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JOHN GRIBBEL, President of the Union
League of Philadelphia, was born in Hudson City, New Jersey, March 29,
1858, the son of James and Anna (Simmons) Gribbel. He was educated in the
New York public schools and the College of the City of New York, and is
well known in banking and financial circles throughout the country.
Mr. Gribbel is a public-spirited
citizen and a man of fine literary taste. He has a valuable collection of
American Colonial historical documents and autograph letters, English and
French, seventeenth and eighteenth century engravings, and rare books of
the fifteenth, sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. His chief
possession, however, is his collection of Burns manuscripts.
In December, 1913, Mr. Gribbel
forever endeared himself to every loyal Scot at home and abroad by
purchasing and giving to Scotland under a deed of trust the priceless
Glenriddell Manuscripts of the poet Robert Burns. These two volumes,
strongly bound in calf, comprise the largest collection of Burns
manuscripts in existence, and contain the letters and a selected number of
poems which he wrote out and presented to his friend and patron, Robert
Riddell of Glenriddell, in 1791. The dedication is considered one of the
best pieces, of prose from the poet’s hand. When Riddell died, in 1794,
the two volumes passed back to "Bonnie Jean," Burns’s widow, and were
given by her to Dr. Currie to be used by him in connection with the
preparation of his edition of the poet’s works. In 1853, fiftyseven years
after Burns ‘s
death, they were placed by the widow of
Dr. Currie’s son in the keeping of the Liverpool Athenaeum Library. On the
fly-leaf of the volume of letters is pasted the original letter of
presentation from Mrs. S. Currie. In the summer of 1913 the trustees of
the library sold the volumes to an unknown dealer. Some months afterward,
in November, 1913, the manuscripts were offered to Mr. Gribbel in
Philadelphia by a broker; and December 1, 1913, at the annual banquet of
the St. Andrew’s Society of Philadelphia, he announced amid applause that
he had bought them with the purpose of returning them to the people of
Scotland.
Mr. Gribbel entered the banking
business in New York City in 1876, with the Importers and Traders Bank,
and with the Leather Manufacturers Bank in 1877. From 1883 to 1890, he was
New York agent for Harris, Griffin & Company, manufacturers of gas
, meters. In 1890 he was admitted into
partnership with Mr. John J. Griffin, and since 1892 has been proprietor
of the business under the title of John Griffin & Company. He is President
of the Fairmount Savings Trust Company; Royal Electrotype Company,
Philadelphia; Athens (Georgia) Gas and Fuel Company; Vice-President of the
Brooklyn Borough Gas Company; director of the Girard National Bank, Real,
Estate Trust Company, Canadian Meter Company (Hamilton, Ontario) ;
President of the Tampa (Florida) Gas
Company; Helena (Arkansas) Gas and Electric Company; and Corpus Christi
(Texas) Railway and Electric Company. He is a director in the Curtis
Publishing Company.
Mr. Gribbel is an honorary member of
the St. Andrew’s Society of Philadelphia, and of no less than eighteen
other Scottish societies throughout the world. He is President of the
Union League of Philadelphia. and a member of the University and Art
clubs, Philadelphia, and of the Lotos Club, New York. In politics he is an
independent Republican. He is a trustee of Wesleyan University,
Middletown, Connecticut, and has received the honorary degrees of M.A.,
from Wesleyan University, and LL.D.. from Temple University, Philadelphia.
He is a member of the Methodist Episcopal church.
Mr. Gribbel married, January 8,
1880, Miss Elizabeth Bancker Wood, of New York City. His home address is
Wyncote, Pennsylvania; his office address, 1513 Race Street, Philadelphia. |
