President Daniel D. Tompkins. The company also operated the first steam boat ferry between Manhattan and Staten Island which became known simply as the Staten Island Ferry.[5][6]

In 1848 he was involved in a court case related to one of the Turnpike ships, the Sampson,[7] which also had participated in a ramming battle with a rival ferry on September 2, 1838.[8] It was alleged in court that Mauran expressly approved of the ramming and even expressed regret the captain had not sunk the rival Wave.[9]

Mauran and Cornelius Vanderbilt gained control of the Turnpike company in 1838 after Thomkins died. However the Richmmond Turnpike Company was set to expire (having a limited duration by statute) so the partners assigned the equipment and real estate leases to themselves. The whole affair was bogged down in the courts for years[10] but the $50,000 annual profit made the business worth fighting for.[11] Mauran managed the company as President.[9] The same year Mauran died, Vanderbilt bought from his estate his shares in the Staten Island Ferry for $80,000.[5]

Family

Mauran married Martha Eddy[3] in 1814 in Providence, Rhode Island. She was the daughter of Samuel Eddy, a Member of Congress, 1819-1825 and Rhode Island Chief Justice, 1827-1835. They had a daughter Josephine, (d. 1858) who married Oliver Wolcott Gibbs, Rumford Professor at Harvard.[12] Their eldest son, James Eddy Mauran (1817-1888), married Alice Cooper, a niece of James Fenimore Cooper. James became a noted bibliophile, linguist, antiquarian, and expert on heraldry. He was President of the Redwood Library in Newport, Rhode Island. [13]

Other activities

Mauran lived in Manhattan in winter and on Staten Island in the summer. He purchased his Staten Island residence on Grymes Hill in 1831.[14]

He was part of the founding of the first Italian Opera House in New York at the corner of Church and Lombard streets, opened November 18, 1833 at a cost of over $100,000. The theatre burned down in 1839 after being unsuccessfully offered for sale at a time when opera was a novelty in America.[2]: 183 [11] He was one of the oldest members of the Union Club of the City of New York.[11][15]

References

  1. ↑ "Joseph Carlo Mauran (1807–1838)". ancestry. Retrieved 2019-10-17.
  2. 1 2 "Chapter Thirteen: In the World of Music". Center for Migration Studies Special Issues. 16 (4): 176–202. 2000. doi:10.1111/j.2050-411X.2000.tb00285.x.
  3. 1 2 3 Bean, Phoebe (May 14, 2015). "Object Thursday: Pirates Off Cuba! 1829".
  4. ↑ Christopher T. Baer. "A GENERAL CHRONOLOGY OF THE PENNSYLVANIA RAILROAD COMPANY ITS PREDECESSORS AND SUCCESSORS AND ITS HISTORICAL CONTEXT 1820 to 1824" (PDF) (May 2015 ed.). Retrieved 2019-10-18. Apr. 1, 1822: Barker & Hopkins and Oroondates Mauran (1796-1846) begin a regular line of packets between New York and Charleston (the "Old Established Line") with sailings three times a month; this is the first regularly scheduled packet.
  5. 1 2 Stiles, T. J. (February 12, 2010). The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt. Vintage Books. pp. 206–207. ISBN 9781400031740 – via Google Books.
  6. ↑ "The Cast: Chapter 5 & 6 - T.J. Stiles". www.tjstiles.net.
  7. ↑ "Case No. 6,290: The H. B. Foster" (PDF). April 22, 1848 – via YesWeScan: The FEDERAL CASES.
  8. ↑ "Radical Growth and Change within Rev. James Brownlee's 60 years of Stable Leadership 1835-1895". Old Dutch Church NYC.
  9. 1 2 New York (State) Court of Appeals; Comstock, George Franklin; Selden, Henry Rogers; Kernan, Francis; Hand, Samuel (February 12, 1850). "Reports of Cases Decided in the Court of Appeals of the State of New York". Lawyer's Co-Operative Publishing Company – via Google Books.
  10. ↑ "Vanderbilt v. the Richmond Turnpike Company, 2 N.Y. 479 | Casetext". casetext.com.
  11. 1 2 3 Stockbridge, John Calvin (1893). "Memorials of the Mauran Family". Snow & Farnham – via Google Books.
  12. ↑ "President Roosevelt's African Trip". Science. 28 (729): 876–877. December 18, 1908. Bibcode:1908Sci....28..876.. doi:10.1126/science.28.729.876. PMID 17743798.
  13. ↑ Obituary, ‘’New York Times’’, October 1888
  14. ↑ "History".
  15. ↑ "Oroondates Mauran". A Lively Experiment. Retrieved Oct 18, 2019.
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