In 1834 Daniel James, together with his father-in-law and
brother-in-law, founded an import-export business in New York that would become
the mining conglomerate Phelps Dodge Corporation. Phelps Dodge existed for 173
years, being bought by Freeport-MacMoran Inc. in 2007 for $25.9 billion.
James was born in Truxton, New York on 17th April
1801. He went into business as a wholesale grocer and in 1829 married Elizabeth
Woodbridge Phelps. Her father, Anson Green Phelps, ran a business exporting
cotton to England and importing metal for the rapidly expanding
industrialisation of the USA. In 1831 Daniel James moved to Liverpool with his
family to run the English side of the business and made it his home, remaining
in the city for over forty years until his death in 1876. When Anson Phelps
died in 1853 James and his brother-in-law, William Dodge bought their
father-in-law’s share of the English business. Although struggling in its early
years the business was phenomenally successful importing cotton for the Lancashire
mills and exporting tinplate to the USA. Their domination of the tinplate
export business was almost total and in the forty years during which Daniel
James led the business they exported an incredible 300 million dollars worth to
the USA, accumulating considerable personal wealth in the process.
During the American Civil War the blockade put in place by
the Union navy prevented cotton being exported from the Confederacy, resulting
in great hardship for the Lancashire cotton workers. Relief funds were set up
in the northern US states and businesses and individuals raised some $300,000.
Daniel James was elected chairman of the Liverpool committee established to
receive and distribute the aid received from the fund.
His early years in Liverpool were not without trial and
tribulation. Apart from the impact of recession in the late 1830’s, his wife
died in 1847 and his eldest son was killed in a carriage accident whilst
visiting his grandfather in America. In 1849 he married Sophia Hitchcock and
had three sons with her, Frank Linsly, John Arthur and William Dodge, all of
whom were born and grew up in Liverpool. Sophia died in 1870 and in 1871 James
married his children’s former governess, Ruth Lancaster Dickson.
Daniel James died in Liverpool on 27th November
1876 and was buried alongside his first two wives in the Liverpool Necropolis (the
site is now Grant Gardens near Everton Road). When the Necropolis was closed in
the 1890’s his son, William Dodge, arranged for the headstone to be removed the
church of St Andrew near his house at West Dean, Sussex, where they remain to
this day.
Daniel James appears on the 1841 census as
Living in Woolton. In 1851 he and his family were living at 3 Huskisson Street
L8, moving by 1861 to Oakwood House, Elmswood Road L17 (now demolished). In 1866 he took British Citizenship in order
to buy his final home, Beaconsfield House, in Beaconsfield Road L25
