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 52
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The eldest daughter of the family is Eleanora, wife of Colonel Delancey A. Kane. The other daughters, Georgie and Emilie Iselin, are unmarried. The town house of the family is in Madison Square, and they also have a home, Soucie, in New Rochelle. Mr. Iselin has given much, in time and money, to the development of New Rochelle. With his wife he built and permanently endowed the Church of St. Gabriel, in that place, and by her will Mrs. Iselin left a large bequest to the church. They also gave to the parish a handsome building for a school and furnished it complete, so that it is now one of the best equipped educational institutions of its kind in the country. Mr. Iselin established the present system of water-works in New Rochelle, and has been in other ways a benefactor of the town. He belongs to the Tuxedo, Metropolitan, Union, Union League, Knickerbocker, Racquet, City, Riding, Reform, Seawanhaka-Corinthian Yacht, New York Yacht and New York Athletic clubs, the Country Club of Westchester County, the Downtown Asso- ciation, the Century Association and the National Academy of Design, and is a patron of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the American Museum of Natural History. He has a box at the Metropolitan Opera House, having been long treasurer and director of the corporation owning the opera house, and was one of the patrons of the Patriarchs' Ball during the existence of that social organization. For many years he was the Consul of the Swiss Republic in New York.
312
WILLIAM BRADLEY ISHAM
O NLY two branches of the Isham family exist in this country, one of which was estab- lished in New England and the other in Virginia. The ancestor of the New England branch, that to which the New York Ishams belong, was John Isham, of Barnstable, Mass., who was a native of England. He came from the Old World to the transatlantic Colonies in the latter part of the seventeenth century from Northamptonshire and made his abode for the greater part of his life, in the Cape District, as it has always been called, in Massachusetts. He died at Barnstable in 1713. His wife, whom he married in 1670, was Jane Parker, the daughter of Robert Parker, of Barnstable. She was born in 1664 and died seven years after the decease of her husband. The second son of John Isham was Isaac Isham, of Barnstable, who was born in 1682 and died in 1771, having married, in 1716, Thankful Lumbert, daughter of Thomas Lumbert, Jr.
In the next generation of the family in America, John Isham, second of the name, the son of Isaac Isham, was born in Barnstable, 1721, and became a resident of Colchester, Conn., where he married, in 1751, Dorothy Foote, daughter of Ephraim Foote, of Colchester. During the French and Indian Wars, he was Captain of a company of Colonial militia and was also engaged in the disastrous expedition sent from New England against the French possessions in the West Indies. His son, Samuel Isham, was born in 1752 and died in 1827, and was the father of Charles Isham, of Malden, Ulster County, N. Y., who was born at Farmington, Hartford, Conn., August 20th, 1784, and died in 1856. Charles Isham married, in 1814, Flora Bradley, daughter of Judge William Bradley, of Hartford, Conn.
Mr. William Bradley Isham, second son of Charles and Flora (Bradley) Isham, was born in Malden, N. Y., in 1827. He has been a resident of New York for many years and has been engaged in the banking business. He is vice-president of the Bank of the Metropolis, in this city, and is president of the Bond and Mortgage Guarantee Company. In 1852, Mr. Isham married Julia Burhans, daughter of Colonel Benjamin Peck Burhans, of Warrensburg, N. Y. The city residence of the family is in East Sixty-first Street, near Fifth Avenue, and their country home is on Kingsbridge Road, Washington Heights. Mr. Isham is a member of the Metropolitan and Riding clubs, the Downtown Association, the New England Society and the National Academy of Design, and is a patron of the American Museum of Natural History,
Mr. Isham has three sons. The eldest, Charles Isham, was born in 1853, and was graduated from Harvard University in 1876 with the degree of B. A. He married Mary Lincoln, daughter of the Honorable Robert T. Lincoln, of Chicago, and granddaughter of President Abraham Lincoln. His city residence is in East Sixty-sixth Street. He is a member of the Century Association, the Bar Association, the Harvard and University clubs, the American Geographical Society and the Sons of the Revolution. Samuel Isham, the second son, born in 1855, was graduated from Yale College in 1875 and is a well-known artist. He is a member of the Century Association, the Metropolitan, University, Riding and Players clubs, the New England Society, the Yale Alumni Association and the Architectural League. William Burhans Isham, the third son, was born in 1857 and graduated from Princeton College in 1879. He is engaged in business with his father. His clubs are the Metropolitan and University, and he also belongs to the Downtown Association.
Charles H. Isham, the younger son of Charles and Flora (Bradley) Isham, was born in 1829 and is engaged in mercantile pursuits. He married, in 1861, Joanna Muller, daughter of Adrian H. Muller, of this city, and has two sons, Charles Bradley and F. De Forrest Isham, and an only daughter, Joanna M. Isham. He lives in East Thirty-seventh Street and belongs to the Union League Club and the New England Society and is a patron of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The only daughter of Charles and Flora (Bradley) Isham and sister of the gentlemen referred to in this article, is Flora E. Isham, who is unmarried.
313
BRAYTON IVES
A MONG the pioneers of New England in the seventeenth century, were members of the Ives family that was of ancient renown in the old country. The first of the name who appeared on this side of the Atlantic was William Ives, who landed in Massachusetts and settled in Boston, where he remained for several years. He joined in that famous exodus from the Massachu- setts Colony to Connecticut, and helped to found the city of New Haven. From him have sprung members of the family who in many generations have been distinguished. Three of his descend- ants, Levi, Elí and Charles L. Ives, father, son and grandson, all of whom were resident in New Haven, were eminent physicians, and connected with the medical department of Yale College. Combined, their professional lives covered nearly a century and a half. The Reverend Dr. Levi S. Ives, Bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church, and afterwards a Roman Catholic theologian and educator, came of the same stock, and so also did Lieutenant-Commander Thomas B. Ives, of the United States Navy, who bore an active and useful part in naval operations during the Civil War.
Born in Farmington, Conn., in 1840, General Brayton Ives, who is the conspicuous repre- sentative of his family in the present generation, was graduated from Yale College in the class of 1861. The piping times of war called him to action immediately after the completion of his college career, and he quickly changed the cloister for the camp. Entering the army as Adjutant of the Fifth Connecticut Infantry, he went to the front at once, and served with distinction to the end of the war. In 1861, he was commissioned a Captain, and the next year served as Assistant Adjutant-General, with the rank of Captain, on the staff of General O. S. Terry. In 1864, he became a Major in the First Connecticut Cavalry, and was successively promoted to be Lieutenant- Colonel and Colonel in the same regiment. During that time he served under Generals Custer and Sheridan. When the war closed he held the rank of Brevet Brigadier-General at the age of twenty-four, being one of the youngest officers in the service with that high rank.
Coming to New York after the war, General Ives entered Wall Street, and in 1867 became a stock broker. He has long been recognized as one of the leading financiers of the metropolis in this generation. One of the prime promoters of the movement that led to the establishment of the Stock Exchange, he was vice-president of that organization, 1876-77, president, 1878-79, and a member of the Governing Committee for thirteen years. After being twenty-two years in Wall Street, he retired in 1889, and the following year took the presidency of the Western National Bank, a position that he held several years. As a student of finance, he is an accepted authority, and especially has an expert knowledge of railroad finance. For many years he was president of the Northern Pacific Railroad Company, and has been a director in the Mercantile Trust Company, the United States Guarantee Company, and the New York Stock Exchange Building Company. He is also chairman of the Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Company.
In private life General Ives is known as a patron of art and literature. He is a discriminat- ing collector of books, pictures and bric-à-brac, and has written a great deal upon art and allied subjects. His collection of pictures which he sold a few years ago was one of the finest and most carefully selected in the city. A collection of Japanese swords that he made, and that is now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, is regarded as one of the best of the half a dozen similar collections of importance in this country.
In 1867, General Ives married Eleanor A. Bissell, daughter of the Reverend B. S. Bissell, of Norwalk, Conn., thus connecting himself with one of the pioneer families of that State. His son, Sherwood Bissell Ives, was graduated from Yale University in 1893, and is a physician. He also has three unmarried daughters, Winifred, Eunice and Frances H. Ives. The city home of the family is in East Thirty-fourth Street, and their summer residence in Seabright, N. J. General Ives is a member of the New England Society, the American Geographical Society, the Century Association, and the Military Order of the Loyal Legion, and belongs to the Metropolitan, Union League, Grolier, Players, Riding, University and New York Yacht clubs.
314
JOSEPH COOKE JACKSON
F EW Americans can claim more illustrious ancestry than General Joseph C. Jackson. Many citizens of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, conspicuous in public service for nearly three hundred years, including the Wolcotts, Huntingtons and Pitkins, of Connecticut, are his lineal ancestors. On his father's side, General Jackson traces descent from Colonel Philip Pieterse Schuyler, magistrate of Albany, in 1656 ; from Colonel John Brinckerhoff, of Revolutionary fame, whose house, at Fishkill, was General Washington's headquarters, and from the Reverend Benjamin Van der Linde. The Jacksons are an ancient English family. The Honorable John P. Jackson, of New Jersey, the father of General Jackson, graduated with first honors from Princeton College, studied law at Litchfield, Conn., and practiced in New Jersey. He was instrumental in organizing the New Jersey Railroad and Transportation, and the Jersey City Ferry companies, and was Speaker of the State Legislature.
General Jackson's mother was Elizabeth Wolcott, daughter of the Honorable Frederick Wolcott, of Litchfield, Conn. The progenitor of the Wolcott family in America, Henry Wolcott, born in 1578, left Tolland, Somersetshire, England, in 1628. Among his numerous descendants were Roger Wolcott, Colonial Governor of Connecticut ; Major-General and Governor Oliver Wolcott ; Governor Oliver Wolcott, second, Secretary of the Treasury in Washington's and John Adams' administrations, and Judge Frederick Wolcott, son of Oliver Wolcott, signer of the Declaration of Independence, Major-General of the Connecticut Militia, and Governor. It was to Governor Wolcott's house, in Litchfield, that the famous leaden statue of King George Ill., torn from its pedestal in Bowling Green, New York, was taken, and there moulded into bullets, by his son, Frederick, and others. Major-General Jabez Huntington, Commander-in-Chief of the Connecticut Militia, at the capture of Louisburg, in 1758 was a maternal great-grandfather of General Jackson.
General Joseph Cooke Jackson was born in Newark, N. J., August 5th, 1835. He attended Colonel Kingsley's Military School, at West Point, graduated from Phillips Academy, Andover, Mass., in 1853 ; from Yale College, in 1857; from the New York University Law School, in 1858, and from Harvard Law School, in 1860, receiving the degree of LL. B. from both New York and Harvard Universities. At the outbreak of the Civil War, he was Second Lieutenant in the First New Jersey Volunteers, and became aide to General Philip Kearny, was on the staff of Major-General W. B. Franklin, and subsequently was made Captain and aide-de- camp of United States Volunteers, for gallant conduct during the Seven Days' battles before Richmond. In 1862, he was commissioned Lieutenant-Colonel of the Twenty-Sixth New Jersey Volunteers, and was brevetted Colonel "for gallant and meritorious conduct at the battle of Fredericksburg, Va.," and Brigadier-General for a like reason in 1865. He was United States Commissioner of Naval Credits, in 1864, but resumed the practice of law, in New York, and, in 1870 and 1871, was Assistant United States District Attorney.
In 1864, he married Katharine Perkins Day, daughter of the Honorable Calvin Day, of Hartford, Conn., a man of distinguished character, and a direct descendant of Robert Day, who came to America in 1634. Mrs. Jackson's mother was Catherine Seymour, also of Hart- ford, Conn., daughter of Charles Seymour, and granddaughter of Captain Charles Seymour, of the Revolution. Among her ancestors are Governor William Bradford, Governor John Haynes, Governor George Wyllys, Governor Thomas Dudley, Governor John Webster, Governor William Pitkin, Judge William Pitkin, his father, and the Honorable William Pitkin, his grandfather, first Treasurer of the Colony of Connecticut ; the Reverend John Wareham, William Whiting, Treasurer of the Colony, and President Thomas Clap, of Yale College. She is also a descendant of Mabel Harlakenden, wife of Governor John Haynes. The children of General Jackson are Joseph C. Jackson, Jr., John Day Jackson, both graduates of Yale ; Katharine Seymour Jackson, and Elizabeth Huntington Wolcott Jackson. The family residence is 138 East Thirty-fourth Street.
315
D. WILLIS JAMES
D ANIEL JAMES, the father of Mr. D. Willis James, was a leading merchant of New York and Liverpool, England, for more than fifty years. He began life with the present cen- tury, having been born in 1801. His first mercantile experience was with the metal house of Phelps & Peck, and he became a partner in the celebrated firm of Phelps, Dodge & Co., which succeeded Phelps & Peck. About 1831, he went to Europe and lived there for the remainder of his life as a member of Phelps, James & Co., who were the English partners of the New York house. Throughout his long career, he was recognized as a business man of the highest type, public-spirited and deeply interested in philanthropic causes. He died at Beaconsfield, near Liverpool, England, in 1876, and left five children. Three sons have made their homes in England, and his daughter, Olivia P. James, became the wife of Robert Hoe.
On his mother's side, Mr. James is descended from a family of position in New York, and also from distinguished Colonial ancestors in Connecticut. His mother was Elizabeth Woodbridge Phelps, daughter of Anson Greene Phelps, senior member of Phelps, Dodge & Co., and one of New York's famous philanthropists in the last generation. Her mother, Olivia Eggleston, was a daughter of Elihu and Elizabeth (Olcott) Eggleston, of Middletown, Conn., a descendant of the Olcott and Eggleston families, which were established in the Connecticut Colony in its earliest period. The Phelps family goes back to George Phelps, of Tewksbury, England, who was born about 1605 and came to New England in 1630, being at first a resident of Dorchester, Mass., and then of Windsor, Conn., at its settlement in 1635. His second wife, the ancestress of that branch of the family to which Mr. James belongs, was Frances Dewey. The subsequent generations down to Anson Greene Phelps were John Phelps, 1651-1741, and his wife, Sarah Buckland; Thomas Phelps, 1687-1750, and his wife, Hannah Phelps; Thomas Phelps, 1711-1777, and his wife, Margaret Watson, daughter of John and Sarah (Steele) Watson; and Thomas Phelps, 1741-1789, and his wife, Dorothy Lamb Woodbridge, daughter of Haynes and Elizabeth (Griswold) Woodbridge, who were the parents of Anson Greene Phelps.
The second Thomas Phelps served in the Continental Army. His wife, Dorothy Lamb Woodbridge, was descended from the Woodbridge, Griswold, Haynes and Wyllys families. Her father was the son of the Reverend Timothy Woodbridge, of Hartford, who married Mabel Wyllys, daughter of the Honorable Samuel Wyllys, secretary of Connecticut, and a granddaughter of Gov- ernor John Haynes. The Reverend Timothy Woodbridge was the son of the Reverend John Woodbridge, of Newbury, Mass., and of his wife, Mercy Dudley, daughter of Governor Thomas Dudley, of Massachusetts. Elizabeth Griswold, the wife of Haynes Woodbridge and grandmother of Anson Greene Phelps, was a daughter of Samuel Griswold, 1684-1777, a representative to the General Assembly in 1732 and a son of Thomas Griswold, 1658-1727, and Hester Drake, who was a granddaughter of the Honorable Henry Wolcott. Thomas Griswold was the son of George Griswold, 1633-1704, and a grandson of Edward Griswold, who came from Kenilworth, Warwick- shire, in 1639, settled in Windsor and was associated with his brother, Governor Matthew Griswold.
Mr. D. Willis James was born in Liverpool, England, April 15, 1832, and has been connected with the business house with which his father was identified. His wife was Ellen S. Curtiss. The city residence of the family is at Park Avenue, corner of Thirty-ninth Street, and their country home is Onunda, Madison, N. J. Mr. James belongs to the Metropolitan, City, Riding, Reform, A A + and Morris County Golf clubs, the Century Association, the Downtown Association and the American Geographical Society, and is a patron of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, National Academy of Design and American Museum of Natural History. Mr. and Mrs. James have one son, Arthur Curtiss James, who married Harriet Eddy Parsons, and lives in Park Avenue. He is a grad- uate of Amherst College, class of 1889, and a member of the Metropolitan, University, City, Riding, A A +, Morristown, Morris County Golf, New York Yacht and Seawanhaka-Corinthian Yacht clubs and the Downtown Association.
316
THOMAS LEMUEL JAMES
O RIGINALLY of Welsh extraction, the family of which General Thomas L. James is the representative, has been long established in America. Mr. James was born in Utica, N. Y., March 29th, 1831. He attended school in that city and then entered the printing office of Wesley Bailey, the veteran abolitionist editor. The year before he became of age, he went into business as part proprietor of The Madison County Journal, a Whig newspaper in Hamilton, N. Y. He was active and prominent in politics, and when the Republican party was formed gave his adherence to it and supported John C. Fremont for the presidency in 1856. For two years, 1856-58, he was connected with the administration of the State canals.
In 1861, Mr. James was appointed to a post under the Collector of the Port of New York and removed to this city, with which he has since been identified. He was soon promoted, and when Thomas Murphy became Collector, was made Deputy Collector. In March, 1873, President Grant appointed him Postmaster of New York, and four years later President Hayes tendered him the position of Collector of the Port, and afterwards that of Postmaster General, but he declined both offices. In March, 1881, President Garfield made him Postmaster General, and when President Arthur succeeded to the presidency, Mr. James was retained in that position, but soon resigned the office and returned to private life, after twenty years of arduous and successful public service. During his incumbency of the office of Postmaster General, he introduced many reforms in the management of the post-office department, reducing the annual deficiency and making the department self-sustaining. He was particularly active in unearthing and correcting abuses that had long existed in the service, more particularly the Star Route frauds, and raised the whole department to a higher plane of efficiency than it had ever before attained. Since his retirement to private life, Mr. James has been president of the Lincoln National Bank, a position that he assumed in January, 1882. He is also president of the Lincoln State Deposit Company, and is connected with other large corporations.
Mr. James married, in 1852, Emily 1. Freeburn, who is descended from Ethan Allen, the famous American Revolutionary General, and is also a descendant of that branch of the Lamb family of which Charles Lamb, the essayist, was a member. One of Mr. James' daughters, Ellen M. James, married Henry G. Pearson, for many years Postmaster of New York. Another daughter, Harriet Weed James, is unmarried. Mr. James is a member of the Union League and many other clubs. His residence is in Highwood, N. J. Hamilton College conferred upon him the degree of A. M. in 1862, and Madison University gave him the degree of LL. D. in 1882. St. John's College, of Fordham, N. Y., and the College of St. Francis Xavier have also conferred upon him the degree of LL. D.
Colonel Charles F. James, the son of the Honorable Thomas L. James, was born in Hamilton, N. Y., July 12th, 1856, and has displayed an hereditary talent for public affairs and finance. He entered the College of the City of New York in 1873, but completed his education in Madison, now Colgate University, Hamilton, N. Y., graduating from that institution in 1876, and subse- quently receiving the degree of A. M. and Ph. D. Attending the law department of Columbia College, he received his degree of LL. B. in 1879, was called to the bar and was appointed counsel to the New York State Commissioners of Emigration. Subsequently he was Assistant United States District Attorney for the Southern District of New York under General Stewart L. Woodford, and then Assistant Corporation Counsel for the city under Judges Andrews and Lacombe. Latterly he has been engaged in private practice, his most recent professional association being as a member of the firm of Dittenhoefer, Gerber & James. In 1893, he organized the Franklin National Bank, and as vice-president and cashier managed the affairs of that institution. In 1897, he became president, succeeding the Honorable Ellis H. Roberts, who was appointed Treasurer of the United States. He is president of the St. David's Society, and is a member of the Union League Club, the T A fraternity, the New York Athletic Club and the American Geographical Society.
317
JOSEPH EDWARD JANVRIN, M. D.
F OR many centuries the family of Janvrin held possessions in the Island of Jersey, its ancestry being traced back to the Crusades. The first of the name in America was Captain John (Jean) Janvrın, who was a ship owner of St. Helier, Jersey. He came on one of his own vessels to Portsmouth, N. H., and married, in 1706, Elizabeth Knight, daughter of John Knight, an officer in the Indian wars. Captain Janvrin died in 1718. His eldest son, John, was graduated from Harvard College in 1728. His son, William Janvrin, grandfather of the subject of this article, married Abigail Adams, daughter of Dr. Joseph Adams, of Portsmouth.
Dr. Adams, a graduate of Harvard in 1745, was a son of the Reverend Joseph Adams, who also graduated from Harvard in 1710 and removed from Braintree, Mass., in 1715, to Newington, where he became minister and married the widow of Captain Janvrin in 1720. His pastorate lasted sixty-eight years, till his death in 1783. He was a great-grandson of Henry Adams, of Braintree, who descended from the Ap Adams family of Wales. Dr. Joseph Adams was a cousin of both President John Adams and Samuel Adams. Through the Bass and Adams family marriages, Dr. Janvrin is descended from John Alden. He is also descended from Governors Thomas Dudley and Simon Bradstreet, of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, and from Major Ezekiel Gilman, of Exeter, who was prominent at the capture of Louisburg in 1745. Joseph Adams Janvrin, son of William and Abigail Adams Janvrin and father of Dr. Janvrin, was a landowner at Exeter, N. H., and held many public positions. His wife was Lydia Ann Colcord, daughter of George Colcord, and a descendant of Edward Colcord, a founder of Exeter in 1638.
Mr. Joseph Edward Janvrin was born at Exeter, January 13th, 1839, graduated at Phillips Exeter Academy in 1857 and began the study of medicine with Dr. William Gilman Perry in his native town. In 1861, he temporarily abandoned it and entered the Second New Hampshire Infantry, serving as Assistant Surgeon in the campaigns of the Army of the Potomac under Generals Burnside and Hooker. In December, 1862, he was transferred to the Fifteenth New Hampshire Regiment, with which he served in the Department of the Gulf under General Banks, becoming Acting Surgeon of his command, and was mustered out in 1863. Resuming his studies, he entered the medical department of Dartmouth College and became a pupil of Professor E. R. Peaslee, graduating in 1864 from the College of Physicians and Surgeons in this city.
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