Part of the Indiana Biographies Project
Daniel G. Reid
Daniel G. Reid is now a resident of Chicago, but has been so closely identified with the interests of Richmond that the city feels a just pride in claiming him among her native sons. He stands to-day at the head of one of the leading industrial concerns of the county, being president of the American Tin Plate Company, and his prestige has been won through marked executive force, keen discrimination, sound judgment and unfaltering energy. To manage mammoth business interests it requires as great and skillful generalship as is manifest on the field of battle by him who leads armed hosts to victory. His campaign is no less carefully planned, and the tactics which he must follow to avoid competitors demand a nicety of decision unsurpassed by the army commander; at the same time if he would gain an extensive public patronage, his business methods must be so honorable as to be above reproach, for the public is a discriminating factor and quickly sets its stamp of disapproval upon any underhand methods. Daniel G. Reid has met every requirement of the business world in these regards, and has attained an almost phenomenal success, which illustrates the wonderful possibilities. which America affords her young men of energy, enterprise and ambition.
Born in Richmond, in August, 1858, Daniel G. Reid is a son of Daniel and Anna (Dougan) Reid. The family is of Scotch-Irish lineage, and the grandfather of our subject, who also bore the name of Daniel Reid, was a native of Virginia, in which state he spent his entire life. He married Margaret Patterson, of Lancaster county, Pennsylvania, who died in Richmond at an advanced age. Daniel Reid, father of our subject, was born in Rockbridge county, Virginia, February 5, 1799, and in 1821 took up his residence near New Paris, Preble county, Ohio, whence he removed to Richmond in the fall of 1823. Here he engaged in clerking for some years, and in 1828 began merchandising on his own account, as a partner of Joseph P. Strattan, carrying on the business ten years. In 1829 he was appointed postmaster of Richmond, serving in that capacity until 1838, when he was appointed by President Van Buren as register at the land office in Fort Wayne, where he remained for about five years. He then removed to a farm in Allen county, Indiana, and in 1855 returned to Richmond, where he engaged in the grocery business with his son, William S., and N. S. Leeds until the firm changed to Reid & Vanneman. He remained in the store, but made his home upon a farm a mile and a half west of Richmond, where he was living at the time of his death, which occurred March 3, 1873. He was for many years a member and ruling elder of the United Presbyterian church in Richmond, and his honorable, upright life commanded the respect of all wiih whom he came in contact. He was twice married, his first wife being by maiden name Letitia Scott, who died in Allen county, in 1854. They had seven children. In October of that year, Mr. Reid married Mrs. Ann Dougan, then a resident of Niles, Michigan, and they had two children: Daniel Gray, of this sketch, and Emma Virginia, wife of Oliver Bogue.
Daniel G. Reid was educated in the public schools of Richmond. His father died when he was in his fifteenth year, and he was reared by his mother. At the age of seventeen he entered the Second National Bank as messenger boy, obtained his business training there and gradually won promotion until he was made teller, which position he resigned in 1895. He is still a director and vice-president of the bank, but though his opinions influence its management he takes no active part in controlling the daily routine of business. In 1892 he became interested in the American Tin Plate Company, owners of an extensive plant at Elwood, Indiana. In 1898, when the great tin plate trust was formed, he became a large stockholder and the president of the corporation, and now occupies that important position. He has always been of a speculative turn of mind, but where many would make injudicious investments and so lose their money, his tendency toward speculation is guided by a judgment rarely at fault and by a keenly discriminating mind.
On the 13th of October, 1880, Mr. Reid was united in marriage to Miss Ella C. Dunn, of Richmond, Indiana. Mrs. Reid died on the 25th of June, 1899. In matters of public moment Mr. Reid is deeply interested, although he has never sought the preferment which he might easily attain in that line, content to gain leadership in business circles alone. The day of little undertakings in our western cities has long since passed, and an enterprise or industry is nothing if not gigantic. It is a master mind than can plan, excute and control a mammoth institution of the nature of the American Tin Plate Works, and the gentleman who stands at its head well deserves to be ranked among the most prominent business men of his adopted city, where only ability of a very superior order is now recognized.
Source:
Biographical and Genealogical History of Wayne, Fayette, Union and Franklin Counties, Indiana, Volume 1, The Lewis Publishing Company, Chicago, 1899
Daniel G. Reid, Teller in Second National Bank, Richmond, was born in the city of Richmond, Wayne Co., Ind., in 1858. He attended the common schools till he was fifteen years of age, when he became an assistant in the Second National Bank, where he has since been engaged. He was married Oct. 13, 1880, to Miss Ella C. Dunn, of this city.
Source:
History of Wayne County, Indiana. Chicago: Inter-State Publishing Co. 1884. Volume 2