What do you think?
Rate this book
The Judge: A Life of Thomas Mellon, Founder of a Fortune
Lawyer, judge, banker, classics professor, and councilman, Thomas Mellon greatly influenced the fortunes of his hometown, Pittsburgh, throughout the nineteenth century. In the process, he became one of the city's most important business leaders, and he laid the foundation for a family that would contribute considerably to the city's growth and welfare for much of the next hundred years, becoming one of the world's most recognizable names in industry, innovation, and philanthropy. Through his in-depth examination of the extensive Mellon family archives, in The Judge James Mellon—a direct descendent of Thomas Mellon—has fashioned an incisive portrait of the elder Mellon that presents the man in full. Offering a singular and insightful characterization of the Scotch-Irish value system that governed the patriarch's work and life, James Mellon captures the judge's complexities and contradictions, revealing him as a truly human figure. Among the recent biographies of Pittsburgh's famous businessmen, The Judge stands apart from the pack because of the author's unique perspective and his objective and scholarly approach to his subject.
592 pages, Hardcover
First published May 1, 2011
2 people are currently reading
39 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 of 1 review
January 4, 2012
The Judge: A Life of Thomas Mellon, Founder of a Fortune. By James Mellon (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2011). Pp. 575. Cloth, $38.00
Individuals wishing to know more about the dour, controlling, and single-minded Judge Thomas Mellon depicted in David Cannadine’s comprehensive Mellon: An American Life need look no further: James Mellon, big-game hunter and author of several notable books, has produced an engaging and readable account of his great-great-great-grandfather’s life and times. Based largely on Thomas Mellon’s autobiography but enriched with the addition of materials from the Mellon family’s private collection, The Judge offers a largely sympathetic account of Thomas Mellon’s rise from somewhat modest means to a position of substantial and shrewdly-acquired wealth.
Thomas Mellon is not, strictly speaking, an “interesting” figure: he had no great love affairs, committed no notorious crimes, and held no high offices. Rather, he was a canny behind-the-scenes player who grasped from a very early age the significance of long-term planning. James Mellon writes with no small amount of admiration regarding Thomas Mellon’s extraordinary academic performance at the Western University of Pennsylvania (now the University of Pittsburgh) and youthful love notes, but the Judge quickly put aside what he came to view as frivolous endeavors. Adept enough with classical languages to be offered a professorship at the university following his graduation, Mellon stayed there only long enough to position himself for a profitable career in law.
Indeed, it was some variation on the profit motive—filtered through Mellon’s readings of Benjamin Franklin on work ethic and Herbert Spencer on the “survival of fittest”—that seemed to compel all of the Judge’s future decisions. He married Sarah Negley, heiress to the Negley fortune he had coveted since his childhood and described unflatteringly by James Mellon as someone “God had fashioned…from the homeliest clay,” because the time had come for him to take a wife and “she would do” (74). He also staked out pragmatic positions on matters such as his son James’ desire to serve in the Civil War (“There are thousands of poor fellows fit for soldiering, but fit for nothing else, whose duty is to go”), compulsory education for children (“They [must not be] allowed to grow up in ignorance and vice…whence they are graduated to the penitentiary or gallows”), capital punishment (“It may seem a hard task to condemn fellow creatures…’to be hanged by the neck until dead’; but it is not so hard if they clearly deserve it”) and trial by jury (“It is high time some important changes were made in the selection of jurors, and some discrimination…in the cases to which they are applicable”) (151, 173, 180, 184).
After Mellon’s tenure on the Allegheny County Court of Common Pleas concluded, he opened T. Mellon & Sons’ Bank. He operated the bank with his sons Andrew and Richard, whom he had been training as businessmen since they were old enough to comprehend his instructions. After weathering the Panic of 1873, investing wisely in local railroad construction and coal mining ventures, and providing some start-up capital to future coal magnate Henry Frick, Mellon retired in 1882 and left his sons to run the bank. That they succeeded beyond his wildest dreams is unsurprising; that he never “share[d] his reading and contemplation” with them or any of his other heirs is one of the central mysteries of the book, given that the Judge led a deep and fulfilling intellectual life. But the Mellon story came full circle nevertheless: many of his later descendants, including James Mellon himself, “delighted in deep exploratory reading” and derived considerable pleasure from supporting various educational causes (508). Even the pre-doctoral fellowship that afforded me the leisure to read and review this book bears the ubiquitous Mellon surname, which in itself provides proof that the fierce discipline Thomas Mellon had instilled in him first in County Tyrone and later at “Poverty Point” has inured not just to the benefit of his sons but also to the benefit of those thousands of other people who have partaken of the family’s largesse.
One final note: This book is one of the most handsomely illustrated volumes yet released by a university press. For that reason alone, Pennsylvania history aficionados may wish to add it to their collections.
Individuals wishing to know more about the dour, controlling, and single-minded Judge Thomas Mellon depicted in David Cannadine’s comprehensive Mellon: An American Life need look no further: James Mellon, big-game hunter and author of several notable books, has produced an engaging and readable account of his great-great-great-grandfather’s life and times. Based largely on Thomas Mellon’s autobiography but enriched with the addition of materials from the Mellon family’s private collection, The Judge offers a largely sympathetic account of Thomas Mellon’s rise from somewhat modest means to a position of substantial and shrewdly-acquired wealth.
Thomas Mellon is not, strictly speaking, an “interesting” figure: he had no great love affairs, committed no notorious crimes, and held no high offices. Rather, he was a canny behind-the-scenes player who grasped from a very early age the significance of long-term planning. James Mellon writes with no small amount of admiration regarding Thomas Mellon’s extraordinary academic performance at the Western University of Pennsylvania (now the University of Pittsburgh) and youthful love notes, but the Judge quickly put aside what he came to view as frivolous endeavors. Adept enough with classical languages to be offered a professorship at the university following his graduation, Mellon stayed there only long enough to position himself for a profitable career in law.
Indeed, it was some variation on the profit motive—filtered through Mellon’s readings of Benjamin Franklin on work ethic and Herbert Spencer on the “survival of fittest”—that seemed to compel all of the Judge’s future decisions. He married Sarah Negley, heiress to the Negley fortune he had coveted since his childhood and described unflatteringly by James Mellon as someone “God had fashioned…from the homeliest clay,” because the time had come for him to take a wife and “she would do” (74). He also staked out pragmatic positions on matters such as his son James’ desire to serve in the Civil War (“There are thousands of poor fellows fit for soldiering, but fit for nothing else, whose duty is to go”), compulsory education for children (“They [must not be] allowed to grow up in ignorance and vice…whence they are graduated to the penitentiary or gallows”), capital punishment (“It may seem a hard task to condemn fellow creatures…’to be hanged by the neck until dead’; but it is not so hard if they clearly deserve it”) and trial by jury (“It is high time some important changes were made in the selection of jurors, and some discrimination…in the cases to which they are applicable”) (151, 173, 180, 184).
After Mellon’s tenure on the Allegheny County Court of Common Pleas concluded, he opened T. Mellon & Sons’ Bank. He operated the bank with his sons Andrew and Richard, whom he had been training as businessmen since they were old enough to comprehend his instructions. After weathering the Panic of 1873, investing wisely in local railroad construction and coal mining ventures, and providing some start-up capital to future coal magnate Henry Frick, Mellon retired in 1882 and left his sons to run the bank. That they succeeded beyond his wildest dreams is unsurprising; that he never “share[d] his reading and contemplation” with them or any of his other heirs is one of the central mysteries of the book, given that the Judge led a deep and fulfilling intellectual life. But the Mellon story came full circle nevertheless: many of his later descendants, including James Mellon himself, “delighted in deep exploratory reading” and derived considerable pleasure from supporting various educational causes (508). Even the pre-doctoral fellowship that afforded me the leisure to read and review this book bears the ubiquitous Mellon surname, which in itself provides proof that the fierce discipline Thomas Mellon had instilled in him first in County Tyrone and later at “Poverty Point” has inured not just to the benefit of his sons but also to the benefit of those thousands of other people who have partaken of the family’s largesse.
One final note: This book is one of the most handsomely illustrated volumes yet released by a university press. For that reason alone, Pennsylvania history aficionados may wish to add it to their collections.
Displaying 1 of 1 review