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 23

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

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John Gerard Coster, the grandfather of Mr. Charles Henry Coster, among other positions of prominence, was a director of the Manhattan Company's Bank in 1813, and in 1826, on the death of Henry Remsen, became president of that institution, holding the office until 1830. He was also a director for many years of the Phoenix Insurance Company, and was a generous friend to various philanthropic institutions. He died in 1846, having resided from about 1833 in a house which he built on Broadway, north of Canal Street, and which was considered in its day one of the finest residences in New York. His brother, Henry A. Coster, lived in Chambers Street.

The wife of John Gerard Coster was Catharine Margaret Holsmann, and their sons were John H., Gerard H., Daniel J. and George Washington Coster, all of whom married representatives of prominent New York families. John H. Coster, the eldest son, married a daughter of Daniel Boardman. The wife of Gerard H. Coster was a daughter of Nathaniel Prime, the famous banker. Daniel Coster became a member of the firm of Hone & Coster and married a daughter of Oliver de Lancey, and George Washington Coster, the youngest son, married Elizabeth, a daughter of the eminent New York merchant, Daniel Oakey.

Mr. Charles Henry Coster, a prominent representative of his family in the present day and a son of George W. Coster, was born at Newport, R. I., July 24th, 1852. He was educated in private schools and began business life in 1867, in the counting room of the firm of Aymar & Co., importing merchants. In 1872, the business of that house was taken over by Fabbri & Chauncey, which was one of the largest firms engaged in the shipping and South American trade, and remained with them until the latter part of 1883. In the following year, Mr. Coster became a partner in the banking house of Drexel, Morgan & Co., and is now a member of its successor, J. P. Morgan & Co. He is also a partner of Drexel & Co., of Philadelphia, and Morgan, Harjes & Co., of Paris, France. He has taken a conspicuous part in the large transactions with which the name of these establishments is identified, more particularly in connection with railroad corporations. Mr. Coster is a director of many large organizations of this nature and takes an active part in their management.

In June, 1886, Mr. Coster married Emily Pell, daughter of Clarence and Anne (Claiborne) Pell. She is a descendant of Thomas Pell, proprietor of Pelham Manor, Westchester County, and of General Ferdinand L. Claiborne, of Mississippi, and of William Claiborne, 1587-1676, Secretary of Virginia. Mr. and Mrs. Coster have three daughters, Emily, Helen and Maud Coster, and one son, Charles Henry Coster, Jr. Their residence is 27 West Nineteenth Street, while they spend the greater part of the year at their Tuxedo home. He is a member of the Metropolitan, City, Racquet, Reform, St. Nicholas, New York Yacht and Tuxedo clubs, and a life member of the Academy of Sciences.

139

FREDERIC RENE COUDERT

N O soldier more faithful than Charles Coudert fought in the battalions of the first Napoleon. He was a young man, born in Bordeaux in 1795, and came of a good and ancient family. He received his baptism of fire before he was out of his teens, and when barely eighteen years of age, was wounded in the famous three days' battle before Leipsic. As an officer in the Guard of Honor attached to the Imperial Guard, he was in the front of every fiercely-fought contest, took part in the battles of Montereau and Montmirial, and served actively in the desperate engage- ments that were fought prior to the entry of the allies into Paris. The overthrow of Napoleon did not weaken his enthusiasm for the Napoleonic dynasty, and after the Bourbon restoration he entered with energy and devotion into all the plans of the Bonapartists to make the Duke of Reichstadt the Emperor of France, as Napoleon 11. As the world knows, these plans did not succeed, and, with others of his associates, the loyal young soldier was apprehended, tried and condemned to be executed as a traitor to the ruling House of France. Before sentence could be executed, he escaped to England. Two years later he returned to France in disguise, was detected and put under arrest, but again escaped and sailed for the United States in 1824.

His devotion to the fortunes of the Bonapartes brought Charles Coudert two medals, one of the Legion of Honor and the other that of St. Helena, that in fulfilment of the request of the dying Napoleon 1., Louis Napoleon awarded to every surviving officer and soldier of the First Empire. Mr. Coudert, thus exiled from his native land, settled in New York and began life here by establishing a private school. He became one of the leading and influential members of the little colony of French exiles in New York. He was a man of much culture and refinement, and an unswerving Bonapartist to the day of his death, entertaining Louis and Joseph Bonaparte at his home during their visit to the United States.

Mr. Frederic Rene Coudert, son of Charles Coudert, was born in New York in 1832. His early education was secured in his father's school, and at the age of fourteen he entered Columbia College, being graduated in 1850 with high honors. He engaged in newspaper work and teaching for a short time, meantime entering upon the study of law, and in 1853 was admitted to the bar. Soon after, with his brothers Louis and Charles Coudert, Jr., he organized the firm of Coudert Brothers, which became one of the most successful legal firms in the city. He has built up a large practice and has been the legal representative of nearly all the great governments of Europe in this country. For his services, he has received the decoration of the Legion of Honor from the French Government and similar distinction from the Italian Government. He has achieved renown as an orator and has delivered addresses on many public occasions, such as the Columbia College Centen- nial in 1887, the reception of the Bartholdi Statue of Liberty and the dedication of the Lafayette and Bolivar statues.

A Democrat, with independent proclivities, Mr. Coudert was a supporter of Samuel J. Tilden in 1876, and was a member of the Democratic Committee appointed to go to New Orleans and watch the electoral count in that year. A strong supporter of Cleveland, he made many speeches for the Democratic ticket in the campaign of 1892. He has steadfastly refused all offers of political preferment, and has even declined a nomination for the Supreme Court of the United States. He represented the United States before the international tribunal that considered the Bering Sea question, and also served as a member of the commission appointed by President Cleveland to investigate the Venezuelan boundary question. He is a member of many leading clubs and has been president of the Manhattan Club. He married Elizabeth McCredy and lives in West Fifty-eighth Street, having a summer home, Robinvale, in Metuchen, N. J. His son, Frederic R. Coudert, Jr., was graduated from Columbia University in 1890 and married Alice T. Wilmerding, daughter of the late Ferdinand Wilmerding and granddaughter of the Honorable Benjamin F. Tracy. His daughter, Renee M. Coudert, is unmarried. His brother, Charles Coudert, died in July, 1897, leaving a widow, Marie M. Coudert, six daughters and one son.

140

JOHN ELLIOT COWDIN

O RIGINALLY from Scotland, the family to which Mr. John Elliot Cowdin belongs has for many generations been conspicuous in the annals of New England. Its members have been particularly identified with business interests and public affairs in Massachusetts. Captain Thomas Cowdin, the great-grandfather of Mr. John E. Cowdin, was a resident of Fitch- burg, Mass., in the early part of the last century. He was prominent in the Massachusetts militia, and gave valiant service to the patriot cause in the American Revolution. He was frequently elected to office by his townspeople, and was several times a member of the General Court. His son, Angier Cowdin, was a large landowner in Vermont, and a man of influence. Several sons of Angier Cowdin attained to pre-eminence in public life. General Robert Cowdin was one of the bravest and most distinguished officers in the Union Army during the Civil War. The Honorable John Cowdin took a leading part in public affairs in Massachusetts in the last generation, being several times a member of the House of Representatives of that State.

Elliot Christopher Cowdin, another son of Angier Cowdin, was a noted importing merchant of Boston and New York. Born in Jamaica, Vt., in 1819, he died in New York in 1880. His early years were spent in Boston, where, before he had attained to his majority, he entered upon business life. In 1853, he came to New York and established the firm of Elliot C. Cowdin & Co., engaged in the importation of silks and silk ribbons. Eminently successful in his new undertaking, despite occasional reverses, he was able to retire from active business in 1877. During the latter years of his life, Mr. Cowdin spent much of his time in foreign lands. He crossed the Atlantic more than eighty times, and was in Paris at the time of the Franco-Prussian War.

Mr. Cowdin was notable no less for his intellectual than for his purely business activity, and also for his labors in many enterprises of a public character. He was one of the active members of the Mercantile Library Association, of Boston, in early life, being its president in 1843. He was also a member and an officer of the New York Chamber of Commerce, and instrumental in found- ing the New England Society of New York, of which he was the second president. He was a vice-president of the Union League Club, a valued member of the Century Association, and belonged to many other leading clubs and social organizations of the metropolis. In 1867, he was United States Commissioner to the Exposition in Paris. In 1876, he was elected a member of the State Assembly. He was often called upon to preside at public gatherings, and upon many of these occasions made addresses which were of a notable character. Several of his papers, speeches and addresses upon public questions of the day have been printed. The wife of Mr. Cowdin, whom he married in 1853, was Sarah Katharine Waldron, daughter of Samuel Wallis Waldron, of Boston. Mr. Cowdin died in New York in 1880, leaving six children, Katharine W., John Elliot, Martha W., Winthrop, Alice and Elliot C. Cowdin. Katharine W. Cowdin became the wife of Gaspar Griswold. Martha W. Cowdin married Robert Bacon and Alice Cowdin married Hamilton L. Hoppin.

Mr. John Elliot Cowdin, the eldest son of the family, was born in Boston in 1858. Educated in Harvard University, he was graduated from that institution in 1879, and has since been engaged in mercantile life. He married Gertrude Cheever, daughter of John H. Cheever, and lives in Gramercy Park, having a summer residence in Far Rockaway, Long Island. His children are Elliot C., Ethel and John Cheever Cowdin. He is a member of the Union, Harvard, University, Racquet, Rockaway Hunt and Players clubs. Winthrop Cowdin, the second son, was grad- uated from Harvard University in the class of 1885, and married Lena T. Potter. He lives in West Eleventh Street, and has a summer home, Newcastle House, in Mt. Kisco, N. Y. He belongs to the Union and University clubs. The youngest son, Elliot Channing Cowdin, was graduated from Harvard University in the class of 1896, and is a member of the Union and Racquet clubs. He lives with his widowed mother in West Twenty-first Street, and spends the summer upon the family estate, Maplehurst Farms, at Newcastle, Mt. Kisco, N. Y.

I4I

WILMOT TOWNSEND COX

F OR two and a half centuries the Cox family has been identified with Long Island. James Cock, as the name was spelled for several generations, came to Setauket, Long Island, before 1659 and within three years settled in Oyster Bay. He acquired land from the Indians at Killingworth, now Matinecock, where he died in 1698. Part of his estate is still held by bearers of his name. Members of this pioneer family have married with many other prominent families of Long Island and the State at large.

Among Mr. Cox's distinguished ancestors is Henry Wisner, signer of the Declaration of Independence, member of the State Assembly for Orange County and of the Constitutional Con- vention in 1788, State Senator, 1777-82, and one of the first Board of Regents of the University of New York, in 1784. On both paternal and maternal lines, Mr. Cox descends from John Townsend, one of the early settlers of Long Island, and traces back through three distinct lines to Lieutenant Robert Feke, who in 1631 assisted in organizing the first military force of Massachusetts, fought in the Indian Wars and in 1634-39 represented Watertown in the General Court, and whose wife, Elizabeth, was a niece of Governor Winthrop. Other Colonial worthies whose blood he inherits are Robert Coles, who came to Massachusetts with John Winthrop and followed Roger Williams to Rhode Island, and Nathaniel Coles, Judge of Queens County in 1689. A direct ancestor, Daniel Cock, of Matinecock, was Captain of the militia of Oyster Bay, Long Island, in the Revolution.

Daniel Townsend Cox, 1800-1891, grandfather of Mr. Wilmot Townsend Cox, married Hannah Wilmot Coles, daughter of General Nathaniel Coles. Their son, Townsend Cox, formerly of Dosoris, now of Mill Neck, Oyster Bay, was born in Matinecock in 1828, and throughout his life has been identified with leading business interests in New York. He was a prominent member of the Stock Exchange from 1865 to 1885 and president of the Gold Exchange in 1869. From 1874 to 1882, he was a Commissioner of Charities and Correction of New York City, and from 1885 to 1892, president of the State Forest Commission. He was a founder and president of the Mendelssohn Glee Club and a governor of the Manhattan Club. He married Anne Helme Townsend, daughter of Walter Wilmot Townsend, and Anne Helme, a descendant of Christopher Helme, who settled in Warwick, R. I., in 1650. The children of this marriage are Wilmot Townsend, Charlotte Townsend, Townsend, Irving and Daniel Cox.

Mr. Wilmot Townsend Cox, the eldest son, was born in New York in 1857, educated in St. Paul's School, Concord, N. H., and graduated from Harvard in 1879 and from the Columbia College Law School in 1881. He commenced the practice of his profession in the Corporation Counsel's Office of New York, and is now a member of the law firm of Scudder, Tappan, Seaman & Cox.

In December, 1896, Mr. Cox married Maria Duane Bleecker Miller, daughter of the late John Bleecker Miller, and his wife, Cornelia Jones. Mrs. Cox is one of the five incorporators of the Colonial Dames of New York, and is descended on both paternal and maternal lines from families renowned in the Colonial, Revolutionary and later history of this State. Among her ancestors are Jan Jansen Bleecker, Mayor of Albany in 1700; Rutger Bleecker, Mayor of Albany 1726-29; Major Abraham Staats; Abraham Ver Planck; John Miller, one of the patentees of East Hampton in 1640; Major Thomas Jones, who came to America in 1692, having fought for King James in the battle of the Boyne and at Limerick; Samuel Jones, Recorder of New York during the Revolution; James Duane, member of the Continental Congress of 1774, first Judge of the United States District Court in New York and first Mayor of New York after the Revolution; Rip Van Dam, member of the council and Lieutenant-Governor of the Province in 1731-32, and the famous Robert Livingston, founder of a great New York family and first Lord of Livingston Manor. Among her more immediate ancestors is Judge Morris S. Miller, one of the founders of the City of Utica, N. Y., and Judge of Oneida County in 1810-24. Through a joint descent from Lieutenant Robert Feke and John Townsend, first of the names, Mr. and Mrs. Cox are related to each other. Mr. Cox's city residence is 58 West Ninth Street.

142

FREDERIC CROMWELL

S EVERAL families in this country trace their descent to the same stock as that from which Oliver Cromwell, the Protector, came, and which is believed to have been originally of Welsh extraction, as the name itself would perhaps indicate. Colonel John Cromwell, Oliver's cousin, and like him a cadet of the great house of the Cromwells, of Hinchinbrook, was the ancestor of the American Cromwells. John Cromwell, son of Colonel John Cromwell, came to New York about 1686 and took up his abode at Long Neck, Westchester County, on the shore of Long Island Sound, afterwards called Cromwell's Point. From him has descended a branch of the family that has been particularly identified with New York City and Westchester County for upwards of two hundred years.

David Cromwell, who traced his lineage direct to John Cromwell, of Cromwell's Neck, was a business man of New York City some sixty years ago. When he retired from business, he established his home in the Village of Cornwall-on-Hudson, was one of its most respected residents, and died there in 1857. His wife, the mother of Mr. Frederic Cromwell, was Rebecca Bowman, who was descended from John Bowman, an English emigrant to the Colonies in 1661. Henry Bowman, son of John Bowman, joined the Society of Friends in 1667, and his descendants for many generations thereafter held to the faith of their fathers and were steadfast in their adher- ence to the tenets of that religious body.

Mr. Frederic Cromwell was born at Cornwall-on-Hudson, February 16th, 1843. After receiving his early education in preparatory schools, he entered Harvard College and took his degree of A. B. there in 1863. He then applied himself to the study of law, in which he was engaged for a year, and followed that by a year of travel in Europe. When he returned to America, he established a cloth importing firm, but remained in that business only three years.

He then became a resident of Brooklyn, and turned his attention to the problems of gas manufacturing and supply, which at that date were still treated in an elementary way. In 1870, he was one of the founders and president of the People's Gas Light Company, of Brooklyn. He was also interested in the gas companies of Baltimore, Md. In 1871, Mr. Cromwell removed to St. Louis, Mo., where he resided four years, and constructed the works and organized the business of the Laclede Gas Light Company, of that city. Then followed another year of travel in Europe, after which he returned to Brooklyn and associated himself with Colonel William H. Husted, his brother-in-law, in the purchase of a controlling interest in one of the local street railway companies. In 1880, he was elected a trustee of the Mutual Life Insurance Company of New York, and in 1884 became its treasurer, an office he now holds. He has been connected with other corporations as a director, including the New York Guarantee & Indemnity Company, the National Union Bank, the Brooklyn Trust Company, the Bank of New Amsterdam and the New York & East River Gas Company.

Interested in public affairs, Mr. Cromwell was one of the original members of the Civil Service Reform Association, of Brooklyn, and was elected its first president. He was also a member of the first civil service commission of that city, and did intelligent and effective work in elevating the standard of the civil service in the municipality. He has been president of the Brooklyn Art Association and vice-president of the Philharmonic Society. In 1868, Mr. Cromwell married Esther Whitmore Husted, daughter of Seymour L. Husted and Mary J. Kendall. The father of Mrs. Cromwell was a well-known business man and street railroad president of Brooklyn. Mr. and Mrs. Cromwell have three daughters, Mary R., Gladys H., and Dorothea H. Cromwell, and one son, Seymour Le Grand Cromwell, who is a graduate from Harvard, in the class of 1892, and a member of the University, Racquet and Metropolitan clubs. The city residence of the family is in West Fifty-sixth Street, and their country home is Ellis Court, Bernardsville, N. J. Mr. Cromwell belongs to the Century, Metropolitan, University and Harvard clubs and the Downtown Association, as well as to the Hamilton Club, of Brooklyn.

143

OLIVER EATON CROMWELL

I N the genealogy of the Cromwell family are found some of the most illustrious names in English history. Thomas Cromwell, the Cromwell of Shakespeare, Earl of Essex, friend of Cardinal Wolsey and Vicar General of Henry VIII., beheaded in 1540, was of this family. He was the uncle of Sir Richard Cromwell, who was knighted by Henry VII., and whose son, Sir Henry Cromwell, of Hinchinbrook, surnamed the Golden Knight, was the grandfather of the Lord Protector, Oliver Cromwell. Sir Henry's wife, Elizabeth Stewart, was a relation of the royal family of Stuart.

Sir Oliver Cromwell, of Hinchinbrook, eldest son of Sir Henry and uncle of the Great Protector, had several children, of whom Colonel John Cromwell was the second son. Although in general a supporter of his distinguished cousin, the Protector, Colonel Cromwell was opposed to the execution of King Charles. Noble, the historian of the Cromwell family, says that by his wife, Abigail, he had children, one of whom, it is now fully understood, was John Cromwell, who emigrated from Holland to the New Netherland in the latter part of the seventeenth century and went to Long Neck, Westchester County, afterwards called Cromwell's Neck. From the two sons of this John Cromwell, John and James, have descended the Cromwells of New York, who, during the Revolution, were active in the patriot cause.

The grandfather of Mr. Oliver E. Cromwell was John Cromwell, of New York, who married Elizabeth Thorn, of Glen Cove, Long Island. He was a merchant, but abandoned business when the War of 1812 began and entered the army as Lieutenant of Artillery, commanded a company at Plattsburg, and was brevetted and mentioned in general orders for bravery. After the war he retired and lived in Glen Cove until his death in 1824. Charles T. Cromwell, the father of Mr. Oliver E. Cromwell, was a prominent lawyer of New York more than fifty years ago. He was born in this city in 1808. While a student at Union College, from which he graduated in 1829, he was one of the founders of the _ ¢ Society. After studying law he traveled in Europe, and, returning home, attained a large practice. He had a summer residence on Manursing Island, in Long Island Sound, off Portchester, one of the handsomest country homes of his time. Mr. Oliver E. Cromwell traces his lineage to the English Cromwells through a maternal line as well as through his father. His mother was Henrietta Amelia Brooks, daughter of Benjamin Brooks, of Bridgeport, Conn., and descended from the celebrated Colonel William Jones, who was born in England in 1624 and came to New Haven in 1660. The mother of Colonel Jones was Catherine Henrietta, sister of the Protector, Oliver Cromwell, cousin of John Hampden and Edward Whalley, the regicide, and aunt by marriage to William Goffe, the regicide, and General Ireton. The father of Colonel William Jones was her second husband. Colonel Jones, who was Deputy Governor of the New Haven and Connecticut Colonies from 1683 to 1698, married Hannah Eaton, daughter of Theophilus Eaton, the first Governor of the New Haven Colony. The honorable Anson Jones, President of the Republic of Texas, 1844-6, was a descendant of Colonel Jones.

The representative of this historic and distinguished family in the present generation is Mr. Oliver Eaton Cromwell, who is a broker in New York and occupies the ancient family mansion on Manursing Island. He was born in New York, October 6th, 1848. Graduating from Columbia College with the degree of M. E., he has since been engaged in active business. He was a County Commissioner of Bernalillo County, Territory of New Mexico, in 1891. He is a member of the Union, Metropolitan and A + clubs and the St. Nicholas Society, and also belongs to the New York, American and Seawanhaka-Corinthian Yacht clubs.

The wife of Mr. Cromwell, whom he married in 1890, was Lucretia B. Roberts, daughter of James H. Roberts, of Chicago. Their children are Henrietta Louise, Oliver Eaton and James Roberts Cromwell. The Cromwell arms are: sable, a lion rampant, argent, with a crest showing a demi-lion rampant, argent, in his dexter gamb a gem ring, or.

144

ERNEST HOWARD CROSBY

RIGINALLY of Massachusetts, the early Crosbys were active in public affairs in that Colony. Joseph Crosby, of Braintree, was a Judge, and his son, Ebenezer, 1753-88, was a graduate from Harvard College in 1777, a surgeon in Washington's Life Guard, and a professor in Columbia College. William Bedlow Crosby, son of Ebenezer Crosby, was born in New York City in 1786. His mother was Catherine Bedlow, daughter of William Bedlow, and a favorite niece of Colonel Henry Rutgers, one of the most public-spirited New Yorkers of his day. Colonel Rutgers donated land for churches and other public institutions, and gave the site for the first free school of the city, erected in 1809. He was a member of the first Assembly of the State. William Bedlow Crosby was the heir of Colonel Rutgers. His property included nearly all of the Seventh Ward, and before the Astors became real estate investors, he was one of the largest owners of real estate in the United States. He spent his life in caring for his property and in benevolent work, and is still remembered for his philanthropy.

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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 23

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