Fisk family.

The records are those of Harvey Fisk (1831-1890) and his descendants comprising three generations of investment bankers.

Harvey Fisk was born on April 26, 1831 in New Haven, Vt. A minister's son, he was apprenticed as a clerk in a Trenton, N.J., drygoods shop in 1848 through the influence of an uncle. He began his banking career in 1852 when he moved to New York City to become a teller. On March 1, 1862, he joined with A. S. Hatch to form the banking partnership of Fisk & Hatch, which was soon named as a subagent for the sale of government bonds in New York and New England by the Philadelphia banker Jay Cooke. The firm went on to earn a reputation though financing the Central Pacific and Chesapeake & Ohio Railroads, but the Panic of 1873 caught them with $2.7 million advanced to the C&O, and they were forced to suspend payment. With great effort, the firm was restored to solvency, but Fisk's health collapsed in the spring of 1883 and he was obliged to travel in Europe. In his absence, Hatch speculated in government bonds, and the firm was caught again in the May 1884 panic that accompanied the failure of Grant & Ward. Fisk returned from Europe and restored the company's credit, and the partnership was dissolved in March 1885.

Fisk now took his sons Harvey Edward, Charles Joel, Alex. G., and Pliny Fisk into the business as Harvey Fisk & Sons. The firm continued to deal in government and railroad bonds, and Fisk took the lead in persuading the Cleveland administration to use the accumulating federal surplus to reduce the national debt and put more money into circulation. Fisk's health had never been restored, and he was obliged to make two extended trips to Carlsbad and other European resorts in the late 1880s. He died on November 8, 1890.

Harvey Edward and particularly Pliny Fisk were the dominant partners of the next generation. The house was generally associated with the House of Morgan and was involved in refunding railroad debts during the reorganizations of the late 1890s. Harvey E. Fisk withdrew in 1898 and formed his own firm, Fisk & Robinson, with George H. Robinson. From 1914 until his retirement in 1930 he was a research writer with Bankers Trust Company.

Pliny Fisk, the Stock Exchange member of the firm, was the dominant partner from 1890 to 1919. Under his leadership, Harvey Fisk & Sons underwrote the formation of the American Locomotive Company (1901), Bethlehem Steel Corporation (1904-05), and the Hudson Companies (1902) and Hudson and Manhattan Railroad Company which built the rapid transit "Hudson Tubes." Pliny Fisk suffered a nervous breakdown in 1919 and lost his entire fortune. In the years before his death in 1939, he was reduced to living in a single room, albeit one on the fashionable Upper East Side.

Alex. G. Fisk was originally in charge of the firm's Boston office but returned to New York during the depression of the 1890s. He appears to have retired about the time of World War I and drowned in a swimming accident in 1921.

Charles J. Fisk served as treasurer of the firm and served three terms as mayor of Plainfield, N.J., where he had a suburban home. His son, Harvey Fisk, who died in 1928 at the age of 44, was the last family member of the firm. The business was incorporated in 1921, and the stock gradually passed into other hands.

From the description of Papers, 1883-1901. (Hagley Museum & Library). WorldCat record id: 79178525