{{Use mdy dates|date=July 2023}} {{Infobox officeholder | name = Thomas Sturgis | image = Thomas Sturgis (1846–1914).png | image_size = | caption = | birth_name = | birth_date = {{Birth date|1846|4|6}} | birth_place = Manhattan, New York, U.S. | death_date = {{death date and age|1914|2|25|1846|4|6}} | death_place = Eastbourne, England | body_discovered = | death_cause = | resting_place = | resting_place_coordinates = | order = 2nd | office = Fire Commissioner of the City of New York | term_start = 1902 | term_end = 1903 | appointer = Seth Low | predecessor = John J. Scannell | successor = Nicholas J. Hayes | citizenship = | other_names = | known_for = | education = | alma_mater = | employer = | occupation = | years_active = | home_town = | title = | salary = | networth = | height = | weight = | party = Republican | opponents = | boards = | spouse = | partner = | children = | parents = | relations = | callsign = | signature = Signature of Thomas Sturgis (1846–1914).png | website = | footnotes = | office2 = Member of the Wyoming Territorial Senate | term2 = 1882-1883 |allegiance = {{flag|United States}} Union |branch = |service_years = 1861–1865 |rank = First Lieutenant |battles = Civil War |unit = }}
'''Thomas Sturgis''' (April 6 or 30, 1846 – February 25, 1914) was a businessman, soldier, financier and politician. He was appointed the second New York City Fire Commissioner by Mayor Seth Low on January 1, 1902, and served in that position until the end of the Low Administration on December 31, 1903. Prior to this he served as a fire commissioner under William Lafayette Strong, replacing Austin E. Ford.<ref name=":0">{{cite news |title=To Succeed Austin E. Ford. Thomas Sturgis Made a Fire Commissioner by the Mayor |newspaper=The New York Times |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-new-york-times-to-succeed-austin-e/128473101/ |date=September 27, 1896 |quote=Mayor Strong yesterday announced the appointment of Thomas Sturgis as a Commissioner of the Fire Department, in place of Austin E. Ford, who died Sept. 17. Mr. Sturgis, accompanied by his wife, went to the Mayor's office at 11 o'clock. After the usual preliminaries Mr. Sturgis took the oath of office and received his commission. |page=11 |access-date=2023-07-18 |via=Newspapers.com}}</ref> Sturgis was also developer of Cheyenne, Wyoming, and financier.<ref name=":3">{{Cite web|url=https://www.nps.gov/wefa/learn/management/upload/Historic-Resource-Study-Weir-Farm-NHS-2009_1.pdf|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160426102351/https://www.nps.gov/wefa/learn/management/upload/Historic-Resource-Study-Weir-Farm-NHS-2009_1.pdf|url-status=dead|archive-date=April 26, 2016|title=An Artist's Retreat: J. Alden Weir's Farm in Connecticut|last=Gardner|first=Deborah S.|last2=McKay|first2=Christine G.|date=2009|website=National Park Service|page=30}}</ref> In the ''Pacific Historical Review'', Gene M. Gressley wrote that Sturgis was "one of the few young easterners who came west in search of a fortune and stayed long enough to become one of the most respected men in the cattle industry."<ref name=":4">{{cite journal|last=Gressley|first=Gene M.|year=1961|title=The American Cattle Trust: A Study in Protest|volume=30|issue=1|pages=61–77|issn=0030-8684|journal=Pacific Historical Review|jstor=3636332|doi=10.2307/3636332}}</ref>
==Early life and education== Thomas Sturgis was born on April 6 or 30, 1846, to Wiliam and Elizabeth Sturgis,<ref name=":1" /><ref name=":2">{{Cite book|title=New York State's prominent and progressive men;an encyclopaedia of contemporaneous biography|last=Harrison|first=Mitchell Charles|date=1902|publisher=New York|pages=337–339|hdl = 2027/njp.32101060043690 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=N8tTAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA330-IA23 |access-date=2023-07-18 |via=Google Books}}</ref> in New York City. He attended New York City public schools,<ref name=":1" /> including Grammar School No. 40. When he was 16, Sturgis began working as a clerk at a wholesale dry goods house.<ref name=":2" />
==Military service==
Upon the outbreak of the American Civil War, Sturgis joined the twenty-second regiment of the New York State Militia. When he turned 18 in 1864, Sturgis enlisted in the Sixtieth Massachusetts Regiment, commissioned as a first lieutenant and adjutant of the Sixtieth regiment. Sturgis served as post-adjutant of a prisoner-of-war camp near Camp Morton in Indiana in the summer and fall of 1864. After the Sixtieth was mustered out, he was commissioned as a first lieutenant in the Fifty-seventh, serving in various capacities as an aide-de-camp and an assistant adjutant general at the army camp, rising to be assistant adjutant general of the First Division of the Ninth Army Corps, attached to the Army of the Potomac. At the Battle of Fort Stedman (March 25, 1865), Sturgis was taken prisoner, held in Libby Prison, and exchanged,<ref name=":2" />{{Rp|338}} serving until the end of the war in 1865.<ref name=":2" />
==Career==
After the conclusion of the war, Sturgis briefly studied law,<ref name=":1" /> before moving to west to Neosho<ref name=":4" /> in Southwest Missouri in spring 1868.<ref name=":2" /> He managed several farms,<ref name=":4" /> and worked as a general land agent for the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad, and negotiated with Native Americans on behalf of then Governor of Missouri Thomas Clement Fletcher, gaining right of way to build a railroad on the 35th parallel. Sturgis moved to Cheyenne, Wyoming, in 1878<ref name=":2" /> and was involved in banking, railroads and stockraising, spending fifteen years in the city.<ref name=":1" /> Sturgis became the leader of the Republican Party in Wyoming.<ref name=":4" /> He married Helen Rutgers Weir, daughter of Robert Walter Weir,<ref name=":3" /> on June 9, 1880. Sturgis organized and served as president of the Stockgrowers National Bank in Cheyenne.<ref name=":2" /> He was involved in the founding of and served as president of the Cheyenne and Northern Railway.<ref name="athearn">{{cite book|title=Union Pacific Country|last=Athearn|first=Robert G.|publisher=University of Nebraska Press|year=1976|isbn=978-0-8032-5829-7|pages=304}}</ref> He was secretary of the Wyoming Stock Growers Association for 14 years, and secretary of the National Cattle Growers Association.<ref name=":2" /> He was elected to the Wyoming Territorial Senate and chairman of the Republican Central Committee of the Territory while in Cheyenne,<ref name=":2" /> serving from 1882 to 1883.<ref name=":1" />
Sturgis returned to New York City in 1887 or 1888,<ref name=":1" /><ref name=":2" /> opening a building company, Sturgis & Hill.<ref name=":1" /> Sturgis soon became prominent in New York City business, owning stock or being a director of the Consolidated Ice Company, the Knickerbocker Ice Company, the American Ice Company, the Wyoming Development Company, and the Cheyenne Gas and Electric Light Company.<ref name=":2" /> He became treasurer of the Union Stock Yards. He was appointed to the Civil Service Commission of New York in 1896 and was made a trustee of the Elmira Correctional Facility in 1899,<ref name=":1" /> being elected president of the latter's board.<ref name=":2" /> Sturgis served as New York City Fire Commissioner from January 1, 1902, to December 31, 1903.<ref name=":1" /> He died February 25, 1914, in Eastbourne, England.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":1">{{cite news |title=Thomas Sturgis |url=https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1914/02/27/100301198.pdf |newspaper=The New York Times |page=11 |date=February 27, 1914 |access-date=2023-07-18}}</ref>
==References== {{Reflist}}
==External links== *{{Find a Grave|101292494}} {{s-start}} {{s-civ|fir}} {{succession box| before=John J. Scannell| title=FDNY Commissioner| years=1902–1903 | after=Nicholas J. Hayes}} {{s-end}}
{{New York City Fire Commissioner}} {{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sturgis, Thomas}} Category:Commissioners of the New York City Fire Department Category:1846 births Category:1914 deaths Category:Businesspeople from New York City Category:Politicians from New York City Category:People of Massachusetts in the American Civil War Category:People of New York (state) in the American Civil War Category:Members of the Wyoming Territorial Legislature Category:Wyoming Republicans Category:Ranchers from Wyoming Thomas