S. Davies Warfield
| S. Davies Warfield | |
|---|---|
 S. Davies Warfield in Arcadia, Florida, on January 7, 1927, celebrating the inaugural run of the Orange Blossom Special into southwest and southeast Florida | |
| Born |
September 4, 1859 Baltimore, Maryland, US |
| Died |
October 24, 1927 (aged 68) Baltimore, Maryland, US |
S. (Solomon) Davies Warfield (September 4, 1859 – October 24, 1927) was an American railroad executive and banker. He is primarily remembered for extending the Seaboard Air Line Railway into South Florida in the 1920s and for connecting the east and west coasts of Florida by rail. To this day, Amtrak trains travel from Central Florida to South Florida on the route built by Warfield.
Personal life
Warfield was born in Baltimore County, Maryland, the son of Henry Mactier Warfield and Anna W. Emory Warfield, and was named for a friend of his father's, Sol B. Davies. Warfield's father was a prominent grain merchant and director of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad. He was a paternal uncle of Wallis Warfield Simpson, (later the Duchess of Windsor), for whom King Edward VIII of the United Kingdom, (later the Duke of Windsor) abdicated his throne in 1937. Warfield never married.
Corporate positions
- President of the Seaboard Air Line Railway,
- President of the Continental Trust Company of Baltimore,
- President of the Baltimore Steam Packet Company, ("Old Bay Line"),
- Director of the Maryland Casualty Company,
- Director of the New York Life Insurance Company,
SS President Warfield
The SS President Warfield was built in 1928 by Pusey and Jones Corporation, in Wilmington, Delaware, for the century-old Baltimore Steam Packet Company, more famously known as the "Old Bay Line" with their iconic famous Chesapeake Bay steamships/passenger liners, and named after its president. This ship changed its name in open water in 1947 to the SS Exodus (also known as the Exodus 1947) and gained fame as the vessel purchased secretly by the Jewish nationalist organization Haganah to transport 4,500 Jewish refugees from Europe to Palestine, but ultimately failing in the endeavor. The adventure became a celebrated victory of the spirits of humanity and even more famous with the writing of the 1958 historical novel Exodus written by Baltimorean Leon Uris, (1924-2003), and the later release of a feature movie of Exodus in 1960.
External links
- "S. Davies Warfield," The Postal Record, November 1894, p. 251.
- Carroll, David H., and Thomas S. Boggs. "S. Davies Warfield," Men of Mark in Maryland, Vol. 3, pp. 24-43. Baltimore: B. F. Johnson, Inc, 1911.
Bibliography
- New York Times obituary, October 25, 1927.