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 21
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).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67 | Part 68 | Part 69 | Part 70 | Part 71 | Part 72 | Part 73 | Part 74 | Part 75 | Part 76 | Part 77 | Part 78 | Part 79 | Part 80 | Part 81 | Part 82 | Part 83 | Part 84 | Part 85 | Part 86 | Part 87 | Part 88 | Part 89 | Part 90 | Part 91 | Part 92 | Part 93 | Part 94 | Part 95 | Part 96 | Part 97 | Part 98 | Part 99 | Part 100 | Part 101 | Part 102 | Part 103 | Part 104 | Part 105 | Part 106 | Part 107
In the fifth generation, Nathaniel Cogswell, great-grandfather of Mr. Cullen Van Rensselaer Cogswell, was born in Ipswich in 1739 and died in 1822. His life covered the period of the Revo- lutionary War, and he was prominent in the events of that time, being a member of the Committee of Correspondence in 1775 and a member of the Committee of Safety in 1776. He was educated as a physician, but did not practice, preferring to devote himself to agriculture. He was twice married, his second wife, Lois Searle, daughter of William and Jane Searle, being the mother of the Reverend Jonathan Cogswell, grandfather of Mr. Cullen Van Rensselaer Cogswell.
The Reverend Jonathan Cogswell was born in 1782 in Rowley, Mass. Graduated from Harvard College in 1806, he was a tutor in Bowdoin College for two years and was then graduated from the Andover Theological Seminary in 1810, and ordained the same year, being settled over the Congregational Church in Saco, Me. There he remained until 1828, when he removed to New York, being subsequently settled in Berlin, Conn., and holding the chair of ecclesiastical history, and also that of church history in the Theological Institute of Connecticut, in East Windsor Hill. The University of the City of New York conferred upon him the degree of S. T. D. He was a member of many religious societies and founded a scholarship in Rutgers College. His death occurred in 1864. His second wife, Jane Eudora Kirkpatrick, was a daughter of Andrew Kirkpat- rick, chief justice of New Jersey, and granddaughter of Colonel John Bayard, of Maryland. Andrew Kirkpatrick Cogswell, father of Mr. Cullen Van Rensselaer Cogswell, was born in 1839 in East Windsor, Conn., and married, in 1867, Mary Van Rensselaer, daughter of General J. Cullen Van Rensselaer, of Cazenovia, N. Y. He served for some years, before his death, as a Judge in the New Jersey Supreme Court.
Mr. Cullen Van Rensselaer Cogswell was born in New Brunswick, N. J., September 5th. 1869. He was educated in St. Paul's School, Concord, N. H. He married, in 1896, A. Eugenie Nickerson, of Riverdale, Dedham, Mass., daughter of Albert W. Nickerson, formerly president of the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fé Railroad Company. His residence is in Fifth Avenue. He is a member of the Union, City and Seventh Regiment Veteran clubs, the Sons of the Revolution and the Society of Colonial Wars.
I27
HENRY RUTGERS REMSEN COLES
T HE ancestral record of Mr. Henry Rutgers Remsen Coles is a long list of names of those who for three centuries were prominent in the affairs of the Colonies, the States and New York City. In his name he carries remembrance of three families that have been distinguished in the business, social and political life of the metropolis of the new world, and the history of whose activities fill many pages in local annals of New York and New England. Mr. Coles's father was Isaac Underhill Coles, a descendant from Captain John Underhill, and his mother was Catherine S. Remsen, daughter of Henry and Elizabeth Waldron (Phoenix) Remsen. His grandfather was Edward Coles, whose wife was Hester Bussing Moulton.
Captain John Underhill, whose name Mr. Coles's father bore, was an Englishman who had fought in the Low Countries and who came to America with Governor John Winthrop. He was one of the most valiant and able soldiers in the early wars of the Massachusetts Bay Colony with the Indians, and after removing to New Netherland, in 1644, was equally successful in helping to protect this settlement from the hostile Indians. Other ancestors of Mr. Coles who were engaged in the Colonial wars that raged upon the borders of New Netherland were Captain John Seamen, Major Richard Smith, Captain Ebenezer Moulton, Captain Harman Rutgers, Henry Rutgers, William Hallett and Captain William Hallett. Mr. Coles is also able to trace his pedigree back to Johannes de Peyster, that courtly Huguenot of a noble French family who came from Holland about 1650 to New Amsterdam. Another ancestor of the same early period was Matthais Nicolls, 1621-1687, who came to New Netherland in 1664 with Colonel Richard Nicolls, the Governor appointed by the Duke of York to take charge of the Colony in behalf of the English. Matthais Nicolls was the first secretary of the Province under Governor Nicolls, a member of the council under Governor Lovelace, Mayor of the city in 1671, Speaker of the first Colonial Assembly of New York in 1683, and the first Judge of the Court of Oyer and Terminer.
In the War of the Revolution, ancestors of Mr. Coles were not less patriotic and active. Among them were Captain Henry Remsen, member of the Committee of One Hundred in 1775, Lieutenant-Colonel Stephen Moulton, and Daniel Phoenix, who lives in the memory of New Yorkers as one of the leading business men of his day, and as the City Treasurer or Chamberlain in 1789 and many years following, and came of a noble English family.
The wife of Mr. Coles, whom he married in 1896 at Geneva, Switzerland, was Margaret Miller Davidson, born in Yokohama, Japan, September 24th, 1873. They have a son, H. R. R. Coles, Jr., born May 28th, 1897. Mrs. Coles, too, comes of a distinguished ancestry, being a descendant from a famous old Scotch family, the Davidsons of Dingwall, Scotland, who are now represented at the head of the family by Duncan Davidson, chief of the clan. Her grandfather was a physician of Plattsburg, N. Y .; her grandmother was a writer of verse, and the Davidson sisters, the celebrated American poetesses of the early part of this century, were her aunts. Lucretia Maria Davidson, who died in 1825, at the age of seventeen, and Margaret Miller Davidson, who died in 1838, at the age of fifteen, were the precocious literary geniuses of their time. Mrs. Coles is descended from Captain John Underhill, Major Thomas Jones, Captain Ephenetus Platt and others who were prominent in the Colonial Wars, and many of her ancestors were patriots in the War for Independence.
Mr. Coles was born in Tarrytown, N. Y., July 15th, 1873. He was educated in private schools, has traveled abroad and now lives in Englewood, N. J. Interested in historical and genealogical subjects, he is a compiler and publisher of genealogies. His membership in social organizations includes the Union and the New York Athletic clubs; he is a life member of the Sons of the American Revolution and the Society of Colonial Wars, belongs to the New York Historical Society, the Geographical and Biographical Society, the Underhill Society of America, and is a member of Squadron A, New York State National Guard.
I28
WALTER HENRY COLES
F OR three hundred years the Coles family has been settled on the northern shores of Long Island, and its members have been connected by marriage with all the other old-time families of that section and of New York. Robert Coles, who was the first of the race to come to America, lived in Suffolk, England. He was a friend of John Winthrop, of whose expedition to New England he was a member, settling in Roxbury, or Ipswich, Mass., in 1630. Being a relative of Roger Williams, he sympathized with that eminent divine in his controversies with the Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay Colonies and went with him to Provi- dence, R. I., dying there in 1654. His son, Nathaniel Coles, came to Long Island, was one of the first settlers of the town of Oyster Bay, a merchant and many years justice of the peace. He died in 1707.
The grandson of Nathaniel Coles, also named Nathaniel, succeeded to the family estates at Dosoris and Oyster Bay. He was a prominent man in the community, active in good works and public-spirited. An enthusiastic patriot. at the time of the Revolution, when hostilities between America and England were ended, in 1783, he celebrated the occasion by inviting the entire population of his town to feast upon a whole roasted ox. General Nathaniel Coles, 1763-1824, the son of this Nathaniel Coles, was a land owner, an extensive mill proprietor owning several large mills, and one of the most celebrated breeders of fine horses in his generation. His most extensive mill property was at West Island. The grandfather of Walter H. Coles was Butler Coles, son of General Nathaniel Coles. He was born in 1797 at Dosoris and died in 1840. He, too, was one of the large mill owners in the neighborhood of New York in the first half of the present century, and also served on the military staff of General Floyd.
In every generation, the wives of this family have come from the best Colonial stock. The first Nathaniel Coles married Martha Jackson, descended from Robert Whitehead, one of the first settlers of Hempstead, a large real estate proprietor, and owner of Dosoris. His son, Nathaniel, married a member of the Townsend family, granddaughter of Henry and Anne (Coles) Townsend and of Nicholas Wright, one of the founders of Oyster Bay. Other women of the family were descendants of William Butler, who was early settled in Oyster Bay, and of John Townsend, Benjamin Birdsall and Nathan Birdsall. The wife of the third Nathaniel Coles was Hannah Butler, daughter of John and Martha Butler, and the wife of General Nathaniel Coles was Elizabeth Townsend, daughter of James and Freelove Townsend. The grandmother of Walter H. Coles was a descendant of Francis Weeks, one of the first Colonists of Hempstead and Oyster Bay, and of the Reverend Francis Doughty, of Flushing.
Edwin Sands Coles, the father of the subject of this sketch, was born at Dosoris in 1828, and died in 1896. Throughout his entire life, he was identified with financial affairs in New York, being a stock broker, and prominent in many positions of financial responsibility. For more than thirty years he was secretary of the Stock Exchange Building Company. He was a member of the St. Nicholas Society by virtue of his ancestry and belonged to the American Geographical Society and other organizations. The wife of Edwin Sands Coles is still living. She was Sarah Townsend, daughter of Dr. Charles De Kay Townsend and his wife, Maria Fonda, of Albany. She is a descendant of Henry and Anne (Coles) Townsend, and also of Captain Thomas de Kay, of the United States Navy, and his wife, Christianna Duncan, who was a granddaughter of the noted Anneke Jans, whose estate on Manhattan Island three centuries ago, which passed under the control of Trinity Church Corporation, still continues to be a cause of speculation and an object of popular interest.
Mr. Walter Henry Coles, the second child and the only son of Edwin S. Coles, was born in Albany, N. Y., June 29th, 1865. His sisters are Sarah Townsend Coles and Julia Weekes Coles. He lives in West Fifty-ninth Street, with his mother and sisters. Their country home is in Northwood, Oyster Bay, Long Island, the ancestral estate of the family.
129
JAMES BOORMAN COLGATE
N ORWICH, England, furnishes the earliest records of the Colgate family, there being a Colgate Ward of the town, a Colgate Street, and an old church, St. George Colgate, dating from the eleventh century there. Later on the family was established near Sevenoaks, in Kent. In the middle of the last century, John Colgate, one of its members, was one of the few Englishmen who expressed sympathy with the American Colonists. His son Robert held similar views, and favored the liberal ideas of some of the leaders of the French Revolution to such an extent, that he was marked for prosecution. He was, however, a friend of the famous William Pitt, who advised him to leave England for America, where his views would be tolerated; and this he did, coming to Baltimore in May, 1795.
Residing for a time in Maryland, and then for a few years in New York City, Robert Colgate moved to Delaware County, N. Y. William Colgate, his eldest son, came with his father to America, and in 1806 established a mercantile firm in New York, where he died in 1857. He married an English lady, Mary Gilbert, and had nine children, of whom four sons, Robert, James B., Samuel and Joseph, and two daughters survived him. He was one of the incorporators of Madison University, Hamilton, N. Y., which, under its present name of Colgate University, is one of the chief educational institutions of the Baptist churches.
Mr. James B. Colgate was born in New York, March 4th, 1818. He was educated in Connecticut and in this city; and preferring business to a collegiate course, served seven years as a clerk, four of them in the office of his relative, James Boorman, of the firm of Boorman, Johnson & Co. Mr. Boorman was the projector of the Hudson River Railroad. 111-health necessitated a visit to Europe, in 1841, and on Mr. Colgate's return he engaged in the wholesale dry goods trade. In 1852, he entered into the stock business with the late John B. Trevor, founding the firm of Trevor & Colgate, and a bullion department being added five years afterwards, the concern became the largest dealers in stocks and the precious metals in this country, their transactions, especially in the time of the war, being enormous. Soon after the death of Mr. Trevor, in 1890, Mr. Colgate associated his son, James Colby Colgate, in the partnership, still maintaining the firm name of James B. Colgate & Co. During the war, Mr. Colgate was for several years president of the New York Gold Exchange, and he has long been vice-president of the Bank of the State of New York. He has made finance his lifelong study, and has been one of the most influential advocates of the remonetization of silver, having written much of great value on the subject and on the currency problem. Throughout the Civil War, Mr. Colgate manifested his loyalty to the Union cause in many ways.
Mr. Colgate's first wife, Ellen Hoyt, of Utica, lived only two years after their marriage, and left one son, William Hoyt Colgate. In 1851, Mr. Colgate married his present wife, Susan F. Colby, daughter of Governor Anthony Colby, of New Hampshire. They have two children, James Colby Colgate and Mary Colgate.
Religion and education have been the chosen objects of Mr. Colgate's attention. He is a member of the Baptist denomination, and has given munificent aid to various church works. Rochester University, the Columbia University, Washington; Colby Academy, New London, N. H., and Rochester Theological Seminary are among the recipients of his bounty, and for Madison, now Colgate, University he has always shown a strong attachment. Becoming a trustee in 1861, he has been president of the board since 1864, while the sum of his gifts to the institution has been some $1,250,000. He also founded and endowed Colgate Academy.
Mr. Colgate throughout life has been noted for decision of character and the courage with which he upholds his convictions. He is a member of the Chamber of Commerce, the Stock Exchange, the New England Society, many benevolent, artistic and scientific bodies; and a patron of both the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the American Museum of Natural History. He is interested in floriculture, and the greenhouses at his Yonkers residence are famous.
I30
JAMES MANSELL CONSTABLE
A NATIVE of England, the gentleman to whom this article is devoted has been for more than half a century a citizen of New York and has attained high rank, not only in the commercial world with which he has been identified, but as one of the public-spirited business men of the metropolis in the present period. He was born in the County of Surrey in 1812. His first definite knowledge of the United States was gained when, as a very young man, he made a journey for pleasure to this country with one of the older members of his family. Attracted by the opportunities for successful business life, and by other advantages for a capable and enter- prising youth which seemed to open before him in the United States, he formed a determination to establish himself here, and accordingly returned to New York in 1840 to make it his residence. He was not without some influential acquaintance in the New World. One of his friends was Aaron Arnold, who was then a member of the firm of Arnold, Hearn & Co., of this city, and with him he soon became interested in business. Two years after he had arrived in New York, he entered into a partnership with Aaron Arnold under the firm name of A. Arnold & Co. Subsequently the name of the establishment was changed to Arnold, Constable & Co., Mr. Constable being now at the head of the house, all his early associates in the business having passed away. The style of the firm has, however, remained unchanged for nearly forty-five years, while in the face of all the vicissitudes of that period, it has been uniformly successful and stable in its operations, holding its place in the foremost rank of business establishments of its character, and having a reputation that extends far beyond the limits of New York.
In 1844, Mr. Constable married Henrietta Arnold, the only daughter of Aaron Arnold. Mrs. Constable's father was a native of the Isle of Wight, having been born there in 1794. In 1825, looking to the New World for opportunities in business of a more advantageous nature than were then afforded by his native land, he came to this country with his wife and daughter. Settling first in Philadelphia, he remained there only a short time and removed to New York, where he estab- lished himself, in 1827, in the dry goods business under the name of Arnold & Hearn, the junior partner of the establishment being his nephew, George A. Hearn, Sr. This was the beginning of the house now known as Arnold, Constable & Co. The death of Aaron Arnold occurred in 1876, after he had attained to the ripe age of eighty-two.
Richard Arnold, the only son of Aaron Arnold, was born in New York in 1825 and died here in 1886. He was identified throughout his life with the business house which his father had estab- lished, being a partner in the concern from 1853 until the time of his death. His first wife was Pauline Bicar, daughter of Noel J. Bicar; his second wife being Georgiana E. Bolmer, daughter of M. S. Bolmer. He left four children, only one of whom at present survives. Mrs. James M. Con- stable died in 1884. Her husband and children have since built as a memorial to her a handsome Protestant Episcopal Church at Mamaroneck, N. Y.
Mr. Constable is a member of the Reform Club, belongs to the American Geographical Society and is a patron of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the American Museum of Natural History and the National Academy of Design. The children of Mr. and Mrs. Constable are a son and two daughters. The only son of the family, Frederick A. Constable, lives in East Eighty-third Street, near Fifth Avenue. He is a member of the New York Yacht, Larchmont Yacht, American Yacht and Riding clubs. The eldest daughter, Harriet M. Constable, married Hicks Arnold, who is a member of the firm of Arnold, Constable & Co. Hicks Arnold is a cousin of the late Richard Arnold and nephew of Aaron Arnold. He was born in England and, coming to this country, went into business with the house of which he is now a partner. He is a director of the Bank of the Metropolis and has other important business connections with corporations of a financial character. Amy H. Constable, the youngest child of Mr. and Mrs. James M. Constable, married Edwin H. Weatherbee, an account of whose family appears in another part of this volume. The city resi- dence of Mr. Constable is at 240 Madison Avenue, and his country home is in Mamaroneck, N. Y.
I3I
SAMUEL VICTOR CONSTANT
E XHIBITING a deep interest in the patriotic societies that have come into existence during the last few years, Mr. Samuel Victor Constant bases his connection with these associations on many lines of descent from distinguished ancestors. He traces his descent to John Tuttle, who came to this country, in the ship Planter, in 1635. He was a native of St. Albans, England, and settled at Ipswich, Mass. He represented his town in 1644 in the General Assembly. At the same date, he became a member of the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company. After a time he returned to England, but his sons remained in America. Another of Mr. Constant's ancestors was Nicholas Noyes. He belonged to Choulderton, England, and came over on the ship Mary and John in 1634, with his brother, the Reverend James Noyes. Mr. Constant's descent is traced from both of these brothers. Nicholas Noyes became Representative in 1660, 1679 and 1680. Another ancestor was Lieutenant James Smith, born at Newbury, Mass., 1645, who served in the expedition against Quebec under Sir William Phipps. Another ancestor was Lieutenant Tristram Coffin, Deputy Governor of Massachusetts Bay in 1695, 1700-2, Mr. Constant can also trace his descent from a large number of individuals distinguished in the early history of New England, including the Reverend Michael Wigglesworth, the celebrated divine, author of The Day of Doom, who was the grandfather of Lydia Tappan, great-great-grandmother of the subject of this sketch. Among them are also Sergeant Abraham Adams, of Newbury; Daniel Pierce, of Newbury, Captain and Representative 1632-3, a member of the Council of Safety in 1689, Colonel of Essex Regiment and Representative in 1692; and Major Charles Frost, 1632-1679, Representative in 1658-60-61, a member of the Provincial Council of New Hampshire in 1681, and prominent in the early Indian wars. Besides whom may be mentioned Richard Smith, who was captured by the British during the Revolutionary War, and confined on the Jersey prison ship, as well as Jedediah Tuttle, a soldier in the Continental Army.
Samuel S. Constant, the father of Mr. Constant, was a prominent manufacturer of this city. Mr. Samuel Victor Constant was born in New York City. He was educated at the Charlier Institute, at Professor Anthon's Grammar School and by private tutors, graduating from Columbia College in 1880, and from its law school in 1882. Admitted to the bar in the latter year, he has since been in active practice.
He has given much attention to literature and scientific investigation, and is a member of the American Oriental Society, and of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain, the Amer- ican Academy of Sciences, and the Mercantile Marine Service Association of Great Britain, incorporated under special act of Parliament to conserve the interests of the British mercantile marine, and is also solicitor of the association in the United States. He is a member of the American Historical Association, the New York Historical Society, the New York Genealogical and Biographical Society, and the Virginia Historical Society. He enjoys the distinction of having first proposed the organization of a society composed of the descendants of those who participated in the Colonial Wars, from the time of the Pequod War of 1639 down to the beginning of the Revolution. As a result of this suggestion, he, with others, founded the Society of Colonial Wars, which has now a large membership.
In 1876, he joined the First Company, Seventh Regiment, and also belongs to the Seventh Regiment Veteran Association. He is one of the board of directors of the Young Men's Christian Association and a member of its International Committee. Mr. Constant is thoroughly American in his ideas and belongs to the Sons of the Revolution, is school inspector of the Thirteenth District, is a member of the \ T Club, St. David's Society, the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company, the New York State Society of the Founders and Patriots of America, and is also a member of the Founders and Defenders of America. He has also retained an active interest in Columbia College, and is a member of its building committee.
132
EDMUND COGSWELL CONVERSE
R ECORDS of the Converse family extend back to Roger de Coigneries of France, and after- wards of Durham, England. In the third generation, the head of the family was Roger de Coniers. In the sixth generation came Sir Humphrey Conyers, of Sockburn, England, and thence the line is through eleven generations of the Conyers, of Sockburn, Hornby and Wakerly to Edward Convers, the first American emigrant, who was born in Wakerly, Northamp- tonshire, in 1590, and arrived in Salem, Mass., in 1630. Soon after he settled in Charlestown, where he was a selectman, 1635-40. He established the first ferry between Charlestown and Boston, paying to the city forty pounds a year for the franchise. He was one of the seven first settlers of the town of Woburn in 1642, and was its first selectman, and a deputy to the General Court in 1660. He built the first house in Woburn, and died there in 1663. Lieutenant James Converse, son of Deacon Edward Convers, was born in 1620, and died in Woburn in 1715. He was a Sergeant in 1658, ensign in 1672, and Lieutenant in 1688, serving in King Philip's War. From 1679 to 1689, he was a deputy to the General Court. His first wife was Anna Long, daughter of Robert Long. Major James Converse, 1645-1706, their son, commanded the troops at the defense of Storer's Garrison, 1691-92, and was promoted to be Major, and placed in charge of the military forces of Massachusetts. He was deputy to the General Court, 1679-92, and Speaker of the House of Representatives in 1699 and in 1702-03. In 1668, he married Hannah Carter, 1650-1691.
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.