The company he led helped keep trains rolling in the early 1900s. Their children established a memorial fund at The Trust for medical research.
Alexander S. Henry (1868-1935)
Ann S. Henry (1875-1949)
Founded by Emma Stuart Henry (1903-1988) and John S. Henry (1909-1966)
When Alexander Stewart Henry immigrated to America in July 1889 from Liverpool, England, he found work in the steel mills of Cleveland, Ohio, mainly in the open-hearth areas. There, intense heat—nearly 3,000 degrees—burns the impurities out of molten iron and produces silvery white steel.
Not long after his arrival, Alexander quit the steel mill and began working at a wheel manufacturing plant nearby. In 1897, that plant merged with the Steel-Tired Wheel Company, which fabricated “paper wheels” for locomotives and train cars to cushion the ride and deaden the sound of steel grinding over the rails. The wheels were made of a cast iron hub bolted to an iron disk and a steel tire bolted to another disk. Sandwiched in the middle was a layer of compressed wood, similar to paper mâché— hence the nickname “paper wheels.”
Alexander managed several of the Steel-Tired Wheel plants, and the company prospered for a decade, until the weight and speed of steel rail cars put too much stress on the fabricated wheels. New steel technology made the “paper wheels” obsolete.
In 1892, Alexander married Ann Sheehan and he became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1896. Born in Columbia Station, Ohio, in 1875, Ann was the daughter of Michael William Sheehan and Emma Sheehan.
In 1902, Steel-Tired merged with the Railway Steel-Spring Company, which made components for the trains’ suspension systems. After the merger, Alexander was transferred to the New York City office and appointed assistant secretary in charge of sales and operations of the steel-tire wheel and the steel-tire divisions. The Henry family, which now included four children—Alexander Jr., William, Emma, and John—lived on Central Park West.
In 1910, Alexander was elected vice president of Railway Steel-Spring and took charge of tire plants in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, and Chicago Heights, Illinois. Ten years later, he was named a director of the company and a member of the executive committee. In 1926, he took over as president of the Railway Steel-Spring, then a subsidiary of the American Locomotive Company.
Alexander died October 10, 1935, at age 68. Ann was 74 when she passed away in July 1949.
Their youngest children, Emma and John, each established a memorial fund for their parents in The Trust to support medical research, primarily for cancer and Parkinson’s disease.
John was a lawyer in private practice in New York City. He died in 1966.
Emma attended Barnard College, where she was involved in theater, and graduated in 1927. She was active in the Barnard College Club in New York. She developed an appreciation of The Trust because she was a volunteer and aware of The Trust’s charitable works in New York City. She died in 1988.