San Francisco County
THE PHOENIX INSURANCE CO.
GEORGE E. BUTLER & EDWARD B. HALDAN
The Phoenix Insurance Co., of London, was established in 1781, and chartered a year later by an association, chiefly of sugar refiners, and almost immediately afterward went into the general fire-insurance business. In 1804 the Phoenix office was represented in the United States by the Insurance Company of North America, and this continued until the war of 1812, when the company retired from the American business, to which it did not return until 1879. It then made a deposit to comply with the New York law, and selected as its chief representative Alexander Duer Irving, a nephew of the distinguished author, Washington Irving. The business on the Pacific coast has been held from the same period by Messrs. Butler & Haldan, who succeeded to the insurance business of Messrs. Cross & Co., who had ranked as the oldest firm in California, commencing business in San Francisco in 1848. Mr. John Wedderspoon, of that firm, now resides in London, being retired from active operations, but will always be remembered by the citizens of San Francisco as one of the most charitable and influential merchants of the city. The American Fire Insurance Co., of New York, was established in 1857, and has had a steady and prospered career, the amount of its net surplus having been for several years in excess of their capital. Messrs. Butler & Haldan have represented the company from the time it launched forth upon the Pacific coast, in the year 1887.
George E. Butler is a native of Nottingham, England, and comes of a family established in that country for centuries. In 1868 he came to San Francisco, and since that time has been identified with the fire insurance interests of the city, and has always been an active member of every organization, which has had for its object the maintenance of correct principles. After nine years experience in the Union Insurance Co., he took charges of agency companies, and since that time has every year gradually increased the business of his office, has paid several thousands of losses, involving millions of money, scarcely ever being troubled with lawsuits to enforce claims. Mr. Butler has invested in property, and has a most picturesque and delightful home at Ross valley, in Marin county, where he resides with his family. He was married in 1869, to Miss Adeline Suplee, a daughter of Albert Suplee and a niece of Colonel Suplee, who enlisted as a private in the civil war, but so distinguished himself as a soldier as to deserve rapid promotion. Mr. Butler was one of the Directors of the Boys and Girls’ Aid Society, and rendered that organization much efficient assistance in its early days. He is a Vestryman of the Episcopal Church and a Republican in politics. He has been a citizen of the United States for over twenty-one years, and is a true American in all his ideas and sympathies. His undivided attention is given to the insurance business, at which he is a decided success.
Edward B. Haldan, who comes of an old Scotch family, was born in Toronto, in 1857, the son of the late Bernard Haldan, managing director of the Western Insurance Company of Toronto, and through whose efforts the company attained its success and prestige. Edward B. came to San Francisco in 1877, and since that time has been engaged in the fire-insurance business, and as a partner has been connected with Mr. Butler since 1879. Mr. Haldan has always been well-known for his great devotion to his agency interests, and especially for his efforts to maintain conservative practices in fire insurance. He has invested in land in Sausalito, which has since become very valuable. Mr. Haldan is a most courteous and polite gentleman, and the firm richly deserves the fine business that their united efforts have secured. They have never gone out of their steady way to obtain any kind of notoriety, and they have always done what they could to help others, and have taken a deep interest in everything calculated to improve the city and State.
Transcribed
by Joyce Rugeroni.
Source: “The Bay of
San Francisco,” Vol. 2, Pages 390-391, Lewis Publishing Co, 1892.
©
2007 Joyce & David
Rugeroni.