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 11

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

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During the Revolutionary War, Hendrick 1. Bogart was Assistant Deputy Quartermaster- General under Colonel Morgan Lewis, and a member of the Committee of Safety, was appointed by Congress Commissioner of Stores and Provisions in 1775, and by General Washington Inspector of Revenues of the Port of Albany in 1791. He was an alderman in 1767 and city surveyor.

Johannes Bogart, who was the son of Hendrick I. Bogart, was born in 1761, married Chris- tiana, daughter of Captain John Vought, of Duanesburgh, and died in 1853, aged ninety-two. At the time of his death he was the oldest mariner of the Hudson River, having commanded a vessel in 1776, and was an intimate friend of General Phillip Schuyler, of the old Patroon Stephen Van Rennselear and of other leading men of that period. He was the father of John Henry Bogart, who, born in Albany in 1809 and educated in the Albany Academy, was a prominent merchant of Albany and New York, and who married Eliza Hermans, daughter of John Hermans, of Albany.

Mr. John Bogart, civil engineer, was the oldest son of John Henry Bogart and his wife Eliza. He was born in Albany, February 8th, 1826. His early education was secured in the Albany Academy, and he then attended Rutgers College, in New Brunswick, N. J., graduating therefrom in 1853. Immediately after completing his education he entered upon the practical work of civil engineering. His first employment was in the location and construction of several railroads and upon the enlargement of the Erie Canal. For a short time he was an instructor in the Albany Academy, and was then engaged upon the original construction of Central Park. During the Civil War he was in the Engineer Service of the Union Army, stationed most of the time at Fortress Monroe. In the years immediately following the war he was engaged largely upon public parks, his work being principally in laying out Prospect Park, Brooklyn, the West Chicago Parks, the State Capitol Grounds of Nashville, Tenn., and the Albany Park, the construction of which he designed and supervised. He was engineer-in-chief of the Brooklyn Park Commission, chief engi- neer of the Department of Public Parks of New York, and director and secretary of the American Society of Civil Engineers. He is a member of the Century Association, the University, 4¢, Lawyers' and Engineers' clubs, the Essex Club of Newark and the Essex County Country Club, the Holland Society and the St. Nicholas Society. His wife was Emma Clara Jeffries, daughter of Professor William J. Jeffries, of Westchester, Pa.

FRANK STUART BOND

W ILLIAM BOND, who was baptized in St. James Church, Bury St. Edmonds, September 8th, 1625, the ancestor of Mr. Frank S. Bond's family in this country, came from England in 1630, with Deacon Ephraim Child, whose wife was his father's sister. They settled in Watertown, Mass., of which town he became a prominent citizen. He was of the Council of Safety in 1689, and speaker of the General Court of Massachusetts Bay in 1691. He was also the first speaker elected under the new Royal Charter, that united the Colonies of Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay into one Colony in 1692, which office he held in 1695, when he died. He married, February 7th, 1649, Sarah, the daughter of Nathaniel Biscoe, an original settler of Watertown. William Bond was the third son of Thomas Bond, of Bury St. Edmonds, Suffolk, England, and grandson of Jonas Bond of the same place.

A son of William Bond was Colonel Jonas Bond, of Watertown, 1664-1727, who was Lieutenant-Colonel in the expedition to Canada under Sir William Phipps, in 1690, and was a representative of Watertown to the General Court. The great-great-grandson of Colonel Jonas Bond was the Reverend Dr. Alvan Bond, a distinguished Congregational minister of Massachusetts and Connecticut. He was born in 1793, graduated from Brown University in 1815, and from Andover Theological Seminary in 1818. He was pastor of the Congregational Church in Stur- bridge, Mass., from 1819 to 1831, and Professor of Sacred Literature in Bangor Theological Seminary from 1831 to 1835. In 1835 he went to Norwich, Conn., as pastor of the Second Con- gregational Church, and remained there until he died, in 1876. His first wife, the mother of Major Frank S. Bond, was Sarah Richardson. She was the daughter of Ezra Richardson, of Medway, Mass., and granddaughter of Captain Joseph Lovell, of the Massachusetts Militia, in the Revolu- tionary War. A recent volume, entitled Alvan Bond, Life and Ancestry, 1896, contains sketches of forty-two early settlers, ancestors of Mr. Frank S. Bond.

Born in Sturbridge, Mass., in 1830, the seventh in descent from William Bond, Mr. Frank S. Bond began his business career before he was twenty years of age. In 1849 he entered the office of the Norwich & Worcester Railroad Company ; removed to Cincinnati in 1850, and became secretary of the Cincinnati, Hamilton & Dayton Railroad Company ; came to New York in 1857, and until 1861 was an officer of other roads.

When the Civil War broke out, Mr. Bond gave up his business and went into the service of his country. In 1862, he was commissioned First Lieutenant in the Tenth Regiment of Connecticut Volunteers, and assigned as aide-de-camp to Brigadier-General Daniel Tyler, then serving in General Pope's command in the Department of Mississippi, and who took an active part in the operations that led to the capture of Corinth. After that he served as Captain and aide-de-camp on the staff of Major General W. S. Rosecrans, at Stone River, Murfreesboro, Tullahoma, Chattanooga, Chicka- mauga and in other engagements. After the death of Lieutenant-Colonel Garaseche, Chief of Staff to General Rosecrans at the Battle of Stone River, Captain Bond was appointed by the President, Major and aide-de-camp, and assigned as senior aide-de-camp on staff of Major-General Rosecrans.

At the end of the war, Major Bond again entered the railroad service and became vice-presi- dent of the Missouri, Kansas & Texas Railroad, 1868-73 ; vice-president of the Texas & Pacific, 1873-81 ; president of the Philadelphia & Reading, 1881-82 ; president of the five associated roads, the Cincinnati, New Orleans & Texas Pacific ; the Alabama Great Southern ; New Orleans & Northeastern ; Vicksburg & Meridian, and Vicksburg, Shreveport & Pacific, 1884-86. Since 1886 he has been first vice-president of the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railway Company, with headquarters in New York City. He belongs to the Sons of the American Revolution (Connecticut Society) ; the Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States ; the Metropolitan, Century, Union League, and Union clubs, the New England Society, the New York Historical Society, the American Geographical Society, and is a life member of the National Academy of Design, the American Fine Arts Society, and the New York Zoological Society.

ROBERT BONNER

S PRUNG from sturdy Scotch-Irish stock, this eminent citizen of New York was born in Ramelton, Ireland, in 1824. Several members of his maternal grandfather's family had emigrated to this country early in the present century, one of his uncles being a landowner near Hartford, Conn. Crossing the ocean in 1839, Mr. Robert Bonner came to this uncle and began life as an apprentice in the composing room of The Hartford Courant. Here he was thoroughly grounded, not only in the details of the printing trade, but in those of publishing and in editorial work. In 1844, he came to New York and formed a connection with The New York Evening Mirror, then conducted by Nathaniel Parker Willis. He also became the New York correspondent of The Hartford Courant, and acted in the same capacity for newspapers in Washington, Boston and Albany. In 1850, when he had been six years in New York, he undertook the publication of The Merchants' Ledger, an insignificant commercial paper. In a short time, he became its owner, and gradually abandoning the commercial features in favor of fiction, he changed its name in 1855 to The New York Ledger, a publication which revolutionized the business of weekly periodicals in this country. Mr. Bonner's remarkable success was due to the combina- tion of features which he originated and employed in this connection. He made the tone of the paper healthy and pure, his advertising was conducted upon a phenomenal scale, and he engaged a notable array of writers, including such eminent names in American literature as Fanny Fern, John G. Saxe, N. P. Willis, Edward Everett, Henry Ward Beecher and Horace Greeley. Mr. Bonner continued in active business and editorial charge of his paper until 1887, when he per- manently retired from journalism and was succeeded by his sons.

For many years Mr. Bonner has been identified with the development of the American trotting horse. His interest in driving was originally due to his physician, who advised him to thus obtain exercise and healthful recreation. He has never been interested in the turf, and is unalterably opposed to betting and gambling, nor have any of the horses he owns ever been entered on the race track. Peerless, Rarus, Dexter, Maud S. and Sunol, the most celebrated trotting horses in the world, have been inmates of Mr. Bonner's stable, being used simply for his own pleasure. His liberality has raised the value of horses throughout the country, and his example has done much to cultivate the taste of Americans for highly-bred horses. His stock farm, near Tarrytown, N. Y., is one of the most famous establishments of its kind in the world. Religious and educational objects have been largely benefited by Mr. Bonner's generosity. He contributed a considerable amount toward the building of the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church and has made numerous gifts to Princeton University, contributing half the expense of its new gymnasium. In Mount Auburn Cemetery, Boston, a beautiful marble monument which he erected marks the last resting place of the authoress, Fanny Fern. Mr. Bonner has been president of the Scotch-Irish Society of America from its foundation to the present time, and is a member of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. His city residence is in West Fifty-sixth Street.

Since 1887, the three sons of Mr. Bonner have conducted the journal which he established. The eldest, Andrew Allen Bonner, married Jeanette Fitch, daughter of George B. Fitch, of Lawrenceburg, Ind. He inherits his father's tastes for horses, and owns, among others, the celebrated Alcantara and King Rene, Jr.

Robert Edwin Bonner, the second son, born in New York in 1854, graduated from Princeton University in 1876. In 1880, he married Kate Helena Griffith, daughter of Edward Griffith, of this city. They have four children, Griffith, Hampton, Kenneth and Kate d'Anterroches Bonner. He is a member of the Metropolitan, University, Princeton, Press and Fulton clubs and the Princeton Alumni Association, and takes an active part in social life.

Frederick Bonner, the youngest of the family, is also a graduate of Princeton University. He married Marie Louise Clifford, daughter of Robert H. Clifford. He is a connoisseur of art and a writer of marked ability.

ROBERT ELMER BOORAEM

W ILLIAM JACOBSE van BOERUM, who came to the New Netherland in 1649, sprang from a family that ranks among the nobility of the Low Country. The name was changed in spelling several times by its American bearers and was finally trans- formed to Booraem early in the eighteenth century. It is derived from the town of Burum or Boerum, near Dokkum, in the Dutch province of Friesland. Its first representative in this country was a magistrate at Flatbush, L. I., in 1657, 1662 and 1663, and represented the same place in a convention held by the Dutch government of the Province in February in 1664, as recorded in The Early Settlers of Kings County, by Tunis Bergen. Among his descendants was the patriot Simon Boerum, whom death alone deprived of the honor of signing the Declaration of Independence.

About 1718 the family established their seat at New Brunswick, and it is in this line that Mr. Robert Elmer Booraem traces his descent. New Brunswick was noted in early days for its cultivated society and at the era of the Revolution the great leaders were entertained there when passing between New York and Philadelphia. Representing, as he does, one of the most ancient Dutch names in New York's history, he is also related to such New York, New Jersey and New England families as Rutgers, Brinckerhof, Morrell, Van Vechten, de Mott, de Genereux, Van Horne, Rolfe, Gale, Van Wagenen, Potter, Petit, as well as Van Vorst, Vacher and Elmer. Hendrick Booraem, his grandfather, mentioned in The Old Merchants of New York, was noted for the elegance of his manners. He was Colonel of one of the New York City militia regiments. The business place of the large importing house of which he was the head was in Pearl Street, near Wall, and in 1815 his residence was at No. 16 Dey Street. About 1826 he removed to No. 24 Warren Street, and when, some years later, he built a house at No. 481 Broadway, he was thought to have moved out of town. He was warden of Christ Church when it was in Anthony Street, and was a trustee and incorporator of the Marble Cemetery, where the family vault is situated. The wife of Hendrick Booraem was Hannah Radley Morrell, of the old New York family of that name.

His son, Henry A. Booraem, and the father of Mr. Robert Elmer Booraem, was born in Dey Street, New York, September 3d, 1815. He entered his father's business house and later on became prominent in the importing trade as a partner in the firm of L. & B. Curtis and Company. He retired some thirty years ago, and died, at his residence in Jersey City, in 1889. Respected in both business and social life as a man of the highest character, he was a member of the Board of Trade and of the Committee of One Hundred in Jersey City.

Cornelia (Van Vorst) Booraem, his wife, was a daughter of John Van Vorst. Cornelius Van Vorst, from whom she was descended in the seventh generation, came over in June, 1636, as Commander and Superintendent of Pauw's Colony of Pavonia, now in part Jersey City. His son, Ide Van Vorst, is mentioned by the historians of the New Netherland as the first white male child born and married within its limits. The same authorities also make many references to him, as for instance when he saluted Governor Wouter Van Twiller and when he entertained the latter, Domine Bogardus, Captain de Vries and other dignitaries representing church and State with princely hospitality from his cellar newly filled with the wine of Bordeaux. His family was of importance, one of his relatives being John Van Vorst, a Professor at the University of Leyden.

The large landed possessions acquired by Cornelius Van Vorst included the tract which became Van Vorst Township, fronting on the Hudson River, Hudson County, N. J., and which later was united with Jersey City. A large part of this estate continued in the possession of his descendants through all the succeeding eight generations, and Mr. Robert E. Booraem owns a portion of this ancestral property. The members of the family presented the Jersey City municipality with the land for Van Vorst Square; and Grace Church, Van Vorst, in that city, was organized by the efforts of Mr. Booraem's father, the late Henry A. Booraem, and owed much to the generosity and support of his mother-in-law, Sarah (Vacher) Van Vorst, and others of her family. Mr. Booraem's maternal grandmother was born Sarah Vacher, and was the daughter of the

Revolutionary hero and famous New York surgeon, Dr. John Francis Vacher. The latter was born in 1751 at Soliers, a small town near Toulon, France. He received his medical degree in 1769 from the College de Chirugie of Montpelier, in Lower Languedoc. Coming to New York City at the outbreak of the Revolution, he was made surgeon to the Fourth New York Regiment. His services among the starving troops at Valley Forge were particularly memorable. At the close of the war, under Act of Congress of October 21st, 1780, he was discharged after serving his adopted country faithfully in its time of need, and he was among the group of officers who originated the Society of the Cincinnati. Resuming the practice of his profession in New York City, he numbered among his patients members of leading families. His residence was in Fulton, then called Fair Street, and his country home at Bottle Hill, now Madison, N. J.

On his father's side, Mr. Booraem also descends from an eminent New England family whose lineage is of the most ancient description, his own second name, Elmer, commemorating this connection. Aylmer, or Elmer, was an officer of State in the reign of Edward the Confessor, and his large estates in Essex are mentioned in Domesday Book. John Aylmer was tutor to the unfortunate Lady Jane Gray, and afterwards Lord Bishop of London under Elizabeth. His son was Sir Robert Aylmer, and his grandson, Edward Aylmer, came to America in 1632, settled in Cambridge, Mass., became one of the original proprietors of Hartford, Conn., and was slain in King Philip's War. The name was transformed in spelling to Elmer. One of its representatives was the Reverend Jonathan Elmer, who graduated in Yale in 1747, and subsequently became identi- fied with the town of Elizabeth, N. J., and was the editor of the first newspaper there.

Born at Jersey City, March 28th, 1856, Mr. Robert Elmer Booraem was educated at schools in Germany and at the Anthon Grammar School in New York. He then entered the School of Mines of Columbia College, and after graduation took a post-graduate course for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, and in 1878 was given the degree of Engineer of Mines. Soon after he took up active work as assayer at the great mining camp at Leadville, Col., and finally became manager of the well-known Evening Star Mine. He afterwards successfully assumed a similar post with the Morning Star Mining Company, and had charge of the Farwell Gold Mine at Independence, Col., and after eight years in Colorado, became the executive head of the Blue Bird Mining Com- pany, of Montana, which under his administration produced several millions for its owners. He also acquired a number of silver mines at Aspen, Col. Mr. Booraem confesses to a fascination for the mining country, and after twelve years there returned to the East with regret. He is Director and Consulting Engineer of the properties with which he was identified, and though now making his home in New York at 2 East Fifteenth Street, takes frequent trips to the West in connection with his mining and other interests, the latter including real estate in Salt Lake City and a large ranch on Salina River, Kan.

His immediate family includes four brothers living and two sisters, one of whom, Frances D. Booraem, is a member of the Colonial Dames, admitted through thirteen distinct lines of descent. She is also Treasurer of the Daughters of the Cincinnati, and is the first Directoress of the Home for Aged Women in Jersey City, an institution founded by one of her family. His other sister, Josephine, is Mrs. Augustus Zabriskie, her husband being the youngest son of the late Chancellor Zabriskie of New Jersey.

Mr. Booraem owns a number of old family portraits and paintings of the Dutch School. He has musical tastes and is a member of a number of social organizations, including the Calumet, American Yacht and Badminton clubs, also of the Society of Colonial Wars, the Sons of the Revolution, the St. Nicholas Society and the American Institute of Mining Engineers. He is active in the Alumni of the School of Mines, Columbia College, and in 1894 was appointed a member of the Alumni of the School in connection with the removal of Columbia University to Morningside Heights, and Class Treasurer of the Alumni Memorial Hall Fund.

The arms of van Booraem are :- Gold, a Moor's head with silver head band accompanied by three green clover leaves, two above, one below, surmounted by a knight's helmet with necklace. The family is now represented in the nobility of the Netherlands.

MRS. J. A. BOSTWICK

E ARLY in the seventeenth century, the name of Bostwick appeared among the English founders of the New England Colonies. The family, while not large, was, however, scattered during the succeeding generations, until its representatives are found in many por- tions of the country. The late Jabez Abel Bostwick belonged to the branch of his family which became established in Delaware County, N. Y., where he was born in the town of Delhi, Septem- ber 23rd, 1830. His parents removed to Ohio when he was quite young, and there he received his education and at an early age engaged in the business pursuits in which he was to be so successful. Beginning life with little beyond his education and natural ability, his progress was rapid and steady. He resided for a time in several Western cities, including Cleveland, O., Lexington, Ky., and Cincinnati, O. He was engaged both in banking and in mercantile business, and was noted for his comprehensive grasp of the largest and most involved affairs, and naturally became at a compara- tively early age possessed of considerable means. Although personally retiring and extremely modest by nature, he took a natural position of leadership in the situations in which he was placed by the mere force of talent, and by the unceasing industry which throughout his life was one of his marked characteristics.

New York City, however, presented, as it always does, a wider field for one of Mr. Bostwick's capacity and energy in affairs, and in 1866 he removed here and founded a cotton brokerage firm under the title of Bostwick & Tilford, his partner being John H. Tilford, the son of one of the gen- tlemen with whom, in Lexington, Ky., his own first business experiences had been obtained. At that time, the discovery of mineral oil and its utilization for so many different purposes had only begun. Mr. Bostwick was one of the first in the country to appreciate the possibilities in that connection as a source of both individual and national wealth and a leading and useful industry. He entered into the business, in all its branches of production and manufacture, with characteristic energy and success and attained a commanding influence in the trade, so that when the great com- bination of such interests was formed which is now known as the Standard Oil Company, he was one of its leading members and took charge of its finances with the position of treasurer. Other large and varied interests also engaged his attention. He was prominent in railroad affairs and was at one time president of the New York & New England Railroad Company, and the largest owner of the Housatonic Railroad, while he was interested in innumerable enterprises of various kinds, many of them tending to increase the commercial and manufacturing importance of New York. He was a member of the New York Stock Exchange, and of the Cotton Exchange and many other prominent commercial bodies.

Although typically American in his devotion to the vast business interests of which he was the creator, Mr. Bostwick enjoyed the social side of life and was a member of the Union League, Manhattan, New York Yacht, Riding and other clubs, and was throughout his entire career noted for his generous and unostentatious gifts for charitable and philanthropic causes. Southern educational institutions were in particular the beneficiaries of his liberality, among them being the Wake Forest College, in North Carolina, and Richmond College, Virginia. He built and endowed the Emanuel Baptist Church, in Suffolk Street, New York, while he was a liberal supporter of many charitable objects. His death occurred in August, 1892.

Mr. Bostwick married, in New York City, in 1866, Helen C. Ford, daughter of Smith R. Ford, a retired merchant. The family of Mr. and Mrs. Bostwick consisted of three children, Albert Bostwick and two daughters, the eldest of whom is the widow of the late Francis Lee Morrell, of this city, the younger being Mrs. Carstairs, wife of Captain Albert Carstairs, of the Royal Irish Rifles. Both Mrs. Morrell and Mrs. Carstairs before marriage were prominent figures in the hunting field and the social coterie devoted to such sports in Westchester County. The Bostwick town house, which Mrs. Bostwick occupies in upper Fifth Avenue, is one of the handsomest in that residential portion of New York.

FREDERICK GILBERT BOURNE

O F English origin, the immediate ancestors of Mr. Frederick Gilbert Bourne were residents of Massachusetts and Maine. His paternal grandparents were Benjamin Bourne and Mary Hatch. His father was the Reverend George Washington Bourne, who was born in 1813 and married Harriet Gilbert in Portland, Me., in 1843, his death occurring in 1872. The Reverend George W. Bourne was the last of his immediate race, most of his family in his genera- tion having died young. Mrs. Bourne was born in 1817 and, surviving her husband, is now a resident of New York. Her father was an importer of iron and steel. He was born in Brookfield, Mass., in 1775 and for many years was engaged in shipping, in Portland.

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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 11

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