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 40

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

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Colonel John Lorimer Graham, father of Mr. Malcolm Graham, was born in London in 1797 and died in Flushing, N. Y., in 1876. He studied law in the celebrated school of Judge Tapping Reeve at Litchfield, Conn., and afterwards with John Anthon, of New York, being admitted to the New York bar in 1821 and becoming a member of the law firm of Graham, Sanford & Noyes. He entered the military service of the State in 1817, and in 1819 became a member of Governor De Witt Clinton's staff, with the rank of Colonel. In 1834, he was regent of the State University, from 1840 to 1844 Postmaster of New York, and after 1861 an officer in the Treasury Department at Washington. He was a member of the Historical, New England, St. George's and St. Andrew's societies, and a life director in the American Bible Society. A member of the council of the Univer- sity of the City of New York, he founded a free scholarship in that institution. His wife was the youngest daughter of Isaac Clason and he left four sons, James, Clinton, Augustus and Malcolm Graham, and one daughter, Emily Graham.

Mr. Malcolm Graham, the youngest son of Colonel John L. Graham, was born in New Jersey, July 27th, 1832. In 1854, he formed, with Marcellus Hartley, the firm of Hartley & Graham, of which he is still a member. He lives in West Seventeenth Street and has a summer home, Cedarcroft, at Seabright, N. J. He married, in early life, Annie Douglas, daughter of George Douglas, of New York. She died in 1873, and in 1876 he married Amelia M. Wilson, daughter of J. B. Wilson, of New York. Mr. Graham is a member of the Metropolitan, Union League, Union, Lawyers', New York Yacht, and Riding clubs, the Century Association, the Saint Andrew's Society, the Sons of the Revolution, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the National Academy of Design, the American Museum of Natural History, and the Chamber of Commerce. He has two sons, Malcolm, Jr., and Robert D. Graham, and one daughter, Mary Douglas Graham. Malcolm Graham, Jr., graduated from Princeton University in 1890, married Maud L. Brightman and lives in New Brighton, Staten Island. He is a member of the University, Lawyers', 4 ¢ and New York Yacht clubs, the Saint Andrew's Society, and the Chamber of Commerce. Robert D. Graham married, in 1896, Edith Sands, daughter of Philip J. Sands.

The arms of the Graham family are : Quarterly ; first and fourth, or., on a chief sable, three escallops of the field for Graham ; second and third, argent, three rose gules, barbed and seeded, proper for Montrose. The crest is an eagle, wings hovering, or., perched upon a heron lying upon its back, proper, beaked and membered, gules. Motto, Ne oubliez.

240

FREDERIC DENT GRANT

I' T has been noticed as a curious and interesting fact that the four great Generals of the American Civil War were descended respectively from the four representative peoples of the British Isles, Grant from the Scotch, Sherman from the Saxons, Sheridan from the Irish and Thomas from the Welsh. The Grant family has been sturdily American in all its branches for nearly three centuries. The first of the name who came from Scotland were two brothers, the eldest of whom, Matthew Grant, arrived in Massachusetts in May, 1630, on the ship Mary and John.

Matthew Grant was only twenty-nine years old when he emigrated. In 1635, he was in the company which settled the town of Windsor, Conn., and there he lived until his death, in 1681, being one of the leading citizens of the place, clerk of the town and surveyor of land. His wife died in 1644, and a few years after he married a Mrs. Rockwell, who had several children by her first marriage, and others by her second husband. General Ulysses S. Grant in his memoir relates that by intermarriages two or three generations later he was descended from Matthew Grant and from both his wives. In the French and Indian War, in 1756, Noah Grant and his younger brother, Solomon, held commissions in the English Army and were killed in the field. Noah Grant, in the fifth generation from Matthew Grant, was the great-grandfather of General Ulysses S. Grant. His son, also named Noah, General Grant's grandfather, was born in 1748 and died about 1821, having served in the Continental Army throughout the War of the Revolution, participating in the battle of Bunker Hill, and being present at Yorktown. After the war, he removed to Westmoreland County, Pa., and being a widower, there married again, and in 1799 moved still further West to Ohio.

The eldest son of Captain Noah Grant by his second wife was Jesse R. Grant, who was born in 1794 and died in 1873. He was brought up in the family of Judge Tod, father of Governor Tod, of Ohio, but on coming of age learned the trade of tanning. He became an energetic business man, fairly prosperous, and married, in 1821, Hannah Simpson, a young lady of Scotch descent, who came of a family that had lived in Montgomery County, Pa., for several generations. General Ulysses S. Grant, soldier and eighteenth President of the United States, eldest son of Jesse R. and Hannah (Simpson) Grant, was born in 1822 and died in 1885. There is no call now to dwell upon his notable career. The record of his student days at West Point, his service in the old army of the United States, in the Mexican War and in California, his incomparable service to his country in the Civil War, the civic honors that were showered upon him alike in his native land and in foreign countries during the journey around the world which he took after his presi- dential term expired, has become a familiar household story to the present generation.

Colonel Frederic Dent Grant, the eldest son of General Grant, is in the ninth generation from Matthew Grant. His mother was Julia T. Dent, of St. Louis, whom General Grant married in 1848. Colonel Grant was born in St. Louis, May 30th, 1850, and was with his father during most of the Civil War, being present at five battles before he was thirteen years old. He was graduated from West Point in 1871, and served on the frontier in active military duty until 1881, part of the time as aide-de-camp to General Sheridan, with the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel. He retired from the army in 1881 to enter business, and in 1892 was appointed United States Minister to Austria. In 1894, he became a member of the Board of Police Commissioners of New York City, and resigned that position in 1897. Naturally, he is a strong Republican, and is a member of the Republican and Union League clubs.

The wife of Colonel Grant was Ida Honore, of Chicago, and descended from an old-time aristocratic French family of Kentucky. A sister of Mrs. Grant is Mrs. Potter Palmer, of Chicago and Newport. Colonel and Mrs. Grant have two children, Ulysses S. Grant, third, and Julia Grant. The family residence is in East Sixty-second Street, and they spend the summer in Newport.

241

JOHN ALEXANDER CLINTON GRAY

N the year 1795, Alexander Gray, the grandfather of the subject of this sketch, came from the North of Ireland to the United States and died in Philadelphia soon after his arrival, leaving a widow and a son, John Gray, who died in 1816, and who was the father of Mr. John Alexan- der Clinton Gray, of New York. The widow of Alexander Gray was Mary Little Gray, a lady of the Clinton family, illustrious in the Revolutionary annals of New York, and after her husband's death she became the second wife of her deceased husband's cousin, General James Clinton, the Revolutionary soldier. By his first wife, Mary De Witt, General James Clinton was the father of one of the most famous men of this State, De Witt Clinton, Governor of New York and creator of the Erie Canal.

The Clinton family in Ireland and America came from the same race as the Earls of Lincoln in England. William Clinton, who established the Irish branch, was an officer in the army of Charles 1., and after the overthrow of the royal cause and the execution of the King, took refuge in Ireland. His son, James Clinton, married Elizabeth Smith, whose father had been a Captain in the Parliamentary Army during the Civil War, and it was their son, Charles Clinton, 1690-1773, who came to New York in 1729, and established the settlement of Little Britain in Ulster, now Orange County. His most celebrated sons were General James Clinton, the stepfather of John Gray, and the Honorable George Clinton, 1739-1812, who was one of the most prominent and active Revo- lutionary patriots during the agitation which preceded the rupture with the mother country, and a member of the Continental Congress. He afterwards became the first Governor of the State of New York and later Vice-President of the United States.

Mr. John Alexander Clinton Gray was born in 1815, in the Clinton mansion, at Little Britain, Orange County, N. Y., and has since his boyhood been a resident of New York City. He entered business life at an early age, retiring in 1852. Since that time, he has been interested in various railroad enterprises, but much of his time has been passed in Europe and devoted to travel. When the original Central Park Commission was formed Mr. Gray was its vice- president. In 1837, he married Susan M. Zabriskie, daughter of George Zabriskie, a prominent citi- zen of New York, an alderman of the city and a member of the State Assembly. Mrs. Gray was a descendant in the sixth generation of Albrecht Zaborowsky, a native of Poland, who came from Prussia to New Amsterdam in 1662, and took up his residence in New Jersey, purchasing lands at Paramus. His son, Jan, married Margaretta Duryea, and his grandson, Joost, married Annetje Terhune, daughter of John Terhune, while his descendants have been since prominent both in New Jersey and New York and have become allied with the oldest families in both States. Mr. Gray is a member of the Union League Club.

The two elder sons of Mr. and Mrs. Gray have been distinguished clergymen and scholars. The Reverend George Zabriskie Gray was for nearly twenty years dean of the Protestant Episcopal Divinity School at Cambridge, Mass., and the Reverend Albert Zabriskie Gray was graduated from the General Theological Seminary, New York, in 1864, served as a chaplain in the field during the Civil War, held several pastorates and was warden of Racine College in 1882. In 1889, he received the degree of Doctor of Divinity from Columbia College.

The Honorable John Clinton Gray, the youngest son of Mr. and Mrs. Gray, has earned the highest honors of the legal profession in New York. Graduating from the University of New York, he took the degree of LL. B. at Harvard Law School and also studied law at the University of Berlin. Engaging in the practice of his profession in this city, he was a member of the law firm of Gray & Davenport. In 1888, Governor Hill appointed him to fill the vacancy in the Court of Appeals, caused by the death of Judge Charles A. Rapallo, and at the election held that year he was chosen for the full term of fourteen years. Judge Gray is a member of the Bar Association, and of the Metropolitan, Manhattan, Century and Union League clubs, and of the National Academy of Design and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

242

FRANCIS VINTON GREENE

D ISTINGUISHED Colonial lineage is the proud heritage of the family to which Colonel Francis Vinton Greene belongs and which has held high rank in business and in social life in the State of Rhode Island. The first of the family to come to this country was John Greene, an English surgeon, who arrived with Roger Williams on the ship Hampton in 1635. His ancestors for several generations were gentlemen and landed proprietors in Dorsetshire. He settled first in Salem, Mass., and then went with Roger Williams to found the Colony of Providence in 1636. He was a leading man of the Colony, one of the twelve whom Williams recorded as his " loving friends and neighbors," and was on the organization committee of ten. His son was one of the ten assistants to the Governor under the charter of 1663, and his immediate descendants were Governors, Deputy Governors, Secretaries of the Colony and delegates to the General Assem- bly. One of his most distinguished descendants was General Nathaniel Greene, the Revolutionary patriot, Washington's trusted friend, the famous Quartermaster-General of the Continental Army, and the brilliantly successful commander of the Army of the South who compelled the British forces to abandon South Carolina.

Colonel Francis Vinton Greene was born in Providence, R. I., June 25th, 1850, a direct descendant from the pioneer, John Greene, and collaterally related to General Nathaniel Greene. He was graduated from West Point in 1870, at the head of a class of fifty-eight cadets. Assigned first to the artillery service, he was transferred in 1872 to the Corps of Engineers. For four years he was detailed for service with the joint commission that had in charge the survey of the boundary line between the United States and the British possessions from the Lake of the Woods to the Rocky Mountains, being assistant astronomer and surveyor.

During the year of 1876, he was in the office of the Secretary of War in Washington, and in 1877 was detailed as military attaché to the United States Legation at St. Petersburg, his special duty being to make a study of the military operations during the war between Russia and Turkey. He accompanied the Russian Army throughout its celebrated campaign, and returned to the United States in January, 1879. The same year he was assigned to duty as assistant to the Engineering Commissioner in Washington, D. C., and had charge of the engineering work upon the streets, roads and bridges in the District of Columbia. After six years of this service, he was sent in July, 1885, to the Military Academy at West Point, as instructor of practical military engineering. In January, 1886, he resigned from the army and became vice-president of the Barber Asphalt Paving Company. Soon after, he was advanced to be president of the same corporation and now holds that position.

Colonel Greene's interest in military affairs followed him into civil life, and in 1889 he joined the National Guard of the State of New York, being commissioned as Major and Engineer of the First Brigade. In February, 1892, he was elected Colonel of the Seventy-First Regiment and has held that position since. He has contributed much to military literature. His official report upon the Turko-Russian War was published in two volumes by the United States Government in 1879, under the title of The Russian Army and its Campaigns in Turkey, 1877-78. In military circles this is recognized as the one authoritative work upon the particular subject with which it deals. Colonel Greene is also the author of an entertaining and popular book on Army Life in Russia, of a volume entitled The Mississippi, which treats of the campaigns of the Civil War, and of a biography of Nathaniel Greene, which appeared in the Great Commander Series. He has written much for magazines, reviews and other periodicals, chiefly upon military, historical and allied subjects.

The residence of Colonel Greene is in East Thirtieth Street, and he has a country home in Jamestown, R. I. He married Belle Chevallié. He belongs to the Century, University, Union League, Metropolitan, Lawyers', and New York Yacht clubs and to the Metropolitan Club of Wash- ington. From the Czar of Russia he received the decorations of St. Vladimir and St. Anne and the campaign medal, and from the Prince of Roumania the Star of Roumania and the Roumania Cross.

243

RICHARD HENRY GREENE

W ILLIAM GREENE, who married Desire Bacon, daughter of John Bacon and Mary Hawes, is believed to have descended from James Greene, who came to Massachu- setts in 1634. Mary Hawes was the granddaughter of Edmund Hawes and of Captain John Gorham, who was mortally wounded in King Philip's War, and whose wife was Desire Howland, daughter of John Howland and Elizabeth Tilley, both of whom came in the May- flower. Desire Bacon was a great-granddaughter of the Reverend John Mayo, whose daughter, Hannah Mayo, married Nathaniel Bacon and was the mother of John Bacon.

Captain James Green, son of William and Desire Greene, and ancestor of Mr. Richard H. Greene, of New York, was born September 17th, 1728, and was Captain of the Second Connecticut Horse in the Revolution. He was with Washington's army in 1766 and with Gates at Saratoga. Ruth Marshall, his wife, was a daughter of John Marshall and Elizabeth Winslow, a descendant of Kenelm Winslow, who came on the second trip of the Mayflower, in 1629, and was a brother of Governor Edward Winslow, the Mayflower Pilgrim. John Marshall's grandfather, Captain Samuel Marshall, commanded the Windsor Company in King Philip's War and was killed in the great Swamp fight in 1675. His mother, Mary Drake, was a granddaughter of Henry Wolcott, 1578-1655, and through her Mr. Greene can trace his descent back to remote ages, having collected the names of two thousand ancestors. Mr. Greene's grandfather, Captain Richard Green, of East Haddam, Conn., served in the War of 1812, and married Sarah, daughter of William Webb. The latter's father, William Webb, fought at the battle of Long Island in Colonel Josiah Smith's regi- ment. He married Elizabeth Hudson, daughter of Richard and Keturah (Goldsmith) Hudson. The Webbs, Hudsons and Goldsmiths were early settlers on Long Island. William Webb Green, Mr. Greene's father, was born in 1807, was a merchant in New York and Captain in the Tenth Regiment, National Guard. In Brooklyn, prior to 1856, he was an alderman and Judge.

Mrs. William W. Green was Sarah A., daughter of Colonel William Whetten Todd, born in 1781, and who, in early life, was associated in business with his uncle, the first John Jacob Astor. He married Maria Caroline Duffie; from 1798 to 1848 he was engaged in the business founded by his father-in-law, John Duffie, and the latter's brother-in-law, Cornelius C. Roosevelt. He was Lieutenant-Colonel of the Fifty-First Regiment, New York Militia, and a sachem of Tammany. His father, Captain Adam Todd, was at Kingston when that place was burned during the Revolu- tion, and was confined in the Provost Prison, New York. He married Margaret Dodge, daughter of Jeremiah Dodge and Margaret Vanderbilt, great-great-granddaughter of Aert Vanderbilt and Jan Vandervliet. Captain Adam Todd was a brother of Sarah Todd, the wife of the first John Jacob Astor and son of Adam Todd, who came to New York in kilt and plaid. Mr. Greene's maternal grandmother, through her grandparents, Cornelius Roosevelt and Margaret Herring, descended from the earliest Dutch settlers; among them, Claes Martense Van Roosevelt, Barent Kunst, Cornelius Barentse Slegt, Olfert de Metzelaer, Jan Cloppers, Peter Haering, Louen Bogaert and Jan de Conseille.

Mr. Richard Henry Greene was born January 12th, 1839, and graduated from Yale in 1862, and from the Law School of Columbia College. He engaged in the practice of law as a member of the firm of Roosevelt & Greene, and later, as counsel, was drawn into the management and presi- dency of local street railway corporations, and retired from active practice in 1886. In 1867, Mr. Greene married Mary Gertrude Munson, daughter of Captain Edwin Beach and Amelia C. (Sperry) Munson, of New Haven, a descendant of Thomas Munson, a settler of New Haven, Conn. Mrs. Greene also descends from the same Mayflower Pilgrims as her husband. They have a son, Marshall Winslow Greene, and a daughter, Edna M. Greene. Their residence is 235 Central Park West. Mr. Greene belongs to the Sons of the Revolution, Society of Colonial Wars, Society of American Wars, Society of the War of 1812, Seventh Regiment War Veterans, New York His- torical Society, New York Genealogical and Biographical Society, and the Yale Club.

244

JOHN GREENOUGH

F ROM the earliest days of Boston's history the Greenough family and their kindred have held prominent places in that city. Mr. John Greenough, of New York, belongs to the seventh generation in line of descent from Captain William Greenough, who was born in England in 1639, and came, with his uncle, to Boston in 1642. Captain Greenough was a shipmaster, and established a shipyard, which is prominently indicated upon the earliest map of Boston now extant. His title of Captain, however, came from his military service. He commanded one of the eight train bands of the town of Boston, and was called out in King Philip's War in 1676, rendering important service. He was also Ensign of the Ancient and Honorable Artillery in 1691. He married Ruth Swift in 1660, and died in Boston in 1693, his tomb with its inscription being still seen in one of the ancient burial grounds of Boston.

His son, John Greenough, born in Boston in 1672, married Elizabeth Gross in 1693 and died in 1732; and their son, Thomas Greenough, who was born in 1710 and died in 1785, married Sarah Stoddard in 1750. During the Revolution, Deacon Thomas Greenough was a member of the Committee of Correspondence. His wife was also a member of a Boston family of standing, being a daughter of Simeon Stoddard and a granddaughter of Anthony Stoddard. The latter was constable of Boston in 1642, which, at that time, was an office of considerable importance. Simeon Stoddard also played quite an important part in the local history of his day, having been one of the three substantial citizens of Boston selected by King James Il. to act under a power of attorney in the matter of certain royal grants. David Stoddard Greenough, 1752-1826, the next in the direct line of descent, married, in 1784, Ann Doane. After the War of Independence, he moved to Jamaica Plain, then a suburb of Boston. The house in which he lived is still occupied by members of the family, and is one of the few surviving historic landmarks of that period. It was built in 1760 by Commodore Loring, then chief of the British forces in Massachusetts, and during the siege of Boston was occupied by General Greene as his headquarters. His son, David Stoddard Greenough, second of that name, born in 1787, married Maria Foster Doane, daughter of Elisha Doane, of Cohasset, Mass., in 1813, and died in 1830. He was a graduate of Harvard College in the class of 1805. Becoming interested in military matters, he was for a long period Colonel of the Boston Cadets. That organization acts as the body guard of the Governor of Massachusetts and has always been, as it still is, one of the most select military bodies in the entire country.

David Stoddard Greenough, 1814-1877, the third of that name and father of Mr. John Greenough, was the eldest son of the second David Stoddard Greenough. He, like his father, graduated at Harvard, in the class of 1833, and also held the rank of Colonel of the historic Corps of Cadets. His wife, the present Mr. Greenough's mother, belonged to a Boston family of prominence. She was Anna A. Parkman and was a granddaughter of Samuel Parkman, who, in the early portion of the present century, was one of the most eminent merchants of Boston. She was closely related to the Shaw, Sturgis, Russell and other leading families of Boston. In fact, on both sides of the present Mr. Greenough's relationships are found the names of many who have achieved more than local reputation in professional life, in literature and in art. The late Francis Parkman, the historian, was Mr. Greenough's cousin, as likewise was Horatio Greenough, whose statue of Washington which adorns the national capitol was the first work of an American sculptor to gain international recognition.

Mr. John Greenough was born in 1846, graduated from Harvard in 1865, and was the first member of his family to leave Boston. He engaged in business in New York early in life, and is now a member of the banking firm of Poor & Greenough. In 1879, Mr. Greenough married Carolina H. Storey, daughter of John M. Storey, of this city. His residence is 31 West Thirty-fifth Street, and his summer home is in Tuxedo. Mr. Greenough is a member of the University, Harvard and Tuxedo clubs, as well as the Sons of the American Revolution and other patriotic and public societies.

245

ISAAC JOHN GREENWOOD

MONG the earlier immigrants to the Massachusetts Bay Colony was Nathaniel Greenwood, who was born in Norwich, England, in 1631 and died in Boston in 1684. He was a ship- builder at the North End, Boston, in 1654, a water bailiff in 1670, and a selectman. His wife was Mary Allen, daughter of Samuel Allen, of Braintree. Nathaniel Greenwood was of a family that had been long established in Norwich. His father, Miles Greenwood, was a citizen of Norwich in 1627, and the eldest son of Miles Greenwood, of the parish of St. Peter's-in-Mancroft, who married, in 1599, Anne Scath, of Barnham-Broome, County Norfolk. The family was a branch of the Yorkshire Greenwoods, who trace their descent to Guiomar, or Wyomarus, de Grenewode, of Greenwood Lee, Achator to the household of the Empress Maud, whose son was Henry Il. of England. The arms of the Norwich Greenwoods, as borne by Miles Greenwood on his ring, are, argent, a fess sable, between three spur-rowels in chief, and three ducks in base, all sable. Crest, a spur-rowel between two duck-wings sable. Motto, Ut Prosim.

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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 40

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