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 30

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 30

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In 1890, Mr. Ditson married Alice Maud Tappin, daughter of John Tappin and his wife, Jane Lindsley, and a granddaughter of the Reverend Henry Tappin, all of Mrs. Ditson's ancestors being of English stock. Mr. Ditson's city residence is at 17 East Thirty-eighth Street, and he has a country home, the Boulders, in Jackson, N. H. He belongs to the Players Club, and is a member of the New England Society of this city and the Algonquin Club of Boston.

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MORGAN DIX, D.D.

T HE Dix family were English Puritans, Anthony Dix being a resident of Plymouth, Mass., in 1623, while Edward Dix was a freeman of Watertown, Mass., in 1635, and Ralph Dix was one of the early settlers of Ipswich, Mass. His grandson, Jonathan, born in Reading, Mass., removed to Contocook, afterwards Boscawen, N. H., and was the father of Timothy Dix, a Lieutenant in the Revolution and postmaster at Boscawen under President Jefferson. Timothy Dix, Jr., was a member of the State Legislature, 1801-4. In the War of 1812, he held a commission in the regular army and at the time of his death, in 1813, was Lieutenant-Colonel of the Fourteenth Infantry. His wife was Abigail Wilkins, of Amherst, N. H., whose father was a Captain in the Revolution and perished during Montgomery's expedition against Quebec.

General John A. Dix, son of Timothy and Abigail Dix, was born in Boscawen, N. H., in 1798. He was entered in the college of the Sulpicians, in Montreal, but upon the opening of the War of 1812 was appointed a cadet in the United States Army. In 1813, when he lacked four months of being fifteen years old, he received a commission as ensign and was assigned to the Fourteenth Infantry, stationed at Sackett's Harbor, under command of his father, being the youngest officer in the service. In 1814, he became a Third Lieutenant and was assigned to the artillery, and during the war rendered valuable service to his country. In 1816, he became First Lieutenant, in 1819 was aide-de-camp to Major-General Jacob Brown, Commander-in-Chief of the army, while in 1825 he was Captain of the Third Artillery. After thirteen years of military service, he resigned from the army, married, and was admitted to the bar in 1828. Politics, however, engaged his attention, and in 1831 he was appointed Adjutant-General of the State; in 1833 he became Secretary of the State of New York, and in 1842 he was elected to the Legislature. In 1845, he was elected United States Senator to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of Silas Wright, who had been chosen Governor, and served four years in that position. He was Assistant Treasurer of the United States in New York City in 1853 and Postmaster of New York in 1859.

When the Civil War was impending, he was made Secretary of the Treasury in the cabinet of President Buchanan ; and when the war actually began, promptly offered his services to President Lincoln, and was successively appointed Brigadier-General and Major-General of Volunteers, and afterwards elevated to the same rank in the regular army. His services were energetic and valuable. In 1863, he was made military commander of the Department of the East, a post which he held until the close of the war, and was in command at New York during the draft riots. In 1866, he was appointed Naval Officer at New York, and in that same year United States Minister to France, a position which he resigned after two years. In 1872, he was elected Governor of the State as a Republican, but was defeated for the same office in 1874. He was a man of great culture, and was the author of several works of travel.

General Dix married Catherine, niece and adopted daughter of John J. Morgan, Member of Congress from New York, Miss Morgan's father, who was the brother of Mr. Morgan's wife, Catherine Warne, being a nephew of Colonel Marinus Willett. The eldest son of General and Mrs. Dix, the Reverend Dr. Morgan Dix, was born in New York City, November Ist, 1827. He was graduated from Columbia College, in 1848, and from the General Theological Seminary in 1852. Three years later, he was appointed assistant minister in Trinity parish, and in 1862 he became rector, a position that he has held ever since. He has been indefatigable in his work for Trinity and is one of the leading divines of the church in this country. He has published many books on religious subjects and a memoir of his father. In 1874, Dr. Dix married Emily Woolsey Soutter, eldest daughter of General William Soutter and his wife, Agnes G. (Knox) Soutter. He is a member of the Grolier Club, and the Sons of the Revolution, and is president and commandant of the Society of the War of 1812.

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GRENVILLE M. DODGE

T WO brothers named Dodge emigrated from England in the early part of the seventeenth century and settled in Essex County, Mass. One of their descendants was Captain Solo- mon Dodge, of Rowley, Mass., grandfather of the subject of this sketch. Sylvanus Dodge, the son of Captain Solomon Dodge, born in Rowley, in 1800, died in 1872, and in 1827 married Julia F. Philips, of New Rowley, now Georgetown, Mass., a lady belonging to a family celebrated in the annals of Massachusetts and who, throughout a long life, exhibited remarkable force of character. In 1834, Sylvanus Dodge was appointed postmaster of South Danvers, Mass., and held that office for ten years, when he went West. He was an old school Democrat, but later in life changed his politics and became active in the organization of the Republican party. He was among the pioneers who developed the Territory of Nebraska, and was for many years Register of the United States Land Office in the district in which he resided.

Major-General Grenville M. Dodge is the second son of Sylvanus Dodge and his wife, Julia Philips Dodge. He was born in Danvers, Mass., April 12th, 1831. In 1847, he entered the Military University of Norwich, Vt., from which institution he was graduated in 1851 as a civil engineer. He then went West, taking up his residence in Illinois, where he engaged as an assistant engineer in the construction of the Chicago & Rock Island and other railroad lines in Illinois and Iowa. For some time he was a resident of lowa City, and finally of Council Bluffs, la.

When the Civil War broke out, General Dodge was Captain of the Council Bluffs Guards which enlisted for service at the front. The Governor of lowa appointed him an aide on his staff, with the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel, and he organized the Fourth lowa Infantry and the Dodge Battery, which was attached to the same command. In July, 1861, he joined, with his regiment, the army of General Fremont at St. Louis. In January, 1862, he was assigned to the command of a brigade, leading the advance in the movement on Springfield, Mo., and in the capture of that city, and took part in the engagements at Sugar Creek and Blackburn's Mills. At the battle of Pea Ridge, he was conspicuous for bravery, and in recognition of his gallant services was made Brigadier-General of Volunteers. He superintended the rebuilding of the Mobile & Ohio Railroad, was promoted to the command of the Central Division of Mississippi, defeated the Confederates in several important battles, captured General Faulkner and his forces near Island No. 10, and was assigned to command the Second Division, Army of the Tennessee. In 1863, he defeated the Confederate forces under General Forest and commanded the Sixteenth Army Corps in all the great battles of General Sherman's Atlanta campaign, the brunt of the Battle of Atlanta, July 22d, 1864, in which General McPherson was killed, falling on his command. A few days later General Dodge was severely wounded and was prevented from taking part in the March to the Sea. In June, 1864, he was commissioned Major-General of Volunteers, and took command of the Department of Missouri. In 1865, he commanded the United States forces in Kansas and the Territories. Returning to civil life, he assumed the position of chief engineer in charge of the construction of the Union Pacific Railroad. In 1866, he was elected a member of the Thirty-Ninth Congress from the Fifth District of lowa. For the last thirty years, he has been engaged in great railroad enterprises. He was a director of the Union Pacific Railroad Company, and has been identified with the building and operation of many railroads in the West and Southwest, including the Texas & Pacific, the Missouri, Kansas & Texas, the International & Great Northern, the Fort Worth & Denver City, and other lines.

General Dodge is a member of the Union League and the United Service clubs, belongs to the New England Society, and is a member of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. He is president of the Society of the Army of the Tennessee and chairman of the committee charged with the erection of a statue of his friend and commander, General William T. Sherman. In May, 1897, he was chief marshal of the procession in New York City at the dedication of the Grant Mausoleum in Riverside Park.

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WILLIAM EARL DODGE

W ILLIAM DODGE, who settled at Salem, Mass., in the year 1629, was the progenitor of a race representatives of which are now found in many portions of the United States. A branch of the family established itself in Connecticut, from which the four generations of eminent merchants and philanthropists who have made the name of Dodge famous in New York's annals derive their origin.

The first of this line was David Low Dodge, who was born in Connecticut in 1774. He was a highly educated man, and was in his early years head of a private school at Norwich, Conn., which he made famous by the introduction of novel educational methods. He married a daughter of the Reverend Aaron Cleveland, the grandfather of ex-President Grover Cleveland. Entering business life, David Low Dodge established himself in Hartford, Conn., in 1802, but in 1805 came to New York City as partner of the firm of Higginsons & Dodge, which became the largest wholesale dry goods house of its day, having establishments at Boston, New York and Baltimore; but owing to the loss of many vessels, their business was broken up by the embargo. The latter, however, stimulated the growth of domestic manufacturers, and Mr. Dodge was a pioneer in the field. Returning to Norwich, Conn., he built a large cotton mill, one of the first in New England, but later on he returned to New York and established the firm of Ludlow & Dodge. Retiring from business in 1827, his life till his death in 1852 was mainly devoted to religious and literary labors. He was an elder of the Wall Street Presbyterian Church, and with Robert Lenox had charge of building its new structure. He was among the founders of the American Tract and Bible societies, and was the first president of the American Peace Society. Among his works on religious and social subjects was a volume, War Inconsistent with the Religion of Jesus Christ, which was reprinted in England and translated into several European languages. His brother- in-law was the famous preacher, the Reverend Samuel Hanson Cox, D. D., whose son, the late Right Reverend Arthur Cleveland Cox, was Bishop of Western New York.

The Honorable William Earl Dodge, Sr., his son, was born at Hartford in 1805, and was educated at Norwich and at Mendham, N. J., under his uncle, the Reverend Dr. Cox. His earliest business experience was as a clerk in the mill at Norwich; but from his youth he was identified with New York, and in 1827 established the house of Huntington & Dodge here. He married a daughter of Anson Green Phelps, of the firm of Phelps & Peck, which Mr. Phelps had founded, and which was the largest establishment in the metal trade in the United States. In 1833, William E. Dodge entered this house, the style of which was changed to Phelps, Dodge & Co., which it has since retained. His interests were, however, as varied as they were extensive. He developed large lumber properties both in Canada and the South; he was among the first directors of the Erie Railroad, of the Central Railroad of New Jersey, of the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western Railroad, being one of the founders of the latter, while he was also president of the Houston & Texas Central Railroad. His enterprise and probity were rewarded not only by material success, but by the recognition of his fellow merchants. He joined the Chamber of Commerce in 1855, became its vice-president in 1863, and was elected president of the organization from 1867 till his voluntary retirement, in 1875.

Prior to the outbreak of the Civil War, he labored to secure an honorable settlement of sectional differences. He was a member of the Peace Congress in 1861, but when the war began gave an unswerving support to the Union. In 1864, he was elected a Member of Congress from the Eighth District of New York, and distinguished himself by his opposition to unsound financial measures, but declined a renomination. In 1872, he was a member of the Electoral College of this State, and, among many other public services, was a member of a commission which investigated the condition of the Indians.

The fame of William Earl Dodge, Sr., rests, however, upon a better basis than that of a successful career and public honors. Strong religious and humanitarian views came to him by

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inheritance, were confirmed throughout his life, and became the guiding principles of his existence. He was ever active in religious work, but his charities knew no limits of creed or section, and the title of the "Christian Merchant," by which he was known, was fully deserved by the tenor of his life. He gave his efforts freely to the cause of religion, temperance and benevolence, and among other positions was president of the Evangelical Alliance and the National Temperance Society and similar bodies. He gave aid to the furtherance of education among the freedmen of the South after the war, and it should be noted that after the struggle for the Union had been crowned with success, he was one of the first to inculcate conciliation and harmony among all sections. His death, in 1883, called forth earnest expressions of appreciation of his character and services from public, mercantile, religious and benevolent bodies, and the erection in 1885, under the auspices of the Chamber of Commerce, of his statue, at Broadway and Thirty- fourth Street, was a fitting tribute to one of the most eminent citizens of the metropolis.

His son, Mr. William Earl Dodge, Jr., was born in New York City in 1832. He entered mercantile life in his youth, and in 1864 became a partner in Phelps, Dodge & Co., of which he is now the senior member. He is also president of the Ansonia Brass Company and other corporations at Ansonia, Conn., a town founded by and named after his grandfather, Anson G. Phelps. During the Civil War, he was one of the Commissioners of the State of New York to supervise the condition of its troops in the field. His commission was among the first signed by President Lincoln, and at the conclusion of his services he received the thanks of the State in a joint resolution of the Legislature. He was also an officer of the Loyal Publication Society, an advisory director of the Woman's Central Association of Relief, out of which the United States Sanitary Commission grew, and was one of the founders of the Union League Club.

Mr. Dodge followed the example of his father in his devotion to religious and charitable work. He was long the president of the Young Men's Christian Association, which, under his administration, erected its building at Twenty-third Street and Fourth Avenue, the first in the country devoted to the special use of an Association. He succeeded his father as president of the Evangelical Alliance, was vice-president of the American Sunday School Union, and chairman of the National Arbitration Committee. Among other services to the metropolis, he is a trustee of the Slater fund, a member of the executive committee of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Natural History, and the New York Botanic Garden. Mr. Dodge has also filled the post of vice-president of the New England Society, and is a member of the Metropolitan, Union League, Century, City, Reform, Riding, Presbyterian, Country, and other clubs, and of the American Geographical Society and a large number of other social, scientific and benevolent bodies. His town residence is in Madison Avenue, and his country place is Greyston, Riverdale-on- Hudson. In 1854, Mr. Dodge married Sarah Tappen Hoadley, daughter of the late David Hoadley, president of the Panama Railroad Company.

The other sons of William E. Dodge, Sr., are Anson Phelps Dodge, Norman W. Dodge and George E. Dodge, who are all identified with the business interests and social life of the city; the Reverend D. Stuart Dodge, D. D., founder of the Syrian Protestant College at Beirut, Syria, to which his father was a liberal benefactor; Brigadier General Charles Cleveland Dodge, a prominent cavalry officer during the Civil War and Major of the New York Mounted Rifles; and the late Arthur Murray Dodge.

Cleveland Hoadley Dodge, the son of Mr. William Earl Dodge, Jr., was born in New York City in 1860. He is a member of the firm of Phelps, Dodge & Co., a trustee of the Farmers' Loan and Trust Company, and a director of the National City Bank and other corporations, while he has been actively interested in a number of local charities, and is president of the Young Men's Christian Association, in succession to his father. He married Grace Parish.

Grace Hoadley Dodge, daughter of Mr. W. E. Dodge, Jr., has distinguished herself by her practical work on behalf of her sex. She founded the Working Girls' clubs of New York City, and originated the Teachers' College, now affiliated with Columbia University. She was also the first woman appointed a member of the New York Board of Education.

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WILLIAM GAYER DOMINICK

T HE Huguenot emigration brought to New York, in 1742, George Dominique, who was born at La Rochelle, France, in 1739. George and his brother, François Dominique, became merchants in Cherry Street, New York. George was a Captain in the Second New York Militia in 1775, and a vestryman in Trinity Church, 1787-1792, Dominick Street being named for him. In 1761, he married Elizabeth Blanchard, who was also of Huguenot parents, though born in Amsterdam, Holland. Their son, James William Dominick, a merchant of eminence, was one of the founders and president of the Eastern Dispensary, a trustee of the American Tract Society, one of the executive committee of the Bible Society, and a director of the Tradesman's Bank. He married Phobe Cock, daughter of Major James Cock, Adjutant in the Patriot army at the Battle of White Plains, and Commissary under Washington throughout the entire war. Major André was a prisoner in Major Cock's house. The night before his execution, he kissed Phœbe Cock, then an infant, and said, "Oh ! happy childhood ; we know thy peace but once ; would that I were as innocent as thou."

Among the lineal descendants of James William Dominick, first in the male line, are Marinus Willet Dominick, a son of his second wife, Margaret Eliza Delavan, and five grandsons : Henry Blanchard Dominick and the late Alexander, sons of James W. Dominick, second, and the sons of the late W. F. Dominick, George Francis Bayard and the late Mr. William Gayer Dominick.

William Francis Dominick, the latter's father, was the son of James William Dominick and Phœbe Cock, and though born in New York, went to Chicago in 1844, and was one of the early merchants there, retiring from business and returning to New York in 1855. He married, in 1844, Lydia Gardner Wells, a descendant of Governor Wells, of Connecticut ; of Robert Day, whose name appears on the Founders' Monument at Hartford, and of Richard Gardner, of Nantucket. Their eldest son, Mr. William Gayer Dominick, was born in Chicago, in 1845, and died suddenly August 31st, 1895. He was educated at Churchill's Academy, Sing Sing, and in 1863 entered the banking business in Wall Street. In 1869, he joined the Stock Exchange, and formed, with Watson B. Dickerman, the firm of Dominick & Dickerman, to which his brother, Bayard, was admitted.

Mr. Dominick served seventeen years in the Seventh Regiment, ten years as First Lieutenant, and at the time of his death was Captain of the Ninth Company of the Veteran Association, and a Governor of the Seventh Regiment Veteran Club. He was a member and one of the board of managers of the Sons of the Revolution, a manager of the New York Huguenot Society, and one of the advisory board of the Young Women's Christian Association, a member of the Society of Colonial Wars, of the War of 1812, the Aztec Society, and the Historical Society. Among other prominent organizations, he belonged to the Union League, City and Riding clubs, and the Narrows Island Shooting Club, of Currituck, N. C. A life membership of the Metro- politan Museum of Art was conferred on him in 1892, when he joined his brothers in presenting the picture by Schraeder, Queen Elizabeth Signing the Death Warrant of Mary Stuart.

In 1874, Mr. Dominick married Anne De Witt Marshall, daughter of Henry P. Marshall and his wife, Cornelia Elizabeth Conrad. The Marshall family descends from Edward Marshall, who settled in Virginia in 1624, died in New York 1704, and is buried in Trinity churchyard. Mrs. Dominick's great-grandfather, the Reverend John Rutgers Marshall, was one of the ten clergymen who elected Samuel Seabury, the first Bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States. Another ancestor was Colonel Charles DeWitt, the Revolutionary patriot, and among her early ancestors are Hermanius Rutgers, Parson Thomas Hooker, the Reverend Everardus Bogardus and Anneke Jans. Mr. and Mrs. Dominick's four children are William Francis (now at Yale, class of 1898), Elsie, Alice and Anne Marshall Dominick. Mr. Dominick was a member of St. Thomas's Church, Fifty-third Street and Fifth Avenue, where a beautiful altar rail has been placed, "To the Glory of God and in blessed memory of him whose gentle, manly, Christian character made him beloved by all who came in contact with him." The Dominick coat of arms was granted in 1720.

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ROBERT OGDEN DOREMUS

T HOMAS CORNELIUS DOREMUS, father of the subject of this article, was a New York merchant in the early part of the present century. In 1821, he married Sarah Platt

Haines, the daughter of Elias Haines, her mother being a daughter of Robert Ogden, a lawyer who belonged to a famous New Jersey Colonial family. Through life, Sarah Platt (Haines) Doremus was noted for the active part she took in many noble charities. In 1842, she was prominent in founding the institution for discharged female prisoners, now the Isaac T. Hopper Home, and was its first president. Dr. J. Marion Sims, who founded the Woman's Hospital in the State of New York in 1855, left it on record, that he could make no headway with the project until he applied to Mrs. Doremus, "who touched it and it lived." She was the first president of the Woman's Hospital, holding that office at her death in 1877.

The son of Thomas Cornelius and Sarah Platt (Haines) Doremus is Professor Robert Ogden Doremus. He was born in this city, entered Columbia College in 1838, and graduated from the University of New York in 1842. He was the first private pupil of the celebrated Professor John W. Draper, and in 1843 became his first assistant. He held that position for some years, and assisted in many of Professor Draper's famous researches. In 1847, he went to Europe and continued his studies of chemistry in Paris. Returning to New York in 1848, he established, with Dr. Charles T. Harris, an analytical laboratory, and in 1849 was elected professor of chemistry in the New York College of Pharmacy. Meantime, he continued the study of medicine with Dr. Abraham L. Cox, receiving the degree of M. D. from the University of the City of New York in 1850. At a later date, the University conferred on him the degree of LL. D. He was one of the founders of the New York Medical College, and at his own expense equipped for it the first chemical laboratory attached to a medical college in the United States. He organized a similar analytical laboratory in the Long Island Hospital Medical College in 1859.

The investigations of Professor Doremus in toxicology effected a revolution in medical jurisprudence. He has been an expert in that field, and has also made many important chemical and scientific discoveries. He is distinguished as a lecturer, and has frequently appeared in that capacity in aid of charitable causes. At the unveiling of Humboldt's monument in Central Park, he delivered the English oration. He was one of the editors of the Standard Dictionary of the English language, having charge of the chemical definitions. He has been president of the New York Philharmonic Society and the Medico-Legal Society, is a fellow of the Academy of Sciences of New York and the American Geographical Society, was one of the first members of the Union League Club and belongs to the St. Nicholas Society.

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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 30

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