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 45
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67 | Part 68 | Part 69 | Part 70 | Part 71 | Part 72 | Part 73 | Part 74 | Part 75 | Part 76 | Part 77 | Part 78 | Part 79 | Part 80 | Part 81 | Part 82 | Part 83 | Part 84 | Part 85 | Part 86 | Part 87 | Part 88 | Part 89 | Part 90 | Part 91 | Part 92 | Part 93 | Part 94 | Part 95 | Part 96 | Part 97 | Part 98 | Part 99 | Part 100 | Part 101 | Part 102 | Part 103 | Part 104 | Part 105 | Part 106 | Part 107
Mr. George Griswold Haven, son of Joseph Woodward Haven, was born in Portsmouth, N. H., in 1837, and was graduated from Columbia College in 1857. The greater part of his life- time has been spent in New York, engaged in the banking business. He was for a long time at the head of the firm of George G. Haven & Co., in Wall Street. After his retirement from active business, the firm became Hollister & Babcock, in which Mr. Haven and Samuel D. Babcock are special partners. For a third of a century Mr. Haven has held a conspicuous place in financial affairs, being a director in several banks, trust companies and other institutions. He is vice-president of the National Union Bank and a trustee of the Mutual Life Insurance Company. In the social world, he has also been prominent. He was active in forming the organization which resulted in the building of the Metropolitan Opera House, was president of the corporation which carried that work to completion, and has given effective support to the various operatic enterprises associated with the Metropolitan Opera House. Several times the nomination for Mayor of the city has been tendered to him, but he has resolutely refrained from entering into the field of politics. He has, however, served on committees that have worked in the interests of healthy municipal government, and has been a member of the Board of Park Commissioners.
Mr. Haven married Emma Martin, daughter of Isaac P. Martin. She died in 1872, and in 1880 he married Fannie (Arnot) Palmer, widow of Richard Suydam Palmer. Their home is in East Thirty-ninth Street and their country residence in Lenox, Mass. Mr. Haven belongs to the Tuxedo colony, and is a member of the Metropolitan, Knickerbocker, Union, Manhattan, Union League, Whist, Coaching and Players clubs, the New England Society, the Downtown Associa- tion, the Columbia College Alumni Association, and the American Museum of Natural History. His children are Joseph Woodward, George Griswold, Jr., and Marian A. Haven.
Joseph Woodward Haven, the eldest son, married Lorriette Cram. He belongs to the Metropolitan, Knickerbocker and Grolier clubs. George Griswold Haven, Jr., graduated from Yale in 1887, and is a banker. He married Elizabeth Shaw Ingersoll. He lives in East Forty-fourth Street, and has a country home in Ridgefield, Conn. He is a member of the Metropolitan, Union, Knickerbocker and University clubs, and the Yale Alumni Association.
270
HENRY EUGENE HAWLEY
T HE Hawleys came over from Normandy to England with William the Conqueror in 1066. Their name appears on the roll of Battle Abbey, among the leaders of the victorious Norman Army, as Hauley. In the course of time, several branches of the family were established in different parts of England and attained to prominence. One branch, in Somersetshire, had for their arms: Emerald, a saltire, engrailed, pean. Crest, an Indian goat's head, holding a three-leaved sprig of holly, proper. Motto, Suivez Moi. The chief seat of this branch of the family is Buckland House, in the County of Somerset. The arms of the Derbyshire Hawleys are: Vert, a saltire, engrailed, argent. Crest, a dexter arm in armor, proper, granished or., holding in the hand a spear, point downwards, proper. Motto, Suivez Moi. The American family is entitled to these arms, also to the crest, a winged thunderbolt.
Thomas Hawley, the first of the name in this country, came to Roxbury, Mass., early in the seventeenth century. He married Dorothy Harbottle, and during King Philip's War, was killed by the Indians in 1676 at the famous Sudbury fight. Captain Joseph Hawley, the representative of the family line in the next generation, graduated from Harvard College in 1674, was a freeman of Northampton, Mass., in 1678, Lieutenant of the provincial troops in 1687, and afterwards Captain, justice of the peace and representative to the General Court of the Colony. His wife was Lydia Marshall, daughter of Captain Samuel Marshall, of Windsor, Conn. The great-great-grandfather of the subject of this sketch was the Reverend Thomas Hawley, who was the son of Captain Joseph Hawley, and whose wife was Abigail Gold, daughter of Colonel Nathan Gold, of Fairfield, Conn. His great-grandparents were Captain Thomas Hawley, 1723-1765, and Elizabeth Gold, 1725-1807, of Fairfield, Conn., and his grandparents were Elisha Hawley, 1759-1850, of Ridgefield, Conn., a Revolutionary soldier, and Charity Judson, 1760-1860, daughter of Daniel Judson.
The father of Mr. Henry E. Hawley was Irad Hawley, who was born in 1793, and was a prominent New York merchant, a member of the firm of Holmes, Hawley & Co., in 1812, and a Captain in the War of 1812-14. After 1839, he became interested in railroad and coal enterprises, being a director in the Boston & Providence Railroad, the Chicago & Rock Island Railroad, chairman of the financial committee of the Delaware & Hudson Canal Company, and president of the Pennsylvania Coal Company. He married, in 1819, Sarah Holmes, daughter of Eldad and Lucy (Lockwood) Holmes, and had eight children. He died in Rome, Italy, in 1865.
Mr. Henry Eugene Hawley, the youngest son of Irad Hawley, was born in New York in 1838. Graduated from Yale University in 1860, he became a partner in the firm of Carter, Hawley & Co. in 1864. In the course of some years, he became the head of the house in question, which has an extensive business throughout the United States, in South America, the East Indies, Europe, China and Japan, being correspondent of the Netherland Trading Society of Holland, and the Surinam Bank of Paramaribo, Dutch Guiana. For twenty years, he has been a member of the Chamber of Commerce of the State of New York, and is a director in several prominent corporations. He has devoted much time to philanthropic causes, having long been a trustee of the Children's Aid Society and of the Five Points House of Industry.
In 1862, Mr. Hawley married Jane Elizabeth Lockwood, daughter of William S. and Catharine (Hawley) Lockwood, of Norwalk, Conn. Mr. and Mrs. Hawley lived in West Thirty- third Street for twenty-five years. Their present residence is Ashton-Croft, Ridgefield, Conn. The old homestead, in Ridgefield, has been in possession of the family since 1713, when, in the settlement of the town, the land was apportioned to the Reverend Thomas Hawley, the first minister there. Mr. and Mrs. Hawley have had four children, Sarah, Henrietta Eugenie, Edith Judson and Elizabeth, who died in 1865. Edith Judson is the wife of Coleman G. Williams, and Sarah is the wife of Dr. T. Halstead Myers. Mr. Hawley belongs to the Union League, Century, University and Riding clubs, the Downtown Association and the Yale Alumni Association, and is a patron of the American Museum of Natural History.
271
BRACE HAYDEN
A N ancient family of knightly rank is the description given in the English genealogies of the Heydons of Hayden, in Norfolk, from whom the American Haydens are believed to descend. Their original seat was Baconsthorp Hall, Norfolk, but in the thirteenth century John de Heydon, one of the scions of the Norfolk house and a Judge under Edward I., established a branch of the family in Devonshire, where his descendant, John Heydon, also an eminent lawyer in the reign of King Henry VIII., became possessed of the Cadhay Hall estate, Ottery St. Mary's, Devonshire, where, before 1650, he built a stately Tudor mansion, still standing, though many generations ago it passed out of the hands of its original possessors.
Three Haydens, William, John and James, came to Massachusetts in the first emigration. They are thought to have been brothers belonging to the west country branch of the English family. William Hayden arrived in Dorchester, Mass., in 1630, but removed to Hartford and in 1640 to Windsor, Conn., subsequently going to Kenilworth, now Clinton, Conn., where he died in 1669. In the Pequot War, in 1637, he served under Captain Mason and saved that famous officer's life from the Indians. His sword is now in the Connecticut Historical Society's collection. He received an allotment of land at Windsor, the locality being now called Haydens, where, in 1885, upon the old home property, a gathering of his descendants dedicated a memorial inscription, cut in a natural boulder. His first wife's name has not been preserved. Her death is, however, recorded in 1655, and he afterwards married Margaret, the widow of William Wilcoxson, of Stratford. His son was Daniel Hayden, 1640-1672, whose wife, Hannah Wilcoxson, was the first English child born in Connecticut.
The succeeding three generations of ancestors of Mr. Brace Hayden were Samuel Hayden, 1677-1742, who married Anna Holcomb; Deacon Nathaniel Hayden, 1709-1803, whose wife was Naomi Gaylord, a descendant of William Gaylord, one of the first settlers of Windsor; and Levi Hayden, 1747-1821, who served in a cavalry regiment in the Revolutionary Army, and, after the war, held various offices and represented his town in the Legislature. He married Margaret Strong, daughter of Lieutenant Return and Sarah (Warham) Strong, and a descendant of the famous Elder John Strong, of Northampton.
Their son, Hezekiah Hayden, 1777-1823, was the grandfather of Mr. Brace Hayden. He married, in 1801, his cousin, Hannah Hayden, like himself a native of Haydens, Conn. As a young man, he went to sea and made several voyages to Europe, but early in the present century removed to Otsego, N. Y., finally settling in Springfield, in that county. He engaged in manufacturing and was among the first to establish woolen mills in this State, having made himself a master of the art, then a new one in the United States; he also owned extensive saw mills and other properties in that section of New York. Albert Hayden, his second son, was born in Spring- field, in 1807, and early in life engaged successfully in business in Buffalo, N. Y. In 1849, however, the California excitement led him to attempt the perilous overland journey to the new land of gold. He started as the leader of a party of twelve, but died in June, 1849, near Fort Laramie, of an illness contracted during the expedition. In 1831, he married, at Black Rock, N. Y., Sevilla Brace and had a family of eight children.
Mr. Brace Hayden, the eldest son and third child of this marriage, was born in Buffalo, N. Y., August 10th, 1836, and was educated in that city. He removed to New York City, where for forty years he has been in active commercial life. For a long period, he has been connected with a leading hardware and metal establishment of San Francisco, Cal., being vice- president of the corporation. In 1870, he married Kate Quinan, who died in 1871, and in 1880 he contracted a second marriage, with Abbey Jewell Crane. His children are Kitty Quinan, Florence, Sevilla and Curtis Crane Hayden. Mr. Hayden's residence is in Seventy-ninth Street, near Madison Avenue, and he is a member of the Republican, Church, Hardware and New York Athletic clubs, the American Geographical Society, and a patron of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
272
JOHN GERARD HECKSCHER
O NE of the most eminent and respected merchants of New York in the first half of the cen- tury was Charles Augustus Heckscher. He came to this country from his native Germany in 1830, and through his remarkable business talent achieved a high position in the commercial world. For some years he was Consul of the Duchy of Mecklenburg in this city, and became senior partner of the house of Heckscher & Coster, one of the foremost mercantile concerns of its day. As his wealth increased, he extended the field of his enterprises and was one of the first to appreciate the value of the Pennsylvania anthracite fields, acquiring valuable coal mines in that State. He was thus conspicuously identified with the development of the anthracite industry and in addition had many other important financial and business interests. He was the father of the gentleman whose name heads this article.
The wife of Charles Augustus Heckscher, the present Mr. Heckscher's mother, was Georgina Louisa Coster, daughter of John Gerard Coster and his wife, Catharine Margaret Holsmann. Mrs. Charles A. Heckscher was a woman of great beauty, was prominent in society and well known for her charities. John Gerard Coster, a native of Harlem, Holland, came to New York about 1790, and was for many years one of the most distinguished merchants of the city and president of the Bank of the Manhattan Company.
Mr. John Gerard Heckscher, who was named after his maternal grandfather, is the promi- nent representative of his family in this generation. He was born in New York in 1837. During the Civil War, he served for two years under General Mcclellan as First Lieutenant in the Twelfth United States Infantry. He engaged in active business early in life, but has given the greater share of his attention to society, and particularly to the higher forms of sport. He was the friend and intimate associate of Messrs. Belmont, Jerome, Travers and the other gentlemen who established racing in America on a firm foundation. Mr. Heckscher was also one of the founders of the Coney Island Jockey Club, and was one of the organizers of the National Horse Show Association, labor- ing actively and efficiently as an officer and director of the latter to give it popularity and success. The institution has fully justified Mr. Heckscher's views concerning the influence of the horse show it conducts, and has benefited the breeding of the highest type of horses in this country, while it has been the example for the horse shows now so frequent and popular in all parts of the Union. Mr. Heckscher still maintains his official connection with the organization which owes so much to his efforts and counsels. He is a member of the Jockey Club as well as of the New York Yacht Club, the South Side Sportsmen's Club, and the Metropolitan, Union, Racquet and Army and Navy clubs, while he also belongs to the Military Order of the Loyal Legion.
In 1862, Mr. Heckscher married Cornelia Lawrence Whitney, a descendant of Henry Whit- ney, who settled at Norwalk, Conn., and died in 1673. His great-great-grandson was Stephen Whitney, the famous New York merchant three-quarters of a century ago. His son, Henry Whitney, born in New Haven in 1812 and graduated from Yale in 1830, was Mrs. Heckscher's father. Her mother was Hannah Eugenia Lawrence, daughter of the Honorable Isaac Lawrence and his wife, Anna Beach, daughter of the Reverend Abraham Beach, of Trinity Church. Mrs. Heckscher died some years ago. In 1892, Mr. Heckscher contracted a second marriage, with Mary Travers, eldest daughter of the late William Riggin Travers. The career of William R. Travers and the national reputation he possessed as a financier, sportsman and wit are fully set forth on another page.
Of Mr. Heckscher's four daughters by his first wife, two survive. The elder, Georgiana Louisa, is the wife of the Honorable George Brinton Mcclellan, son of General George Brinton McClellan, U. S. A., the illustrious soldier of the Civil War, whose wife was the daughter of Gen- eral Randolph B. Marcy, U. S. A. Mr. Heckscher's younger daughter, Emeline Dora, is the wife of Egerton Leigh Winthrop, Jr., of New York, whose family and ancestry are described in a sepa- rate article in this volume.
273
ALONZO BARTON HEPBURN
P ETER HEPBURN, a native of Scotland, who came to this country in the early part of the eighteenth century, was the earliest American ancestor of that branch of the Hepburn family to which the above-named gentleman belongs. The wife of Peter Hepburn, whom he married after coming to this country, was Sarah Hubbell, of Newton, Conn. He was a resident of Stratford, Conn., and died there in 1742. Four sons and one daughter, Joseph, Peter, Sarah and George Hepburn, comprised the family of Peter Hepburn and his wife.
Joseph Hepburn, the eldest son, was born in 1729 and was the great-grandfather of Mr. Alonzo Barton Hepburn. His wife, whom he married in 1751, was Eunice Barton, of Stratford, daughter of Judson Barton and Eunice Lewis. She was born in 1732. Eight children were born to Joseph Hepburn and his wife, Joseph, Silas, Lewis, Patrick, George, Eunice, Sarah and Ann Hepburn. The eldest son, Joseph, was born before 1756, married Hannah Lobdell and settled in Hotchkisstown, Conn., now Westville. He was the father of Zina E. Hepburn, who, born in 1798, died in 1874, having married Beulah Gray, who was born in 1807, in St. Law- rence County, N. Y.
Mr. Alonzo Barton Hepburn was the son of Zina E. Hepburn and his wife, Beulah Gray. He was born in Colton, N. Y., in 1846. His early education was secured in the local schools, but afterwards he attended the St. Lawrence Academy of Potsdam, N. Y., and the Valley Seminary in Fulton, N. Y., in which institution he was prepared for college. He entered Middlebury College, Vermont, graduating in the class of 1871. After this, he became professor of mathematics in the St. Lawrence Academy and was principal of the Ogdensburg Educational Institute in 1870. Having meantime applied himself to the study of law, he was admitted to the bar and entered upon practice in his native town of Colton. He also took an active part in public affairs in that section of the State and was elected a school commissioner of St. Lawrence County. That position he resigned in 1875 to take a seat in the New York Assembly and there, for five suc- cessive years, he represented his district, holding during that time a high position as an able and conscientious member of that body.
In 1880, Mr. Hepburn was appointed, by Governor Alonzo B. Cornell, superintendent of the Banking Department of the State of New York, in which position he rapidly achieved reputation as a conservative and skilful official and an expert upon matters of banking and finance. In 1883, he was appointed receiver of the Continental Life Insurance Company, of New York, and successfully wound up the affairs of that corporation. In 1889, his reputation as a financier led to his being chosen for a responsible and important place under the Treasury Depart- ment, and he was appointed National Bank Examiner for New York and Brooklyn. While holding that position, in 1890, he was instrumental in exposing the maladministration of the Sixth National Bank, of this city. In 1892, President Benjamin Harrison promoted him to be Comptroller of the Currency of the United States, a position that he retained until the change of national administration, by the election of President Grover Gleveland, brought about his retirement in the following year.
After resigning his office in Washington, Mr. Hepburn became president of the Third National Bank of this city, and has since then resided here. On the merging of that institution with the National City Bank, in 1897, he assumed the vice-presidency of the latter, which, through this consolidation, became the largest bank on this continent.
In 1873, Mr. Hepburn married Harriet A. Fisher, of St. Albans, Vt., who died in 1881. Later he married Emily L. Eaton, of Montpelier, Vt. By his first wife he has one surviving child, Charles Fisher Hepburn, born in 1878. The children of his second marriage are two daughters, Beulah Eaton Hepburn, born in 1890, and Cordelia 1. Hepburn, born in 1894. Mr. Hepburn's residence is in West Fifty-seventh Street. He is a member of the Metropolitan, Union League and A K E clubs, and of other social and scientific organizations.
274
JACOB HOBART HERRICK
I IN olden times, the name of Hireck, Hericke and Herrick was prominent in England, and in other parts of Great Britain. The name and the family is of ancient origin, and naturally recalls the Norse name of Eric, and that some members of the family were descended from the Norsemen does not admit of doubt. The first English ancestor of whom there is definite historic record was Eyryk, of Great Stretton and Houghton, Leicester County, in the time of Henry III., 1216-72, a lineal descendant of Eric the Forrester. In the eighth generation from Eyryk of Great Stretton, was Sir William Herrick, of Leicester, London and Beau Manor, 1557-1652, a member of Parliament, 1601-30, and a knight in 1605. His wife was Joan May, daughter of Richard May, of London, and Mary Hilderson, of Devonshire.
Sir William Herrick was the father of Henry Herrick, who was born in 1604 and came to America, first to Virginia and afterwards to Massachusetts. Most of the representatives of the family were devoted to the cause of church and King, but Henry Herrick, the ancestor of the New England branch, seems to have been an exception to this rule, and was a Puritan. Coming to this country in the early years of the seventeenth century, he finally settled on Cape Ann, on the banks of the Bass River, near what is now the town of Beverly. He was a close friend of the Reverend Thomas Higginson, the dissenting minister of Leicester, and was among the thirty who founded the first church in Salem and Beverly. His wife was Editha Laskin, daughter of Hugh Laskin, of Salem.
Ephraim Herrick, son of Henry Herrick, the pioneer, was born in 1638 and died in 1693. He lived in Beverly, Mass., having settled on a farm given to him by his father, on Birch Plain, as it was called. In 1668, he was a freeman of Bass River, and from time to time held various public offices. In 1661, he married Mary Cross, of Salem. Samuel Herrick, the son of Ephraim and Mary Herrick, was born in 1675 in Beverly, but early in life removed to Connecticut, settling in the town of Preston, there becoming the head of the large and important Connecticut branch of the family. His wife, whom he married in Massachusetts in 1698, before he removed to Connecticut, was Mehitable Woodworth, of Beverly.
Animated by the pioneer spirit that possessed the early settlers of New England, and that was continually moving them to seek new homes further and further away from the coast towns, where they were first settled, Stephen Herrick, son of Samuel Herrick, of Connecticut, moved to Dutchess County, N. Y., and established there the family from which is descended the gentleman whose name appears at the head of this sketch. Stephen Herrick was born in 1705, in Preston, Conn., and was married in 1726 to Phobe Guild. The great-grandfather of Mr. Jacob Hobart Herrick was Joseph Herrick, of Amenia, Dutchess County, N. Y., son of Stephen Herrick. He was born in 1735 and his wife was Elizabeth Burton, of Preston. Their son was Josiah Herrick, of Dutchess County, who married Margaret Hicks, of the ancient Hicks family of Long Island. The parents of Mr. Herrick were Jacob Burton Herrick, who was born in 1800, and Julia Ann Lyon, who was born in 1804 and married in 1825. He removed to New York before middle life, and was in business here until the time of his death, in 1864.
Mr. Jacob Hobart Herrick was born in New York in 1833, and has been a leading merchant in the grain trade. In 1884, he was president of the New York Produce Exchange. He is a trustee of the Mutual Life Insurance Company, and is connected officially with several other corporations. He has achieved distinction as a graceful and forcible public speaker. His wife, whom he married in 1859, was Maria Amelia Mckesson, daughter of John Mckesson. Mr. and Mrs. Herrick have had five children, Caroline Mckesson, Henry Hobart, Florence, Isabel May and Ethel Hull Herrick. Florence Herrick is the wife of Clarence H. Wildes, and Isabel May Herrick married H. Montague Vickers. The city residence of the family is in West Sixty-eighth Street and they have a summer home at Monmouth Beach, N. J. Mr. Herrick is a member of the Union League and Whist clubs and of the Century Association.
275
ABRAM S. HEWITT
O N his mother's side, Mr. Abram S. Hewitt is descended from the Garniers, an old Huguenot family. As early as the close of the seventeenth century, Garniers were settled in New York City. Francis Garnier, who came over with Peter (Pierre) Jay, who fled from France after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, was the head of that branch of the family from which Mr. Hewitt is descended. He settled in Rockland County, and in the course of time the name of the family was locally changed to Gurnee. Mr. Hewitt's father was an eminent civil engineer and machinist, who came to America in 1790. He assisted in putting up the first steam engine works, and in building the first steam engine ever made wholly in the United States. A destructive fire in his machine shops brought on financial reverses after he had enjoyed a long and successful business career, and he retired to private life on the ancestral farm that belonged to his wife, in Haverstraw.
The Honorable Abram S. Hewitt was born, July 31st, 1822, in the old homestead, in Haver- straw, and in 1842 was graduated from Columbia College at the head of his class. He became a member of the faculty of his alma mater, an acting professor of mathematics, and in 1845 visited Europe. He was admitted to the bar, but close application to his college and subsequent law studies, and to his duties as a teacher and professor, had impaired his eyesight, and he was forced to forego a legal career. Turning his attention to business occupations, he became associated with Peter Cooper, soon becoming junior partner in the firm of Cooper & Hewitt, with Edward Cooper, who had been his classmate in college. The firm succeeded to the business of the elder Mr. Cooper, and developed it into one of the largest and most successful iron establishments of its kind in the country. As a man of business, an executive, and a manufacturer, Mr. Hewitt has achieved remarkable success, and he is recognized as one of the world's great authorities upon all kinds of iron and steel work.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.