Isaac Edward Emerson

Issac Edward Emerson was born in 1859 in Chatham County, North Carolina, the son of a farmer. When his mother died prematurely, he went to live with his aunt and uncle. He later graduated as a pharmacist from the University of North Carolina in 1879.

In 1880, he moved to Baltimore and opened a small drug store where he developed a formula for a headache remedy. He patented the formula, named it Bromo-Seltzer and began marketing it. In 1887, he formed the Emerson Drug Company and, recognizing the importance of advertising in selling products, undertook worldwide ad campaigns in newspaper, magazine, in-store ads and on radio which rocketed the sales of Bromo-Seltzer and other products producing his great wealth.{{cite web|title=Isaac E. Emerson Papers, 1894–1947, UNC|url=http://www.lib.unc.edu/mss/inv/e/Emerson,Isaac_E.html}}

In 1911, Emerson built the Emerson Bromo-Seltzer Tower, on the northeast corner of West Lombard and South Eutaw Streets, in the southwest downtown area, a well-known landmark in Baltimore, Maryland for 116 years. The tower originally featured a 51-foot revolving blue steel Bromo-Seltzer bottle on top that was lit by electric lights and visible for miles. The Emerson Tower was the tallest building in Baltimore along with another clock tower skyscraper on the downtown east side of the Maryland Casualty Company's – The Tower Building at the northwest corner of East Baltimore and Holiday Streets, until 1923, when supplanted by the Citizens National Bank Building (later First National Bank of Maryland) at the southwest corner of Light and Redwood Streets.[https://archive.today/20130117192037/http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/bs-md-bromo-seltzer-tower-20110602,0,6897503.story Kelly, Jacques. "Bromo Seltzer Tower celebrates 100 years," The Baltimore Sun, Friday, June 3, 2011.] He also built the Emerson Hotel at the northwest corner of North Calvert and East Baltimore Streets, replacing the former old Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Central Headquarters of 1884, which burned in the Great Baltimore Fire of February 1904. The hotel was unfortunately razed in 1971. He was controlling owner of the Maryland Glass Corporation, which made the blue glass bottles for his Bromo-Seltzer medication.

In 1884, he earned the title of "captain" when he organized the Maryland Naval Reserves, which he commanded until 1901. He was thereafter known as "Captain Emerson" or "Captain Ike." He also personally financed an entire Naval Squadron during the Spanish–American War and was commissioned a Lieutenant in the United States Navy. Emerson later owned several yachts, including the Susquehanna, the Margaret, and the Queen Anne. These were used for extensive world travel as well as for social entertaining and hunting expeditions.{{cite book |last=Powell |first=William Stevens|title=Dictionary of North Carolina Biography |date=November 9, 2000| volume=2, D–G | page=155 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=BdAGnn0SZX0C&pg=PA155 |publisher= University of North Carolina Press|isbn=9780807867013}}

File:Emerson-plaque-sm.jpgFile:Mrs. A.G. Vanderbilt (Mrs. Margaret Emerson McKim) LCCN2014686089.tif.]]

In 1880, just after graduating college, he married Emelie (née Askew) Dunn (1854–1921), the eldest daughter of Harriet J. (née Moore) Askew and Colonel William Franklin Askew of Raleigh, North Carolina. From her first marriage to John K. Dunn, Emelie was the mother of Margaret "Daisy" Dunn (1875–1944), whom Emerson adopted. Daisy was married to J. Mitchell Horner and, later, James McVickar.{{cite news |title=MRS. E.A. EMERSON WEDS ACROSS RIVER; Mother-in-Law of A.G. Vanderbilt United to C.H. Basshor by "Marrying Parson." |url=https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1912/08/23/104905089.pdf |accessdate=3 September 2019 |work=The New York Times |date=23 August 1912}} Before their divorce in 1911, they were the parents of one child:{{cite news |last1=Times |first1=Special to The New York |title=CAPT. EMERSON SUES WIFE IN BALTIMORE; Druggist Secretly Files Papers, Naming a Prominent Baltimore Manufacturer. |url=https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1911/01/20/104855275.pdf |accessdate=3 September 2019 |work=The New York Times |date=20 January 1911}}

• Margaret Emerson (1884–1960), who married Dr. Smith Hollins McKim in 1902. They divorced in 1910 and in 1911 she married Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt.{{cite news |last1=TIMES |first1=Special Cable to THE NEW YORK |title=A.G. VANDERBILT WEDS MRS. M'KIM; Quiet Sunday Marriage in a Registrar's Office in an English Village. |url=https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1911/12/18/104844742.pdf |accessdate=3 September 2019 |work=The New York Times |date=18 December 1911}} She was widowed in 1915 when he died aboard the RMS Lusitania. In 1918, she married Raymond T. Baker, divorcing in 1928. Her last marriage was to Charles Minot Amory in 1928.{{cite news |title=MRS. EMERSON, 75, OF THE '400' DEAD; Society Leader Was Mother of Alfred Vanderbilt -- Her Father Headed Drug Firm |url=https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1960/01/03/105172331.pdf |accessdate=3 September 2019 |work=The New York Times |date=3 January 1960}}

After their divorce, Emelie married Charles Hazeltine Basshor in August 1912. Basshor later committed suicide in 1914,{{cite news |title=C. HAZELTINE BASSHOR DEAD; Wife of Baltimore Society Man Says He Was Accidentally Shot. |url=https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1914/08/23/104635907.pdf |accessdate=3 September 2019 |work=The New York Times |date=23 August 1914}} and Emelie Basshor died in 1921.{{cite news |title=Obituary Notes {{!}} Mrs. EMELIE ASKEW BASSHOR |url=https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1921/08/28/98722733.pdf |accessdate=3 September 2019 |work=The New York Times |date=28 August 1921}}

In 1911, he married his second wife, Anne McCormack (née Preston). From this marriage, he gained a stepson and a stepdaughter:

• Frederick C. McCormack
• Ethel Preston McCormack, who married Francis Huger McAdoo, the eldest son of United States Treasury Secretary and U.S. Senator, William Gibbs McAdoo. She later married Walter Winchester Keith and Matthew James Looram.

Captain Emerson and his wife, Anne, were widely known in American society and in the capitals of Europe. When Emerson's step-daughter, Ethel P. McCormack, married the son of William Gibbs McAdoo, then U.S. Secretary of the Treasury, President Woodrow Wilson attended the reception at the Emerson estate in Brooklandwood, Maryland, off of Falls Road, north of the city. They were also known as lavish entertainers, maintaining two yachts for parties and world tours. They maintained estates at Brooklandwood and their villa Whitehall at Narragansett Pier in Rhode Island as well as in North and South Carolina where they entertained many social leaders of the Atlantic seaboard cities.{{cite news |title=Capt. I.E. Emerson Dies in Baltimore |newspaper=The New York Times|date=January 24, 1931}}

=== Estate ===

Emerson died in 1931. His Will was filed for Probate in the New York Surrogate's Court on 30 January 1931, and divided an estate of over $20,000,000 amongst his family.{{cite news

| url = https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1931/01/30/113338589.html?pageNumber=15

| title = Capt. Emerson Left $20,000,000 Estate

| work = The New York Times

| date = 30 January 1931

| page = 15

| access-date = 25 May 2025

}} The bulk of the estate consisted of controlling interests in four companies: Emerson's Bromo-Seltzer, the Emerson Drug Company, the Maryland Glass Corporation and the Emerson Hotel. His stock in these companies was place in a 20-year trust fund, with his widow to receive 35.5% of the annual income, his only daughter Margaret 35.5%, his granddaughter Floria Baker, and 2% each to his grandsons Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt Jr. and George Washington Vanderbilt III. At the end of the 20-year Trust period the trust assets were to be divded amongst the beneficiaries and their children in the same proportions.

Emerson bequeathed his real estate in the Worthington Valley to his daughter Margaret for life, and thereafter to her son Alfred, and his Southern shooting preserve Arcadia to his grandson George.{{cite news

| url = https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1931/01/30/113338589.html?pageNumber=15

| title = Capt. Emerson Left $20,000,000 Estate

| work = The New York Times

| date = 30 January 1931

| page = 15

| access-date = 25 May 2025

}}

In 1902, his daughter Margaret, aged 18, married Dr. Smith Hollins McKim. They became social leaders in New York's high society. But in 1910 she brought a sensational divorce suit against her husband, claiming he beat her in drunken rages. She remarried in 1911, this time to Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt, one of the wealthiest men in America having inherited the bulk of his father's fortune in 1899. They had two sons, Alfred Gwynne Jr. and George Washington III. While traveling to England on business, Alfred Sr. heroically lost his life in the sinking of RMS Lusitania, a famous British passenger ocean liner by German torpedo in 1915 during World War I. Margaret inherited part of her husband's fortune. One son from this marriage, Alfred Jr., went on to become one of the driving forces behind thoroughbred racing in America. Margaret married two more times, both ending in divorce. In 1931, she legally resumed her maiden name.

Emerson's stepdaughter, Ethel P. McCormack, married successful New York lawyer, Francis Huger McAdoo in 1913 at the time his father was the Secretary of the Treasury of the United States. After Ethel and Francis divorced, Ethel took up her residence in the Brooklandwood estate.

{{cite news |title=Mrs. Emerson, 75, Of The 400, Dead|newspaper=The New York Times |date=January 3, 1960}}

{{Reflist}}

{{commons category}}

• [http://explore.baltimoreheritage.org/items/show/485 Captain Isaac Emerson Mansion – Explore Baltimore Heritage]
• [https://finding-aids.lib.unc.edu/04744/ Isaac E. Emerson Papers, 1894–1947] at the Louis Round Wilson Library

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Category:1859 births

Category:1931 deaths

Category:People from Chatham County, North Carolina

Category:American chemists

Category:Businesspeople from Baltimore