The History of the South Side Sportsmen's Club

Historical figures of Connetquot Park and the South Side Sportsmen's Club.
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John Hone

John Hone was the fourth generation of a distinguished New York Family, a financier, and a former Governor and Vice President of The New York Stock Exchange. His mother was Jane Perry, daughter of Commodore Matthew Calbraith Perry, U.S.N., of Japan fame and the first United States Ambassador to that country, in 1853. John Hone's great granduncle, Philip Hone, was the fifty-sixth Mayor of New York City, and he was a nephew of Mrs. August Belmont who was the former Miss Caroline Slidell Perry, another daughter of Commodore Perry, and mother of August Belmont, the banker.

Within a year after entering Columbia, in 1861, John Hone, who was born at 479 Broadway, near Broome Street, on December 14, 1844 withdrew and hurried into the Seventh Regiment, N.Y. Volunteers,  while the regiment was enroute to Washington. In 1864 he became an employee in the banking house of August Belmont where he continued until  January 1, 1869 when he established the Stock Exchange firm afterwards known as John Hone & Company. He was twice Vice President of the Exchange, and served several times as Governor. He was a Director fo the North American Trust Company, later known as the Trust Company of North America. He retired from active business in 1907.

Although he lived more than forty years in New York continuously, he kept a voting residence in New Jersey, where he cast his first vote, and for many years he was actively identified with Democratice politics there, serving three terms as a member of the New Jersey Democratic State Committee. He was a delegate-at-large to the National Convention at Chicago which nominated Grover Cleveland.

Mr. Hone was active in many philanthropies, charities, and civic movements. In 1910 he undertook on behalf of the Gramercy Park property owners an action against the city for excessive taxation. Hone contended the city was exacting double taxation from this exclusive residential section because of frontage on the private park, which he claimed was illegal because the property owners were also compelled to pay full taxation for the park itself. He recovered $100,000 in overpaid taxes.

"That altuistic lawsuit and the recovery of the money proved the most difficult financial problem I ever undertook," Hone said, when he tried to distribute the proceeds. It took him several years to dispose of the fund because of difficulty in finding the legal heirs rightfully entitled to the rebate.

He was a member of the Metropolitan, Manhattan, Knickerbocker, Union, and Southside Sportsmen (April 1900) Clubs, Seventh Regiment Veterans Association, George Washington Post, G.A.R.: Sons Of The Revolution, and Vice Commandant of the Society of the War of 1812.