Polarus Steamship Company

Polarus Steamship Company was founded in 1918, and again in 1923 in New York City by Tikhon Nicholas Agapeyeff (1891–1931). Tikhon N. Agapeyeff's 1918 firm, operated for only about two years. In March 1921, Agapeyeff sold the first Polarus Steamship Company to the C. M. Fetterolf Company for $250,000.^[1] The next incorporation in 1923 was a partnership of Agapeyeff, Marcel Levy, and Charles S. Dunaif. Marcel Levy was an attorney and Charles S. Dunaif was an exporter.

Agapeyeff was born on July 21, 1891, in Russia to a military family of hereditary nobles. Agapeyeff was a commander of a ship in the Russian Imperial Navy and spoke 7 languages. Agapeyeff additionally served as a Naval Attaché to the Imperial Guard, and he received the Cross of Saint George for his brave service in WWI. At the outbreak of the Russian Revolution in 1917, he fled to Liverpool, England and briefly lived in London. On June 25, 1917, Russian Naval Attaché rear-admiral N. Wolkoff provided him with a document granting him permission to proceed to the United States of America “on a special mission”. On June 30, 1917, he proceeded to New York City, aboard the SS Saint Paul, accompanied by his fellow Naval officers, Prince Dimitry Galitzine and Wadim Makaroff. In February 1918, the Bolshevik government’s ambassador, Boris Bahkmeteff, repeatedly appealed to the United States to arrest Agapeyeff and return him to Russia to be court marshaled; while federal agents did locate him and disclose his location to the ambassador, the Undersecretary of State, Frank Polk, declined to turn him over to Russian authorities.

Agapeyeff found work at a United States Navy Ordnance Depot during World War I. Post-war Agapeyeff was a ship broker and started the first Polarus Shipping Company in 1918 with Agapeyeff as president and Carlos M. Fetterolf as vice president. Agapeyeff sold the firm on August 1, 1921, to C. M. Fetterolf Company.^{[2] [3][4]}

In the 1923 incorporation of Polarus Steamship Company, Hendrik Robert Jolles (1889–1949) was president and Dunaif vice president. On July 12, 1923, Apapeyeff became a naturalized citizen of the United States. On December 4, 1931, while visiting his timber business in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, with his wife, actress and socialite Violet Lobell (1901–1975); daughter, Barbara (1926–2005); mother-in-law, Lily Lobell; and business partner, Charles Dumaif, Apapeyeff passed away suddenly at age 40 after a presumed cardiac event.

For 10 years Agapeyeff was also the managing director of the Sonora Timber Company. The Sonora Timber Company, of Sonora, Nova Scotia, was founded to log and export pulpwood to the United States.^[5][6]