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 50

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

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In 1877, Mr. Hull married Lucia Eugene Houston, of Louisville, Ky., daughter of Judge Russell and Grizelda (Polk) Houston. On both sides, Mrs. Hull is descended from families of importance in the Southern States. On the paternal side, her grandparents were David and Hannah (Regan) Houston. Her maternal grandfather, Dr. William Julius Polk, whose wife was Mary L. Long, belonged to a race which sprang from noble ancestors in Europe and has been of prominence in the United States. The name of Polk, originally spelt Pollock, is traced to Fulbert, the Saxon, Tempore Malcom III., of Scotland, who held the great feudal barony of Pollok in Renfrewshire. From him came a long line of Barons de Pollok. A branch of this family was established in the North of Ireland, by Sir Robert de Pollok, one of whose descendants, Robert Bruce Pollok, with his wife, Magdalen Tasker, and six sons and two daughters, came to Somerset County, Md., about 1680. John Pollock, or Polk, son of Robert Pollok, married Joanna Knox, and their son, William Polk, removed to North Carolina and married, first, Priscilla Roberts. One of William Polk's sons, Ezekiel Polk, was the grandfather of James Knox Polk, President of the United States. Mrs. Hull's ancestor was another son of William Polk. General Thomas Polk, who was prominent in the Mecklenburg Declaration, was with Washington at Brandywine and Valley Forge, and married Susan Spratt. Colonel William Polk, his son, was also in the Revolutionary Army and married, first, Grizelda Gilchrist, by whom he was the father of Dr. William Julius Polk, who was Mrs. Hull's grandfather.

Mr. and Mrs. Hull make their residence in Tuxedo Park. He is a member of the Union League, Lawyers' and Tuxedo clubs, the Sons of the Revolution, the Sons of the American Revolution, the Society of Colonial Wars and is a patron of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

300

RICHARD HOWLAND HUNT

A NCESTORS of this gentleman figured prominently in the public affairs of the country, while his immediate family have been identified with the contemporary development of art in the United States. Mr. Hunt's father was one of the foremost architects of America, and his uncle had a leading place among distinguished American painters. John Hunt, the founder of this interesting American family, came from England and settled in Connecticut, where he married a daughter of John Webster, the fifth Governor of that Colony. His son, Jonathan Hunt, from whom the branch of the family to which this refers is descended, was born in 1637, and moved from Connecticut to Northampton, Mass., in 1670. He was a freeman in 1662, a deacon of the church and a representative to the General Court. The son of Jonathan Hunt and his wife, Clemence (Hosmer) Hunt, was Jonathan Hunt, of Northampton, 1665-1738, who married Martha Williams, daughter of Samuel and Theoda (Park) Williams, and his grandson was Samuel Hunt, 1703-1770, who married Ann Ellsworth, daughter of John and Esther Ellsworth, of Windsor, Conn. In the third generation after Jonathan Hunt, of Northampton, came the Honorable Jonathan Hunt, of Vermont, the great-grandfather of Mr. Richard Howland Hunt. Jonathan Hunt was born in 1738, and early in life removed to Vermont, where he became prominent in public affairs. In 1780, he was a member of a committee appointed to consider plans for the union of New York and Vermont, was one of the claimants to lands in Vermont which had been ceded to New York, was sheriff of Windham County, an associate censor in 1786 to revise the State Constitution, and afterwards Lieutenant-Governor, dying in 1823. Jonathan Hunt, son of Lieutenant-Governor Hunt, was born in 1787. He graduated from Dartmouth College in 1807, became a prominent lawyer, was a representative to the State Legislature at an early age and a Member of Congress, 1827-32, dying at Washington during his term of office. His wife was Jane Marie Leavitt. Their sons were Richard M. Hunt, the architect, and William M. Hunt, the painter.

Richard Morris Hunt, father of Mr. Richard Howland Hunt, was born at Brattleboro, Vt., in 1828, and died in Newport, R. I., in 1895. Graduating from the Boston High School in 1843, he went to Europe the same year and studied architecture in Geneva, Paris and elsewhere. In 1855, he returned to the United States, where he soon took rank as one of the greatest architects of his generation, attaining an international reputation. Among his many notable works are, the Lenox Library Building, the Presbyterian Hospital, The New York Tribune Building, the William K. Vanderbilt, Ogden Mills, Elbridge T. Gerry, John Jacob Astor and Henry G. Marquand houses in New York; the Cornelius Vanderbilt, Ogden Goelet and O. H. P. Belmont residences in Newport; the Vanderbilt place at Biltmore, N. C .; the Marquand chapel at Princeton College; the Divinity School Building at Yale College, and the Vanderbilt mausoleum on Staten Island.

He received many professional honors from all parts of the world, and a public memorial to him is soon to be erected in Central Park, New York. He was awarded the Queen's Gold Medal by the Royal Institute of British Architects in 1893; in 1894, was elected an associate member of the Academie des Beaux Arts; was an honorary member of the Central Society of French Architects, the Architects' Society of Vienna, the Royal Institute of British Architects, the Academy of St. Luke in Rome, and received the Cross of the Legion of Honor, of France. His wife, Catharine Howland, survives her distinguished husband and resides at 178 Madison Avenue.

Mr. Richard Howland Hunt is their son, and was born at Paris, France, in 1862. He was educated at the Institute of Technology, and, finishing his studies at the Ecole des Beaux Arts at Paris, with a view to following his father's profession, has gained individual distinction as an architect. In 1885, Mr. Hunt married Pearl Carley, daughter of Francis D. Carley, of this city, and his wife, who was Grace Chess. Mr. and Mrs. Hunt have three children, Richard Carley, Frank Carley and Jonathan Hunt. Mr. Hunt belongs to the American Institute of Architects and the Architectural League and other professional bodies, and is a member of the Players and Racquet clubs and the Century Association.

301

COLLIS POTTER HUNTINGTON

S TARTING upon the voyage to New England in 1633, Simon Huntington, who was born in Norwich, England, died on the way and was buried at sea. His widow, whose maiden name was Margaret Barnet, landed in Boston with her three sons, Christopher, Simon and Samuel, and settled in Roxbury, afterwards removing to Windsor, Conn., where she married again, and with which town some of the Huntington family were long identified. Simon Huntington, the second son of this family, was born in England in 1629, and grew to manhood in this country. One of the first settlers of the town of Norwich, he was a deacon of the church, 1660-96, a representative to the General Court in 1674 and 1685, and died there in 1706. By his wife, Sarah Clark, who was the daughter of Joseph Clark, of Windsor, he left a large family.

Simon Huntington was the great-great-great-grandfather of Mr. Collis Potter Huntington. His son, Samuel, who was born in Norwich in 1665, died in 1717. Removing to Lebanon in 1700, he was a large landholder, a Lieutenant of the militia and held many public offices. He married, in 1686, Mary Clark, daughter of William Clark, of Wethersfield. Their son, John, who was born in 1706 and married Mehitable Metcalf, was the great-grandfather of Mr. C. P. Huntington, whose grandparents were Joseph Huntington, 1739-1820, and Rachel Preston. The father of Mr. Huntington was William Huntington, who was born in 1784, married Elizabeth Vincent and lived in Walcottville, where he was a manufacturer.

One of the most distinguished members of this historic family was the Honorable Samuel Huntington, who represented Connecticut in the Continental Congress and signed the Declaration of Independence, being afterwards Chief Justice and Governor of the State. The family also furnished many Revolutionary soldiers. Major-General Jabez Huntington, 1719-1786, graduated from Yale College in 1741, was frequently a member of the Legislature, a Speaker of the House and member of the Governor's Council. His son, Ebenezer Huntington, 1754-1834, graduated from Yale College in the class of 1771 and was a Lieutenant-Colonel, Major and Adjutant-General during the War of the Revolution, General of the State Militia in 1792, and a member of the National House of Representatives in 1810 and in 1817.

Mr. Collis Potter Huntington illustrates in his career the qualities inherent in the strong New England race of which he is a descendant. In his case, the ability and energy characteristic of the family were directed into the new channels opened by the country's material expansion, his fame resting upon his success in the conception and execution of enterprises that rank among the greatest public works of the century. Mr. Huntington was born in Harwinton, Litchfield County, Conn., October 22d, 1821. After receiving a substantial education, he went into business at an early age, and in 1849 joined the exodus to the Pacific coast, where he established himself in business, becom- ing one of the most influential merchants of California. In association with Mark Hopkins, Leland Stanford and Charles Crocker, he constructed the Central Pacific Railroad, and has maintained a dominant influence in the subsequent railroad operations which led to the building of the Southern Pacific system, and to the concentration of the great railroad properties of that section of the country under the corporate title of the Southern Pacific Company. He is president of the Southern Pacific Company, and also of the Pacific Mail Steamship Company.

Since 1880, he has made New York his permanent home. His residence, at the corner of Fifth Avenue and Fifty-seventh Street, is distinguished for both its architectural features and the character of its interior decorations. He also possesses a summer home at Throgg's Neck, on Long Island Sound, a feature of which is the extensive green-houses. Mr. Huntington's devotion to his business interests is proverbial and his capacity for work is remarkable. His tastes, apart from his absorbing occupations, are entirely domestic, but he is a member of the Union League Club and a patron of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the American Museum of Natural History and the American Geographical Society. His town residence contains a choice collection of paintings, and he is also a discriminating collector of books.

302

DANIEL HUNTINGTON

B OTH the paternal and maternal ancestry of Mr. Daniel Huntington is traced back to Simon Huntington, 1629-1706, of Norwich, Conn., one of the three brothers whose father, Simon Huntington, died at sea in 1633 while on the way to New England. In successive genera- tions from the second Simon Huntington, the ancestors of Mr. Daniel Huntington were: Daniel, 1676-1741, and his wife, Rachel Wolcott; Benjamin, 1736-1800, and his wife, Anne Huntington; and Benjamin, 1777-1850, and his wife, Faith Trumbull Huntington, daughter of General Jedediah Huntington. The first Benjamin Huntington graduated from Yale College in 1761. He was a member of the Connecticut Committee of Safety from 1775 to 1778, and of the Continental Con- gress from 1780 to 1784 and in 1787-88. In 1789, he was a member of the first Congress under the Constitution, a State Senator from 1781 to 1799, Judge of the Connecticut Superior Court from 1793 to 1799, and was also chosen the first Mayor of Norwich, Conn., when it became a city, in 1784. The second Benjamin Huntington was a well-known broker in New York.

Mr. Huntington's mother also traced her ancestry through another line to Simon Huntington. She was sixth in descent from Simon Huntington, of Norwich, Conn., her ancestor being Simon Huntington, 1659-1736, a brother of Daniel, the ancestor of her husband. This Simon Huntington married Lydia Gager, daughter of John Gager, whose grandfather came to America in 1630. Their son was Joshua Huntington, 1698-1745, and their grandson, General Jabez Huntington, 1719-1786, was a member of the Connecticut General Assembly, Major-General of the militia and member of the Committee of Safety. His first wife, the grandmother of Faith Trumbull Huntington, was Elizabeth Backus, daughter of Samuel and Elizabeth (Tracy) Backus. Jedediah Huntington, 1743- 1818, son of General Huntington, graduated from Harvard College in 1763. He was active in the War of the Revolution, attaining the rank of Brigadier-General and brevet Major-General in the Continental Army. He was afterwards Treasurer of Connecticut, delegate to the State Convention which adopted the Federal constitution, and collector of the port of New London. His second wife, Ann Moore, daughter of Thomas Moore, of New York, was the mother of Faith Trumbull Hunt- ington. Several sons of Benjamin and Faith Trumbull Huntington became distinguished men. The Reverend Dr. Gurdon Huntington, 1818-1875, was an eminent clergyman of the Protestant Episco- pal Church. Another son, the Reverend Jedediah Vincent Huntington, 1815-1862, entered the ministry of the Protestant Episcopal Church in 1841, but afterwards became a Roman Catholic.

Mr. Daniel Huntington, a son of Benjamin Huntington and his wife, Faith Trumbull Hunt- ington, was born in New York, October 14th, 1816. After a course at Hamilton College, in 1835, he began the study of art in the studio of Professor Samuel F. B. Morse, then president of the National Academy of Design. He produced several paintings, which were successful as works of art and decided his future career. In 1839, he went to Europe, resided several years in Rome, perfecting himself in his chosen profession. Upon his return to New York, he made portraits and genre work his specialties, and soon attained a prominent position among American painters. He has painted portraits of many of the most famous American public men of his day, and few of our painters have exhibited greater versatility of talent or broader and purer artistic sympathies. In 1840, Mr. Huntington was elected a member of the National Academy of Design, of which institu- tion he was president from 1862 to 1869, and from 1877 to 1892.

In 1842, Mr. Huntington married Harriet S. Richards, second daughter of Charles and Sarah (Henshaw) Richards. Mrs. Huntington's direct ancestors were Lieutenant John Richards, 1666, and Captain Guy Richards, 1722, of New London, while she also descends through maternal lines from Elder William Brewster and John Alden, of the Mayflower. Mr. and Mrs. Huntington had one son, Charles Richards Huntington, of this city, who married Mary Irving, daughter of Edgar Irving. Mr. Huntington lives in East Twentieth Street. He is a member of the Century Association, the A A + club, and the American Geographical Society, and is a trustee of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

303

WILLIAM REED HUNTINGTON, D. D.

G RACE CHURCH is distinctly the parish of the older New York families, and is, therefore, one of the most important charges of the Episcopal Church, not only in New York, but in the whole country. For more than fourteen years it has been under the charge of Dr. Huntington, who, though now completely identified with New York, is a New Englander by birth and early associations, and is a descendant of a race that holds a high place in the annals of Massachusetts and Connecticut, and which has furnished many members of prominence in various walks of modern American life. The ancestors of this remarkable family were among the early Puritan emigrants to Massachusetts, but left the Bay Colony with the first settlers of Connecticut, since which time the latter Colony and Commonwealth has never been without distinguished representatives of the name.

William Reed Huntington, D. D., who was born at Lowell, Mass., in 1838, is the son of Elisha Huntington, M. D., and his wife, Hannah Hinckley, the latter being a daughter of Joseph and Deborah Hinckley, of Marblehead. The Huntington family in New England springs from Christopher and Simon Huntington, two brothers who arrived in Boston in 1633, and whose father, Simon, died during the voyage from England to the New World. The two took part in the founding of the town of Norwich, Conn., in 1660. The brothers had numerous descendants in both Connecticut and Massachusetts, some of whom took active parts in the Colonial struggles with the French and their savage allies, as well as in the Revolutionary War, while among them were numbered many ministers of the gospel; Dr. Huntington himself being the grandson of the Reverend Ashahel Huntington, of Topsfield, Mass., who married Alethea Lord, of Abington, Conn. Their son, Elisha Huntington, was born in Topsfield in 1796, graduated at Dartmouth College in 1815, and at the Medical School of Yale in 1825. He established himself at Lowell, of which city he was Mayor for eight terms, and in 1855 was elected Lieutenant-Governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. A leader in the medical profession, he served as president of the Massachusetts Medical Society, and delivered many addresses before it and other bodies, while, as already noted, he took an active part in political life.

His son, Dr. William Reed Huntington, passed his youth in Lowell, and entered Harvard College, from which he was graduated in 1859. He was the poet of his class, and in 1870 was again honored by his alma mater as the + B K poet for that year. The degree of Doctor of Divinity was conferred on him in 1873 by Columbia College, and by Princeton University at its sesqui-centennial in 1896. He has also been given the degree of D. C. L. by the University of the South. He entered the Protestant Episcopal ministry in 1861, was at first attached to Emmanuel Church, Boston, and became the rector of All Saints, Worcester, in 1862. From this post he was called to Grace Church, New York, in 1883. To describe Dr. Huntington's labors in this distinguished but trying charge would be but to rehearse the progress of the church during the past fourteen years. Possessing not only lofty and convincing eloquence as a pulpit orator, Dr. Huntington has exercised a marked personal influence among both clergy and laity. His literary activity has been considerable, his published writings including, among other books, The Church Idea, Conditional Immortality, Causes of the Soul, The Peace of the Church, and A Short History of the Book of Common Prayer, and many papers on ecclesiastical and literary subjects.

In 1863, Dr. Huntington married Theresa, youngest daughter of Dr. Edward Reynolds, of Boston, a granddaughter of John Phillips, the first Mayor of Boston, and niece of the orator and philanthropist, Wendell Phillips. The children of this marriage are: Francis Cleaveland Huntington, a lawyer of this city, and three daughters, Margaret Wendell, Theresa, wife of Royal Robbins, of Boston, and Mary Hinckley, wife of William G. Thompson, a lawyer of Boston. Dr. Huntington is a member of the Century, University and Harvard clubs, and resides with his family in the beautiful rectory of Grace Church, now the only dwelling left in Broadway south of Union Square.

304

AUGUSTUS S. HUTCHINS

N TEARLY half a century has elapsed since the family name which this gentleman bears became prominent in law and politics in New York. Both his paternal and maternal ancestry is derived from illustrious and patriotic Connecticut families. His father, Waldo Hutchins, was born in Brooklyn, Conn., in 1823, and was descended from the Puritan founders of that commonwealth. Graduated from Amherst College, he was admitted to the bar and beginning the practice of his profession in New York, was thereafter identified with this city. Becoming an active supporter of the Democratic party, Mr. Hutchins was a member of the State Assembly in 1852, and in 1867 was elected to the Constitutional Convention. In 1878, he was chosen a Member of Congress from the Westchester County District, his residence being in Kings- bridge, and was reelected for two succeeding terms. For many years he was a Park Commissioner, and in many ways active in municipal councils.

The maternal grandfather of Mr. Augustus S. Hutchins was Governor William Walcott Ellsworth, of Connecticut. Governor Ellsworth was born in Windsor, Conn., in 1791, and died in Hartford, in 1868. Graduated from Yale College in 1810, he studied law in Litchfield and Hartford and was admitted to the bar in 1813, beginning practice in Hartford. In the same year, he married Emily Webster, eldest daughter of Noah Webster, the great lexicographer, who was descended from John Webster, one of the founders of Hartford and an early Governor of Con- necticut ; and on his mother's side from William Bradford, the second Governor of the Plymouth Colony. While a student in Yale College, Noah Webster volunteered and served in the Continental Army in the Saratoga Campaign. In 1817, William Walcott Ellsworth became a partner with his brother-in-law, Judge Williams, and from 1827 until the time of his death, a period of forty-one years, was a professor of law in Trinity College. From 1829 to 1834, he was a Whig Member of Congress. In 1838, he was chosen Governor of Connecticut and was reelected for three suc- cessive terms. In 1847, he became Judge of the Superior Court of Connecticut, and remained on the bench until he was seventy years of age. His twin brother, Henry L. Ellsworth, was Commissioner of Patents from 1836 to 1848.

The great-grandfather of Mr. Hutchins was Chief Justice Oliver Ellsworth, 1745-1807, who studied in Yale College, but was graduated from Princeton in 1766. He was admitted to the bar in Hartford, in 1771, and was State's Attorney in 1775, being in the following year a representative from Windsor, in the General Assembly. He was a delegate to the Continental Congress in 1 777, a member of the Governor's Council 1780-84, Judge of the Connecticut Superior Court 1784-87, and in 1787 a member of the Federal Convention at Philadelphia. He was one of the Senators for Connecticut in the first United States Congress, and a devoted supporter of Washington's administration. In 1796, he was appointed, by Washington, Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, and in 1799 went abroad as one of the Envoys Extraordinary of the United States to negotiate a treaty with France. Upon his return from Europe in 1800, he resigned from the bench, but in 1807 was appointed Chief Justice of Connecticut.

Mr. Augustus S. Hutchins is the eldest son of Waldo Hutchins, and was born in New York in 1856. Educated in Amherst College, he was graduated from that institution in the class of 1879 and supplemented his collegiate course by a study of law, after which he entered upon the practice of his profession in New York. The Hutchins family having a very large interest in the Second Avenue Railroad Company, Mr. Hutchins has for many years been the counsel for that company, has been the legal representative of other corporations, and is also vice-president of the Metropolitan Savings Bank. He is unmarried and resides in the old family homestead in Kingsbridge. He is a member of the Manhattan Club, the Bar Association and the New England Society. His brother, Waldo J. Hutchins, is a graduate from Yale College, and a lawyer ; another brother, William E. Hutchins, was formerly president of the North River Fire Insurance Company.

305

EDWIN FRANCIS HYDE

N TORWICH, Conn., was settled in 1660, by a company of proprietors, principally from Saybrook and New London, and included the founders of several families of distinction. Among them was William Hyde, the ancestor of the Hyde family, who came to America with the Reverend Thomas Hooker, and lived successively in Newton, Mass., Hartford, Saybrook and Norwich, where he died, in 1681. His daughter, Hester, and her husband, John Post, accompanied him to Norwich, as well as his son, Samuel, who was born at Hart- ford, in 1637, and died in 1677. Samuel's son, John Hyde, of Norwich, 1667-1727, married his second cousin, Experience Abel, daughter of Caleb Abel, and their son, Captain James Hyde, 1707-1793, also married a cousin, Sarah Marshall, daughter of Abijah and Abial (Cuff) Marshall.

Captain James Hyde, of Norwich, 1752-1809, the son of the first James Hyde, was an officer in the Continental Army, throughout the Revolutionary War. In civil life, he was a man of considerable prominence and attained more than local distinction. His wife, whom he married in 1774, was Martha Nevins Lathrop, who was born in Norwich, in 1756, her father and mother, Nevins and Mary Lathrop, being prominent residents of that place in the early part of the eighteenth century. Her grandfather, Lieutenant-Colonel Simon Lathrop, commanded a Connecticut regiment at the siege of Louisburg, and was in charge of that fortress after its capture. Their son, the grandfather of Mr. Edwin Francis Hyde, was Erastus Hyde, who was born in Norwich, in 1775. He lived in Norwich until after he had arrived at full age, and then, soon after 1800, removed to Middlebury, Vt. Subsequently, he lived at Mystic and Groton, Conn. His wife, whom he married in 1797, was Fanny Bell, born in 1775, the daughter of Captain Joseph Bell, of Stonington, Conn. Edwin Hyde, son of Erastus Hyde, was born at Groton, Conn., in 1812. Early in life he came to New York and entered upon business life, becoming in time one of the most prosperous merchants of the city. His wife was Elizabeth Alvina Mead, whom he married in 1833. She was born in Belleville, N. J., and was the daughter of Ralph Mead, a prominent merchant of New York. The firm of Ralph Mead & Co. was one of the most substantial of its kind in the city ; in its successive forms it occupied the same location in Coenties Slip for over seventy years.

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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 50

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