MEN OF AFFAIRS IN NEW YORK
 

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JOHN GERARD HECKSCHER

John Gerard Heckscher, one of the best-known
clubmen and society men in the city of New York, was
born in this city in 1837, and since early manhood has
always been a prominent and interesting figure in the
society of Manhattan Island. He received his name
in honor of his maternal grandfather, John Gerard
Coster, who came to New York at about the year
1790, and who was for many years one of the fore¬
most men in the community, respected and highly hon¬
ored both as a merchant and as a man. As President
of the Bank of the Manhattan Company John Gerard
Coster was an important factor in the commercial life
and banking circles of his day, and the name of Coster
has always stood high in the social annals of New
York.

Mr. Richard Heckscher took his bride. Miss Coster,
to a home in the ultra-fashionable district of the city
at that time—on the corner of Fifth Avenue and Thir¬
teenth Street. It was an unusually large, brownstone,
double mansion, noticeable for its dignity of appear¬
ance and the atmosphere of comfort and homelikeness
that surrounded it. Here it was that John Heckscher
passed the days of his boyhood, surrounded by loving,
well-to-do relatives, in the very gayest section of the
 

city. He was carefully trained, however, and his edu¬
cation was guided along the lines best adapted for the
development of manly qualities as well as intellectual
ones. His education had just been completed, and he
was fitting himself for a life of activity in business in
his native city, when vSumter was fired on, and Presi¬
dent Lincoln issued his first call for volunteers for the
defense of the National Government. Young Heck-
scher's blood was fired by the call, and, breaking away
from the blandishments of the extremely brilliant so¬
cial circle in which, as a handsome young man, he was
a pronounced favorite, he immediately offered himself
for enlistment. He served for two years under General
McClellan as First Lieutenant in the Twelfth United
States Infantry, received his baptism of fire in the ter¬
rible days attending the battle of the Wilderness, and
was highly commended for "gallant conduct on the
field of battle."

Returning home to New York in a cloud of military
glory. Lieutenant Pleckscher was received joyfully and
with open arms by the fashionable circles in which he
had been such a favorite before he went to the war.
The fashionable world, or what is called Society, was
infinitely smaller and more exclusive in New York in
those days than it is at the present time, and was com¬
posed almost entirely of old New York families, but
it made up in dash and go what it lacked in mere
numbers.

Mr. Heckscher for a time was engaged in business
pursuits in his younger manhood, but, there being no
real necessity for his devoting himself entirely to a
business career, he soon began to pay considerable at¬
tention to the higher forms of gentlemanly sport. This
brought him into the most intimate association with
that brilliant coterie of choice spirits headed by Messrs.
Travers, Jerome and Belmont, who established racing
in America on a firm foundation, and whose associa¬
tion therewith made it in those days respected and
an attractive object of interest to the very best people
in the country. Jerome Park's fashionable attendance
grew from year to year, and the quality of sport there
presented under the guidance of the founders named
above has never been surpassed.

Mr. Fleckscher was also one of the founders of the
Coney Island Jockey Club, of which he is now the
Vice-President, and to which, since Jerome Park has
passed away, he has transferred his principal interest
in the "sport of Kings." He has been unfailing in hh
efforts to further the best interests of the Coney Island
Jockey Club, to add to the attractiveness of the cards
presented on its meeting days, and to constantly widen
its circle of friends in the fashionable world, thereby