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 106

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

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Mr. Edward Winslow, born January 14th, 1850, entered the banking house of Winslow, Lanier & Co. in 1873, with his father, James Winslow, his uncle, Richard H. Winslow, and his grandfather, J. F. D. Lanier, and is now recognized as one of the leading financiers of New York. His clubs include the Metropolitan, Tuxedo, New York Yacht, Larchmont Yacht and others. He is a trustee of the New York Skin and Cancer Hospital, and actively interested in other philan- thropic institutions. He married, in 1873, Emma Corning Sweetser, daughter of J. A. Sweetser, and has one daughter, Marguerite Lanier Winslow. He resides at 27 West Fifty-third Street.

630

BUCHANAN WINTHROP

T HIS gentleman is the head of the Winthrop family, being the eldest son in direct descent from John Winthrop, 1587-1649, the first Governor of Massachusetts. He is descended through John Still Winthrop, 1720-1776, of Boston and New London, the only son of John Winthrop, 1681-1747, fellow of the Royal Society, whose wife was Anne Dudley, daughter of Governor Joseph Dudley, of Massachusetts. The grandfather of John Still Winthrop was Major- General Wait Still Winthrop, 1643-1717, Chief Justice of Massachusetts, and his great-grandfather was John Winthrop, 1606-1676, Governor of Connecticut for many years, and the son of Governor John Winthrop, the founder of Massachusetts.

John Still Winthrop was the great-great-grandfather of the subject of this sketch, who is thus a descendant, in the eighth generation, from the founder of the family in this country. He was born in 1720, graduated from Yale College in 1737 and died in 1776. His first wife, the ancestress of Mr. Buchanan Winthrop, was Jane Borland, daughter of Francis Borland, of Boston. The sons of John Still Winthrop were the heads of two families that have been prominent in New York City during the present century. Francis Bayard Winthrop, 1754-1817, the great-grandfather of Mr. Buchanan Winthrop, was the head of one of these branches. His first wife, from whom the Winthrops of this generation are descended and whom he married in 1779, was Elsie Marston, daughter of Thomas Marston, a prominent New York merchant of the Revolutionary period, who married Cornelia Lispenard, sister of Anthony Lispenard. His father was Nathaniel Marston, merchant, one of the governors of Columbia College, named in the charter of that institution. He was descended from Nathaniel Marston, who settled on Long Island in 1639. For his second wife, Francis Bayard Winthrop married Phoebe Taylor, daughter of John Taylor. Benjamin Winthrop, the head of the other branch of the New York Winthrops, was a brother of Francis Bayard Winthrop.

John Still Winthrop, the eldest son of Francis Bayard Winthrop and grandfather of Mr. Buchanan Winthrop, was born in 1785, graduated from Yale College in the class of 1804 and died in 1855. He was one of New York's most successful merchants. The grandmother of Mr. Buchanan Winthrop, whom John Still Winthrop married in 1808, was Harriet Rogers, the fourth child of Fitch Rogers, a son of Samuel Rogers, of Norwalk, Conn., and his wife, Elizabeth Fitch, a relative of Governor Thomas Fitch. He was born about 1748, and about 1769 married Hannah Bell, daughter of Isaac Bell, of Stamford, Conn.

Henry Rogers Winthrop, the father of Mr. Buchanan Winthrop, was the eldest son of John Still Winthrop and his wife, Harriet Rogers. He was born in 1811, graduated from Yale College in 1830 and was a practicing lawyer in New York during his entire life, being a member of the Century Association, the Bar Association, the National Academy of Design and the New England Society. His first wife, whom he married in 1838 and who was the mother of Mr. Buchanan Win- throp, was Margaret Hicks, daughter of Thomas Hicks, of the Long Island family of that name. He married, in 1875, his second wife, Mary Gelston, daughter of Maltby Gelston, and died in 1896.

Mr. Buchanan Winthrop, the only son of Henry Rogers Winthrop, was born in New York in 1841, and graduated A. B. from Yale College in 1862, receiving his A. M. degree in due course. He graduated from the Columbia Law School in 1864, and is a practicing lawyer. In 1891, he was elected by the alumni of Yale a fellow of that University, and was reelected in 1895. He has been for many years the treasurer of the General Convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States. He belongs to the Tuxedo, Metropolitan, University, Century, Union, Downtown, New York Yacht and Riding clubs, the Yale Alumni Association, the Bar Association, and the New England Society, and is a patron of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. He married, in 1872, Sarah Helen Townsend, daughter of Isaac Townsend. Mr. Winthrop's city residence is at 279 Fifth Avenue, and he also has a country home at Lenox, Mass. He has one son, Henry Rogers Winthrop, a student at Yale University, and a daughter, Marie Winthrop.

631

EGERTON LEIGH WINTHROP

M ASSACHUSETTS, Connecticut and New York have each owed much to the Winthrop family, which has been well described as the flower of New England Puritanism. Its numerous branches are now found occupying distinguished places in these three States, while in every generation the number of its representatives possessing marked ability has been exceptionally large. Through the marriages of members of the family the name and ancestry of the Winthrops are frequently referred to in this work. John Winthrop, the founder of this nota- ble family in America, was the most eminent of the leaders by whose efforts New England was colonized. He belonged to a landed family in the County Suffolk, England, Adam Winthrop having been an influential merchant in London and Master of the Clothworkers' Company, a post of civic importance.

John Winthrop, who was a grandson of Adam Winthrop, was born at Groton, Suffolk County, in 1587, graduated from Trinity College, Cambridge, about 1605, and was bred to the bar. He became an earnest Puritan, and took a leading part in the plans for the establishment of a Colony in America under Puritan auspices and government. In 1629, he became Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Company, and when, in the following year, it was determined to carry the company with its charter and organization to the New World, he headed the great emigration. Landing at Salem, he finally settled in Boston, the rest of his life being a history of the Massachu- setts Colony. With the exception of a few years, he was annually elected Governor until his death, in 1649.

His son, the second John Winthrop, was scarcely less famous and shared all his father's fine qualities. Born at Groton, in 1606, he graduated from Trinity College, Dublin, studied law in the Temple at London, traveled on the Continent and obtained a military and diplomatic experience. Following his father to Massachusetts in 1631, he became a magistrate in 1633, and returning to England obtained a commission as Governor of Connecticut, under which he erected the fort at Saybrook and founded New London. From 1657, until his death in 1676, he was annually chosen Governor of Connecticut, and it was through his efforts and influence at the Court of Great Britain, that the charter of 1662 was granted to Connecticut. His wife, Elizabeth, was a daughter of Edmund Reade, of Wichford, Sussex, and step-daughter of the famous Hugh Peters. Their son, Wait Still Winthrop, 1643-1717, was Chief Justice of Massachusetts, and a Major-General, and his son, John Winthrop, 1681-1747, graduated from Harvard in 1700, and became famous as a scientist and was a member of the English Royal Society.

John Still Winthrop, 1720-1776, the only son of the third John Winthrop, was the ancestor of the family represented by the subject of this article. One of his great-grandsons, Benjamin R. Winthrop, was the father of Mr. Egerton Leigh Winthrop. Born in New York in 1804, Benjamin R. Winthrop was maternally descended from the Stuyvesants and other leading New York families. He possessed literary tastes, and was an intimate friend of' Fitz-Greene Halleck. Inheriting a large property, he was in early life occupied with the care of his real estate and interested in many philanthropic undertakings. He married Eliza A. C., daughter of William Neilson, and died in London in 1879.

Mr. Egerton Leigh Winthrop is a native of New York, and was graduated from Columbia College in 1860. He belongs to the Union, Knickerbocker, Metropolitan, Riding and other clubs, the Century Association, and the St. Nicholas Society. His eldest son, Egerton Leigh Winthrop, Jr., was born in Paris, France, August 14th, 1862, and graduated from Harvard Univer- sity in 1885. In 1890, he married Emeline Dora Heckscher, daughter of John G. Heckscher, of New York. He is a member of the Metropolitan, Union, Knickerbocker, Meadow Brook Hunt, Rockaway Hunt and other clubs, and lives in East Thirty-ninth Street. Another son is Frederick Bronson Winthrop, who graduated from Trinity College in 1886, and is a member of the Metropolitan, Knickerbocker, Racquet and other clubs.

632

FRANK SPENCER WITHERBEE

T HE family of which Mr. Frank S. Witherbee is the representative in this generation was originally settled near Witherby in Yorkshire, England, to which place it gave the name, and whence in the course of centuries its members were scattered throughout the Northern and Eastern counties. John Witherbee, the pioneer of the family in this country, came from Norfolk, England, soon after the first Pilgrims, and settled in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. He was a freeman there before 1650. His descendants became leading men in public affairs in what is known as the Essex County section of Massachusetts. Captain Silas Witherbee, the direct ancestor of the subject of this sketch, was one of the most important men of Salem, Mass., where he was born in 1707. His descendants have been numerous, and active participants in public affairs in Eastern Massachusetts and elsewhere in every generation since his time.

Jonathan Gilman Witherbee, the father of Mr. Frank S. Witherbee, was born in Crown Point, N. Y., June 7th, 1821. In 1839, when he was eighteen years of age, he entered upon busi- ness life, at first in Port Henry, N. Y., and afterwards at Saugerties, N. Y., where he remained for several years. In 1849, in association with an uncle, he organized the iron manufacturing firm of S. H. & J. G. Witherbee, in which he was the junior partner. Three years later they purchased an iron mine near Port Henry, and ultimately Lee & Sherman, an old established concern in the same line, joined forces with them, the new firm being Witherbee, Sherman & Co., which became one of the largest iron manufacturers in the Eastern States.

In addition to his connection with this firm, Mr. Witherbee maintained other important business connections in Northern and Eastern New York, including railroad enterprises in that section and transportation facilities upon Lake Champlain, aiding materially in developing the resources of that part of the State. He promoted the Port Henry Iron Company, the Cedar Point Iron Company, the Port Henry Towing Company, the First National Bank of Port Henry, and other corporations.

Mr. Frank Spencer Witherbee, the eldest son of Jonathan Gilman Witherbee, was born . in Port Henry, N. Y., May 12th, 1852, prepared for college at New Haven, Conn., and graduated from Yale College in the class of 1874. A year after he had taken his degree, his father died, and he succeeded to the management of the estate, entering at once upon a busi- ness life, instead of upon the professional one which he had marked out for himself. He has been one of the most successful business men of his section of New York State.

In 1893, he assisted in reorganizing the Troy Steel & Iron Company, a corporation of which he became president, and which succeeded to the management of the famous iron works established two generations ago in Troy by Erastus Corning, John F. Winslow, John A. Griswold, and others. Soon after, the company erected a large plant on Breaker Island, near Troy, for the manufacture of basic steel. It is one of the largest and best equipped establishments of its kind in this country. Another enterprise which Mr. Witherbee fostered a few years ago was the exportation of Lake Champlain iron ores to Europe.

In 1883, Mr. Witherbee married Mary Rhinelander Stewart, daughter of Lispenard Stewart, the elder, of New York City. Mr. and Mrs. Witherbee reside at 4 Fifth Avenue. Their summer residence is at Port Henry, N. Y. Mr. Witherbee belongs to the Metropolitan, Union League, Union, University, Riding, University Athletic, Westminster Kennel and Engineers' clubs, and is also a member of the Downtown Association, the American Museum of Natural History, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Sons of the Revolution, and the American Geographical Society. He is a Republican in politics, has taken an active part in the party's councils, and in 1888 was a Presidential elector on the Harrison and Morton ticket. For several years he was a member of the Republican State and National Committees. He has traveled extensively, and belongs to the American Institute of Mining Engineers, the American Association for the Advance- ment of Science and other scientific organizations.

633

GERARDUS HILLES WYNKOOP, M. D.

T HE gentleman whose family history is considered in this sketch traces his descent in unbroken line back to the first American pioneer of the name, Peter Wynkoop, who came to the New Netherland before 1639. He was a commissary superintendent of wares and merchandise for the Patroon Van Rensselaer, and after remaining a few years in New Amsterdam settled in Rensselaerwyck, where he resided in 1644. He was commissioned by the Patroon Van Rensselaer to purchase land about Catskill from the natives and, in connection with Commissary General Arendt Van Curler, to recover land and other property that had been purchased and misapplied by a former agent, Adrian Van Derdonck. In the second generation, Cornelius Wynkoop, son of Peter Wynkoop, came from Utrecht, Holland, of which place he was a native, and settled at Fort Orange, now Albany, in 1665. After a time he removed to Hurley, Ulster County, where he was a schepen in 1673.

Gerrit Wynkoop, son of Cornelius Wynkoop, took the oath of allegiance to the English authorities in 1689. He was an ensign of the Foot Company in Ulster and Dutchess County in 1700, and a deacon of the church at Kingston in 1712. In 1717, he removed to More- land, then Philadelphia, now Montgomery County, Pa., and was an elder of the church, 1744-45, in North and South Hampton. He married a daughter of Gerrit Fokker and Jakomyntje Slecht, and their son Gerrit was the father of Gerardus Wynkoop, who was an officer in the Revolutionary War and in time of peace was for nineteen years a member of the Lower House of the General Assembly of Pennsylvania, being several times its Speaker. His wife was Elizabeth Bennett. He died about 1812. David Wynkoop, son of Gerardus Wynkoop and grandfather of Dr. Gerardus H. Wynkoop, lived in Bucks County, Pa., and was a representative in the Legislature for six years.

The father of Dr. Wynkoop was the Reverend Stephen Rose Wynkoop, son of David Wynkoop and his wife, Mary Van Horn. He was born in 1806 and graduated from Union College in 1829. Four years later, he went on an expedition to the western coast of Africa as a commis- sioner on behalf of the American Board of Foreign Missions, to explore that region with the view to establishing a missionary station there. Upon his return home, he entered upon the study of theology at the Theological Seminary connected with Princeton College and was licensed to preach in 1837. The following year he was installed as pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Wilmington, Del., and filled that pulpit for twenty years, until his resignation, in 1858. He died in 1876. The wife of the Reverend Stephen Rose Wynkoop, whom he married in 1836, was Aurelia Mills, daughter of Judge Mills, of New Haven, Conn.

Dr. Gerardus Hilles Wynkoop was born in 1843. He received his preparatory education in schools and seminaries and then went to Yale College, from which institution he was graduated in the class of 1864. Coming to New York, he began the study of medicine under the direction of the celebrated Dr. Willard Parker, and has now been engaged in general medical practice in New York for more than thirty years. The wife of Dr. Wynkoop, whom he married in 1866, was Ann Eliza Woodbury, daughter of General Daniel Phineas Woodbury, of the United States Engineer Corps. Dr. Wynkoop lives in Madison Avenue. His clubs include the Union, City, Democratic, Riding, University and Rockaway Hunt, and he belongs to the Yale Alumni Association, the Holland Society and the American Geographical Society, and is a patron of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. He has four children: Gerardus Mills, who is a member of the Union and City clubs; Kate Childs, who married Harold Stanley Forwood, eldest son of Sir William B. Forwood; Daniel Woodbury, and Elizabeth Hilles Wynkoop. A brother of Dr. Wynkoop was the Reverend Theodore Stephen Wynkoop, who was born in 1839, graduated from Yale College in 1861 and from the Presbyterian Theological Seminary of Princeton in 1864, and the same year was ordained pastor of the Second Presbyterian Church of Huntington, Long Island. Afterwards he engaged in foreign missionary work and for many years was in charge of a station at Allahabad, Northern India.

634

FERNANDO YZNAGA

F ROM an ancient Spanish family came Antonio Yznaga del Valle, the father of the gentleman whose name appears at the head of this sketch. His immediate ancestors for several generations were residents of Cuba, where they were among the wealthiest and most aris- tocratic people of that island. Antonio Yznaga was born in Cuba in 1823. In common with many Cuban young men, he came to this country to be educated, when he was a mere boy, and received instruction in private schools in the vicinity of New York. When his education had been com- pleted, he returned to his native island with the intention of complying with his parents' wishes, and settling in business there. But his residence in the United States and his education had thoroughly Americanized him, and, after two years, finding his interests and his sympathies fixed more firmly in this country than in his native island, he came back to the United States and established himself in business in New York, settling here finally in 1847. He first engaged in the commission busi- ness almost exclusively with Cuba, and for more than a quarter of a century his house was one of the leading commission establishments in New York. He also owned several large sugar planta- tions in Cuba, and had other real estate holdings there. During the Civil War, although his busi- ness connections were largely with the South, he was an enthusiastic supporter of the Union cause. He died in 1892.

The mother of Fernando Yznaga, whom Antonio Yznaga del Valle married in 1850, was Ellen Maria Clements. She was the daughter of J. Clements, of Louisiana, and his wife, Maria Augusta Little, and the granddaughter of William Little, of Boston, and Frances Boyd, William Little being a well-known Boston merchant of the famous Little family, and Frances Boyd being the daughter of James Boyd, of Newburyport, Mass., and his wife, Susannah Coffin, also of New- buryport. James Boyd, of Newburyport, who was the maternal great-grandfather of Mrs. Yznaga, was born in 1732, and died in 1798. He was the first of his family to come to this country, being a son of Robert Boyd, of Kilmanrock, Scotland, and in the seventeenth generation through the Leslies and Earls of Sutherland from Robert Bruce, King of Scotland.

Through their wealth and high family connections, Antonio Yznaga and his wife occupied high social position in New York. They had one son, Fernando Yznaga, and three daughters, Consuelo, Natica and Emily Yznaga. One of the most brilliant social events in New York in the spring of 1876, was the marriage of Consuelo Yznaga to George Victor Drogo Montague, Viscount Mandeville, who succeeded his father as Duke of Manchester, and died several years ago. The first ancestor of the house of Manchester was Drogo de Monte Acuto, a warrior who came with Robert, Earl Morton, at the time of the Conquest. From him sprang the Montecutes and Montagues, among them Sir Edward Montague, the progenitor of the Earls and Dukes of Manchester, who was the Lord Chief Justice of England, in 1539, and appointed by the will of Henry VIII. to be regent of the kingdom. His grandson, Sir Henry Montague, was Lord Chief Justice of the King's Bench in 1616, and Lord Treasurer in 1620, and was created Earl of Manchester in 1626. The last Duke of Manchester was born in 1853, and previous to his accession to the head of the house was a Captain in the Third Battalion of the Royal Irish Fusileers. The children of the Duchess of Manchester are William Angus Drogo, Viscount Mandeville, and Jacquiline-Mary-Alva, and Alice Eleanor Louise. Natica Yznaga, the second daughter of Antonio Yznaga, married, in 1881, Sir Pepys Lister Kaye, who was born in 1853.

Mr. Fernando Yznaga, the oldest child and only son of Antonio Yznaga and his wife, Ellen Maria Clements, was born in New York in 1851. He has been engaged in the banking business, and has been a prominent figure in the social life of the city in this generation. He is a member of the Tuxedo Club, and has his permanent residence in Tuxedo Park. He also belongs to the Metropolitan, Union, Country, Manhattan, Athletic and Meadow Brook Hunt clubs. He is a gradu- ate from the Lawrence Scientific School, of Harvard University, and has received the degree of LL. D. from the Louisiana Law School.

635

ANDREW CHRISTIAN ZABRISKIE

A NOBLEMAN, who belonged to an ancient Polish family, was driven from his native land by political oppression in the middle of the sixteenth century and, fleeing to Holland, joined there in the tide of emigration which at that time had begun to set in toward the new Colonies in America. Albrecht Zaborowsky was the name of this Polish refugee who came to New Netherland in the ship Fox in 1662. He had been intended for the Lutheran ministry, but the authorities had sought to force him into the army, and had also inflicted other indignities upon him which finally forced him into self-imposed exile. On his arrival here he settled on the banks of the Hackensack River at Paramus, N. J., and married a daughter of one of the Dutch families which are already established there. His five sons founded the numerous branches of the Zabriskie family in this country. The ancient records exhibit curious vagaries in the spelling of the family name, but finally usage settled upon the present form of Zabriskie, which has remained fixed for several generations past.

The fourth son of Albrecht Zaborowsky married in 1715 Lea Hendriksze Hoppe, or Hopper, a name which is identified with one of the oldest land-owning families of New York. Descendants of this couple have notably figured in the history of the States of New York and New Jersey. Abraham O. Zabriskie, 1807-1873, State Senator and Chancellor of New Jersey, was one of the most illustrious members of the family. One of Chancellor Zabriskie's sons, Augustus Zabriskie, is a prominent lawyer in New Jersey, who married Josephine Booraem and resides at South Orange.

Another descendant was Andrew C. Zabriskie, a well-known New York merchant a hundred years ago, and Adjutant of a squadron of horse in Bergen County, N. J., where he lived. He was the grandfather of Mr. Andrew Christian Zabriskie, of this generation, who was named after his ancestor. The father of Mr. Zabriskie was Christian A. Zabriskie, who lived a retired life until his death in 1879, upon an estate in Paramus, N. J., which is part of the land handed down from the original founder of the family in America.

On the maternal side, Mr. Zabriskie's grandfather was William M. Titus, a merchant of New York, and an officer of the Eleventh Artillery in the War of 1812. After the war, he became a Captain in the same regiment, which was subsequently called the Twenty-Seventh Infantry, and finally became the famous Seventh Regiment. The maternal great-grandfather of Mr. Zabriskie was Thomas Gardner, also a man of wealth and business prominence.

Mr. Andrew Christian Zabriskie was born in New York, May 30th, 1853, and was educated in private schools and in Columbia College. Inheriting large real estate properties, he has devoted himself mainly to the business connected with those interests. Military matters, how- ever, have also engrossed his attention. He enlisted in 1873 in Company B, of the Seventh Regi- ment, and served for over seven years. Elected Captain of Company C, in the Seventy-First Regiment, he held that position until he was promoted to the rank of Inspector of Rifle Practice on the staff of the same regiment. He presented to the regiment the Zabriskie trophy, a hand- some bronze, to be annually competed for at rifle practice.

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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 106

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