Jacob Furth

Jacob Furth (November 15, 1840 – June 2, 1914) was an Austrian Empire-born American entrepreneur and prominent Seattle banker. He played a key role in consolidating Seattle's electric power and public transportation infrastructure, and was a member of Ohaveth Sholum Congregation, Seattle's first synagogue. Bill Speidel called him "the city's leading citizen for thirty years," adding that Furth "may even have been the most important citizen Seattle ever had."

Clarence Bagley wrote shortly after Furth's death:

Early life Furth was born in Schwihau, Bohemia (now Švihov, Czech Republic) November 15, 1840, the son of Lazar and Anna (Popper) Furth,

He had with him letters of introduction to the Schwabacher Brothers, a prominent Jewish pioneer merchant family firm. After his arrival, he used his last ten dollars to get to Nevada City, California, where the Schwabachers had secured him a position. he helped organize the Puget Sound National Bank with a capital of fifty thousand dollars, and took charge as its cashier. For several months, Furth was the bank's only employee and its only officer in Seattle. after which he became chairman of the board of directors of the latter. In 1884 he organized the California Land & Stock Company, owning a farm in Lincoln County, Washington, one of the state's largest. Most of the farm was used to raise wheat; it also pastured cattle and horses. This was another company of which Furth would continue as president until his death. He also invested in property, including Seattle real estate and Pacific Northwest timber lands. he became president of the Seattle Electric Company (later Puget Power, merged in 1997 into Puget Sound Energy it covered an entire Seattle city block at Fifth Avenue and Lane Street in what is now the International District, Seattle's Chinatown.

Public-minded dealmaker

In eulogizing Furth, Judge Thomas Burke said of him,

Some seventy years later, Bill Speidel was more succinct: "All Jacob Furth did was take a squalid little village named Seattle and turn it into a world class city. He made good on Doc Maynard's dream."

Furth assembled $150 million in bank loans after the Great Seattle Fire, and promised that his bank would make no effort to profit from the fire. In the Panic of 1893, he dissuaded the directors of his Seattle National Bank from calling in all loans. "What you propose," he said, "may be good banking, but it is not human." A rapid trip to New York City secured enough capital to buy control of the bank and weather the crisis. and later became a banker himself. Furth arranged financing for Green's first shipping firm, the La Conner Trading and Transportation Company, as well as another successful steamboat line, the Anderson Steamboat Company.

Furth worked with both the E.H. Harriman and James J. Hill interests to bring their respective railroads to Seattle, finally bringing Seattle the transcontinental rail connection it had sought for decades.

Stone & Webster Furth's work with Stone & Webster—to consolidate the city's public transportation system and to consolidate and develop electrical power sources to power them—was more controversial. Most of them survived only by funding operations out of what should have been maintenance capital. Working with Stone & Webster, Furth stitched together a single system, the Seattle Electric Company and—under pressure from the Seattle City Council, in order to gain the franchise

The City of Seattle had been involved in municipal power generation since the 1890 creation of the Department of Lighting and Water Works. The 1902 election saw strong populist support for public power, leading to the establishment of Seattle City Light and the city's involvement in hydroelectricity.

The Schricker scandal Toward the end of his life, Furth's reputation was somewhat tarnished by a scandal related to a bank in La Conner, Washington, although Furth was posthumously acquitted of all culpability.

W.E. Schricker's private bank in La Conner failed in 1912 with $378,766.91 in debts and less than $200,000 in assets. Schricker blamed Furth and other officers of Furth's bank; Furth was arrested, lampooned in the press, and convicted by a jury on April 18, 1913, and fined $10,000. Schricker accused Furth of recommending that he continue to take deposits even after he knew his bank was in trouble. The prosecutor amplified this with a charge that Furth had done so to keep Schricker's bank going just long enough to pay notes due to Furth's bank, thereby harming other depositors. However, Furth was unaware that Schricker had made $348,554.83 in self-dealing loans to the Fidalgo Lumber Company of Anacortes, Washington, of which Schricker was a partner. In other words, most of the bank's debts could be accounted for by Schricker's failure to collect from himself. He also played a key role in fundraising for the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition.

Marriage and family In California, in 1865, Furth married Lucy (or Lucia) A. Dunton, a native of Indiana from what Lee Micklin characterizes as "an early American family"; they eventually had three daughters: Jane E., Anna F., and Sidonia. In 1884, Lucy Furth, along with Babette Gatzert (wife of Bailey Gatzert, and herself born a member of the Schwabacher family ) founded the Ladies Relief Society (now Seattle Children's Home). It was Seattle's first charity. Ohaveth Sholum Congregation, Seattle's first synagogue, and later to the Reform Temple de Hirsch, one of the congregations that merged into the present-day Temple de Hirsch-Sinai. Anna married Frederick K. Struve, a Seattle financier and son of Seattle mayor Henry G. Struve. His daughter Sidonia married a U.S. Army colonel named Wetherill; the Wetherills inherited the Furth family summer estate at Yarrow Point on the east shore of Lake Washington. The bulk of this estate, was deeded to the towns of Yarrow Point and Hunts Point as the Wetherill Nature Preserve on July 4, 1988.