Edmund Gybbon Spilsbury Who Served as Engineer for the Pelham Manor & Huguenot Heights Association

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As I have indicated before, I have been working feverishly for the last several months to research the history of the Pelham Manor & Huguenot Heights Association. Regular readers may recall that I have published a number of blog postings on the topic, including:

Tuesday, April 18, 2006: Prospectus Issued by the Pelham Manor & Huguenot Heights Association in 1874

Thursday, December 22, 2005: Area Planned for Development by The Pelham Manor & Huguenot Heights Association in 1873

Monday, March 20, 2006: Charles J. Stephens and Henry C. Stephens of the Pelham Manor & Huguenot Heights Association

Monday, March 27, 2006: 1057 Esplanade: One of the Original Homes Built by the Pelham Manor & Huguenot Heights Association

The reason for my effort is that I will be presenting a paper on the topic during The 27th Conference on New York State History in conjunction with The Association of Public Historians of New York State sponsored by The Herber H. Lehman Center for American History, Columbia University and the New York State Archives Partnership Trust.

Today's Historic Pelham Blog Posting provides a brief biography of one of the five original principals involved in the Pelham Manor & Huguenot Heights Association: Edmund Gybbon Spilsbury.

Edmund Gybbon Spilsbury was a mining and metallurgical engineer of international reputation. He owned a home near the intersection of today’s Black Street and Pelhamdale Avenue in Pelham Manor and worked with Stephens Brothers & Company as a “civil and mining engineer”.

Spilsbury was born in London in 1845 and was schooled in Liege, Belgium. See Edmund G. Spilsbury Dead. Ex-President of American Institute of Mining Engineers Was 75, N.Y. Times, May 30, 1920, p. 22. He graduated from the University of Louvain in Belgium in 1862. Id. Early in his career, Spilsbury worked for the Eschweiler Company of Stolberg, Belgium. Id. In 1870, however, he traveled to the United States to investigate lead and zinc deposits for an Austrian firm. Id. According to one account, “[a]fter two years of such examination he decided to remain, and thereafter held many important engineering posts with various large concerns”. Id.

E. G. Spilsbury was involved in countless concerns during his long and illustrious years. For example, from 1881 until 1887 he was involved with the Haile Mine in South Carolina, a mine that eventually produced more than 150,000 ounces of gold. See Collins, Jan, Carolina Gold . . . (Ridgeway Mining Company) (a ten-page paper including the cover prepared by freelance journalist for the company; copy available from Jan-Collins.com at http://www.jan-collins.com/Library/carolinagold.pdf , p. 3 of the online version). While based in New York, he erected a large mill at the mine and oversaw the operations until a German-born engineer named Dr. Adolph Thies took over the operation in 1888. Id.

Spilsbury next served as “Manager” of the Trenton Iron Company from 1888 to 1897. See Edmund G. Spilsbury Dead. Ex-President of American Institute of Mining Engineers Was 75, N.Y. Times, May 30, 1920, p. 22. Later in his career he founded his own engineering firm known as E. G. Spilsbury Engineering Co. See Spilsbury, Edmund Gybbon in Herringshaw’s City Blue Book of Biography: New Yorker’s of 1917: Ten Thousand Biographies, p. 378 (Chicago, IL: Clark J. Herringshaw 1917). See also Edmund G. Spilsbury Dead. Ex-President of American Institute of Mining Engineers Was 75, N.Y. Times, May 30, 1920, p. 22. He also held positions of honor in numerous professional associations. He served as President of the American Institute of Mining and Metallurgical Engineers in 1896. Id. In 1916 and 1917, he served as President of the Engineers Club of New York. Id.

Late in his life, E. G. Spilsbury lived in the Mansion House in Brooklyn, New York and still worked from an office located at 45 Broadway in New York City. Id. He died May 28, 1920 at the age of 75. Edmund G. Spilsbury Dead. Ex-President of American Institute of Mining Engineers Was 75, N.Y. Times, May 30, 1920, p. 22.

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