CHARLES TYSON

See also:

• CHARLES TYSON YERKES (1837-1905)

YERKES (1837-1905)  , American capitalist, was born of Quaker parentage, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on the 25th of June 1837 . He was a clerk in a grain-commission house, an exchange broker (1858-61) and a banker (1861-86) . When he failed in 1871 he refused to give any preference to the city of Philadelphia for bonds sold on its account, and was convicted of " misappropriating city funds," and sentenced to two years and nine months in the penitentiary . After serving seven months of this sentence he was pardoned, and the City Council afterward passed an ordinance cancelling the municipality's claim against him . He established a banking business in Chicago in 1881; in 1886 got control of the Chicago City Railway Company; and within the next twelve years organized a virtual monopoly of the surface and elevated railway service of Chicago . He disposed of his street railway interests in Chicago, and removed to London (1900) . There he acquired in 1901 a controlling interest in the Metropolitan District railway, and by organizing the finances of the Under-ground Electric Railways Company he took an important initiative in extending the system of London electric railways . Yerkes gave to the university of Chicago the great telescope installed in the Yerkes Observatory at Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, and gathered in his New York residence a remarkable collection of paintings, tapestries and rugs, which were sold at auction in April 1910 for $2,034,450 . He died in New York on the 29th of December 1905 .