Windmuller-Heynen Family Tree

Frederick Charles Sutro, the eldest son of Ludwig and Lilly (Fraatz) Sutro, was born in St. Louis, Missouri, September 7, 1877. He graduated from Columbia Grammar School, New York City, in 1895, and from Harvard College with the degree of A.B. in 1899. At college he specialized in courses on history, government and debating. After graduation, his health failing, Mr. Sutro traveled for a year abroad, and, in 1901, settled on his father's farm near Basking Ridge, Somerset county, New Jersey. Here for two years he lived as a farmer, and at the same time took an active interest in the life of the community. In Basking Ridge he founded the Village Improvement Society, and was instrumental in organizing its first volunteer fire company. In politics he believed that the greatest field of usefulness for a young man of that time lay with the insurgent wing of the Democratic party. He accordingly, in 1902, became, and for ten years remained, a member of the Somerset County Democratic Committee, serving part of the time as its vice-chairman. He •was also for a number of years a member for Somerset county of the Democratic State Auxiliary Committee, an organization of young men devoted to the newer political ideals of opposition to commercialized politics. With the Democratic victory in New Jersey, in 1910, and the election of Woodrow Wilson to the Presidency, in 1912, many of these men rose to high office in State and Nation.

In November, of the latter year, Governor Wilson (then President-elect) appointed Mr. Sutro a commissioner of the Palisades Interstate Park. In this appointment the Governor of New York concurred. Mr. Sutro immediately became treasurer of the New Jersey commission. In the course of the growth of the park, which in 1918 embraced about thirty thousand acres on the west bank of the Hudson River, between Fort Lee, New Jersey, and Newburgh, New York, Mr. Sutro secured from the Legislature of New Jersey the necessary appropriations and legislation to maintain and develop the New Jersey section of the park. In 1918, by Governor Edge, of New Jersey, and Governor Whitman, of New York, he was reappointed for a second five-year term.

Mr. Sutro's business career began in 1903 when, his health sufficiently restored, and a vacancy occurring in the staff of the Sutro Brothers Braid Company, he entered that corporation, of which his father was president. He became secretary of the corporation in 1912, and its president in 1915. In 1908 oc

curred an interesting episode. In that year the corporation erected a new plant upon property purchased some years before in West New York, Hudson county, New Jersey. Upon completion of the plant it developed that there had been levied upon the land assessments for improvements considerably in excess of the original purchase price. The circumstances connected with these assessments were of such a suspicious nature that, in conjunction with other property owners of the town who had similar grievances, Mr. Sutro organized and became president of the West New York Civic Society. The society started an investigation of the town's affairs, which involved numerous law suits and resulted in the discovery of loose and corrupt methods of administration, defalcations by town officials of over twenty-five thousand dollars, and the loss through official blundering of an entire issue of school bonds amounting to one hundred and five thousand dollars. The defalcations were repaid by the defaulting officials, and of the bonds thirty-eight thousand were recovered. To remedy the demoralized political situation, the Civic Society conducted a series of educational campaigns that brought about the ousting of the officials responsible for the administrative chaos, and the election in their place of members of the Civic Society and citizens in sympathy with its aims.

Mr. Sutro's natural inclinations have lain in the field of public activities. He has, however, confined these interests to his hours of leisure so that he could devote himself unreservedly to his business duties. His company enjoys a high reputation for the manufacture of good merchandise, and for adherence to correct mercantile practice. The policies that have upheld this reputation may be summarized as follows: Retention of officers and employees by means of encouragement with ample salaries and wages, and liberal bonuses; sacrifice of larger production at popular prices to the output of the best merchandise at prices sufficient to assure a profit, in other words, maintenance of quality regardless of competition, and the treatment of all customers on a basis of exact quality, by rendering the same good service to all, with special favors to none.

Mr. Sutro has served as secretary of the Millington (New Jersey) Field Club (1914-1916); director of the Bernardsville (New Jersey) National Bank (19161917); member of the Board of Education of Bernard township (1918), and trustee of the Fourth Universalist Society (Church of the Divine Paternity) of New York (1917-1918). He is a member of the Harvard Clubs of New York and New Jersey, and of the Basking Ridge Presbyterian Church. Upon the outbreak of the war with Germany he enlisted as a private in the Bernard's Company, New Jersey Militia Reserve, and, in 1918, held the rank of second lieutenant. He served as a four-minute man; member of the finance committee of the Somerset Hills (New Jersey) Red Cross Chapter; associate member of the Legal Advisory Board of Somerset county in connection with the Selective Service Draft, and chairman for Basking Ridge of food pledge, war library, Red Cross and other campaigns incident to the war.

Naturally of frail health, Mr. Sutro has found that strict adherence to a regular routine of exercise has enabled him to maintain the necessary vigor with which . to pursue the activities in which he is interested. He has made it his practice to attend regularly, three times a week, a gymnasium in the neighborhood of his office. On November 30, 1912, Mr. Sutro was married to Elizabeth Tallman Winne,

only child of Ogden F. and Jane (Deyo) Winne. Mr. Winne is a hardware merchant, in Kingston, New York. Their children are: Ogden Winne Sutro, born November 26, 1913; Louis Le Fevre Sutro, born December 3, 1915.

SUTRO, Frederick Charles,

Leader In Community Affair*.

The Sutro family is of German origin. Emanuel Sutro, the grandfather of Frederick Charles Sutro, was a native of Bruck, in Bavaria, where he was born December 21, 1791. He married, in 1826, Rosa Warendorff, who was born in March, 1803, in the city Dueren, which lies midway between Aix la Chapelle and Cologne. About 1830 Emanuel Sutro established himself in Aix la Chapelle as a manufacturer of woolen fabrics. He died December 8, 1847, leaving besides his widow, eleven children, seven sons and four daughters, two others having •died in infancy.

Soon after the death of Emanuel Sutro occurred the revolutionary disturbances of 1848, which induced Mrs. Sutro to emigrate from her native country to the United States. Her eldest son, Emanuel S., preceded the rest of the family. In October, 1850, Mrs. Sutro followed with her other children, except two who remained for a time to complete their education. The family took up their residence in Baltimore, Maryland. In 1873 Mrs. Sutro moved to New York, where she died August i, 1883. She was a woman of rare intellect and force of character.

Of the seven sons who survived her, several had notable careers. Most generally known is the name of Adolph Sutro, the builder of the famous Sutro tunnel in Nevada. He was born April 29, 1830, and died in San Francisco, California, August 8, 1898. Soon after the settlement of the family in Baltimore he emigrated, toward the close of the year 1850, to California. In 1859 the discovery of the celebrated Comstock lode in Nevada drew him to Virginia City. "In a very short time his practical and trained mind saw that the clumsy and old-fashioned methods being followed in mining were both inadequate to the needs and frightfully expensive. The shafts of the mines were deep, as low as fifteen hundred feet, the temperature in the lower levels high, ranging even to one hundred and ten degrees Fahrenheit; great volumes of water were encountered, and pumping fifteen hundred feet was expensive; the air was foul and poisonous, and like an inspiration the thought flashed through the visitor's mind, why not drain and ventilate these mines?"*

Against the opposition of the owners of the Comstock mines he fought for the necessary legislation before the Nevada Legislature and Congress. By dint of remarkable perseverance and force of character he won his fight and constructed the tunnel. Upon the completion of this work he sold his interests in it and again turned his attention to San Francisco. There he bought large tracts of land, developed Sutro Heights, built the Cliff House and The Sutro Baths, and collected a great library. He led several successful fights in the public interests against the corporations, and was finally elected Mayor of San Francisco. His was an heroic character that ranks with the foremost pioneers of California.