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 55
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The Ludlow family, from which Mr. Jones descends through his maternal grandmother, Frances Mary (Ludlow) Thomas, was founded in America by Gabriel Ludlow, who came to New York in the seventeenth century. He married Sarah Hanmer, in 1697, and had a number of sons, all of whom married daughters of prominent citizens of that day. His tenth child, James Ludlow, born in New York, and graduated from Kings College, now Columbia Uni- versity, was the great-grandfather of Mr. Jones. Elizabeth Harrison, wife of James Ludlow and mother of Frances Mary (Ludlow) Thomas, was the daughter of Peter Harrison, collector of the port of New Haven, whose wife, Elizabeth Pelham, was the great-granddaughter of Benedict Arnold, the first Governor of Rhode Island.
Samuel Tonkin Jones, Mr. Shipley Jones' father, married first, Sarah Margaret Thomas, and second, her younger sister, Martha Mary Thomas. Another sister, Catharine Ann Thomas, married William B. Bend, of New York, and a fourth sister was Elizabeth Frances Thomas. Ludlow Thomas, a brother, married Mary S. Thompson and another brother, Philip Thomas, married Anna Ellen Raymond.
Mr. Shipley Jones was the third child of his father's second marriage. He was born in New York, and was graduated from Columbia College, in 1869, with the degree of A. B., receiving later the degree of A. M. He is a stock broker by profession, and his home is The Cedars, New Brighton, Staten Island. He is a member of the Metropolitan club, and of the Society of Colonial Wars and other organizations. Of Mr. Jones' immediate relatives, his half sister, the only child of his father's first marriage, is Frances Mary Jones, who married the late Richard M. Pell, and after his death became the wife of Louis T. Hoyt. His eldest sister, Sarah Margaret Jones, married Henry Beadel, and has two children, Henry Ludlow and Gerald Woodward Beadel. His younger sister, Elizabeth Ludlow Jones, married John Dash Van Buren, and has two sons, John Dash, Jr., and Maurice Pelham Van Buren.
330
CHARLES CONOVER KALBFLEISCH
N TOTWITHSTANDING their comparatively small number, the original Holland settlers of New York have left a remarkably distinct impression on the course of American history and on the character of the American people. Valuable as this element has been, it received no reinforcement from the mother country from the date of the English occupation of the New Netherland, and but few instances can be cited of further additions to the population of the United States from the same source. Mr. Kalbfleisch's family furnishes one of the few exceptions, and supplies in the record of its founder an example of the force of character, patriotism and other qualities which are so noticeable in Americans of Dutch blood, and which have been so influ- ential in shaping the destinies of the metropolis.
The late Martin Kalbfleisch, the grandfather of Mr. Charles C. Kalbfleisch, was born at Flushing, in the Netherland province of Zeeland, in 1804, and received a thorough education in his native place. In after life, he was distinguished for a knowledge of languages, for a wide acquaintance with literature and for a devotion, whether in private or public station, to the cause of education. In 1822, he sailed to the Dutch East Indies on an American ship, and through this association imbibed a desire to make the United States his home. This he put into execution in 1826, when he came to New York, where, after a few years, his integrity, energy and ability enabled him to found a manufactory of chemicals in Harlem. Some years afterwards, he removed his business to Connecticut, but in 1842 located his works at Greenpoint, Long Island. His manufacturing interests soon became one of the most important concerns of the kind in the country, and some years afterwards he relinquished their care to his sons and retired from business, partly to enjoy his well-earned fortune, but more especially to devote his time to the public service. His interest in this connection began in Brooklyn. Soon after he established his works at Green- point, he secured for that district, partly at his own expense, its first free school facilities. In 1851, he was Supervisor of Bushwick, Kings County, afterwards part of the City of Brooklyn. In 1853, he was president of the commission which arranged the consolidation of the old town of Williamsburgh with the City of Brooklyn, and in 1854 was Democratic candidate for the Mayoralty of the consolidated city, but was defeated at the polls by a narrow majority. From 1855 to 1861, he was a member of the Board of Aldermen of Brooklyn, and was three times president of the board; in the last above mentioned year he was elected Mayor, his service in that office being followed in 1862 by a term as Representative in Congress, and in 1867 by a second election as Mayor of Brooklyn. In addition to his various public positions, Martin Kalbfleisch was prominent among the founders, and as a director of many of the largest and most successful banks, trust companies and insurance corporations of his adopted city, was universally regarded as a leader of the business world, and in the performance of every duty earned and retained the entire respect and confidence of the community.
By his marriage with Elizabeth Harvey, a lady of English birth, Martin Kalbfleisch had several sons, who were prominent in business and social life in New York and Brooklyn. One of them was Charles Henry Kalbfleisch, the father of the subject of this article. He became a member of the firm of Martin Kalbfleisch's Sons, the house founded by his father. He married Josephine Conover, of New York, and had a son, Mr. Charles Conover Kalbfleisch, and a daughter, Josephine, who, in 1895, married John Howard Adams, of this city.
Mr. Charles Conover Kalbfleisch was born in this city July 30th, 1868. He graduated from Columbia University in the class of 1891, receiving, in the following year, the degree of A. M., and was graduated from the law school of the same institution in 1893, being admitted to the bar in the same year, and has since then been engaged in the practice of his profession. In October, 1897, Mr. Kalbfleisch married, at Babylon, Long Island, his cousin, Maud Kalbfleisch, daughter of Franklin H. Kalbfleisch. Mr. Kalbfleisch is a member of the Bar Association, the Columbia College Alumni Association, The Players and The Grolier Club.
331
DELANCEY ASTOR KANE
U P to the time, under Queen Elizabeth and her successors, when the native families were deprived of their lands, what is now County Londonderry and part of County Antrim, Ireland, were known as the O'Kanes country and were held by the ancient noble family of that name. From this possession the Kane family, distinguished in American records, derives its origin. Their ancestry is traced from Evanne O'Kane, whose son, Bernard, married Martha O'Hara, daughter of Captain O'Hara and granddaughter of O'Neil, of Shane's Castle, County Antrim. Their eldest son, John O'Kane, born in 1734, came to this country in 1752.
John O'Kane, in America, dropped the prefix from his name and was known as Kane. At the time of the Revolution, he resided on his estate, Sharyvogne, Dutchess County, N. Y., and being a Royalist, was included in the confiscation directed against supporters of that cause. Losing all his property, he returned to England with his brother, Captain Kane, who had served in the Royalist forces during the Revolution. His wife was Sybil Kent, daughter of the Reverend Elisha Kent, who was a graduate of Yale in 1729, filled several pulpits in Putnam County, N. Y., and elsewhere, and died in 1776. His wife, Abigail Morse, was daughter of the Reverend Joseph Morse, of Derby, Conn., 1679-1732, who graduated at Harvard in 1699 and was one of the first five to receive an honorary degree from Yale. He was descended from John Moss, one of the founders of New Haven and a representative in the early Connecticut Legislature. The wife of the Reverend Joseph Moss was Abigail Russell, daughter of the Reverend Samuel Russell, of Hadley, Mass., and a descendant of John Russell, who came to Massachusetts in 1636, and who, for sixteen years, sheltered the regicides Goffe and Whalley in his house at Hadley.
The children of John and Sybil (Kent) Kane were six in number. Their eldest son, John Kane, was a famous New York merchant, and his sons were J. Grenville Kane, long the secretary of the Union Club, and Pierre G. Kane, who married Edith Brevoort. The second son, Elisha Kane, married Alida, daughter of General Robert Van Rensselaer, and the third son, Oliver, grand- father of Colonel Delancey Astor Kane, married Eliza Clark, daughter of John Green Clark, of Providence, R. I. Of the daughters of John and Sybil Kane, Abigail married Dr. John Prescott Lawrence, Adeline married Jeremiah Van Rensselaer and Sarah married Thomas Morris, son of Robert Morris, the Revolutionary financier. Among the descendants of the family's different branches have been many men of distinction, including Judge John K. Kane of the United States District Court in Pennsylvania, Dr. Elisha Kent Kane, the Arctic explorer, and General Thomas Lawrence Kane, Commander of the Pennsylvania Bucktail Brigade in the Civil War.
Oliver Kane and his wife Eliza (Clark) Kane were the parents of Delancey Kane, of Newport, R. 1. The latter married Louisa Langdon, daughter of Walter Langdon and his wife, Dorothea Astor, daughter of John Jacob Astor, the first of that name in America. Walter Lang- don's father, John Langdon, was Governor of New Hampshire and United States Senator.
Colonel Delancey Astor Kane is the son of Delancey Kane, of Newport, and his wife, Louisa Langdon, and was born at Newport, R. I., in 1844. He was graduated from the United States Military Academy, West Point, in 1868, and was a Lieutenant, First Cavalry, United States Army, from 1868 to 1870. He studied at Trinity College, Cambridge, England, and graduated in 1873 from the Law Department of Columbia College, New York. In 1872, Colonel Kane married Eleanora Iselin, daughter of Adrian Iselin, of this city, their only child being Delancey Iselin Kane. Colonel Kane's city residence is 7 West Thirty-fifth Street, and he has a country place at New Rochelle, N. Y. He is a member of the Union, Metropolitan, Knickerbocker, Country, Coaching, New York Yacht and Larchmont Yacht clubs.
The brothers of Colonel Kane are S. Nicholson Kane, John Innes Kane, who married Annie C. Schermerhorn, and Woodbury Kane. Another brother, Walter Langdon Kane, married Mary Rotch Hunter, of Newport, where he died in 1896. His sisters are Louise Langdon and Sybil Kent Kane and Emily A., wife of Augustus Jay.
332
JOHN KEAN
D URING the Revolutionary period, John Kean, the great-grandfather of the above gentle- man, was a leading patriot of South Carolina, where he was born about 1756. He was an officer in the Revolutionary Army, and being taken prisoner, was confined on a prison ship in Charleston harbor. After the war, he was a Member of Congress from South Carolina from 1785 to 1787, and although he represented a Southern constituency, voted against the extension of slavery into the Northwestern territory. Removing to Philadelphia, he became cashier of the Bank of the United States. In 1786, he married Susan Livingston, 1759-1831, daughter of Peter Van Brugh Livingston, 1710-1793, the son of Philip Livingston, second Lord of Livingston Manor. The wife of Peter Van Brugh Livingston was Mary Alexander, daughter of James Alexander, Surveyor-General of East Jersey, member of the King's Council and Attorney-General of New York, whose wife, Maria (Spratt) Provoost, was the daughter of John Spratt and Marie de Peyster, and widow of Samuel Provoost.
Peter Philip James Kean, the son of John Kean and his wife, Susan Livingston, was the grandfather of the present Mr. John Kean. He was born in 1788, was Major of the New Jersey militia, and died in 1828. He married Sarah Morris, daughter of General Jacob Morris, who was born in Morrisania in 1755, served during the Revolution as aide-de-camp to General Charles Lee, and died at his estate, Butternuts, Otsego County, N. Y., in 1844. General Morris was the son of Lewis Morris, signer of the Declaration of Independence, and a grandson of Lewis Morris, 1671-1746, Chief Justice of New York and New Jersey, and Governor of New Jersey in 1736. The founder of the family in this country was Richard Morris, who received the royal grant of Morrisania, Westchester County, N. Y. One of the daughters of Peter Philip James and Sarah (Morris) Kean, and an aunt of the present Mr. John Kean, was Julia Kean, who married Hamilton Fish, of New York, Governor, Senator and Secretary of State of the United States.
John Kean, second of the name, and father of Mr. John Kean of the present genera- tion, was born in 1814. He resided on the family estate, Ursino, Elizabeth, N. J., and was president of the Elizabethtown Gas Company, and vice-president of the Central Railroad Company, of New Jersey. He married Lucy Halsted, daughter of Caleb Halsted, a well-known New York merchant. Mrs. Kean survived her husband, and resides in East Fifty-sixth Street and at Ursino. The eldest son of this marriage, Peter Philip Kean, died young, in 1849, and the eldest daughter, Caroline Morris, who married George Lockhart Rives, of New York, died in 1887. The surviving children of the family are Susan Livingston, John, Julian Halsted, Christine, Lucy Halsted, Hamilton Fish, Elizabeth d'Hauteville and Alexander Livingston Kean.
Mr. John Kean, the eldest surviving son, was born at Ursino, N. J., in 1852. He was graduated from Yale College in 1876, and has been engaged in the banking business and connected with financial affairs in this city, being now vice-president of the Manhattan Trust Company. Mr. Kean resides at Ursino, and is a member of the Metropolitan, University and Essex County Country clubs, the Downtown Association and the Metropolitan Club, of Washington. Julian Halsted Kean, the second son, was born in 1854, was graduated from Yale in 1876, and is a member of the New York bar. He belongs to the Metropolitan, University, Players and Riding clubs, and the Downtown Association. Hamilton Fish Kean, the third son, was born in 1862, and in 1888 married Katharine Taylor Winthrop. He has two children, John and Robert Winthrop Kean. He resides in Park Avenue, and is a member of the Union, Knickerbocker, Metropolitan, St. Anthony and other clubs. Alexander Livingston Kean, the youngest son, was born in 1866. He is a member of the Metropolitan and other clubs. The eldest surviving daughter of the family, Christine Kean, married W. Emlen Roosevelt. The other daughters are unmarried.
The arms of the Kean family are: Argent, a chevron sable, between two doves, sable. The crest is a griffin's head proper, couped, with an olive branch in its beak. Motto: Mea Gloria Fides.
333
EDWARD KELLY
O NE of the direct ancestors of Mr. Edward Kelly was a member of the Irish Parliament in 1585, and the family is one of the most ancient and honorable in Ireland. The grandfather of Mr. Kelly was Thomas Boye O'Kelly, of Mullaghmore. During the reign of Queen Elizabeth the Mullaghmore branch of the family was deprived of much of its property. As a consequence, the head of the house moved to the North of Ireland and purchased an estate, still in the hands of his descendants. The ancestors of the O'Kellys for many generations were buried in the Abbey of Killconnel, which they founded in the fourteenth century, the first abbot having been Hugh O'Kelly, of Mullaghmore. In 1798, the grandfather of Mr. Edward Kelly took part in the political troubles which occasioned much disturbance in Ireland at that period and changed his name from O'Kelly to Kelly.
The late Eugene Kelly was born in County Tyrone, in 1806, and at the age of twenty-four came to the United States. When he landed in New York he had a small capital, and became a clerk in the mercantile house of Donnelly Bros. After a few years, he removed to Maysville, Ky., and went into business, but later on established himself in St. Louis. When the California excitement began, he saw the opportunity and went to San Francisco in the latter part of 1849, opening a mercantile establishment there in partnership with Joseph A. Donohoe, Daniel T. Murphy and Adam Grant. After ten years of prosperous business, the firm dissolved, and Mr. Kelly took part in founding the Pacific Coast banking house of Donohoe, Ralston & Co., in San Francisco, and the firm of Eugene Kelly & Co., in New York. For nearly thirty-five years this business was continued, until, in 1894, Eugene Kelly retired and the house was dissolved. He was a factor in railroad business and banking for a third of a century. He founded the Southern Bank of the State of Georgia and contributed largely to the rebuilding of the town hall of Charleston, S. C., after the war. He was a director in the National Park Bank, the Bank of New York, the Equitable Life Assurance Society, the Emigrant Industrial Savings Bank, and the Title Guarantee and Trust Company; while he was also connected with many other corporations of the greatest importance in the financial and railroad world.
He held an important position in the social life of the metropolis. A generous supporter of charity and education, he was one of the original life members of the National Academy of Design, for thirteen years a member of the Board of Education, a patron of the American Museum of Natural History and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and a member of the Chamber of Commerce. In 1884, he was Elector-at-Large and chairman of the Electoral College of the State. In the Roman Catholic Church, of which he was a member, he was a prominent layman, being one of the founders of the Catholic University of America, and a director until his death. He was also a trustee of Seton Hall College and a member of the committees which had oversight of the construction of St. Patrick's Cathedral, the Washington Memorial Arch and the Bartholdi Statue of Liberty erected in New York harbor.
The first wife of Eugene Kelly was a Miss Donnelly, who died in 1848. His daughter, Eugenia, by his marriage, became the wife of James A. G. Beales, of New York. In 1857, he married Margaret Hughes, niece of Archbishop John Hughes, and four sons by this marriage survived him-Eugene, Edward, Thomas Hughes and Robert J. Kelly.
Mr. Edward Kelly, the son of Eugene Kelly, was born in New York in 1863, and was educated at Stonyhurst College, Lancashire, England. He was engaged in the banking business with the firm of Eugene Kelly & Co., from 1881, and was a partner from 1885 till its dissolution in 1894. He is a patron of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, is a life member of the American Geographical Society, and also a member of various social clubs, and of the sheriff's jury, succeeding his father in that position. In 1882, Mr. Kelly married Helen Mitchell Pearsall, of the old Long Island family of that name. He has had three children: Helen Margaret Angela, born in 1884; Eugene Edward, who was born in 1890 and died in 1893, and Eugenia, born in 1895.
334
JOHN STEWART KENNEDY
N EW YORK owes much to its adopted citizens of Scottish birth. In the early history of the city many of its most enterprising settlers came from Scotland, and contributed by their energy and thrift to the commercial and industrial growth of the metropolis. After the close of the Revolutionary War, young men of the same nationality took a conspicuous part in the commercial activities of New York in that period. Since that time, also, others from the land of the thistle have followed in the footsteps of those who preceded them in earlier times.
Mr. John Stewart Kennedy is a conspicuous representative of that large and influential class of business men, and of patriotic citizens, who, of Scottish birth, have made this city the field of their activities and the scene of their successes. Mr. Kennedy was born near Glasgow, Scotland, on the banks of the River Clyde, in 1830. His father was John Kennedy and his mother Isabella Stewart. His family on both the paternal and maternal side were of good old Presbyterian stock. He was the sixth of a family of nine children, and received his elementary education in the Glasgow public schools. Early imbued with the importance of self-reliance and industry as indispensable factors of success in life, he began his business career in a shipping office in Glasgow, when he was thirteen years of age. After an apprenticeship of four years, he entered the office of an iron and coal company, where he remained for three years longer. During all this time he applied himself closely to his books and acquired a substantial education.
In 1850, Mr. Kennedy made his first visit to this country, traveling in Canada and the United States, in the interests of a firm engaged extensively in the iron trade. Establishing his head- quarters in New York, he remained in America about two years and then returned to England and took charge of the Glasgow house of the firm with which he was connected. Four years later, he came back to New York and for the next ten years was a partner in the firm of M. K. Jesup & Co., of New York, and Jesup, Kennedy & Co., of Chicago. In 1867, he retired temporarily from business, and spent a year in Europe in travel and recreation. The following year he returned to New York and established the firm of J. S. Kennedy & Co., which he conducted with uninterrupted prosperity until 1883, when he permanently retired, leaving the business to be carried on by his partners under the name of J. Kennedy Tod & Co. In addition to his business as merchant and banker, Mr. Kennedy was engaged in important railroad enterprises, serving as president, vice- president, director, receiver or trustee of many large corporations. Among other financial institutions and railroad companies, in which he has been a director, are: The National Bank of Commerce, the Manhattan Company's Bank, the Central Trust Company, the New York, Chicago & St. Louis Railroad Company, the Pittsburg, Fort Wayne & Chicago Railroad Company, and the New Brunswick Railroad Company.
Few citizens of New York have manifested a deeper public interset in the benevolent institutions of the city than Mr. Kennedy, or have been more open-handed in their benefactions. He is president of the Presbyterian Hospital, the Lenox Library and the board of trustees of the American Bible House of Constantinople, vice-president of the New York Historical Society, trustee of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the New York Society for the Ruptured and Crippled, the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church and the Theological Seminary of Princeton, N. J., and manager of the Board of Home Missions of the Presbyterian Church in the United States. The United Charities Building, at the corner of Twenty-second Street and Fourth Avenue, was built by him at his own expense, for the headquarters of the charity organizations of New York.
Mr. Kennedy married Emma Baker, daughter of Cornelius Baker. He lives in West Fifty- seventh Street, and his summer home is Kenarden Lodge, in Bar Harbor, Me. He is a member of the Metropolitan, Union League, Century, South Side Sportsmen's, Reform, Grolier, City, New York Yacht and Riding clubs, the Downtown Association, the American Geographical Society and the Mendelssohn Glee Club, and is a patron of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the National Academy of Design and the American Museum of Natural History.
335
WILLIAM KENT
T HOMAS KENT was probably a brother of Richard Kent, of Old Newberry, Mass., who came to America in the Mary and John from Gloucester, England, in 1638. Thomas was a resident of Gloucester, Mass., in 1644, and became the ancestor of an American family remarkable for the eminent professional men it has produced. His eldest son, Samuel Kent, was the father of John Kent, who settled in Suffield, Conn., about 1680, where he married Abigail Dudley, a daughter of William Dudley, of Saybrook, and had a family of nine children. The Reverend Elisha Kent, 1704-1776, the youngest son of John Kent, was graduated from Yale College in 1729. He became a minister of the Presbyterian Church of Newtown, Conn., but about 1740 moved to Dutchess County, now Putnam County, N. Y., and was minister of a church there. He has had many illustrious descendants, among them Dr. Elisha Kent Kane, the Arctic explorer, Chancellor James Kent and the present generations of Kanes, well known in New York.
The wife of Reverend Elisha Kent was a daughter of Reverend Joseph Moss, of Derby, and their son, Moss Kent, 1733-1794, graduated from Yale College in 1752, and was admitted to the bar in Dutchess County in 1755. About the time of the Revolutionary War, he removed to Green Farms and afterwards to Lansingburgh, N. Y., where he was a justice and surrogate. He had two sons, the younger, Moss Kent, Jr., State Senator and Member of Congress, dying unmarried. The eldest son of Moss Kent was the famous James Kent, Chancellor of the State of New York, the great-grandfather of Mr. William Kent. He was born in 1763, and spent his childhood, from 1768 to 1772, with his grandfather, Dr. Uriah Rogers, of Norwalk, Conn. He was elected to the New York Legislature in 1790, 1792 and 1796. Previous to 1798, he was Professor of Law in Columbia College. In 1796, Governor John Jay appointed him a Master-in-Chancery; in 1797, he was a Recorder of the City of New York; in 1798, a Justice of the Supreme Court of the State, and in 1804, its Chief Justice. He became Chancellor in 1814, and held that office until 1823. During his judicial career, he resided in Albany, but returning to New York, again became Professor in Columbia College and engaged in private practice. For many years he was president of the New York Historical Society. He was the author of Kent's Commentaries on American Law, a work found in the library of every American lawyer.
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