A BIT OF MINER INSTITUTE HISTORY: WILLIAM MINER, ENTREPRENEUR

William Miner was known as a great philanthropist. In addition to his huge Heart’s Delight Farm, he funded the building of the Chazy Rural Central School and the Physician’s Hospital in Plattsburgh, NY. He also built a series of hydroelectric dams, including one in 1911 that cost $1 million, equivalent to about $33 million today. But Miner didn’t inherit his wealth: Born in 1862, he was orphaned at a young age and raised by his aunt and uncle on their small farm in Chazy, NY. When as a young man he went West, he had little money but a lot of ambition. After settling in Lafayette, Indiana he became involved in the railroad industry, becoming wealthy after inventing a railcar draft gear, the first of many patents Miner would receive.

William Miner was a highly successful entrepreneur, traveling widely in marketing his railcar-related equipment. One of his fellow travelers was James Buchanan Brady, better known as “Diamond Jim” Brady because of his love of diamonds and other gemstones. Brady was born in New York City in 1856 to an Irish immigrant family, the son of a saloon owner. He started work as a bellhop, then was a messenger boy for the New York Central Railroad system, and at age 21 he became the chief assistant to its general manager. That led to his career as a salesman for a railroad supply company. William Miner sold his own inventions while Brady sold for Miner as well as for others.

William Miner and Jim Brady became good friends, and by the end of the 19th century both were multi-millionaires. Brady owned over $2 million in gemstones, equivalent to over $75 million today. William Miner moved back to Chazy and in the early years of the 20th century and invested much of his fortune in developing Heart’s Delight Farm. One of the visitors to Heart’s Delight Farm was Jim Brady. Both men were generous in sharing their wealth: Miner built a central school, a hospital and a nurse’s residence, and his Heart’s Delight Farm eventually resulted in the establishment of the William H. Miner Agricultural Research Institute on the site of the farm. Jim Brady donated over $220,000 to Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. After Brady’s death his estate was distributed to several institutions including what is now the New York-Presbyterian Hospital, which created the James Buchanan Brady Urological Institute in his honor.

Miner and Brady were business associates, but while William Miner was a serious man with quiet ways, Diamond Jim was highly ostentatious and a mainstay of New York City nightlife. In 1895 he reportedly owned the first automobile in New York City. Brady was so impressed with the new “safer” bicycles that he bought a dozen gold-plated bicycles with diamond-encrusted handlebars for himself and for some of his New York City friends, including his close friend the actress and singer Lillian Russell. Brady was a noted gourmand, eating enough at a meal for ten people. The owner of Rector’s Restaurant described Brady as “the best 25 customers I ever had”. His typical dinner consisted of two dozen oysters, six crabs and two bowls of turtle soup. Those were the appetizers, which were followed by six lobsters, a double portion of terrapin, sirloin steak, vegetables, and a platter of French pastries for dessert, often followed by two pounds of chocolate.

Diamond Jim Brady died of a heart attack in 1917, while Willam Miner passed away in 1930. Brady never married and had no children, while Miner and his wife Alice’s only child died in infancy.

— Ev Thomas

ethomas@oakpointny.com