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 17

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

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The Phelps family was of Welsh origin, the name being abbreviated from Phyllyppes, an ancient Staffordshire cognomen. Their name is mentioned in Rymers Foedera. Sir Edward Phelps was Master of the Rolls and Speaker of the Commons in the time of Queen Elizabeth. George and William Phelps, of Devonshire, came to America in 1630 and settled first in Dorchester, Mass., and, in 1635, formed part of the company that founded Connecticut. George Phelps lived in Windsor, Conn., but in 1668 joined in the settlement of Westfield, Mass. His son, Captain Isaac Phelps, and his grandson, Lieutenant John Phelps, took active part in the wars with the Indians. A son of Lieutenant Phelps, the Honorable John Phelps, 1734-1802, graduated from Yale in 1759 and became a leading lawyer and prominent public man in Western Massachusetts. The Reverend Royal Phelps, his youngest son, was a respected Congregational minister in the western part of New York State. Mr. Carroll is also descended from Colonel John Spofford, of Tinmouth, Vt., an officer in the Revolutionary Army. His great-grandmother was the daughter of Colonel Spofford and sister of Horatio Gates Spofford, the author.

The grandfather of Mr. Carroll, Royal Phelps, 1809-1884, began a commercial life in New York City when he was only fifteen years old, and spent some fifteen years in the West Indies and in Venezuela. In 1840 he established a business house for himself, and the rest of his active career was devoted to the West Indian and South American trade. He married a lady of Spanish family in 1831, and his only daughter became the wife of Governor John Lee Carroll.

Mr. Royal Phelps Carroll, their son, fifth in descent from Charles Carroll, of Carrollton, was born in New York, October 29th, 1862. He attended schools in France and England and was graduated from Harvard University in the class of 1885. In 1891, he married Marion Langdon, daughter of Eugene and Harriet (Lowndes) Langdon, and has one daughter, Marion Dorothea Carroll. Mr. Carroll has residences in New York and Newport, and is a member of the Union, Knickerbocker, Racquet and other clubs. He is a skillful and enthusiastic yachtsman, and owns the Navahoe, which, in 1894, he sailed in the principal European regattas, beating the Prince of Wales' Britannia in the race for the Brenton Reef Cup. Mr. Carroll flies the pennants of the Seawanhaka-Corinthian, Larchmont and Eastern Yacht clubs.

IO3

COLIN SMITH CARTER, D. D. S.

M R. COLIN SMITH CARTER was born in Middletown, Conn., April 13th, 1857. His ancestry is mainly English and Welsh, a single line extending into France. His earliest American ancestor was Elder William Brewster, of the Mayflower, from whom he is ninth in lineal descent. He is also descended from Thomas Gardner, overseer of the first emigrants that landed at Cape Ann (now Gloucester), Mass., in 1624. Others of his ancestors were of the distinguished companies that came to that Colony with Governor Winthrop, in 1630, and to New Haven, with Governor Eaton, in 1637. Of his English ancestors, he is ninth in descent from Thomas Morton, who was graduated from Cambridge, became Bishop of Chester 1615, Litchfield 1618, Durham 1632, and whose daughter Ann married first David Yale, and second Governor Eaton, of the New Haven Colony. A daughter of David and Ann (Morton) Yale married Governor Edward Hopkins, of the Connecticut Colony; their son, Thomas, married Mary, daughter of Captain Nathaniel Turner, they being the parents of Elihu Yale, after whom Yale University was named, and also the great-grandparents of Ann Yale, who, May 8th, 1733, married William Carter, the great-great-grandfather of the subject of this sketch. Dr. Carter is also seventh in descent from Thomas Roberts, the last Colonial Governor of New Hampshire, and eighth in descent from Governor Thomas Prince, of the Plymouth Colony. One of his ancestors owned Breed's Hill, on which the Battle of Bunker Hill was fought; others were among the courageous protectors of the regicides, while more than a score served in the Pequot and King Philip's wars, and in the General Courts of the Colonies of Plymouth, Mass., Connecticut, New Haven and New Hampshire. Three of them were among the thirteen members of the convention which met in 1639 to frame for the Colony of Connecticut a written constitution, the first ever adopted by any people, and the leading features of which have since been incorporated in both the Federal and most of our State constitutions. He is a great- grandson of Sergeant William Taylor, who enlisted in the Lexington alarm, from Simsbury, Conn., when only seventeen years of age, was at Bunker Hill, Monmouth and Stony Point, served until the close of the war and was awarded a pension. He is also fourth and fifth in descent respectively from Private Joseph Gaylord and Captain Nathaniel Bunnell, likewise Connecticut soldiers of the Revolution. His grandfather Carter held the offices of assessor, collector and postmaster, and his father, Walter S. Carter, is a well-known New York lawyer, noted as an art collector and for his interest in hereditary-patriotic societies. His maternal grandfather was the late John Cotton Smith, of New Hartford, Conn., a leading manufacturer, whose wife, Ellen (Fox) Smith, was descended from one of the best-known families in the central portion of the State.

Dr. Carter was educated in the public schools, at the Wilbraham Academy, and the Polytechnic Institute, Brooklyn. He entered the Dental Department of the University of Pennsylvania, in 1881, and was graduated with the degree of Doctor of Dental Surgery two years later. Upon his graduation he was appointed Assistant Demonstrator of Operative Dentistry, which position he filled until the following year, when he commenced practice in New York, in which he has achieved distinguished success.

In 1892, Dr. Carter married Rose Esterbrook, daughter of the late Richard and Antoinette (Rose) Esterbrook, of Bridgehampton, L. I. The latter was a daughter of Judge Rose, who was of an ancient Long Island family, a graduate of Yale, and noted as the author of a valuable and learned commentary on constitutional law.

Dr. Carter is a member of the Union League, Republican and American Yacht clubs, the New England Society, Sons of the Revolution, Sons of the American Revolution, Society of Mayflower Descendants, Founders and Patriots of America, America's Founders and Defenders, and other patriotic, political and social organizations. In religion he is a Methodist, being a member of St. Paul's Church, in this city.

104

JAMES C. CARTER

A MONG the Puritan clergy whose influence was so marked in the early history of Massa- chusetts was the Reverend Thomas Carter, who came of an excellent English family in Hertfordshire, and received his education at St. John's College, Cambridge, taking his degrees there in 1629 and 1633. The date of his birth was 1610, and he was a young man of only twenty-five years when he joined the movement of the Puritians to the Massachusetts Bay Colony, coming over in 1635 on the ship Planter, with the Reverend Thomas Hooker and others who attained prominence in the Colony at that time. He resided at first in Dedham and afterwards in Watertown. He was ordained a minister of the gospel in 1642, and his first pastorate, which he entered upon in November of that year, was over the church in Woburn, Mass. There he remained for some forty years, until his death, in 1684. His wife, Mary, survived him less than three years, dying in Woburn in 1687.

Several of the children of the Reverend Thomas Carter became clergymen. One of them, the Reverend Samuel Carter, who was graduated at Harvard College, in 1660, bought land in the town of Lancaster, Worcester County, in the central part of Massachusetts. From him have descended numerous families, which have been located for generations in Lancaster, Leominster and other towns in that section. To one of these families the subject of this article belongs, his father and mother being Solomon and Elizabeth (White) Carter.

Mr. James C. Carter was born in Lancaster, Mass., October 14th, 1827. He received his preparatory education at the Derby Academy, Hingham, Mass., and entering Harvard College, at the age of eighteen, was graduated from that institution in the class of 1850. During his college course, he took a high rank and won prizes for essays and for a dissertation in Latin. After completing his studies, he came to New York and was for a year in the office of Kent & Davies, the senior partner of which was Judge William Kent, son of Chancellor Kent, and the junior the well-known Judge Henry E. Davies. Then he entered the law department of Harvard and was graduated therefrom with the degree of LL. B. in 1853. Returning to New York in 1853, he went into the office of Davies & Scudder, where he remained for a year, when that firm was dissolved and was succeeded by the firm of Scudder & Carter, in which Mr. Carter was the junior partner. On the death of Henry J. Scudder the present firm of Carter & Ledyard was formed, of which Mr. Carter is the senior member.

For more than forty years, Mr. Carter has been one of the foremost advocates at the bar in New York City. He has been identified with scores of leading cases in this city and State, as well as before the Supreme Court of the United States. One of his most notable professional engage -. ments was as counsel for the United States before the Tribunal of Arbitration at Paris in 1893 in connection with the Alaska Seal Controversy, and another was as one of the counsel who argued in favor of the constitutionality of the Income Tax Law before the United States Supreme Court in 1894. He was counsel and a close friend of the Honorable Samuel J. Tilden during the greater part of that eminent statesman's life, and defended his will against the legal attacks that were made upon it by Mr. Tilden's heirs.

Mr. Carter has written much for publication, principally upon legal subjects, and has made many public addresses. His works include The Attempted Codification of the Common Law; The Province of the Written and the Unwritten Law, an address before the Virginia State Bar Associ- ation in 1882; and The Ideal and the Actual in the Law, an address delivered before the Ameri- can Bar Association, in 1890. In 1885, he received the degree of LL. D. from Harvard University. He was for years president of the Harvard Law Association, and is now president of the Bar Association of the City of New York. He is a member of the Metropolitan, Harvard, City, Century, Union League, University and A A + clubs, the Downtown Association, the New England Society, the National Academy of Design, and other public bodies. His city residence is 277 Lexington Avenue.

105

HAMILTON WILKES CARY

I' N England, the family of Cary is old as well as illustrious. In 1198, Adam de Kari was Lord of Karey, in Somersetshire. Red Castle, an Irish estate in the County of Donegal, and also White Castle were granted to him. His arms were: Argent on a bend sable, three roses of the first. Crest, a swan argent. William Cary, of Bristol, Somersetshire, was born in 1500, and during the reign of King Henry VIII., in 1532, was sheriff of the City of Bristol and Mayor in 1546. He left two sons, one of whom, Richard, born in Bristol in 1525, succeeded him and died in 1570. William Cary, 1550-1632, the son of Richard Cary, also succeeded to the family estate. He was sheriff of Bristol in 1599 and Mayor in 1611. His son, James Cary, who was born in Bristol in 1600, was the American ancestor of the family.

James Cary emigrated from England in one of the first companies that came to Massachu- setts. He was in Charlestown, Mass., in 1639, was town clerk and held other offices. He died in 1681. His wife, whom he married in England, was Eleanor Hawkins. In the second American generation, Jonathan Cary, of Charlestown, 1647-1738, was a deacon of the church of Charlestown, and married in 1675 Hannah Windsor. In the next two generations came Samuel Cary, 1683-1741, and his wife, Mary Foster, daughter of Richard Foster, and Captain Samuel Cary, 1713-1769, and his wife, Margaret Graves, daughter of the Honorable Thomas Graves. Captain Samuel Cary com- manded a ship in the London trade and married his wife there in 1741. The great-grandfather of Mr. Hamilton Wilkes Cary was their son, Samuel Cary, 1742-1812, who was born in Charles- town, Mass. When a young man, he went abroad and was successfully engaged in mercantile life in the West Indies in 1762-72. In the latter year, he returned to his native place and married a daughter of the Reverend Ellis Gray. Taking his bride with him, he returned to the Island of Grenada in the West Indies, where he had large business interests, and remained there for several years thereafter; eventually, however, returning to Massachusetts, living in the old family mansion in Chelsea, where he died.

His son, William Ferdinand Cary, was born in Chelsea, Mass., in 1795. In 1815, he came to New York and established himself in business. Here he remained for more than fifty years and became a successful merchant. In old age, he returned to Boston in 1876 and lived there the rest of his life. His wife was Nancy Cushing Perkins, a daughter of Thomas Handasyd Perkins, one of Boston's famous merchants. Her grandfather was also a Boston merchant and her paternal grand- mother was Elizabeth Peck, one of the founders and earnest supporters of the Boston Female Asylum and of other philanthropic institutions. Her mother, whom her father married in 1778, was Sarah Elliot, daughter of Simon Elliot, of a well-known Boston family, whose ancestry goes back to the foundation of the Colony.

Thomas Handasyd Perkins, the great-grandfather of Mr. Hamilton Wilkes Cary, was born in Boston in 1764 and died in Brookline, Mass., in 1854. His brother was at the head of a mercantile house in the Island of San Domingo, and thither he went in 1785 to engage in business. A few years after, he returned to Boston, and from 1789 onward made several mercantile voyages to the East. Afterwards he formed a partnership with his brother James, but having accumulated a fortune retired from business in 1822. In 1805, he was a member of the Massachusetts Senate and for eighteen years thereafter was in either the upper or lower branch of the Legislature and was Lieutenant-Colonel in the militia. He gave a house and grounds in Boston for a Blind Asylum, was a large contributor to the Boston Atheneum and was active in the erection of the Bunker Hill Monument.

William F. Cary, son of William Ferdinand and Nancy Cushing (Perkins) Cary, was born in New York in 1832. He lived at Irvington-on-the Hudson, and in 1860 married Lena Haight, who survives him, residing in Park Avenue. Mr. Hamilton Wilkes Cary is their son and was born in New York in 1862. He is a member of the Metropolitan, Union and Knickerbocker clubs. His only sister is Catharine Caroline Cary.

106

CHARLES FREDERICK CHANDLER

O NE of the distinguished American scientists of this generation, Professor Charles Frederick Chandler, Ph. D., M. D., LL. D., has for over thirty years been prominent in the social, scientific and literary life of New York. His parents were Charles Chandler, of Petersham, Mass., and Sarah Whitney, of Boston. He is descended from William and Annis Chandler, who settled in Roxbury, Mass., in 1637. Three of his ancestors bore the name of John Chandler, and filled, in succession, the positions of Judge in Worcester County., Mass., and Colonel in the Colonial Army. One of them married Hannah Gardiner, of Gardiner's Island. Professor Chand- ler's paternal grandmother was Dollie Greene, a descendant of Thomas Greene, of Stone Castle, Old Warwick, R. I.

Mr. Charles Frederick Chandler was born in Lancaster, Mass., December 6th, 1836, and was educated in the Lawrence Scientific School of Harvard College and the Universities of Göttingen and Berlin. In 1856, he received the degree of Ph. D. from the University of Göttingen. For eight years he was instructor and lecturer on chemistry, mineralogy and geology in Union College, and in 1864, in association with Professor Thomas Egleston and General Francis Vinton, he founded the School of Mines of Columbia College, becoming dean of the Faculty and professor of chemistry and lecturer on geology. For thirty-three years he was at the head of this school, resigning the position of dean in 1897, in order to devote himself to his work in chemistry and allied branches. In 1872, he became connected with the New York College of Physicians and Surgeons, and on the death of Professor St. John, who held the chair of chemistry and medical jurisprudence, succeeded to the vacancy. He was one of the founders of the American Chemical Society and has been the vice- president and president of that association. With his brother, Professor Chandler, of Lehigh University, he founded The American Chemist, and in recent years has edited The Photographic Bulletin. For nearly thirty years, he has been professor of chemistry in the New York College of Pharmacy. His connection with the New York Board of Health began in 1866. In 1873, he was appointed president of the Board, and in 1877 reappointed for a full term of six years.

In 1873, the University of New York conferred upon him the degree of M. D., and the same year he received the degree of LL. D. from Union College. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the Sociedad Humboldt of Mexico, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Philosophical Society, the New York Academy of Science, chairman of the American Section of the English Society of Chemical Industry, and a life member of the London, Berlin, Paris and American Chemical Societies. He lives at 51 East Fifty-fourth Street and has a summer home, The Cherries, in West Hampton, Long Island. His clubs include the Metropolitan, University and Grolier, and the Century Association. He is also a member of the New England Society and the New York Farmers' Club. He was for many years a member of the Union League and the Tuxedo clubs.

In 1861, Professor Chandler married Anna Maria Craig, of Schenectady, N. Y., a daughter of James R. Craig and Margaret Walton. She was a descendant, on her father's side, of Anneke Jans, and on her mother's side, of William Hyde, of Hartford, Conn., 1636; Elisha Sill, of Lyme, Conn., 1730; Thomas Russell Gold, of Goshen, Conn., and General Robert Sedgwick, who came from London to Charlestown, Mass., in 1636. The only child of Professor Chandler is Margaret Chand- ler, wife of Charles Ernest Pellew, adjunct professor of chemistry in Columbia University. Mr. Pellew comes of a distinguished English family. His father was Henry Edward Pellew, of Katonah Wood, Westchester County, N. Y. His mother was a granddaughter of the celebrated Chief Jus- tice John Jay and daughter of Judge William Jay. His grandparents were the Reverend George Pellew, D. D., dean of Norwich, and Frances Addington, daughter of Henry Addington, Viscount Sidmouth and Prime Minister of England. The great-grandfather of Charles E. Pellew was Admiral Edward Pellew, Viscount Exmouth, 1757-1833, who married Sarah Frowde, daughter of James Frowde, of Wiltshire. Mr. and Mrs. Pellew have one child, Anna Craig Pellew.

107

WINTHROP CHANLER

C IVIC distinction attaches to the family name of Mr. Winthrop Chanler. His great-grandfather was Dr. Isaac Chanler, a prominent physician in Charleston, S. C., surgeon in the Continental Army in the Revolution, and first president of the Medical Society of South Carolina. A son of Dr. Chanler was the Reverend John White Chanler, a prominent clergyman of the Protestant Episcopal Church, who married Elizabeth Sheriffe Winthrop, a descendant of Governor John Winthrop. The Honorable John Winthrop Chanler, their only son and father of Mr. Winthrop Chanler, was born in New York in 1826. Graduated from Columbia College, he became one of the leading lawyers of his day, and active and influential in public affairs. For many years he was a prominent member of the Tammany Hall organization. Elected a member of the Assembly in 1857, he declined a renomination, but was elected a member of the Thirty-eighth Congress in 1862, and was returned to the National House in 1864 and 1866. Failing health led to his retirement in 1875, and he died at his country residence in Rhinebeck, in 1877. His wife was Margaret Astor Ward, only daughter of Samuel Ward, Jr.

Mr. Winthrop Chanler is descended from two of the most distinguished soldiers of the Colonial and Revolutionary period. His great-great-grandfather was General John Armstrong, of the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812, son of General John Armstrong, of the French War and the War of the Revolution. The elder John Armstrong, 1720-1795, was a native of Ireland, came to America in 1745 and founded Carlisle, Pa., in 1750. As a Colonel of Pennsyl- vania troops, he took part in the expedition against the Indians in 1756, where he was brilliantly successful, and received a medal from the Provincial authorities, and was in the advance upon Fort Duquesne. In 1776, he became Brigadier-General in the Continental Army and saw service at Fort Moultrie, Charleston, Brandywine and Germantown. After the war, he was a member of Congress in 1787.

The second General John Armstrong, 1758-1843, graduated from Princeton College in 1775, and enlisted in the Continental Army. He served on the staff of General Hugh Mercer, and afterwards on that of General Horatio Gates at Saratoga, and in 1780 was Adjutant-General of the Southern Army. After the war, he was Secretary of State and Adjutant-General of Pennsylvania for several years. Removing to New York, he became a member of Congress in 1787, was a United States Senator in 1800 and United States Minister to France and Spain in 1804-1810. In the War of 1812 he was a Brigadier-General, and in 1813 was Secretary of War in the Cabinet of President James Madison, resigning in 1814. His wife was Alida Livingston, daughter of Judge Robert R. Livingston and a sister of Chancellor Livingston. Margaret Armstrong, daughter of General John Armstrong, became the wife of William B. Astor, and her eldest daughter, Emily Astor, born in 1819, was the mother of Margaret Astor (Ward) Chanler. Through the Astor connection, Mr. Chanler is descended from Adam Todd, whose granddaughter, Sarah Todd, was the wife of the first John Jacob Astor.

Through his grandfather, Samuel Ward, Mr. Chanler is descended from another Colonial family. John Ward was an officer in Cromwell's Army, and came to America after the accession of Charles Il. His son, Thomas Ward, was treasurer of the Rhode Island Colony ; his grandson, Richard Ward, was its secretary and Governor of Rhode Island in 1740; and his great-grandson, Samuel Ward, was also Governor of Rhode Island, in 1762-63 and 1765-67, and a member of the Continental Congress in 1774. His great-great-grandson, Lieutenant-Colonel Samuel Ward, married a daughter of Governor William Greene, of Rhode Island; their son, Henry Ward, was the father of Samuel Ward, and grandfather of Samuel Ward, Jr., who married Emily Astor.

Mr. Winthrop Chanler is the second son of the Honorable John Winthrop Chanler. He was born in New York and married Margaret Terry, daughter of John Terry. He belongs to the Tuxedo, Knickerbocker, Union, Racquet and City clubs of New York, and the Metropolitan Club of Washington. He makes his home in Tuxedo Park.

108

ALFRED CLARK CHAPIN

D EACON SAMUEL CHAPIN, of Springfield, Mass., from whom have descended many men prominent in professional and public life in the United States during the last two hun- dred and fifty years, was the ancestor of the Honorable Alfred Clark Chapin. The latter's grandparents were Atlas Chapin and his wife, Mary, and his father was Ephraim A. Chapin. Through his mother, Josephine Clark, Mr. Chapin is also descended from another great Colonial family of New England, his mother's ancestor being Lieutenant William Clark, who came from England in 1630, and settled in Northampton, Mass., in 1657.

Mr. Chapin was born in South Hadley, Mass., March 8th, 1848. When an infant, he was taken to Springfield by his parents, who, in 1852, removed to Keene, N. H., and when he was fourteen years old to Rutland, Vt. His early education was secured in Keene and Rutland, and in 1865 he entered Williams College, being graduated from that institution in the class of 1869, with the degree of A. B. Afterwards he attended the Harvard Law School, receiving his degree of LL. B. in 1871, and then came to New York. For a year he continued his studies and in 1872 was admitted to the bar of New York State. He has since been engaged in the active practice of his profession in New York and Brooklyn. Making his residence in Brooklyn soon after he had entered upon professional life, he became interested in public affairs, and took an active and intelligent part in politics in that city. An adherent of the Democratic party, he was elected the first president of the Young Men's Democratic Club of Brooklyn in 1880, and was at once recog- nized as a leader of the younger element of his party. In 1881, he was elected Assemblyman from the Eleventh District of Kings County.

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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 17

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