Wenman, Charles Henry, 1869-1957

Charles Henry Wenman (1869-1957) was the eldest son of Reverend Charles Aldis Wenman (b. 1841) and Anna Helena Hilfers Wenman (1851-1936). Rev. Wenman and Anna Hilfers were married at Grace Church in Brooklyn on October 15, 1868. Rev. Wenman served as a clergyman at Protestant Episcopal Church, also in Brooklyn. Due to a chronically weak and sore throat, he had to resign his position as Assistant Rector. Following his resignation, the Wenmans left Brooklyn and moved to Rensselaerville, N.Y. located about 150 miles north of New York City. Charles Henry Wenman was born there on December 23, 1869.

The family did not remain long in Rensselaerville and next moved to Cleveland, N.Y. where Eugene Hoffman Wenman was born on June 3, 1871 and Frederick Huntington Wenman was born on Dec. 22, 1872. After three years, the family moved again, this time to Cambridge, N.Y. Rev. Wenman's tenure at Cambridge lasted less than a year and the family then moved to Theresa, N.Y. A local sheriff tried to prevent the financially strapped Wenmans from leaving Cambridge, but a last-minute reprieve allowed the family to proceed to Theresa. Wenman's sister, Gertrude Wenman Castellanos, was born in Theresa on August 30, 1874.

At the age of 14, Wenman had already become self-supporting, and by 19 had secured a clerkship after finishing school. His uncle, John P. Ritter, introduced Charles to his friend, railroad baron Stuyvesant Fish, Sr. (1851-1923), then acting president of the Illinois Central Railroad. Within a few years, Wenman became the general bookkeeper of the company. By the time Wenman left in 1906, he had held various positions at the railroad, and after Fish's forced retirement from the railroad, Wenman became his secretary until Fish's death in 1923. Wenman continued in that position to the Fish family into the 1940s. As secretary to the family, Wenman helped Stuyvesant Fish, Jr. compile a genealogy of the Anthon Family. Fish's mother, Marian Graves Anthon (1853-1915), married Stuyvesant Fish, Sr. on June 1, 1876.

Fish was forcibly retired from the railroad by Western and Central Railroad president, and vice president of the Illinois Central Railroad, Edward H. Harriman (1849-1909). Harriman coveted Fish's Illinois Central due to the railroad's excellent development and assets. Harriman sought to obtain Illinois Central by accusing Fish of mishandling and padding the funds of the Commonwealth Trust Company, a holding company under the Fish banner. Wenman, along with several other employees, resigned from the railroad.

Apart from Wenman's work with Fish, he also ventured into businesses of his own. In 1923, he formed, with his nephew Frederick Wenman, and with patent attorney and inventor Thomas Hill, the Stenciltype Company. The company produced mimeograph stencil machines for advertising and duplication. According to documents within the collection, Hill turned out to be fraudulent, and by 1925, the company had dissolved. Upon the dissolution of the company, Wenman was plunged into a court battle for non-payment of wages. In addition, Wenman helped his cousin run the Crea-Mont Country Club in Culver Lake, N.J. from 1925-1927. Besides investing in the Stenciltype Company, Wenman also invested in a fraudulent motion picture company, Century Motion Picture Company, as well as several other ill-fated business ventures.

Wenman lived for a time at 436 Macon Street before moving to his life-long residence located at 990 Park Place in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn in 1905. His mother lived with him until her death in 1936, as well as his sister, Gertrude Wenman Castellanos, who had been abandoned by her spouse, Paul Castellanos Sr., in the early 1900s. In 1909, his brother, Frederick Wenman, previously committed to the Kings County Hospital, died due to health complications. Frederick's son, Frederick Jr., died in the 1930s, after suffering from a heart ailment. Charles Henry Wenman died on June 15, 1957, and is buried in the Wenman family plot in Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn.

From the guide to the Charles Henry Wenman papers, 1832-1951, (Brooklyn Historical Society)