John Henry Eagle

Of the five children born to Conrad and Mary Ann Eagle, the first was a girl, as was the last. The youngest daughter died of typhoid fever at age 4. John followed Annie (1866-1957) and his two younger brothers were Comly (1873-1941) and Charles (1875-1928). John is most noteworthy for the rich life he lived (probably the richest person buried here) but also for the rich legacy he left.

Conrad was a foreman at the Pine Iron Works in Pottstown, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania when the kids were little. There’s a gap in John’s timeline until 1896, when documents show he was a banker in New York City who had made a bad business loan. 

A Brother as Partner

The borrowers were owners of a silk mill in Shamokin, Northumberland County, Pennsylvania, 70 miles north of Harrisburg. Local history says it was not being operated efficiently so John bought it to save himself from financial loss. Brother Charles joined him in forming the J.H. & C.K. Eagle Company with John as president and Charles as secretary/treasurer. 

Producing silk, “the queen of fibers,” was a big business before the days of synthetics. John must have seen that the industry’s potential was good before extending that loan. Coincidentally, he lived near the silk mills of Paterson, New Jersey which proudly called itself “the Silk City.” That’s where he met a local girl named Elizabeth Keyes, and they married on June 11, 1900. 

More Family Matters

Meanwhile, Charles moved from his New York apartment to Shamokin and used his skill as an accountant to bring the mill back to profitability. One of the workers was a teenage girl whose family moved there from England in 1895. After she turned 18 in 1901, Edith Beech left her skeins and bobbins to become Charles’ bride. 

They had two children in the next five years before Charles brought the family to live in Manhattan. Their household in the 1910 census included two live-in maids. Great success and wealth can cause trouble, unfortunately, which resulted in the couple ending their marriage in 1913.

That’s also what happened to Conrad and Mary Ann after they became empty-nesters and moved to Philadelphia. They lived at separate addresses but never filed for divorce. On the 1900 census they both falsely claimed they were widowed. When she died five years later, her two now-wealthy sons placed this obelisk here on Mausoleum Hill in her honor, which reads, “Erected in memory of our mother, Mary Ann Eagle, October 21, 1844 – February 12, 1905.” A single stone marks the only other grave besides hers, and that has John’s name on it.

A Booming Business

The expression, ”a license to print money” describes how John and Charles were in the right business at the right time. Both also dabbled as brokers, John in investments and Charles in real estate. Charles traveled more, keeping an eye on the Shamokin plant while embarking on business trips to China and Japan. John was involved in expanding to additional sites in Pennsylvania. They began operating mills in Gettysburg, Bellefonte, Mechanicsburg, Bethlehem, and as this clipping shows, in Phoenixville. 

By this time, one-third of the country’s output of silk was being produced in eastern Pennsylvania. It was the kind of work that wives and children of coal miners could do to supplement the family income. 

The brothers had done so well that by 1916 they decided to consolidate several separate buildings around Shamokin into one five-story, 500,000-square-foot plant. (That’s almost like having the space of a Home Depot or Lowes on every floor.) It was then proclaimed as the largest textile mill under one roof in America, capped by a huge clock and bell tower, with an eagle sculpture over the main entrance.

With the cost of construction exceeding $1.5 million, the Eagles had become heroes of the local economy. In addition, operating the massive facility put 6000 workers on the payroll by the time employment peaked in 1923.

They rode the wave into the roaring 20s as silk was used for flapper dresses, scarves, stockings, gloves, neckties, underwear, and sleepwear. Both men took their families on trips to Europe,  were generous in giving to charities, and enjoyed the outdoor life in their spare time. 

A Big Hunter, A Big Spender

Since John and Elizabeth had no children, he was always busy as an avid golfer and photographer, but his greatest passion was big-game hunting. He traveled eight times to Africa and even wrote a book about his experiences. His collection of 125 mounted heads was said to rival that of Teddy Roosevelt’s. What he didn’t shoot with a rifle, he shot with a camera. He and Elizabeth retired to Pasadena, California in 1925 to enjoy this 30-room mansion on eight acres. 

Charles took over the business from his office on Madison Avenue, but by then his attention was being pulled in different directions. If the lives of the two brothers were compared to the tale of the race between the tortoise and the hare. John was the tortoise who won in the end.

Charles remarried sometime before 1920, bought a ranch in Wyoming, and built a 13-story, million-dollar apartment building in 1921 on West 57th Street across from Carnegie Hall. The penthouse villa on the top two floors of “the Briarcliffe” included his own gymnasium. On the roof were hanging gardens and rose bushes surrounding a marble fountain with a pond stocked with trout.

He lived hard  and crashed hard. Beginning in 1923 Charles became convinced he had an unknown but incurable disease. That hypochondria continued to build over the years, leading him to endure three weeks of insomnia in 1928 before he shot himself in the head. Ironically, his father had done the same thing in Philadelphia three months earlier. (Conrad was buried in Pottstown but no documents were found to reveal where Charles was buried.)

Without his brother, both his emotional and financial health had been slipping. One month before his death, Charles sold the apartment building, knowing a $3 million note to Chase Bank was due in two months. The Eagle Company went under new ownership in 1929 but declined rapidly through the Depression and bankruptcy forced its closing in 1938.

A confirmed dollar value of Charles’ personal estate is unknown, but one New York newspaper said it dwindled from $3.9 million to $141,000. In his will, Charles directed that specific amounts of money be given to his two wives, two children, and his other two siblings, Annie and Comly, both of Philadelphia.

The Other Brother

Comly’s life was a struggle, both as a saloon keeper who lost his liquor license and as a hotel proprietor who accepted hourly rates and was forced to close by court order. Whatever bequest he may have received from Charles (intended to be $20,000), it didn’t last long; he ended his life just as Charles and Conrad did, with a gun in a Center City rooming house in 1941. 

John’s Legacy

John Henry Eagle took better care of his assets. After his death on his 75th birthday, he left $7 million in cash and securities, which translates today to $135 million. Elizabeth received $1 million and a fund provided $1400 a year to his last remaining sibling, Annie. 

Four-fifths of the remainder went to the California Institute of Technology to establish the John H. Eagle Endowment to research the causes, cure, and prevention of disease, and awarding prizes for advances in those areas. The remaining 20 percent, or more than $1 million, was given to the national office of the Salvation Army, which he had actively supported for many years.

Mount Moriah is John’s final resting place, being the only child interred in the shadow of his mother’s obelisk. In stark contrast to the nearby monuments and expensive mausoleums erected to memorialize those entombed, John’s legacy is remembered only by this modest stone in one corner of the neatly walled plot.

As for Shamokin, the population dwindled from a peak of 21,000 in 1920 to less than 7000 a hundred years later. The great silk mill is no more, but the bell and eagle sculpture were preserved. They’re on display in the city park to commemorate the Eagle brothers and their contributions to the community.