Samuel Livingston Mather

Samuel Livingston Mather (July 1, 1817 – October 8, 1890) was an American who pioneered iron mining in the Lake Superior iron mining district. He was the first person to transport iron ore from the region to Lake Erie. He co-founded the Cleveland Iron Mining Company (now known as Cleveland-Cliffs), which became one of the most dominant iron mining companies in the United States.

Early life Samuel Livingston Mather was born July 1, 1817, to Samuel and Catherine ( Livingston) Mather in Middletown, Connecticut.

He was descended from Richard Mather, a prominent New England Puritan minister in colonial Boston. Richard's third son, Increase Mather, was the sixth president of Harvard College. Increase's son, Cotton Mather, played a prominent role in the Salem witch trials of 1692–1693. Samuel Livingston Mather, however, traced his lineage back to Richard Mather's fourth son, Timothy, one of the co-founders of Yale University. His grandfather, Samuel Mather, was a member of the Connecticut Land Company and a founder of the city of Cleveland, Ohio.

At the age of 16, he graduated from Wesleyan University in 1835, then worked for a time for his father in Middletown. He then relocated to New York City, where he worked as an importer and exporter, selling goods on commission. Between 1835 and 1843, he twice traveled to Spain — an "unusual journey" for any American in the early 1800s. However, this business was not very profitable.

Cleveland Iron Mining Co. Formation In 1843, Mather moved to Cleveland to look after the family lands. In doing so, he became the only descendant of an original stockholder in the Connecticut Land Company to have an influence in the new city. He studied law under local attorney John W. Allen. He was subsequently admitted to the bar, but never practiced law. Instead, he acted as a land agent for other absentee landowners in the Connecticut Land Company. He struggled financially, and became depressed over his prospects.

Copper and iron deposit outcroppings were discovered on Upper Peninsula of Michigan in September 1844. News spread quickly, and Samuel L. Mather was deeply interested in the reports. In 1845 W.A. Adair, George E. Freeman, and Morgan L. Hewitt of Cleveland formed the Dead River & Ohio Mining Company. In addition to Samuel L. Mather, the incorporators included John W. Allen, Aaron Barker, Henry F. Brayton, E.M. Clark, Morgan L. Hewitt, John Outhwaite, and Benjamin Strickland.

The company did little except maintain its claim to the land. Outhwaite visited the site and planted potatoes there as proof the land was being "improved", as required by federal law. In the winter of 1849-1850, the firm managed to send 20 wagons, each hauling huge boulders of iron ore, to the lake shore. In November 1851, Cleveland Iron Mining signed a contract with Herman B. Ely of the Iron Mountain Railroad to build a spur to the company's land.

Expansion In 1853, Cleveland Iron Mining Co. purchased the land and assets of the Marquette Iron Mining Co., whose primary investor was Waterman Fisher. Fisher was likely dismayed that Ely was building a line toward the Cleveland company's land, and decided to sell.

On March 29, 1853, Samuel L. Mather, Henry F. Brayton, Selah Chamberlain, E.M. Clark, Isaac L. Hewitt, Morgan L. Hewitt, and John Outhwaite reorganized the merged company and incorporated it as the Cleveland Iron Mining Co. name under the regular laws of Michigan. Morgan Hewitt was named president, and Mather the secretary and treasurer. and Chamberlain. Chamberlain and Hewitt were good friends of Mather's, and Chamberlain lived next door to him. Mather often gathered Chamberlain, Hewitt, Outhwaite, and others in his garden, where they talked science, and it was Mather who got them interested in mining Lake Superior iron ore.

The Cleveland Iron Mining Co. became the second mining firm, after the pioneering Jackson Iron Co., to risk mining on the Upper Peninsula. It was the first company to transport iron ore or pig iron out of the Lake Superior district in any large amount.

By 1854, Waterman Fisher had sold his interest in the Cleveland Iron Mining Co. to Morgan Hewitt, Samuel L. Mather, William J. Gordon, and others of Cleveland. These men now controlled the firm outright. Mather, micromanaging the company's operations from Cleveland, ordered the construction of an office building at the mine and a company store in the emerging town of Marquette. With Ely's railroad stalled, Mather signed an agreement with the Jackson Iron Co. in which the two firms agreed to jointly build a plank road from their mines to Marquette.

The company mined of iron ore in 1854. It mined another in 1955. In 1856, the Cleveland Iron Mining Co. became the first company to ship iron ore to Lake Erie in raw form, transporting of ore on the steamer Ontonagon. In 1867, Mather gave up on micromanaging affairs from Cleveland.

Presidency of Cleveland Iron Mining through two depressions In 1869, Samuel L. Mather was elected president of the Cleveland Iron Mining Co., after Dr. Hewitt retired.

Managerial excellence By early 1880s, Samuel L. Mather was known nationwide as being the best iron mining manager in Lake Superior region. His focus on cost reduction had created a highly effective internal accounting system. Charles D. Lawson, state commissioner of mineral statistics in Michigan, lauded Cleveland Iron Mining for it, noting that the company had complete sense of costs and operations.

By the early 1880s, Mather's health had begun to fail because of stress. He faced another pricing crisis in 1885, when the Gogebic and Vermilion iron ranges opened, further flooding the market with ore. Gogebic ore was particularly low in phosphorus. As the decade wore on, Mather's health worsened, and he developed rheumatism and started losing his sight. His health was so bad that he stopped going to Michigan after 1886, and his son, William G. Mather, had to take over transportation duties.

Mather made two important decisions regarding the company in the years before his death. William G. Mather discovered that Republic Iron & Steel was making money shipping ore. In 1888, Samuel Mather decided to get back into the shipping business, and in September 1888 signed contracts to have two steamers built. This made the firm the first iron mining company in the United States to own its own transport fleet. The first vessel, the Frontenac, launched in March 1889. The second, the Pontiac, launched in July 1889.

Acquisition of Iron Cliffs Mather's other important decision was to buy out the Iron Cliffs Mining Company. Mather had begun to worry in the early 1880s that his company would soon exhaust its iron ore reserves. Mather ordered an intensive exploration program begun in 1886, even at the expense of dividends. He pushed the board of directors to buy new properties, and told his land agents to keep an eye out of anything of value which the company might purchase or lease. By 1889, Mather was seriously concerned that Cleveland Iron had become a second-class firm. Its high-phosphorus ore sold only slowly, and at lower and lower prices. Iron Cliffs, however, had just want Cleveland Iron Mining needed: Proven reserves, lots of land, and low-phosphorus ore.

Samuel J. Tilden, the former governor of New York and presidential candidate, led the Iron Cliffs Company. When he died in August 1886, Mather began investigating how to obtain control of the now-leaderless Iron Cliffs. Mather traveled to New York City to see if the Tilden estate was interested in selling, but it was not, and the surviving big stockholder, William Barnum, was adamantly opposed to a buyout.

Barnum died in late April 1889 after a five-month illness, and the Iron Cliffs board appointed a committee to seek a buyer. Mather seized the opportunity. He asked Jeptha Wade, a co-founder of Western Union and a Cleveland Iron Mining director since 1867, to head a syndicate of investors to acquire Iron Cliffs on behalf of Cleveland Iron Mining. In addition to Wade and Mather, the syndicate included William G. Mather, Selah Chamberlain, and other Cleveland Iron Mining directors. By February 1890, the syndicate owned 14,000 of Iron Cliffs's 20,000 shares. The syndicate took control of Iron Cliffs and its of iron-bearing land in April 1890. president of the Cleveland Boiler Plate Company (founded in 1858), and president of the American Iron Mining Company (founded in 1864). All were subsidiaries of the Cleveland Iron Mining Company. In 1872, Mather, Outhwaite, and Fred A. Morse organized the Cleveland Transportation Co. It had three steamers and three barge consorts.

Mather also held investments in three other small Michigan iron mining firms. He was a director of the Bancroft Iron Company and president of the McComber Iron Company. In 1887, he co-founded and was a director of the Michigan Gold Company, which mined gold from Jasper Knob near the city of Ishpeming.

Beginning in 1880, Mather was an investor in and director of the New York, Pennsylvania and Ohio Railroad (Nypano), and served until his death.

Personal life Samuel L. Mather was a lifelong Episcopalian, and one of the denomination's leading laymen in Ohio. Politically, he was a Republican.

He married Georgiana Pomeroy Woolson, grand-daughter of James Fenimore Cooper and sister of Constance Fenimore Woolson, on September 24, 1850. He then married Elizabeth Gwinn on June 11, 1856. They had one child, William Gwinn.

In 1870, Mather was honored by shipping businessman Philip Minch, who named his newly-built schooner the Samuel L. Mather. The vessel was long, had a beam of , and drew .

About September 24, 1890, Samuel L. Mather left work feeling ill. His funeral was held at Trinity Cathedral in Cleveland, and he was buried at Lake View Cemetery. He left an estate work $375,000 .