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Allan B. Hendricks
Born 1839 Died 1933
St. Paul’s Lutheran Cemetery, Village of Red Hook. Wide, short, granite obelisk in the old section up front, not far from the parking lot.
Allan B. Hendricks. Photo courtesy of Ancestry.com
Anna Rodgers Hendricks. Photo courtesy of Joyce Rodgers
Allan Barringer Hendricks was the son of Jeremiah Hendricks and Eliza C. Barringer (whose monument he and his wife Anna share). He married Anna Rodgers (1840–1907) and had four children, Allan B. Jr., Anna R (married Frederick W. Lee), Louise R. (married Franklin Shook), and Lawrence H. Hendricks. Allan Jr. became an electrical engineer and held patents for such things as transformers, cable testing apparatus, and vacuum tube rectifiers.
In 1887 Hendricks received a “magnificent” gold watch as thanks for 20 years of being the superintendent of St. Paul’s Lutheran church’s Sunday school.
Dec. 8 1876, Advertisement from the Red Hook Journal
When Edwin Knickerbocker, insurance man of Red Hook, died in 1875, Hendricks took on his book of business and was an agent for 56 years. Hendricks retired in 1932 and it was reported “at 92 years of age, [he] is still in the best of health and is already planning [to make] his garden this year as usual.” He sold his agency to Donald E. Norton, who also bought the business of Herbert E. Saulpaugh around the same time.
Anna Roberts Hendricks (top center). Photo courtesy of FindAGrave.com
Saulpaugh had employed John Kane as an agent in 1931. John’s son Dave Kane recalls that Norton told John he “didn’t need him” after he bought the Hendricks and Saulpaugh agencies, so John went into business for himself in Rhinebeck, forming the Kane Agency. Dave Kane joined his father’s agency in 1971, and, when Norton was ready to sell, Dave purchased the Donald E. Norton Agency sometime in the 1980s, bringing Gerry Griffin (a former Travelers company man) on board as well. When Dave retired, he sold everything (which included the legacy of Allan B. Hendricks’ agency) to Emory & Webb which still operates today.
Allan Hendricks was retired for only a year when he died at 93 years of age in 1933. He left an estate of over $10,000 in a typical will, not worth noting, except for one unusual aspect; it was written by hand by the testator. Hendricks “took an old will form and cut out the title and attestation clause.” He then wrote up the particulars, assigning his real and personal property to his children and grandchildren and literally pasted it between the pre-printed sections he’d cut. Apparently, this was just not done, but the courts found no fault with it. Perhaps his decades of dealing with contracts and policies came in handy.