USA > New York > Staten Island > History of Richmond County (Staten Island), New York : from its discovery to the present time > Part 54
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Mr. Rich married in June, 1861, Miss Beales, of Brooklyn. He has four children still living, a daughter Susie having died. The remaining children are: Harvey B., who is a member of the New York Stock Exchange and one of the well known firm of Horace L. Hotchkiss & Co., brokers; Aquila B., Seton Heather and Clara O., all residents of Richmond county.
ALFRED Z. Ross, for many years prominent in real estate and business circles in Richmond county, is the son of John Ross, formerly a resident of Staten Island. John Ross (Scotch) married Miss Sarah P. Zeluff, of an old Staten Island family (German), and of their two children Alfred was the second. He was born at Port Richmond July 26, 1844. During his youth he attended the private academy of Theodore A. Thomp- son, from which he entered the Ashland Seminary at Ashland, Greene county, N. Y. Subsequently he studied in the public school in Port Richmond, leaving it at the age of seventeen, to engage in sail-making. He continued this till 1867, when he became a clerk in the employ of Barrett, Nephews & Co., dyers, where he remained till 1874. In November of that year he en- barked in the real estate business at Port Richmond, in which he still remains. Mr. Ross, by care in the management of his con- cerns and the practice of thorough integrity in all his transac- tions, has won for himself an enviable reputation among business men as well as a sound financial success. He combines with the real estate an extensive insurance business, being the represen- tative of several companies both at home and abroad.
Mr. Ross has also been prominent in the politics of Rich- mond county. During the year 1879 he represented the town of Northfield in the board of supervisors in such a manner as
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to win the commendation of thinking men of both parties, and his long attachment to the republican party entitles him to a prominent place in its ranks. His genial temperament and thorough business qualities are constantly winning for him the esteem of all with whom he is brought into contact. He was married June 2d, 1867, to Sarah E., daughter of Captain Garrett P. Johnson.
RYERSS .-- We find this name at an early date on Long Is- land. Arie Ryerse and Maerte Ryerse were assessed as owners of property at Middelwout, now Flatbush, in 1676, but when their connection with Staten Island began is unknown. Adrian was born in 1715, and died December 12, 1779; his wife was Hester Debaa (Dubois) ; their son Lewis was born December 7, 1754, and died April 13, 1806. Aris, another son of Adrian, had a daughter baptized July 27, 1786, and a son David, bap- tized October 17, 1790. Gozen, also a son of Adrian, made his will October 21, 1800, proved January 13, 1802, in which he speaks of his son John P., and his daughter Margaret, his brother Lewis, and his grandsons Gozen Adrian Ryers, and Ryerss De Hart. He was an exceedingly obese man, and re- quired two ordinary chairs to sit upon; his wife was in the same condition. He was a wealthy man, and owned property in varions parts of the county. In 1791 he became the owner of 300 acres of land, in the eastern part of the state, which, when the line between New York and Massachusetts was finally de- termined, fell within the latter state. To compensate him for the loss of this land, the state of New York gave him a patent for 1,800 acres in Wilmington township, Essex county, which is known as Ryerss' grant to this day. He dwelt for many years preceding his death at Port Richmond, in the large house known as the St. James Hotel. He was a very prominent and useful man.
SEGUINE .- We are obliged to be content with such informa- tion as can be found in the local records, the earliest of which is: Jean and Elizabeth Hooper had a son Jonas, baptized De- cember 12, 1725. Jaques and Lady Mambrut, daughter Sara, baptized March 3, 1728. A son Jean, baptized March 19, 1732. Jean and Jaques stood sponsors for each other's children; they were probably brothers. The above are from the records of the Dutch church ; the following are from those of St. Andrew's : James and Elsee, daughter Sara, born April, 1756 ; son James,
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born December 10, 1760. John and Sarah had the following children : Elisha, born May 31, 1760 ; James, baptized July 18, 1762 ; and Henry, born February 4, 1764. Lawrence and Ann, daughter Sara, born April 2, 1761. James and Caty, son Stephen, born March 22, 1764 ; and son James, born April 5. 1766. James made his will June 13, 1795, proved October 7, 1795 ; mentions his wife Catharine and his children Barnt, Jo- seph, Frederick, John, Henry, Stephen and James. John and Rachel Mitchel were married in November, 1775. John and Margaretta, sons John, baptized October 24, 1790, and Henry, baptized October 27, 1793. James and Mary Guyon. married June 30, 1791. Stephen and Susanna Poillon, married Novem- ber S, 1792. Henry and Jane Garretson, married August 13, 1800. Stephen and Margaret Guyon, married March 5, 1805.
JOHN G. SEGUINE was born June 14, 1805, on the family es- tate at Seguine's Point, Staten Island. His youth was unevent- ful, the neighboring country school absorbing so much of his time as was not devoted to farming. He continued to reside upon the homestead until his marriage and subsequent pur- chase of a farm at Prince's bay, near the light house, upon which he resided until Rossville became his home.
Mr. Seguine was married February 15, 1830, to Harriet, daughter of Andre Mille, the latter, who was of French extrac- tion, having been a soldier under Bonaparte. Their children are : Louise M., married to Henry S. Seguine ; Henry J., mar- ried to Phebe A. Vail ; John J., married to Cordelia Vail, and Andre, married to Catherine Jane Winant. Mr. Seguine hav- ing retired from active business life, now enjoys the repose and comfort which a career of industry has brought to him. He has never been attracted by the excitement or rewards of pub- lic life to enter the list as a candidate for office, though always loyal to the principles of democracy. He has been for many years a vestryman of St. Andrew's Protestant Episcopal church at Richmond. The grandfather of Mr. Seguine was James Se- guine, whose son Henry married Jane, daughter of Judge John G. Garretson, of Staten Island. Their two sons were John G., above mentioned, and Joseph H., who was both a farmer and manufacturer, and prominent as a leading citizen of the county.
HENRY STEWART SEGUINE .- The Seguine family, which has long been prominent in Westfield township, is of Huguenot antecedents. James Seguine, the father of Henry S., and the
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Hermy S. Sequino
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son of James Seguine, married Mary, daughter of Joseph Guion, of Staten Island, also descended from Iluguenot stock. Their children were : Catherine, wife of John Guion; Joseph G., James G., James S. and Henry S. The last-named son was born near Annadale, on Staten Island, in 1812. The family residence being located here much of his youth was spent at this point. Joseph G. Seguine, his uncle, then resided at Rossville, where he founded the mercantile interest still successfully conducted, built the wharf, and engaged in public life as judge of the court of common pleas. His nephew, Henry S., became a mem- ber of his uncle's family, and ultimately inherited the estate, which included the business as also the mansion in which the family reside. He married January 7, 1857, Louise M., daughter of John G. and Harriet Seguine, of Staten Island. Their chil- dren are a son, Henry G., and a daughter, Harriet M. Mr. Seguine's character and means gave him an influential position throughout the county. Notwithstanding, he possessed all those qualities calculated to endear him to men. In business transac- tions he was strictly honorable and upright, possessing a kindly nature and conferring substantial sympathy and aid when de- served. His charities were of the practical kind and calculated to bestow permanent aid as well as meet the present necessity. His convictions of right were decided and firm, and maintained with energy. No compromise was ever effected with wrong or injustice. Faithful as a friend and true to his word, though a positive man, he viewed the faults of others with charity. Active and public-spirited as a citizen, his rarest pleasures were found within the circle of his own home, where his hospi- tality was dispensed with unsparing liberality. A member of St. Luke's Protestant Episcopal church of Rossville, of which he was warden, vestryman and treasurer, Mr. Seguine exempli- fied in daily life the creed lie espoused. He was in the fullest sense of the term the Christian gentleman. His death occurred on the 2d of July, 1884.
SHARROTT .- Richard Sharet, the first of the name on Staten Island, according to the family traditions and records, was a Frenchman by birth, of Huguenot parentage, and for a short period after his emigration resided in New England. He came to Staten Island either just before or just after the commence- ment of the revolution. Here he married a woman of German
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parentage named Mary Heger. Their children were William, Richard, John, James, Susan and Mary.
John married Mary Ann Burbank, October 9, 1789; their children were Peter (died February, 1875, aged 86), John, Jere- miah, Richard, Abraham, William Henry, Mary, Susan, Cath - arine, Eliza and Louisa, some of whom are still living.
FRANCIS GEORGE SHAW was the oldest child of Robert Gould Shaw and Eliza Willard Parkman. His father was an eminent merchant of Boston, in which city Mr. Shaw was born on the 23d of October, 1809. He was fitted for college at the Boston Latin school, and entered Harvard University in 1825. He left college in 1828, before his graduation, to enter his father's counting room, and engaged actively in business. In 1839 he passed a year in Europe, and he married in 1835 his cousin Sarah Blake Sturgis. In 1841, with health impaired by unre- mitting attention to business, Mr. Shaw withdrew from active participation in it and removed to West Roxbury, near to "Brook Farm," where an experiment in associative life in which he was interested had begun under the leadership of the Rev. George Ripley. After a few years his friends abandoned their enterprise. But although experiments in associative and co- operative life have been often failures: although benevolent and reformatory agencies, originating in kind hearts and keen intel- lects, have as yet little diminished the evils they seek to remove; and although the immediate outlook often seemed to him dis- couraging, Mr. Shaw never lost his faith in an ultimate happy future for the human race in this world. He rejected the familiar doctrines of political economy that brutalizing poverty, vice and crime are necessary as footholds in the march of prog- ress; that one portion of the race must be trodden under foot in order that another portion may advance, leaving no hope of compensation to the sufferers save in the future of another ex- istence. He believed that " the right of eminent domain " over land could be wisely carried much further than the law now ap- plies it; and he held that it would yet be possible for society, without wronging any man, to secure to the use of all men the land, which is the only source from which man can derive his sustenance, and access to which is as necessary to his normal de- velopment as the air he breathes.
In 1847 he left West Roxbury on account of Mrs. Shaw's health, and after living for more than three years upon the
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ARTOTYPE, E. BIERSTADT, 44
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north shore of Staten Island near the Sailor's Snug Harbor, he went again to Europe with his family. After four years he re- turned in 1855 to Staten Island where, in the same neighbor- hood to which he had first come, he resided until his death.
Upon coming of age Mr. Shaw acted with the whigs in poli- tics, taking part in ward and other meetings until 1840. Mean- time the anti-slavery movement had begun, and interested him profoundly, so that he withdrew from the whig party and did not vote again upon national questions until 1856, when the re- publican party was formed, of which he was a liberal and active, but always an independent, member. He was one of the dele- gates from the island to the first republican convention in 1856, which nominated General Fremont, and he was deeply inter- ested in the election of that year and in that of 1860. Although not personally engaged in the war of the rebellion he was earn- estly devoted to the cause of the Union, giving freely of his time and labor, and counsel and money, and his only son, Robert Gould Shaw, fell in the assault upon Fort Wagner at the head of his regiment of colored troops. Without per- sonal political ambition, Mr. Shaw had the highest sense of public duty, and he was pre-eminently a public spirited citizen.
While living at West Roxbury he was a member of the school committee and one of the overseers of the poor, a justice of the peace and president of the first common council of Roxbury when that town becanie a city. He was also foreman of the jury of Norfolk county which first proposed the establishment of the State Reform School for Massachusetts. During his resi- dence on Staten Island he was a trustee of the village in which he lived, a trustee of the Seaman's Retreat and of the S. R. Smith Infirmary, treasurer of the American Union of Associa- tionists and of the Sailor's Fund, president of the National Freedman's Relief Association and of the New York Branch of the Freedman's Union Commission, and connected with vari- ous local organizations. He was also a hereditary member of the Massachusetts Society of the Cincinnati.
Bred a Unitarian under the preaching of the Reverend Drs. Channing and Parkman, Mr. Shaw, with his wife, shortly after their marriage, became a member of the Boston Society of the New Jerusalem, to which the Reverend Thomas Worcester then ministered. After his removal to West Roxbury he joined the congregation of the Reverend Theodore Parker. Subse -
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quently, during his sojourn in Rome, some of the Italian friends of his then recently deceased brother, Joseph Coolidge Shaw, who had been a Catholic priest and a Jesuit, manifested great interest in his behalf. But. after passing through many " phases of faith," he remained extremely " liberal" or, per- haps more, justly, "radical" in his opinions upon theological questions, happy that he was never led to doubt the existence of a divine power which works for good.
His energetic temperament prevented him from permitting leisure to stagnate into idleness, and to his various local ac- tivities he added the literary labor of translation. He trans- lated and published "Consuelo," and other tales of George Sands ; "Zchokke's History of Switzerland," the " Swiss Fam- ily Robinson," "Life of Charles Fourier," and other books. Toward the end of his life he withdrew more and more into the retirement of his home, and devoted himself more exclusively to the management of his own affairs. But his interest in pub- lic affairs was not relaxed. The immortal youthfulness of his spirit asserted itself always, and after an illness, which, as he had wished his last illness to be, was very short, he died on the 4th of November, 1882, and was buried in the Moravian cemetery.
This recapitulation of a few facts in the life of Mr. Shaw serves only as a preface to the true portraiture of the man, which was drawn by his friend and neighbor of many years, Sidney Howard Gay, who knew him intimately, who greatly loved and honored him, and whose faithful and most affectionate deline- ation, with all its warmth of feeling and felicity of phrase, does not exaggerate in any degree a remarkably noble, manly and beautiful character.
" Were we to preach a sermon its text should be from those desponding words, 'The good man is perished out of the earth; there is none upright among men :' an assertion, which, how- ever true it may have been in the time of Micah, is not true in our time. How untrue it is every man and woman in this community will bear witness in the death of a good man among us, who, in a long life of seventy-three years, has never known a fellow creature except as a friend, and whose single aim in living has been, that when he went out of the world he might leave it a little better than he found it. Not that it ever oc- curred to him that his ways and wishes differed from those of many other men of like opportunities ; not that he ever could
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have said-we do not believe that he ever once assumed in thought-that any special purpose belonged to his life ; that he was called to any exceptional duty, or that he was pech_ liarly faithful to that duty. The modesty that distinguished him made any such self-consciousness impossible. There are men who are born saints, and men who are saints by education through much travail and sorrow. The great difference is that the born saint never knows that he is one ; he has no measure of himself between what he wants to be and what he is not by gift of nature. He is as God made him, and he can no more be or conceive of being anything else, than he can be or conceive of being a man of another race in some far-off country.
"Let this not be understood as mere words of enlogy, for it is meant to be a simple statement of the fundamental truth in regard to this one man who has just perished ont of the earth. His life should not be permitted to fade away from us withont a recognition of its character, its beauty, what there may be in living, and of what a man may be to his fellow men. The elders, indeed, may not need to be reminded of it, but the younger should be taught to understand and remember it.
"In one of the many notices of Mr. Shaw's death it was said that there was in him a singular mixture of modesty and man- liness, as if there were something incompatible in those quali- ties. Rather, it should be said, he was singularly modest because he was singularly manly. Probably never in his life was he ontraged by a single word or look of insult, for his perfect self-command and self-respect could never irritate or provoke resentment. He honored manhood, and as he maintained his own, so he respected it in others, and kept anger at bay, if there were occasion for anger. Not the humblest would he permit to ontdo him in personal courtesy, not from any pre- tense of humility on his part, but from spontaneous reverence for human nature. If he was ever impatient of anything it was of servility as a respect paid, not to the man, but to accident of position. It was almost a personal humiliation to him that any man should forget that first of all he was a man. 'Mr. Shaw,' said one who has long been in his employment, 're- spected every man who respected himself.' For himself, could he have chosen his path in life, it would have been one where, whatever he might be, whatever should be bestowed upon him of honor and of wealth, would not have been due to fixed cir-
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cumstances, but to his own manliness and his own energy. His modesty, in the original sense of that word, was in the accurate measure he took of his own powers, making no mistake as to what he could do and what he could not do ; neither over-esti- mating himself nor under-estimating others. Had no pre- arranged good fortune fallen to his lot, he would, doubtless, have achieved it, as certainly he would have been glad of the chance of trying.
" With these qualities went naturally the highest kind of courage. It was not merely the courage of his convictions, which is common enough, but the courage of coming to con- clusions of his own without regard to either private or public opinion. One might be sometimes almost impatient with him, because he did not seem open to conviction. In one sense he was not; but it was because he was so singularly faithful to the obligation of coming to an impartial judgment of his own and then adhering to it. He stood alone in the court-room of his own conscience, and the conclusion he came to was the conclu- sion as between right and wrong, as it was given to him to see it. Then he was immovable -- till he moved, if at all, on his own motion for an appeal to his own court. Then he admitted no argument of counsel, no personal bias, no consideration of self interest, no dictates even of affection to plead a cause.
" It was impossible not to respect his opinions, however one might differ from them; for it was impossible not to see that he maintained them simply because he thonght them true, and not because he thought they were his. With those who did not agree with him he could not be resentful, and he was rarely im- patient for a moment, even with the most vapid foolishness. His modesty never let him forget the limitations of human in- telligence, and that no man is entitled to set up his opinions as wiser and better than those of all other men. That perfect in- tellectual freedom which he maintained as his own right, he re- cognized to the full as the right of others. His own unbiased judgment and conscience were guides infallible to him; but he no more set them us as guides for other people than he would accept their judgments and consciences in place of his own.
" One who thought so much for himself must needs do a good deal of thinking, for second-hand opinions were of no use to him. He shirked no responsibility lest he might have to lift the burden alone; nor was he ever afraid of intellectual or
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moral solitude. The problem of human society was by no means satisfactorily settled for him, because in the lottery of life his ticket had turned up a prize. He early put to hin- self the question, why should the few, himself among them, have all that worldly prosperity can give, while the many, com- paratively almost all, are sunk from the beginning to the end in the slough of poverty, wretchedness, ignorance, darkness and crime, from which no struggle of theirs, even when they know enough to struggle, promises any release? He believed too much in man to believe this state of things as the will of God. He was confident, never more confident than in the seventy- third year of his age, that there was somewhere a law divine, if only we could be wise enough to see it, and good enough to live up to it, whereby all men would become equal inheritors of the earth and the fruits thereof, whereby the gifts of genius, of in- dustry, of energy, and of forethought should contribute to the common welfare and happiness of all men, not to be hoarded for the benefit of their possessors only, and so often to the injury of almost all the rest.
This was not in him-as with so many for whom the lottery of life turns out nothing but blanks-a blind and resentful instinct that would pull all down to a common level; but a sublime faith that all may be lifted to the highest point of culture, of com- fort and of material happiness that humanity has reached in certain classes, or ever can reach: He saw a promise of it in his earlier years, in the philosophy of Fourier, and spared neither labor nor zeal nor fortune so long as hope lasted. He saw it lately in the doctrine of Henry George upon land tenure; and that he upheld with all the enthusiasm and devotion of his earlier years, and died in the hope that therein was found the divine law. All good causes, the help of the poor, the ignor- ant, the criminal and the enslaved, had always his ready sympathy and his hearty support, as partial remedies for misfor- tune and wrong; but underneath them all he was always seek- ing for the great remedy that should strike at the root of all the evils, and inequalities, and suffering which the world inherits from generation to generation. Whether he was right or wrong in his profound belief, whether the establishment of any such order of human society as he hoped for be possible, this is not the place to discuss; but this, at least is true-that he who lived out more than the allotted term of three score years and ten,
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and for fifty of those years governed his life and relations to his fellow. men by a faith so pure, so beneficent as that, was one whose memory should not die. for it will be indeed ill for the world when the good men have so 'perished out of the earth' that .none upright.' such as he. can any more be found,
" It was in accord with this faith that Mr. Shaw should have hield wealth as an estate in trust. No one knows and no one will ever know, among all of those whose hearts are sorely bruised at his death for love of the man, how many there are who also mourn the loss of a benefactor: for literally his left hand knew not what his open right hand did. And in this, as in all things else, he was guided by that calmi judgment and eminent sense of justice which distinguished him. He could turn his back promptly, and squarely and peremptorily to any appeal, whether for private aid or for a public purpose, that did not commend itself to his own judgment; regretting perhaps that he might grieve a friend by a denial, but never giving a thought to how much he might shock public opinion. So, also, he was never in danger of wasting his possessions in his zeal for pro- gress. Earnest as his hopes and labors were that the world should be better and happier, he was too wise to suppose that the breakers in which the ship was tossing could be stilled by throwing overboard his little cask of oil. He put it to a wiser purpose, caring generously for his own, recognizing as a first duty that nearest at hand, and enjoying and making the best possible use of his own prosperity as an unquestionable per- sonal right, the sacrifice of which would not advance one jot the general good he had so much at heart. But he was what is considered, perhaps a little too devoutly, the highest type of civilization, 'a good business man,' who knew how to draw exact limitations and how to abide by them. His disposition of his income was systematic. Undoubtedly the number of wealthy persons who believe wealth has its duties is increasing; but there are still very few who, like Mr. Shaw, believe that they are entitled to a moderate proportion only of that in their hands, and that the rest should be held as a trust fund to be conscien- tiously and wisely used on behalf of those less fortunate than themselves.
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