Ruth Oakley Caller

Ruth Oakley Caller

• Ruth Oakley Caller was born on 19 March 1824 in Poughkeepsie, Dutchess County, New York.
• She married Cornelius Henry DeLamater circa 1842.
• Cornelius Henry DeLamater and Ruth Oakley Caller appeared in the US federal census of 1 June 1860 in New York City, New York. Also in the household were children Laura (age 16), Sarah (age 13), Eliza (10), Wm (9), Billah (5), Ada (1) and Eliza (13 days?), and two female domestic servants.
• Ruth Oakley Caller became a widow at the 7 February 1889 death of her husband Cornelius Henry DeLamater.
• The following appeared on 11 February 1889 in The Daily Graphic: Cornelius H. Delamater, whose picture The Graphic gives to-day and who was the head of the great Delamater Iron Works, died at his home, 424 West Twentieth street, on Thursday evening, after a two days' illness, from pneumonia. Born in Rhinebeck, Dutchess County, N. Y., in 1821, circumstances compelled Mr. Delamater to begin earning his own living when fourteen years old. He came to new York City and entered a hardware store as an office boy.
       At twenty-one years of age he secured a clerkship in the Phoenix Iron Works. Three years later, when that firm was dissolved, Mr. Delamater and a fellow clerk, Peter Hogg, formed a partnership and continued the business until 1850. The shops were then moved up town to their present site at the foot of West Thirteenth street. Three years before the breaking out of the war Mr. Hogg retired from the firm to engage in the sugar business. Mr. Delamater carried on the business alone until after the war.
  :TAB: During the war he did a great deal of work for the government, especially on Captain John Ericsson's celebrated monitors. Mr. Delamater had always been a most intimate associate of Ericsson, whose inventions, in nearly every instance, were put into hi[s hands for construction.
  :TAB: After the war he retired from active management, leaving the affairs of his iron works in the charge of two assistants. A life of quiet did not suit him, however, and in a year he again took the management into his own hands. In 1873 he took his son-i[n-law, George H. Robinson, into partnership. In 1882 his son William entered the firm and Mr. Robinson retired.
  :TAB: Mr. Delamater has for years been an active member of the Society of Mechanics and Tradesmen. He leaves a widow, one son and five married daughters. The body will be buried at Woodlawn to-day.
• The following appeared on 11 February 1889 in the New York Herald: The funeral of Cornelius H. Delamater, the well known ironmaster, took place yesterday afternoon from the Church of the Divine Paternity, Fifth avenue and Forty-fifth street.
       Over fifteen hundred people crowded into the church. The employes of the Delamater Iron Works sent a delegation of five hundred men, nearly all of whom accompanied the casket to Woodlawn Cemetery, where the body was interred.
       The simple funeral services of the Universalist Church were conducted by the Rev. Dr. Edwin C. Bolles, assisted by the Rev. Dr. J. M. Pullman. Dr. Pullman delivered the eulogy. The pallbearers were Messrs. Charles L. Southmay, W. H. Fletcher, H. Seaman, John Dewsnap and F. L. Leland. Mrs. Delamaster was supported by her son William Delamater. Beside the widow were the dead man's married daughters, with their husbands--Mr. and Mrs. George H. Robinson, Mr. and Mrs. De Bevin, Mr. and Mrs. John Robbins, Mr. and Mrs. George Moore and Mr. and Mrs. Vecin.
       Among those paresnt were ex-Commissioner Salem H. Wales, Deputy Comptroller Storrs, Mr. A. C. Cheney, Mr. John O. Stevens, Mr. John P. Faure, Mr. Stephen Roach, Mr. George W. Quintard, Mr. C. H. Poillion, Mr. Joseph Cornell, Mr. C. H. Haswell, Mr. W. L. Elseffer, Mr. D. Willis James, Mr. S. S. Hepworth, President Robert Rutter, of the General Society of Mechanics and Tradesmen; Captain Ballantine, Mr. William Hogg and Mrs. Hogg, Superintendents Roelker, Mumford, Van Wagner, Silbey and Ramsey; ex-Superintendent William Forbes, Superintendent Bishop and Cashier Capes.
       The different departments of the iron works and the friends of the deceased sent many handsome floral offerings.
• Ruth Oakley Caller died on 7 December 1894 at age 70 in New York City, New York, at 424 West 20th Street at her residence.
• She was interred at Woodlawn Cemetery, Bronx, New York.
• The following appeared on 9 December 1894 in the New York Herald: Mrs. Ruth A. Delamater, widow of Cornelius H. Delamater, the “Iron King,” died at her home, No. 424 West Twentieth street, on Friday. Mrs. Delamater was seventy-one years old. She was a member of Sorosis and president of the Chapin Home for Aged and Infirm. Her husband, with C. S. Bushnell, Thomas F. Rowland and two other capitalists, built and paid for the first Erleson monitor under the Erleson designs at the beginning of the war, which was afterward bought by the United States government.
• The following appeared on 12 December 1894 in the New York Herald: The will of Mrs. Ruth O. Delamater, widow of the former proprietor of Delamater Iron Works, which has been filed in the office of the Surrogates, disposes of an estate estimated to be worth nearly half a million dollars. Mr.s Delamater died last week. She gives almost all of her fortune to her six children, Laura D. Bevin, Adah Vezin, Sarah D. Robinson, Lidie D. Robins, William Delamater and Zellah D. Moore. She also makes some provision for her sister Lydia S. Frost; her brother-in-law, John O. Stevens, and the cousins of her late husband, Cornelius H. Delamater and Mrs. Jane C. Havens.

• Last Edited: 23 May 2017