George Armour

Early life

George Armour was born on 24 April 1812, in Campbeltown, Scotland, on the Mull of Kintyre.

Armour was a wheelwright and worked his way across the ocean as a shipboard cooper or carpenter.

In 1834, Armour with his brother John and cousin James a shoemaker, left Campbeltown and made a voyage to Ottawa, Illinois.

Soon after their arrival in Ottawa, the brothers went north to what was then known as the "Argyle Settlement" near Rockford, Illinois.

The brothers built a 14' x 14' cabin in hopes of establishing a timber and prairie land claim, but "farming was not to their liking."

In 1836, while on a trip to back to Scotland, the brothers helped their friend John Greenlee and his family escape from Campbeltown in order to avoid Greenlee being arrested by one of the Duke of Argyll's tax collectors.

After the escape, the brothers furnished the Greenlees with passage to the US and set up the Greenlees in the cabin they had built in the Argyle Settlement. Subsequently, Armour lived in Joliet and Lockport, Illinois, and entered the business of merchandising.

At the time, both cities were expanding rapidly because of the construction of the Illinois and Michigan Canal.

Lockport became headquarters for building the canal in 1837.

Later Armour became a sub-contractor with George Steel. Steel was born in Forfarshire, Scotland in 1797 and arrived in Chicago in 1837. Steel had come to the US on contract for building a section of the Illinois & Michigan Canal but the work had stopped in the aftermath of the Panic of 1837.

Prospering in Chicago

In Chicago, Armour reunited with George Steel – who had become a prosperous Chicago businessman. In 1852–1853 Steel was president of Chicago Board of Trade. In 1856, a new three-story building was erected on Steel's site: an office and warehouse located at the foot of LaSalle Street on South Street and this became the first permanent home for the CBT. Armour was an early member of the CBT and also commenced what became his signature venture – the erection and management of grain elevators.

Prior to Armour's efforts there had been a small number of what may be termed "grain elevators" constructed in the United States. Dart's Elevator was the world's first steam-powered grain elevator. It was designed and built by Joseph Dart and Robert Dunbar in 1842 in Buffalo, New York.

The first large steam elevator ever built in Chicago for handling grain from railroad tracks was on the North side, on the Chicago River, west of Wells Street. It was built by George A Gibbs and E W Griffin of Gibbs, Griffin & Company in 1854. It might also have been known as the Chicago & Galena Union Railroad Elevator.

In 1854, George Steel took over a warehouse and built another grain elevator just west of the Gibbs, Griffin and Company warehouse. It was capable of operating from the canal as well as the railroads. The elevator had a capacity of 100,000 bushels and was located at Franklin and River streets – in the Chicago & Galena Union Railroad track on North Water Street.

In that year Steel's warehouse burnt down and Steel sold the property to Wesley Munger and George Armour. Munger had owned a small mill at Waukegan, which had burned down. As Munger & Armour, they built the first modern, steam-driven grain elevator in Chicago. The grain elevator was completed in 1855 and had a capacity of 300,000 bushels.

Armour was first elected a director of the CBT in 1856.

In 1860, he joined with Charles Sydney Dole, James Henry Doyle and Wesley Munger, together running Armour, Dole & Co. The company operated grain elevators at the depot of the CBQ with a capacity of 850,000 bushels. After the American Civil War, Armour, Dole & Co. remained among the city's leading grain warehousers. Their elevators had a combined capacity of 2.1 million bushels in 1871. By the early 1880s, this figure had grown to 6.3 million bushels.

Business requirements

Building a system capable of moving very large quantities of grain required more than steam-powered conveyor belts. Chicago's grain trade depended on:

Products that could be graded for quality according to industry-standards

Banks that did not fail and supported stable currencies

Futures exchange where contracts to buy specific quantities of a commodity or financial instrument at a specified price with delivery set at a specified time in the future

Through the 1830s sacks or barrels or even buckets of grain were hoisted off vessels and into warehouses by manpower – sometimes even using bucket brigades. The amounts of grain being moved in a contract were measured in the thousands of bushels. By the 1840s, a certain amount of bulk transport was taking place and grain was stored in individual bins according to source in warehouses and the heavy lifting was done by block and tackle pulled by horses. By 1848, the horse was replaced by a steam engine, but not the block and tackle. The amounts being moved were in the tens of thousands of bushels. If the transport of grain was to move into the hundreds of thousands of bushels then changes were needed.

When grains from multiple sources were to be co-mingled in silos holding hundred of thousands of bushels, then methods of grading and inspecting the quality of the grain are required. The CBT had been concerned with grading and inspecting products since the day it was founded. In 1856 Armour was elected to the Board of Directors of the CBT. In the same year, his partner Charles Dole was charged to set up a committee with the purpose of establishing grades by the separation of wheat into three industry-standard grades. By 1858, the grading and inspecting standards were established and compliance mechanisms set up. In 1859, the CBT received a state charter that enabled it to enforce grading standards and inspections with a legally binding basis.

In banking, the period 1837 to 1863 is known as the "Free Banking" era. It was a period of "Wildcat Banks". In the Panic of 1837, out of 850 banks in the United States, 343 closed entirely, 62 failed partially. If Armour's business was to prosper, he needed a bank that would not fail. In 1857, along with Cyrus McCormick, who invented the reaper, and Chicago's first mayor, William B. Ogden, Armour was a founder and, later, elected director of the Merchants' Loan and Trust Company. The book published by MLTC in 1907 titled Fifty Years of Banking in Chicago identified the banks' early mission:

Chicago Fire and after

The Great Chicago Fire burned from Sunday, 8 October, to early Tuesday, 10 October 1871. The fire killed up to 300 people, destroyed roughly 3.3 square miles (9 km2) of Chicago, Illinois, and left more than 100,000 residents homeless. Armour and his partners were physically unharmed but their various business affairs were disrupted. The offices of Armour, Dole and Co, Munger & Wheeler were destroyed as well as Armour, Dole & Co Elevator "A", the MLTC offices, the Merchants Insurance Company offices – which were exploded to make a fire break that failed – and the CBT offices.

The story of how the MLTC was able to move the bank's funds at the height of the fire is described in The Advancement of Chicago as a Financial Center up to the Close of the Nineteenth Century. Also described was the setting up of an improvised bank in Solomon A Smith's dining room on Monday, 9 October and recreating all the accounts even with all the banks and most of the customer's records had been destroyed.

The Munn & Scott affair occurred, starting in 1872. See below.

In 1875, Armour was elected president of the CBT. During his tenure, on 14 January, the King of Hawaii visited the CBT trading floor and a racist incident occurred. It was covered in detail by the Chicago Tribune. Also during the year, for the first time, memberships could be bought and sold and a committee was instituted to report of the recommendation of situating a US mint in Chicago. The report was an added as an appendix to the CBT annual report.

There were few further impediments to growth. By 1885, the capacity of the Armour, Dole & Co grain elevators was 6,350,000 bushels with a total shipping and receiving capacity of 1,500,000 per day.

Munn & Scott affair

The Munn & Scott grain-warehousing company was founded in 1844 in Spring Bay, Illinois, north of Peoria. By 1856, Ira Y. Munn and his partners owned a large Chicago grain elevator with a capacity of 200,000 bushels. George L. Scott joined the enterprise in 1858, and the name was changed name to Munn & Scott. By the end of the Civil War, the company owned four Chicago grain elevators with a total capacity of 2.3 million bushels, nearly a third of the total capacity of all of the city's large elevators.

Munn served as president of the Chicago Board of Trade and as president of the city's Chamber of Commerce in 1868. Annual revenues reached about $4 million in 1867; by 1870, the company ranked as the city's leading grain warehouse.

By 1868 Munn & Scott and four other firms – including Armour, Dole and Co – dominated the Chicago grain elevator business. They were interlocked in a business pool, each owning part interest in each of the others. This allowed them to fix prices and engage in fraudulent grading, dishonest weighing, mixing grades, restricting competition, hiding storage information, and issuing false receipts.

Joseph Medill, whose newspaper made warehouse regulation its cause, wrote:

The fifty million bushels of grain that pass into and out of the city of Chicago per annum, are controlled absolutely by a few warehouse men and the officers of railways. They form the grand ring, that wrings the sweat and blood out of the producers of Illinois. There is no provision in the fundamental law standing between the unrestricted avarice of monopoly and the common rights of the people; but the great, laborious, patient ox, the farmer, is bitten and bled, harassed and tortured, by these rapacious, blood sucking insects.

The Munn & Scott firm was both a prime cause of complaints and a leader in the fight against effective control by the CBT. In the summer of 1872, the firm was found to have cheated clients using multiple methods. It was learned that Munn & Scott grain receipts totaling 300,000 bushels were not backed by grain. Had the Munn & Scott matter been allowed to take its course, it would have created a panic which would have extended throughout the whole Northwest. Armour, a silent partner in the firm, purchased the Munn interests for $10 and set about purchasing grain to make its receipts good.

Personal, political and philanthropic life

Armour married Barbara Allison (1826–1898) in the early 1850s. She was born in Aberdeen, Scotland and emigrated to Chicago when she was very young. Their first son John was born in 1851. The first Armour home was on Michigan Avenue near Monroe Street.

The Great Chicago Fire disrupted Armour's personal life. He lost his house, his church, his children's school. He also lost civic projects he had dedicated much time to, including the YMCA, the Seaman's Bethel and Chicago Academy of Design.

After the Chicago Fire, the family built and moved into a new house at 1945 South Prairie Avenue in 1872. They also had a summer house in Waukegan, IL.

While on a voyage to Europe – made with the hope of improving his health – Armour died of rheumatism of the heart in Brighton, England on 13 June 1881. His body was returned to the US and he was buried at Graceland Cemetery in Chicago.

The arts

By the 1850s, the population of Chicago grew to over 110,000 inhabitants. The population included artisans, artists and art patrons.

Examples of interest in the arts in Chicago at the time include:

In 1855 William B Ogden invited George Peter Alexander Healy to visit Chicago. Healy was an American portrait painter who lived and painted in Chicago for the next fourteen years

The first major art exhibition was held in 1859 and attracted over 12,000 visitors.

The construction of Crosby's Opera House

The Armours became collectors and patrons connected to this milieu. Their son John Armour died on 16 May 1865 of a rheumatic heart condition. Some time before that, John's portrait was painted by Healy. Prior to his death, the Armours traveled to Europe hoping to cure John. While in Europe a bas-relief bust of John was sculpted. Also on that voyage a portrait of Barbara Allison Armour was painted by Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema in London in 1865.

Armour's partner James H Dole had been active with the Chicago Academy of Design, was a founder of the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts and supported the Art Institute until his death in 1902.

Armour was a founder and elected first President of the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts in 1879. The academy changed its name to the Art Institute of Chicago in 1882.

The formation of the Institute and its origins in the Chicago Academy of Design are detailed by A T Andreas in his History of Chicago – From the Earliest Period to the Present Time. The takeover of assets is discussed by Joel S. Dryer in a presentation titled The Story You Don't Know About A Place We All Love delivered to The Chicago Literary Club 14 May 2001. Further research has been carried out by Kirsten M. Jensen in her book: The American Salon: The Art Gallery at the Chicago Interstate Industrial Exposition, 1873—1890.

Church obligations

Armour was active with the Second Presbyterian Church and along with his good friend Norman Williams – a prominent Chicago lawyer.

He was a trustee and an elder of the church. The first church was destroyed in the Chicago Fire of 1871. A new church was completed by 1874. Armour donated the tower which was completed in 1884 after Armour's death.

Armour donated $500 toward the construction of the Willow Creek Presbyterian Church in Argyle, IL in 1877.

Civic duties

On 22 March 1858, Chicagoans again gathered in an attempt to form a YMCA. After a series of meetings, a constitution was written and the first YMCA of Chicago was officially formed. Armour was a founder and trustee of the YMCA of Chicago.

Armour was a founder and member of the Commercial Club of Chicago in 1878. A group of successful Chicago businessmen, the Commercial Club promoted the economic development of the city, holding regular meetings to discuss civic reform issues of the day.

Armour dedicated a Fountain in Campbeltown, Scotland – his birthplace – in 1881. See below.

Armour was attacked during the elections of 1857. Widespread "rioting and knockdowns" were reported in the predominantly Irish-Democratic 7th Ward in the final days of the 2 March 1857 mayoral election. The Illinois Police & Sheriff's News described the event as follows:

A Republican businessman named George Armour challenged the votes of some Irishmen who did not reside within ward boundaries. Armour was set upon by a crowd of poll-watching ruffians, kicked, beaten about the head, and dragged through the streets by the hair until his friends came to the rescue. Another Wentworth worker was not nearly so lucky. He was attacked, stabbed, and chased clear down to La Salle Street where he jumped onto a dangerously thin sheet of river ice to escape his pursuers. The man escaped but not before one of the 7th Ward Irishers crashed through the ice and drowned in the bone-chilling waters of the Chicago River.

The only political position Armour ever held was that of elector in the Electoral College for the Hayes ticket in 1876. His right to hold the place was challenged at the time, on the grounds that he had never been naturalized and was consequently ineligible. If true this would have lost Illinois one of her votes and tied the result in the Electoral College. Armour was able to find a record of his naturalization, and he cast his vote along with his colleagues, for Hayes and Wheeler.

Legacy

Commemorations

The inscription reads: "the gift of George Armour, Esq, of Chicago US, a native of this town, 1881"

The tower and bell were donated to the church and dedicated to George Armour by his family in 1884.

Armour RoadNamesake: George ArmourLocation: Princeton, New Jersey40.3447675°N 74.6718538°W / 40.3447675; -74.6718538

Allison RoadNamesake: Barbara Allison ArmourLocation: Princeton, New Jersey40.34602°N 74.6752012°W / 40.34602; -74.6752012

Campbelton RoadNamesake: George Armour birthplaceLocation: Princeton, New Jersey40.3458205°N 74.6724415°W / 40.3458205; -74.6724415

Commercial and cultural

George Armour is frequently mistaken for a brother or relative of Philip Danforth Armour, the meatpacking magnate, though the two were unrelated.

Examples of web sites and books that erroneously indicate George Armour was closely related to Philip Danforth Armour include the following:

cootershistorything.blogspot.com/2014/08/armour-dole-company-of-chicago.html

articles.chicagotribune.com/1994-08-31/business/9408310113_1_merchants-savings-grand-banking-hall-lasalle-street

chsmedia.org/househistory/namechanges/start.pdf

arcchicago.blogspot.com/2013/06/chicago-jewel-unhidden-inside-shaws.html

https://books.google.com/books?id=l8qJI3ak-UsC&pg=PA446

https://books.google.com/books?id=_Vn1AwAAQBAJ&pg=PA86

Michael Pollan, American author, journalist, activist, and professor of journalism at UC Berkeley, wrote in The Omnivore's Dilemma:

Commodity corn, which is as much an economic abstraction as it is a biological fact, was invented in Chicago in the 1850s....

The breakthrough came in 1856, When the Chicago Board of Trade instituted a grading system. Now any number 2 corn was guaranteed to be as good as any other number 2 corn.

...

No one could foresee it at the time, but the Chicago Board of Trade's decision redirected the evolution of Zea mays.

Descendants

Son: Allison Vincent Armour

Grandson: Norman Armour