The History of AIG (Part I)

[Carol Thompson]

Clement James Smith and Helen Bruce Cleveland met in 1919, while both were in Siberia working for the Red Cross. She was the daughter of Mrs. Ralph Dwinel Cleveland of New York City. After marrying, they planned to reside in Shanghai, China. (Red Cross Workers Abroad to Wed. New York Times, Jun. 17, 1920; Miss Cleveland Weds C.J. Smith. New York Times, Jul. 2, 1920.) He was the son of Mr. and Mrs. J.J. Smith of Alameda, Cal. (Red Cross Worker Back From Siberia. Oakland Tribune, Jun. 20, 1920.) They lived in the Orient for 18 years before returning to San Francisco in 1938. Four years later they bought a house in the suburb of Hillsborough. Mr. Smith was president of American International Underwriters. (Chat and Comment. San Mateo Times, Jul. 14, 1942.) "1920 was a momentous year for Smith, who that year joined C.V. Starr and the American Asiatic Underwriters. He worked and traveled in China for seven years, spent a year in New York, and then returned to Shanghai where he and his wife decided they wanted to spend the rest of their lives. The couple did build a home in Shanghai in 1932, but he returned to the United States four years later to help in the reorganization of the United States Life Insurance Company as chairman of the AIU Corporation. During World War II, he was an expert on China with "Wild Bill" Donovan. In 1945, Smith, Merv Griffin Sr. (the father of the TV personality), Kemper Smith, and Robert Koshland formed the Ascot Tennis Club on Smith's private courts. He was a co-founder [with C.V. Starr] of the Mount Mansfield Corporation which developed the ski resort at Stowe, Vt. He was a member of the "Totem Sun" Camp of the Bohemian Grove. (Ascot Tennis Club Founder Is Honored on His Birthday. Talk of the Times, by Mary Jane Clinton. San Mateo Times, Nov. 21, 1971.) He gave $1 million to Mills Hospital in San Mateo, and another $1 million to the Smith-Kettlewell Eye Research Foundation at the Pacific Medical Center. (Magnate Gives Another Million to Medicine. Modesto Bee and News, Feb. 20, 1973.) He died a few weeks later. (Peninsula Benefactor Dies at 78. San Mateo Times, Mar. 8, 1973.)


Helen C. Smith died in 1957. (Deaths. San Mateo Times, Jul. 20.) Her father, Raph Dwinel Cleveland (b. 1851) was traveling auditor of Illinois for the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad until 1885. He married Aurora Eustis of Milton, Mass., the daughter of Alexander Brooks Eustis and Aurora Grelaud. They lived in Burlington, Iowa until 1885, then Minneapolis, and Chicago in the 1890s. His brother, Henry Russell Cleveland, was a submarine engineer in Colombia in 1880. After Henry's wife, Carmen Sanchez, died in 1894, their children lived in Chicago with their grandfather, Horace William Shaler Cleveland. (The Genealogy of the Cleveland and Cleaveland Families, Vol. 2. By Edward James Cleveland. The Case, Lockwood & Brainard Co., 1899, p. 1770.)

http://www.archive.org/details/genealogyofcleve02clev

Ralph D. Cleveland's grandfather was the China sea captain and capitalist, Richard Jeffry Cleveland (1773-1860), of Salem, Mass., who worked for Elias H. Derby and made his first voyage in 1792. He knew Thomas H. Perkins from those days, and met James Perkins [Jr.] in 1806. Later, William Shaler was his business partner. He founded a prep school at Lancaster, Mass. whose first teacher was Jared Sparks, later President of Harvard. He reportedly "never used tobacco in any form." He lived in Burlington, N.J. until 1854, when he moved to Danvers, Mass. to live with his son. (Voyages of a Merchant Navigator of the Days that are Past. By Richard Jeffry Cleveland and Horace William Shaler Cleveland. Harper, 1886, p. 238.)

http://www.archive.org/details/voyagesof...00clevuoft

Ralph D. Cleveland's uncle, Henry Russell Cleveland, married James Perkins Jr.'s daughter, Sarah Paine Perkins, in 1838. (Marriages. Boston Atlas, Feb. 3, 1838; Cleveland - Perkins Family Papers. From Eliza Callahan Cleveland. New York Public Library.) Henry and his older brother, Richard J. Cleveland, both graduated from Harvard in 1827. Richard was a pioneering settler in Olin, Iowa. (Commencement. New York Spectator, Sep. 7, 1827; Obituary. Boston Daily Advertiser, Sep. 12, 1877.)

http://www.nypl.org/research/chss/spe/rb...erkins.pdf