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 18

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

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 18

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

His career in the Assembly was especially distinguished by an unswerving opposition to corrupt legislation of all kinds, and he soon became a leader there. Home rule for the city of Brooklyn and a constitutional amendment restricting the debt-making power of cities were measures that were advanced and advocated by him, and that brought him forward into special public prominence throughout the State. He also secured the passage of the Chapin Primary Law, which was the first step toward securing the purity of primary elections. He was also chairman of a special committee to investigate receiverships of insolvent insurance companies. In 1882, he was reëlected to the Assembly by a greatly increased majority, and upon taking his seat the following year was chosen Speaker. In that position, he was again successful in meeting the highest expectations of his supporters, by his integrity and devotion to public interests. The State Convention of his party in 1883 nominated him for State Comptroller and he was elected to that office. Reelected for a second term, his administration was characterized by honesty of purpose, fearlessness and admirable business judgment. By his influence, a bill was passed by which a large amount of delinquent taxes due by corporations to the State were recovered. Upon the expiration of his second term of service as State Comptroller, Mr. Chapin received the Democratic nomination for Mayor of Brooklyn and was elected. In 1889, he was reelected by the largest majority ever given for a Mayor of the city up to that time. His administration of the municipal affairs was eminently successful, and under his direction the city prospered in every way. He gave especial attention to street improvements, to the cause of education and to the enlargement of the police force, and inaugurated the erection of the Brooklyn Memorial Arch to the memory of the soldiers killed in the Civil War. Further political honors were bestowed upon him after the expiration of his Mayoralty term, and he was elected a Member of the National House of Repre- sentatives. He also served as a member of the Board of Railroad Commissioners of New York.

Mr. Chapin married Grace Stebbins in 1884. Mrs. Chapin was the daughter of Russell and Alice (Schieffelin) Stebbins. The children of this marriage are two daughters, Grace and Beatrice Chapin. Mr. Chapin is now a resident of New York, his home being in East Fifty-sixth Street, near Fifth Avenue. His country place is at Pointe-à-Pic, Province of Quebec, Canada. His clubs are the Metropolitan and the Union.

109

WILLIAM VIALL CHAPIN

S PRINGFIELD, Mass., originally Agawam, was settled in 1636 by a band of stout-hearted Puritans, who traversed the wilderness between the coast and the fertile valley of the Connecticut under the leadership of William Pynchon and Samuel Chapin. The latter, in fact, was the practical founder of the town, and attained a deservedly high place among the early worthies of the Bay Colony, all of which is fittingly commemorated by the statue of him that has in later days been erected at Springfield. He became also the progenitor of a family which from that time forth has been notable in various parts of New England, and which, besides furnishing a Colonial Governor, has been fertile in distinguished clergymen, scholars, and men of note in all stations of life.

Mr. William Viall Chapin comes of the Rhode Island branch of the family, Royal Chapin, his paternal grandfather, having been its Governor, and his father being General Walter B. Chapin. His mother, who was born Ann Frances Low Viall, was also a member of a dis- tinguished family. Her ancestor was William Viall, a French refugee, who, about 1790, settled at Seekonk, now a suburb of Providence, and whose descendants have been prominent in the State, and have intermarried with its foremost families of the original Puritan stock. One of his great-granddaughters is the wife of General Elisha Dyer, the present Governor of Rhode Island, and whose father, Elisha Dyer, Sr., also occupied the same position in 1857. Mr. Chapin's maternal grandmother was born Eliza Bowen, a daughter of Ezra Bowen, another Governor of Rhode Island, and a man famous in its political and social annals.

Born at Providence, R. 1., January ist, 1855, and educated at the famous St. Paul's School, Concord, N. H., Mr. Chapin entered Trinity College, Hartford, Conn., from which he graduated with the degree of B. A., that of A. M. being conferred upon him in due course. In his college years he became a member of the @ B K. He made New York his residence after graduation, and elected to follow a business career, joining the New York Stock Exchange in 1880, with which body he remained connected for the ten succeeding years.

By his marriage, which occurred in 1890, Mr. Chapin became allied with a prominent New York family, notable in a historical sense not only in Colonial and Revolutionary days, but in the later history of the country as well. His wife was Mary Worth White, daughter of Loomis L. White, of the city, a banker and prominent member of the New York Stock Exchange. Mrs. Chapin is a direct descendant of Peregrine White, who was one of the band of Pilgrim Fathers who came to Plymouth in the Mayflower. Her great-great-grandfather was the first Chancellor of the University of the State of New York, and also a State Senator. Her great-granduncle, Lebeas Loomis, was private secretary to General Washington, his portrait and that of his wife being in Mrs. Chapin's possession. Her mother, born Emma Worth, belonged to an old New York and New England family, and a great-uncle on the maternal side was Major-General William Worth, of the United States Army, who was a prominent figure in the war with Mexico, his monument opposite Madison Square in this city having been erected by the municipality as a tribute to this distinguished son of New York. He took part in all the engagements of the Mexican War, commanding a division of the American Army under Generals Taylor and Winfield Scott. The City of Fort Worth, Tex., and Lake Worth, Fla., were named after him.

Among other social organizations, Mr. Chapin is a member of the Knickerbocker Club, of New York, and of the Hope Club, the leading one of his native city, Providence, R. I. His town residence is No. 5 East Sixty-sixth Street, and his country place is Dunworth, at Pomfret, Conn., while he has a winter residence, Dunworth Lodge, at St. Augustine, Fla. The Chapin arms, as well as the family name, are of French origin. The shield is parti-colored, blue and gold, bearing three dragons' heads. The crest is a naked sword piercing a cavalier's hat. Motto: Tiens a ta foy avant le Roy.

IIO

ELIHU CHAUNCEY

T HE Chauncey family is of ancient renown in England. Its progenitors were among those who came from Normandy with William the Conqueror, and through the alliances of their ancestors with members of noble and royal families the American Chaunceys can trace their descent to the most aristocratic races of England and Europe. In the United States, the lineage goes back to the Reverend Charles Chauncey, the Puritan clergyman, a graduate from Trinity College, Cambridge, who came to the Massachusetts Bay Colony among the first emi- grants. He was the second president of Harvard College. The line of descent in the following generation is through the Reverend Nathaniel Chauncey, 1639-1685, of Hatfield, Mass., son of the Reverend Charles Chauncey, and in the next generation through the Reverend Nathaniel Chauncey, 1681-1756, of Durham, Conn., and his wife, Abigail Sarah Judson, daughter of Captain James Judson, of Stratford.

In the fourth American generation came Elihu Chauncey, the son of the Reverend Nathaniel Chauncey, of Durham. Elihu Chauncey was born in 1710 and died in 1791. He was a representative of the town of Durham in the Legislature continuously for thirty-nine successive terms, except when in the army. During the French and Indian War, he was a Colonel of one of the Connecticut regiments and was engaged in active service on the northern frontier. He displayed great ability as a military officer and was a valued adviser in the councils of the officers of the regular army. He was also Chief Justice of the County Court, was a large landed proprietor, and in the latter years of his life had important mercantile interests in Boston, where he established a store and carried on a general trading business between Connecticut and the Massachusetts capital. His wife was Mary Griswold, daughter of Samuel Griswold, of Killingworth, Conn.

The grandfather of Mr. Elihu Chauncey was Charles Chauncey, LL. D., of New Haven, 1747-1823. He was King's Attorney in 1776 and Judge of the Superior Court in 1789. Resigning from the bench in 1793, he retired from public life. He was a graduate from Yale College and received the degree of LL. D. from Middlebury College, Vermont, in 1811. The wife of Charles Chauncey was Abigail Darling, 1746-1818, daughter of Thomas and Abigail Darling, of New Haven. The eldest daughter of the family, Sarah Chauncey, born in 1780, married William W. Woolsey, the eminent merchant of New York and treasurer of the American Bible Society. She was his second wife, his first wife having been Elizabeth Dwight, sister of President Dwight of Yale College and mother of President Woolsey, of Yale. A son of Charles Chauncey and his wife, Abigail Darling, was Charles Chauncey, LL. D., 1777-1849, a graduate from Yale College in the class of 1792 and an eminent lawyer of Philadelphia. He was for several years a member of the Common Council of Philadelphia and a delegate to the Constitutional Convention in 1827-28. Another son, Elihu Chauncey, one of the leading citizens of Philadelphia, was president of the Reading Railroad, editor of The North American Gazette, and prominent in connection with the Bank of the United States and the Bank of Pennsylvania. Nathaniel Chauncey, another son, was born in 1789, and was the father of Mr. Elihu Chauncey. He was graduated from Yale College in 1806 and became a member of the Philadelphia bar. His wife, whom he married in 1836, was Elizabeth Sewall Salisbury, daughter of Samuel and Nancy Salisbury, of Boston.

Mr. Elihu Chauncey was born in Philadelphia, August 17th, 1840, and was educated in Harvard College, receiving the degrees of A. B. and A. M. Settling in New York, he married in 1871 Mary Jane Potter, daughter of the Right Reverend Horatio Potter, Bishop of New York. The residence of the family is in East Twenty-second Street. Mr. Chauncey is a member of the University, Grolier and Harvard clubs, the Century Association, the Society of Colonial Wars, the New York Historical Society and the American Geographical Society, and is a patron of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Mr. and Mrs. Chauncey have one daughter, Nathalie Elisa- beth Chauncey.

III

ROBERT A. CHESEBROUGH

P ROMINENT among New Yorkers of the Colonial period were the Maxwells. The family was of Scottish descent, from the earldoms of Nithsdale and barons of Herries, and one of its members, General Maxwell, did valiant service for the Colonies in the Revolution. William Maxwell was vice-president of the Bank of New York, the first financial institution established in the State. His son, James Homer Maxwell, was an intimate friend of Washington, and married Catharine Van Zandt, daughter of Jacobus Van Zandt, who was a surgeon in Washington's army at Trenton and Valley Forge and a member of the first Provincial Congress that met in New York, May 23d, 1775. Miss Van Zandt was a very beautiful woman and a leading belle of the city. She opened the first inauguration ball as the partner of President Washington. The grandson of James Homer Maxwell was William H. Maxwell, who, at the time of his death, in 1856, was the titular earl of Nithsdale. A granddaughter was daughter of Richard M. Woodhull, grandniece of General Woodhull, of the Continental Army, who met his death in the battle of Long Island, and mother of Mr. Robert A. Chesebrough.

On his father's side, Mr. Chesebrough is descended from Robert Chesebrough, founder and president of the Fulton Bank. His father was Henry A. Chesebrough, an old-time dry goods mer- chant of New York. The ancestor of the family, William Chesebrough, accompanied Governor John Winthrop from Cowes, in March, 1630, and settled in Boston. He was one of the leading citizens of the community, and in 1634 was High Sheriff. In 1651, he settled upon a grant of land made to him by the General Court of Connecticut and built a homestead. The City of Stonington now stands upon the grant that he then occupied. In this new commonwealth, William Chese- brough was the first Commissioner or magistrate, and in 1664 was chosen as the first representative to the General Court in Hartford. Robert Chesebrough, the grandfather of the subject of this sketch, was the fifth son of Nathaniel Chesebrough, who was the grandson of this William Chese- brough.

Mr. Robert A. Chesebrough was born in London, England, January 9th, 1837. He was educated abroad, applying himself specially to the study of chemistry, and then traveled two years in Europe. Returning to New York City in 1858, he established himself as a manufacturer of petroleum and coal oil products, and in 1870 discovered and patented the product known as vase- line. In 1876, he organized the Chesebrough Manufacturing Company, which now has branches in all the principal cities of Europe. He was one of the prime movers in the proposition to estab- lish the New York Real Estate Exchange and was the second vice-president and one of the building committee of the Consolidated Exchange. He is a member of the Union League, Riding, Manhattan and other clubs and societies and is also interested in many charitable organizations. In 1890, he was president of the Downtown Republican Club. His literary taste has been shown in occasional public addresses and in a volume entitled A Reverie and Other Poems. Mr. Chesebrough maintains a deep interest in public affairs, although he has never aspired to public office. Frequently urged to accept nominations by the Republican party, to which he belongs, he yielded on one occasion and made the campaign for Congress in the Twelfth District, but was not successful, although he largely reduced the normal Democratic majority in the district.

In the Senate House in Kingston, N. Y., among the Revolutionary relics there preserved, are two large oil paintings of the father and mother of William Maxwell. These portraits hung in the old Maxwell mansion in Wall Street during the British occupation of the city, and they still show the holes made by the bayonet thrusts of the British soldiers. The portraits were presented to the Senate House by Mr. Chesebrough. Among other interesting heirlooms of the family are the Bibles of the Maxwells and the Van Zandts. In 1864, Mr. Chesebrough married Margaret McCredy, sister of the wife of Frederic R. Coudert. Mrs. Chesebrough died in 1887, leaving three sons and one daughter, Robert M., William H., Frederick W. and Marion M. Chesebrough. The residence of the family is in East Forty-fifth Street.

112

BEVERLY CHEW

F IRST of his name to appear in America was John Chew, a cadet member of the family of Chew, of Chewton, Somersetshire, England, He came to Virginia in the ship Charitie before 1620, and his wife Sarah followed two years after. In 1623, he was a member of the Virginia House of Assembly, afterwards a Burgess, and was in the Assembly until 1642. He had five sons, Samuel, Joseph and three others. Samuel Chew, the eldest son, went to Maryland before 1655, and took up land in Herring Bay, Calvert County. His grandson, Dr. Samuel Chew, was a well-known physician and jurist of a later time. Judge Benjamin Chew, 1722-1810, the son of Dr. Samuel Chew, was one of the most famous Judges of his generation.

Mr. Beverly Chew is a descendant in the seventh generation from John Chew, the pioneer. His line of descent is from Joseph Chew, the second son of John Chew. Joseph Chew died in Maryland in 1716. His second wife was a Miss Larkin, of Annapolis, and his son, Larkin Chew, who settled in Virginia in the latter part of the seventeenth century, married Hannah Roy, daughter of John Roy, of Port Royal, Va. John Chew, son of Larkin Chew, married Margaret Beverly, daughter of Colonel Robert Beverly.

Colonel Robert Beverly, who was born in 1675 and died in 1716, was a prominent man in the Colonial affairs of Virginia. He was a son of Major Robert Beverly, who was clerk of the Virginia Council for many years, and succeeded his father in that position in 1697. He was best known as one of the earliest American historians. His History of the Present State of Vir- ginia, an exhaustive work, was published in London in 1705, and reprinted in 1722. The second John Chew, son of John Chew and Margaret Beverly, was a Colonel in the Revolutionary War, and married Anna Fox, daughter of Thomas Fox. He died in 1799 and his wife survived until 1820. Beverly Chew, their son and the grandfather of Mr. Beverly Chew, of New York, was born in 1773. Soon after he became of age, he removed to New Orleans from Virginia, and from 1817 to 1829 was Collector of the Port in that city. He became a prominent business man, and was president of the Branch Bank of the United States, and Russian Vice-Consul.

The wife of Beverly Chew, the elder, whom he married in 1810, was Maria Theodora Duer, daughter of Colonel William Duer, of New York, and granddaughter of Major-General Lord Sterling, of the Revolutionary Army. She died in 1831. Lord Sterling was one of the most prominent and faithful patriots of the Revolutionary War. He was the son of the famous New York Colonial lawyer, James Alexander, and through his mother a descendant of the de Peysters. He owned estates in New York and New Jersey, and his county seat, near Morristown, was one of the handsomest in the colonies. The mother of Maria Theodora Duer was Lady Catherine Alexander, the youngest of the two daughters of Lord Sterling, the elder being the wife of Robert Watts. Alexander La Fayette Chew, son of Beverly and Maria Theodora (Duer) Chew, married in 1849 Sarah Augustus Prouty, daughter of Phinehas Prouty, of Geneva, N. Y. His children were: Beverly; Harriet Hillhouse, who was born in 1852 and married in 1874; Ernest Cleveland Coxe, son of the Right Reverend A. Cleveland Coxe, Bishop of Western New York; Phinehas Prouty, who was born in 1854; Thomas Hillhouse, born in 1856; Alexander Duer, born in 1858; Kate Adelaide; Theodora Augusta, and Lillian Chew. The second daughter died in 1874.

Mr. Beverly Chew, the eldest son, was born in Geneva, N. Y., March 5th, 1850. He was educated at the Peekskill Military Academy, and at Hobart College, from which he was graduated in 1869. He has been engaged in financial pursuits in New York during most of his lifetime, and at the present time is secretary of the Metropolitan Trust Company. A man of pronounced literary tastes, he is a member of the Century, University, Players and Grolier clubs, having been president of the latter for four years, and is also a member of the _ ¢ and Church clubs. In 1872, he married Clarissa Taintor Pierson, daughter of the Reverend Job Pierson, of lonia, Mich. Mrs. Chew died May 30th, 1889. Mr. Chew's brother, Alexander Duer Chew, is also a resident of New York, and a member of the Players, St. Nicholas and other clubs.

113

DANIEL BREWER CHILDS

W HEN the ship Arabella came to Massachusetts in 1630, it brought several members of the Child family, who were natives of Suffolk, England. One of these, Deacon Ephraim Child, the personal friend of Governor John Winthrop, settled in Watertown, where he was a freeman in 1631, and in after years a representative, selectman and town clerk, as well as one of the wealthiest men in the community. Benjamin Child, his nephew, was also in this company and settled in Watertown, but removed to Roxbury and died in 1678. His son, Ephraim Child, a soldier, was killed in 1675 by the Indians at Northfield during King Philip's War. The wife of Benjamin Child was Mary Bowen and their son, Benjamin Child, 1656-1724, was baptized by the Apostle Eliot. He married in 1683 Grace Morris, daughter of Lieutenant Edward Morris, a proprietor of Woodstock, Conn.

In the next generation, Ephraim Child, 1683-1759, was born in Roxbury, but removed to New Roxbury, afterwards Woodstock, Conn., and in 1735 erected the Child mansion, still pre- served there. He married Priscilla Harris, 1684-1780. Their son, Ephraim Child, Jr., 1711-1775, was an ensign in 1750 and married Mary Lyon. His son, Captain Increase Child, 1740-1810, served seven years, from 1755 onward, under Israel Putnam in the French war. When the Revolution began he raised a company in Dutchess County, N. Y., and served under Generals Schuyler and Gates in the Saratoga Campaign. He married Olive Pease, 1738-1822, one of their sons being Judge Salmon Child, of the Saratoga County Court, and another, Dr. Ephraim Child, 1773-1830, the grandfather of Mr. Daniel Brewer Childs. Dr. Child was a distinguished physician, residing in Stillwater, Saratoga County, and was a founder of the medical society of that county. He was also a Surgeon in the War of 1812. He married Mary Woodworth, 1781-1843, daughter of Captain Ephraim and Anna (Moore) Woodworth and cousin of Judge Ambrose Spencer.

Noadiah Moody Childs, father of Mr. Daniel Brewer Childs, was born in Stillwater in 1806, and died in 1896. During part of his life he was a civil engineer, associated with his brother, Colonel Orville W. Childs, formerly State engineer, and was engaged on many important works, particularly in connection with the New York canal system. In 1841, he became a manufacturer of salt, and was president of the Syracuse Salt Company. He was frequently honored by public office. His first wife was Martha Brewer, daughter of Simeon and Eunice (Macy) Brewer, of Providence, R. I., and a descendant from Governor John Carver, of the Mayflower. His second wife was Sarah Elizabeth Dawes, daughter of Dr. Ebenezer Dawes.

Mr. Daniel Brewer Childs was born in Syracuse, N. Y., May 5th, 1843. On the maternal side he is descended from Daniel Brewer, who settled in Roxbury, Mass., in 1632, and from the Reverend Daniel Brewer, D. D., pastor of the first church in Springfield, Mass., for forty years, who died in 1733, and whose wife, Catharine Chauncy, was a granddaughter of the Reverend Charles Chauncy, the second president of Harvard College, whose lineage has been traced else- where in this volume to Alfred the Great and Charlemagne. Mr. Childs studied at Oberlin College, and spent a year at Yale, graduating therefrom in 1863. He then entered the Albany Law Univer- sity and graduated in 1864. Being admitted to the bar, he entered the office of Charles Andrews, of Syracuse, now Chief Justice of the Court of Appeals, and in 1867 came to New York and engaged in practice for over twenty-five years in the firm of Childs & Hull. He has devoted himself principally to civil and commercial branches of law, to practice in bankruptcy and real estate cases, and to the charge of large trust estates.

Mr. Childs married Kathryn B. Cass, daughter of Dr. Jonathan and Mary (Peet) Cass. Dr. Cass was a Surgeon in the United States Army, 1861-65, was chief of staff of the Alexandria Hospital, served throughout the Civil War, and died in New York in 1886. The residence of Mr. and Mrs. Childs is in East Seventy-seventh Street, near Fifth Avenue, and their summer home is in Great Barrington, Mass. Mr. Childs was an early member of the University and Lawyers' clubs, having been one of the founders of the former.

114

JOSEPH HODGES CHOATE

J OHN CHOATE, the ancestor of the Choate family in this country, settled at Chebacca, Ipswich, now Essex, Mass. According to the court files at Salem, he was about forty years old in 1664. His descendants for several generations continued to live upon the ancestral estate, and ever since they have been one of the most noted and influential families of that part of the Old Bay State. Many of them have achieved distinction in various fields of activity, but more especially in the legal and other learned professions. Rufus Choate, the great lawyer and United States Senator for Massachusetts, was a direct descendant from John Choate in the fifth generation. Of this distinguished family came Mr. Joseph Hodges Choate, who takes rank as one of the leaders of the New York bar, and who was born in Salem, Mass., January 24th, 1832. He was in early boyhood prepared for Harvard College, which he entered when he was sixteen years of age and from which he was graduated in 1852, in a class which included many men subsequently of high distinction. Fixing upon law for his life pursuit, he entered the Dane Law School of Harvard, whence he was graduated in 1854. A year later he was admitted to practice at the bar of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. In 1856, he came to New York and was admitted to practice in the courts of this city, and promptly advanced to the front rank as one of the most brilliant young advocates of that time.

Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.

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 18

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