George N. Terry
American hotelier (1838–1899)
George Nelson Terry (February 6, 1838 – June 2, 1899) was a colonel during the American Civil War, before going on to become a hotelier. In 1867, Terry started a very close friendship with Cornelius Jeremiah Vanderbilt, and was the one to find him after his suicide in 1882.
Early life
George Terry's great-grandfather came from Connecticut around 1783 and took over the Moriches Inn in Center Moriches, New York, renaming it Terry's Hotel.
He was the fourth child born to Nelson and Eunice Terry, and was raised in Brookhaven, New York.
Career
Opening in 1864, Terry was the first lessee of the Hoffman House following its construction. That November, Major general Benjamin Butler established his military headquarters at Terry's newly opened Hoffman House hotel.
In January 1866, there was discussion of demolishing the United States Hotel to make space to widen the road. Citizens were opposed to the plans, and The New York Times wrote: "Nothing could more completely illustrate the utter helplessness of the taxpayers of this city against any raid that organized self-interest..." In 1867, Terry reopened the United States Hotel which was located on the corner of Fulton and Water streets, with the intention to conduct it on the European plan. In 1869, after a client died of suffocation at the U.S. Hotel, Terry had to testify at the Coroner's Jury trial. Terry was the proprietor of the United States Hotel until May 1872.
The public source identifies “George N. Terry” as american hotelier (1838–1899). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around George, Terry and American.
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This entry incorporates text from “George N. Terry” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.