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 14

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

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Mr. I. Townsend Burden, the younger son of Henry Burden, married Evelyn Byrd Moale, of the Baltimore family of that name; her sister, Judith E. Moale, is the widow of Robert Livingston Cutting, second of the name. Mr. and Mrs. Burden live in East Twenty-sixth Street, Madison Square, and their summer residence is Fairlawn, in Bellevue Avenue, Newport. They have four children, William A. M. and 1. Townsend Burden, Jr., and Evelyn B. and Gwendolyn Burden.

HENRY LAWRENCE BURNETT

O NE of the most famous representatives of the ancestors of Burnett name was Gilbert Burnett, 1643-1715, Bishop of Salisbury, who was the son of a lawyer of an ancient family of the County of Aberdeen, Scotland, and who, after the Restoration, was appointed one of the Lords of Session, with the title of Lord Crimond. Gilbert Burnett studied at Marischal College, Aberdeen, and at Oxford and Cambridge, becoming a clergyman of the Church of Eng- land, and was a prominent figure in the political struggles which led to the English revolution of 1688. When William III. ascended the throne of England, Burnet was advanced to the See of Salisbury, and retained that position until his death, in 1715. His wife, Mary Scott, was a lady of considerable fortune. William Burnett, son of the Bishop, who was born at The Hague, Holland, in 1688, and died in Boston, Mass., in 1729, was intimately connected with the American Colonial governments. He was bred to the law in England, and in 1720 was appointed by George 1. Governor of New York and New Jersey, and afterwards of Massachusetts, in 1728. His adminis- tration in the Province of New York was successful, and he did much to strengthen the Colony against the French, establishing the first English fort at Oswego. He was the ancestor of many of the Burnett family in this country.

Thomas Burnett, the direct ancestor of the branch of the family to which General Henry Lawrence Burnett belongs, came to this country from England, and settled first in Lynn, Mass., afterward becoming a resident of Southampton, Long Island. Early in the seventeenth century, bearers of the name established themselves in New Jersey. William Burnett, of the New Jersey branch, was graduated from Princeton College in 1749, became one of the leading physicians of Newark, was an ardent patriot, a friend of Washington, and sacrificed his fortune in support of the cause. After the close of the Revolutionary War, he removed to Northern Ohio. His first wife was Mary Camp, daughter of Nathaniel Camp. His second wife was Gertrude Van Cort- landt, widow of Colonel Phillip Van Cortlandt, of Newark, and daughter of Nicholas Gouverneur. The grandfather of General Burnett was Samuel Burnett, who also went to Ohio in the first West- ward movement immediately after the close of the Revolution, and was the father of Henry Burnett. The latter married Nancy Jones, who was a member of a Virginia family.

General Henry Lawrence Burnett, their son, was born in Youngstown, O., December 26th, 1838. He attended school in the Chester Academy, where President James A. Garfield was also a student. In 1859, he was graduated from the Ohio State and National Law School, and admitted to the bar. Two years after, at the beginning of the Civil War, he entered the army, becoming Captain in the Second Ohio Cavalry. His regiment saw service in Missouri and Arkansas, and he was advanced in rank until he became Brigadier-General. In 1863, General Ambrose E. Burnside appointed him Judge-Advocate of the Department of Ohio, his jurisdiction being extended later to include the Northern Department. In association with Judge Advocate-General Holt and the Honorable John A. Bingham, he was engaged in the prosecution of the assassins of President Abraham Lincoln. In 1865, General Burnett resigned from the army and engaged in the practice of law in Cincinnati. Removing to New York in 1872, he was for a time associate attorney and counsel for the New York & Erie Railroad, but later engaged in general practice, being first associated with Benjamin H. Bristow, William Peet, and William S. Opdyke, and afterwards with Edward B. Whitney. He has been connected with some of the most important litigation in the New York and United States Courts since he made New York his home.

By his marriage with Agnes Suffern Tailer, General Burnett became allied to another family that has been distinguished in the social life of New York for several generations, his wife being a daughter of Edward N. and Agnes (Suffern) Tailer. General and Mrs. Burnett live in East Twelfth Street. Their summer home is Oak Spring Farm, Stoneboro, Pa. General Burnett belongs to the Metropolitan, Union and Republican clubs, the Ohio Society, of which he is president, and the Century Association, the Bar Association, and the Military Order of the Loyal Legion.

MIDDLETON SHOOLBRED BURRILL

A CCORDING to the History of Lynn, Mass., "The Burrill family was formerly called the royal family of Lynn, in view of the many famous persons connected with it." Its founder in this country was George Burrill, who came from Seven Oaks, England, in 1630. He was among the large landowners of Lynn, having some two hundred acres of land, and was one of its most influential citizens. Both he and his wife, Mary, died in 1653. His son, Lieutenant John Burrill, was a representative in the General Court and married Lois Ivory, in 1656. In the third American generation came the Honorable Ebenezer Burrill, 1678-1761, son of Lieutenant John Burrill and ancestor in the sixth generation of Mr. Middleton Shoolbred Burrill. Ebenezer Burrill married Martha Farrington and settled in Swampscott. He was for many years a representative to the Massachusetts General Court and for nine years a member of the Governor's Council. His son, Ebenezer Burrill, Jr., who was born in 1702, was for seventeen years town clerk and a repre- sentative for twelve years. The wife of the second Ebenezer Burrill was a daughter of the famous General Mansfield. Their son was John Ebenezer Burrill, of Rhode Island and New York, who became a successful merchant. During the Revolution, he was an officer in the Continental Army. His son, the grandfather of the subject of this sketch, was Ebenezer Burrill.

In collateral lines, the present Mr. Burrill has had many distinguished relatives. Sarah Burrill, daughter of Lieutenant John Burrill and Lois Ivory, married John Pickering, of Salem, and became the grandmother of the celebrated Senator and Cabinet Minister, Timothy Pickering. Samuel Burrill, son of the second Ebenezer Burrill, was a representative to the General Court of Massachusetts during the War of the Revolution and a member of the Constitutional Convention. John Burrill, brother of the first Ebenezer Burrill, was a member of the Massachusetts General Court for twenty-two years and Speaker of that body for ten years. James Burrill, son of the second Ebenezer Burrill, was one of the leading citizens of Providence, R. I., in the closing years of the last century, and his son was the Honorable James Burrill, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Rhode Island and United States Senator from that State. The town of Burrillville, R. I., was established by him. He was a graduate from Brown University.

The father of Mr. Middleton Shoolbred Burrill was John Ebenezer Burrill, who was born in Charleston, S. C., in 1822, and died in Lenox, Mass., in 1893. Prepared for college in private schools, he entered Columbia and was graduated with high honors in 1839. Taking up the study of law, he was admitted to practice in 1842, and for more than half a century was one of the most successful as well as ablest members of the New York bar. A staunch Democrat, he maintained a deep interest in public affairs, but had little inclination for political life. When he was a young man, he served for a short time as assistant district attorney of the city and was a member of the Constitutional Convention in 1867, but he was not otherwise conspicuous in public affairs. He was one of the founders and an officer of the Bar Association of the City of New York. In 1853, he married Louise M. Vermilye, daughter of William M. Vermilye, the well-known New York banker, who belonged to an old New York Huguenot family, dating back to the early Colonial period. Johannes Vermilye, her ancestor, was one of the leading citizens of New Amsterdam in the early years of this settlement, holding office in both church and municipality.

Mr. Middleton Shoolbred Burrill was born in New York, October 16th, 1858. He was prepared for college in a private school and under the direction of a tutor, and then entering Harvard University, was graduated in 1879. He studied law in the Law School of Columbia University and in the office of a leading law firm, and was admitted to practice in 1881. Since 1884, he has been a member of the firm of Burrill, Zabriskie & Burrill, of which his father was the head. In 1885, he married Emilie Neilson, daughter of William Hude and Caroline (Kane) Neilson. His city residence is 104 East Thirty-fifth Street, his country home being at Cedar- hurst, Long Island. He belongs to the Union, Knickerbocker and Rockaway Hunt clubs, the Sons of the Revolution, the Bar Association and the Downtown Association.

GEORGE HENRY BUTLER, M. D.

A NCESTORS of Dr. George Henry Butler were among the early pioneers of New England. Thomas Butler, who settled in Kittery, Me., before 1695, was one of the ancient English house of Ormonde, and being a man of high character and superior intellectual attain- ments, took a leading part in the affairs of that part of the Massachusetts Colony for more than a quarter of a century. He was an accomplished scholar and one year taught Latin gratuitously in the schools, when it happened that the services of no other teacher "who had the Latin tongue" could be procured. At the same time, he was a selectman and a surveyor of public lands, fre- quently a moderator of the town meeting, and was elected more than thirty-five times to hold various other offices in the gift of his fellow townsmen.

Thomas Butler, son of the first Thomas Butler, was also prominent in the affairs of the township. He was born in Berwick, Me., in 1698, and in the old records is described as a "gentleman." In 1725, he was a constable, and for many years a surveyor of lands. His brother, Moses Butler, held a commission as Captain in the Colonial Army and took part in the capture of Louisburg in 1745. He held many town offices, and in 1749 was representative to the General Court at Boston, the Maine plantation being at that time part of the Massachusetts Colony. Dr. George Henry Butler is a descendant in the fifth generation from the second Thomas Butler, of Berwick. The family has been prominent in the section where it was founded in 1695, and in many branches of it there have been those who have attained to distinction in Maine, Massachu- setts and elsewhere. Moses Butler, great-grandfather of Dr. Butler, was an officer in the Continental Army during the war for independence, and saw service about Machais and Frenchman's Bay, Me. His brother, Thomas Butler, was a Lieutenant in the Continental Line. In contemporaneous times, the Reverend Dr. John Butler, a Free Baptist clergyman, was the author of many books and at one time editor of the newspaper organ of the Baptist Church in New England. Another editor in the family was the Honorable J. E. Butler, and the Honorable Moses Butler was an eminent jurist and three times Mayor of the City of Portland, Me.

Both the father and the grandfather, as well as other ancestors of Dr. George H. Butler, were natives and residents of Berwick, Me., and there he was born May 31st, 1841. He was educated in the High School of Great Falls, N. H., Bowdoin College and the University of Pennsylvania, and finished his professional studies in the Bellevue Hospital Medical College. He has been a practicing physician and surgeon, principally in New York, for more than thirty years, but has found time to travel extensively throughout Europe. During the Civil War, for nearly five years, he was Passed Assistant Surgeon in the United States Navy. In club land he is known as a member of the Union League Club, and is also a member of the Sons of the Revolution, the Loyal Legion, the New England Society, and the New York Genealogical and Biographical Society.

The wife of Dr. Butler, to whom he was married in 1872, was Henrietta Louisa Lawrence, of the celebrated Lawrence family of Long Island, from which have come so many distinguished men and women. Mrs. Butler is seventh in descent from Thomas Lawrence, founder of the family in this country, who came to Long Island in the latter part of the seventeenth century. Her great- grandfather was Jonathan Lawrence, the wealthy merchant, 1737-1812, who was a Major in General Woodhull's Brigade of Long Island troops in 1777, a member of the Provincial Congress 1775-76, and a State Senator in 1777. Her grandfather was the Honorable Samuel Lawrence, 1775-1837, member of the State Assembly, Member of Congress and a Presidential elector in 1816; and her granduncle was the Honorable William T. Lawrence, Captain of Artillery in the War of 1812, County Judge in 1838 and Member of Congress, 1847-49.

Dr. and Mrs. Butler live in Fifth Avenue. Their country residence is the Lawrence home- stead, in Odessa, N. Y. The Butler arms are: Or., a chief indented azure. The crest shows, out of a ducal coronet or., a plume of five ostrich feathers, argent, therefrom a falcon rising, argent. The Lawrence arms are: A cross, regular gules. Crest, a demi-tuibot argent.

PRESCOTT HALL BUTLER

J USTIN BUTLER, of New Haven, and his wife, Lucy Davis, were the great-grandparents of Mr. Prescott Hall Butler, whose grandparents were Henry Butler and Rebecca Green. Several sons of Henry Butler and Rebecca Green have occupied commanding positions in professional life in New York City. The eldest son, George B. Butler, who was born in New Haven in 1809 and died in New York in 1886, is still remembered as one of the proprietors of The New York Journal of Commerce, and secretary and attorney of the Hudson River Railroad Company. His son, George Butler, is the distinguished artist, one of the foremost American painters of this gen- eration.

A brother of George B. Butler was Charles E. Butler, who was born in Richmond, Va., in 1818, and began the study of law in 1836 in the office of the late Jonathan Prescott Hall. When he was twenty-four years old, in association with William M. Evarts, he founded the law firm of Butler & Evarts, now Evarts, Choate & Beaman. Retiring from professional work in 1879, he spent most of his time, after that, upon his estate in Stockbridge, Mass. His first wife was Louisa Clinch, sister of Cornelia Clinch, who became the wife of Alexander T. Stewart, the great merchant prince. Mrs. Butler died in 1852. She was the mother of six children, Prescott Hall, Maxwell Evarts, Rosalie, Helen C., Virginia and Lilian, who is Mrs. John Swan. Rosalie Butler died in 1897. The maternal grandmother of Mr. Prescott Hall Butler, Rebecca Green, who married Henry Butler in 1807, was born in New Haven in 1788, the daughter of Samuel Green, 1744-1799, and his wife, Abigail Buell, who was born in Killingworth, Conn., in 1749 and died in Richmond, Va., in 1819. Abigail Buell was descended in the fourth generation from William Buell, the American pioneer of the family. William Buell, or Bewelle, or Beville, was born in Chesterton, Huntingdon- shire, England, about 1610. Emigrating to America as early as 1630, he settled first in Dorchester, Mass., and then in 1635 joined the first company that went westward to found the town of Windsor. He died in Windsor in 1681. His son, Samuel Buell, was born in Windsor in 1641 and after 1664 lived in Killingworth, where he died in 1720. In the old records he is especially set down as a "gentleman," was an extensive landowner and was honored by his fellow citizens by election to many positions of trust and responsibility.

By his marriage, in 1662, to Deborah Griswold, 1646-1719, Samuel Buell allied himself to another of the great Colonial families of Connecticut. His wife was a daughter of Edward Griswold, of Windsor, brother of Governor Matthew Griswold. The Griswold family is descended from Humphrey Griswold, of Greet, Lord of the Manor. Their ancestors came originally from Cambridgeshire, where they were established as early as 1135. The grandparents of Abigail Buell, and the ancestors in the sixth generation of Mr. Prescott Hall Butler, were Benjamin Buell, of Killingworth, 1686-1725, and Hannah Hutchinson, of Hebron, whom he married in 1710. Her parents were John Buell, who was born in Killingworth in 1717 and died in 1752, and Abigail Chatfield, daughter of John Chatfield.

Mr. Prescott Hall Butler was born in Richmond County, N. Y., March 8th, 1848, and educated in Harvard College, being graduated from that institution in the class of 1869. He is engaged in the practice of law in New York, is a member of the law firm of Evarts, Choate & Beaman, and belongs to the Bar Association. In 1874, he married Cornelia Stewart Smith, daughter of J. Lawrence Smith and Sarah Clinch and a descendant from Jacob Clinch, the father of Mrs. A. T. Stewart, Mrs. Butler being a grandniece of Mrs. Stewart. Mr. and Mrs. Butler live in Park Avenue. Their summer home is Bytharbour, St. James, Long Island. They have one daughter, Susan L. Butler, and two sons, Lawrence and C. Stewart Butler, who are students in Harvard University. Mr. Butler belongs to the Century Association, the University, Racquet, Riding, Harvard, Players. Metropolitan, Adirondack League, Seawanhaka-Corinthian Yacht, New York Yacht, Larchmont Yacht and Jekyl Island clubs, and the Downtown Association, and is a patron of the American Museum of Natural History.

DANIEL BUTTERFIELD

J OHN BUTTERFIELD, the American ancestor of the family of which General Butterfield is a prominent representative in the present generation, came from England and settled in Virginia, but some of his descendants removed from Virginia to New England. The paternal grandfather of General Butterfield was Daniel Butterfield, and his maternal grandfather was Gamaliel Olmstead, a Connecticut soldier of the War of the Revolution. His father was John Butterfield, a substantial business man of Oneida, N. Y., his mother being Malvina H. Olmstead.

General Daniel Butterfield was born in Oneida County, N. Y., October 31, 1831. He received a liberal education in local schools, was graduated from Union College in 1849, and has since received the degree of LL. D. Completing his collegiate course, he came to New York, where he engaged in business until the Civil War began. He entered the National Guard of New York in 1850 and became Major and Lieutenant-Colonel of the Seventy-First and Colonel of the Twelfth Regiment. Holding the latter rank when the Civil War opened, he at once offered his command to President Lincoln, and went to Washington at the head of his regiment, April, 1861. In July, 1861, he led the advance into Virginia over the Long Bridge, and subsequently joined General Patterson on the Upper Potomac, where he was immediately placed in command of a brigade and actively engaged in service, overstaying the three months time of his enlistment and receiving commendatory orders therefor. When, as part of the plan for carrying on the war, the regular army was enlarged, Colonel Butterfield was made Lieutenant-Colonel of the Twelfth Regulars and was commissioned Brigadier-General of Volunteers. His next service was under General Fitz John Porter in the Peninsula Campaign, and he was engaged in the battles of Mechanicsville, Gaines' Mill and Malvern Hill and other engagements. At Gaines' Mill he was wounded, and, while still suffering from his wounds, commanded a detachment of troops sent to the south side of the James River to cover the retreat of McClellan's Army. During the entire campaign of August and September, 1862, under Generals Pope and McClellan, he was constantly at the front and took part in all the battles.

In 1862, General Butterfield was commissioned Major-General of Volunteers. The following year he was made Colonel of the Fifth Infantry Regiment in the regular army. At the battle of Fredericksburg he was in command of the Fifth Army Corps. During the summer of 1863, he was Chief of Staff of the Army of the Potomac, then commanded by General Hooker. At the battle of Gettysburg, where he was Chief of Staff of the Army of the Potomac, under General Meade, he was wounded. Later in the same year, he was detailed to reinforce the Army of the Cumber- land, and was Chief of Staff to General Hooker at Lookout Mountain, and in all the famous engagements around Chattanooga. In the celebrated Atlanta Campaign of one hundred days, which ended in the capture of Georgia's capital, General Butterfield commanded a division of the Twentieth Corps, and for gallant and meritorious conduct was brevetted Brigadier-General and Major-General in the regular army. After the close of the war, General Butterfield was assigned to superintend the recruiting service of the army. In 1869, he resigned from the army, and the same year President Grant appointed him Assistant United States Treasurer in New York. Retiring from that position, he became interested in the banking business and is now connected with many large corporations.

In 1886, General Butterfield married Mrs. Julia L. James, of New York, a daughter of Captain Safford, who commanded privateers in the War of 1812. The ceremony was performed at St. Margaret's, Westminster, England, the Bishop of Bedford and Canon Farrar officiating. He lives in Fifth Avenue, his country residence being Cragside, Cold Spring, N. Y. He is a member of the Union, Military and E + clubs and belongs to the Sons of the Revolution, the Loyal Legion and the Union College Alumni Association. In 1891, he was president of the Society of the Army of the Potomac. He has the special distinction of holding the United States Medal of Honor for notable bravery upon the field of battle, at the action of Gaines' Mill.

JOHN LAMBERT CADWALADER

A MONG the distinguished citizens of Philadelphia in the early Colonial days, none was more highly esteemed than John Cadwalader, who came from England soon after William Penn's organization of the Colony of Pennsylvania. He was a freeman of Philadelphia in 1705, a member of the Common Council, 1718-33, and a member of the Provincial Assembly from 1729 to the time of his death, in 1734. His wife, whom he married in 1699, was Martha Jones, daughter of Dr. Edward Jones and maternal granddaughter of Dr. Thomas Wynne, of Phila- delphia. John Cadwalader could trace his descent through a notable line of ancestry. His family was Welsh and his mother, Ellen Evans, who was the daughter of Owen ap Evan, and grand- daughter of Evan ap Robert ap Lewis, of Rhiwlas and Vron Goch, married Cadwalader Thomas ap Hugh, of Kiltalgarth, Llanvawo, Merionetshire, Wales. Evan ap Robert ap Lewis was in the twenty-fifth generation from Rhodri Mawr, King of all Wales, who died in 876.

The second child and the oldest son of John Cadwalader, the pioneer, was Dr. Thomas Cadwalader, of Philadelphia, a member of the Provincial Council of Pennsylvania in 1755 and a medical director in the Continental Army during the War of the Revolution. His wife was Hannah Lambert, daughter of Thomas Lambert, and his eldest son was General John Cadwalader, of Philadelphia, 1742-1786. General John Cadwalader married a daughter of Edward Lloyd, of Nye House, Talbot County, Md., and among his descendants were Dr. John C. A. Dumas, Captain George A. McCall, U. S. A., General Samuel Ringgold, U. S. A., Major Samuel Ringgold, U. S. A., and Rear Admiral Cadwalader Ringgold, U. S. N.

Colonel Lambert Cadwalader, the second son and third child of Dr. Thomas Cadwalader, was born in Trenton, N. J., in 1743. He was Colonel of a New Jersey regiment at the out- break of the Revolution, was taken a prisoner by the British at the capture of Fort Washington in 1776, and being released on parole retired to his estate. From 1784 to 1787, he represented New Jersey in the Continental Congress, was a member of the Constitutional Convention and a Member of Congress from New Jersey, 1789-95. He died at his homestead, Greenwood, near Trenton, N. J., in 1823. He married Mary McCall, daughter of Archibald McCall, of Phila- delphia, in 1793.

Among other distinguished members of this notable family have been Major-General George Cadwalader, who served in the Mexican and the Civil wars; John Cadwalader, 1742-1786, who was a Brigadier-General in command of the Pennsylvania military forces during the War of the Revolution; Captain Samuel Dickinson, of the United States Army, who is descended from Dr. Thomas C. Cadwalader through his daughter, Mary; Judge J. Meredith Read, Chief Justice of Pennsylvania, and his son, John Meredith Read, Jr., United States Consul to Paris and United States Minister to Greece, who were respectively son and grandson of John Read, whose father, George Read, signed the Declaration of Independence, and of Martha Meredith Read, the daughter of General Samuel Meredith, the first Treasurer of the United States, and his wife, Margaret Cadwalader, who was the seventh child of Dr. Thomas C. Cadwalader.

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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 14

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