John Whitfield Bunn (June 21, 1831 – June 7, 1920)[1] was an American corporate leader, financier, industrialist, and personal friend of Abraham Lincoln, whose work and leadership involved a broad range of institutions ranging from Midwestern railroads, international finance, and Republican Party politics, to corporate consultation, globally significant manufacturing, and the various American stock exchanges.
Robert Irwin acted as the personal debt collector for Abraham Lincoln, and served as a member of the board of directors of the State Bank of Illinois.
A daughter of Robert Irwin married William Marston, a Wall Street speculator and financier who often worked in partnership with Cornelius Vanderbilt, and who was responsible for the nearly $7 million stock price rally of the Michigan & Prairie du Chien Railroad Company in 1865.
William Marston gained a personal profit of between $1 and $2 million, in 1865, from the artificial rally, which he manipulated and caused when he rapidly purchased nearly 22,000 shares of stock in the Michigan & Prairie du Chien Railroad Company.
[18] Jacob Bunn, John Williams, Ozias M. Hatch, Thomas Condell, and Robert Irwin were also among the initial financial contributors to the campaign fund.
[18] John Whitfield Bunn spent the remainder of his life in Illinois, and maintained a varied and successful commercial, industrial, and philanthropic career that lasted from 1847 until 1920.
[32] Eventually, John W. Bunn expanded his activities to include numerous industrial and financial contributions to the economic growth and development of Chicago, Illinois.
The Chicago firm, known later as Selz, Schwab & Company, rapidly achieved international scope in its markets, and extraordinary magnitude and profitability in its manufacturing business.
[39] Of historical note is the fact that merchant banker Benjamin Hamilton Ferguson, the brother-in-law of Jacob Bunn, served as an incorporator of the Franklin Life Insurance Company of Illinois.
[45] John W. Bunn also served as a member of the board of directors of the Terre Haute & Peoria Railroad Company, a $5.4 million (as measured by equity capital in 1893) corporation whose principal office was Decatur, Illinois.
[46] Additionally, John W. Bunn was a member of the board of directors of the Toledo, Peoria & Western Railroad Company, a corporation whose equity capital exceeded $4 million in 1893.
[59] Jacob Bunn had also at one time been a founder, and the sole owner of the immense Chicago Republican Newspaper Company, which had been chartered by the state of Illinois in 1865, with an initial capitalization of $500,000.
[64] Jacob Bunn, who acted from deep convictions of honor, honesty, and loyalty, personally assumed liability for the amount of indebtedness that remained after the forced sale of the bank assets failed to produce capital adequate to full satisfaction of the $800,000 debt.
[65] Having established a deeply rooted continental presence in the railroad metal products industry, the Springfield Iron Company once was the largest manufacturer of angle splice bars in the United States.
[74] John Whitfield Bunn and William Douglas Richardson were associates in business, and both men served as founders and directors of the Springfield Iron Company, in August, 1871, a corporation that was capitalized initially at $200,000.
[80] William Douglas Richardson served on the personal staff of architect Daniel Burnham as the General Superintendent of Buildings at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition at Chicago.
[82] Jacob and John Whitfield Bunn, along with William Douglas Richardson, Benjamin Hamilton Ferguson, and others, constituted a cooperative association for investment, entrepreneurship, industrial expansion opportunity, and civic and charitable causes.
[87] Elizabeth Alice Bunn, a great-granddaughter of Jacob Bunn, married Illinois banker and financier Henry Stryker Taylor, who was one of the largest shareholders of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company (renowned financier Howard Butcher of Philadelphia was at one time also one of the largest individual shareholders of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company).
Robert Taylor, the father of Robert Cunningham Taylor, was a farmer, cattle dealer, grain merchant, and land entrepreneur, who served as vice president and director of the Farmers National Bank of Virginia, Illinois, as a Trustee of Virginia Township, an elder in the Presbyterian Church, and a local school board member.
[93] Henry S. Taylor was the descendant of one branch of the Henshaw family, and was a third cousin of California banker and financier William Griffith Henshaw (1860–1924), who, along with his family, was a primary owner and developer of some of the largest water reservoirs and commercial water courses in California, and who promoted and helped build (having served on the board of directors) the International Banking Corporation, a major and early corporate precursor to Citigroup.
Henry Stryker Taylor was the cousin of the owners of the J. Capps & Son Company of Jacksonville, Illinois, which manufactured clothing and other textiles, achieving sales of $1 million annually by 1901, and employing around 500 people by 1901.
[112] Joseph Wellington Willard, a first cousin of Ada (Richardson) Bunn, was an inventor and manufacturer of explosives, and assisted Lammot du Pont in the establishment of the Repauno Chemical Company near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
[113] Interconnected with the Bunn family had been, through marriage and collateral relation, Robert Burns Motherwell, II, who was once Chairman of Wells Fargo, and Charles Stillman, who had once been the controlling force behind National City Bank of New York, later known as CitiGroup.
She supported Franklin D. Roosevelt for the Presidency in 1932, but in 1936, when he sought a second term, she helped organize and became national treasurer of the Independent Coalition of American Women, an anti-New Deal group.
[120] Additionally, T. S. Hogan conducted, operated, and owned oil exploration and production enterprises in Oklahoma, Indiana, Montana, Illinois, Colorado, Wyoming, Texas, and Mexico.
[123] William Hogan, another first cousin of Mary Rehan and Ruth (Regan) Bunn, was the President of the Oro Grande Gold Mining Company of Idaho, a prospecting enterprise that was capitalized at $1.5 million in 1922.
[136] Illinois Governor Richard Yates appointed John W. Bunn as a Delegate, representing Chicago, to the National Conference on Taxation held at Buffalo, New York, in May, 1901.
[138] During the Civil War, John W. Bunn served as a special messenger and coordinator for the mobilization and transfer of Union Army soldiers from Chicago to Cairo, Illinois.
[141] With a sound reputation for being an accomplished and trusted financial counselor and manager, John W. Bunn served as Treasurer of the City of Springfield, Illinois, from 1857 until 1859.
[142] During the American Civil War period lasting from 1861 until 1865, John W. Bunn was appointed by Abraham Lincoln to serve as Pension Agent for the State of Illinois.