J. Stewart Baker

John Stewart Baker (August 6, 1893 – September 5, 1966) was an American banker who served as the first president of the Chase Manhattan Bank. Early life Baker was born on August 6, 1893, on Long Island, in Lawrence, New York. He was the son of Stephen Baker (1859–1946) and Mary Dabney (née Payson) Baker (1865–1948), who married in 1890. His father served as president and chairman of the board of the Bank of the Manhattan Company, the earliest predecessor of Chase Bank, and was an associate of John D. Rockefeller Jr. His paternal grandparents were Anna Mary (née Greene) Baker and Stephen Baker, a Republican U.S. Representative from New York during the Civil War who made a fortune as an importer of woollen goods and was a son of Stephen Baker, a merchant who was one of the original stockholders in the Manhattan Company, founded by Aaron Burr in 1799. His maternal grandparents were Francis Payson and Mary (née Dabney) Payson. His uncle was noted author and publisher William Farquhar Payson. Baker graduated from Princeton University in 1915. After leaving Princeton, he joined the Bankers Trust Company as a bank messenger before being assigned to work in the trust department. At the outbreak of World War I, he joined the U.S. Navy as an ensign. He was discharged in January 1919.