Alanson TRASK
Obituary

DEATH OF ALANSON TRASK

AT AGE OF 95 HE PASSED AWAY YESTERDAY AT SARATOGA.

Attack of grip three years ago had undermined his vigorous constitution--Sketch of his life.

Special to the New York Times.
SARATOGA, N. Y., August 2--Alanson Trask, whose Saratoga County place, Ooweekin, on Nelson Avenue, has been his summer home for many years, died peacefully there at 5 o'clock this morning, after an illness of almost three weeks. He was a widower, his wife, Sarah Marquand Trask, having died several years ago.

Three children survive. They are Spencer Trask, the New York banker, whose extensive country seat, Yaddo, adjoins Ooweekin; Mrs. William A. Holliday of Lakewood, New Jersey, who is traveling in Europe and Mrs. Dewitt C. Enos of Brooklyn, who passed her summers here with her father.

Mr. Trask was a native of Salem, Massachusetts, where he was born in 1808 and had it not been for a serious attack of grip, which he suffered some three or four years ago. and which seemed to undermine his strong constitution, he had every promise of living to celebrate the one hundreth anniversary of his birthday.

The funeral will take place from the Second Presbyterian Church on Monday morning. Interment will be in Greenwood Cemetery.

Alanson Trask was a direct descendant of William Trask, one of the commanders of the ship Abigail, which sailed from Weymouth, England, on June 20, 1628. Captain William Trask and his colleagues formed at Salem, Massachusetts, the nucleus of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. He was to that settlement what Miles Standish was to Plymouth. For many years the Trasks have been prominent in the development of this country.

Receiving an excellent acadenic education Alanson Trask embarked in the shoe business with an older brother and they sent the products of their New England factories to this city, where they enjoyed a large and profitable trade, and as a result Alanson Trask was a rich man early in the sixties. For a long time he lived at 28 Monroe Place, Brooklyn, the present home of George Foster Peabody, the partner of Spencer Trask, Alanson Trask's son. Mr. Trask, was for years a member of the Reformed Church on the Heights and was noted for his benevolence and public spirit. He was one of the pioneers of the Young Men's Christian Association and gave liverally to that organization.

Mr. Trask was one of the founders of the Equitable Life Assurance Society and was long a director of that body. He retired from business about thirty-five years ago, and purchasing Ooweening, a beautiful farm near Saratota Springs, had since made his home there. He addressed himself to agriculture and amid the fresh air and by direct participation with the labor of his employees prolonged his life to the period which it attained. His son, Spencer Trask, in sympathy with the same spirit, developed Yaddo, a property almost adjoining that of his father.

Alanson Trask long survived the majority of the friends of his youth, but he constantly interested himself in the best activities and formed his friendships among the best minds of successive generations. Depite his advanced age Mr. Trask took a deep interest in affairs generally and was a great traveler.

As evidence of his interest in business matters even after he had passed the age of ninety it is related that one day he startled his son and daughter-in-law at breakfast by casually remarking that he was due that afternoon in New York at a meeting of the Directors of the Equitable Life Assurance. When they begged that he would do no such thing he became a little testy at the idea that a man could not run into town from Saratoga, merely because he happened to be over ninety. He meant to go and go alone. There was a large house party at Yaddo and he would not hear of his son accompanying him.

On the train down to New York, when he found that his son had nevertheless left his house party and was aboard, he gave him to understand that he was not at all needed. The suprise of the directors when they saw him enter the council chamber as if it were the most natural thing in the world many be imagined.

His farm was carried on according to old fashioned principles, namely, to show a balance to the good at the end of the year. He liked nothing better than to contrast his management as a real farmer with the proceedings on the big estate Yaddo, which forms the goal of one of the favorite drives from Saratoga and boasts of a wonderful rose garden decorated with statuary, a chain of charming lakes and an extensive view over the plain where Sarasota Lake lies.

Early in the forties Alanson Trask married Sarah, the only sister of Frederick and Henry G. Marquand, who died several years ago. To them were born Spencer Trask, the banker and two daughters, one of whom became the wife of Dr. G. C. Enos of Brooklyn and the other married the Rev. W. A. Holliday, for some time pastor of the Prospect Heights Presbyterian Church in Brooklyn. A daughter of Mrs. Enos married the Rev. Edwin Knox Mitchell, professor in the Congregational Theological Seminary at Hartford, Connectiucut.

NEW YORK TIMES, August 3, 1902

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