George G. Haven Jr.
George Griswold Haven, Jr. (14 June 1866, New York City - 21 July 1925, Manhattan) was an American businessman.
His father, George G. Haven, Sr. came from a family that had settled in New England in the earliest times and was a prominent New Yorker.
George G. Haven, Jr. attended St. John's School, in Ossining and the Hopkins Grammar School. He entered Yale College and graduated with the class of 1887. He was a member of Delta Kappa Epsilon, Hé Boulé and Skull and Bones.
After his graduation, Haven returned to New York City to enter the Lehigh & Wilkes Barre Coal Company. Following in his father's footsteps, Haven became interested in railroads, his next job being secretary and treasurer of the St. Paul & Duluth and New York & Northern railways. He later became general manager of New York & Northern.
In 1896, Haven joined the firm Strong, Sturgis & Company, whom he represented on the New York Stock Exchange.
He was a director of the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad; the Texas & Pacific Railroad; the South Porto Rico Sugar Company; the Metallurgical Company; the Charleston & Ohio River Company; and the United States Mortgage & Trust Company. Haven also became a director of the Metropolitan Opera & Real Estate Company in 1910, becoming a senior member and treasurer in 1914. He was appointed President in 1919, a position his father had held just over ten years ago. Through the Metropolitan Opera, Haven became associated with such prominent New Yorkers as George F. Baker, J.P. Morgan, Otto H. Kahn and Robert F. Cutting.
Haven was married twice. His first wife, Elizabeth Shaw Ingersoll, was the daughter of Charles Robert Ingersoll, former Governor of Connecticut. Two years after the death of his first wife, he married Dorothy James.
In early 1924, Haven suffered a nervous breakdown. He retired from business and began traveling in hope of regaining his health, but on 21 July 1925 Haven shot himself through the head with a revolver, at his home on Fifty-third Street, New York City.
References
- This article incorporates copyrighted text from Doom Chronicle, used by permission of the author.