Daniel Gray Reid was a financier, industrialist, and benefactor.  Known as "The Tinplate King" he was one of the richest men in the country.  Born on the west side of Richmond, he began his working life at age seventeen as a messenger boy at the Second National Bank and before long worked his way up to Vice-President of the bank.  

In 1892, he and his partner, William B. Leeds, became interested in the American Tinplate Company at Elwood, Indiana, which had fallen on hard times.  He studied the problems and borrowed money to buy up as much of the near worthless stock as he could.  He then imported Welshmen, who were experts in making tin plate, and soon turned the company into one of the most successful tin plants in the country.  He and his associates bought smaller tin companies and, in 1898, formed the American Tin Plate Company, a tin plate trust. The company was headquartered in Chicago, and Reid became its president.  In 1901, J. P. Morgan included the tinplate trust in the giant steel trust, United States Steel, and reportedly paid the fabulous sum of $18 million for the company.  Reid continued his financial career on Wall Street and later served as Chairman of the Board of the Rock Island Railway Company, and on the boards of several banking institutions.

Even though he now lived in New York City and traveled extensively on his own yacht, he never forgot his hometown and lavished a great deal of money on Richmond institutions including the YMCA, the Art Association of Richmond, and Earlham College.  Most notable was the $100,000 he gave for Reid Memorial Hospital in 1905 in honor of his wife and son, and the $295,000 he donated to construct Reid Memorial Presbyterian Church in honor of his parents.

For information on Reid's home in Irvington, New York see this page from Rob Yasinsac of Hudson Valley Ruins.

Mikesell, Joanna Hill.  Daniel Gray Reid.  Unpublished paper presented to Heritage Club, 1989.  [Genealogy Collection  R  929.2 R354m]

Wayne County Pamphlet File at Morrisson-Reeves.