The name of Henry Lucius Hotchkiss has long figured prominently in connection with manufacturing and financial interests of New Haven, his native city. He is identified with various corporations, including The L. Candee & Company, of which he is the president. He represents a family that has been connected with the development of New Haven for more than two hundred and fifty years. It was in 1641 that Samuel Hotchkiss, a native of Essex county, England, crossed the Atlantic and became a resident of New Haven.

In a review of the commercial development of the city it is found that Justus Hotchkiss, who died in 1812, was a prominent lumber merchant on Long Wharf in the nineteenth century 

and there the lumber business was continued until 1850 by Henry and Lucius Hotchkiss, who were sons of Justus Hotchkiss. On the 7th of September, 1843, these two entered into a partnership with L. Candee to undertake the manufacture of rubber boots and shoes under the Goodyear patent, and in 1852 the business was incorporated under the already well known firm of L. Candee & Company. In February, 1863, Henry Hotchkiss was elected president and treasurer of this company and in the development of the business displayed marked executive ability. He possessed the qualities of leadership in business and financial affairs and was gifted with exceptional capacity for controlling large enterprises. He displayed notable sagacity and keen insight into business situations, together with the power of coordinating seemingly adverse interests into a complex and unified whole. He figured not only as one of the foremost manufacturers of the state but also as a prominent factor in many other business lines, being called to the presidency of various corporations, while in financial circles he was widely known as the president of the New Haven County Bank for twenty-one years. He died on December 14, 1871. He married Elizabeth Daggott Prescott, a daughter of the senior member of the well known shipping firm of Prescott & Sherman and a descendant of John Prescott, who came from England in 1640, settling in Boston. Among his descendants were Colonel William Prescott, one of the heroic commanders at Bunker Hill, and the historian, William H. Prescott.

Henry L. Hotchkiss was born in New Haven, December 18, 1842, and became actively interested with his father in his various business interests in 1860. For three years thereafter he was paymaster on the New London Railroad, of which his father was a trustee, and he also assisted his father in the management of the United States Pin Company, of which the senior Hotchkiss was president. In February, 1863, Henry I. Hotchkiss became the secretary of The L. Candee & Company and soon afterward was elected treasurer as the successor of his father, who resigned that position. He continued in the dual office until December, 1871, when upon his father's death, he was elected to the presidency and continued to serve as treasurer also for a number of years. On the 19th of November, 1877, when the business was at its height, the entire plant was destroyed by fire. Quick in action and at all times resourceful, Mr. Hotchkiss at once leased temporary factories and immediately began rebuilding on a much larger and finer scale.
 

No New Haven enterprise has done more for the city and none has made its name more widely known abroad. Realizing the value of centralization in industrial management, The L. Candee & Company in 1892 merged their interests with those of other prominent rubber corporations of America in forming the group which is now known as the United States Rubber Company of New Jersey, in which Mr. Hotchkiss has continuously been a director. For the first seven years of its existence he also actively served on the executive committee but retiring from that position in 1899 he spent some time in travel abroad. After the death of his father he became the president of the Union Trust Company of New Haven and since its consolidation with the New Haven Trust Company under the name of the Union & New Haven Trust Company he has been a vice president of the more recently created organization. Since 1874 he has been a director of the New Haven Bank. It has been largely under his direction and control that The L. Candee & Company has been developed to its present mammoth proportions, giving employment to nearly two thousand hands and occupying, in the conduct of the business, twelve substantial brick buildings.

In February, 1875, Mr. Hotchkiss was married to Miss Jane Trowbridge, a daughter of Henry and Mary Webster (Southgate) Trowbridge. She was a lineal descendant of Governor William Bradford of Mayflower fame and a great-granddaughter of Noah Webster, the lexicographer. She died April 20, 1902, leaving three children. Henry Stuart, a graduate of the Yale Scientific School in the class of 1900 is the present vice president of The L. Candee & Company. In September, 1917, he became chief of supplies, Inspection Equipment Division, Signal Corps, with rank of captain, in the United States army, and is stationed at Washington, D. C. Helen Southgate, the wife of Elisha Ely Garrison, is a graduate of Yale, class of 1897. Elizabeth Trowbridge, the wife of Carl Brandes Ely, was graduated from the Yale Scientific School in 1900.

Such, in brief, is the life history of Henry L. Hotchkiss, whose ability in manufacturing lines has brought him prominence and leadership. Although patriotic and public-spirited, he has always avoided public office, preferring to do his public service as a private citizen. He has given loyal support to many progressive projects for the general good and as a factor in the business life of New Haven has contributed in substantial measure to its development.