Garrett papers

Robert Garrett (1847-1896)

Robert Garrett's future was decided upon at an early age. His father was John Work Garrett, the resolute and firm President of the B and O Railroad from 1858 to his death in 1884. Robert's grandfather was Robert Garrett, founder of the prosperous investment and banking house of Robert Garrett and Sons. A career in business was then nearly inevitable. To prepare for it, Garrett was sent off tbethe Dahl School of Baltimore and later to the Friend's School in Providence, Rhode Island. It has been claimed that Garrett ran off at age 16 to joingGeneral Lee's Army of Northern Virginia, only to be persuaded to return by his father. In any event, he entered Princeton College and graduated at the age of 20 in 1867.

Immediately after leaving Princeton, Robert began work with his younger brother Thomas Harrison in the Family banking business. Evincing an apparent interest in railroad management, Robert assumed the Presidency of the Valley Railroad of Virginia in 1871 while T. Harrison remained with Robert Garrett and Sons to become its operational head. By 1875, Robert was working with his father at the B and O. Steadily promoted, he was named Third Vice-President in 1879, First Vice-President and a Director in 1881. He became President Pro-Tem in 1883 while his father was ill and was voted President in 1884 two months after his father's death.

Garrett's administration has not been seen as a very successful one. He insisted upon maintaining a B and O owned telegraph system to challenge the near monopoly of Jay Gould's Western Union, but found that his company could not compete effectively. The result was the loss of a sizeable sum of money and the humiliation of being forced to sell out to Gould. This and other problems resulted in a mounting financial crisis within the B and O and forced Garrett to go abroad in 1887 to procure aid from London banking houses. Later, aid was solicited from New York and Philadelphia firms such as Drexel Morgan and Company and Drexel and Company.

Garrett's health, both mental and physical, was greatly afflicted due to the strain of managing the faltering B and O. In October of 1887, he resigned as President and embarked upon a world tour. During this trip, his health was said to have picked up, but it was quickly reduced in June of 1888 when he be learned of his brother T. Harrison's yachting accident death. Greatly upset over this misfortune, Garrett lapsed into a severe chronic depression that impaired his activity until His death in 1896.

Despite the inactivity that characterized the last eight years of his life, Robert Garrett was up to that point active in business and the community. He was a Director of the Mercantile Trust and Safe Deposit Company, the Merchants and Miners Transportation Company, the Baltimore Dry Dock Company, the Consolidated Coal Company, the National Mechanics Bank. He was also a Trustee of Johns Hopkins University and the McDonough School as well as Vice-President of the Association for the Improvement of the Condition of the Poor. Garrett also contributed a good deal to the beautification of Mt. Vernon Square by donating fountains and financing the reproduction of the George Peabody statue across from the Peabody Institute.



Mary Frick Garrett Jacobs (1851-1936)

In 1873, Robert Garrett married Mary Sloan Frick, daughter of William F. Frick, a leading Baltimore lawyer. The new Mrs. Garrett had been raised according to strict social conventions. She was, for example, forbidden to leave her house without a guardian until she was 18 years old. She herself advocated the necessity of observing such proprieties from her lofty position in Baltimore high society.

Beginning in about 1883, Mary decided to renovate her house at No. 11 Mt. Vernon Place. She commissioned the well-known New York architectural firm of McKim, Mead and White to handle the job. One of the first steps was the aquisition of the house next door (No. 9) and joining the two together. The present structure was made complete with the purchase in 1902 of No. 7 to allow for even more expansion. The result was an impressive dwelling that must have been constructed only for social events, as its interior does not evoke the comforts of home. Nonetheless, Mary took a great deal of interest in the work on the house and, as a result, she made McKim, Mead and White earn their commission. She continually was dissatisfied with one thing or another and she often had work re-done or demanded substantial discounts on the charges. Possessed of an indominable personality, she usuallly got her way.

Mary was also heavily involved with various enterprizes in Baltimore. She maintained the Robert Garrett Hospital for Children, the Garrett Free Dispensary, and the Garrett Sanitarium at Mt. Airy for over 40 years. She was also a frequent and liberal donor to various organized charity groups. Other involvements included the Colonial Dames of America and the Baltimore Museum of Art, of which she was a founding member. She was also an active supporter of the Women's Cathedral League and later, during World War I, she worked with the Woman's Section of the Maryland League of National Defenc. In 1920, Mary became Vice Chairman of the Republican City Committee.

After marrying the reputable Baltimore physician Dr. Henry Barton Jacobs in 1902, she ended a widowhood of six years. The couple divided their time between frequent European visits, Mrs. Jacobs' Baltimore estates, and summer travels to Newport, Rhode Island. Mrs. Jacobs died in 1936, survived only by her husband, having had no children by either of her marriages.



Mary Elizabeth Garrett (1954-1915)

Sister of Robert and T. Harrison Garrett, Mary E. Garrett can be said to have taken the most after their strong-willed, indomitable father, John Work Garrett. Firmly committed to her ideals, Miss Garrett used the fortune inherited from her father to advance the opportunities for women in school, college and professional education. In 1885, she founded the Bryn Mawr School for Girls in Baltimore with the help of Mary Mackall Gwinn, Elizabeth T. King, Julia R. Rogers and M. Carey Thomas. She had a 400,000 dollar school building constructed in 1889 in the city that was said to have been the best equipped in the country at the time. The program of studies at Bryn Mawr was broad as well as challenging, and as a result profoundly influenced girls' education. It also influenced the secondary education for boys as well by raising educational standards.

Miss Garrett also did much for Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania as well. She liberally donated funds and contributed in 1906 100,000 dollars to re-build the College Deanery.

Mary E. Garrett's role in the endowment of the Johns Hopkins Medical School was also noteworthy. She helped to raise funds and herself donated over 525,000 dollars toward the goal. She did, however, place the condition upon her bequest that women would be entered into the institution on equal terms with men and that the standards for acceptance for all would be uncommonly high. Although reluctant at first, the Johns Hopkins Medical School finally accepted the terms and the money and eventually cited the wisdom of her conditions.



Amzi B. Crane (1850-1907)

Amzi B. Crane acquired the skills of telegraphy and shorthand early in life and this enabled him to earn a respectiable living first at the Pennsylvania Railroad Company and then the B and O under John W. Garrett as confidential secretary. Transferred to the office of Robert Garrett, Crane became his chief secretary, a position herheld until Garrett's death. After this point, Crane was retained by Garrett's former wife, Mrs. Henry Barton Jacobs, as her confidential agent. He relinquished this post in 1907 upon his death. Crane married in 1874 and had six children.