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 12

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

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Mr. Frederick Gilbert Bourne was born in Boston, Mass., in 1851. He was educated in the public schools of New York, and early in life entered upon a business career, his first position being with the Atlantic Submarine Wrecking Company, in 1865. Later he became secretary to Edward Clark, and upon his death, in 1882, Mr. Bourne was made manager of the Clark estate. In 1885, he was elected secretary of The Singer Manufacturing Company, and in a few years was advanced to the presidency of that corporation, which position he now holds. Mr. Bourne is a member of the Chamber of Commerce, and a director in the Bank of the Manhattan Company, Knickerbocker Trust Company, Central Railroad of New Jersey and Long Island Railroad Company. A sister of Mr. Bourne is Clara (Bourne) Whitman, of Groton, Conn., widow of John Loring Whit- man, who was a son of the Reverend Alphonso Loring Whitman, of Norwich, Conn., of one of the oldest Colonial families of New England. Another sister, May Louise, married Charles A. Miller, of New York. Mr. Bourne's only brother is William Theodore Bourne, of California.

Mr. Bourne married, February 9th, 1875, Emma Keeler, who belongs to an old New York family. The father of Mrs. Bourne was James Rufus Keeler and her mother was Mary Louisa Davidson, daughter of J. E. Davidson, of Scotland. Her father was born in 1818, the youngest son of William and Deborah (Lounsbury) Keeler, of Norwalk and Stamford, Conn. William Keeler, 1782-1822, married, in 1804, Deborah Lounsbury, 1784-1849, daughter of Amos and Elizabeth (Lockwood) Lounsbury; he was the eldest son of Isaac Keeler, of Norwalk, 1759-1814, whose wife was Deborah Whitney, 1758-1838, daughter of David and Elizabeth (Hyatt) Whitney. David Whitney, 1721-1816, was a master mariner of Norwalk, and tradition says that he was a soldier in the Revolutionary War. His wife, 1718-1798, was a daughter of Ebenezer and Elizabeth Hyatt, of Norwalk. He was the third son of Joseph and Hannah (Hoyt) Whitney.

Joseph Whitney, 1678-1741, was the second son of John and Elizabeth (Smith) Whitney. He married, in 1704, Hannah Hoyt, daughter of Zerubbabel Hoyt, of Norwalk, whose father, Walter Hoyt, was born about 1618, was in Windsor in 1640 and an early settler of Norwalk, in 1653. The father of Walter Hoyt was Simon Hoyte, who, born in England about 1595, came to Salem, Mass., in 1628, was in Charlestown the following year and afterwards lived in Dorchester and Scituate, Mass., and Windsor, Fairfield and Stamford, Conn., in which latter place he died in 1657. John Whitney, the father of Joseph Whitney, was a son of Henry Whitney, the American pioneer, and his mother was a daughter of Richard Smith. Henry Whitney was a native of England, where he was born about 1620. He was settled on Long Island prior to 1649, being a citizen of Southold, Huntington and Jamaica, and afterwards of Norwalk, Conn.

The city residence of Mr. and Mrs. Bourne is at the corner of Seventy-second Street and Central Park, West. Their country place is Indian Neck Hall, in Oakdale, Long Island. Their surviving children are Arthur Keeler, May Miller, Marion, Alfred Severin, Florence, George Galt, Marjorie, Kenneth and Howard Bourne. Frederick Gilbert, Jr., Louise and Helen Bourne, are deceased. Mr. Bourne belongs to the New York, Larchmont, Atlantic and Seawanhaka-Corinthian Yacht clubs, and the Racquet, South Side Sportsmen's and Lawyers' clubs. Mrs. Bourne's sisters are Mrs. Frederick E. Ballard and Mrs. Harry Cowdrey, of this city. Her only brother, James Waterbury Keeler, and her eldest sister, Mrs. Harry M. Dodge, are deceased.

GEORGE SULLIVAN BOWDOIN

A S the name indicates, the family of which Mr. George Sullivan Bowdoin is the promi- nent representative in New York in the present generation, is of French origin. lts American ancestor was Pierre Baudouin, a Huguenot, who first emigrated to Ireland, thence to Portland, Me., in 1678, and finally came to Boston in 1690. The grandson of Pierre Baudouin was Governor James Bowdoin, of Massachusetts, one of the famous pre-Revolutionary statesmen, who was also renowned as a lover and patron of learning. The University of Edin- burgh gave him the degree of LL. D., and he was one of the founders and first president of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. The son of Governor Bowdoin, James Bowdoin, was not less eminent. He studied at Oxford and was graduated from Harvard in 1771, was Minister to Spain in 1804, founded Bowdoin College, and was noted for his philanthropy.

After the formation of the Federal Government, when New York City became a political, business and social centre, two of the conspicuous figures of this last decade and a half of the century were Sir John Temple and his wife, Lady Temple, who was a daughter of Governor James Bowdoin. Lady Elizabeth Temple, according to the writers of the day, was "very distinguished looking and agreeable and one of the popular ladies in New York. She received guests every Tuesday evening and gave dinners, noted for their costliness, nearly every week to twenty or more guests." Mr. George S. Bowdoin is a direct descendant of Sir John and Lady Elizabeth Temple in the fourth generation. Sir John Temple, 1730-1798, was Lieutenant-Governor of New Hamp- shire, 1768-74; surveyor-general of the Northern District of America, 1761-77, and the first Consul- General of Great Britain to the United States, 1786-98. He was the son of Captain Robert Temple, of Charlestown, Mass., and Mehitable Nelson, who was the daughter of John Nelson, a member of the Committee of Safety in Boston, by his wife Elizabeth Tailer, daughter of William Tailer. John Nelson was a grandson of Sir John Temple, of Biddleson, who died in 1632, and a great-grandson of Sir Thomas Temple, of Stowe, who died in 1637, by his wife, Esther Sandys, daughter of Miles Sandys, of Latimers, Bucks. Sir Thomas Temple, 1542-1603, was the son of John and Susan (Spencer) Temple and descended in the eighth generation from Richard de Temple and Lady Agnes Stanley, daughter of Sir Ralph Stanley; and in the ninth generation from Nicholas de Temple and his wife, Lady Margery Corbet, daughter of Sir Robert Corbet. Thence the line of lineage runs back seven generations to Edwyn, Earl of Leicester and Coventry, the first of the family to assume the name of Temple. Edwyn Temple was descended from Algar, King of the East Saxons, who was the son of Leofric, King of Leicester, and his wife, Lady Godiva.

The great-grandmother of Mr. Bowdoin was Elizabeth Temple, the third child of Sir John and Lady Temple. She married, in 1786, Thomas Lindall Winthrop, of Massachusetts, who was born in New London in 1760, graduated from Harvard College in 1780, and died in Boston in 1841. In his early life he was an active Federalist, but became a Republican in 1812. He was a State Senator, Lieutenant-Governor of Massachusetts, 1826-32, a Presidential elector, and president of the Massachusetts Agricultural Society, the Massachusetts Historical Society and the American Anti- quarian Society. He was the great-grandson of Governor John Winthrop, of Connecticut, who was born in Groton Manor, England, in 1606, and died in Boston in 1676. Educated in Trinity College, Dublin, he came to this country in 1631 and settled in Ipswich, Mass., being one of the first assistants of Massachusetts. In 1646, he settled the plantation of Pequot, now New London, Conn., and was Governor of Connecticut from 1646 until his death. He was twice married, his first wife being his cousin, Martha Fones, and his second wife Elizabeth Reade, daughter of Edmund Reade, of Wickford, Essex. The father of John Winthrop was John Winthrop, the celebrated first Governor of Massachusetts. The mother of Governor John Winthrop, of Connecticut, was Mary Forth, daughter of John Forth, of Essex, England, and his grandparents were Adam Winthrop and Anne Browne, of Groton, Suffolk, England. The grandmother of Mr. Bowdoin was Sarah Winthrop, 1788-1864, the eldest daughter of Thomas Lindall Winthrop and Elizabeth Temple. She

was a sister of the Honorable Robert C. Winthrop, of Boston. The grandfather of Mr. Bowdoin was George Sullivan, 1783-1866. He was the son of James Sullivan, 1744-1808, who married for his first wife, Hetty Odiorne, daughter of William Odiorne, and for his second wife Martha Langdon, sister of Governor John Langdon, of New Hampshire. James Sullivan was king's attorney in 1770, a member of the Provincial Congress in 1774, Judge of the Supreme Court in 1776, delegate to Congress, 1784-85, a member of the Massachusetts Legislature, of the Governor's Council in 1787, Attorney-General, 1790-1807, and Governor of Massachusetts, 1807-08. He was descended, through the O'Sullivan-Bease family of Ireland, from Louis VII., of France. His father was Master Sullivan, born in the County Kerry, Ireland, in 1690, who came to this country in 1723 and settled in Berwick, Me. The father of Master Sullivan was Major Philip O'Sullivan, of Ardea, County Kerry, son of Owen O'Sullivan, who was descended from Daniel O'Sullivan, Lord of Bearehaven, and Joan McCarthy, daughter of Dermod McCarthy, of Killoween.

The father of Mr. Bowdoin was George R. J. Sullivan. Graduating from West Point, he took the name of Bowdoin, the family name of his great-grandmother, Lady Temple. He married Frances Hamilton, granddaughter of Alexander Hamilton and his wife, Elizabeth Schuyler, daughter of General Philip Schuyler; and thus Mr. George Sullivan Bowdoin traces his lineage to the Hamiltons, Schuylers, Van Rensselaers, Morrises, and other great families of New York, as well as to the notable New England families that have already been referred to. The father of Frances Hamilton and the grandfather of Mr. Bowdoin was James Alexander Hamilton, 1788-1878. He was graduated from Columbia College in 1805, and during the War of 1812 was Brigade Major and Inspector of the New York State Militia. After the war, he engaged in the practice of law. During the first administration of President Andrew Jackson, he was Secretary of State, and in 1829 became United States District Attorney for the Southern District of New York. He received the degree of LL. D. from Hamilton College and published a volume of reminiscences of his distin- guished father. His wife was Mary Morris, daughter of Gouverneur Morris.

Mr. George Sullivan Bowdoin was born in New York. He received his education in private schools and in the scientific department of Harvard College, where he studied for three years. Early manifesting a predilection for business, he entered the counting house of Aymar & Co., the great New York merchants, in South Street. He became a member of the firm of Morton, Bliss & Co., of New York, and of Morton, Rose & Co., of London, in 1871, and remained associated with them for thirteen years. He then connected himself with the banking house of Drexel, Morgan & Co., and its successor, J. P. Morgan & Co., in which he is a partner, taking a prominent and active part in the business.

He has been largely interested in railroad enterprises, having been actively concerned in the financial affairs of the West Shore, the Philadelphia & Reading and many other railroad cor- porations. Other business enterprises have sought his services in their directorates, and he has had official connection with the New York Life Insurance & Trust Company, the Mutual Life Insurance Company, the Guarantee Trust Company, the Commercial Union Fire Insurance Com- pany, of London, the Bank for Savings, and is a governor of the New York Hospital.

Interested in art, literature and science, Mr. Bowdoin is a member of the Century Associa- tion, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the American Museum of Natural History, and is a member of the Chamber of Commerce, the Metropolitan, Union, Union League, Knicker- bocker, Tuxedo, Players, Manhattan and other clubs, belongs to the New England Society, the Sons of the American Revolution, and is treasurer of the Huguenot Society of America. Mr. Bowdoin married Julia Irving Grinnell, daughter of Moses H. Grinnell, the celebrated New York merchant, who on her mother's side is a great-niece of Washington Irving. They have one daughter, Edith Grinnell Bowdoin, their married daughter, Fanny Hamilton Bowdoin, having died at the age of twenty-eight. Their son, Temple Bowdoin, is a graduate of Columbia University in the class of 1885, and is engaged in the banking business in his father's firm. He married Helen Parish Kingsford. Mr. Bowdoin's New York residence is 39 Park Avenue and his country seat is at New Hamburgh-on-Hudson.

JOHN MYER BOWERS

F OR several generations, the Bowers family, of whom this gentleman is the representative at this day, has been identified with Cooperstown, N. Y. Of English origin, the ancestors of its American branch came to Massachusetts early in the history of the Colony. Henry Bowers, of Somerset, Mass., who was a brother of Colonel Jerathmeel Bowers, descended from the earliest settlers in that section of the country. His son was Henry Bowers, 1747-1800, of Brighton, Mass., who married Mary Myer, of New York, a daughter of John Ray Myer and his wife, Ann Crommelin, daughter of Charles Crommelin. Mary (Myer) Bowers was the great-granddaughter of Adolph Myer, the American pioneer of that name. He came from Ulsen, in the parish of Bentheim, in Westphalia, and settled in Harlem in 1661. In 1671, he married Maria, daughter of Johannes Verveelen. He became the owner of a large estate, was assistant alderman in 1693, and died in 1711. His son was Hendrick Myer, who was born in Holland in 1673, but removed to New York, married Wintie Ray, daughter of John Ray, and died in 1753. John Ray Myer, son of Hendrick Myer and Wintie Ray, was born in 1719, and became a wealthy merchant. After the death of his first wife, Ann Crommelin, he married Helena (Rutgers) Scott, widow of the Hon- orable John Morin Scott.

John Myer Bowers, 1772-1846, first of the name, was the son of Henry and Mary (Myer) Bowers. He settled at Cooperstown, N. Y., and built the homestead there which for more than a century has been in the possession of the family. He married Margaret M. S. Wilson, 1776-1872, a daughter of Robert Wilson, 1751-1779, of Landsdowne, N. J., and his wife, Martha Stewart, 1757-1852, whose father, Colonel Charles Stewart, of Landsdowne, came from Gortlee, County Donegal, Ireland, and was the founder of the prominent Stewart family of New York.

Mr. John M. Bowers was born in Cooperstown, N. Y., November 27th, 1849. He received his education in private schools in Cooperstown and studied law in New York, where he was admitted to practice in 1871 and has long been one of the leading members of the bar. Interested in public affairs, he has been prominent in the councils of the Democratic party. Mr. Bowers married Susan Dandridge, a native of Ohio. Her great-great-grandfather was Governor Alexander Spotswood, who was born in Tangiers in 1676 and served with distinction under the Duke of Marlborough, being wounded at the battle of Bienheim. He came to this country as Governor of Virginia, holding that office from 1710 until 1723. He brought with him a concession of the right of habeas corpus, which up to that time had been denied the Virginians. During his offi- cial career, he was active in resisting the encroachments of the French upon the Colony and in suppressing piracy. He also rebuilt the College of William and Mary, and was a pioneer in iron manufacturing in America. Governor Spotswood was a son of Robert Spotswood, who died in 1688, and a grandson of Sir Robert Spotswood, who was appointed by Charles 1. Lord Presi- dent of the College of Justice and Secretary for Scotland. He was descended from Robert Spottiswoode, of the barony of Spottiswoode, parish of Gordon, County of Berwick, Scotland. Tradition says that the family was descended from the house of Gordon. His wife, whom he married in 1724, was Ann Butler, daughter of Richard Bryan, of Westminster. Governor Spots- wood died in Maryland in 1740. His daughter, Dorothea, married Captain Nathaniel West Dandridge, of the British Navy, son of Captain William Dandridge of Elson Green. Captain Dandridge and his wife, Dorothea, were the ancestors of Mrs. Susan (Dandridge) Bowers. Mr. and Mrs. Bowers have five children, Spotswood Dandridge, Henry Myer, William Crain, Mary Stewart and Martha Dandridge Bowers. The city residence of the family is in West Twenty- first Street, and their country home is the old family mansion in Cooperstown.

Mr. Bowers belongs to the Union, Metropolitan, Manhattan, Riding and Whist clubs, the Bar Association, the Downtown Association, the Sons of the Revolution, the Society of Colonial Wars and the American Geographical Society. A brother of Mr. Bowers was Henry C. Bowers, who died in Cooperstown in 1896.

JAMES LAWRENCE BREESE

O NE of the old tombstones in Trinity Churchyard bears this quaint epitaph :

"SIDNEY BREESE, JUNE 8, 1767. MADE BY HIMSELF. HA ! SIDNEY, SIDNEY, LYST THOU HERE ?

I HERE LYE, TILL TIME HAS FLOWN, TO !TS EXTREMITY."

Thus Sidney Breese, the old time merchant, proverbial for his honesty as well as for his wit, commemorated himself. He was a native of Shrewsbury, England, born in 1709. Having been a warm partisan of Charles the Pretender, on the failure of the movement in behalf of that Prince, he entered the British Navy as a purser. After a few years he gave up his commission and came ·to New York and settled, being at one time master of the port here, as well as being a man of note in a commercial and social sense.

A son of Sidney Breese was Samuel Breese, 1737-1802, Colonel in the Continental Army and a Judge of the State of New Jersey. Judge Breese's first wife was Rebecca Finley, grand- daughter of the Reverend Dr. Samuel Finley, president of Princeton College, and one of his grand- sons-son of his eldest daughter, Elizabeth Ann, who married the Reverend Jedediah Morse, the celebrated divine and geographer-was Professor Samuel Finley Breese Morse, inventor of the electric telegraph system.

Mr. James Lawrence Breese is a great-grandson of Judge Breese. His grandfather, Arthur Breese, of Utica, N. Y., 1770-1825, was a graduate of Yale College and a lawyer, who married Elizabeth Anderson, of Scotch-French descent, granddaughter of the Reverend James Anderson, first pastor of the Wall Street Presbyterian Church, in 1718. Several sons of Arthur Breese became distinguished in National affairs. Rear Admiral Samuel Livingston Breese, 1794-1870, was a brave officer of the United States Navy. He was a midshipman in 1810, an officer on the ship Cumberland in the battle of Lake Champlain, in service in the wars with Tripoli and with Mexico, Commandant of the Norfolk Navy Yard, 1853-5, in command of the Mediterranean Squadron, 1856-8, and Commandant of the Brooklyn Navy Yard, 1859-61. He married Rose Lee, daughter of Colonel Thomas Lee, of Baltimore, Md. Another son was Judge Sidney Breese, of Illinois, 1800-1878, a graduate from Union College in 1818, Assistant Secretary of the State of Illinois, State Attorney in 1827, Lieutenant Colonel in the Black Hawk War, Circuit Judge 1835, Supreme Court Justice 1841, United States Senator 1843-9, Speaker of the Illinois House of Representatives 1850, Chief Justice of the Circuit Court 1855, Justice of the Supreme Court 1857, and Chief Justice of the Supreme Court 1873-1878. Lieutenant James Buchanan Breese of the United States Marine Corps, who married Josephine Ormsbury, daughter of Edward M. Yard, late Commander in the United States Navy, was another member of this family.

J. Salisbury Breese, born in Utica, N. Y., in 1812, was a son of Arthur Breese. He died in 1865. His wife was Augusta Eloise Lawrence, descended from John Lawrence, who came to Plymouth Plantation on the ship Planter in 1635, and also from Johannes Lowesen Bogert, who came from Haarlem, Holland, in 1671, and bought the Harlem Flats in New Netherlands.

Mr. James Lawrence Breese, the son of J. Salisbury Breese, was born in New York City, December 21, 1854. He graduated as a civil engineer from the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, of Troy, N. Y., in 1875, and afterwards studied architecture. Recently he has made photography his special pursuit, and is recognized as one of the leading artistic amateur photographers in the world, having received numerous medals from exhibitions in this country and abroad. He has a handsome studio in New York City, a cottage at Tuxedo Park, is prominent in society, and belongs to the Union and Racquet Clubs, the Players, and other social organizations.

CALVIN S. BRICE

T HE Brice family is of old and honorable extraction in Scotland. The first representatives of the name to come to the New World settled in Maryland, in the early part of the seventeenth century. They were a branch of the Bruces, of Airth, Scotland, who spelled their name Bryce, as is also the case with the members of another great northern house, Bruce, of Kinnaird. Edward Brice or Bryce, through whom the American Brices trace their descent to their Scottish progenitors, was a Presbyterian minister in Ireland, and is called Bryce in Scottish and Brice in the Irish records. He was the second son of Sir Alexander Bruce, of Airth, by Janet, his wife, the daughter of Alexander, fifth Lord Livingston, who died about 1553.

The father of Mr. Calvin S. Brice was the Reverend William K. Brice, a Presbyterian clergyman of prominence in the church, who moved from Maryland to Ohio in 1812. His wife was Elizabeth Stewart, of Carrollton, Md., a descendant of the famous Scottish house of Stuart. She has been described as " a woman of good mind, eminent for the graces and charms of her personal character." Mr. Calvin S. Brice, their son, was born in Denmark, O., September 17th, 1845. He had all the advantages of the best instruction in his boyhood, his education being supervised by his father, until he entered Miami University in 1858.

His patriotism led him to abandon college life at the opening of the Civil War in April, 1861, and he enlisted first in a company of three months' troops, and again in 1862 in the Eighty-sixth Regiment of Ohio Infantry. After serving in the Virginia campaign, he returned to college and was graduated in 1863, but went to the front again as Captain of an infantry company and was advanced to the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel.

When his military career ended, Colonel Brice entered the Law School of the University of Michigan, at Ann Arbor, and in the spring of 1866 was admitted to the bar. For ten or fifteen years he was actively engaged in the practice of his profession in Lima, O., as junior member of the firm of Irvine & Brice. He devoted himself largely to corporation law, and that naturally led to his becoming interested in the subject of railroad transportation, which, with politics, has mainly engrossed his mature powers. His first railroad experience was in the legal department of the Lake Erie & Louisville Railroad, a line of which, under the title of Lake Erie & Western, he is now president. He conceived and built the New York, Chicago & St. Louis Railroad, better known as the "Nickle Plate" road, which is now part of the Vanderbilt system, and has been a director, or officer, in many railroads and other corporations, a consider- able part of his attention having been devoted to the development of the South.

Colonel Brice has been as successful and eminent in politics as in business. For many years he has been one of the leaders of the Democratic party. In 1876, he was on the Tilden Electoral ticket, and in 1884 was again an Elector when Mr. Cleveland was elected. His State sent him as a delegate-at-large to the Democratic National Convention in 1888, and he was made a member of the National Committee. As chairman of the latter body he directed the Democratic National Campaign in that year. In 1890, he was elected United States Senator from Ohio, and served the full term of six years. In 1892, he was again delegate-at-large from Ohio to the Democratic National Convention and chairman of the Ohio delegation, and was re-elected a member of the Democratic National Committee. Colonel Brice was married in 1870 to Catherine Olivia Meily, and has a family of three sons and two daughters.

While Colonel Brice is, and has always been, a citizen of Ohio, retaining a residence at Lima, in that State, his large and varied business interests oblige him to spend a considerable portion of his time in New York. The New York residence of the Brice family is at No. 693 Fifth Avenue, and they also have an establishment in Newport. At both places Mr. and Mrs. Brice entertain upon a large scale, and have become important factors in social life. Mr. Brice belongs to the Ohio Society, the Manhattan, Lawyers', Riding, and other clubs, and is a member of the American Geographical Society. Among his other cultured tastes is the collection of rare books.

CHARLES ASTOR BRISTED

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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 12

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