"Me Too" Moment for Men

Originally published by WAYNE MADSEN REPORTS, a subscription-only website

Written by Wayne Madsen

publication date: Nov 28, 2017

November 28-29, 2017 -- Republicans own "Pizzagate"

If the Republican Party is good at anything, it is projecting their faults and scandals on others. The so-called "Pizzagate" scandal, which is now "honored" by its own Wikipedia entry, is a case in point. After hackers released emails of Hillary Clinton's campaign manager John Podesta during the 2016 presidential campaign, GOP operatives began spreading ludicrous allegations that Podesta's emails contained coded references to child sex trafficking and even satanic child sacrifice. "Cheese pizza" was said to stand for child pornography and the alleged child sex trafficking ring was echoed by anonymous users on 4chan and the fringe site Godlike Productions.

No one took these allegations seriously except for conspiracy quarters like Alex Jones's Infowars. One of the chief promoters of the bogus Pizzagate story was current Infowars host Mike Cernovich, a failed attorney originally from the small community of Kewanee, Illinois. 

Cernovich, without a shred of evidence, alleged that Comet Ping Pong, a northwest Washington family-friendly pizza restaurant, and its owner, James Alefantis, were harboring abducted children in a basement of the eatery. There is no basement but that was not known to Edgar Welch, who drove to the pizzeria from North Carolina and fired three shots from his AR-15 semi-automatic rifle after he discovered there was no basement at Comet Ping Pong.

Neighboring DC businesses and pizzerias in other cities were also victimized by the Pizzagate conspiracists. These included Besta Pizza, three doors away from Comet Ping Pong, as well as Little Red Fox cafe, the Politics and Prose bookstore, and the Terasol French bistro. Roberta's pizzeria in Brooklyn, New York was also targeted by those who claimed the establishment served the interests of the Clintons. East Side Pies in Austin, Texas was targeted for harassment by those who believed the pizzeria was a CIA front and an extension of the Illuminati. The presence of Alex Jones and his motley crew of ne'er-do-well conspiracy kooks cannot be ruled out as a factor in the harassment of East Side Pies. The FBI investigated the harassment directed against all the businesses targeted by the Pizzagate promoters.

Cernovich decided to abandon the practice of law for vigilantism when he led the "Gamergate" operation that targeted females in the video gaming industry. Cernovich made fun of breast cancer and rape. In 2003, Cernovich was charged with rape while a law student at Pepperdine University in Malibu, California. The criminal charges were later dropped to misdemeanor battery and Cernovich served a sentence of community service. His criminal record was later expunged. 

Recently, Cernovich has attacked the nine women who have come forward with accounts of being sexually assaulted by Alabama GOP Senate candidate Roy Moore, some when they were underage. Cernovich was aided in his attack on the Alabama accusers of Moore by Jack Prosobiec, a Lieutenant junior grade in the Naval Reserve whose active duty billet is assigned to Navy Operational Support Center in Washington, DC. Born in the Philadelphia area, Prosobiec's reserve unit is at the Joint Reserve Intelligence Support Element Dekalb in the Chicago suburbs. In March 2017, Prosobiec resigned from the Office of Naval Intelligence and the press officer for the Naval Reserve Forces confirmed that Prosobiec's access to classified information had been suspended and his security clearance was under review. Prosobiec has also appeared numerous times as a guest on Infowars, an operation that has drawn the likes of GOP dirty tricks operatives Roger Stone and James O'Keefe.

Cernovich Navy assignment - checking urine samples

The only significant collateral duty Prosobiec seems to have had in the Navy Reserve was as a urinalysis coordinator. Dealing with piss samples is not exactly the most career-enhancing job for a Navy intelligence officer. The Navy has a tradition of assigning unwanted collateral positions to under-performing officers. Prosobiec appears to be one such a Navy underachiever.

Cernovich has an interesting connection to a pizzeria in the same vicinity where Prosobiec's Navy Reserve unit is located. Cernovich's cousin, John Cernovich, owns Cerno's 1898 Bar & Grill in Kewanee, a restaurant that specializes in pizza. Mike Cernovich's website is titled "Cerno." 

Northern Illinois cities

The northern Illinois area also includes Yorkville, where disgraced former U.S. House Speaker Dennis Hastert, a Republican, molested and assaulted underage boys when he was a Yorkville high school wrestling coach. Local Illinois observers believe Mike Cernovich, knowing something about the pizza restaurant business from his extended family, cooked up the entire "Pizzagate" controversy because he understood how it could be punishing for the targeted businesses.

More importantly, Cernovich and his confederates wanted to draw attention away from Donald Trump and other top Republicans and their own involvement with sexual abuse of underage females.

Yorkville continues to be "ground zero" for child sexual molestation charges against Hastert, who was released in August of this year from the Federal Medical Center in Rochester, Minnesota after serving a prison sentence for crimes associated with paying hush money to "Individual A," who Hastert molested when the victim was a teen. In another legal action, "Richard Doe," an alias, alleges that Hastert molested him when he was 9-years old.

Doe's lawsuit alleges that in the spring or summer of 1973 or 1974, when Doe was around 9-years old and in the fourth grade, he was riding his bike in Yorkville and stopped at what was then the state Game Farm Building to go to the restroom. While on the toilet, Doe said he heard "a male voice mutter something outside the stall door." Doe's statement continues, "Suddenly, the stall door opened and a large man [who was later identified as Hastert] entered the stall. . . [Doe] believes the man’s genitals were exposed at that time. Hastert grabbed [Doe] by the neck, bent him over the toilet, and proceeded to forcefully sodomize [Doe]." Doe said he saw Hastert's face but did not know who he was.

After the alleged assault took place, Hastert left the restroom.

The lawsuit states that several weeks after the alleged attack, Doe was in gym class at Yorkville Grade School, which is located next door to the old Yorkville High School, where Hastert was a teacher and coach at the time. Doe claims Hastert walked into the gym class and talked to his teacher, who happened to be Jean Kahn Hastert. Doe said upon recognizing Hastert, he began “shaking and crying.” Hastert then approached Doe. The lawsuit states, "Hastert took [Doe] by the neck and led him into the hallway. . . In the hallway, Hastert dropped to his knees and asked [Doe] if he told anyone about the assault. [Doe], still crying, said no. Hastert warned [Doe] against reporting the attack, threatening that Hastert’s father was the sheriff and, if [Doe] told, his parents would be put in jail.”

Hastert's Clock Tower in Plainfield

Hastert’s father, Jack Hastert, was a funeral home embalmer and operated a feed store and restaurant. He was not the sheriff of Kendall County. He owned Hastert Farm Supply in Aurora, Illinois and the Clock Tower Restaurant in Plainfield, Illinois [pictured, left].

The lawsuit alleges that “Hastert violated [his] duty by sexually assaulting [Doe] and both threatening [Doe] to prevent him from reporting the crime and failing to inform [Doe] that he had a cause of action against Hastert."

Doe said it was 1984 or 1985, when he was 20 or 21, when he "began to comprehend the scope of the malevolent acts perpetrated by Hastert on him as a child."

It was during that period that Doe visited the Kendall County State’s Attorney’s Office to report the crime and spoke to then-State’s Attorney Dallas Ingemunson.

Unbeknownst to Doe, Ingemunson, considered the political kingmaker of Kendall County in his role as county Republican Party chairman, was a major promoter of Hastert’s political career and served as Hastert's personal lawyer and business partner.

Doe's suit states that, "Upon hearing [Doe’s] report, Ingemunson threatened to charge [Doe] with a crime and accused him of slandering Hastert’s name." Ingemunson's threats "traumatized [Doe], repressed the sexual assault by Hastert, and . . . intimidated [Doe] into silence."

Although his father ran a restaurant, Dennis Hastert is said by Yorkville friends to have been more comfortable going to "Pizza Hut."

There is a Pizzagate scandal involving the trafficking and molestation of children, but it has everything to do with the GOP of [closeted] gays, old men, and pedophiles. Trump's fabulists -- Cernovich, Prosobiec, Stone, Jones, and O'Keefe -- can rant all they want, but sheer facts have never been on their side.

And, in another pizza reference to GOP child molestation, WMR has learned that one of the underage female victims of Trump and Jeffrey Epstein was abducted at the age of 12 from in front of a pizza shop. But, more on that later . . .

 
Photo captioning added.

Log Cabin Stud, Horse Stables of George Herbert Walker

The following article is reprinted here as it is shown on the website of  The Entertainment, Arts and Sports Law Blog, sponsored by the Entertainment, Arts and Sports Law Section of the New York State Bar Association, and all credit for it is reserved in favor of that website and its organization.

Log Cabin Stud: The Bipartisan Politically Powerful Stable

By Bennett Liebman
Government Lawyer in Residence

We take it as a given that horse racing and politics generally don't mix well, and most states have laws and rules that try to keep government officials from having interests in racing operations. Yet in the years before these regulations, there were times when political interests were invested in racing. Tammany boss Richard Croker was heavily involved with horse racing in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He even won the English Derby in 1907 with his horse Ormsby, after he had retired to Ireland. Tammany leader and Congressman "Big Tim" Sullivan ran a stable of horses in the early 20th century and also had interests in various racetracks. John Morrissey, the principal founder of Saratoga Race Course, served as a Congressman and as a State Senator. It is likely that Morrissey's involvement in government was to protect his illegal gambling establishments.

Ogden Mills - a Congressman from New York State who ran unsuccessfully as the Republican candidate for New York State Governor in 1926 - founded the Wheatley Stables with his sister Gladys Mills Phipps. Mills also served as the Secretary of the Treasury under President Herbert Hoover. He was the uncle of Ogden Phipps and the great uncle of Ogden Mills Phipps.

William Collins Whitney - the founder of the Whitney interests in horse racing - was an active Democrat. He ran unsuccessfully for District Attorney in New York City, was a long-time supporter and a member of the cabinet under President Grover Cleveland, and was nearly nominated as the Democratic candidate for Governor in 1894.

August Belmont served as the chairman of the Democratic National Committee in the 1860's.

Log Cabin Stud

Yet of all these potentially politically powerful stables, the most potent was probably the Log Cabin Stud of the mid 1920's. The stable was significant politically when it was formed due to the wealth of its partners, but only in retrospect can the political clout of this stable be seen. Ninety years after it was established, the extent of the political influence of this stable is still being felt.

W. Averell Harriman

Log Cabin Stud was the partnership of W. Averell Harriman and George Herbert Walker. They were at the time principals of the Wall Street investment banking firm, W.A. Harriman & Co. Harriman had inherited one of the largest fortunes in the world. Walker founded, owned and ran the very successful St. Louis investment company, G. H. Walker and Co. and had amassed his own very ample fortune. When W.A. Harriman & Co. was formed, George Herbert Walker moved in 1920 from St. Louis to New York City to become president of W.A. Harriman & Co. Harriman was the Chairman of the Board.

G. Herbert "Bert" Walker

In the 1920's, both Harriman and Walker would have been considered to be major sportsmen. Walker was a former president of the United States Golf Association. He established and provided the trophy for the Walker Cup, which is the amateur golf tournament between Great Britain and the United States. He was the amateur heavyweight champion of Missouri. He played competitive tennis. (His friend in St. Louis, Dwight Davis, had established the Davis Cup in tennis.) He was one of the original investors of Madison Square Garden, which opened in the 1920's. He was a member of the Jockey Club, and for approximately a decade - until 1934 - he was a member of the New York State Racing Commission. Eventually his son George Herbert Walker, Jr. would became one of the initial investors and a director of the New York Mets. His son-in-law Prescott Bush also served as a president of the United States Golf Association.

Harriman was more than 15 years younger than Walker and an equally accomplished sportsman. He was a talented harness driver, a world class polo player (allegedly the fourth highest rated player in the nation) a star croquet player, and a coach and an oarsman on the Yale crew team. Harriman was also a talented skier who developed the Sun Valley ski resort in Idaho.

Harry Payne Whitney

Given their positions, competitiveness, wealth, social prominence, and mutual interests, it only made sense that they would be involved in thoroughbred racing. In 1922, Harry Payne Whitney offered to sell Harriman two horses in training plus six yearlings. Harriman took him up on the offer, and started the Log Cabin Stud with Walker.

Their major plunge into racing did not occur until January of 1925. For $250,000, they bought the 20 horse racing stock (17 yearlings and three older horses) of August Belmont Jr., who had died in December of 1924. Belmont had been a major force in racing. He built Belmont Park, bred Man o' War, won three Belmont Stakes, and owned the excellent race horse and terrific sire Fair Play. Much of the Belmont racing stock had been sired by Fair Play.

The purchase of the Belmont horses made Log Cabin an immediate force in racing. The Log Cabin
partners even took on as their trainer August Belmont's trainer, Louis Feustel, who had been the trainer of Man o' War. Their race results, however, were mixed. The big horse in the Belmont purchase was not successful. The best of the Belmont horses had been Ladkin, who had defeated the great French horse Epinard in the International Special No.2 in 1924. Ladkin had been valued at $100,000. However, Ladkin had gone lame in October of 1924. He would never win a race for Log Cabin - including a last place finish in the 1925 Yonkers Handicap - and was retired in the fall of 1925. Nonetheless, Log Cabin Stud had 37 winners, and in 1925 Log Cabin finished 19th in the nation in earnings for owners.

By far the best of their horses was Chance Play, who was a two-year old in 1925. Chance Play won his first two races at age two, and to a number of observers, his style was reminiscent of Man o' War, who like Chance Play had been sired by Fair Play. Yet his early successes in the spring of 1925 were not repeated later in the year. Chance Play finished third in both the Hopeful and the Futurity.

There were numerous controversies about the handling of Chance Play in his three year-old season. The horse was ill early in the year and missed the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness. He won a stakes race in preparation for the Belmont, but a decision was made not to enter the horse in the Belmont.

Trainer Feustel

Apparently, there was considerable antagonism among Walker, Harriman, and Feustel over the handling of Chance Play. This culminated in Feustel announcing in July of 1926 that he had resigned as the trainer of Log Cabin Stud. Feustel had desired to handle the horse conservatively and wait until the horse was in top condition. At least one of the owners wanted to run the horse far more often. While one source claimed that Harriman wanted to run the horse more frequently, it seems far more likely that Walker - often described, even by his family, as a reckless gambler and risk taker - who probably wanted the horse to race more frequently.

It was reported that Walker and Harriman turned down $150,000 for Chance Play. Instead, the partners in August of 1926 decided to disband their partnership and split up the horses. Walker kept the Log Cabin name and its colors. Harriman received Chance Play and formed his own stable, the Arden Farm Stable.

The racing dispute did not prevent Harriman and Walker from remaining friends and business partners. According to one Bush family biographer, Jacob Weisberg, after dividing the horses, Harriman and Walker bought a 150 foot yacht together.

Harriman clearly got the better of the deal. Chance Play in 1927 was likely the top horse in the nation, winning six stakes races, including the Jockey Club Gold Cup and the Saratoga Cup. (At Saratoga, Harriman accepted the trophy from Governor Al Smith. It is likely that this was the only time that one New York State Governor awarded a racing trophy to a future Governor.) In 1927, the Arden Farm stable finished 14th in the nation, with nearly $100,000 in purse money. By contrast, Walker's Log Cabin Stud had four wins and total purse earnings of less than $9,000. 

Chance Play was not nearly as successful as a five year old, but still won three more stakes races. He was retired after the 1928 season having won 16 of 39 races. Chance Play was also a very successful sire, twice leading the Unites States in sire earnings.

After Chance Play, both Walker and Harriman continued their involvement in horse racing, but neither were major players. Harriman continued to run horses into the late 1930's. Walker ran horses under his Log Cabin Stud until the 1940's.

Prescott and Dorothy Walker Bush

Eventually, their business partnership also ended. After W.A. Harriman merged with Brown Brothers in 1931 to become Brown Brothers Harriman (now the oldest private commercial bank in the nation), Walker was forced out of management. His son-in-law Prescott Bush, however, remained as a partner of the firm. Again, the apparent belief was that Walker's desire/tolerance for risk was not what the firm wanted during the Depression. Walker's fortune was not threatened or harmed as he managed to liquidate his holdings before the Depression hit. He returned to running G. H. Walker & Co.

The Future Racing Side of Harriman

Even after his formal involvement with racing had ended, Harriman still had significant contacts with racing. First of all, his second wife -- Marie Norton -- to whom he was married for 41 years until her death in 1970, was the first wife of Cornelius Vanderbilt "C.V." Whitney. Whitney was arguably the leading owner in thoroughbred racing for many decades. C.V. was the son of Harry Payne Whitney, who had started Harriman off in thoroughbred racing. Marie Norton left Whitney to marry Harriman. Harriman was also the governor in 1955 when the Jockey Club plan, which established the New York Racing Association, to revamp New York thoroughbred racing, was passed. Harriman did not play an active role in drafting or negotiating the proposal. After the Republican leadership of the State Legislature signed on to the proposal, he apparently advised the parties that he would also agree to it. He did not, however, say anything publicly on the bill, and there were still some speculation as to whether he would sign the legislation. He signed it on the last possible day for approval and made no comments on the bill in his approval of the legislation.

The Political Legacy

The political legacy of Log Cabin Stud is hardly in doubt. George H. Walker was initially a Democrat who became a Republican. His son-in-law Prescott Bush became the United States Senator from Connecticut. Prescott won two elections for the Senate and decided not to run for re-election in 1962.
Prescott's son George Herbert Walker Bush served as Vice President and President of the United States. George Herbert Walker Bush's oldest child, George Walker Bush, served as Governor of Texas and President of the United States. George Herbert Walker Bush's second oldest son John Ellis "Jeb" Bush is a former Governor of Florida who is currently running for President. You can hardly have been part of a more politically influential family.

On the Harriman side, Averell provided almost all the political connections. In contrast to Walker, Harriman was a Republican who became a Democrat in 1928. He was a Governor of New York State and twice tried (1952 and 1956) unsuccessfully to be the Democratic candidate for President. He was the Ambassador to both the Soviet Union and to the United Kingdom. He was Secretary of Commerce, and in the 1960's served in various high positions in the U.S. Department of State. After his death, his third wife, Pamela, became the Ambassador to France in the Clinton administration.
Log Cabin may not have been the most successful racing stable, but it's just not possible to find a racing stable that ever left a greater political legacy.

Alex. Brown & Sons--Second, Third and Fourth Generations

Chapter Five

Alex. Brown & Sons—Third Generation in Baltimore


George Brown (second generation) kept up his partnership in all the Brown family firms until 1852, when he relinquished Brown Brothers & Co. in New York and Philadelphia and Brown Shipley business in Great Britain. In Partners in Banking, John A. Kouwenhoven states he sold his interest in firms headed by James and William in 1839, and they also relinquished their partnership interests in Alex. Brown & Sons. George did, however maintain an interest in the Philadelphia branch until 1859.

George then focused all his activity on the Alex. Brown & Sons firm in Baltimore, training the youngest son, George Stewart (G.S.) Brown, to eventually take over management. G.S. became a partner with his father in 1856, but was not healthy enough to take over fully, leaving much of the business activity to William H. Graham—the husband of his sister, Isabel Brown. They worked closely together after George Brown's death in 1859.

The Southern Strain

The years during and after the civil war caused a strain between the original Alex. Brown firm and the Brown family living north of the Mason-Dixon Line. Kouwenhoven (p. 126 of Partners in Banking) relates that after George Brown retired in 1839, he had kept Alex. Brown & Sons alive for his son, G.S., though relatively inactive. The firm moved to the second floor of the building, allowing a branch of the New York Brown Brothers & Co. to take the ground floor offices. Alexander Brown had trained his brother's sons years earlier, and they had followed James Brown to New York in the mid-1820s, one cousin, Stewart Brown, becoming James' partner. As war approached, Brown Brothers & Co. assigned Stewart's half- brothers — John N. Brown and J. Harmon Brown—to work at its Baltimore branch of Brown Brothers on the ground floor of Alex. Brown's building. George Brown's son-in-law, William Graham, was the branch's manager, while acting also on behalf of Alex. Brown, representative agent for the New York bank. Graham took his orders from James in New York, rather than from Alex. Brown & Sons.

No wonder George had lost interest in banking. Southerners were bitter. They had developed a way of life which had become alien to those merchants from northern cities who were attempting to declare that way of life illegal and extinct. The Brown family was not immune from the dissension. James and John Brown had grown up in Baltimore, but had become businessmen in the same cities which were now warring against the men with whom their brother George engaged in business. One of those men was a farmer named John Merryman (also a dealer in fertilizer), who owned an agricultural estate called Hayfields in the region near Cockeysville. According to "Ex Parte Merryman," Maryland Historical Magazine, Dec 1961, pp.384-398:

On May 25, 1861, U.S. Soldiers arrested John Merryman at his home "Hayfields" in Cockeysville, Maryland. He was a lieutenant in the Maryland State Militia who had (under orders from the Governor) burned rail bridges north of Baltimore to prevent the passage of northern troops through the city. The army confined Merryman at Fort McHenry, and he was held without charges and denied legal counsel.

Hearing of Merryman's plight, Chief Justice Taney intervened. He issued a Writ of Habeas Corpus to Fort McHenry's commanding officer, Major George Cadwalader. However, citing military orders from the President, Cadwalader had the Writ refused at the Forts outer gate. Taney's written opinion, known afterwards as "Ex Parte Merryman," stated that only Congress has the power to suspend the Writ, and then, only in cases of extreme emergency. He admonished the President for overstepping his Constitutional limits; as he had no right to suspend the Writ.

Lincoln read Taney's opinion, but decided not to honor it. He felt the state of affairs warranted emergency action, and since Congress was not in session, he had to act on its behalf. In response to Taney's opinion, Lincoln wrote, "Are all the laws but one to go unexecuted and the government itself go to pieces lest that one be violated." As the war progressed, the arrests continued, and Lincoln suspended the Writ as far north as Maine. On March 3, 1863, Congress authorized the President to suspend the Writ.

In the minds of Lincoln's supporters, these actions were necessary to preserve the Union, and essential to the survival of the United States. The Southern leaders, however, condemned Lincoln, calling him a dictator and a man who would stop at nothing to gain total power.

Was all this necessary? Was he a dictator, or were these actions necessary to hold together the country in its most perilous hour?... (See also Brian McGinty, Lincoln and the Court, pages 66-88.)

Fourth Generation in the Post-War South

From Baltimore: Its History and Its People, Vol. II, by Clayton Colman Hall

Between the war years of 1856 and 1865 the Brown Brothers & Co. office in New York sent its own representatives to Baltimore while George's eldest son was in the military. Having served as an officer in the civil war, Alexander Davison (A.D.) Brown seems to have had no interest in banking after his return from battle. George's two daughters Grace and Isabel, had married bankers, and Isabel's husband, William Graham, came into the firm to assist his father-in-law and ultimately preserve the bank for the youngest son, George Stewart Brown.

Needless to say, 1861 was an extremely trying time for normal business activity in Baltimore. George Brown, had died two years earlier, on a year after George Stewart Brown's wife, Harriet Eaton Brown, gave birth to Alexander (photograph), their only son. After the civil war ended, Maryland's Governor Thomas Swann, who had been an early director of George Brown's B&O Railroad, appointed George S. to serve as paymaster for the state, a position which continued for many years. He was also an officer in several corporations, including the Havana Steamship Company.

George Stewart Brown's client list contained many who were descendants of Alexander's earlier clients who had invested in the bank of the United States, hoping to support the cause of the early Federalists. Charles J. Bonaparte, mentioned earlier as grandson of William Patterson, one of Alexander Sr.'s most important clients—would eulogize his friend when he died in 1890. Bonaparte and G.S. Brown had organized a Reform League in Baltimore, following the lead of Theodore Roosevelt in New York in advocating civil service reform. Bonaparte would be appointed Secretary of the Navy in 1905 and later Attorney General in Teddy's administration which ended in 1909.

Since the Browns were Presbyterians and his mother, formerly Harriet Eaton, had been born in New Jersey, it was natural for Alexander to attend Princeton. He graduated in the class of 1878 at the age of nineteen. After traveling to Europe, Alexander joined the bank, becoming a partner on January 1, 1882.

How Alex Met Bessie

Seven months later he traveled to Liverpool, England, boarding the S. S. Cunard in New York; also aboard the ship was General Charles Price Montague and his family—Bessie, Kate and William Ivanhoe Montague, who on their return trip to Baltimore attended a family reunion in Hadley, Massachusetts. One year almost to the day after boarding the Cunard, Alexander would marry Bessie Montague—one of the "big five," the five prettiest girls in Baltimore.

An announcement of their marriage on July 3, 1883 appeared in the Philadelphia Times, stating:

Baltimore - July 3. Miss Bessie Montague and Alexander Brown, Jr., were united in marriage this morning at Christ Episcopal Church. The bride has been an acknowledged belle here for two seasons. She is a daughter of General Charles P. Montague, a retired capitalist. Mr. Brown is a son of General George S. Brown, of the banking firm of Brown Brothers.

Only two years after Alexander's marriage, his uncle William Graham died suddenly, followed in 1890 by his father, thus leaving Alexander Brown as the highest ranking family member in the bank, if not the most experienced. His 1883 marriage to the southern beauty from Virginia would serve to link him to the Warfield banking family through his wife's cousins. Solomon Warfield's bank, the Continental Trust, was situated at Calvert and Baltimore.

Upon George Stewart's death, management of the bank, located at 135 E. Baltimore--the corner of E. Baltimore and Calvert Streets, fell into Alexander's hands. He had become a partner of the firm in 1882 and would be assisted for a time by William Graham Bowdoin, William Graham's nephew, who died in 1905.

Click to enlarge

George Brown had built a residence on Cathedral Street, and another would go up in the same block for George Stewart around 1850. The 1860 census indicates that, after their marriage, William and Isabel Brown Graham lived with her widowed mother in the home designated as 704 Cathedral, while George Stewart and Harriet were next door at #712 with daughter Harriet Stewart Brown, who would grow up to marry first Thomas Suffern Tailer and, after his death, C. Ledyard Blair.

Click to enlarge.

George's residence would pass to their son, Alexander, who grew up there and where he continued to live for a time after his wife, Bessie Montague Brown, died in 1930. At some point just prior to Harriet's marriage to T. Suffern Tailer of New York in 1909, Alexander had built a ballroom "at the rear" of their mansion (see clipping to the right).

Even before Bessie Montague Brown died in 1930, the couple had moved permanently to their country estate, Mondawmin, north and west of Druid Park, where Alexander died in 1949. Many years later the Cathedral Street residence would become home to Baltimore's school for the arts, after first being acquired around 1924 by the Catholic order of Knights of Columbus and called Alcazar Hall. There was a swimming pool in the basement by that time. The brownstone at #704 would be rented out or sold long before 1924. From 1933 to 1935 it was the residence of acerbic Baltimore journalist, H.L. Mencken, and his wife until her death.

The Montague/Warfield Connection

Mrs. Alexander (Bessie Montague) Brown, was a first cousin to Alice (or Alys, as she preferred) and Bessie Latane Montague, the daughters of her father's brother, William Latane Montague. Alys would marry Teackle Wallis Warfield and give birth to Bessie Wallis Warfield who would, in 1937, scandalize the British royal family and the world by marrying England's King Edward VIII, after herself being twice divorced. By then Mrs. Alexander Brown, who had hosted a reception for Wallis when she was much younger, had died, though her husband was still alive.

William H. Graham had been born into an old Virginia family with ties to George Washington, but his mother, Lavinia Upshur Teackle, chose to marry a seagoing merchant from Ireland rather than one of Virginia's aristocrats. The Teackle blood in Graham's veins had no family connection to Teackle Wallis Warfield, who had simply been named for a political crony of his father, Daniel Warfield. As mentioned earlier, Alice (Alys) Montague, and her sister Bessie (Mrs. D. Buchanan) Merryman, were daughters of William Latane Montague whose niece became the wife of Alexander Brown, the only son of George Stewart Brown.

George Brown's Children and Grandchildren

The Brown Model: Newest Technology for Wealthiest Investors

Chapter Four

Banking Clients in the Second Generation

George, the second of Alexander Brown's sons, was born in 1787 and would remain in Baltimore all his life, first assisting his father in the banking and foreign exchange business and then branching out into establishing companies with his banking clients. George was named president of Alex. Brown & Sons upon Alexander’s death in 1834. When George died a quarter century later—panegyrically praised in his obituary as “the wealthiest man in Baltimore”—he would be succeeded, not by one of the elder sons, but by his youngest son, George Stewart Brown, whose task it would be to steer the Baltimore bank through the difficult years of America’s civil war. But that's getting ahead of ourselves. George had to steer his father's bank through the rough waters that followed the policies of President Andrew Jackson, whose greatest enemy was central banking and whose policies are said to have created the Panic of 1837.

The Brown family bank was able to recover from that recession by receiving a loan from the Bank of England, negotiated by Joseph Shipley, their partner in W & J Brown & Co. and Brown Shipley & Co. Alex. Brown & Sons security its payment of this loan by pledging as collateral the "protested bills of exchange" notes to the Bank of England at a very discounted rate, according to Joseph Shipley's letter. Had the loan not been repaid, the Bank would have had recourse against the promissory notes, if they could be collected. As long as the Bank of the United States was operating, all government funds were on deposit in it, a fact which made the government less nervous about speculation and inflationary lending.

However, when Jackson withdrew the deposits from that bank and spread money into the frontier banks, it stimulated "reckless extension of credit and wild speculation" in loans made to build infrastructure projects that had no cash flow tied to the loan's repayment -- many times the amount of deposits held in reserve. Consequently, when notes went into default, the holders lost whatever had been paid for them unless the U.S. Government was willing to pay them off in specie.

As losses mounted, the fear was that the United States would suspend specie payments. That did not happen, as the trade deficits owed to other countries as a result of discounted bank notes held abroad were covered by the federal government. A debate in the U.S. Senate between Henry Clay and John C. Calhoun clarified both sides of the issue of whether or not the government should involve itself in banking. That debate still remains today.

George Brown’s erstwhile banking client, Charles Carroll, notable in his late years as the “last surviving signer of the Declaration of Independence” died four years after setting the foundation stone for the B & O Rail Road on land west of Baltimore called Mount Clare.[2] Nevertheless, George would find other wealthy patrons to replace Carroll—persons in need of financial advice and management, investors in need of an enterprise that could produce greater income than a deposit in a savings bank.

The Catons of Brookland Wood

Carroll’s eldest daughter Elizabeth, who had married Englishman, Richard Caton, in 1786 and inherited the 2,100-acre Carroll property known as Brooklandwood (or the variation, Brookland Wood) nine miles north of Baltimore, had been known to accompany George Washington to the races during colonial days, before her marriage. [3]  

The Carroll family were close to George Washington.

The excerpt above, from an article called “Old Baltimore Families,” ran in the December 30, 1879 New York Times, and also described Elizabeth Carroll's marriage as follows:

Louisa Caton

Richard Caton, who married the eldest daughter of Charles Carroll of Carrollton, had four daughters—Marianne, Elizabeth, Louisa Katharine, and Emily. Marianne married first Robert Patterson, and afterward, on Oct. 25, 1825, Richard Colley, Marquis of Wellesley, the eldest son of Garrett, the first Earl of Mornington. The Marquis was Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, Governor-General of India, and the elder brother of Arthur Wellesley, the Duke of Wellington. Elizabeth married Baron Stafford, and Louisa Katharine married first Sir Felton Bathurst Hervey, Baronet, and after his death, in 1828, she wedded Francis Godolphia [sic] D’Arcy, the seventh Duke of Leeds. Emily married Mr. Mactavish, for a long time the British Consul in Baltimore, and father of Charles Carroll Mactavish, who married a daughter of the late Lieut. Gen. Winfield Scott.

Brooklandwood—old and new

Mrs. Caton’s brother, Charles Carroll, Jr., married Harriet Chew, daughter of Pennsylvania's Chief Justice Benjamin Chew (“a man of loyalist proclivities”). Harriet Carroll's sister Margaret was the wife of Colonel John Eager Howard and lived near the Carrolls on an estate called Belvedere.

Both the Howard and Carroll families were intimately acquainted with President George Washington, who was said to be a frequent visitor to that area of Maryland before the revolution. Washington was, in fact, known to be “extremely partial” to Elizabeth "Betsy" Carroll, “the reigning belle at Annapolis, and Washington often visited her in his post-chaise with four horses, accompanied by Miss Custis and his retinue of servants.” Col. Howard later served as governor of Maryland, then Senator, and declined President Washington’s appointment to serve as Secretary of War.

The Carrolls and Richard Caton were involved in numerous land deals and business transactions with others in the Baltimore area before and after 1800—including the Oliver brothers wholesalers, with whom Stewart Brown was engaged in West Indies trade business. The Carroll family of Baltimore was not only closely tied to the Carrolls of Annapolis, Maryland, but maintained close connections to the Irish aristocracy in Dublin and other parts of Europe, especially French Catholics. This fact is best shown by reference to the marriages made by the daughters of Mary Carroll Caton. 
 

Jerome Napoleon-Patterson

Marianne Caton's husband was Robert Patterson, son of William Patterson and brother of George Patterson of Springfield, as well as the brother of Elizabeth ("Betsy") Patterson. Betsy married Jerome Bonaparte, König von Westphalen, in 1803, the same year Thomas Jefferson bought Louisiana from France. The marriage would be annulled by Emperor Napoleon two years later, in order for Jerome’s brother, Napoleon, to unite the Bonaparte family of France with the Hanoverian royal family in Great Britain.

In 1808 Jerome did marry the granddaughter of the Princess Royal[4]—King George III’s sister! Catharina Frederica of Württemberg was the daughter of Prince Frederick and his first wife, Duchess Augusta of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, whose stepmother since 1797 had been Charlotte, the Princess Royal. When Napoleon Bonaparte defeated this province in southwestern Germany (Holy Roman Empire), he named Catharina's father its king, then demanded that Jerome marry the king's daughter to seal the alliance, much to the chagrin of the American Patterson family.

Notwithstanding Napoleon’s unilateral declaration of annulment, Elizabeth, gave birth to a son, Jerome Bonaparte "Bo" (1805-1870), reared in Baltimore and educated at Harvard (Class of 1826). After his marriage to Susan May Williams, daughter of Benjamin May Williams—another of the original investors of the B & O in 1827—Bo and his wife would have two sons, Charles Jerome and Jerome Napoleon Bonaparte. Charles J. Bonaparte would be named Secretary of the Navy and Attorney General under President Theodore Roosevelt.

Williams ancestry

[Side note from author: a Texas connection] Benjamin Williams was the son of Captain Joseph Williams and Susanna May born in 1767 in Roxbury, Massachusetts. Benjamin's sister Martha married a distant relative named William Williams in Roxbury, becoming the parents of Captain H. Howell and Nathaniel Felton Williams. Howell moved to Providence, R.I., while Nathaniel relocated to Baltimore and became a commission merchant before the War of 1812, eventually named to be customs collector of the Port. Howell's son, Samuel May Williams, and most of his siblings spent time in Texas, both before and after the revolution against Mexico in 1836. A brother, Henry Howell Williams, was appointed Texas consul in Baltimore in 1838 and moved to Galveston in 1842 to manage the McKinney & Williams commission house Samuel had established. Their youngest brother, Nathaniel Felton Williams [II], named for the uncle in Baltimore, after his first wife died, married a daughter of this uncle, then took over the business affairs of his cousin/wife's father. These brothers were first cousins of Susan May Williams Bonaparte.

Elizabeth Patterson, mother-in-law of Susan May Williams Bonaparte, became a cynical fixture in Baltimore society and lived to the incredibly old age of 105. Though a woman of great wealth, she resided in a boarding house operated by Miss Gwynn on Cathedral Street, the same street on which Alexander Brown and his wife resided. In fact, she also attended the same church as the Brown family, also the church attended by Daniel Coit Gilman, President of Johns Hopkins University.

Why Baltimore?

Chapter Three

"President Washington first took office in New York City, but, when reelected in 1792, the capital had already moved to Philadelphia where it would remain for a decade. Fittingly, Jefferson was the first president to be inaugurated in the new and lasting capital of Washington, D.C. in March 1801."

See website of Independence Hall Association.

Baltimore was the closest city to the new capital of the United States, carved out of the states of Maryland and Virginia, according to Andrew Ellicott's survey. Washington, D.C., as it was called, was then only a "swampy location" north of the Potomac River and east of the historic city of George Town in Maryland. While about 5,000 transients had taken residence in the new seat of government by 1800, the population of Baltimore had doubled in the last decade of the 18th century to more than 26,000 people. Thanks largely to the efforts of merchant-turned-banker Alexander Brown, by 1850 Baltimore had become the leading foreign exchange center for trade in the United States.[1]

Alexander Brown, having spent many years as an auctioneer in a Belfast linen market, in 1800 followed brothers Patrick and Stewart to America. Importing Irish linens from his Irish trading center, he soon expanded into a variety of other commodities that passed through the harbor in Baltimore. 

He loaned out a portion of his profits from linen sales, clearing drafts and bills of lading for other merchants whose goods sat in the harbor awaiting payment, and before long his importing business had become a private bank. With surplus funds on hand for investment, he sought ought other wealthy men in the area to join with him to put their capital into the most promising technology of that day. These aspiring venture capitalists in Baltimore are worth mentioning below.

Charles Carroll, "the Signer" 

Charles Carroll setting the stone for B&O

In 1800, the year Alexander Brown arrived in Baltimore, the city’s wealthiest, and most eminent, citizen was Charles Carroll, the only Catholic signer of the Declaration of Independence, who had retired from politics the year Brown arrived. Until his death in 1832, Carroll focused on business affairs, becoming:

one of the founders of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Company and [he] invested in the Bank of Maryland, the Bank of Baltimore and the First and Second Bank of the United States. He held many shares in canal, turnpike, bridge and water companies in the Washington-Baltimore regional area. He purchased $40,000 of state-backed securities to build the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, serving on its first board of directors.

Charles Carroll, a major shareholder in the Bank of the United States founded in Philadelphia, likely requested Alexander's assistance with his banking business in Philadelphia. As a result, Alexander stationed his two youngest sons there to assist Baltimore clients as well as handle business at the Philadelphia port. There they organized a new private bank, Brown Brothers & Co., in 1818.

A year earlier construction of a man-made canal which would stretch from the easternmost point of Lake Erie across to New York City's port, had begun and by 1825 would link the "western" states bordering both the canal and Lake Erie to the port at New York city. The headquarters of Brown Brothers & Co. was soon relocated by James Brown in New York to take advantage of the ever-increasing shipping trade there. Back in Baltimore, the original bank took bold steps in recognizing another technology which Alexander and George Brown hoped would allow more trade to be carried by land rather than by ships--the first rail road in America.

The Baltimore & Ohio Rail Road Company, in which Charles Carroll invested heavily, was organized in 1827 in the home of Alexander’s second son, George Brown, who served as its first treasurer. It was Carroll who laid the railroad’s foundation stone in 1828.[1]  The railroad was a bold attempt by Alexander and George, who remained in Baltimore, to capture some of the western trade for their city's port. According to research cited by photographer John Gensor:

Meanwhile, at the busiest harbor in the country, Baltimore, its wealthy shipping merchants are alarmed at the canal craze that was taking place. Not only was Washington building a canal to get the western trade to the ports of Georgetown and Alexandria,  but Philadelphia was also building one, linking itself to Pittsburgh to get the western trade for its port. Also, the Erie Canal construction begun in 1817 would also siphon off the western trade to New York City. If they did nothing, all trade from the west would start going to other harbors and none to theirs. The only river running into Baltimore was the Patapsco River and the water flow of this river was not enough to sustain a canal operation. Its source was a spring on top of Parrs ridge at Mt Airy, Maryland, just 36  miles away. The freight hauled by a Conestoga wagon over the Maryland road systems would be mediocre to what one canal boat could haul. But what could they do to save Baltimore’s port? Make a wagonway using a tracked road for the wagons instead of them using the dirt gravel roads?

It was the experiments with a "road of rails," to compete with the canal system that led to the incorporation of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad in George Brown's home in 1827 where Philip E. Thomas shared his vision to other investors, many of whom like he and Brown, were either officers or directors of the Mechanic's Bank. It seems much of the ideas had come from England, where they had been previously explored by Alexander Brown's eldest son, William, in 1824 who wished to connect Liverpool to Manchester. The B&O would use the concept to connect the Potomac to the Ohio River.

The Carroll and Caton Family

Charles Carroll's daughter, Mary (born 1770), had been leaning toward marrying her cousin Henry Carroll of Duddington, son of her father's cousin Daniel Carroll--like Charles a member of Maryland's Senate to the House of Delegates. However, in 1787 she chose instead Richard Caton, an Englishman from Lancashire, and they would raise four daughters who would, as they say, marry well. Those marriages were described in Sisters of Fortune: America's Caton Sisters at Home and Abroad, a book by Jehanne Wake.

The Catons' daughter Maryanne in 1806 married Robert Patterson, whose sister, Betsy Patterson, was married to Napoleon's younger brother, Jerome Bonaparte, until, that is, his emperor brother had the marriage annulled. William Patterson is said to have been the second wealthiest man in Baltimore at the time.

William Patterson

In 1816 William Patterson, chairman of the newly chartered Baltimore Exchange Company, was another important associate of Alexander Brown. The Exchange Building housed the U.S. Custom House as well as Baltimore's branch of the Bank of the United States, established there in 1792, shortly after the war against Britain had ended. Patterson had been "a vital supplier of General Washington’s impoverished army during the early days of the war for independence," according to Jack White, a blockade runner for the patriot cause, having arrived in Philadelphia from Ireland in 1766:

When the British set out to prevent arms and powder from reaching the colonies at the beginning of the revolution, Patterson invested everything he owned and took off with his ships for France in hopes of arming the rebellion at a time when Washington claimed he hadn’t enough powder to fire a salute. First he supplied Washington’s forces from the Dutch island of Saint-Eustache and then from the French possession of Martinique. He returned to America in 1778 with over a hundred thousand dollars, married 17-year-old Dorcas Spear, settled in Baltimore, bought property, and built ships. He became one of the wealthiest men in Maryland, second only to Charles Carroll of Carrollton, Carroll County namesake and the only Catholic to sign the Declaration of Independence. (Patterson’s son Robert would one day marry Charles Carroll’s granddaughter, Mary Caton.)

When the British set out to prevent arms and powder from reaching the colonies at the beginning of the revolution, Patterson invested everything he owned and took off with his ships for France in hopes of arming the rebellion at a time when Washington claimed he hadn’t enough powder to fire a salute.
First he supplied Washington’s forces from the Dutch island of Saint-Eustache and then from the French possession of Martinique. He returned to America in 1778 with over a hundred thousand dollars, married 17-year-old Dorcas Spear, settled in Baltimore, bought property, and built ships. He became one of the wealthiest men in Maryland, second only to Charles Carroll of Carrollton, Carroll County namesake and the only Catholic to sign the Declaration of Independence. (Patterson’s son Robert would one day marry Charles Carroll’s granddaughter, Mary Caton.)
- See more at: http://www.sykesvilleonline.com/history/182-the-blighted-hopes-of-george-and-prudence-patterson#sthash.C0ZDRB7X.dpuf

a vital supplier of General Washington’s impoverished army during the early days of the war for independence. - See more at: http://www.sykesvilleonline.com/history/182-the-blighted-hopes-of-george-and-prudence-patterson#sthash.C0ZDRB7X.dpufThe Baltimore Exchange began business in 1820, with Alex. Brown & Sons being one of the approved traders in a long list of merchants. It too was an unsuccessful operation which dissolved within ten years.

Until the Bank of the U.S. met its demise in 1813, Brown's close business associates, Carroll and Patterson, were also shareholders of the central bank set up by Alexander Hamilton. Rechartered again in 1816, the Second Bank of the U.S. saw a number of Baltimore's businessmen indicted for fraudulent activity, especially in connection with Dennis A. Smith and the Mechanic's Bank in that city. Alexander Brown, who first became a director of the bank in 1807, was called as a witness against Smith, who had been central to a scheme with

stock taken in such a way 'that a Baltimore clique, taking advantage of a rule about voting, got votes enough to control the organization. By subscribing as attorneys, they got 22,187 votes out of 80,000, and they subscribed only $4,000,000 out of $28,000,000.'[2]

Thus this "clique" (which included Alex. Brown, his son George, and, later, his grandson, George S. Brown), received almost 36% of the branch's votes, while only putting up about 14% of the capital. The goal was obviously to keep those who supported federalist policies from having control of the Baltimore branch of the Second Bank of the U.S.

John Thomas Scharf, author of History of Baltimore City and County, from the earliest period to the present day (1881), indicated that one of the most active purchasers of the bills issued by the Baltimore branch of the Bank of the U.S. was an institution called the Bank of Maryland, which became insolvent in 1834 upon the revocation of the charter of the Bank of the U.S., and that Alexander Brown was among its creditors appointed as a committee of receivers, with William Patterson chairman. 

This same Baltimore branch of the Second Bank was integral to the 1819 landmark Supreme Court case, McCulloch v. Maryland, in which the Court interpreted the Constitution's "necessary and proper" clause to expand the listed powers of Congress under the Constitution in favor of federalism: i.e., the federal government had the implied authority to pass legislation not expressly provided for if deemed necessary in executing the powers that were so authorized.

The information below indicates stockholder information regarding the Second Bank, widely disseminated at the time, indicating the shareholder percentages by state, as well as by foreign country, in January 1832. The U.S. government owned 70,000 shares, while 470 foreigners owned just over 84,000. There were 3,602 "domestic" stockholders who controlled about 195,600 shares in the bank that year. Charles Carroll was the second largest with 2,633, falling significantly short of Stephen Girard's 6,331 shares in the bank.

The Brown banks and clients Carroll and Patterson owned significant stock in Bank of U.S. (click to enlarge).

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[1] Gary L. Browne, "Business Innovation and Social Change: the Career of Alexander Brown after the War of 1812," Maryland Historical Magazine 1974 69(3): 243-255.
[2] Theodore Dwight Woolsey, The First Century of the Republic: A Review of American Progress (Harper & Brothers:1876), 244.