Judge Hiram Bond

Hiram Bond was born May 10, 1838 in Farmersville, Cattaraugus County, New York and died in Seattle March 29, 1906. He was a corporate lawyer, investment banker and an investor in various businesses including gold mining. His family are descended from William Bond (Massachusetts) an early 17th century immigrant from Bury St. Edmunds in East Anglia. He was the son of Hiram Bond M.D. and Almeda Slusser and was married to Laura Ann Higgins. He had two children- Louis Whitford Bond born in New York City, New York in 1865 and Marshall Latham Bond born in Orange, Virginia in 1867. He attended Rushford Academy, Rushford, New York, and earned a bachelor's degree from Hamilton College. He earned much of the money for his own education as a distributor of maps and atlases. Among his successes were becoming a publisher, and taking over the rights to a map of the United States which had been prepared by Matthew Fontaine Maury, a Southerner who was a United States cartography officer . Maury, who decided to join the Confederacy, had left the work unpaid for in New York. He matriculated at Harvard Law School, but before graduation he was hired as a law clerk by Chauncey Depew, a friend and neighbor of his father in law Michael Dunning Higgins of Peekskill.

Through Depew, he was introduced to and became a broker for John Tobin & Co., part of the powerful Vanderbilt Organization. At Tobin & Co. he was the floor broker for Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt and his son William Henry Vanderbilt on the New York Gold Exchange executing their trading in "greenbacks" and gold during the Civil War. The value of greenbacks against gold varied widely as investors altered their perception on the progress of the war. Greenbacks United States Notes sold at a discounted price in comparison to gold. However, if chances of victory rose they became perceived as a business opportunity. For the most part however, if the war was dragging on, people wanted the security of gold. Vanderbilt employed a private intelligence network on the front line reporting early news. Hiram Bond's position led to his prominent contacts on Wall Street, in the military, and in politics. He is described by Professor Richard Lowe as having financial dealings during the Civil War with Gen. Ulysses S. Grant. Among the other investment houses acting in collaboration with Commodore Vanderbilt and Tobin, and that Hiram Bond was acquainted with, was that of Leonard Jerome who was the grandfather of Winston Churchill.

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