Anton A. Raven

Anton Adolph Raven (September 30, 1833 – January 15, 1919) was an Curaçaoan born American business executive.[1]

Anton Adolph Raven, American banker

Early life
Raven, 1900

Raven was born on September 30, 1833 in Curaçao in what was then a part of the Dutch West Indies. He was a son of John Rudolf Raven, a merchant in the "Spanish-American Republic of Venezuela", and Petronella (née Hutchings) Raven, who came from "ancestors who came from Holland to New York State and thence removed to Curaçao, West Indies where she herself was born."[2]

After receiving his education in St. Thomas,[1] he came to New York at the age of seventeen in 1850.[3]

Career

On January 4, 1852, Raven joined the Atlantic Mutual Insurance Company as a clerk. Atlantic had been founded as a joint-stock company in 1838 as the Atlantic Insurance Company before becoming a mutual company in 1842. He was appointed an underwriter in 1865, fourth vice-president in 1874, third vice president in 1876, and second vice president in 1886. He was elected vice president in 1895 and elected president two years later in 1895. Raven retired as president in 1915 and was succeeded by Cornelius Eldert, formerly vice president.[4]

He also served as a director of the Metropolitan Trust Company, the Atlantic Trust Company, the Home Life Insurance Company and the Phenix National Bank of New York.[2]

Personal life

In 1860, Raven was married to Cleveland born Gertrude Oatman (1840–1914), a daughter of James C. Oatman. Together, they were the parents of five children:[2]

  • Henry Hutchings Raven (1861–1862), who died young.[5]
  • William Oatman Raven (d. 1940), who married Angeline Odell in 1899.[6]
  • Caroline Elizabeth Raven, who married Peter A. MacLean.[2] After his death, she married Charles Strong Van Nuis, an associate of Thomas Edison,[7] in 1930.[8]
  • Edith Raven (d. 1908), who died unmarried.[9]
  • John Howard Raven (1870–1949),[10] a professor at Rutgers College who married Elizabeth Grier Strong, a daughter of the Rev. Selah Woodhull Strong and Eleanor Hendrickson (née Van Deursen) Strong,[11] in 1894.[12]

He was a member of the Montauk Club of Brooklyn, the New York Club, the American Museum of Natural History, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. He was also a member, and vice president, of the Society for Improving the Condition of the Poor in Brooklyn, a member of the American Geographical Society[2] and a founding member of the Peary Arctic Club.[13]

Raven died at his home in Caldwell, New Jersey on January 15, 1919.[3]

The Raven Glacier in Greenland was named in his honor.[14]

References
  1. The Sailors' Magazine and Seamen's Friend. American Seamen's Friend Society. 1918. pp. 36–39. Retrieved 25 April 2022.
  2. Prominent and Progressive Americans: An Encyclopædia of Contemporaneous Biography. New York Tribune. 1902. Retrieved 25 April 2022.
  3. "ANTON A. RAVEN DIES AT 85.; Ex-President of Atlantic Mutual Insurance Company and Banker". The New York Times. 16 January 1919. Retrieved 25 April 2022.
  4. "Marine Insurance President Retires". Exporters' Review: Issued in Connection with the Exporters' Encyclopædia. Exporters' encyclopædia Company: 34. February 1915. Retrieved 25 April 2022.
  5. "DIED. Raven". The New York Times. 14 January 1862. Retrieved 25 April 2022.
  6. "Raven-Odell Marriage". Brooklyn Life. April 15, 1899. p. 18. Retrieved 25 April 2022.
  7. "CHARLES S. VAN NUIS". The New York Times. 22 April 1940. Retrieved 25 April 2022.
  8. "Mrs. Caroline MacLean to Be Wed to C. S. Van Nuis Tomorrow". The Brooklyn Daily Eagle. 11 June 1930. p. 8. Retrieved 25 April 2022.
  9. "Edith Raven". The Brooklyn Citizen. 15 February 1908. p. 2. Retrieved 25 April 2022.
  10. "DR. J. H. RAVEN DIES; HEADED SEMINARY; President of New Brunswick Theological Institute, 1923-24, Rutgers Trustee Since '14". The New York Times. 27 February 1949. Retrieved 25 April 2022.
  11. Record Number of the Wellesley College Bulletin. Wellesley College. 1923. Retrieved 25 April 2022.
  12. Wall, John Patrick; Pickersgill, Harold E. (1921). History of Middlesex County, New Jersey, 1664-1920. Lewis historical publishing Company, Incorporated. pp. 7–9. Retrieved 25 April 2022.
  13. XIV. Der Peary Arctic Club - Projekt Gutenberg
  14. Geographical Record, JSTOR - Bulletin of the American Geographical Society Vol. 39, No. 1 (1907), pp. 28-42
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