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 4

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

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Mr. John W. Auchincloss was born in New York, April 12th, 1853, and was educated in Yale College, graduating in 1873. He is a director of the Illinois Central Railroad Company and a trustee of the Mutual Life Insurance Company, the National Safe Deposit Company and other institutions. He married Joanna H. Russell, daughter of the late Charles H. Russell, and lives in East Forty-eighth Street. His summer home is at Bar Harbor, Me. His clubs are the Metro- politan, Union League, University and New York Yacht, the Century Association and the New England and St. Andrew's societies.

Hugh D. Auchincloss, the younger son of John Auchincloss, was born in Newport, R. I., July 8th, 1858. He is a graduate from Yale College, in the class of 1879, and belongs to the Yale Alumni Association and the University Club. Among the other social organizations of which he is a member are the Metropolitan and New York Yacht clubs, the Century Association and the New England and St. Andrew's societies. The wife of Hugh D. Auchincloss was Emma B. Jennings, daughter of the late Oliver B. Jennings. The New York home of the family is in West Forty-ninth Street and their summer residence is in Newport. Mr. Auchincloss is a director in the Farmers' Loan & Trust Company, the Bank of the Manhattan Company, the Bowery Savings Bank and the Consolidated Gas Company.

SAMUEL PUTNAM AVERY

I N Normandy and in England, the Avery family was of high station and members of it were prominent in early records prior to the fifteenth century. The Averys of this country belong to what is known as the Dedham branch of the family, and trace their descent from the Averys of the County of Somerset, England. The arms of that family are: Gules a chevron between three besants, or. Crest, two lions' jambs, or., supporting a besant. Their estates were situated in the parish of Pill, now Pylle, Somersetshire.

Robert Avery, the English ancestor of that branch of the family which is now under consider- ation, resided near Shepton Mallet, in the Hundred of Whitestone. He had a son William and a grandson Robert, and his great-grandson, the son of Robert, was William Avery, of Dedham, Mass., who was one of the first of his name to come to the New England Colonies. William Avery migrated thither in 1650, with his wife and three children, from Barkham, Berkshire, in England. After his settlement in this country, four more children were born to him. He was a resident of Dedham for some fifteen years after the settlement of that place, was a large land owner, an officer of the militia, and a deputy to the General Court. When the Massachusetts Colony gave to the town of Dedham a large tract of land at Deerfield on the Connecticut River, William Avery was one of the original proprietors of the grant, which comprised eight thousand acres. In early life, he was a blacksmith, but became an educated man, was one of the earliest physicians in the Colony, a bookseller in Boston after 1680, and a patron of learning.

The second son of William, was Robert Avery, who was born in England in 1649, and died in 1722. He married Elizabeth, daughter of Job Lane, of Malden, and when his widow died, in 1746, she left five children, thirty grandchildren, fifty-two great-grandchildren, and two great- great-grandchildren. The Reverend John Avery, the son of Robert Avery, of the second American generation, was born in Dedham in 1684, graduated from Harvard in 1706 and was the pastor of the first church in Truro, Mass., from 1711 to the time of his death, in 1754. His wife, Ruth Little, was a daughter of the Reverend Ephraim Little, and a great-granddaughter of Richard Warren, who came over in the Mayflower. A son of the Reverend John Avery, was John Avery, 1711- 1796, who became a merchant of Boston. His son, John, born 1739, who graduated from Harvard in 1759, was one of the Sons of Liberty who had their meetings on Washington Street, Boston, under the famous Liberty tree. He served for a number of years as Deputy Secretary of Massa- chusetts, and as Secretary for twenty-six years, and died in 1806. Another son, from whom the subject of this sketch descends, was the Reverend Ephraim Avery, born 1713, who graduated from Harvard in 1731, married, in 1738, Deborah Lothrop, and was the minister at Brooklyn, Conn., throughout his life and died there in 1754.

The Reverend Ephraim Avery, the second of the name and son of the above Reverend Ephraim and Deborah (Lothrop) Avery, was born at Brooklyn, Conn., in 1741; graduated at Yale in 1761, married Hannah Platt in 1762, taught school at Rye, N. Y .; received the degree of Master of Arts from Kings College, New York, 1767, and died in 1776. John William Avery, eldest son of the Reverend Ephraim and Hannah (Platt) Avery, was born at Rye, N. Y., in 1767. He married Sarah Fairchild, of Stratford, Conn., in 1794, and died in 1799.

Samuel Putnam Avery, second son of John William and Sarah (Fairchild) Avery, was born at Stratford, Conn., in 1797, and came to New York in early life. He was a merchant on Catherine Street, but afterwards went into the hotel business and became proprietor of the East River Mansion House, where he died in 1832. He married, in 1821, Hannah Ann Parke, who survived him until 1888, a daughter of Captain Benjamin Parke, who was born in Charleston, R. I., 1766, and was in the shipping business in New York. He died 1807, and was buried in Trinity Church yard, where his tomb still stands. His daughter, Hannah Ann, was a direct descendant from Richard Parke, of London, who came over in 1635, and settled at Cambridge, Mass .; her grandfather was Captain Benjamin Parke, born at Westerly, R. 1., 1735, who was at the reduction of Crown Point,

1756, and at the attack on Fort William Henry. He took part in the Lexington alarm at the open- ing of the War of the Revolution, commanded a company of minute men and was mortally wounded at Bunker Hill.

Mr. Samuel Putnam Avery, the second of the name and the oldest child of the elder Samuel P. and Hannah Ann (Parke) Avery, was born in New York, March 17th, 1822. In early life, he learned the art of copper-plate engraving and was first engaged with a bank note company. He, however, turned his attention to engraving on wood, being employed by various newspapers and publishers, and compiled several volumes of a humorous nature, also supplying the illustrations. In 1865, he added to his business, art publishing and dealing in works of art. Appointed commissioner of the American Art Department at the Universal Exhibition of 1867 in Paris, he decided on his return in the following year to abandon engraving and engaged in art enterprises on a large scale in Fifth Avenue. He became one of the most respected and successful dealers of the country, retiring from business in 1888.

For several years, Mr. Avery filled the post of secretary of the art committee of the Union League Club, whose action led to the establishment of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, of which he became one of the founders and a trustee of continued standing. He is also a trustee of the New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations; is president of the Grolier Club, vice-president of the Sculpture Society, honorary member of the Architectural League, and of the Typothetæ Society. Besides this, he is a member of the Century, Union League, Players, City, Tuxedo and other clubs, a member of the Civil Service Reform Association and of the Sons of the Revolution, a life member of the American Museum of Natural History, of the American Geographical, Historical and the Zoological Society, as well as of the National Academy of Design, the Chamber of Commerce, and other bodies. One of the collections of Oriental porcelains in the Metropolitan Museum of Art was formed by Mr. Avery and was purchased by his friends and pre- sented to the institution. The Avery Architectural Library at Columbia College, now numbering about fifteen thousand volumes, was created and endowed by Mr. and Mrs. Avery in 1891 in memory of their deceased son, Henry Ogden Avery. Mr. Avery has been a generous contributor to various artistic, literary and benevolent institutions of this city. His opinion in matters per- taining to the fine arts is regarded as authoritative.

Columbia College, in 1896, conferred upon him the degree of Master of Arts for his services to the cause of art and art culture in the United States. The Century Magazine of December, 1896, contained an illustrated article on his art services and personal remembrances. On his seventy- fifth birthday, March, 1897, a gold medal of artistic design, modeled by Professor Scharff, of Vienna, was presented to him by seventy-five leading citizens of New York, as a recognition of his various public services.

The wife of Mr. Avery was Mary Ann Ogden, daughter of Henry Aaron and Katherine (Conklin) Ogden, of New York. Her name is associated with benevolent gifts. Their oldest son is Samuel P. Avery, Jr., who succeeded his father in business. Another son, Henry Ogden Avery, was born in Brooklyn, 1852, and died in New York 1890. He was educated as an architect, studied seven years at the Ecole des Beaux Arts, Paris, lectured and wrote upon architectural subjects, and was a most promising and esteemed member of his chosen profession. The other children of Mr. and Mrs. Avery are Mary Henrietta Avery, who has been prominent in charitable works and is president of the Loan Relief Association; Fanny Falconer Avery, who married the Reverend M. P. Welcher; and Ellen Walters Avery, who died in 1893 and was a poetess of considerable talent. The books which she had collected were presented to the Teachers' College by her mother.

The Honorable Benjamin Parke Avery, who as a mere youth emigrated to California in 1849, became a prominent editor and was appointed United States Minister to China, by President Grant, 1874, dying at Pekin, 1875, was the only brother of Mr. Samuel P. Avery, and Mary Rebecca Avery, who became the wife of the Reverend T. De Witt Talmage, and died at Phila- delphia in 1861, was his sister.

SAMUEL D. BABCOCK

AMES BABCOCK, the founder of the family of his name in this country, was a native of Essex, and was born in 1580. He was one of the earliest and most steadfast Puritans, going to Leyden, Holland, and afterwards emigrating to America, with the band of Colonists who came to Plymouth in 1623, bringing with him his four children. His second son, Captain John Babcock, became a prominent man in the Plymouth Colony and in Rhode Island. He lived in Newport and for some ten years dwelt among the Narragansett Indians. Afterwards he settled in Westerly, R. I., where he was a justice of the peace and town clerk and owned considerable land. His son, Captain James Babcock, born in Westerly in 1650, who was the first male white child born in the Narragansett Colony, was also a man of wealth and influence, being the proprietor of a grant of two hundred acres of land. In 1687, he married Elizabeth Babbitt, the ancestress of the branch of the family now under consideration. She died in 1730, and afterwards, in 1731, he married Content Maxson, daughter of Jonathan Maxson, of a pioneer family of Westerly. 1

In the next two generations, members of this family became distinguished in public and professional life. The Honorable Joshua Babcock, 1707-1783, the great-great-grandfather of Mr. Samuel D. Babcock, was both a physician and jurist. He was graduated from Yale College in 1724, studied medicine in Boston, afterwards going to England to complete his education. He was a staunch patriot during the Revolutionary War, giving to the Continental cause valuable service, both in military and in civil life. He was Chief Justice of the Colony, several times a member and Speaker of the Rhode Island Assembly, and served his fellow-citizens in other positions of trust and responsibility. His first wife, the great-great-grandmother of Mr. Samuel D. Babcock, was Hannah Stanton, of Pawtucket, R. 1., who was descended from Thomas Stanton, one of the earliest settlers of the Providence Plantation and a famous Indian interpreter.

Colonel Henry Babcock, son of the Honorable Joshua Babcock, was born in Westerly, R. I., in 1736, and was graduated from Yale College when sixteen years of age. He began a brilliant military career before he had attained to his maturity. In the French and Indian War, he was Captain of a company of infantry. He was at the battle of Lake George, in 1755, captured Baron Dieskau, the French commander, and for his bravery was promoted to be Major. At the age of twenty-one, he was a Colonel and the following year commanded the Rhode Island regiment in Abercrombie's expedition against Ticonderoga. Afterward he spent a year in England, and when the War of the Revolution broke out was appointed Commander of the Continental forces of Rhode Island. After the war, he engaged in the practice of law. His wife was Mary Stanton, daughter of Robert Stanton, who came of the same family as his mother. Colonel Babcock left two sons, Paul and Dudley Babcock. The younger son had one daughter, who married Phineas Stanton. The elder son left several male descendants, and it is through them only that the male line of Colonel Henry Babcock's family has been preserved.

Mr. Samuel D. Babcock, the prominent representative of this interesting family in the present generation, was born in Rhode Island and removed to New York at an early age. He has been connected with large business enterprises, particularly railroad corporations, having been president of, and otherwise active, in the management of several companies. He lives in upper Fifth Avenue, and has a country seat at Riverdale-on-Hudson. His only son, Henry D. Babcock, was graduated from Columbia College in 1868, and married Anna M. Woodward. Their children are Samuel D., Woodward and Alice W. Babcock. He is a member of the firm of Hollister & Babcock, and belongs to the Metropolitan, Union League, University, Riding, Rockaway Hunt, Larchmont Yacht and New York Yacht clubs, and the Sons of the Revolution. Mr. Samuel D. Babcock is a member of the Metropolitan, Union, Manhattan and New York Yacht clubs, the Downtown Association, the Country Club of Westchester County, the Century Association, the New England Society and the American Geographical Society, and is a supporter of the National Academy of Design, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the American Museum of Natural History.

JULES SEMON BACHE

A N intimate connection has always existed between the social world of New York and its great financial and business interests. The founders of the leading families of the city during the Colonial epoch and the early part of the present century were, almost without exception, successful and energetic men of business, actively engaged in trade, finance or in one of the learned professions. Mr. Bache is personally an exemplar of the fact that this honorable tradition of the great commercial city is still in full force and effect. One of the most prominent men of affairs among the younger generations of society people, he is successful and popular in both relations.

Mr. Jules S. Bache was born in this city on November 9, 1861. His father, Semon Bache, was an eminent and wealthy merchant, who was the founder of a house which took rank under his guidance as one of the largest importing establishments in the United States, if not in the world. The firm of Semon Bache & Co. has now been in successful existence for over half a century. Mr. Bache's mother, the wife of Semon Bache, and born Elizabeth Von Praag, was a native of this city.

After an academic education at the Charlier Institute, New York, and at schools in Europe the subject of this sketch entered the banking profession, which he has pursued with the aid of inherited business ability and natural financial talent, being at present at the head of a large financial and banking firm bearing his own name, and is naturally a leading figure in Stock Exchange and banking circles. He has been intimately associated during his career with most of the prominent leaders of cotemporary finance and business, and has a wide circle of distinguished friends, not only in that connection, but socially as well. Mr. Bache has also taken an active and prominent part in a number of large and important financial transactions. Among other incidents of this character was the reorganization of the Distillers' and Cattle Feeders' Company, he having been one of the leaders in the movement to protect the shareholders of that corporation, and a member of the committee by which its involved affairs were adjusted and the company successfully reorganized as the American Spirits Manufacturing Company, in the board of directors of which Mr. Bache is a leading member and also holds the office of vice-president. Mr. Bache has also been intimately connected with several other prominent railroad and industrial corporations and has manifested the possession of financial talents of a high order.

In 1892 Mr. Bache was united in marriage to Florence R. Sheftel, daughter of Adolph Sheftel, a retired merchant and capitalist long a resident of New York, and identified with the managements of some of the most prominent financial and charitable institutions of the city. Mr. and Mrs. Bache have two daughters, Hazel Joy and Kathryn King Bache.

The family residence is No. 13 East Sixty-fourth Street. Their country seat is Arsdale Manor, Wilson Park, Tarrytown-on-Hudson, an estate which includes on its grounds the spot on which Major Andre was arrested by the American soldiery and where the tragedy of his fate began. He also has a mountain place at Camp Winona, on Upper Saranac Lake, N. Y. Mr. Bache has traveled both in this country and in Europe and is a member of the New York Club, the Suburban Riding and Driving Club and the Liederkranz.

His own tastes and those of Mrs. Bache lean in the direction of art. Among the many paintings which he has brought together, are examples by Henner, Lesrel, Meyer Von Bremen, Schenck, Berne, Weiss and Schreger; the higher types of German art being particularly represented among his collection. It also includes a Napoleon by David, and with the other artistic treasures which he has gathered here and in Europe, is an interesting collection of miniatures of historical personages, particularly those of English and French beauties and celebrities of the preceding century, which ranks with the finest collections of a similar character in the country.

BRADY ELECTUS BACKUS, D.D.

W ILLIAM BACKUS, from Norwich, England, was a settler at Saybrook, Conn., and a founder in 1659 of Norwich, in the same Colony. His son, also named William, born at Saybrook, in 1640, became a lieutenant, committeeman and deputy to the General Court 1680-93, and was an original patentee of Norwich and one of the company which, in 1678, obtained the grant of Windham, Conn. His wife, Elizabeth Pratt, was daughter of Lieutenant William Pratt, who came to Saybrook in 1633. The Pratt ancestry is traced to Sir William de Pratellis, a knight of Richard Cœur de Lion.

The son of William Backus the second was John Backus, 1661-1744, who married Mary Bingham; and John Backus, Jr., their son, 1698-1769, moved, about 1737, to Woodbury, Conn. His wife was Sybil, daughter of the Reverend Samuel Whiting and his wife, Elizabeth Adams. Her father, the first minister of Windham, was the son of the Reverend John Whiting, a graduate of Harvard College in 1653, and Chaplain in King Philip's War, and her grandfather, Major William Whiting, who settled at Hartford in 1632, was Treasurer of Connecticut. Her mother, Elizabeth Adams, was a daughter of the Reverend William Adams and his wife, Alice Bradford, grand- daughter of Governor William Bradford, of Plymouth.

Delucena Backus, great-grandfather of Brady E. Backus, was the son of John and Sybil Backus and was born at Woodbury, in 1744. He became a prominent member of the Masonic body, married Electa, daughter of Captain Abner Mallory, and died at Athens, N. Y., 1813. Lieutenant-Colonel Electus M. Backus, their son, born at Woodbury, in 1765, served in the Army of the Revolution when a lad, became a Captain in the United States Army, Major in 1808 and Lieutenant-Colonel the following year, and served also in the State Militia as Captain and Major. He commanded the American forces at Sackett's Harbor when it was attacked by the British, in 1813, and was slain defending it, being one of the officers whose deaths are commemorated by the monument there. He married Sabra, daughter of Nathan Judson, and one of his sons, Electus Backus, born in 1804, graduated at West Point in 1824, served in the Seminole and Mexican wars, was Colonel of the Sixth United States Infantry, and married Mary, daughter of General Hugh Brady, U. S. A. His elder brother, Augustus Backus, 1802- 1866, was the Reverend Dr. Backus's father. He was in early life Professor of Music in the Emma Willard Seminary, at Troy, N. Y., and afterwards engaged in business in Grand Rapids, Mich.

Dr. Backus's maternal descent is also distinguished. His mother was Martha Cordelia Mann, daughter of Judge Benning Mann, 1781-1863, of Hartford, Conn., whose wife was his cousin, Phoebe Mann, daughter of Andrew Mann, 1755-1846, a Captain in the Revolutionary Army. Captain Mann's mother was Margaret Peters, daughter of John Peters, of Hebron, Conn., and a sister of the Reverend Dr. Samuel Peters, rector of St. Peter's Church, Hebron, Conn., and who was elected first Bishop of Vermont. The Peters family were descended from Sir John Peters, of Exeter, 1509, whose grandsons came to New England in 1634.

Born at Troy, in 1839, Dr. Brady Electus Backus was educated at Grand Rapids, Mich., was admitted to the bar and practiced law till 1866. He then entered Trinity College, being a member of the \ T fraternity, was graduated in 1870, and also from the General Theo- logical Seminary, New York, in 1873, becoming in the latter year assistant minister of St. Peter's Church, New York, and in 1874 rector of Christ Church, Cooperstown, N. Y. Since 1876 he has been rector of the Church of the Holy Apostles, New York. In 1881, Nebraska College conferred on him the degree of D.D. He is a member of the New England Society, the Sons of the Revolution, the Society of Mayflower Descendants, the Society of Colonial Wars, the Society of the War of 1812 and the Washington Guards, and has been vice-president of the Trinity College Alumni of New York. In 1875, Dr. Backus married Annie Taylor, their surviving children being Cordelia M. Backus and Electus T. Backus. His city residence is 360 West Twenty-eighth Street, and his country place is at Ridgefield, Conn.

J. BAYARD BACKUS

T HE Backus and Walworth families of New York have always occupied a prominent position in the social and political history of the State, while the name of Chester is one that occurs throughout the history of Connecticut. It is this Colonial and Revolutionary blood which is represented by the subject of these paragraphs. In addition, Mr. Backus is one of the few Americans who can trace their descent to royalty on both the paternal and maternal sides in distinct and separate lines, as is displayed in full in Browning's work on Americans of Royal Descent, which volume sets forth in detail the right of the Backus family to such distinction.

Mr. Backus was born at Schenectady, September 20th, 1853. His father, the Reverend Jonathan Trumbull Backus, D.D., LL.D., of Schenectady, N. Y., was one of the prominent Presbyterian divines of the United States. A graduate of Columbia College, he was famous for his piety, learning and eloquence. He was for many years a trustee of Union College, Schenectady, N. Y., and at the Assembly of the Presbyterian Church of America, held at Philadelphia, in 1870, occupied the distinguished position of moderator, it being the first General Assembly held after a permanent union between the Old and New School bodies of the Church had been agreed upon. That happy result was largely due to the personal influence of such men as Dr. Backus. His wife, the mother of the gentleman we are considering, was Ann E. Walworth, a daughter of the Honorable Reuben Hyde Walworth, of Saratoga Springs, the last of the Chancellors of the State of New York, and one of the most eminent lawyers who ever occupied that high office, and a jurist whose decisions are cited in every State of the Union.

The father of the Reverend Jonathan Trumbull Backus and paternal grandfather of the present Mr. Backus of New York, was Eleazer Fitch Backus, who married Elizabeth Chester, a daughter of Colonel John Chester, a Revolutionary hero and a friend and trusted officer of General Washington, and a granddaughter of General Huntington. Colonel Chester, who was one of the wealthiest citizens of Connecticut, was an ardent patriot at the outbreak of the war against the mother country. He raised, and at his own expense equipped, a company of Connecticut troops, at the head of which he served throughout the Revolution. His command was noted for its discipline and efficiency. General Humphrey referred to it as the "Elite Corps of the (Con- tinental) Army," and it was spoken of in Sweet's History in the following terms : "Chester's company was by far the most accomplished body of men in the whole American Army." He was present at the Battle of Bunker Hill, and in Trumbull's historical painting of that famous engagement is depicted in a prominent position close to the dying General Warren, whom he supports in his arms. The genealogy of the Chester family has been delineated with unusual accuracy and completeness, several extended monographs on it having appeared in the various publications devoted to these subjects. Among the illustrious dignitaries who are found in Mr. Backus's direct ancestral line were Governor William Bradford, of Plymouth, who stands to him in the relation of a seventh great-grandfather. Another is Governor John Haynes, Governor of both Massachusetts and Connecticut. A third was Governor Thomas Welles, of Colonial Con- necticut, with many other worthies of the same type and age.

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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 4

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