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 37

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

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The Honorable Frederick Frelinghuysen, son of Frederick Frelinghuysen and grandson of General Frederick Frelinghuysen, has also been distinguished in public life. Born in 1817, he was adopted and brought up by his uncle Theodore, his father having died when he was an infant. He was graduated from Rutgers College in 1836 and was admitted to the bar three years later. He advanced rapidly in his profession, and in time succeeded to the practice of his uncle, becoming one of the leading members of the New Jersey bar. He was city attorney of Newark, N. J., and for ten years counsel for the New Jersey Central Railroad and the Morris Canal Company, and Attorney-General of the State in 1861-66. Appointed to the United States Senate to fill a vacancy in 1866, he was elected to the seat in 1867 and reelected in 1871. During his last term of service, he was a conspicuous figure in the national councils, and in 1877 was a member of the Electoral Commission appointed to settle the disputed Presidential contest of 1876. In 1881, he became a member of President Arthur's cabinet, succeeding James G. Blaine, as Secretary of State. The wife of Frederick Frelinghuysen was Matilda Griswold, daughter of George Griswold, a descendant of the Griswold family, of Connecticut, and one of New York's great merchants of the early part of the century.

Mr. Theodore Frelinghuysen is the son of the Honorable Frederick Frelinghuysen and Matilda Griswold. He was born in 1860, and is engaged in active business. He married Alice Coats, daughter of James Coats. Their residence is in West Fifteenth Street. His clubs are the Knickerbocker, Union, Metropolitan, Merchants', and the Country Club of Westchester County. The other children of Frederick Frelinghuysen are : George Griswold Frelinghuysen, who married Sarah L. Ballantine, lives in West Forty-third Street, near Fifth Avenue, and has a country place, Whippany Farm, in Morristown, N. J .; Frederick Frelinghuysen, of Newark, N. J .; Matilda C., who married Henry Winthrop Gray ; Sarah Helen, who married the Honorable John Davis, and Lucy Frelinghuysen.

222

AMOS TUCK FRENCH

E DWARD FRENCH was born in England and settled first in Ipswich, Mass., in the year 1636, and afterwards became one of the original settlers of Salisbury, Mass. He was a prominent member of the community, one of the prudential men in 1646, and paid the third heaviest tax in the town for many years. Daniel French, of Salisbury, 1708-1783, was the fourth in descent from Edward French. Daniel French, of Chester, N. H., the grandson of Daniel French, of Salisbury, was the grandfather of Francis Ormond French, so prominent in the financial circles of New York City. He was born in 1769 and died in 1840; he was a lawyer and for several terms was Attorney-General of the State of New Hampshire. His wife was Mercy Brown, sister of the Reverend Francis Brown, president of Dartmouth College. He was also the grandfather of Daniel Chester French, the sculptor.

The son of Daniel French was Benjamin B. French, 1800-1870. He was born in Chester, N. H., practiced law for some ten years, and served in the New Hampshire Legislature. In 1833, he entered the clerk's office of the House of Representatives at Washington, and was clerk of the House from 1845 to 1847. President Lincoln appointed him Commissioner of Public Buildings in Washington in 1861, a position that he retained until 1865. He was associated with Professor S. F. B. Morse and Postmaster-General Amos Kendall, in the first efforts to establish the telegraph, and was president of the Magnetic Telegraph Company, organized to construct a line between Washington and New York. The wife of Benjamin B. French, whom he married in 1825, was Elizabeth Smith Richardson, a daughter of Chief Justice William Merchant Richardson, of New Hampshire. Her family was connected with the early history of Charlestown, Mass. One of its members took part in the celebrated Tea Party in Boston Harbor in 1772, and another was a Captain in the Continental Army.

Francis Ormond French, their son, was born in Chester, N. H., in 1837. He was fitted for college at Phillips Exeter Academy, entered the sophomore class of Harvard College in 1854, and was graduated in 1857. At that time, he evinced decided literary tastes, being secretary of the Hasty Pudding Club, and class poet and a favorite pupil of Professor James Russell Lowell. He graduated from Harvard Law School in 1859, and, entering the office of Thomas Nelson, in New York City, was admitted to the New York bar in 1860 and went to Exeter, N. H., to practice. In 1862, the appointment of Deputy Naval Officer of the Port of Boston was offered him under his father-in-law, the Honorable Amos Tuck, who was Naval Officer. In 1863, he was promoted to be Deputy Collector. In 1865, he resigned from the Government employ and entered the banking firm of Samuel A. Way & Co., Boston, and subsequently founded the banking house of Foote & French. In 1870, he returned to New York City and became a partner in the firm of Jay Cooke & Co., and was the representative of the London firm of Jay Cooke, Mccullough & Co., remaining with them until 1873. In 1874, he was one of the capitalists who acquired control of the First National Bank of New York City, and became connected with its management. His most notable work in the financial field was in relation to the funding of United States loans. From 1888 until his death, in 1893, he was president of the Manhattan Trust Company. He was president of the Harvard Club of New York City for two years, and a trustee of Phillips Exeter Academy. He married Ellen Tuck, daughter of the Honorable Amos Tuck, of Exeter, N. H., Member of Congress, 1847-53, and Naval Officer of the Port of Boston, 1861-5.

Mr. Amos Tuck French, the only son of Francis Ormond French, is prominent in the business and social life of the metropolis. Having graduated from Harvard College, Mr. French entered upon a financial career in New York City. He was secretary of the Manhattan Trust Company under the presidency of his father, and is now vice-president of that institution. He is a member of the Tuxedo colony, and belongs to the Metropolitan, Union, Racquet, Knickerbocker, Harvard and New York Yacht clubs.

223

FREDERIC GALLATIN

T HE rival of Alexander Hamilton in renown as a financier and statesman, Albert Gallatin followed him in public service by some years and now, for nearly half a century, has slept his last sleep beside his predecessor in Trinity churchyard. Gallatin, like Hamilton, was foreign born, but cast his lot with this country before he had reached his maturity. He was born in Geneva, Switzerland, in 1761, a descendant of an ancient patrician family that for many genera- tions had been prominent in Swiss history. His father, Jean Gallatin, died when he was only two years old and he lost his mother, Sophie Albertine Rolaz du Rosey, before he was ten years of age. He was baptized Abraham Alphonzo Albert, and after being graduated from the University of Geneva with high rank in 1779, he ran away and came to this country to escape the importunities of members of his family who wished him to enter the army and engage in the Hessian service of Frederick of Hesse Cassel.

Arriving in Boston in 1780, Gallatin was successively soldier, teacher, and instructor in Harvard College. Then he went to Pennsylvania, bought real estate, engaged in business, and about 1790 entered upon his political career by going to the Legislature. He was in Congress in 1795 as a follower of Madison, and was the recognized leader of his party. Secretary of the Treasury, 1801-13, one of the Commissioners to arrange the Treaty of Ghent, United States Minister to France in 1815, Envoy Extraordinary to Great Britain in 1826, and otherwise prominent in public service, he filled out a long life of activity and usefulness. After his retirement to private life, he was president of the National Bank of New York, 1831-39, one of the founders of the New York University in 1830, the first president of the American Ethnological Society in 1842, and from 1843 to the time of his death, in 1849, president of the New York Historical Society.

A grandson of Albert Gallatin, Mr. Frederic Gallatin is descended through his grandmother from James Nicholson, of the United States Navy. James Nicholson was born in Chesterfield, Md., in 1727, and came of ancestors who had settled in that locality a century before. His father had a grant of what was called Nicholson's Manor, and was in the official employ of the British Government. James Nicholson went into the navy at the outbreak of the Revolution, commanded the Defense in 1775, was made ranking Captain by resolution of Congress in 1776, became Com- mander-in-Chief of the Navy in 1777, commanded the frigate Trumbull in the battle with the Wyatt in 1780, and in 1781 was taken prisoner and held until the close of the war. Returning to civil life, he settled in New York and remained a resident of this city until his death, in 1804. His daughter married Albert Gallatin.

The father of Mr. Frederic Gallatin was Albert R. Gallatin, the second son of Albert Gallatin. He was liberally educated and was graduated from Princeton College. Although he was admitted to the bar in Pennsylvania, he practiced only a short time and then removed to New York and engaged in financial pursuits. At one time, he was in business with John Jacob Astor and his ventures were generally profitable, so that he was able to accumulate a considerable fortune. He was the companion of his father a great part of the time, and in consequence was thrown into association with people of public note. He went abroad with his father several times, to France in 1816, to Great Britain in 1826 and upon other occasions. On these trips, he made the acquaint- ance of many eminent Europeans and became the personal friend of the Duke of Wellington and of many of the leaders in the French Revolution. He lived until 1890, a connecting link between this generation and the deeds and the men of the infant days of the Republic.

Mr. Frederic Gallatin is a University man and a lawyer. He married Amy G. Gerry, and occupies a residence in upper Fifth Avenue, near Central Park. He belongs to the Metro- politan, Century and other clubs, and his interest in scientific matters is indicated by his membership in the American Geographical Society. He is an enthusiastic yachtsman and devotes considerable time to that sport, being a member of the New York, Seawanhaka, Larchmont and Atlantic Yacht clubs.

224

THOMAS GALLAUDET, D. D.

O F French origin, the first American ancestors of the Gallaudet family were among the Huguenots who participated in the famous migration to America in the early part of the eighteenth century. Pierre Elisee Gallaudet, a physician, first appeared in New York. He was born in Moze (Mauze) pays d'aunis, near Rochelle. His father was Joshua Gallaudet and his mother was Margaret Prioleau, daughter of Elisha Prioleau, minister of Niort, 1639-50. Dr. Gallaudet came to New Rochelle, N. Y., as early as 1711. His son Thomas, the great grandfather of the subject of this sketch, was born about 1724, and lived until 1772. His wife was Catharine Edgar, who was born in 1725 and died in 1774. They had a family of six children. Their second son, Peter Wallace Gallaudet, was born in 1756, in New York, and died in Washington, D. C., in 1843. His wife, whom he married in 1787, was Jane, or Janet, Hopkins, daughter of Captain Thomas and Alice (Howard) Hopkins. She was descended in the sixth generation from John Hopkins, of Hartford, Conn., who came over in 1634.

The Reverend Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet was born in Philadelphia in 1787, and died in Hartford in 1851. Graduated from Yale College in 1805, with the degree of A. B., he received the degree of A. M. in 1808. For two years, 1808-10, he was a tutor in Yale College, and then studied in the Theological Seminary in Andover, being licensed to preach as a Congregational minister in 1814. The greater portion of his lifetime was spent in philanthropic work. In 1816, he was the founder and incorporator of the Connecticut Asylum for Deaf and Dumb, the first school of the kind in the United States, and he devoted many years and much energy to the care of the unfortun- ate insane. In 1815, he visited London, Edinburgh and Paris. He was the author of Bible Stories for the Young, Child's Book of the Soul, and Youth's Book of Natural Theology. His wife was Sophia Fowler, of Guilford, Conn., one of his earliest deaf-mute pupils.

The Reverend Thomas Gallaudet, the son of Thomas H. Gallaudet, was born in Hartford, Conn., in 1822. For more than half a century he has been prominently connected with institutions for the instruction of deaf mutes and improving their material and spiritual condition. In this field of labor, he has been one of the most active and most useful workers in the world, and has acquired an international reputation. For fifteen years, 1843-58, he was an instructor in the New York Institution for the Instruction of the Deaf and Dumb. Meantime, having been ordained in the Protestant Episcopal Church, he founded, in 1852, St. Ann's Church for deaf mutes and their hearing friends. Since 1869 he has been pastor of the Sisterhood of the Good Shepherd, and was for three years Chaplain of the Midnight Missions. Since 1872, he has been general manager of the Church Mission to Deaf Mutes. He has traveled extensively in the interest of the cause to which he has devoted his life, visiting Europe several times. In 1885, he founded the Gallaudet Home for Deaf Mutes on a farm near the Hudson River, between Hamburgh and Poughkeepsie. Trinity College made him a D. D. in 1862, and he belongs to the Trinity College Alumni Association.

In 1845, Dr. Gallaudet married Elizabeth Budd, daughter of Dr. and Mrs. B. W. Budd. The family home is in West Thirteenth Street. Dr. and Mrs. Gallaudet have five daughters, Virginia B., Elizabeth F. and Edith Gallaudet, Mrs. A. D. Shaw and Mrs. R. M. Sherman. Their son, Dr. Benjamin Gallaudet, is a well-known surgeon, demonstrator of anatomy in the College of Physicians and Surgeons of New York. A brother of the Reverend Dr. Thomas Gallaudet is Peter Wallace Gallaudet, a broker, who lives in West Forty-eighth Street, is a member of the New York Club and the New England Society, and was at one time treasurer of the Huguenot Society. Another brother is Dr. Edward Miner Gallaudet, president of Gallaudet College for the Deaf, in Washington, D. C. This college was founded in 1864, at the suggestion of its president, who has been at the head of the institution, of which the college is a part, for more than forty years. The college received its name in honor of Dr. Thomas H. Gallaudet, as the founder of deaf-mute education in America.

225

HUGH RICHARDSON GARDEN.

D ISTINGUISHED Southern Colonial families unite in the person of this gentleman. The father of Mr. Garden was born Alester Garden Gibbes, who, at the request of an uncle, Major Alexander Garden, changed his name to Alester Garden. He was a descendant of Stephen Gibbes, 1594, of Edmonstone Court, England. The latter's son, Robert Gibbes, was appointed about 1648 a member of the Council at the Barbadoes, where his son, Robert, was born. The second Robert Gibbes became Chief Justice of South Carolina, and his son was John Gibbes, who married Mary Woodward, of St. James' Parish, South Carolina. The next in line of Mr. Garden's ancestors, Robert Gibbes, third of the name, married Sarah Reeves, of Johns Island, S. C., and their son, Wilmot S. Gibbes, 1781-1852, married Anna Frances de Saussure, the last named couple being the parents of Alester Garden Gibbes. Thomas S. Gibbes, whose descendants have held a high position in New York, was a brother of Wilmot S. Gibbes.

The Garden family descended from George Garden, 1555, Laird of Banchory. His great- grandson, the Reverend Alexander Garden, 1685-1756, came to this country, and was head of the Church of England in the Carolinas. His son, Dr. Alexander Garden, 1730-1791, a physician in Charleston, adhered to the Royal cause in the Revolution, and returned to England in 1783. Major Alexander Garden, 1757-1829, his son, married Mary Ann Gibbes, daughter of the third Robert Gibbes. He was educated at the University of Edinburgh, and, returning to Charleston, espoused the patriotic side in the Revolution, being a Lieutenant in Lee's Legion, and aide-de-camp to General Nathaniel Greene. He was vice-president of the South Carolina Society of the Cincin- nati after the war.

On his grandmother's side, Mr. Garden descends from Henri de Saussure, a Huguenot of ancient family, who came from Lorraine to South Carolina about 1700. His son, Daniel de Saus- sure, of Beaufort, S. C., married Mary McPherson, and was a Revolutionary patriot. He was a member of the Provincial Congress, served at the siege of Charleston in 1780, and was captured and imprisoned by the British. After the war, he was a State Senator until 1791, and was presi- dent of the Senate. His son, the Honorable Henry William de Saussure, 1763-1837, the great- grandfather of Mr. Garden, fought as a boy in the defense of Charleston, and was made prisoner. Afterwards he studied law in Philadelphia, and became a member of the South Carolina Constitu- tional Convention in 1789; was a member of the Legislature and Chancellor of the State from 1808 to 1837. He was also director of the United States Mint in 1794, and coined the first gold eagles.

Mr. Garden's maternal grandfather was William G. Richardson, son of Captain William Richardson, 1740-1793, and Anna (Poinsette) Richardson. Captain Richardson was a grandson of William Richardson, 1680, Jamestown, Va., and owned Bloomhill, in the hills of Santee, S. C. He was a member of the Provincial Congress, a Captain in the Continental Army, and a supporter of General Marion. Emma C. Buford, wife of William G. Richardson, was a granddaughter of Colonel William Buford, of Virginia, of the Continental Army, whose name was derived from a younger son of the Duke of Beaufort.

Mr. Hugh R. Garden was born in Sumter, S. C., July 9th, 1840, and graduated with honors at the South Carolina College in 1860. He entered the Confederate Army, served at Fort Sumter and Manassas, and raised and equipped the Palmetto Battery, of which he was Captain. He commanded the artillery of General Lee's rear guard at Appomattox. After the war, he studied law in the University of Virginia, was admitted to the bar and practiced in the South until his removal to New York in 1883. He has devoted himself largely to corporation law, while he acquired international reputation by his part in the settlement of the Virginia debt. Mr. Garden has been president of the Southern Society of New York. In 1892, the University of the South conferred the degree of D. C. L. upon him. In 1868, Mr. Garden married Lucy Gordon Robertson, daughter of the Honorable William J. Robertson, formerly a Judge of the Virginia Court of Appeals, and granddaughter of General William F. Gordon, the friend of Jefferson, Madison and Monroe.

226

JOHN LYON GARDINER

L ION GARDINER, the founder of one of the foremost of New York's manorial families, was an English officer who had seen service in the low countries under Lord de Vere and became Engineer and Master of Works to the Prince of Orange in his campaigns. He crossed the Atlantic in 1635 and landing at Boston was entrusted by Winthrop with the build- ing of the fortifications which defended that city until after the Revolution. He commanded the garrison of Saybrooke, Conn., during the Pequot War, but in 1639 removed with his wife, Mary Willemsen Deurcant, to that beautiful island at the extremity of Long Island which bears his name. His daughter Elizabeth was the first child of English parentage born in New York. Lion Gardiner, it is recorded, purchased his island from Wyandanck, the Sachem of the Long Island Indians. His possession was also known as the Isle of Wight, and his title was confirmed by the Earl of Sterling, who made claim to eastern Long Island, and was also subsequently ratified by the Dutch authorities. Gardiner's Island was erected into a lordship and manor in 1667, with all the customary feudal privileges. Lion Gardiner died in Easthampton in 1665, and his tomb there is marked by a recumbent effigy in armour, erected in 1886 as a monument by his descendants.

His successor was his son David, the first European child born in Connecticut, who became the second Lord of Gardiner's Island, and whose son John was the third Lord of the Manor. Gardiner's Island had in the meantime been the scene of romantic events. The famous pirate, Captain Kidd, landed there and buried some of his treasures. The island was plundered by Spanish pirates, but the Gardiner family clung to their manor, the estate being entailed.

David Gardiner, 1691-1751, was the fourth of the Lords, his successor being John, the fifth in the line. David Gardiner, the sixth Lord, died in 1774, just as the Revolution began. His eldest son, John Lyon Gardiner, 1770-1816, was a minor, in the charge of guardians, and the island was in a prosperous condition. It was ravaged repeatedly by the British forces, who left marks of their occupation which are still to be discovered in the stately manor house which the sixth Lord had completed the year of his death. John Lyon Gardiner, the seventh of the Lords of Gardiner's Island, restored the prosperity of his dominion and, though the Revolution had obliterated his manorial rights, was, during his life, known to his neighbors by the same title as his ancestors. In 1803, he married Sarah Griswold, daughter of John Griswold, of Lyme, Conn., and granddaughter of Governor Matthew Griswold. The island was again visited by a British fleet during the War of 1812, but escaped without serious damage.

David Johnson Gardiner, eldest son of John Lyon Gardiner, became the eighth Lord, being the last to receive the estate under the entail. Dying unmarried and intestate, it was inherited by his brother, John Griswold Gardiner, the ninth Lord. He also died unmarried, and his heir was his brother, Samuel Buell Gardiner, tenth Lord of the manor. He married Mary Thompson, their children being David Johnson Gardiner, Colonel John Lyon Gardiner and three others. The manor was bequeathed to David Johnson Gardiner, but being unwilling to assume the care of such a large estate, he disposed of his rights to his brother, Colonel John Lyon Gardiner, the present and twelfth Lord of this ancient manor. The history of Gardiner's Island probably presents the only instance in America where an estate has descended for two hundred and sixty years, or since 1639, according to the law of primogeniture.

Colonel John Lyon Gardiner married Elizabeth Coralie Livingston-Jones, a descendant of the Jones family, of Long Island, and also of the Livingstons, of New York. Their children are: Coralie Livingston Gardiner, who married Alexander Coxe, an English gentleman whose estate is near Sevenoaks, Kent; Adele Griswold Gardiner, Lion Gardiner, the future thirteenth Lord of the manor, who will be of age in 1899, and who is now a student at St. Paul's School, Concord, N. H .; John Gardiner and Winthrop Gardiner. Mrs. Gardiner was a founder and the first vice-president of the original Society of Colonial Dames of America. The family residence is at Gardiner's Island and the town house is 674 Madison Avenue.

227

DUDLEY GREGORY GAUTIER

A FRENCH Huguenot, who came to this country after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, was the progenitor of the Gautier family in New York and New Jersey. He was descended from an ancient family, formerly of St. Blanchard, in Languedoc. Originally the family was of noble extraction, and attained eminence during the religious wars of France. Jacques Gautier, its first American representative, had two sons, Daniel and Francois, and several daughters.

Daniel Gautier came to this country with his father, and was married in the Dutch Church in New York, in 1716, to Maria Bogaert. In the early dissensions in the Huguenot Church, caused by the claims of rival ministers, Daniel Gautier sided with the De Lancey party, and, when Governor Burnet decided adversely to that faction, left that church to attend the Dutch Church, though his children became members of the Church of England, in Trinity parish, with which their descendants have since been connected. Andrew Gautier, son of Daniel Gautier, was born in 1720. For his first wife he married Elizabeth Crossfield, a lady of English birth, and sister of Stephen Crossfield, one of the proprietors of the Totten and Crossfield land patents. His second wife, whom he married in 1774, was Margaret Hastier, daughter of Jean and Elizabeth (Perdrian) Hastier. Andrew Gautier became a large property owner, an assistant alderman, 1765-77, and an alderman, 1768-73. During the Revolution, his sympathies were with the mother country. It is related of him that, in 1749, when fire threatened to destroy Trinity Church, he climbed the steeple of the church at great personal risk and extinguished the flames. For this the parish presented him with a silver bowl, appropriately inscribed, which is still preserved in the family.

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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 37

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