RARE "Union Carbide" George Owen Knapp Signed TLS Dated 1919 For Sale

Up for sale a VERY RARE!  "Union Caroffere" George Owen Knapp Hand Signed TLS Dated 1919. This document includes a RARE! stamp affixed at the bottom of the page. 

ES-7363E

George

Owen Knapp (January 21, 1855

in Hatfield, Massachusetts – July 21, 1945 in Santa Barbara, California)

was a wealthy industrialist and philanthropist. He was the President of Peoples Gas Light and Coke

Company in Chicago, Illinois by 1893. In 1894 he was a founder of

the Union Calcium Caroffere Company which he reformulated as Union Caroffere in

1904. He was CEO and President, and the Board Chair of Union Caroffere until

1933. Knapp's philanthropy was broad, but where he focused it was in medical

care. He funded the growth and provided key leadership to Santa Barbara Cottage

Hospital starting in 1914. In 1931 he funded the Knapp Hospital

in Crescent City, California.

Knapp grew up in Hatfield, son of Jared Owen Knapp and Sara Elizabeth Beach

Knapp. He attended Hatfield High School and Rensselaer Polytechnic

Institute, graduating in 1876 with a degree in Civil Engineering. He

worked as an engineer for the War Department for one year, then joined the New

Britain Gas Company in Connecticut. Moving to New York, he worked as a gas main

inspector and then worked at laying out new mains for the Fullerton Municipal

Gas Works. In 1883, he moved the Chicago where he joined Peoples Gas Light and

Coke Company. Knapp worked at Peoples for twenty-one years, becoming President

in 1893. While there, he became close friends with the son of the prior company

president, Albert Merritt Billings. Albert's son was Cornelius Kingsley Garrison Billings who later became

President of Peoples, and co-founder with Knapp of Union Caroffere. Knapp

learned of calcium caroffere (discovered

in 1888) in 1894. The colorless compound was used in the production of acetylene and calcium cyanamide. Acetylene was critical to the large and

quickly growing steel industry for its use in welding. That year, with

Billings, he formed the Union Calcium Caroffere Company. Over the next ten years,

Knapp focused on getting the business off the ground. By 1904, Knapp had his

first processing plant at Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan and

he reincorporated Union Calcium Caroffere Company as Union Caroffere. Over the next decade, Knapp opened two

processing plants at Niagara Falls, New York and

another at Sault Ste. Marie. Knapp married Isabel Murray in 1880. The couple

had two children, Sarah Estelle Knapp and William Jared Knapp. Isabel died in

childbirth in 1886 taking their third child with her. In 1890, Knapp remarried

to Louise Savage. The couple never had children. Most of the year, the Knapps

lived where George Owen Knapp worked, in New York. They had a residence at 955

Park Avenue and a country home on Polly Park Road in Rye, New York. In 1894, the Knapps purchased the Hundred

Island House and another hotel at Lake George (New York). He

continued to buy adjacent land over the next two decades until he owned over 12

square miles of lake front. He started building his own home on the property in

1901, a large stone and shingle mansion with a cable car to run people down to

the lake and back. In 1922, he donated the Old Stone House Library to

the community. It is believed that in 1904, Knapp, who was perhaps

fifty or sixty pounds overweight, was diagnosed with diabetes and instructed by

his physician, Franklin Nuzum, to take a health retreat to California. The

Knapps, traveling with the Billingses, came by train west to Santa Barbara, and

stayed at the Potter Hotel in 1904. They returned the next year and purchased

11 parcels of land in Montecito, California near

the beach where they stated they had plans to build. They did not return for

six years. When they returned in 1911, the Knapps made Santa Barbara a more

permanent residence. Staying at the Potter for six weeks, they purchased the

70-acre Arcady estate in Montecito from Ralph Radcliffe Whitehead and

sold the 11 beach parcels. The Knapp's launched an expansion of the already

large home, with E. Russell Ray as architect. The remodel was completed a year

later and the Knapp's moved in in August 1912. The gardens at Arcady were

designed by Carleton Winslow and

Francis T. Underhill. The Knapps extended their holdings to 148 acres at

Arcady, and began purchasing other local properties. They acquired beachfront

property at Sandyland Cove, California where the Knapps, the Billingses, and

the Frederick Forrest Peabodys all

owned adjacent homes and property. Knapp also purchased six separate mountain

estates above Santa Barbara. The most famous of these was Knapp's Castle. Knapp purchased the land in 1916 and built

roads in to make it accessible. He built a large stone and wood retreat with

five bedrooms and five fireplaces. The site also had a guest house, servant's

quarters, and a superintendent's house. Other mountain retreats Knapp owned in

the area were the Laurel Springs Ranch (purchased in 1925) which he refurbished

and made available as a nurse's retreat (and which was the future home of Jane

Fonda and Tom Hayden), the El Capitan Ranch at Refugio Pass, Indian Camp (aka

Wagon Wheels), Lower Indian Camp (aka Punch Bowl), and Agua Caliente Springs. Knapp,

Billings, Peabody, and Clarence Black all lived in the same Eucalyptus Hill

area of Montectio and as all owned horses, were soon called the Four Horsemen

of Eucalyptus Hill. The moniker in part was given because the four acted

together in philanthropic efforts, especially for Santa Barbara Cottage

Hospital. Founded by 50 women in 1888, the hospital was

transitioning from convalescent treatment to modern insurance-based medical

care in the early 1910s. A new hospital building was needed, and the all-women

board sought outside assistance for the first time. They first met with

Clarence Black, President of Cadillac, in 1914 and asked him to form a board

and take over. Black made the hospital's plight known to his friends and all

four, over the next year or two, joined the board and began funding the

hospital's growth in significant ways. Knapp first became involved in 1914 by

funding the purchase of a new X-ray department including the Kelly Koett X-ray

machines. He joined the hospital board in 1916, and donated funds to retire the

hospital's debt in 1917. In 1917, Knapp also funded the first Dispensary in

Santa Barbara, serving the populace who could not afford hospitals or

physicians. Over

the next decade, Knapp provided funding for a new maternity building, the

Potter Metabolic Clinic wing, a Children's wing, a 50-bed patient care wing,

and the 1923 Louise Savage Knapp School of Nursing. He brought in architect E.

Russell Ray who was superseded by Winsor Soule. Later he brought in Carleton Winslow. Knapp became President of the Board in 1919,

and brought his personal physician from Chicago, Dr. Franklin Nuzum, to serve

as Chief of Staff. When Milo Potter died in 1919 as the Potter Metabolic Clinic

was being opened, it was Nuzum who recommended Dr. William David Sansum. Sansum

came to Santa Barbara to run the Potter Clinic, and as the sole practitioner in

the United States using insulin for the treatment of diabetes, made crucial

contributions to the substance's development. In

1920, as Board President, Knapp wrote the hospital's credo in the Annual

Report, "First, every item of hospital equipment and management must be

considered from the standpoint of the good of the patient. No other

consideration must come before this. No personal motives or convenience of the

officers of the hospital, of the nurses, or of the physicians in charge have

any place till the good of the patient has been taken care of. Second, the

poorest charity patient in the hospital must have as good attention and care,

and have every function of the hospital at his disposal, as the patient with

unlimited wealth." Louise Savage Knapp died in 1924, and Knapp never

remarried. Following her death, he soon retired from active responsibilities at

Union Caroffere, and traveled even more extensively than before. He purchased

land in Northern California at Rock Creek, on the southern fork of the Smith River (California).

The boat trip to the hunting lodge he built there took two-hours, so Knapp had

a 180-hp airplane motor mounted to his river boat, Arcady. The trip then took

30 minutes. After a flood decimated the lodge at Rock Creek, Knapp purchased

one at a safer location. As hospitals were scarce in the region, he donated the

funds to build Seaside Hospital (aka the Knapp Hospital) in Crescent City, California. That hospital opened in 1931. He

spent the last years of his life as a patient at Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital

and died there on July 21, 1945. During Knapp's era of leadership, Santa

Barbara Cottage Hospital became a premiere research, learning, and practicing

hospital. It attracted patients from across the country for its successful

treatment of diabetes, and the spa-quality rooms and service.