Chauncey M. Depew papers

Chauncey Mitchell Depew (1834-1928) was a railroad executive and U.S. Senator from New York and the namesake of the Chauncey M. Depew Professor of Communication at The George Washington University.

Depew was born in 1834 in Peekskill, New York. He attended Yale College, graduating in 1856 with high honors and was admitted to the bar. Depew first gained fame as an orator while campaigning for Abraham Lincoln in 1860. He then served in the New York State Assembly in 1862-63 as a Republican, and was elected Secretary of State in 1863, a position he held until 1865.

Depew became counsel for the New York Central Railroad in 1875, and later served as its vice president (1883) and president (1885). He resigned as president in 1898, at which time he became chairman of the board of directors of the Vanderbilt system of railroads.

In 1898, Depew was elected to the United States Senate as a Republican from New York and was reelected in 1905, serving until 1911. He was again nominated by the State legislature in 1912, but was defeated.

In 1871, Depew married Elise Ann Hegeman. They had one son, Chauncey Mitchell Depew, born 1879. Elise died in 1893 and Depew married May Palmer in 1901. They had no children.

Chauncey M. Depew died in 1928 in New York City.

After the death of her husband, May Palmer Depew donated $120,000 in 1929 to The George Washington University to establish a department of public speaking in her husband’s memory. This is now the Department of Organizational and Sciences and Communication in the Columbian College of Arts and Sciences. The Chauncey M. Depew Chair of Public Speaking was dedicated in January 1930; Professor Willard Hayes Yeager was the first appointed to that position. The endowed chair is now known as the Chauncey M. Depew Professor of Communication.