Nelson Ludington

Nelson Ludington family tree showing his ancestors and the complete American family line of the Ludingtons from the progenitor.

Ludington's great great great great grandfather William Ludington is the progenitor of the American branch of the Ludington family line. William (b. 1608) and his wife Ellen (b. 1617) were of English origins and started the Ludington family in America. They immigrated to the 13 Colonies in 1640 right after they were married in England and settled in Charlestown, Massachusetts. They had seven children. About 1660 they moved to New Haven, Connecticut.

Ludington's grandfather Henry Ludington had moved from Branford, Connecticut, to Putnam County, New York, settling at what has since been called Ludingtonville of his namesake, which was later known as Kent, New York.

Ludington was born January 18, 1818, in Ludingtonville in Putnam County, New York. His father was Frederick Ludington and was married to Susannah Griffeth. Ludington was fourth of their sixteen children. He received private schooling by tutors for his early education. Ludington took courses at the Tucker Hill Academy as his last part of his formal education.

Ludington's training for the business world started at a general store at Cold Spring, New York. He later became a clerk in a dry goods store in New York City and received further training in retail business. Ludington in 1839 joined his brother, Harrison Ludington, in the firm Ludington, Burchard and Company which was owned by his brother, his uncle Lewis Ludington, and Harvey Burchard. After two years he purchased Burchard's share of the business and the firm changed its name to just Ludington and Company. Ludington was with the business until 1847 when he sold his ownership part to the other partners.

Ludington then started in the lumber industry with Daniel Wells Jr. and Jefferson Sinclair in 1848 in a new firm called Nelson Ludington & Company (sometimes shorten to N. Ludington & Co.). He recognized that the rapid expansion of western towns would make a market for lumber, so bought up large tracts of timber lands in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Ludington then went about constructing various mills.

Escanaba, Michigan (originally called Flat Rock), was one of the places where Ludington established a sawmill. Since he was a pioneer of the area and an early territory developer he gave the name for the city. The name for this new town was suggested to him because of the river nearby, that was called "Escanawba" by the local Indians because of the river bottom consisting of smooth flat rocks. He had a local Indian pronounce the name for his hired surveyor Eli Parsons Royce so that he could write it down on his town design schematic he was making in accordance with instructions from Harrison Ludington. The local American Indian repeated the name several times and Royce put that down on his design lay-out of the new town. The original written spelling was Escanawba and that became the legal name in the Laws of Michigan for 1863. It was changed a couple of years later by the pioneers to the shortened "Escanaba" with the "w" dropped and became known by that name ever since.

Ludington later constructed sawmills at Marinette, Wisconsin. These mills of his company manufactured an extensive amount of lumber that was sold in Michigan and as far away as Chicago and Milwaukee. For the first few years of Nelson Ludington & Company the main docks and lumber yards of the firm were at Milwaukee, that being the main distribution point to places throughout the United States. Ludington's older brother Harrison joined the company in 1851 and took charge of the operations in Milwaukee. Ludington then started a branch of the company in Chicago. Under his management, and because of the rapid growth of Chicago, the firm became headquartered in the city. In 1854 the Milwaukee part closed. The business in Chicago greatly expanded and had some changes in partners. The firm continued until 1868 and then became "Nelson Ludington Company" with Ludington as its president. He held that position until his death in 1883. He was therefore the executive head of the company that bore his name for thirty-five years.

Ludington was involved in the forming of the Fifth National Bank of Chicago in 1863. He became its president in 1868 until 1872 when it became the National Bank of America. He then became one of the directors of this new bank while living in the city and built up a considerable estate.

His wife was Charlotte J. Ludington. He had two daughters. Mary married Charles J. Barnes, of the publishing house of A. S. Barnes and Company and managing director of the American Book Company in Chicago. Jennie married George W. Young, a Chicago businessman.

Ludington died January 15, 1883, in Chicago. He left a large estate to his wife and daughters.

The Ludington Building, the earliest-surviving steel-frame building in Chicago, was financed from the estate of Ludington that his daughter Mary received. The House of Ludington hotel in the Escanaba Central Historic District still has some portions of the original building dating back to the 1860s.