Ames, Nathaniel (22 July 1708–11 July 1764), almanac maker, physician, and innkeeper, was born in Bridgewater, Massachusetts, the son of Captain Nathaniel Ames, an astronomer and mathematician, and Susannah Howard. Probably after an apprenticeship with a country doctor, Ames became a doctor. With the likely assistance of his father, in 1725 Ames produced the first almanac to carry his name, though he was a youth of only seventeen. The almanac soon became well known and remained a staple product in New England, appearing annually for a half century....
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John Jacob Astor IV. Courtesy of the Library of Congress (LC-USZ62-116052).
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Edward L. Lach, Jr.
Astor, John Jacob, IV (13 July 1864–15 April 1912), businessman, was born at “Ferncliff,” his father’s estate at Rinebeck-on-Hudson, New York, the son of William Backhouse Astor, Jr., and Caroline Webster Schermerhorn ( Caroline Astor). As the great-grandson and namesake of fur trade magnate ...
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James M. Smallwood
Billingsley, Sherman (10 March 1900–04 October 1966), nightclub owner and real estate developer, was born John Sherman Billingsley in Enid, Oklahoma Territory, the son of Robert Billingsley and Emily Collingsworth. Sherman Billingsley’s parents were so poverty stricken that the youngster was forced to quit school after he finished the fourth grade. His first job was collecting discarded whiskey bottles for resale to bootleggers in the new “dry” state of Oklahoma. In 1912 the youth moved to Anadarko, Oklahoma, to join his two older brothers who had developed a chain of cigar shops and drugstores, establishments that also illegally sold whiskey. Later going into business for himself, he owned and managed a confectionery in Houston, Texas, before moving to Charleston, West Virginia, to take over a cigar store. After going into the drug business, he owned drugstores in Seattle and Omaha, successively. While still just a teenager, he moved to Detroit and opened a grocery store; soon, he had three. In 1923, after saving about $5,000 in capital, he moved to the Bronx, New York City, where he opened a drugstore....
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Eddie Condon © William P. Gottlieb; used by permission. William P. Gottlieb Collection, Library of Congress (LC-GLB13-0165 DLC).
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William Howland Kenney
Condon, Eddie (16 November 1905–04 August 1973), jazz personality and organizer of Chicago-style jazz bands, recording sessions, and concerts, was born Albert Edwin Condon in Goodland, Indiana, the son of John Condon, a small-town saloonkeeper, and Margaret McGrath. As a teenager, Condon played rhythmic dance band accompaniment on the tenor banjo and, once established in jazz, favored the four-string tenor guitar....
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James M. Smallwood
Crosby, James Morris (12 May 1927–10 April 1986), businessman and entertainment entrepreneur, was born in Great Neck, Long Island, New York, the son of John F. Crosby, an attorney, and Emily M. (maiden name unknown). After attending preparatory school in Lawrenceville, New Jersey, he went to Franklin and Marshall College in 1945. From that year to 1946, he served in the U.S. Navy, but 1946 found him back stateside, attending Bucknell College. He enrolled in Georgetown University later that year, graduating in 1948 with a degree in economics. He attended Georgetown Law School from 1948 to 1949. From 1949 to 1951 he was a shipping representative for the International Paint Company of New York City....
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Michael Green
Dalitz, Morris B. “Moe” (24 December 1899–31 August 1989), developer, casino operator, and rumored organized crime associate, was born Morris Barney Dalitz in Boston, the son of Barney Dalitz, who ran a laundry business, and Anna Dalitz (maiden name unknown). The family moved to Detroit when Dalitz was a child, and his father owned several laundries there....
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Jerome Mushkat
Delmonico, Lorenzo (13 March 1813–03 September 1881), restaurateur, was born in Marengo, Ticino Canton, Switzerland, the son of Francesco Delmonico and Rosa Longhi, farmers. He attended a parochial school for a short time but was largely self-educated. A bright, hardworking, ambitious person, Delmonico emigrated in 1831 to New York City, where his two uncles, Pietro and Giovanni, ran a small wine, confectionary, and catering concern. Delmonico was a quick learner with keen business instincts; his uncles eventually made him a junior partner....
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Marcia B. Dinneen
Downey, Morton (14 November 1901–25 October 1985), singer, composer, and businessman, was born in Wallingford, Connecticut, the son of James Andrew Downey, the fire chief of Wallingford and a tavern keeper, and Elizabeth Cox. When Downey was eight, he received $5 for singing at a church social. Engagements at picnics, political rallies, and Elks Club meetings followed. He developed an act with Philip Boudini, both playing accordions. For Downey, the accordion was mostly a prop. By the time he was fourteen people were paying $15 to hear him sing....
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Leslie H. Fishel
Downing, George Thomas (30 December 1819–21 July 1903), abolitionist, businessman, and civil rights advocate, was born in New York City, the son of Thomas Downing, a restaurant owner, and Rebecca West. His father’s Oyster House was a gathering place for New York’s aristocracy and politicians. Young Downing attended Charles Smith’s school on Orange Street and, with future black abolitionists ...
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Stephen M. Archer
Durante, Jimmy (10 February 1893–29 January 1980), comedian, was born James Francis Durante on New York City’s East Side, the son of Barthelmeo Durante and Roséa Millino. His French-Italian father operated a barber shop. His mother endowed him with the enormous nose that was to become his trademark. After dropping out of school in the seventh grade, Jimmy tried a variety of odd jobs, but he spent most of his time at a piano his father had bought for him, complete with lessons. Although his father hoped that his son would pursue a classical career, by age seventeen Durante was playing in Diamond Tony’s saloon (“Twenty-five bucks a week; hours from eight in the evening until unconscious”) on Coney Island. Later he played ragtime piano at various clubs and organized a five-man jazz band for a club in Harlem. There he met a singer, Jeanne Olson, whom he hired and, in 1921, married. They had no children. Another new acquaintance was Eddie Jackson, a singer....
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Robert Lewis "Bob" Evans. In front of his restaurant in Rio Grande, Ohio, 6 May 2003. Courtesy of AP Images.
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Henry Franklin Tribe
Evans, Bob (30 May 1918–21 June 2007), founder of Bob Evans Farms, was born on May 30, 1918, the son of Stanley and Elizabeth Lewis Evans, grocers, near Sugar Ridge (Wood County) in Northwestern Ohio. In 1924, when Bob was five, the Evans' moved to the Ohio River town of Gallipolis (Gallia County) in Southeastern Ohio where the parents had relatives. Evans' parents were products of a Welsh immigrant community that prospered in the region. Along with an older brother, Stanley Evans established the Evans Grocery Store, which grew into a chain of sixteen outlets in the area. The Evans brothers established the first Evans Grocery Store in Gallipolis in 1924. In 1929, the brothers opened a second store in Point Pleasant West Virginia. Four other stores were established in Southeastern Ohio by 1941, at the same time, the family established another store in the Charleston region of West Virginia. In 1960, the Evans Grocery Store ceased operation. Before its run ended, the Evans brothers operated a total of sixteen stores in Southeastern Ohio....
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G. Kurt Piehler
Fraunces, Samuel (1722 or 1723–10 October 1795), innkeeper, was born in the West Indies of unknown parentage. Little is known about his life before his arrival in New York City sometime in the mid-1750s. Though he was often referred to by contemporaries as “Black Sam,” surviving census records and other sources indicate that he was white. He first appeared in official city records in 1755 as an “innholder,” and a year later he acquired a tavern license. From 1759 to 1762 he maintained Masons’ Arms, the first of several taverns he would own or lease in New York and later in Philadelphia. Little is known about his first wife, Mary Carlile, except that she died shortly after he established himself as a tavern owner in New York City. He soon married again, and his second wife, Elizabeth Dailey, played a crucial role in his business operations, especially in the 1790s. They raised two sons and five daughters in a household that at various times contained several slaves and indentured servants....
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Philander D. Chase
Grim, David (28 August 1737–26 March 1826), tavern keeper, merchant, and antiquarian, was born in Stauderheim in the Palatinate, the son of Philip Grimm, a tanner and farmer, and Marguerite Dâher. He and his brothers Peter and Jacob dropped the second m from the family name. Grim immigrated to New York City with his parents and four older siblings in 1739. When Grim was about twelve, a painful lameness in his right leg, which he attributed to rheumatism, threw a hip out of joint and left him with one leg shorter than the other. He nevertheless served aboard two privateers during the French and Indian War. In the summer of 1757 he sailed under Captain Thomas Seymour on the ...
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William J. Hausman
Harrah, William Fisk (02 September 1911–30 June 1978), casino owner and automobile collector, was born in South Pasadena, California, the son of John Garrett Harrah, a lawyer and businessman, and Amanda Fisk. Harrah attended Chapman College in 1931 and studied mechanical engineering at the University of California at Los Angeles in 1932. He was an undistinguished student and was once caught cheating on a chemistry examination. When his family encountered financial problems during the Great Depression, Harrah dropped out of college. His family moved to Venice, California, where his father served a term as mayor. In 1932 Harrah’s father opened an establishment featuring the circle game, a variation of bingo in which some skill was required in shooting balls into a hopper. The circle game was akin to gambling, putting the operation at the edge of the law. William began as an employee but soon purchased the operation from his father for $500. Since gambling was illegal in Venice, the game was periodically closed when authorities chose to enforce the law strictly. In 1937 Hannah moved with his father to the more hospitable gambling environment of Reno, Nevada, and opened a bingo parlor....
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Stephen B. Shiring
Harvey, Fred (27 June 1835– February 1901), caterer, hotelier, and restaurateur, was born Frederick Henry Harvey in London, England, the son of English-Scottish parents, whose names are unknown. Harvey emigrated from Liverpool, arriving in New York City in 1850. He immediately found employment at the Smith and McNewill Café earning two dollars a week as a busboy and pot scrubber. In the early 1850s he traveled by coastal packet to New Orleans, where he worked in restaurants and survived a bout with yellow fever. In the mid-1850s he traveled by stern-wheeler up the Mississippi to St. Louis. There he became involved in a jewelry business and a clothing store. His early training, however, sparked his desire to have his own restaurant. He became a U.S. citizen in 1858, and a year later he married Barbara Sarah Mattas; they had six children....
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Edward L. Lach, Jr.
Hilton, Conrad (25 December 1887–03 January 1979), businessman, was born Conrad Nicholson Hilton in San Antonio, Socorro County, New Mexico Territory, the son of Augustus Holver “Gus” Hilton, an entrepreneur, and Mary Laufersweiler. Hilton’s early life was spent on the frontier of the Southwest, where his father ran a variety of businesses, including a general store. He learned Spanish from his playmates and spent a great deal of time assisting his father in his various enterprises. After early study at a local school, he attended Goss Military Institute in Albuquerque (1899–1900), New Mexico Military Institute (1900–1901, 1902–1904), and St. Michael’s College, Santa Fe (1901–1902). Hilton dropped out of the New Mexico Military Institute in 1904 and went to work full time in his father’s increasingly prosperous store. There he learned to haggle with all types of customers, thereby honing the negotiating skills that were to serve him well in the future. Selling off part of his business (coal mines), Hilton’s father, now a wealthy man, moved the family to Long Beach, California, in 1905 due to his wife’s poor health....
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Johnson, Howard Dearing (02 February 1896–20 June 1972), restaurateur and franchise pioneer, was born in Boston, Massachusetts, the son of John Hayes Johnson, a cigar wholesaler, and Olive Bell Wright. In 1902 the family moved to the village of Wollaston (now part of Boston) to enjoy the amenities of suburban life. Johnson’s parents were indulgent but demanding. His father, a firm advocate of an independent and ultravigorous lifestyle and fearful that his only son was being coddled by his mother and three sisters, took a strong hand in shaping his son’s childhood. Sometimes the results were unexpected, such as when young Johnson asserted his independence and refused to continue his formal education beyond grammar school....
