Railroad magnate. When Samuel Sloan started out for himself, New York was a small and primitive community. His first job was at the foot of the list of clerks of McBride & Company, a well-known (Irish linen) importing house. When about twenty-six years old, Mr. Sloan married Miss Margaret Elmendorf of Somerville, N.J., a daughter of one of the oldest and most prominent families in that state. In the fall of 1864 he was elected a director of the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad. This road was relatively unimportant when Mr. Sloan became president in 1867. It was he who built it up and who so fostered its interests that the stock of the road sold higher than any other railroad stock in the country.He was president until 1899 after which he served as chairman until his death. Mr. Sloan was at various times president of seventeen railroads, among them the Michigan Central, the Marquette, Houghton and Ontonagon, the Rome, Watertown and Ogdensburg, the Fort Wayne and Jackson, and the International and Great Northern of Texas. Among his other business connections were the vice-presidency of the City Bank, as director of United States Trust Company, as member of the executive committees of the Western Union Telegraph Company and of the Manhattan Railway Company. He was president at one time of the Long Island College Hospital and also a trustee of Rutgers College. He was president of the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick in the early days of the organization, and was the oldest living ex-president of the society. He was an elder of the Dutch Reformed Church in this city, and a warden in the Episcopal Church at Garrison, where he spent his summers.  (bio by: Julian Sloan)  Family links:  Spouse:  Margaret Elmendorf Sloan (1822 – 1913)* *Calculated relationship