District Energy Biographies Gamaliel C. St. John 1848-1933

Gamaliel Cyrus St. John was born in Willoughby, Ohio December 18, 1848, the son of Dr. O. S. St. John. He graduated from the University of Michigan Law School in 1876, was admitted to the bar in Nebraska and Ohio, and practiced law in Lincoln, Nebraska for three years.

St. John's sister, Margaret Marsh St. John, married Wallace C. Andrews, who became president of the New York Steam Company in 1879. In 1880 Andrews invited St. John to serve as Secretary of the New York Steam Company, but St. John did not get along with the company's chief engineer, Charles E. Emery, and refused to work with him and went prospecting for gold in Colorado. St. John agreed to return only if Andrews fired Emery, which he did, and St. John replaced him. Although not a trained engineer, St. John made significant improvements to the New York Steam Company's system, including inventing a new steam meter and proposed the idea of using welded flanges on steel pipe, which proved much more durable than the wrought-iron pipe with cast-iron flanges that had been used previously.

Andrews and St. John lived in adjoining town houses at 2 East 67th Street in New York City, and on 7 April 1899 a disastrous fire raced through the house, killing twelve people including Andrews, his wife, and St. John's wife, Georgia, and their three children, Orson Boyden, Wallace Andrews and Frederick Ames St. John. St. John was spared only because he was away on business, and learned of the disaster only after returning the following day.

Despite the shock, St. John became their executor and after a long legal battle against the Smithsonian Institution over the terms of the will, founded The Andrews School for Girls in Willoughby. St. John also became the President of the New York Steam Company and also served as president of the American District Steam Company until his death in 1933.

St. John supervised the sale of the Steam Company to other parties in 1915, but it went bankrupt two years later and he served as bankruptcy trustee and arranged its reorganization as the New York Steam Corporation, which was merged into the Consolidated Edison system in the 1930s.

He married Cora Eleanor on June 28, 1904, and had three children: Orson Luer, Margaret Luer, and Louise Marie. St. John died in Greenwich, Connecticut on 25 February 1933.

The National Cyclopædia of American Biography, 24:187-88.

G. C. St. John, "Origin and Naming of the Chagrin River," The Historical Society Quarterly, Lake County, Ohio, 10 (August 1968):183-88.

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