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Herbert Lebau Griggs (March 28, 1855 – September 19, 1944) was an American banker who served as President of the Bank of New York.

Early life

Griggs was born on March 28, 1855 at Boston, Massachusetts (though some sources say Newton, Massachusetts). He was a son of Catherine Frances (née Gill) Griggs (1827–1908) and Benjamin Franklin Griggs, a hay and grain dealer in Boston. His sister, Bertha Williams Griggs, was the wife of George Devereaux Silsbee (a grandson of Massachusetts Representative Nathaniel Silsbee Jr.).

His paternal grandparents were John Griggs and Sarah Davies (née Williams) Griggs and his maternal grandparents were Thomas Gill and Catherine (née Lebeaux) Gill. Through his grandfather, he was a direct descendant of Thomas Griggs, who emigrated to Boston from England in 1638. His maternal uncle, William Fearing Gill, one of the first biographers of Edgar Allan Poe, was married to Edith Olivia Gwynne (a sister of Alice Claypoole Gwynne, wife of Cornelius Vanderbilt II).

Griggs attended the English High School in Boston, graduating in 1869.

Career

In 1869, at the age of fifteen, Griggs joined Kidder, Peabody & Company as an apprentice. The Boston firm had been founded in 1865 by Henry P. Kidder, Francis H. Peabody, and Oliver W. Peabody. In 1877, he was transferred to the New York branch and, in 1886, he was made a partner. After fifteen years as a partner of the firm, he accepted a partnership with Baring, Magoun & Company, successors to the New York office of Kidder, Peabody & Co., founded by Tom Baring and George C. Magoun. Following the death of Ebenezer S. Mason in 1900, he was elected President of the Bank of New York in 1901. During his twenty-one years as president, the bank's capital, profits and total deposits tripled. He orchestrated the merger with the New York Life Insurance and Trust Company into the Bank of New York and Trust Company. Upon the completion of the merger in 1922, he became chairman of the board and was succeeded as president by Edwin G. Merrill. Griggs served as board chairman until his retirement in 1925.

Griggs also served as a board member of the Eagle Fire Insurance Company of America, the Phoenix Indemnity Company, the Sun Indemnity Company and was a trustee of the Atlantic Mutual Company.

Personal life

In 1889, he married Emily F. Thompson (1864–1938), the daughter of New York banker Joseph Thompson. In New York, they lived at 375 Park Avenue and then 1 East 86th Street. Together, they were the parents of a son:

• Arthur Kingsland Griggs (1891–1934), a translator, writer and literary critic who lived, and died, in France.

His wife, who volunteered in France during World War I and was awarded the Legion of Honour, died in Paris in 1938. He returned to the United States at the outset of World War II, setting up residence at the Savoy-Plaza Hotel in New York and summering at Mountain View House in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, where he died on September 19, 1944.

References

1. Leonard, John W.; Marquis, Albert Nelson (1928). Who's who in America. Marquis Who's Who. p. 916. Retrieved 10 December 2024.
2. Ellery, Harrison; Bowditch, Charles Pickering (1897). The Pickering Genealogy: Being an Account of the First Three Generations of the Pickering Family of Salem, Mass., and of the Descendants of John and Sarah (Burrill) Pickering, of the Third Generation. University Press, J. Wilson and Son. p. 997. Retrieved 10 December 2024.
3. ^ "Herbert L. Griggs | 1855-1944" (PDF). licf.org. The New York Community Trust. Retrieved 5 December 2024.
4. Browning, Charles Henry (1891). Americans of Royal Descent: A Collection of Genealogies of American Families Whose Lineage is Traced to the Legitimate Issue of Kings. Porter & Costes. p. 158. Retrieved 10 December 2024.
5. Flagg, Ernest (1926). Genealogical Notes on the Founding of New England: My Ancestors Part in that Undertaking. Genealogical Publishing Com. pp. 7, 105, 118, 135, 136, 139, 144. ISBN 9780806305332. Retrieved 17 April 2018.
6. Gilpin, William Jay; Wallace, Henry E. (1904). Clearing House of New York City: New York Clearing House Association, 1854-1905. M. King. p. 38. Retrieved 10 December 2024.
7. The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography. J.T. White. 1947. p. 343. Retrieved 10 December 2024.
8. "Ebenezer S. Mason". The New York Times. 22 September 1900. p. 7. Retrieved 5 December 2024.
9. "EDWIN G. MERRILL, FINANCIER, WAS 76; Honorary Chairmanof Board of Bank of New York Dies-- Was in Field 56 Years". The New York Times. Jan 17, 1950. Retrieved 5 December 2024.
10. "Arthur Kingsland Griggs". shakespeareandco.princeton.edu. Shakespeare and Company Project. Retrieved 10 December 2024.
11. "ARTHUR K. GRIGGS, WRITER, DIES IN PARIS; Literary Critic, Son of New York Banker, Succumbs to Brief lllness at Age of 43". The New York Times. November 27, 1934. Retrieved 10 December 2024.
12. "MRS. H. L. GRIGGS, WAR RELIEF AIDE; American Sent Thousands of Packages, of Clothing to France--Dies in Paris WIFE OF RETIRED BANKER She Helped to Supply Needs of Military Hospitals and of Other Organizations". The New York Times. July 20, 1938. Retrieved 10 December 2024.
13. "HERBERT L. GRIGGS, BANKER, 89, IS DEAD; Head of the Bank of New York and Trust Co., 1901-25 -- Active in Field 5 Decades". The New York Times. September 21, 1944. Retrieved 5 December 2024.

• 1855 births
• 1944 deaths
• English High School of Boston alumni
• American bank presidents