File:Herbert Harold Vreeland (1856-1945) biography.jpg

Vreeland, Herbert Harold, industrialist, was born at Glen, Montgomery county, New York, October 28, 1856, son of Abraham Haring and Jane Winnie (Van Riper) Vreeland. His first paternal American ancestor was Michael Janzoon (Jansen) Vreeland, who came from the Netherlands, in 1638, settling first at Ft. Orange (Albany), then at New Amsterdam, where Gov. Peter Stuyvesant appointed him a member of the governor's advisory council or cabinet, and finally at Com-munipaw in what later became New Jersey. From Michael Janzoon Vreeland and his wife Fitje (Sophia) Hartman, the line continues through their son Cornelius and his wife Lysbet Van Winkle; Michael and Jenneke Van Houten; Ja-cob Elias and Elias Jacob and Adrian Elias (who served in the War of 1812) and Anna Haring, the grandparents of Herbert H. Vreeland. Abraham Vreeland was for twenty years pastor of the Reformed Dutch Church, of Glen, N.Y. When fifteen years old, Herbert H. Vreeland secured his first employment in Newark, N.J. Later he engaged in a number of other occupations and in 1874 he became a gravel shoveler on a night construction train on the Long Island railroad. Later he was successively track walker, switchman, freight brakeman and conductor, and finally was assigned to the floating equipment department. When control of the road changed hands he lost his position and was compelled to start afresh, becoming a freight brakeman on the New York & Northern railroad. Attracting the favorable attention of his superiors, he rose rapidly to the posts of passenger conductor, trainmaster, superintendent and, eventually, general manager. When he was trainmaster he met William C. Whitney (q.v.) and, at the latter's suggestion, he was elected president and general manager of the Houston, West Street & Pavonia Railroad Co., New York city, in 1893. He continued as president and general manager of this company's successors, the Metropolitan Traction Co., Metropolitan Street Railway Co. and Metropolitan Securities Co. Under his presi-ency nearly thirty independent and competing companies owning horse car franchises were united into one system, comprising every surface line of the boroughs of Manhattan and Bronx, and the larger part was converted to the most modern system of electric traction. Mr. Vree-land was also president and director of various street railway companies included in the Metropolitan system. In 1906 he was appointed a member of the committee on transportation of the Interborough-Metropolitan Co. (later the In-terborough Consolidated Corp.), a holding com-pany for the Interborough Rapid Transit Co., Metropolitan Street Railway Co. and Metropoli-tan Securities Co., and in 1912 was appointed vice-president of the company, continuing as such until it went into receivership in 1919. Effective on Feb. 1, 1914, he was appointed director of welfare work of the Interborough Rapid Transit Co. and New York Railways Co., and he served as chairman of the board of pensions of both companies. In 1912 he became associated with and managed the business interests of Thomas Fortune Ryan (q.v.), which included the various companies owned or controlled by Mr. Ryan. This association continued until Mr. Ryan's death, since which time Mr. Vreeland has been connected with the estate of Thomas Fortune Ryan in an advi-sory capacity and directly with the administra-tion of interests controlled by the estate. At present (1938) he is chairman of the board and of the executive committee of the Royal Type-writer Co.; president of the American Congo Co.; vice-president and director of the Fifth Avenue-Sixty-Eighth Street Co.; commissioner of welfare of the Interborough Rapid Transit Co., and a director of the Agricultural Products Corp., the Carolina, Clinchfield & Ohio Railway Co., Chicago & Eastern Illinois Railway Co., Clinchfield Coal Corp., Societe Internationale Forestiere et Miniere du Congo and Societe Forestiere et Commerciale du Congo Belge of Brussels, Belgium, the Com-panhia de Pesquisas Mineiras de Angola, Com-panhia de Diamantes de Angola, Companhia de Petroleo de Angola, of Lisbon, Portugal, and va-rious others. He was a member of the electric railway test commission of the Louisiana Purchase exposition in St. Louis in 1904. At one time he was a member of the Tramways and Light Railways Association of Great Britain. King Albert of Belgium decorated him with the Order of Officer of the Crown in 1932. Mr. Vreeland is a member of the executive committee of the Belgian League of Honor. He is a charter member of the New York Railroad Club (president, 1898-1908) and a member of the Holland Society, Pilgrims of the United States, and the Metropolitan and Railroad-Machinery clubs of New York city. He is gifted with an exceptional talent for organization and control, and is revered and beloved by his employes. He was married in Newark, N.J., Oct. 29, 1890, to Carrie Louise, daughter of Thomas Hazen Reed, an engineer, of that city, and has five children: Her-bert Harold; Marjorie, wife of George Edward von Gal; Richard Somers; James Ferguson, and Thomas Reed Vreeland.

This work is in the public domain because it was published in the United States between 1929 and 1963, and although there may or may not have been a copyright notice, the copyright was not renewed. For further explanation, see Commons:Hirtle chart and the copyright renewal logs. Note that it may still be copyrighted in jurisdictions that do not apply the rule of the shorter term for US works (depending on the date of the author's death), such as Canada (70 years p.m.a.), Mainland China (50 years p.m.a., not Hong Kong or Macao), Germany (70 years p.m.a.), Mexico (100 years p.m.a.), Switzerland (70 years p.m.a.), and other countries with individual treaties. العربية ∙ Deutsch ∙ English ∙ español ∙ français ∙ galego ∙ italiano ∙ 日本語 ∙ 한국어 ∙ македонски ∙ português ∙ português do Brasil ∙ русский ∙ sicilianu ∙ slovenščina ∙ українська ∙ 简体中文 ∙ 繁體中文 ∙ +/−