Mr. Strong came to New York when quite young in years, but equipped with all the elements needed for business success. He was born in Richland County, Ohio, on the 22d of March, 1827, and spent his boyhood among the Loudinville hills. At the age of sixteen he went to Wooster, Ohio, and spent two years with the firm of Lake & Jones, a large retail dry goods house, and from thence to Mansfield, Ohio, where he continued in the dry goods business until he came to this city, arriving here on the 31st of December, 1853. When the young Buckeye reached the great city, he came with a purpose of making the best use of all the possibilities which might present themselves. He commenced life here as a salesman in the well-known dry goods house of L. O. Wilson & Co., at that time one of the largest and most prominent of the wholesale houses of the United States. In the panic of 1857 the firm suspended, but Mr. Strong continued in its service until 1858, when he went into the dry goods commission business, entering the firm of Farnham, Dale & Co., which was one of the prominent firms of New York at that time. In the subsequent changes of affairs, it was succeeded by Farnham, Sutton & Co., and afterwards by Sutton, Smith & Co. This last named firm was dissolved and retired from business in December, 1869, and on January 1, 1870, the firm of W. L. Strong & Co. was organized, and succeeded to the business. The advance of Mr. Strong in his chosen line, had been as rapid as his wonderful success in these later years, has been deserved. He had entered upon the work with a determination to succeed, and nothing in the line of hard work or close application was allowed to stand in the way. He had made the interests of his employers his own; he had studied all the needs and possibilities of the situation, and had laid a sure foundation for future success. He had learned the country from one end to the other, and his business acquaintances were to be found in every quarter. It hardly needs to be added that when the new firm of which he was the head, opened its doors for business, it had already a clientage of the most valuable sort, and that its prominent place among the great dry goods houses of America, was already assured. Col. Strong has been a faithful servant of the house from the beginning; he has done his work as if the whole load fell upon him, and he has never asked anyone to carry any share that properly belonged to himself. The house has ever been recognized as one of the solid institutions of New York. It has made but one removal since its organization, beginning business on the corner of Church and Leonard streets, and moving several years later to the spacious double store which it still occupies, in the center of the dry goods district at Nos. 75 and 77 Worth street.