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 19

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

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During the four decades that Mr. Choate has practiced at the New York bar he has borne a leading part and has achieved fame for his learning and for his forensic ability, second to no other lawyer in this country. He has been engaged in many of the most famous cases that have been before the courts of the State or the National tribunals. One of his most notable causes was that of General Fitz-John Porter. The latter had been deprived of his military rank by sentence of a court martial on a charge of disobedience of orders at the second battle of Bull Run. After sixteen years a board of inquiry was appointed by the President to review the action of the court martial; and the injustice of its decision being demonstrated, Mr. Choate's client, General Porter, was at last reinstated in his commission and rank in the army. To review all the litigation in which Mr. Choate has been engaged would be to write a history of the New York bar of the present era. Excelling as an advocate before a jury, he is also a constitutional lawyer of the first rank, and has been engaged in many of the most important causes of that class that have been argued before the Supreme Court of the United States. His successful argument against the constitutionality of the income tax law before the latter tribunal in 1896, will be regarded as one of the greatest victories ever won by an American lawyer.

Politically Mr. Choate is a Republican and one of the conspicuously active members of his party. He has never held public office, although frequently mentioned for political honors. He takes a prominent part in National, State and municipal affairs and exercises a wide and strong influence upon public matters generally. He was one of the original Committee of Seventy which was organized to overthrow the Tweed ring, and in conjunction with his friend and associate, Charles O'Conor, contributed very substantially to the success that was achieved in that movement for reform. In 1894, he was president of the Constitutional Convention that formulated the new constitution for the State of New York.

As an orator, Mr. Choate has a widespread reputation, and whether at the bar, upon the political platform or at dinners or other social gatherings, he has few recognized rivals. He married Caroline D. Sterling, of Salem, Mass., the children of this union being Mabel Choate and Joseph Hodges Choate, Jr., an undergraduate at Harvard. Mr. Choate is a member of many clubs of the city, among them the Metropolitan, the Century, the Union League, the University, the New York Athletic and the Harvard. He has been president of the Union League Club and also of the New England Society of New York. His brother, the Honorable William G. Choate, has also been prominent at the New York bar, and was Judge of the United States Court. He married Mary Lyman Atwater.

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BENJAMIN SILLIMAN CHURCH

E XCEPTIONAL interest attaches to the career of John Barker Church, ancestor of the subject of this sketch. Born in 1739, of a family of wealth and influence, at Great Yarmouth, England, his liberal opinions caused him to take active service on behalf of the Colonies. He became Commissary General to the French forces, and being one of the few American officers who understood French, was the means of communication between Washington and Rochambeau. In 1777, he married Angelica, daughter of General Philip Schuyler, and became a brother-in-law to Alexander Hamilton. His wife accompanied him throughout the war, and in 1778, their son, Philip Church, was born; and as an infant, with his mother, was at General Schuyler's house when the attempt was made to capture the General by the British, the child receiving a wound, the scar of which remained for life.

At the end of the war the family returned to England, and in 1788, John B. Church was elected member of Parliament for Wendover. Down House, his London residence, was noted for its hospitality and for the gatherings of notabilities, including Fox, Pitt, Burke, Lord Grenville and even the Prince of Wales, afterward George IV. Mr. Church also aided Talleyrand and other emigrés, and in his house the plan of releasing Lafayette from Olmutz was matured and by his aid carried into effect. In 1797, John B. Church returned to New York and was considered one of the richest men of the country, but as an underwriter suffered heavy losses from the French spoliations. He was prominent in the first efforts to supply New York with water, and was president of the company. In 1799, he fought a duel with Aaron Burr, at Weehawken, in which neither party was injured. The pistols used in the fatal encounter in 1804 between Hamilton and Burr belonged to Church, and are still in the possession of the family.

Philip Church, his son, had graduated with credit at Eton College and begun the study of law at the Temple, in London. He returned to America, entered the office of Nathaniel Pendleton, and was admitted to the bar in 1804. In 1801, he was second to Philip Hamilton in the duel with Eckhard, in which young Hamilton fell fatally wounded. While pursuing his legal studies, Philip Church, then nineteen years old, was appointed in 1798 a Captain in the Provincial Army, formed in anticipation of war with France, and became aide and private secretary to Alexander Hamilton. Bearing despatches to General Washington, he won the latter's esteem, and letters from Washington, inviting him to Mount Vernon, are among the most treasured heirlooms of the family. In 1799, Captain Church visited Canandaigua, N. Y., to attend the foreclosure of a tract of one hundred thousand acres in Ontario, now Allegheny County, belonging to Robert Morris, on which his father owned a mortgage. He bid the property in and finally abandoned the law to make the development of this domain his labor. The site selected for a village is now the town of Angelica, named after his mother, and two miles from it he chose two thousand acres of land for his own residence, calling it Belvidere. Here he erected a wooden house, afterwards replaced by a mansion long famous as the only stone house in Western New York. In 1805, he brought to Belvidere his bride, Anna Matilda, daughter of General Walter Stewart, the Revolutionary hero. Her mother was the famous beauty, Deborah McClanaghan, daughter of Blair McClanaghan, a wealthy Philadelphian, whose residence was the Chew House at Germantown. At their marriage in 1781, Washington presented them with his own miniature, now a treasured family possession, and also a cabinet containing one hundred volumes of poetry, which is owned by Colonel Benjamin S. Church. Captain Church visited England in 1812 to import fine live stock. While abroad, he was entertained by the Duke of Bedford and other noblemen, and given a public banquet at Great Yarmouth. Returning to America, he continued his efforts to improve his estate and devoted great attention to plans of internal improvement. The only office he ever accepted was that of Judge of the County Court, which he filled from 1807 to 1821. He zealously aided the

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construction of the canal system. At an early date, Judge Church advocated railroads, and ere his death, in 1861, he had witnessed the completion of the Erie Railroad.

John B. Church, Judge Church's eldest son, graduated at Yale in 1829 and was admitted to the bar. He never practiced and resided chiefly at Belvidere. He interested himself in public enterprises, notably the early plans for rapid transit in New York City. He married a daughter of Professor Benjamin Silliman, Sr., of Yale, and his son traces his maternal ancestry to John Robinson, one of the Mayflower Pilgrims, to John and Priscilla Alden, to Governor Jonathan Trumbull and to General Gold Silliman. Mr. Benjamin Silliman Church, their son, was born at Belvidere, April 17, 1836. When a child, he was sent to be educated by his grandfather, Professor Silliman, at New Haven, and attended the famous Russell School there. He entered the Chandler Engineering Department of Dartmouth College, graduating in 1856. He was then engaged as engineer on the surveys of Central Park, of the Croton River and of the new Central Park reservoir, and in 1860 became principal assistant on the Croton aqueduct. At the outbreak of the Civil War, Mr. Church went to the front as Captain of Engineers in the Twelfth Regiment. In 1863, he again entered the service as Captain of Engineers on General Yates's staff, and after the war was Colonel of Engineers on the staff of Generals Shaler and Louis Fitzgerald. Colonel Church's professional life has been identified with New York's water supply. His studies convinced him that the city was outgrowing the existing facilities, and in 1875 he prepared the plans for conserving the entire Croton watershed. In 1883, the new Aqueduct Commission was constituted, and Colonel Church made Chief Engineer. His plans for the work, one of the great achievements of modern engineering, were accepted, including the tunnel thirty miles long through solid rock and under the Harlem River, and were carried to completion on the exact lines he had designated. In 1889, he retired from the aqueduct, but that great work remains a testimonial of his services to the metropolis. Since the year mentioned, he has practiced his profession as engineer chiefly in its hydraulic and mining branches.

In 1875, Colonel Church married Mary Van Wyck, daughter of Abraham Van Wyck, whose grandfather was the Revolutionary patriot, Theodore Van Wyck, member of the Committee of Safety. Mrs. Church is related to a large number of old New York Dutch families, among her ancestors being Pieterse Schuyler, Robert Livingston, Abraham de Peyster, Pierre Van Cortlandt, Cornelis Mellyn, the patroon of Staten Island, David Prevoost, Wilhelmus Beekman and other founders of the New Netherland. She is also great-granddaughter of Samuel Howell, of Pennsylvania, member of the Revolutionary Committee of Safety, and also descends from Peter Stretch, who served in the Philadelphia City Council from 1708 to 1746, and from his son, Thomas Stretch, who in 1732, on the formation of the famous Philadelphia Colony of Schuylkill, better known as the Fish House (now the oldest social organization in the world), was elected its Governor and held the office till his death, in 1765. Peter Stretch, his son, was in 1776 and 1778 chosen by Congress to sign the Continental bills of credit. Mrs. Church's maternal ancestry connects her with prominent Southern families. Her mother was Elizabeth Searcy Cantrell, daughter of Stephen Cantrell, of Davidson County, Tenn., and niece of Judge Granville Searcy. Stephen Cantrell, Sr., received a large tract of land near Nashville for distinguished services in the Indian wars of North Carolina, and was one of the early settlers of Tennessee. Stephen Cantrell, Jr., in 1806, married a famous beauty, Juliet Wendell, niece of George Michael Deadrick, an opulent citizen of Nashville, the courtship and marriage taking place in the stately Deadrick mansion, near Nashville, still in possession of the family. Mrs. Church is also related to the Polk, Frentress and other leading Southern families.

Mrs. Church was a founder of the original Society of Colonial Dames and of the New York Society of that order, being vice-president of the latter. She is also vice-regent of the Mary Washington Colonial Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution. Colonel and Mrs. Church reside at No. 36 West Twelfth Street. They have one daughter, Angelica Schuyler Church. Colonel Church belongs to the Manhattan, Union League, and Engineers and Century clubs, the New York Historical Society, and the Loyal Legion.

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JOHN CLAFLIN

F OR more than a century and a half, the Claflin family in Massachusetts has contributed to the welfare of that Commonwealth. The original Claflins, of Scotch descent, were among the pioneers who settled the town of Hopkinton early in the eighteenth cen- tury. Their descendants for many generations owned land in Hopkinton, Sherburne, Sudbury and other towns in the central and eastern portions of the old Bay State. Ebenezer Claflin, the ancestor of Mr. John Claflin, removed from Hopkinton to Milford some time previous to the Revolutionary period. His wife, whom he married in 1739, was Hannah Smith. His son, John Claflin, of Milford, who was born in 1750, married, in 1770, Mary Sheffield, daughter of Isaac Sheffield. John Claflin, Jr., 1775-1848, was the son of John and Mary Claflin. He was a justice of the peace for thirty years, and a Major of artillery, a substantial citizen, who was frequently honored with public office at the hands of his fellow citizens. His wife was Lydia Mellen, daughter of Henry Mellen.

Horace B. Claflin, son of John Claflin, of Milford, was born December 18th, 1811, received a good education and in 1832, with his brother and his brother-in-law, entered upon mercantile life in his native town. In a year or more, the young men were able to open a branch store in Worcester, that soon became the largest and most prosperous store in New England outside of Boston. Mr. Claflin had long been intent upon coming to New York, and in 1843, selling out his interest in the Worcester establishment, he started the firm of Bulkley & Claflin, to engage in the wholesale dry goods business in the metropolis. This firm was succeeded by Claflin, Miller & Co., and soon took a position in the front rank. In 1864, the firm name became H. B. Claflin & Co., and Mr. Claflin continued in active control until his death in 1885. He made a large fortune and was one of the most generous men of his time.

The wife of Horace B. Claflin was Agnes Sanger. She was the daughter of Calvin Sanger, 1768-1835, by his wife Anna Phipps, daughter of Jedediah Phipps, who was a great- grandnephew of Sir William Phipps, and whose wife was Sarah Learned, daughter of Captain Edward Learned and Sarah Leland. Calvin Sanger was one of the leading citizens of Sher- burne, Mass. He was a lawyer, Captain and Colonel of cavalry, a representative to the Massachusetts General Court for thirty years, town clerk for twenty-five years, a State Senator and a magistrate from 1806 until the time of his death. He was the son of Captain Samuel Sanger, 1725-1822; grandson of Richard Sanger, 1706-1786, a successful merchant of Sherburne and Boston, and a member of the Committee of Safety in 1776. Richard Sanger was a grandson of Richard Sanger, the pioneer, who came to this country in 1638, settled in Water- town and was a soldier in King Philip's War.

Mr. John Claflin, who succeeded his father as the head of the Claflin house, was born in Brooklyn, July 24th, 1850. The New England idea was adhered to in his education, and he was taught in the public schools and in the College of the City of New York, from which institution he graduated with honors in 1869. The following twelve months he traveled in Europe and the Orient and in September, 1870, entered the Claflin establishment. Three years later, he became a junior partner, and upon his father's death became the head of the concern. In 1890, he formed the corporation of The H. B. Claflin Company, of which he is president.

Mr. Claflin is a member of the Metropolitan Club, but club and social life has little charm for him. He takes his recreation from business in travel and exploration, and has made long and often dangerous journeys in the United States, Mexico, South America, Europe and Asia. Few men, save professional explorers, have penetrated further into the wild places of the world, in desert lands and among savages. He married Elizabeth Stewart. His winter residence is in East Sixty-ninth Street, but the greater part of the year he spends in Kings- bridge, now the Twenty-fourth Ward of the city, where his father many years ago purchased a large estate.

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JOHN HERBERT CLAIBORNE, JR., M.D.

O N the male side, the Claiborne family of Virginia commences with Bardolph, 1086, Lord of Ravensworth, the common ancestor of several noble North Country families. This Bardolph was brother to Alan Fargeant, who led the Breton auxiliaries at the Battle of Hastings. The name of Cleburne was first worn by Alan Fitz Hirvey dictus Cleburne, a grandson of Bardolph, who received as his portion a moiety of the manor of Cleburne, in the County of Westmoreland. On the "spindle" side, the lineage goes back to Malcom II., of Scotland, and to the Earls of Northumberland and Dunbar, and the Lords of Seton.

Edmond Cliborne, Lord of the manors of Cliburne and Killerby, married in 1576 Grace Bellingham, daughter of Sir Alan Bellingham. Their son, Captain William Claiborne, seventeenth in line of descent from Bardolph, was born in 1587, and came to Virginia in 1621. He was secretary, treasurer and surveyor-general of the Colony, and distinguished himself by his con- tention with Lord Baltimore for the possession of Kent Island. He resided at Romancock, King William County, and died in 1676. His wife, whom he married in England, was Jane Buller. Their son, Lieutenant-Colonel Thomas Claiborne, of Romancock, 1647-1683, was slain in battle with the Indians. His wife was a member of the Danbridge family. The next in line was Captain Thomas Claiborne, of Sweet Hall, King William County, 1680-1732, who married three times and had twenty-seven children. By his wife Anna Fox he had Colonel Augustine Claiborne, 1721-1787, of Windsor, whose wife was Mary Herbert, daughter of Buller Herbert, of Puddledock, Prince George County. The Herberts were an aristocratic Virginia family, and Mary Herbert inherited a large fortune from her uncle John Herbert, whose tombstone, with the Herbert arms, has been transported from Puddledock and set in the wall of the Blandford Church, at Petersburg. Their seventh child, John Herbert Claiborne, born 1763, was the great- grandfather of the gentleman now referred to. He was one of the volunteers who formed a troop of horse and rode with "Light Horse " Harry Lee in the Revolution. His wife was a daughter of Roger Gregory, of Chesterfield, and their son, the Reverend John Gregory Claiborne, became a prominent clergyman in Virginia, and married Mary E. Weldon, of Weldon, N. C.

A son of this marriage is Dr. John Herbert Claiborne, of Petersburg, Va., father of Dr. Claiborne, of New York. The former holds a high professional rank in his native State, and before the Civil War took an interest in public affairs, being a member of the State Senate in 1858. He was Surgeon and Major of the Twelfth Virginia Regiment in the war. Dr. Claiborne married twice, his first wife being Sarah Joseph Alston, of Halifax, N. C., and his second, Annie Leslie Watson, by whom he has a son and a daughter.

Mr. John Herbert Claiborne, Jr., M. D., is the eldest son of his father's first marriage. He was born in Louisburg, N. C., 1861; was educated at Petersburg, and was graduated in belles lettres at the University of Virginia in 1881. In 1883, he received his degree of M. D. at the same institution; and visiting Europe during the ensuing two years, pursued his studies in the Universities of Halle and Berlin, and at the clinics of Paris and London. Since 1886, he has practiced in his specialties of eye and ear diseases in New York. He now holds the position of instructor in ophthalmology in Columbia University. He has made many contributions to the medical literature of the times, and is the author of several standard works relating to his special field of practice. He is a member of many leading professional bodies.

For five years he served as a National Guardsman in the New York Militia. He was a private in Troop A, N. G. N. Y., and afterwards held a warrant as Sergeant in Troop 1, when Troop A was converted into a squadron. He is a member of the Southern Society, and of the University, Calumet, Fencers and Military clubs. His residence is No. 39 West Thirty-sixth Street. The Claiborne arms are: quarterly first and fourth, argent three chevronels interlaced in base sable, a chief of the last. Second and third, argent a cross engrailed vert. Crest, a demi-wolf proper, rampant, regardant. Motto, Lofe clibhor na sceame.

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JOHN MITCHELL CLARK

A BOUT 1635, some of the principal inhabitants of Ipswich, Mass., becoming dissatisfied with church affairs in that town, petitioned the General Court of the Colony for permission to remove and establish themselves elsewhere. The Reverend Mr. Parker, a learned minister, who had been associated with the Reverend Mr. Ward, of Ipswich, headed the little band of Colonists who removed and settled the town of Newbury, Mass. Nathaniel Clark, the ancestor of Mr. John Mitchell Clark, was one of these settlers of Newbury and a strong supporter of the Reverend Mr. Parker in the religious controversies that distracted that town from 1665 to 1669. In 1667, he was town constable; in 1678, served on the jury; was a selectman, 1682-88, and frequently held other town offices. In 1684, he was appointed naval officer of the ports of New- bury and Salisbury, and the following year was an ensign in Captain Daniel Pierce's Company, of Rowley. His death occurred in 1690. The wife of Nathaniel Clark, whom he married in 1663, was Elizabeth Somerby, daughter of Henry and Judith Somerby, of Exeter, N. H. Henry Somerby was the second son of Richard Somerby, of Little Bytham, Lincolnshire, England. Judith Somerby was a daughter of Edmund Greenleaf, who was of Huguenot origin and one of the most prominent settlers of Newbury. He came from Ipswich, in Suffolk, England, in 1638, and belonged to a French family, the name of which was originally Feuillevert, afterwards anglicized into Greenleaf. In the second American generation, Henry Clark, who was born in Newbury in 1673, removed to Greenland, N. H., and died there in 1749. His wife was Elizabeth Greenleaf, daughter of Captain Stephen and Elizabeth (Gerrish) Greenleaf. Captain Greenleaf was a prominent citizen of Massachusetts and a representative to the General Court. His father, Captain Stephen Greenleaf, was the second son of Captain Edmund Greenleaf. His mother, Elizabeth Coffin, was a daughter of Tristram and Dionis (Stevens) Coffin, of Brixton, near Plymouth, England. His great-grand- parents were Peter and Joan (Thember) Coffin and Robert Stevens, of Brixton. Enoch Clark, 1709-1759, son of Henry Clark, was a selectman of Greenland, N. H., 1744-50-53, a moderator in 1756 and auditor in 1748 and 1755-57. His son, Enoch Clark, 1735-1774, was town clerk, selectman, auditor and moderator, and otherwise engaged in the town's service.

Both the father and the grandfather of Mr. John Mitchell Clark were men of prominence. His grandfather, Captain Thomas March Clark, 1771-1850, of Newburyport, Mass., was graduated from Phillips Exeter Academy in 1786. During the War of 1812 he was engaged in the defense of Newburyport against the British, and was one of the committee to receive President James Monroe in 1817 and General Lafayette in 1824. His wife, whom he married in 1811, was Rebecca Wheel- wright, 1782-1863, of Newbury. She was descended from the Reverend John Wheelwright, who was born in 1594, the son of Robert Wheelwright, of Saleby, Lincolnshire, England, a graduate of Sydney College, Cambridge, Vicar at Billsby, Lincolnshire and a settler of Salisbury, Mass.

The Reverend Thomas March Clark, father of Mr. John Mitchell Clark, was born in New- buryport, in 1812, and graduated from Yale College in 1831. He was one of the most eminent clergymen in the country in the middle of the present century. First rector of Grace Church in Boston in 1836, he afterwards occupied the pulpit of St. Andrew's Church in Philadelphia, and of Grace Church in Providence, and was elected to the Bishopric of Rhode Island in 1854. He received the degree of D. D. from Union College and Brown University, and LL. D. from the University of Cambridge. His wife was Caroline, daughter of Benjamin Howard, of Boston. Mr. John Mitchell Clark was born in Boston, Mass., July 23d, 1847. He was educated at Brown University and received the degree of Ph. D. in 1865. Entering upon commercial life, he was engaged in the iron business with Naylor & Co., in Boston. For many years past he has been in the iron business in New York, where he is at the head of the house of Naylor & Co. His principal clubs include the Metropolitan, Tuxedo, Union, and he belongs to the Downtown Association and the Brown University Alumni Association, and is a patron of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

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RICHARD HENRY CLARKE

'T is the glory of Maryland that religious toleration was the guiding principle in its establishment as a Colony. Among the cavalier pilgrims who aided in carrying out the broad views of Lord Baltimore was Robert Clarke, who came to Maryland in 1636, was a Privy Councilor and Surveyor-General of the Province, and a member of the Assembly of 1649, in which he took part in passing the act for establishing religious liberty in the Colony.

Dr. Richard Henry Clarke, of New York, descends in a direct line from Robert Clarke, his grandfather being Captain William Clarke, an officer of the Maryland line during the American Revolution, who fought at Long Island and Trenton, at Staten Island, Monmouth, Brandywine, and endured the privations of Valley Forge. Dr. Clarke's father, Walter Clarke, was born in St. Mary's County, Md., and married Rachel Boone, of Prince George's County, whose brother, an uncle of Dr. Clarke's, Captain John Boone, was also an officer of the Revolution. Mr. Richard Henry Clarke was born at Washington, D. C., in 1827. He was educated at Georgetown University, which has added to his degree of A. B. those of Master of Arts and Doctor of Laws in recognition of his professional and literary eminence. He also holds the degree of LL.D. conferred by St. John's College, Fordham, N. Y., while Notre Dame University, Indiana, has awarded him a golden cross in recognition of his literary works. Dr. Clarke was called to the bar in Washington City, and engaged in active practice in that city till 1864, and since then in this city. He was associated with the celebrated Charles O'Connor in some of his prominent cases, and was retained with Mr. O'Connor in the defence of Jefferson Davis. Literary labors have occupied his attention in recent years in addition to his practice of the law. Dr. Clarke is regarded as a foremost lay writer on Catholic Church history. He is the author of The Lives of American Catholic Bishops, The History of the Catholic Church in the United States, and Old and New Lights on Columbus. He received a letter from Pope Pius IX. accepting and commending his Lives of the Bishops. He is the editor of The History of the Bench and Bar of New York, the associate editors being several Judges of the Supreme Court of the State of New York.

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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 19

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