USA > New York > New York City > Leslie's history of the greater New York, Volume III, Pt. 1 > Part 10
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ASTOR, JOHN JACOB, fourth of this famous family in the United States who has borne this name, is the only son of the late William Astor. His mother, nce Caroline Webster Schermerhorn, has long been the recognized leader at high social functions in this city and Newport, R. I. Of an inventive turn of mind, Mr. Astor has secured several patents for inventions, nota- ble among them being the pneu- matie road improving machine, which may be utilized in building mac- adamized roads or in keeping coun- try roads free from dust. He is also the author of a novel, in which sup- posititions triumphs of science are an important feature. He served upon the staff of Governor Levi P. Morton. with the rank of Colonel. During the recent war with Spain, he gave the Government free transportation for COLONEL JOHN JACOB ASTOR. troops over the railroad of which he is President, organized and defraved all the expenses of the " Astor Battery," which distinguished itself in the capture of Manila. Philippine Islands, and distinguished himself at the capture of Santiago, Cuba, as Aid-de-camp, with the rank of Lientenant-Colonel, on the staff of General Shafter. Born July 13.
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1864, he attended St. Paul's School (Concord, N. H.) and Harvard University, and then traveled extensively in Europe, including Turkey and Greece, the North Cape, and other unusual points, followed by tours of Cuba, Mexico, and the Rocky Mountain region. He has also traveled widely in his steam yacht Nourmahal. He is a breeder of hackneys and carriage horses at his country-seat, Ferncliff-on-the-Hud- son. He is President of the Findlay, Fort Wayne and Western Rail- way Company, and is director or trustee of the National Park Bank, the Second National Bank, the Plaza Bank, the Astor National Bank, the Mercantile Trust Company, the Title Guarantee and Trust Com- pany, the New York Life Insurance and Trust Company, the Western Union Telegraph Company, the Illinois Central Railroad Company, the Delaware and Hudson Railroad Company, the St. Lawrence and Adirondack Railway Company, the Ann Arbor Railroad Company, the Niagara Junction Railway Company, the Mutual Automatic Telephone Company, the Cataract Construction Company, the Niag- ara Development Company, and the Rider and Driver Publishing Company. As the residuary legatee of his grandfather, he received one- half of the great residuary estate of William B. Astor, the other half having descended. to his cousin, William Waldorf Astor, of London. He was married. February 17, 1891, to Ava Lowle, daughter of Edward S. Willing, of Philadelphia, whose family for a century and a half has been at the head of Philadelphia society. They have several children.
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FIELD, BENJAMIN HAZARD, was one of the most eminent of the merchant philanthropists of New York City. Ile contributed generously to educational, religious, and benevolent interests. He was President of the House for Incurables from its organization in 1866 until his death, March 17, 1893, while he erected an Episcopal Church upon its grounds. He was a trustee of the New York Dis- pensary, of the New York Institution for the Instruction of the Deaf and Dumb, of the Roosevelt Hospital, of the Children's Fold, and of the Sheltering Arms. He served as President of the St. Nicholas Society, of which he was a life member. In 1SS5 he was elected Pres- ident of the New York Historical Society, of which he was a life member and for twenty years Treasurer. He was a trustee of the American Museum of Natural History, and in 1859 became a life mem- ber of the American Geographical Society. He was a life member of the New York Chamber of Commerce, was Vice-President of the Bank for Savings, and was a director of the Fulton Bank, the Atlantic Mutual Insurance Company, and the Greenwood Cemetery Company. Born in Yorktown, Westchester County, May 2, 1814, he was the eldest son of Hazard Field by his second wife, and descended from Robert Field, an early settler of Flushing, L. I., of the English fam- ily founded by Hubertus de la Field, companion of the Conqueror. He also descended from Thomas Hazard, who came to New England
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in 1636 from Lyme Regis, Dorsetshire, England, and from the found- ers of the Burling and Bowne families of Long Island. After receiv- ing an academic education he entered the office of his uncle, Hickson W. Field, of New York City, who was prominent in the China trade and also conducted a wholesale drug business. He became a partner in 1832 and succeeded to the business upon the retirement of his uncle in 1838. Mr. Field remained at the head of the house until 1865, when he retired in favor of his son. He married Catherine M. Van Cortlandt, daughter of Frederic de Peyster, Sr., grandfather of Gen- eral J. Watts de Peyster and Frederic J. de Peyster, and had a son and successor, Cortlandt de Peyster Field.
FIELD, CORTLANDT DE PEYSTER, under the firm style of Cortlandt de Peyster Field and Company since 1865, has been head of the mercantile house of which his late distinguished father, Ben- jamin Hazard Field, was the head from 1838 to 1865, and a firm mem- ber from 1832, and which was originally founded still earlier by his granduncle, Hickson W. Field. He was born in this city December 28, 1839, was graduated from Columbia College in 1859, subsequently receiving the degree of A.M., and at once entered his father's office. Like his father he has given liberally to educational and benevolent . institutions, and is an active member of the Episcopal Church. He is executor of his father's estate, and is a member of the Mendelssohn Glee Club, the Scientific Alliance, and the Columbia Alumni Asso- ciation. In 1865 he married Virginia, danghter of the late John Will- iam Hamersley and Catherine Livingston Hooker, and sister of James Hooker Hamersley, of this city. They have no children.
BARCLAY, HENRY ANTHONY, born in Astoria, L. I., December 4, 1844, the son of the late Henry Barclay and Sarah Moore, is the head of an illustrious family. He is the great-grandson of Rev. Henry Barclay, a Yale graduate who was rector of Trinity Church, New York City, from 1746 to 1764, and his wife Mary, daughter of Anthony Rut- gers; is the great-great-grandson of Rev. Thomas Barclay, pastor of the Dutch Church of Albany, and of his wife, Dorothea, daughter of Admiral Andries Drauyer, of the Dutch navy; and is great-great- . great-grandson of John Barclay, founder of the American family, a brother of Robert Barclay, a proprietor and one of the governors of East New Jersey, and a son of Colonel David Barclay, of Ury, Laird of Mathers, a member of Parliament and Governor of Strathbogie, and of his wife, Catherine, danghter of Sir Robert Gordon and grand- daughter of Alexander Gordon, titular Earl of Sutherland. He is a member of the Union and Metropolitan clubs. He married Clara Old- field, daughter of the late John Skinner Wright, head of the firm of Wright, Maxwell & Company, and granddaughter of Hon. Robert
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Wright, Governor of Maryland in 1806. They have three daughters and two sons-Henry Anthony, Jr., and Wright Barclay.
FRENCH, FRANCIS ORMOND, from 1870 to 1873 was partner in New York City of the banking firm of Jay Cooke & Company, and New York representative of the London firm of Jay Cooke, McCul- lough & Company. With other capitalists he acquired control of the First National Bank of this city in 1874, and was active in its manage- ment. From 18SS until his death in 1893 he was President of the Manhattan Trust Company. He was prominent in the funding of United States loans. He was a trustee of Phillips Exeter Academy, and for two years was President of the Harvard Club of this city: He attended Phillips Exeter Academy, was graduated from. Harvard in 1857, from Harvard Law School in 1859, studied law with Thomas Nelson, of New York City, and was admitted to the New York Bar in 1860. He began practice at Exeter, N. H., and married Ellen, daughter of Amos Tuck, of that city, who was a member of Congress from 1847 to 1853, and Naval Officer of the Port of Boston from 1861 to 1865. Mr. French was appointed Deputy Naval Officer of the Port of Boston in 1862, and in 1863 became Deputy Collector. In 1865 he entered the firm of Samuel A. Way & Company, bankers of Boston. He presently founded the Boston banking firm of Foote & French, and in 1870 removed to New York. Born in Chester, N. H., in 1837, he was the son of Benjamin B. French and Elizabeth Smith, daughter of Chief Justice William Merchant Richardson, of New Hampshire. Benjamin B. French was Clerk of the House of Representatives from 1845 to 1847, and by appointment of Lincoln Commissioner of Build- ings in Washington, D. C., from 1861 to 1865. Associated with Pro- fessor Morse in developing the telegraph, he was President of the Magnetic Telegraph Company. Daniel French, of Chester, N. H., served several terms as Attorney-General of New Hampshire. The first American ancestor, Edward French, emigrated from England to Ipswich, Mass., in 1636, and subsequently settled at Salisbury, Mass.
FRENCH, AMOS TUCK, only son of the late Francis Ormond French, is Vice-President of the Manhattan Trust Company, having been its secretary from 1888 to 1893, when his father was its president. He was graduated from Harvard College, and is a member of the Union, Metropolitan, Knickerbocker, Tuxedo, Racquet. Players'. Har- " vard, and New York Yacht clubs. He resides at Tuxedo Park, N. Y.
DE LANCEY, EDWARD FLOYD, for a great many years engaged in the practice of law in New York City, has been actively identified with many historical organizations and has published many histori- cal and biographical works. He was President of the New York
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Genealogieal and Biographical Society from 1873 to 1877; was Presi- dent of the Westchester County Historical Society from 1874 to 1879; in 1880 and 1881 was President of the St. Nicholas Society, and since 1889 has been Corresponding Secretary of the New York Historical Society, and is a member of its executive committee. He published a memoir of Chief Justice James de Lancey in 1851; " The Capture of Fort Washington the Result of Treason," in 1877; in 1879 memoirs of James W. Beekman and Chief Justice William Allen, of Pennsylvania, while he was editor of Jones's " History of New York During the Revo- lutionary War," which appeared the same year; edited " Secret Correspondence of Sir Henry Clin- ton," which appeared as a serial in the Magazine of American History in 1883-4, and in 1886 pub- lished " Origin and History of Manors in the Prov- DE LANCEY ARMS. ince of New York," and " History of Mamaroneck, New York." Born in Mamaroneck, N. Y., October 23, 1821, he at- tended the University of Pennsylvania, was graduated from Hobart College in 1853, and from Harvard Law School in 1845. He has trav- eled in British America, Enrope, Egypt, and Asia Minor. He is the son of Bishop William Heathcote de Lancey and Frances, daughter of Peter Jay Munro, is fourth in descent from Chief Justice James de Lancey and fifth from the original Etienne, or Stephen, de Lancey, and his wife Ann, second danghter of Stephanus Van Cortlandt, of Cortlandt Manor. Among his ancestors were Colonel Caleb Heathcote, Lord of Scarsdale Manor, Judge and Mayor of New York City; Colonel Richard Floyd, of Long Island; Dr. Henry Munro, last English Rector of St. Peter's, Albany, and Peter Jay, father of Chief Justice John Jay. He still owns the old Heathcote estate at Mamaroneck. He married Josephine Matilda, daughter of William S. de Zeng, of Geneva, N. Y., and granddaughter of Baron Frederick A. de Zeng, Captain of a Saxon Regiment in the British service during the Revo- lution, and has living one son, Edward Etienne de Lancey, one of the engineers engaged on the Croton Aqueduct.
GRINNELL. MOSES HICKS, was one of the most eminent of the great New York merchants during the half century from about 1825 to 1873. He was born in New Bedford, Mass., March 23, 1803, and died in this city, November 24, ISTT. His father, Cornelius Grinnell. was a shipping merchant of New Bedford, and lineally descended from Matthew Grinnell, of HInguenot descent, who immigrated to New England in 1632, and in 1638 became one of the founders of Newport, R.I. In 1815 Joseph Grinnell, the eldest of three brothers who be- came prominent New York merchants, removed from New Bedford to this city and became a member of the firm of Fish & Grinnell, ship- ping merchants. His brothers, Henry and Moses Hicks, having en-
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tered the firm in 1825, Joseph presently retired. In 1828 the two younger brothers. with the late Robert B. Minturn, organized the famous house of Grinnell & Minturn. Prior to the Civil War they owned about fifty vessels, and were the largest shipping merchants in America. They established packet lines to Liverpool and London. Henry Grinnell organized the Arctic expedition to search for Sir John Franklin in 1850. and joined with George Peabody in organizing the expedition of 1853. Moses Hicks Grinnell was especially promi- nent in public affairs, however. He was the eighteenth President of the New York Chamber of Commerce, and was long President of the Phoenix Bank, having been elected to this position in 1838. He was also elected to Congress as a Whig in 1838. In 1856 he was a Fre- mont Presidential Elector-at-Large. He was one of the founders of the Union League Club, and during the Civil War a member of the Union Defense Committee, of this city. He was a Commissioner of Charities and Correction of New York City from 1860 to 1865. He be- came Collector of the Port of New York by appointment of President Grant in 1869. He married, in 1836, Julia Irving, niece of Washing- ton Irving, and had a son-Irving Grinnell, of this city, and two daughters-Mrs. George S. Bowdoin, of New York, and Mrs. Thomas F. Cushing, of Boston.
GRINNELL, IRVING, Treasurer of the Church Temperance Society. is the son of the late Moses Hicks Grinnell, one of the most eminent of New York merchants. He was born in this city, August 9. 1839, and was educated at Columbia College. In 1863 he married Joanna Dorr, daughter of Gardiner G. Howland and Louisa Meredith, and a descendant of John Howland of the Mayflower. He is a mem- ber of the New York Yacht and Hudson River Ice Yacht clubs.
HAMERSLEY, JOHN WILLIAM, during the last generation the head of the well-known New York family of this name, was born May 24, 1808, in Hanover Square, at that time one of the most fashionable quarters of New York City, and died at his residence on Fifth Avenue, June 7, 1889. He was graduated from Colmbia College in 1826, traveled extensively in all parts of the world, was bred to the law and successfully practiced at the bar in New York City for some years, and subsequently retired to manage the large family estates, and to occupy himself as a litteraten and as a patron of literary, scientific, and artistic interests in New York City. The brilliant way in which he made his home the weekly rendezvous of intellectuality in all departments of activity, bringing together in the most happy spirit of good fellowship the celebrities of the world, will ever remain one of the notable and pleasing features of the literary and social his- tory of the City of New York. When he passed away there was no one left who had the qualifications, if there was any one in the city who
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had the spirit, to successfully emulate his example. Writes Brevet Major-General J. Watts de Peyster: " At his Friday evening gather- ings, in what he styled his . den,' veritable Noctes Atticae, were assen- bled some of the most remarkable men of the day in every branch of art and science, military, naval, philosophical, etc., professionals as well as laies, representatives of every branch of business and every kind of specialism ; nor were the reverend clergy wanting, of all ranks in the church hierarchy, and ability of every evangelical belief.
These Noctes Atticae, or Ambrosianae, can be most justly and truth- fully compared to those famous gatherings in certain Parisian salons, where brilliant companies assembled aronnd bright hosts and thereby rendered the amphytrion as renowned as the guests and their tour- naments of wit and intellect. Such assemblages as those of Mr. Ham- ersley required in the host peculiar talents and consummate tact to make them a triumphant series of successes, such as they are univer- sally acknowledged to have been. These delightful Friday evenings, which continued year after year without the slightest eclipse or shadow, are not likely to find paral- Jels in New York." Mr. Hamers- ley planned a notable banquet in New York City as a demonstration in favor of Mexico at the time when Napoleon III. songht to seat the Emperor Maximilian, and as a re- sult. Congress was moved to recog- nize the Mexican Republic, other countries following, and the plot of the French was defeated. In re- turn, the Mexican Minister to the United States pledged his govern- ment to Mr. Damersley to spare the JOHN W. HAMERSLEY. life of Maximilian, but popular pas- sion defeated the intention. Mr. Hamersley was a member of Grace Church. In early life he had been Colonel of one of the city military regiments. He married Catherine Livingston, daughter of Hon. James Hooker, of Poughkeepsie, N. Y., by whom he had one son, the present James Hooker Hamersley, and four daughters. The youngest of these died in infancy. The other three are Virginia, wife of Cortlandt de Peyster Field: Helen Reade, wife of Charles D. Stickney, Jr., and Catherine Livingston, wife of John Henry Livingston.
HAMERSLEY, JAMES HOOKER, only son of the late John Will- iam Hamersley, and the present head of the family, was born in New
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York City January 26, 1844. He was carefully educated, traveling extensively as a boy. At the age of twelve he had visited nearly all the capitals of Europe, had seen several crowned heads, and had been presented to Pope Pius IX. He was graduated from Columbia Col- lege in 1865, delivering an oration at the commencement exercises. Ile studied law, entering the office of the late James W. Gerard, and also attending Columbia College Law School. He was graduated from the latter and admitted to the bar, while for ten years he actively followed his profession. He has since devoted himself to the care of the Hamersley estates, to literary occupation, and the discharge of social obligations. He has been prominently identified with the re- form wing of the Republican party in this city, and was a delegate to the State Convention at Rochester in 1877. He was chiefly instru- mental in the election of William Waldorf Astor to the State Assem- bly some years ago, having been the original nominee of the Republi- can party, and withdrawing in favor of Mr. Astor. He is a contribu- tor to periodical literature and a poet. His best known poems are " Yellow Roses," " The Countersign," " Ronkonkoma," " Fog Cur- tain," " Masconomo," " The Midnight Sun," and " Voice of the Break- ers." He was for many year's a director of the Knickerbocker Fire Insurance Company, is Vice-President of the Babies Hospital, is a member of the Board of Managers and of the Executive Committee of the Young Men's Christian Association (Twenty-third Street Branch), and for many years has been connected with the Society for Seamen in the Port and Harbor of New York. He is President of the Knickerbocker Bowling Club, and a member of the Metropolitan, University, City, and Badminton clubs, and the St. Nicholas Society, the Columbia College Alumni Association, the Society of Colonial Wars, the Sons of the Revolution, the American Geographical So- ciety, and the New York Law Institute. He married, April 30, 1888, Margaret Willing, daughter of William Edings Chisholm, of a distin- guished South Carolina family. Of their three children, the eldest, Margaret Rogers, died in infancy, while two survive, a daughter, Catherine Livingston, and a son, Louis Gordon Hamersley. Mrs. Hamersley is a descendant of Frederick Augustus Muhlenberg, Presi- dent of the first House of Representatives of the United States, and a brother of General Muhlenberg of the Revolution. She is the grand- niece of Rev. William Augustus Muhlenberg, the founder of St. Luke's Hospital of this city. She is granddaughter of the late John Rogers, an eminent citizen and large real estate owner in New York City, in whose memory his widow erected the Church of the Holy Communion of this city upon land donated by her. Mr. Hamersley is himself of distinguished antecedents, being in the eleventh generation from Rich- ard Hamersley, High Bailiff of Stafford, England, and in the eighth generation from Sir Ingh Hamersley, Lord Mayor of London in 1627. His great-great-grandfather, William Hamersley, was an officer in the
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British Navy who settled in New York City in 1716 and became a pros- perous merchant. He was a Vestryman of Trinity Church, and mar- ried Miss Van Brugh, of the old Dutch family of that name. His son, Andrew Hamersley, great-grandfather of Mr. Hamersley, was a phil- anthropist as well as a well-known merchant of New York. He was an Alderman of the city, a Vestryman of Trinity Church, and one of the incorporators and first governors of the Lying-in Hospital of New York City. He married Margaret Stelle, granddaughter of Hon. Thomas Gordon, one of the Lords Proprietors of East Jersey, and great- granddaughter of Sir George Gordon. Mr. Hamersley's grandfather, Lewis Carre Hamersley, was also a merchant, and was interested in many of the leading financial institutions of New York City. "He mar- ried Elizabeth Finney, of a prominent family of Accomac County, Va. His two sons were Andrew Gordon Hamersley, father of the late Lewis Carre Hamersley, and John William Hamersley, father of the present James Hooker Ham- ersley. Having no children. upon his death in 1888, Lewis Carre Hamersley left the income from the large estate inherited from his father to his widow, now the Duch- ess of Marlborough, while upon her death the entire property reverts to the male heirs of Mr. James Hooker Hamersley. Through his mother, daughter of Hon. James Hooker, of Poughkeepsie, N. Y., the latter also descends from the famous Rev. Thomas Hooker, of Connecticut; John Reade, after whom was named Red Hook, on the Hudson, and Hon. Joseph Reade, after whom was named Reade Street, New York JAMES HOOKER HAMMERSLEY. City. Other ancestors of Mr. Ham- ersley were Robert Livingston, first lord of Livingston Manor: Captain Filyp Pieterse Van Schuyler; Hon. Brant Arentse Van Schlichtenhorst, Governor of the Colony of Rens- selaerwyek in 1648. and Henry Beekman, patentee under Queen Anne for an immense traet of land in Dutchess County, N. Y.
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ABEEL, JOHN HOWARD, iron merchant. with his brother, George Abeel. is at the head of a business which was established by his great-grandfather. Major Garret Abeel. a Revolutionary patriot. in 1765. He is a member of the St. Nicholas, New York Athletic, Liederkranz, and Nassan Boat clubs, the St. Nicholas Society, and the Seventh Regiment Veteran Association. He donated to the Sey-
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enth Regiment the Abeel prize for rifle practice. He is unmarried. Born in this city in 1846, he is the son of the late John Howard Abeel and Emeline, daughter of the late Dr. John C. Stobel. He attended Dr. Charles Anthon's famous school. and at the age of eighteen en- tered his father's business as a clerk, subsequently becoming a partner.
LORILLARD, PIERRE, head of the famous tobacco manufactory of P. Lorillard, is known in both hemispheres as one of the notable breeders and owners of thoroughbred horses. A sensation was ere- ated some years ago when his American horse. " Iroquois." won the English Derby. For many years he has devoted much of his time to racing in England. By the French Government he was made a Chev- alier of the Legion of Honor, and in 1883 was made an officer of that order. in recognition of his co-operation in fitting ont the two Charney archæological expeditions to explore the ancient cities of Yucatan and Central America. He is also the founder of Tuxedo Park. He is a member of the Patriarchs. and of the Union. Knickerbocker, Rac- quet, and New York Yacht chibs. He married, in 1858. Emily, daugh- ter of Dr. Isaac E. Taylor, of this city, one of the founders of Bellevue Hospital Medical College, and has a son. Pierre Lorillard, Jr., and two daughters. Mrs. William Kent and Mrs. Thomas Suffern Tailer. Another son. Griswold N. Lorillard. died unmarried at the age of twenty-five. Born October 13. 1833. Pierre Lorillard. Sr., is the eldest child of the late Peter Lorillard and Catherine, daughter of Nathaniel I. Griswold, is the grandson of Peter A. Lorillard, who married a daughter of Major Schultz, of the Continental army, and with his brother, George Lorillard, established the tobacco manufactory of which his grandson is now proprietor, and is great-grandson of Peter Lorillard. of French Huguenot descent, who emigrated to this coun- try from Holland, settled in Hackensack. N. J., and was killed by the Hessians during the Revolution.
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