Prominent families of New York; being an account in biographical form of individuals and families distinguished as representatives of the social, professional and civic life of New York city, Part 100

Author: Weeks, Lyman Horace, ed
Publication date: 1897
Publisher: New York, The Historical company
Number of Pages: 650

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Cornelius Vermeule, who died in 1735, a son of Adrian Vermeule, became a large land- owner, his estate covering over twelve hundred acres. He was a man of prominence, and was several times a member of the Provincial Congress of New Jersey. He and his four sons were devoted patriots in the War for Independence, and the latter were valiant soldiers. One of these sons, Frederick Vermeule, became distinguished in public life after the war was ended, being for many years presiding Judge of the Court of Common Pleas of Somerset County, N. J. Judge Ver- meule lived for a long time in Bergen County, but in 1756 he moved to Plainfield, and there his family remained.

Mr. John Davis Vermeule, grandson of Judge Frederick Vermeule, was born in Plainfield, September 21st, 1822, was instructed in private schools until he was eighteen years of age, and then entered mercantile life. Having fully prepared himself for business, he became a manufacturer, interesting himself in the production of rubber boots, shoes and clothing, as far back as 1844, when that industry was in its inception. For nearly forty years he has been the president, treasurer and manager of the Goodyear India Rubber Glove Manufacturing Company. He is also interested in banking, and has an active connection with important financial institutions, being president of the Holland Trust Company, vice-president of the American Savings and Loan Association, and in the directorate of other fiduciary institutions of New York. Industrial corporations have also enlisted his services, and he is president of the York Cliffs Improvement Company and the York Water Company.

Public life has had no attractions for Mr. Vermeule. At one time, when a resident of Castleton, Staten Island, he served as supervisor of the town, but has never held other public office. He married, in 1846, Mary C. Kelly, daughter of John W. Kelly, a merchant of Philadelphia. He has been one of the active members of the Holland Society from the birth of that organization, and is a supporter of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. In his town residence, in West Forty-sixth street, adjoining Fifth Avenue, he has a valuable library and a choice collec- tion of pictures. He also has a country place at York Cliff, Me. His clubs include the Man- hattan, Reform, Riding, Commonwealth and Merchants.

595

WILLIAM EDWARD VER PLANCK

H ISTORIC mansions still in the possession of descendants of their original owners are unhappily rare in the neighborhood of New York, where improvement has played such havoc with the monuments of the past. The Ver Planck house, in Fishkill-on-Hudson, is one of the exceptions to this rule. The land on which it stands was bought from the Indians, in 1683, by Gulian or Geleyn Ver Planck, and, before 1750, his grandson, another Gulian, built the house which he called Mount Gulian, and in which inheritors of the name have dwelt ever since, its present owner being Mr. William Edward Ver Planck. In Revolutionary times the mansion was the headquarters of Baron Steuben, and in it, in 1783, the officers of the patriot army instituted the Order of the Cincinnati. In the present century it was the home of the Honorable Gulian Crommelin Ver Planck, whose reputation was not merely national, but extended to foreign lands. Mount Gulian contains an important collection of family heirlooms and relics of the past, including many interesting and valuable paintings of the members of the Ver Planck family and their numerous connections.

The Ver Planck family is one of the most ancient in New York. Its ancestor was Abraham Isaacse Ver Planck, who came from Holland before 1638, and married Maria Vinge. His son, Gulian, born in 1637, died in 1684, and, as mentioned above, became the owner of the lands in Fishkill, part of which are still held by his descendants. Samuel Ver Planck, who came next in succession, married Arriantje Bayard, and died in 1698. His son, Gulian, 1698-1751, was the builder of the mansion, and married Mary Crommelin, a member of an old Huguenot family in France and the Low Countries.

The Honorable Gulian Crommelin Ver Planck was the grandson of the last named Gulian, and the grandfather of Mr. W. E. Ver Planck. He was born in New York in 1786, and his long life, which terminated in 1870, was devoted throughout to the public service and to literary activity, which made him one of the most famous Americans of his time. A member at various times of both branches of the State Legislature and of Congress, he also occupied a seat in the Court of Errors, of New York, and for many years acted as president of the Board of Emigration. His fame as an orator and man of letters was of the highest, his works being voluminous, extending through many fields of literature, and included an edition of Shakespeare, of whom he was the first American commentator. His wife, born Eliza Fenno, belonged to a family of prominence in Boston, and was connected with many other notable names in New England's history. She died in early life.

His son, William Samuel Ver Planck, born in New York in 1812, married Anna Biddle Newlin, and was the father of Mr. William Edward Ver Planck, who was born in Fishkill in 1856, educated at Phillips (Exeter) Academy, and graduated from Columbia College, in the class of 1876. Mr. Ver Planck adopted the bar as his profession and is in active practice in this city. He has inherited the literary tastes of his grandfather, and has published a monograph history of the Ver Planck family. In 1880, he married Virginia Eliza Darby Everett, born in Brownville, N. Y., daugh- ter of the Reverend Henry Darby, and adopted daughter of William E. Everett. Mrs. Ver Planck is the granddaughter of Colonel Edmund Kirby, U. S. A., a distinguished officer of the Mexican War, and great-granddaughter of Major-General Jacob Brown, the "fighting Quaker " of the War of 1812, under whom the regular army of the United States at Chippewa, Lundy's Lane, and Fort Erie gained its first laurels. Her uncle, and father by adoption, William E. Everett, U. S. N., was an engineer officer associated with the late Cyrus Field in laying the Atlantic cable. Mr. and Mrs. Ver Planck have three children, William Everett, Virginia Darby and Edward Ver Planck. They have a city residence in West Ninety-Eighth Street. Mr. Ver Planck has traveled abroad and is a member of the University and New York clubs.

The arms of the Ver Planck family are: Ermine, on a chief engrailed sable; three mullets argent. Crest, a demi-wolf proper. Motto, Ut vita sic mors.

596

WILLIAM H. VIBBERT, S. T. D.

D R. VIBBERT'S paternal ancestors were, as the name clearly indicates, French Huguenots, coming of that stock, the loss of which was so full of evil consequence to France itself, while their high mental qualities, energy of character and moral fibre supplied an element in the life of the American people which is constantly making itself felt. The Vibbert family was among those which escaped from France at the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, and found religious and political freedom in the American Colonies of England and Holland. New York and South Carolina absorbed the largest number of these desirable emigrants, but New England also claimed its share. The settlement of members of the Vibbert family, at Windsor, Hartford County, Conn., dates from the latter part of the seventeenth century, some of its branches having from an early date'become identified with the State and City of New York. The subject of this sketch traces his descent through one of these offshoots, his grandfather, Elisha Vibbert, having been an American sea-captain and master of New York ships in the East India trade at the beginning of the present century. He married Priscilla Moore, of Salisbury, Conn., but at the early age of twenty-one was lost at sea, within sight of Sandy Hook, while returning from a voyage to China.

His son, the father of Dr. William H. Vibbert, was the Reverend William E. Vibbert, D. D., a clergyman and theologian of distinguished reputation in the American branch of the Church of England, who died in December, 1895, at the venerable age of eighty-three. Dr. Vibbert, Sr., was born in New York, and married Mary E. Cooke, of the well-known Cooke family, of New Haven, Conn. Her father was John H. Cooke, of that city, and her mother, born Maria Mix Judd, of New Britain, Conn., came of a race of prominence in the Colonial and Revolutionary annals of the State. Dr. Vibbert's great-great-grandfather in this line, William Judd, was an officer in the Revolutionary Army, who fought throughout the war, and after the close of the struggle for inde- pendence became a conspicuous figure in the politics of Connecticut and of the country, and a leader of the Democratic, or, as it was then called, the Republican party, holding many public offices in the State and in the national service. His son, Dr. Vibbert's great-grandfather, William S. Judd, was a Major of the United States Army in the War of 1812 with Great Britain, in which struggle he served with distinction.

Born at New Haven, in 1839, Dr. William H. Vibbert was educated at the Connecticut Episcopal Academy, graduated from Trinity College, Hartford, in 1858, and pursued his studies for the ministry at Berkley Divinity School, where he was professor of Hebrew for over ten years. He was ordained to the priesthood in 1863, and received the degree of Doctor of Sacred Theology from Racine College, Wisconsin, in 1883. He traveled abroad several times, held charges in Philadelphia and Chicago, but devoted himself more especially to Oriental studies in connection with theology, his work, published in 1868, on the Hebrew text of the Old Testament, being an authority on a subject of the greatest importance to the clergy, and to students of Oriental philology.

Dr. Vibbert's marriage, in 1866, with Julia Newbold Welsh, connected him with a Phila- delphia family of the highest social prominence. Mrs. Vibbert's father, the late William Welsh, was an eminent merchant and financier in Philadelphia, a distinguished philanthropist, interested especially in the humane treatment of the Indians. By his disinterested efforts, a new era was inaugurated in the government's policy towards the aborigines. He also, for a long time, held the position of president of the Board of City Trusts, of Philadelphia. Her uncle, the Honorable John Welsh, was also an eminent citizen of Philadelphia, was United States Minister to the Court of St. James, and was regarded as one of the most eminent laymen in the Protestant Episcopal Church. Dr. Vibbert has three children, William Welsh Vibbert, Mary Howard Vibbert and Aubrey Darrell Vibbert. The family residence is 11 East Twenty-fourth Street. Dr. Vibbert is Vicar of Trinity Chapel, the most important chapel of Trinity Parish, and his life is one of scholarship, coupled with an active interest in church affairs, though both he and his family are well known in metropolitan social circles.

597

EGBERT L. VIELE

A N ancestry that embraces founders of the New Netherland is in General Viele's case supplemented by his own services in both war and peace. The first of the name in America was Cornelius Cornelison Viele, who settled at Fort Orange in 1630. His son, Arnaud Cornelius, 1620-1700, was a leading personage in the Colony on account of his influence over the Iroquois Indians; was the envoy of the Duke of York to the tribes, and was appointed their Governor by Leisler. Ludovicus Viele was General Viele's ancestor, his grandson, Judge John L. Viele, being the father of the subject of this article. The Honorable John Ludovicus Viele was born at Valley Falls, N. Y., in 1788, graduating from Union College in 1808. He served in the army during the War of 1812, was admitted to the bar in 1814, and became a Judge of the Court of Errors, and was State Senator in 1822. He died in 1832, being then a Regent of the University, and Inspector General.

From his mother General Viele inherits the blood of leading Colonial families. She was Cathalina Knickerbocker, daughter of Colonel Johannes Knickerbocker, of Schaghticoke, and married to Judge Viele in 1810. Her father commanded a regiment at Saratoga, and her direct ancestor was John Van Berghen Knickerbocker, who came to the New Netherland early in the seventeenth century, and who was a son of Godfrey Van Berghen, Count Van Grimberghen, Captain in the Dutch Navy. General Viele possesses the old Knickerbocker family Bible and other relics of a race which, apart from the unique celebrity due to Washington Irving, has ever filled a worthy part in New York. Born at Waterford, N. Y., June 17th, 1825, Egbert Ludovicus Viele entered West Point and graduated in 1847, and was assigned to the First Infantry as Lieutenant. He served throughout the Mexican War under Generals Taylor and Scott, and was distinguished for gallantry, serving also with the First Dragoons. He was then stationed in Texas and in the far West, engaging in Indian campaigns, and became Military Governor of Laredo, Tex., but resigned from the army in 1853 to take up the profession of engineer. When the Civil War came, he tendered his services to the Government, became engineer officer of the Seventh Regiment, was commissioned Brigadier General of Volunteers August 17th, 1861, and to the end of the war was in constant service. Among his exploits was the forcing of the Potomac River to Washington, commanding the first troops to reach the capital by that route. He was second in command at the capture of Port Royal, led the victorious attack on Fort Pulaski, and participated in the capture of Norfolk, of which city he was Military Governor for three years.

His civil and professional career has been equally notable. He is one of the earliest American sanitarians and started the agitation which resulted in the establishment in 1866 of the New York City Board of Health, the first organization in America empowered to enforce sanitary regulations. From this movement arose the Boards of Health throughout the country. Another of his titles to public gratitude is his service as Chief Engineer and designer of Central Park and Prospect Park, Brooklyn, while as member and President of the New York City Park Commission he added to his benefits to the metropolis. In 1885 General Viele was elected Member of Congress and labored successfully for the Harlem ship canal. As State Engineer of New Jersey, 1854-56, he directed its geodetic survey, and he has been consulting engineer for many railroads, among them the elevated and cable systems of this city.

General Viele wrote a Handbook of Active Service, and a life of General Robert Anderson, and is the author of the well-known Topographical Atlas of New York, besides many articles on military and scientific subjects. He is vice-president of the American Geographical Society, and a member of many clubs and literary organizations. While visiting England in 1895, he was examined by a committee of the House of Lords as an authority on municipal administration and received flattering social attentions. The General's home in New York overlooks Riverside Park, the establishment of which was largely due to his efforts.

598

SALEM HOWE WALES

N ATHANIEL WALES, the founder of the Wales family in this country, was a Puritan, who came over with Richard Mather, in 1635. He was the ancestor of the subject of this sketch, and his descendants have been among the substantial men of affairs of New England. The father of Mr. Salem H. Wales was Captain Oliver Wales, a woolen manufacturer in Massachu- setts and a Captain of the militia in the War of 1812.

Mr. Salem Howe Wales was born in the town of Wales, Massachusetts, October 4th, 1825. After preparatory education in the schools of his native town, he attended an academy in Attica, N. Y. In 1846, when he came of age, he removed to New York and entered the office of a prominent importing house. After two years of business experience, he became associated with Orson D. Munn and Alfred E. Beach, publishers of The Scientific American, being engaged as managing editor, a position that he held uninterruptedly for nearly twenty-four years. In 1855, Governor Horatio Seymour appointed him a commissioner for the State of New York to the Paris Exposition of that year, and he remained abroad several months in the discharge of the duties of that position. Again, in 1867, Mr. Wales went abroad, was absent for over a year, visiting all the principal countries of Europe and contributed an account of his travels and observations to The Scientific American. During the Civil War, he was a patriotic supporter of the National Government and active in all enterprises that were the special need of the hour. He was particu- larly prominent as a member of the executive committee of the United States Christian Commission.

Always an earnest Republican, in 1872, he was a delegate to the Republican National Con- vention, at Philadelphia, that nominated General Grant the second time for the Presidency, and in that campaign was a Presidential elector for New York. In 1876, he was again a delegate to the Republican National Convention, at Cincinnati. His interest in public affairs led to his appointment as a member of the Board of Park Commissioners by Mayor William F. Havemeyer, in 1873, and he became president of the board. In 1874, the Republicans nominated him for Mayor of the city. Acting Mayor S. B. H. Vance appointed him to a vacancy in the Department of Docks in 1874, and he served for two years as president of the board. From 1880 to 1885, he was again a member of the Board of Park Commissioners, serving part of the time as president.

He was one of the early members of the Union League Club, being for a long time chairman of its executive and finance committee and for several years its vice-president. He had charge of the construction of the present Union League Club building. Interested in many public institutions, he was a founder of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and for many years treasurer, and is now a member of its executive committee.

Governor John A. Dix appointed him one of the trustees of the Insane Asylum at Mid- dletown, N. Y. He was one of the founders of the Hahnemann Hospital and the New York Homeopathic Medical College, and has been president of both those institutions. He was a director in the Bank of North America and in the Hanover Insurance Company, and has been connected with other corporations. Under appointment by the Supreme Court, he was one of the commissioners to determine the amount of damage caused to private property by the con- struction of the elevated railroads, and in 1895, was appointed by Mayor Strong one of the commissioners to oversee the construction of the new suspension bridge between New York and Brooklyn, being elected president of the commission.

Mr. Wales lives at 25 East Fifty-fifth Street. He is a member of the Union League, Century, Church, Press, City and other clubs, and the Golf and Meadow Brook Hunt clubs, of Southampton, belongs to the New England Society and is a patron of the American Museum of Natural History and the National Academy of Design. In 1851, he married Frances E. Johnson, only daughter of James D. Johnson, of Bridgeport, Conn. They have two children, Clara, who married Elihu Root, and Edward Howe Wales, a member of the New York Stock Exchange and of the Union League, Players, New York Yacht and Larchmont Yacht clubs.

599

JOHN BRISBEN WALKER

B ORN in Pennsylvania in 1847, John Brisben Walker is a grandson of General S. G. Krepps, who was a prominent figure in Pennsylvania political life about 1820, and of Major John Walker, one of the first commissioners appointed for the improvement of western rivers. Major Walker, who was a great-grandson of Carl Christopher Springer, prominent in the founding of the Swedish Colony on the Delaware, was among the first to establish shipyards west of the Alleghany Mountains. General Krepps was chairman of the committee in the Pennsylvania Senate, which, in 1827, reported the resolution asking the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia.

At the age of ten, Mr. John Brisben Walker was sent to a classical school in Washington, D. C. Later he entered Georgetown College, and in 1865 was appointed to West Point. In 1868, when Minister Burlingame arrived from China, Mr. Walker was aided by him in his desire to enter the Chinese military service and, resigning from the Military Academy, he accompanied the Honorable J. Ross Brown, United States Minister to Peking. In 1870, he returned to the United States, engaging in manufacturing and other enterprises connected with the development of the Kanawha Valley, in West Virginia. Two years later, he was nominated for Congress by the Republicans in a strong Democratic district, and was defeated. In 1873, he represented West Virginia in the Immigration Convention held at Indianapolis, and in 1874, as a State delegate, was chairman of the committee on resolutions of the first Ohio River Improvement Convention. In the panic of 1873 his entire fortune was swept away. He was then engaged by Murat Halstead to prepare a series of articles upon the mineral and manufacturing interests of the United States for The Cincinnati Commercial, a few months later was offered the managing editorship of The Pittsburgh Daily Telegraph, and at the beginning of 1876 became managing editor of The Wash- ington Chronicle, then one of the two leading dailies at the National Capital. In 1879, at the request of the Commissioner of Agriculture, he visited the arid lands of the West with reference to their redemption by irrigation. Later he purchased, on the outskirts of Denver, a portion of what became known as Berkeley Farm, the most extensive alfalfa farm in Colorado.

For nine years thereafter, Mr. Walker was engaged in the development of alfalfa interests, in which he was a pioneer. At the same time, by a series of careful engineering operations, he was recovering a large plot of river bottom from overflow, thus adding more than five hundred lots to the area of the most valuable part of Denver. In 1889, he removed to New York and purchased The Cosmopolitan Magazine, which he still edits. Mr. Walker is an author as well as a publisher and editor, having written much upon social and industrial topics. He is one of the original thinkers of the day, a man of radical ideas on social and economic questions and in earnest sympathy with every project that looks to the improvement of the status of the masses.

In 1870, Mr. Walker married Emily Strother, daughter of General David Hunter Strother. The father of Mrs. Walker was born in Berkeley Springs, Virginia, in 1816, and died in 1878. He studied drawing in Philadelphia and New York, traveled throughout the West and in Europe, and then, returning to New York, made himself famous in the decade preceding the Civil War, by the inimitable Porte Crayon sketches in Harper's Magazine, illustrated by himself. During the Civil War, he served in the Union Army successively on the staffs of General Mcclellan, General Banks, General Pope and afterwards as Chief of Staff to his cousin, General David Hunter, while in command of the Army of the Valley of Virginia. From 1879 to 1885, he was United States Consul General to the City of Mexico. As poet, painter, a charming descriptive writer, and soldier, he was much admired by his generation.

Mr. and Mrs. Walker reside in Irvington-on-Hudson. They have a family of seven sons: John Brisben, Jr., David Strother, James Randolph, Justin, Harold, Wilfred and Gerald, and one daughter. Mr. Walker belongs to the Century Association, the University Club of Chicago and the Ardsley Country Club.

600

JOHN QUINCY ADAMS WARD

J OHN WARD, of Norfolk, England, came to America in the ship Elizabeth in 1621, landing at Jamestown, Va. He was living in " Elizabeth Cittie" in 1623. His son, Charles Ward, settled in Boutetort County, and was the progenitor of James Ward, born in 1724, who lived in Greenbriar County. Ensign James Ward was with the Virginia forces sent in 1754 to resist French encroachments on the frontier. He began the fort at the forks of the Ohio, but was com- pelled to retire by the French under Contrecoeur, who completed the works, calling them Fort Duquesne. As a Colonel he was killed in 1774, at the battle of Point Pleasant, by the Indians under the lead of Puckeshinwa, father of Tecumseh. Colonel William Ward, 1752-1820, the son of James Ward, was born in Greenbriar County, and saw much service against the Indians. In 1789, he moved to Mason County, Ky., but in 1798 settled in the valley of the Mad River, being one of the earliest settlers of Ohio. He owned large tracts in what are now Champaign and Clark Counties, and in 1805 laid out and named the town of Urbana, O.

John A. Ward, 1783-1854, his son, was born in Greenbriar County, Va., and died at Urbana. He married Eleanor, daughter of Alexander and Rachel (Whitehill) Macbeth. The latter's father, Robert Whitehill, 1735-1813, was a member of the Pennsylvania Council of Safety, was elected to the first Congress that sat in Philadelphia, and was a Member of Congress when he died. Eleanor (Macbeth) Ward possessed marked ability and artistic tastes which foreshadowed her son's talent.

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Prominent families of New York; being an account in biographical form of individuals and families distinguished as representatives of the social, professional and civic life of New York city, Part 100

Author: Weeks, Lyman Horace, ed Publication date: 1897 Publisher: New York, The Historical company Number of Pages: 650

Author: Weeks, Lyman Horace, ed
Publication date: 1897
Publisher: New York, The Historical company
Number of Pages: 650