Anson Phelps Stokes (February 22, 1838 – June 28, 1913) was a wealthy American merchant, property developer, banker, genealogist and philanthropist.

[3] The company began importing and trading in metal from England and exporting cotton in return, and eventually became a copper mining business.

In 1861, Stokes became a partner in the company but left in 1878 to begin a banking business with his father and his father-in-law, Isaac Newton Phelps.

After his death in 1913 these various property companies and others were consolidated by his sons and his long term financial advisor, John W. McCulloch, to form Phelps Stokes Estate, Inc.

He had speculated and lost millions of dollars on Wall Street during the panic of that year and was forced to resign, then fled to Canada.

The directors, including Issac N. Phelps and Anson Stokes, faced the onerous task of making up the losses.

The secretary of the company, M. J. Farrell, became state senator for Lander County and managed to get a railroad line approved, with a bond of $200,000, due to expire in 1880.

Stokes brought in General James H. Ledlie, a former Union officer in the Civil War, to direct the project, and crews went to work, only to bring the line within 2 miles (3.2 km) of the Austin town limits with less than a day left before the deadline.

[8] In 1881 the Union Pacific Railroad purchased the line, but they lost money and in 1885 it was sold at bankruptcy back to the bond holders who included Anson Stokes.

His son, James Graham Phelps Stokes, who had recently finished his education at Yale and medical school, became the president.

A young lawyer, Tasker Oddie, working for Stokes in New York, had been sent to Nevada to look over his mining operations and discovered embezzlement on a huge scale.

[10] Anson Stokes described his attitude toward politics as follows: I have been indisposed to political life, because it is here commonly sordid, interferes with freedom of conscience and of thought and of expression and of action, and often brings unpleasant and immoral associations; and I have felt that I could be more useful working non-politically for civil service reform, free trade, etc., and bringing up my children to be good citizens.Despite this, he did campaign in New York for the election of Grover Cleveland and fought against Tammany Hall - the Democratic Party machine that controlled much of New York City.

After his death Tammany was reformed under new leadership, but by the mid 1890s it had returned to its old corrupt ways, first under "Honest John" Kelly, and then Richard Croker.

Several of the wealthy and influential men in the City, including Anson Stokes, came together in 1894/95 to fight Tammany Hall, and formed a “Committee of Seventy”.

They succeeded by defeating the Tammany mayoral candidate and installing William Lafayette Strong who ran the City on "business principles".

The objective of the Association was to establish a system of appointment and promotion in the Civil Service depending upon suitability assessed by competitive examinations, open to all applicants properly qualified, and that removals should be made for legitimate cause only, such as dishonesty, negligence, or inefficiency, but not for political opinion or refusal to render party service.

[11] Stokes became chairman of the National Association of Anti-Imperialist Clubs, a movement formed in 1898 to oppose the annexation of Cuba, Puerto Rico, Guam and the Philippines at the end of the Spanish-American War.

In 1894 Stoke published his proposals on a monetary system that would be based on the combined use of gold and silver called joint metallism.

Stokes's interest in this possibly came from his links to silver mining in Nevada and his support for Grover Cleveland, who was against bimetallism, favouring the gold standard.

He published and read a paper on his design called, the Ulitima, in November 1905 before the Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers.

When Isaac Newton Phelps died in 1888 he left 229 Madison Avenue (plus a million dollars), to his daughter Helen Stokes.

[18] The building was extended by architect R. H. Robertson in 1888, adding an attic floor and an extension on East 37th Street that doubled the size of the house.

Shadowbrook was so large that a family anecdote tells of Anson Phelps Stokes Jr. being told by his mother while playing outside one day that because there was a storm gathering he should come inside and bicycle in the attic.

They sold in 1886, never to return, because "cheap excursion places had caused the ferry-boats to be overcrowded and had brought a rough element to the island."

Anson Stokes's sisters, Caroline and Olivia, supported the furtherance of deprived groups by giving money to universities and colleges.

They also funded orphanages, libraries and affordable housing schemes, often with design help from their architect nephew, Isaac Newton Phelps Stokes.

Anson Stokes and Olivia were executors of the will that required a fund to be set up and used for the erection or improvement of dwellings in New York City for the poor families, for educational of negroes, Native Americans and needy deserving white students, through industrial schools, the foundation of scholarships and the erection or endowment of school buildings or chapels.

They both fell for the same woman and this created animosity between the two men, resulting in court cases and a breakdown of their personal and business relationship.

[26] Whilst in England Stokes joined in fox-hunting and grouse shooting, taking country residents or staying with family or acquaintances.

He enjoyed the social scene, attending Cowes Week with his cousin Arthur James, on board his yacht Lancashire Witch plus race horse meetings at Goodwood.