Oroondates Mauran
{{short description|Businessperson (b. 1791, d. 1846)}}
File:O-mauran-portrait (cropped).jpg
Oroondates Mauran (1791-1846) was a businessman in New York City who owned steamship and ferry operations.
Early life
Mauran was born in Barrington, Rhode Island, the eighth child of Joseph Carlo and Olive (Bicknell) Mauran.{{cite web|url=https://www.ancestry.com/genealogy/records/joseph-carlo-mauran_42016672|title=Joseph Carlo Mauran (1807–1838)|website=ancestry|access-date=2019-10-17}} His father commanded two armed ships during the American Revolution.{{cite journal|doi=10.1111/j.2050-411X.2000.tb00285.x|title=Chapter Thirteen: In the World of Music|journal=Center for Migration Studies Special Issues|volume=16|issue=4|pages=176–202|year=2000|doi-access=free}}{{rp|183}}
Business career
He moved to New York City when he was 19 to become a merchant. Together with his partner Samuel Coates, he established the firm Coates & Mauran which owned ships that carried cargo from New York to the West Indies.{{cite web|url=https://rihs.wordpress.com/2015/05/14/object-thursday-pirates-off-cuba-1829/|title=Object Thursday: Pirates Off Cuba! 1829|date=May 14, 2015|first=Phoebe |last=Bean}} In 1822, he also entered into a venture to run regularly scheduled ships between New York City and Charleston, South Carolina.{{cite web|url=http://www.prrths.com/newprr_files/Hagley/PRR1820.pdf |title=A GENERAL CHRONOLOGY OF THE PENNSYLVANIA RAILROAD COMPANY ITS PREDECESSORS AND SUCCESSORS AND ITS HISTORICAL CONTEXT 1820 to 1824 |author=Christopher T. Baer |edition=May 2015 |quote=Apr. 1, 1822: Barker & Hopkins and Oroondates Mauran (1796-1846) begin a regular line of packets between New York and Charleston (the “Old Established Line”) with sailings three times a month; this is the first regularly scheduled packet.|date= |accessdate=2019-10-18}}
Mauran bought a 50% stake in the Richmond Turnpike Company, which had been founded by Staten Island resident and United States Vice-President Daniel D. Tompkins. The company also operated the first steam boat ferry between Manhattan and Staten Island which became known simply as the Staten Island Ferry.{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=GwNwDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA207|title=The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt|first=T. J.|last=Stiles|date=February 12, 2010|publisher=Vintage Books|via=Google Books|isbn=9781400031740|pages=206–207}}{{cite web|url=http://www.tjstiles.net/blog.htm?post=588484|title=The Cast: Chapter 5 & 6 - T.J. Stiles|website=www.tjstiles.net}}
In 1848 he was involved in a court case related to one of the Turnpike ships, the Sampson,{{cite web|via=YesWeScan: The FEDERAL CASES|url=https://law.resource.org/pub/us/case/reporter/F.Cas/0011.f.cas/0011.f.cas.0948.pdf|title=Case No. 6,290: The H. B. Foster|date=April 22, 1848}} which also had participated in a ramming battle with a rival ferry on September 2, 1838.{{cite web|url=https://www.olddutchchurchnyc.org/a-village-rises|title=Radical Growth and Change within Rev. James Brownlee's 60 years of Stable Leadership 1835-1895|website=Old Dutch Church NYC}} It was alleged in court that Mauran expressly approved of the ramming and even expressed regret the captain had not sunk the rival Wave.{{cite web|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QIw3AQAAMAAJ&q=Oroondates+Mauran&pg=PA481|title=Reports of Cases Decided in the Court of Appeals of the State of New York|author1=New York (State) Court of Appeals|first2=George Franklin|last2=Comstock|first3=Henry Rogers|last3=Selden|first4=Francis|last4=Kernan|first5=Samuel|last5=Hand|date=February 12, 1850|publisher=Lawyer's Co-Operative Publishing Company|via=Google Books}}
Mauran and Cornelius Vanderbilt gained control of the Turnpike company in 1838 after Thomkins died. However the Richmond Turnpike Company was set to expire (having a limited duration by statute) so the partners assigned the equipment and real estate leases to themselves. The whole affair was bogged down in the courts for years{{cite web|url=https://casetext.com/case/vanderbilt-v-the-richmond-turnpike-company|title=Vanderbilt v. the Richmond Turnpike Company, 2 N.Y. 479 | Casetext|website=casetext.com}} but the $50,000 annual profit made the business worth fighting for.{{cite web|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wnUtAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA92|title=Memorials of the Mauran Family|first=John Calvin|last=Stockbridge|date=1893|publisher=Snow & Farnham|via=Google Books}} Mauran managed the company as President. The same year Mauran died, Vanderbilt bought from his estate his shares in the Staten Island Ferry for $80,000.
Family
Mauran married Martha Eddy in 1814 in Providence, Rhode Island. She was the daughter of Samuel Eddy, a Member of Congress, 1819-1825 and Rhode Island Chief Justice, 1827-1835. They had a daughter Josephine, (d. 1858) who married Oliver Wolcott Gibbs, Rumford Professor at Harvard.{{cite journal|title=President Roosevelt's African Trip|date=December 18, 1908|journal=Science|volume=28|issue=729|pages=876–877|doi=10.1126/science.28.729.876|pmid=17743798|bibcode=1908Sci....28..876.}} Their eldest son, James Eddy Mauran (1817-1888), married Alice Cooper, a niece of James Fenimore Cooper. James became a noted bibliophile, linguist, antiquarian, and expert on heraldry. He was President of the Redwood Library in Newport, Rhode Island. Obituary, ‘’New York Times’’, October 1888
Other activities
Mauran lived in Manhattan in winter and on Staten Island in the summer. He purchased his Staten Island residence on Grymes Hill in 1831.{{cite web | url=https://casa-belvedere.org/history |title = History}}
He was part of the founding of the first Italian Opera House in New York at the corner of Church and Lombard streets, opened November 18, 1833 at a cost of over $100,000. The theatre burned down in 1839 after being unsuccessfully offered for sale at a time when opera was a novelty in America.{{rp|183}} He was one of the oldest members of the Union Club of the City of New York.{{cite web|url=https://rihs.wordpress.com/tag/oroondates-mauran/|title=Oroondates Mauran|website=A Lively Experiment|accessdate=Oct 18, 2019}}