Harris Charles Fahnestock was an American investment banker.
Early life
Fahnestock was born on February 27, 1835 in Harrisburg in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania. He was a son of Adam Konigmacher Fahnestock and Sibyl Thompson Fahnestock, who owned a store in Harrisburg. Among his siblings was Edward Morris Fahnestock and Louis Fahnestock. He was a direct descendant of Johann Diedrich Fahnestock, who came to America from Germany in 1726, settling near Ephrata, Pennsylvania. He was formally educated at the Harrisburg Academy through his sixteenth year, while working for his father, before he began working at the Harrisburg National Bank as a teller.
Career
In 1861, he became a partner of Jay Cooke in the banking firm of Jay Cooke & Company, based in Washington, D.C. where he attracted attention "by negotiating for large war loans during the civil war." While in Washington, he began his interest in railroads, becoming treasurer of the Washington & Georgetown Line before moving to New York City in 1866 as a member of Jay Cooke, McCulloch & Co., alongside Cooke and Hugh McCulloch. He was with the firm until its collapse during the Panic of 1873. After Jay Cooke, McCulloch & Co. failed, Fahnestock made an arrangement with John Thompson and his son, Samuel, then president of the First National Bank of New York, by which he took charge of the bond department immediately with the agreement that in 1877, he would be elected vice president and director of the bank and assume control of the bank from the Thompson family, the same year George F. Baker was elected president. Fahnestock led First National Bank, a predecessor to Citigroup, for twenty-five until his death in 1914. He also served as a director of the Southern Railway, the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad, the Central Railroad of New Jersey, the American Cotton Oil Company, and the Western Union Telegraph Company. Fahnestock & Co. was founded on May 11, 1881 by his son William Fahnestock, Joseph T. Brown and H. C. Fahnestock as special member. In 1936, the firm took over the business of H.L. Horton & Co., and eventually led to creation of Oppenheimer & Co. in 1950.
In 1929, his son, Dr. Ernest Fahnestock, donated about as a memorial to his brother Clarence, who died in the post-World War I Influenza epidemic of 1918 while treating patients with the disease. Today, the park is known as the Clarence Fahnestock State Park. His grandson, William Fahnestock, who, at age 23, was the youngest member of the New York Stock Exchange, and later, senior partner of Fahnestock & Co. His second wife, Mrs. Eppes Moore, was a daughter of U.S. Senator from Missouri, Harry B. Hawes. Through his son Harris, he was a grandfather of Ruth Fahnestock, who married A. Coster Schermerhorn in 1926. They divorced and in 1937, Ruth married Count Alfred de Marigny. They also divorced and Marigny married Nancy Oakes in 1942. In 1943, he was arrested, tried, and acquitted of murdering his father-in-law Sir Harry Oakes.
