USA > New York > New York City> 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 16
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Making New York his home from that time, Mr. Cannon became vice-president of the National Bank of the Republic, but soon after accepted the post of president of the Chase National Bank, which, under his management, has become one of the foremost financial institutions of the city. He has been a leader in the Clearing House Association, being chairman of the Clearing House committee, and is one of the men to whom the financial interests of New York instinctively turn, in moments of difficulty, for counsel and assistance. Positions of a public character have continued to seek Mr. Cannon since he became a New Yorker. He was appointed by Mayor Grant as a member of the Aqueduct Commission, and in 1892 was one of the American represen- tatives to the International Monetary Conference held at Brussels, Belgium.
In 1879, Mr. Cannon married Jennie O. Curtis, daughter of Gould J. Curtis, a prominent member of the Minnesota bar and a native of Madison County, N. Y. At the outbreak of the Civil War, Mr. Curtis raised a company, which he commanded, in the Fifth Minnesota Volunteer Infan- try, and died in the service in 1862. Mr. and Mrs. Cannon have two sons, George C. Cannon, born in 1882, and Henry White Cannon, Jr., born in 1887. Mr. Cannon's only brother, James G. Cannon, is also a prominent banker in New York, being vice-president of the Fourth National Bank. Mr. Cannon resides in Madison Avenue and is a member of many of the city's prominent social organizations, including the Metropolitan and Union League clubs, the Century Association, the Sons of the Revolution, the New England Society, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and numerous political, patriotic and benevolent institutions.
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ยท
HENRY T. CAREY
M 4 ARRIAGES between members of distinguished New York families and representatives of European aristocracy have been of frequent occurrence both in the past and in recent times. Instances in which such alliances have been followed by the residence of the contracting parties in this country, and the founding of a new American house of patrician standing, are, however, somewhat rare. The name of Carey is one of these few exceptional cases in New York's social history. The original seat of its possessors was in the County of Surrey, England, where several landed families of Careys, or Carews, have been established for centuries, one of which, the Carews of Beddington, have held a baronetcy since 1715. In England the Carey family is connected by ties of descent and marriage with a large number of other families of prominence in the peerage or among the landed gentry of the oldest type throughout the kingdom.
Samuel Carey, the grandfather of Mr. Henry T. Carey, held an estate in Surrey. His son, Samuel Thomas Carey, having changed his residence to the United States, became an adopted citizen of New York, through his marriage with Marion de Peyster, daughter of George de Peyster. Mr. Henry T. Carey was born of this alliance in 1845. The de Peysters are one of the oldest families in the State or City of New York. In every generation since the original Dutch settlement, it has produced men of prominence in public and social life, while the marriages of its members has allied it with nearly all the families of real distinction, in either the Colonial or post-Revolutionary history of the metropolis. The race is of Huguenot origin and noble descent, and its progenitor in America, Jan or Johannes de Peyster, came hither from Holland in the early days of the settlement, his marriage in 1649 with Cornelia Lubberts being one of the first recorded in the annals of the New Netherland. His descendants included a succession of individuals distinguished in Colonial and Revolutionary times. Perhaps the most prominent of them was Colonel Abraham de Peyster, his son, Mayor of the city, Chief Justice and acting Governor of the Province, though in every generation this typical New York family has possessed representatives who have been prominent in the affairs of the city and State, or who have been conspicuous in social life.
Colonel de Peyster owned the land extending along the north side of the present Wall Street, and presented to the city the ground on which the old City Hall was erected, the same site being afterwards used for the Federal Hall in which President Washington was inaugurated, and which has been succeeded by the present Sub-Treasury Building. The numerous descendants of the de Peysters, direct or through female lines, have always been an important element in the city's social organization, and frequent mention of its various branches and relationships will be found throughout this volume. There are indeed few of the older families of the city who do not prize a relationship to the race in question.
On his paternal side, Mr. Carey is also connected with a family of the highest position in New York. His cousin John Carey married Alida Astor, a daughter of William B. Astor, and was the founder of a branch of the name which includes a number of the prominent members of the highest circles of metropolitan society.
Mr. Henry T. Carey is engaged in the banking profession, having been a member of the New York Stock Exchange since 1868. He resides at No. 41 West Forty-sixth Street, and among other clubs belongs to the Metropolitan, Union League, Tuxedo and South Side.
Of the other children of Samuel and Marion (de Peyster) Carey, Samuel Carey, second of the name and brother of Mr. Henry T. Carey, is a merchant in New York. He married Laura Silliman Taylor. Another brother, George Carey, who was also in the banking business, died some years ago. He married Clara Foster, and left two children, a son, Frederick Foster Carey, who married A. Madeleine Lewis, and a daughter. Marion de Peyster Carey, who is now the wife of William B. Dinsmore, Jr., of this city.
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GEORGE W. CARLETON
A LONG line of distinguished ancestry is the family inheritance of Mr. George W. Carleton, who bears an old and honored name. The family dates from the time of the Norman Conquest in 1066. The name was originally a title of nobility, and its first bearer was a Carleton-Baldwin de Carleton, of Carleton Hall, near Penrith, Cumberland County, England. In the sixth generation from Baldwin de Carleton came Adam de Carleton, head of the Cumberland family, from whom was descended Sir Guy Carleton, Commander-in-Chief of the British Army in the American Colonies during the Revolutionary War. In later time came John Carleton, of Sutton and Walton-upon-Thames, the ancestor in the sixth generation of the American pioneer of the family. His grandson, John Carleton, of Walton-upon-Thames and Baldwin Brightwell, married Joyce, daughter and coheir of John Welbeck, of Oxonheath, Kent, and his wife, Margaret Culpepper, whose sister, Joyce Culpepper, was mother of Queen Catharine. Edward Carleton, Lord of the Manor of East Cloud-on-Surrey, a son of this union, married Mary, daughter of George Bigley, of Cobham, Surrey, and became the father of Erasmus Carleton, merchant of London and father of Edward Carleton, the American pioneer.
Edward Carleton, of London, came to this country in 1639 and settled in the town of Rowley, Mass. There he was a freeman in 1643, and for several years a member of the General Court. He returned to England before 1656, but his children remained in the New World. Lieutenant John Carleton, of Haverhill, Mass., who was born in England about 1630, settled in Haverhill, Mass., about 1661, and died there in 1668. His wife was Hannah Jewett, daughter of Joseph Jewett ; Joseph Carleton, of Newbury, Mass., their second son, was born in 1662, and married Abigail, daughter of Christopher Osgood, of Andover, Mass. In the next generation, Jeremiah Carleton, of Lyndeborough, N. H., born in 1715, married Eunice Taylor, of Notting- ham. Jeremiah Trent Carleton, born in 1743, was a soldier in General Wolfe's army, was wounded at the capture of Louisburg, and marched in defense of Ticonderoga.
Several of Mr. Carleton's ancestors performed distinguished service during the War of the Revolution. Moses Carleton, of Boxford, Mass., his paternal great-grandfather, was a private in a Lexington Alarm Company of the Massachusetts minute men; Noadiah Leonard, of Sunderland, Mass., his maternal great-grandfather, being Captain of the same company. Noadiah Carleton was at the battle of Bunker Hill, participated in the siege of Boston, and also acted as a member of the Committee of Safety. Henry Hodge, of Wiscassett, Me., then Massachusetts, another great-grandfather, was a private in the Massachusetts militia. The parents of Mr. Carleton were Cyrus Carleton, of Alma, Me., and Maria Leonard Arms, of Deerfield, Mass. His paternal grandparents were Joseph Carleton, of Newton, N. H., and Margaret Hodge, who was born in Wiscassett, Me. The parents of his mother were Eliakim Arms, Jr., who was born in Deerfield, Mass., and Tabitha Leonard, of Sunderland, Mass.
Mr. George W. Carleton was born in New York, January 16th, 1832, was educated in Dr. Hawk's Classical Seminary, Flushing, Long Island, and has been a resident of this city during his business life, having been one of the leading American book publishers in the last genera- tion. He retired from business in 1886. Mr. Carleton married Elizabeth H. Baldwin, daughter of Moses G. Baldwin and Elizabeth Bolles, of Newark, N. J. They have two daughters, Ida B. and Louise Carleton. The residence of the family is in West Thirty-seventh Street. Mr. Carleton belongs to the Union League and Lotus clubs, and the Sons of the Revolution, and is a patron of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and a director of the Equitable Life Assurance Society. His brother, Cyrus Carleton, is engaged in machinery manufacturing, in Providence, R. I. The arms of the Carleton family are those borne by the Carletons of Lincoln and Oxfordshire, England : Argent, on a bend sable, three mascles of the field. The crest shows: Out of a ducal coronet or., a unicorn's head sable, the horn twisted on the first and second. The motto: Non ad perniciem, may be rendered in English, injury to none.
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ANDREW CARNEGIE
I N 1848, the family of a respectable Scotch artisan emigrated from Dumferline, in what was once termed the Kingdom of Fife, and settled in Pittsburg, Pa. William Carnegie, its head, had been a master weaver employing the labor of others, but was forced to emigrate by the introduction of steam power and of the factory system. He was a man of intelligence, a radical in politics and had attained reputation as a public speaker. His wife possessed in a remarkable degree that union of a strong character and resolute will with a fine temperament that is found in the best representatives of the Scottish race. These traits she transmitted to the eldest of her two sons, Andrew, who, at the time of the family migration, was eleven years old, having been born in Dumferline, November 25th, 1837.
In Dumferline, young Andrew Carnegie had attended a private school, but in Pittsburg it was necessary for him to contribute his childish efforts toward the support of the family. This he commenced to do at twelve years of age, first as a boy in factories, running a steam engine and acting as clerk for one employer. When two years older he obtained the place of mes- senger in a telegraph office. This opened a new world to the ambitious lad, who improved his opportunities and soon became an expert telegraph operator, the death of his father throwing on him the duty of supporting his mother with his small salary. Attracting the attention of Thomas A. Scott, who was then superintendent of the Pennsylvania Railroad's Western division, he became secretary to that gentleman. He remained in the railroad service thirteen years, and finally assumed the place of superintendent on Mr. Scott's promotion to the company's vice-presidency. The latter, when Assistant Secretary of War during the Civil War, called Mr. Carnegie to Washington and put him in charge of the Government's military railroads and tele- graphs. While with Mr. Scott, he made his initial step toward becoming a capitalist, and was instrumental in introducing the first sleeping cars on the Pennsylvania Railroad.
Appreciating the fact that iron bridges must supersede those of wood, he left the railroad service and organized the Keystone Bridge works, in Pittsburg, the nucleus around which he developed the largest group of iron and steel manufacturing establishments in the world. Com- prising as they now do the Homestead, Edgar Thomson, Duquesne and Union Mills and allied establishments in and around Pittsburg, they represent an enormous aggregate of capital and of employees, while they also constitute the most perfect example of modern invention applied to such purposes.
As success has crowned Mr. Carnegie's enterprises, he has left the details of his business to associates and has given a large share of his attention to travel, to literature and to eminently practical efforts to benefit and elevate others. Of his many gifts, it is only possible to speak of the magnificent library, concert hall and gallery he presented to Pittsburg or the free library given by him to Allegheny City, or the aid he extended to the Edinburgh library and that in his native town of Dumferline. The Carnegie Music Hall, in New York, is only one of the benefits he has conferred on the metropolis since he made this city his residence.
In 1879, Mr. Carnegie published Around the World, a record of his travels. An American Four-in-Hand in Britain was made public in 1884, and in 1886 appeared his best known book, Triumphant Democracy, which has been translated into many foreign languages. This work, which is the most graphic illustration of the progress of the United States ever written, was issued in 1893 in a revised form based on the Government Census of 1890, and has had a wide circulation in both Europe and America. He has also written many noteworthy articles in reviews. Mr. Carnegie married Miss Whitfield, daughter of John Whitfield, of New York, in 1887. They have one child, an infant daughter. During a part of each year, Mr. and Mrs. Carnegie reside on his Scotch estate, Cluny Castle, in the Highlands of his native country, for which he maintains an attachment second only to that he feels for the great Republic of which he is such an eminent and useful citizen.
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GOUVERNEUR MORRIS CARNOCHAN
G I ALLOWAY, the ancestral home or the Carnochan family, in Scotland, borders upon Ayrshire, the land of the poet Burns, who was a friend of William Carnochan, great-uncle of Mr. Gouverneur Morris Carnochan. Early in the present century, William Carnochan, with his two brothers, Richard and John, came to America. William became a planter in Georgia; Richard settled in Charleston, S. C .; John went to the Island of Nassau, where he married Harriet Frances Putnam, daughter of Henry Putnam and Frances Frazer, whose father, Major James Frazer, was an officer of the British Army. Subsequently, John Carnochan came to Georgia, where he was a large landed proprietor. His wife was the great-granddaughter of Henry Putnam, of Salem, who was killed at the battle of Lexington, and a grandniece of General Putnam. Dr. John Murray Carnochan, their son, became a famous surgeon. He was born in Savannah, Ga., July 4th, 1817, and died in New York, October 28th, 1887. When a boy, he was taken to Edinburgh, where he was educated in the High School and the University. Returning to the United States at the age of seventeen, he entered the office of Dr. Valentine Mott and took his degree of M. D. from the College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York. Devoting himself with ardor to the study of anatomy, he acquired special distinction in that branch of his profession, and gave lectures to private classes. In 1841, he again visited Europe, where he passed several years in attendance upon the clinical lectures of the principal hospitals of Paris, London and Edinburgh, under such men as Liston, Brodie, Roux and others. Returning home in 1847, he practiced in New York and soon had an established position among American surgeons. In 1851, he was appointed surgeon and subsequently surgeon-in-chief of the State Emigrant Hospital, which position he held for over a quarter of a century.
His services to the cause of science were no less conspicuous than those he rendered to humanity. Many of his operations were of the most original and brilliant character, and established him as one of the foremost surgeons of the day. For twelve years he was professor of the principles and operations of surgery in the New York Medical College, and for two years was Health Officer of New York. He published numerous papers in medical journals, and was the author of important books upon surgical practice, and of several volumes of lectures. His professional activity continued almost to the day of his death. In September, 1887, a month before he died, he attended the International Medical Congress at Washington and read two papers.
Dr. Carnochan married Estelle Morris, a daughter of Brevet Major-General William Walton Morris, U. S. A., a distinguished officer, who came of a long line of soldiers. The father of
General Morris was Lieutenant William Walton Morrris, of the Second Artillery, Continental Line, aide-de-camp to General Anthony Wayne in the Revolution. His grandfather was General Lewis Morris, signer of the Declaration of Independence, and his great-grandfather was the Honorable Lewis Morris, Lord of the Manor of Morrisania. His great-great-grandparents were Lewis Morris and Isabella Graham, daughter of the Honorable James Graham.
Mr. Gouverneur Morris Carnochan, the youngest and only surviving son of Dr. John Murray Carnochan, was born in New York. He was educated at Harvard University and was matriculated at the Ecole de Medicine in Paris, his father intending him for the medical profession. After completing his studies at Harvard, he followed his own inclination and entered the banking business, being now a member of the New York Stock Exchange. He lives in Fifth Avenue and at Riverdale-on-the-Hudson. His club membership includes the Calumet, Military, New York Athletic, A +, the Country Club of Westchester County and the Society of Colonial Wars. He is a member of the Seventh Regiment, being inspector of rifle practice, with the rank of First Lieutenant. In 1888, he married Matilda Grosvenor Goodridge, daughter of the late Frederic Goodridge, and has had three sons, two of whom are still living. His youngest son, Gouverneur Morris Carnochan, Jr., is in the fifth generation of Gouverneurs, bearing the name of their relative and eminent statesman, Gouverneur Morris, the first United States Minister to France.
IO1
HERBERT SANFORD CARPENTER
W ESTERN New York was peopled largely by New Englanders, but, though that strain is the dominant one, it has been transformed by the local environments. When this section in question was thrown open to civilization, after the close of the Revolution, its fertile plains and valleys proved especially attractive to the inhabitants of the Eastern States, who found there that ease of life that was denied in the rugged localities in which the Puritans at first established themselves. The consequence has been a modification of the New England character, which, under such circumstances, became changed into something softer, while preserving all of its original energy and activity, both mental and physical, and has been an element of importance in the development of the entire country.
Mr. Carpenter, on both the paternal and maternal sides, represents this happy modification of the pure New England type of Americans. His grandfather, Asaph H. Carpenter, and his grandmother, Elmira Clark Carpenter, were of families which established themselves early in the present century in Western New York, and which have furnished many distinguished individuals to professional and other pursuits. His father, the famous artist, Francis B. Carpenter, however, illustrates the tendencies to which we have referred in the preceding sentences, and is a striking instance of this modification of the New England race.
Francis B. Carpenter was born at Homer, N. Y., and adopted art as his profession, making portrait-painting his specialty, a branch of the profession in which it is safe to say he has for years past been one of the foremost exponents in this country. Few artists of his day have enjoyed sittings from so many of the most celebrated men of the times; a list of his works would indeed include a long line of our leading statesmen, generals, and other celebrities. Among his most renowned productions is the Signing of the Emancipation Proclamation, which now hangs in the Capitol of the United States, at Washington, and for which he made original studies of President Lincoln and his Cabinet. Another work which attracted great attention had for its subject Arbitration, commemorating the signing, in 1871, of the Treaty of Washington, by which the Alabama claims were settled, and cause for international difficulties between England and the United States was obviated. This painting was presented to Queen Victoria, and holds a place of honor among the historical works of art belonging to the British Crown. Mr. Carpenter, Sr., enjoyed the confidence and regard of President Lincoln to an unusual degree, and has embodied his experiences in a volume-Six Months at the White House; or, The Inner Life of President Lincoln-which is one of the most valuable and authentic records of the character and conversation of the nation's martyred dead. His wife, Augusta (Prentice) Carpenter, was a native of Ithaca, N. Y., a member of a family of prominence in that portion of the State, descended from a line of Revolutionary ancestors; some of its members also taking high positions in public life in other parts of the United States, among them being statesmen, lawyers and editors of national reputation.
Mr. Herbert Sanford Carpenter was born in Brooklyn, in 1862, and was educated in this city, and has adopted the profession of banking. In 1890, he became a member of the firm of Charles Head & Co., and in 1895 retired from that firm and became a member of the firm of Thomas L. Manson, Jr., & Co., in the same line of business. In 1883, he married Cora Anderson, of Louisville, Ky., a lady belonging to one of the oldest families of that city. Mrs. Carpenter's father was distinguished during the war between the States by his adherence to the cause of the Union, though among his immediate relatives were some who adopted a contrary course and lent their efforts in support of the South. Mr. and Mrs. Carpenter, while old New Yorkers, now live at Flushing, L. I. They have one daughter, Cora Carpenter.
Mr. Carpenter naturally inherits artistic tastes, and is the owner of a number of carefully selected pictures, while in sport he is a devoted bicyclist and golf player. He is a member of the Oakland Golf Club, New York Athletic Club, and the Colonial Club of New York.
IO2
ROYAL PHELPS CARROLL
I N ancient Ireland, one of the most powerful families was that of Carroll, descended from the Kings of Munster and the Lords of the Barony of Ely in Leicester. Such was the ancestry of the first Charles Carroll, founder of the representative Maryland family of his name. He came to America in 1688 and settled in Annapolis, being the agent for Lord Baltimore's Maryland estates; he also obtained large grants of land for himself. His son, Charles, was born in 1702 and married Elizabeth Brooke. Their son was the famous Charles Carroll, of Carrollton, 1745-1832. His territorial designation was taken from his estate in Frederick County, Md. He was educated in France and London, and, returning, married Mary Darnell in 1768. He warmly espoused the patriot cause in the Revolution, was a signer of the Declaration of Independence, and at the time of his death was the last survivor of the signers. He filled many important offices, includ- ing the United States Senatorship for Maryland. He was the foremost Catholic layman in America and his cousin, the Reverend Dr. John Carroll, 1735-1815, was the first Archbishop of Baltimore and primate of the Roman Catholic Church in the United States. The only son of Charles Carroll, of Carrollton, was Charles Carroll, who married Harriet Chew, daughter of Chief Justice Benjamin Chew, of Pennsylvania. The four Caton sisters, granddaughters of Charles Carroll, of Carrollton, were famous beauties. Three of them married English noblemen, the oldest becoming the wife of the Marquis of Wellesley, and sister-in-law of the Duke of Wellington.
The Honorable John Lee Carroll is the great-grandson of the patriot, Charles Carroll. He studied law and resided in New York for some years, was a State Senator of Maryland in 1867 and 1871 and was elected Governor of Maryland in 1875. Governor Carroll's wife was Miss Phelps, daughter of Royal Phelps, the famous New York merchant and banker.
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