Charles Henry Adams (1824-1902)

He was born in Coxsackie, New York, and was educated at the Albany Academy before studying law with Cagger & Stevens at Albany. In 1850, he went into the wool manufacturing business at Cohoes, New York, where he became President of the Water Board, President of the First National Bank, President of the National Knit Goods Association, and the city's first Mayor. He invested heavily in real estate, built the Egberts Woollen Mills, and presented the city with a much needed steam engine "as an expression of my personal interest in the welfare of the community." In 1851, he was appointed aide-de-camp with the rank of Colonel to Governor Hunt. He became a Member of the New York State Assembly (1857), State Senator (1872) and U.S. Congressman from Albany (1876). He was Presidential Elector in 1873 and in the same year he was appointed U.S. Commissioner to the World's Fair & Exposition in Vienna. In 1880, he moved to New York City where he was President of the Mercantile Corporation of the United States & South Africa. He was a Member of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the American Geographical Society, the New York Genealogical & Biographical Society, and the Sons of the American Revolution. He lived between East 67th Street and his summer home at Mount Wollaston, East Hampton, L.I. He married twice and had four surviving children.