H. K. Pomroy, 1854-1925
Continued from entry on list of correspondents
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H.K. Pomroy was a long-time, and highly regarded member of the New York Stock Exchange. He was elected a member of the Exchange in 1878, and served continuously on the Board of Governors from 1888, until his death. At the time of the Newcomb trial in 1903, he was serving the third of his three terms as vice-president of the Exchange. In 1904, he was elected president and also served three terms as president, from 1904 to 1907. When the Government suspended trading on Wall Street during the financial crisis of 1914, H.K. Pomroy was appointed to the Committee of Five to oversee the transactions of the Exchange by the Stock Exchange president. A tablet commemorating the services of this Committee remains on a wall of the Exchange.
H.K. Pomroy spent a year at Columbia College (the undergraduate college of Columbia University) and began working for his uncle, A. Hamilton Pomroy, in 1875 as a clerk. It was his uncle who was a close personal friend of Mrs. Newcomb’s and whose passing she mourned in several letters to friends in 1888. JLN initially asked William Pomroy, A. H. Pomroy’s son, to take his father’s place as her executor. However, that relationship appeared wanting and all known correspondence following was directed mainly to H.K. Pomroy, or his brother, H. A. Pomroy. In various iterations of her will, but not her final will, H.K. Pomroy was recorded as one of her executors. The letterhead of “Pomroy Bros., Stock and Bond Brokers, 39 Broad Street, New York” lists only Henry K. Pomroy and H. Arthur Pomroy. It is interesting that JLN often used this address as her return address, and when traveling, often directed friends to send correspondence to 39 Broad Street, N.Y.