MR. GEORGE W. MALTBY

(CFE-BCB-C)

Mr. George W. Maltby was one of the original members of the Maltby Association, and his check for annual dues for ten members of his family was the first ray of light to encourage the little embryo into being.  When Mr. Maltby died on July 1^st, 1908, we lost one of our strongest supporters.

The following obituary is taken from the “Buffalo Evening News” of July 1, 1908:

BUSINESS MAN OF NATIONAL FAME PASSES AWAY

George W. Maltby died this morning at his home in this city.  “He was one of the old type of businessmen, with whom if you had a contract, you wouldn’t need to put it in writing,” was the remark evoked from a prominent business man by the announcement of the death of George W. Maltby at his home at 3:30 o’clock this morning.  Among the tributes to his memory by legions of friends, no encomium will ring truer than this.  But it is conceded by all who knew him that business honesty was only an incidental characteristic and one that was regarded as a matter of course by Mr. Maltby.  That was the rough stone of his character—“Square-hewn and polished for a grand and sterling character. . . . .”

Mr. Maltby was born in West Henrietta, Monroe County, N.Y., in 1845.  When not seventeen he enlisted as a private in Company H of the 108^th New York Volunteer Infantry and served with Gen. Winfield Scott at Antietam, Gettysburg and Spottsylvania Court House.

He was all day on the battlefield of Antietam, “the bloodiest day of the whole war,” and though wounded he stuck to his regiment.  At Gettysburg he was hit by splinters of a shell, and in the death carnival at Spottsylvania, his left hand was so shattered by a bullet he could no longer carry a musket. This injury disabled him from active service and he was confined in the Satterlee Military Hospital at Philadelphia until his discharge in November, 1864.  For months he ministered with his one hand to his sick and dying comrades in the long wards of Satterlee Hospital, finally becoming head nurse.

Returning from the army, 19 years old at this time, Mr. Maltby decided to continue his studies, and took a course in a business college at Rochester.  In 1865 he entered the firm of Whitmore, Corson & Co., Rochester, dealers in cut stone.  In 1880 Mr. Maltby came to Buffalo, entering partnership with Gilbert Brady of Rochester, under the name of Brady and Maltby.  The partnership was continued until the death of Mr. Brady in 1896.  Mr. Maltby was in business alone until 1904, when he took his two sons, James C. and William Maltby, into partnership, under the name of George W. Maltby and Sons.

Memorials of Mr. Maltby’s life work exist in monuments of cut stone all over the country.  He furnished and dressed the stone for the McKinley Monument in Niagara Square, also for the McKinley National Memorial at Canton, including the interior work and sarcophagus; the Historical Society’s Building; the Albright Art Gallery; the bridge over Park Lake, Gate’s Circle; the entrance of Forest Lawn, the First Presbyterian Church, the new addition to the Buffalo Club and the Ontario Power Company’s building at Niagara Falls.

Mr. Maltby was a member of Bidwell-Wilkeson Post, G.A.R., the Union Veteran League, and Queen City Lodge, F. & A. M. He was a trustee of the Blocher Home, former president of the Builders’ Exchange and a member of the Chamber of Commerce.  He was also a member of the Plymouth M. E. Church.

On Aug. 27, 1865, Mr. Maltby married Miss Mary J. Pierce, daughter of Caleb Pierce of Rochester.  His widow, a daughter, Mrs. D.J. Perry, and two sons, James C. and William C. Maltby, survive him.

(The above extracts are taken in part from the “Christian Advocate.”)