Finding aid for the Mather Family Papers

Biography of the Mather Family

The Samuel Mather Family, whose members were leading figures in business, education, religion, and philanthropy, settled in Cleveland, Ohio, when Samuel Livingston Mather (1817-1890) moved to the city from Connecticut in 1843. The family, whose ancestors included Increase and Cotton Mather, first achieved wealth in maritime commerce, then in land, especially as stockholders in the Connecticut Land Company, and finally in the iron ore business. In 1850 Samuel Livingston Mather helped to organize the Cleveland Iron Mining Company, which mined ore in the Lake Superior region, and became its secretary treasurer in 1853 and its president and treasurer in 1869. At his death in 1890, the company merged with the Iron Cliffs Mining Company and became the Cleveland-Cliffs Iron Company.

Samuel Mather (1851-1931) was the first son of Samuel Livingston Mather and his first wife, Georgiana Pomeroy (Woolson) Mather. Educated at the Cleveland High School and Saint Mark's School in Southboro, Massachusetts, Samuel intended to enter Harvard College in 1869. In that year, however, he was seriously injured while working in Michigan as a timekeeper and payroll clerk for his father's Cleveland Iron Mining Company. During the next two years, young Mather traveled in Europe to recover his health. He returned to Cleveland in 1873 and rejoined the Cleveland Iron Mining Company. Ten years later Samuel Mather, Colonel James Pickands, and Jay C. Morse organized Pickands, Mather and Company to sell iron ore, coal, and pig iron. This company became one of the largest shippers of iron ore from the Lake Superior ranges, operating a large fleet of freight carriers on the Great Lakes. Pickands, Mather and Company also operated coal mines in Pennsylvania and West Virginia and blast furnaces in Chicago, Toledo, Duluth, and Erie. The company invested heavily in the stocks of such buyers of iron ore and coal as Lackawanna Steel, the Youngstown Sheet and Tube Company, and the United States Steel Corporation.

In 1881 Samuel Mather married Flora Stone (1852-1909), the youngest daughter of Cleveland financier and industrialist Amasa Stone. Both Samuel and Flora Stone Mather contributed much to the philanthropic, educational, and civic affairs of Cleveland. In 1895 Samuel Mather served on a commission on public improvements, whose purpose it was to study Cleveland's sanitation systems and recommend improvements. His other activities in social improvement included financial gifts to Kenyon College, contributions and service as trustee for Western Reserve University and its affiliated hospitals, chairmanship of the Cleveland Red Cross War Council and its successor, the Cleveland Community Fund, membership on the Central Committee of the American Red Cross, and senior warden and benefactor of Trinity Cathedral. One of Samuel Mather's deep interests was in Hiram House Social Settlement, which he helped finance. During his life, Mather received many honors for his works of benevolence, including a Cross of Mercy from the government of Serbia in 1920, and in 1924 a medal from the Cleveland Chamber of Commerce. At his death in 1931, the will of Samuel Mather provided for bequests to the Cleveland Community Fund and annual subscriptions to more than 50 educational and charitable organizations and institutions.

Flora Stone Mather, like Samuel, took an active interest in the well being of Western Reserve University and made a large contribution which established Flora Stone Mather College in the university in 1888. In 1893 a gift of Mrs. Mather enabled the Glenville Presbyterian Church to purchase land for a new building; in 1896 Flora Mather helped to finance and organize Goodrich House Social Settlement, and additional gifts to Western Reserve University led to the erection of Haydn Hall in 1902 and Amasa Stone Chapel in 1910. When Flora died in 1909, her will contained bequests for more than thirty charitable, educational, and religious institutions, including the following: Wooster College; the Cleveland YMCA; the Presbyterian Union; Lake Erie College; Central Friendly Inn; Old Stone Church; the Consumer's League of Ohio; Armenian Relief; the Milk Fund; Oberlin College; and the Visiting Nurse Association.

Samuel and Flora Mather raised four children. Samuel Livingston (1882-1960) attended University School and Yale University, served as vice president of Cleveland-Cliffs, and was a director of such businesses as the Otis Steel Company, Corrigan-McKinney Steel Company, and Cleveland Trust. His philanthropic and civic endeavors benefited many institutions, including Yale University; Western Reserve University, Holden Arboretum, the Home for Aged Women, and the Horace Kelley Art Foundation, which helped to 'Duild and support the Cleveland Museum of Art. Amasa Stone Mather (1884-1920) graduated from University School in 1903 and from Yale in 1907, and joined Pickands, Mather, and Company. During World War I, he was active in the Liberty Loans campaigns and Red Cross work and became secretary of the Iron Ore, Coal and Transportation Commission of the Council of National Defense. In 1920, while preparing to attend the Geneva Peace Conference, he died of pneumonia. Philip Richard Mather (b. 1894) graduated from Yale University and was an officer in World War I, serving near Verdun in France.

Constance Mather (1889-1969), the only daughter of Samuel and Flora Mather, graduated from Hathaway Brown school in Cleveland and attended Briarcliff Manor in New York. In 1911 she vacationed in the Newfoundland-Labrador area, where she became involved in settlement work. Two years later Constance married Dr. Robert H. Bishop, Jr. Dr. Bishop served as an intern at Lakeside Hospital in Cleveland in 1908 and 1909 and then became executive secretary of the Anti-Tuberculosis League from 1909 to 1916. Having organized the Department of Tuberculosis for the city, Bishop became Cleveland's Commissioner of Health in 1917. Two years later, he joined the Red Cross Medical Service in Italy as Associate Director of the Special Tuberculosis Commission. Dr. Bishop returned to Cleveland to become director of administration at Lakeside Hospital, where he helped to plan the merger of Lakeside, Babies and Childrens, and Maternity Hospitals into the University Hospitals of Cleveland in 1925. He was the director of administration from 1925 to 1947 and, in the succeeding years, served as director of the Joint Committee for Advancement of Medical Education and Research, Western Reserve University School of Medicine and Affiliated Hospitals, as well as trustee for Miami University, the American Social Hygiene Association, the National Health Council, the Western Reserve Academy, the Cleveland Hospital Service Association, the Welfare Federation, the Hospital Council, the Anti-Tuberculosis League, and the Citizens League, and as chairman of the board for the Cuyahoga County Tuberculosis Hospital, (until his death in 1955). Four years after his death, Constance Mather Bishop provided money to build the Robert H. Bishop Memorial Gates at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. Before her own death in 1969, Mrs. Bishop led an active life in social and philanthropic service as president of the Family Health Association, trustee of the Cleveland Foundation and the Phillis Wheatley Association, and as a delegate to the American Hygiene Association.

Samuel Mather's brother and sister also contributed much to Cleveland. William Gwinn Mather (1857-1951), the son of Samuel Livingston Mather and his second wife, Elizabeth L. Gwinn, studied at Cheshire Academy in Cheshire, Connecticut, and at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut, and in 1878 joined the Cleveland Iron Mining Company as a clerk. After the death of his father in 1890, William became president of the company, a position he retained after the merger of 1892 formed the Cleveland-Cliffs Iron Company. Before his retirement as chairman of the board of Cleveland-Cliffs in 1947, William G. Mather served as a director or member of the board of many corporations, among which were Republic Steel Corporation, White Motor Company, and Union Trust. As a philanthropist and social activist, William raised and donated money and assisted in many ways the Community Fund, Western Reserve University, Trinity College, the Western Reserve Historical Society, Trinity Cathedral, the Musical Arts Association, and the Cleveland Art Museum. In 1933 the Cleveland Chamber of Commerce awarded him a medal for his distinguished public service.

Katharine L. Mather (1853-1939) also gave much of herself and her wealth to benevolent causes. Her gifts made possible the erection of the St. Barnabus Guild House in 1926, a scholarship fund for the Guild, and an altar for the Trinity College chapel. In addition, she took an active interest in the YWCA and in Presbyterian missionary work.

The Samuel Mather family, it should be noted, had ties of kinship to other prominent families. The sister of Flora Stone Mather, Clara L. Stone, married John Hay, diplomat and Secretary of State, historian, poet, and journalist, in 1874. Their son, Adelbert Stone Hay, was American consul in South Africa during the Boer War in 1900, and their daughter, Helen Hay, was a poet like her father. Also related to Samuel Mather, through the marriage of his father to Georgiana Pomeroy Woolson, was Constance Fenimore Woolson (1840-1894), a descendant of James Fenimore Cooper and herself a noted author and poet. Among her works were The Old Stone House (1873) -- a reminiscence of her early life in Cleveland, five novels, and many stories and sketches of her travels in the South and in Europe.

click here to view the Encyclopedia of Cleveland History entry for Samuel Mather
click here to view the Encyclopedia of Cleveland History entry for Samuel Livingston Mather
click here to view the Encyclopedia of Cleveland History entry for Flora Stone Mather
click here to view the Encyclopedia of Cleveland History entry for William Gwinn Mather

click here to view the Encyclopedia of Cleveland History entry for Elizabeth Ring Mather

Scope and Content

The Samuel Mather Family Papers, 1834-1967 and undated, consist principally of correspondence, newspaper clippings, legal and financial documents, copies of wills and estate records, and genealogical charts and research notes. Also included in the collection are biographies, tributes and awards, diaries and account books, drawings, reports, and an autograph collection.

Materials in this collection relate principally to family matters, trips to Europe and around the world, and to family activities in philanthropic and educational institutions in Cleveland and elsewhere. The letters of Samuel Mather to Flora Stone do refer to Mather business activities in 1880 and 1881, as well as to personal and family matters. Other correspondents and subjects in the Samuel Mather correspondence include Charles Thwing and Western Reserve University, Bishop William A. Leonard and Trinity Cathedral, George Bellamy and the death of Flora Mather, John D. Rockefeller, S. Peyton Morgan, Henry S. Pickands, Jay C. Morse, Henry Clay Frick, Theodore Roosevelt and the American Red Cross, and Frances Payne Bolton. The diaries of Samuel Mather relate to his travels to Europe. Of special interest are a report of Samuel Mather to the Internal Revenue Service concerning his income for 1895; a collection of reminiscences of Samuel Mather by his gardener Evan Evans; reports of the Subcommittee to the Committee of Nine on Public Improvements concerning Cleveland's sanitation facilities; and financial receipts, bills, and lists detailing Samuel Mather's purchases of furniture, books, and art. Also of interest are the minutes of the admissions committee of the Western Reserve School of Design for Women.

The papers of Flora Stone Mather include letters from Jane Addams, Jacob A. Riis, Whitlaw Reid and from Leroy Milton Yale, Charles Thwing, Nettie Halli and O.C. Marsh. Letters from Flora Stone to Samuel Mather discuss her meeting President Rutherford B. Hayes and Washington society in 1881 and the opening of Alta Social Settlement House in 1900. Her papers also contain materials relating to her activities on behalf of Flora Stone Mather College of Western Reserve University and Goodrich House. Of special interest are her will listing her last gifts to philanthropy, the papers detailing her funeral , and a letter to Flora Stone Mather describing presidential election excitement in Cleveland in 1868.

In the papers of Samuel Livingston Mather (1817-1890) is a letter to Samuel Mather referring to Cleveland business conditions during the Panic of 1873.

The Katharine Livingston Mather papers concern, for the most part, Mather and Bishop family matters and her frequent travels, especially on the Franconia in 1925. Her correspondence includes letters from the Guild of St. Barnabus for Nurses and Trinity College relative to her contributions and activities on their behalf.

The papers of William Gwinn Mather principally concern his library, the collection of books written by his ancestors, and the sale of that library in 1935. Of special interest are the library catalogs.

Samuel Livingston Mather's (1882-1960) papers contain references to family matters and trips to Europe, rather than information about business activities or philanthropy.

In the papers of Amasa Stone Mather are materials relating to his trip around the world in 1907, including letters of introduction by William Howard Taft and Elihu Root, and a diary kept during a game hunt in East Africa in 1908.

In the correspondence of Philip Richard Mather are letters describing student life at Yale in 1912 and an army officer's life in World War I near Verdun, France.

The Bishop family papers concern Kenyon College, the Bishop Memorial Gates at Miami University, the Committee for Foreign Correspondence of the American Federation of Scientists, the University Medical Center, and the Anti-Tuberculosis League, as well as travels and family matters. Also included are letters from William Mather Bishop and Robert H. Bishop detailing military experiences in World War II.

For the most part, the John Hay family papers concern family papers concern family matters, but letters of John Jay to Samuel Mather periodically discuss politics and political figures such as President Grover Cleveland, James G. Blaine, and President William McKinley. The John Hay correspondence includes letters from President James Buchanan, Samuel Clemens, John Greenleaf Whittier, William Dean Howells, William H. Seward, Edwin B. Stanton, and Horace Greeley. Letters by Adelbert S. Hay describe civilian life during the Boer War in South Africa in 1900, and those of Clara Stone Hay principally discuss family matters. Also included are works of poetry by Helen Hay and John Hay.

Items of special interest in the Stone family papers include compositions and the last letter written by Adelbert Stone before his drowning in 1865, a travel diary of Julia Stone in 1868, and resolutions and letters of condolence concerning the deaths of Adelbert and Amasa Stone.

In the Woolson and Benedict family papers are photostats of letters written by Constance Fenimore Woolson to Henry James, as well as original letters of Miss Woolson, some of which comment on contemporary books and authors, including Leo Tolstoy. The letters of Clara Woolson Benedict, on the other hand, refer to her travels in Europe, to the life of Constance Fenimore Woolson and to plans for the erection of a memorial to Constance Fenimore Woolson.

The autograph collection of Katherine Livingston Mather includes letters and signatures of the following: Louis Agassiz; Elizabeth Barrett Browning; William Cullen Bryant; James Bryce; Andrew Carnegie; James Fenimore Cooper; Charles W.G. Dumas; Benjamin Franklin; Hamilton Fish; Henry James; Marquis de Lafayette; Abraham Lincoln and his cabinet; Henry Wadsworth Longfellow; William Seward;

Statement of Arrangement

Restrictions on Access

None.

The researcher should also consult MS 4613 Samuel Livingston Mather Family Papers; and PG 278 Mather Family Photographs.

Indexing Terms

The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in the library's online public access catalog.

Subjects:

Preferred Citation

[Container ___, Folder ___ ] MS 3735 Mather Family Papers, Western Reserve Historical Society, Cleveland, Ohio

Acquisition Information

Gifts of Dr. and Mrs. Johnathan Bishop in 1969 and 1972. Minor accessions from Robert G. Abbey (1974) and the Hiram College Library (1975) have been integrated into the collection.

Processing Information

Processed by Raimund E. Goerler and Debra R. Biggs in 1978.

Other Finding Aid

A list of the autographs located in Katherine Livingston Mather's papers and a genealogical chart of the Mather Family are available at the Reference Desk of the WRHS Research Library.

Detailed Description of The Collection