Eugene Zimmerman

Eugene Zimmerman (December 17, 1845 – December 20, 1914)

His father had moved to Mississippi from Ohio to inherit a foundry and several slaves. Eugene grew up at the family's business and was sent to Cincinnati in 1859 to attend Farmer's College. In the spring of 1861, he began attending the preparatory school Gambier Academy with the intention of attending Kenyon College.

Career Upon the outbreak of the Civil War, Zimmerman left the academy and tried to join the Union Navy, but was refused because he was too young. After some modifications, he was accepted, becoming a Master's mate and was assigned to the Mississippi River Squadron.

In 1875, Zimmerman purchased more than 13,000 acres of timberland in what is now Yosemite in Casey County, Kentucky. He ran a lumber mill there and built a wooden train track from Kings Mountain to Staffordsville in 1884, later organizing the Green River Railway Co. He used his income to invest in railroads and was president of the Cincinnati and Green River Railroad, and in 1888 he was elected president of Dayton, Forth Wayne and Chicago Railway.

In 1904, he was made president of the Cincinnati, Hamilton and Dayton Railway, and succeeded in getting the Queen and Crescent as its tributary and gaining control of the Père Marquette system, and the Chicago, Cincinnati and St. Louis Railroad. George M. Cumming, a lawyer with the United States Mortgage and Trust Company of New York, was elected vice president to represent the interest of New York capital. In 1906, along with his son-in-law, he toured the route of the proposed Newry, Keady Tynan Railway in Ireland to see whether to build a railway there. In June 1905, Cumming was elected president of the Detroit, Toledo and Ironton Railroad and served for one month; he was succeeded by F. A. Durban who was elected president in July 1905 but resigned in November, and was replaced by Zimmerman. The Detroit, Toledo & Ironton Railway had taken control of the Ann Arbor Railroad from Rudolph Kleybolte & Co. in June 1905. The acquisition connected Toledo with Frankfort, Michigan, and essentially doubled the DT&I system. The DT&I went bankrupt in 1908, forcing them to divest Ann Arbor Railroad to Zimmerman, who sold the line in 1909 to Joseph Ramsey, Jr. and Newman Erb, and retired from active business while still retaining control of his "immense coal and iron lands" in the Midwest. He continued to be a director of Cincinnati, Indianapolis and Western Railway, the Birmingham and Atlantic Railway and the North Alabama Coal and Iron Company.

At the time of his death, he was preparing to testify before Commissioner Henry Clay Hall of the Interstate Commerce Commission regarding the sale of the Cincinnati, Hamilton and Dayton Railroad and the Père Marquette to J.P. Morgan & Co., Frederick W. Stevens testified that Zimmerman and his associates loaded $24,000,000 worth of obligations on the railroad and took a 999-year lease on the Père Marquette system and guaranteed the road's bonds.

Personal life

In 1878, Zimmerman was married to Marietta A. "Etta" Evans, a daughter of Abraham Evans of West Liberty, and wife Elizabeth Igou, daughter of Peter Igou, farmer, and wife Susan McKenzie. Before her death in December 1882 from peritonitis, they were the parents of one child together: Helena Zimmerman. They divorced in 1931 and, in 1937, she married Arthur Keith-Falconer, 10th Earl of Kintore and remained married until his death in 1966.

Zimmerman lived at 2448 Auburn Avenue, the southeast corner of Auburn and McMillan in Mount Auburn, an affluent neighborhood in Cincinnati, Ohio, and was a member of the Loyal Legion, the Lotos Club, the American Yacht Club, and the Queen City Club of Cincinnati. He died at the Queen City Club on December 20, 1914. A few minutes before his death, he had been laughing over a $100,000 breach of promise suit filed against him in New York by Icy Wareham the previous June. Reportedly, Wareham, a dog fancier from Elmhurst on Long Island, alleged Zimmerman promised to marry her on December 30, 1913, and she was ready to marry him still. He left an estate valued at $10,000,000 in trust. From the beginning of his daughter's marriage, the Duke had financial difficulties and was known as a profligate gambler who spent lavishly on other women. In 1908, Zimmerman paid off the Duke's debts but made them in the form of payments for the purchase of various Manchester estates (including Kimbolton Castle, Kylemore Castle and Tandragee Castle), which were held for his grandson, Viscount Mandeville. By 1918, sixty-six petitions of bankruptcy had been filed against his son-in-law in the English courts. After becoming estranged in 1914, the Duke and Duchess eventually divorced in 1931.

Descendants Through his daughter Helena, he was the grandfather of four, including Lady Mary Alice Montagu; Alexander Montagu, 10th Duke of Manchester; Lord Edward Eugene Fernando Montagu; and Lady Ellen Millicent Louise Montagu.