William Marsh Rice and His Institute: The Centennial Edition

Appendix 5

( 140 ) Appendix 5 the early trustees A recurring feature of Houston’s history is the exercise of concentrated economic and political power by tiny groups of power brokers. In the late antebellum era, William Marsh Rice himself joined figures like Cornelius Ennis, Paul Bremond (father of his first wife), and Horace Baldwin (father of his second wife) in such a circle of men. In the midtwentieth century, the famous 8-F group comprising George R. Brown, Herman Brown, Jesse H. Jones,GusWortham, and others controlled the city. Given Rice’s overwhelming focus on profit-driven development, he naturally turned to a similar coterie of advisers in 1891 when he needed to name the trustees of the freshly conceived Rice Institute.1 When he made his initial gift, Rice retained considerable control over the board’s decisions during his lifetime. In addition to being a board member himself, with final authority in regard to investment of the initial gift, he appointed his younger brother Frederick Allyn Rice (June 26, 1830–April 6, 1901) to the board. Frederick had joined William inTexas in about 1850, and the two had prospered together. The brothers’ personal lives later intertwined as well, for Frederick’s wife, Charlotte Baldwin Randon, was the sister of William’s second wife. Before the war Frederick had accumulated considerablewealth as a merchant, and he owned a large cotton plantation on the Brazos River in Fort Bend County. He anchored the brothers’ business interests during the war while William was in Mexico.2 Following the Confederacy’s capitulation, Frederick played major roles in many companies, including some in which William invested; and taken in sum, Frederick’s activities made him a major figure in latenineteenth -century Houston history. Among his various duties during the period, he served as president of the Houston Savings Bank, the Houston BrickWorks Company, and the Montgomery Mill and Lumber Company and vice president of the City Bank of Houston, the Houston Flour Mills Company, and the Houston Insurance Company. He was an officer of the Bayou City Compress, the Houston Cotton Exchange, and the Union Compress and Warehouse Company. Another longtime con- the early trustees ( 141 ) tribution, perhaps the most important, was his service with the Houston and Texas Central Railway, as treasurer at one point. Despite the family ties and Frederick’s importance, the aging Rice brothers did not insist on a family member at the head of the new board. That role fell to Huntsville native James Addison Baker Jr. (January 10, 1857–August 2, 1941). He chaired the board from June 24, 1891, until his death. Baker was a graduate of the Texas Military Institute in Austin— and was often designated “Captain” for his rank in 1879 and 1880 in the Houston Light Guards (a militia unit that at the time was essentially a high-level social group, except for strikebreaking work). He used his connections, legal skill, and financial acumen to shape manyof the banking , corporate, and real-estate deals of the city from the 1880s until late in his life. His father, an early principal of Houston’s Baker & Botts law firm, had done much of Rice’s legal work and gave Baker the easy access to decision makers that allowed his career to take shape.3 William Marsh Rice had long turned to Baker & Botts for legal services .4 The firm did considerable work for the railroads that were developing both Houston’s and Rice’s fortunes after Appomattox, and he came to rely on the younger Baker as he had on Baker’s father. As chair of the Rice Institute’s board and Rice’s lawyer in the fight against Elizabeth Baldwin Rice’s will after her death in 1896, James Baker Jr. was well placed to take the crucial role that he did in the investigation of the murder in 1900. Baker’s importance to the early development of the Rice Institute did not end there, however. Though the institute did not open until 1912, the board members oversaw the investment of an endowment that was substantial even before they received the $4.6 million that came to the institute in April 1904.The board put most of the money into local businesses and real estate, so the business connections of Baker and his fellow board members dictated the movement of millions of dollars into the Houston-area economy. A partial list of companies of which Baker was either president or vice president at one time or another is a...