William Miller Sperry (1858–1927) is the namesake of the William Miller Sperry Observatory in

Cranford, New Jersey Cranford is a township in Union County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey, located southwest of Manhattan. As of the 2020 United States census, the township's population was 23,847, an increase of 1,222 (+5.4%) from the 2010 census count ...

. According to his sworn passport application, he was born on September 14, 1858, in Bristol, Tennessee. He moved to Cranford in 1898 and succeeded his brother

Thomas Sperry Thomas Alexander Sperry (July 6, 1864 – September 2, 1913) was the co-founder and the "S" of S&H Green Stamps, together with Shelley Byron Hutchinson of Ypsilanti, Michigan. Biography Thomas Alexander Sperry was born in Knoxville, Tenness ...

as president of

S&H Green Stamps S&H Green Stamps was a line of trading stamps popular in the United States from 1896 until the late 1980s. They were distributed as part of a rewards program operated by the Sperry & Hutchinson company (S&H), founded in 1896 by Thomas Sperry a ...

. Buried in

Fairview Cemetery (Westfield, New Jersey) Fairview Cemetery & Arboretum is a cemetery and accredited arboretum in Westfield, New Jersey. It is a member of the American Public Gardens Association. The cemetery was founded in 1868 and is 105 acres. It is "non-sectarian, non-profit organiza ...

, Sperry was the donor behind

Sperry Park Sperry may refer to: Places In the United States: * Sperry, Iowa, community in Des Moines County * Sperry, Missouri * Sperry, Oklahoma, town in Tulsa County * Sperry Chalet, historic backcountry chalet, Glacier National Park, Montana *Sperry Glaci ...

bordering the

Rahway River The Rahway River is a river in Essex, Middlesex, and Union Counties, New Jersey, United States, The Rahway, along with the Elizabeth River, Piles Creek, Passaic River, Morses Creek, the Fresh Kills River (in Staten Island), has its river m ...

in Cranford. The site is also part of the

Rahway River Parkway The Rahway River Parkway is a greenway of parkland along the banks the main stem Rahway River and its tributaries in Union County, New Jersey, United States. Created in the 1920s, it was one of the inaugural projects of the newly-created Union ...

, a greenway of the

Union County Department of Parks and Recreation Union commonly refers to: * Trade union, an organization of workers * Union (set theory), in mathematics, a fundamental operation on sets Union may also refer to: Arts and entertainment Music * Union (band), an American rock group ** ''Un ...

Friends of Rahway River Parkway website. http://www.rahwayriverparkway.org/rahway-river-parkway.html Sperry's great-granddaughter,

Frances Beinecke Frances G. Beinecke (born August 2, 1949) is an environmental activist and politician. She served as the former president of the Natural Resources Defense Council from 2006 to 2015. Early life and education Beinecke is the youngest of four child ...

, is an environmentalist and the former president of

Natural Resources Defense Council The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) is a United States-based 501(c)(3) non-profit international environmental advocacy group, with its headquarters in New York City and offices in Washington D.C., San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, Bo ...

, and his grandson is

William Sperry Beinecke William Sperry Beinecke (May 22, 1914 – April 8, 2018) was an American philanthropist and businessman. Career and philanthropy Beinecke studied at Westminster School, Pingry School, graduated from Yale University in 1936 and Columbia Law Sc ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sperry, William Miller 1839 births 1927 deaths People from Cranford, New Jersey Parks in Union County, New Jersey