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 56
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Judge William Kent, son of Chancellor Kent, was born in Albany, in 1802. Graduated from Union College, he became a lawyer in New York, a Judge of the Circuit Court, 1841-45, and a Professor in Harvard College Law School, 1846-47. He returned to practice in New York in 1847, dying in Fishkill in 1861. The son of Judge William Kent was James Kent, who was born in 1830, studied law in his father's office, was admitted to the bar in 1851 and resided throughout his life in Fishkill-on-the-Hudson.
His son, Mr. William Kent, is descended on the maternal side from several early Connec- ticut and New York families. His great-great-grandfather, Moss Kent, married Hannah Rogers, a daughter of Dr. Uriah Rogers, of Connecticut. The wife of Chancellor Kent was Elizabeth Bailey, daughter of Colonel John Bailey, of Poughkeepsie, N. Y., and his wife, Altie Van Wyck, daughter of Theodore Van Wyck. Their son was the Honorable Theodorus Bailey, Member of Congress, 1793-1797 and 1799-1803, United States Senator in 1803 and Postmaster of New York. The grandmother of Mr. Kent, wife of Judge William Kent, was Helen Riggs, daughter of Caleb S. Riggs and granddaughter of Colonel William Burnet of the Continental Army.
Mr. William Kent was born in Fishkill-on-the-Hudson, March 19th, 1858. After graduating from Columbia College, he studied law and entered upon the practice of his profession in New York. He married, in 1881, Emily Lorillard, daughter of Pierre Lorillard. The children of Mr. and Mrs. Kent are William, Jr., Emily Lorillard, Peter Lorillard and Richard Kent. The residence of the family is at Tuxedo Park. Mr. Kent is a member of the Bar Association, the Columbia College Alumni Association, the New York State Bar Association and the Union, Country and New York Yacht clubs.
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JOSEPH FREDERIC KERNOCHAN
M ORE than twenty-five years ago, Joseph Kernochan was a famous merchant in New York. He was of Scottish birth, a member of a good family, and came to this country in the latter part of the eighteenth century. Soon after 1800, he was a clerk in the store of Thomas Powell, in Newburgh, N. Y. One of his fellow-clerks was Henry Parrish, a nephew of Thomas Powell, and the intimacy that sprang up between the two young man ulti- mately resulted in the establishment of one of the great dry goods houses of New York City in the early part of the present century. In 1833, only fourteen years after he had come to New York, Mr. Kernochan was able to retire with one of the largest fortunes of that day to his credit. He was a public-spirited man, interested in municipal affairs, and concerned in the highest social, literary and educational interests of the city. He was president of the Fulton Bank, and connected with other corporations, and was one of the earliest members of the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick. He married Margaret Seymour. She was a niece of Thomas Powell, and a cousin of her husband's subsequent partners, Henry and Daniel Parrish.
Mr. Joseph Frederic Kernochan is the son of Joseph and Margaret (Seymour) Kernochan. Born in New York, he was graduated from Yale College, in 1863, and from the Law School of Columbia College, in 1865. He has been engaged in the practice of law. His wife, whom he married in 1869, was Mary Stuart Whitney, a daughter of William Whitney and Mary Stuart Mc Vickar. The father of Mrs. Kernochan was born in 1816, and died in 1862. His wife was a daughter of James and Eweretta (Constable) McVickar, of Constableville, N. Y. James McVickar was a brother of the Reverend John McVickar, who was a professor in Columbia College for fifty- one years and a son of John McVickar and Abigail Moore, of Newtown, Long Island. Abigail Moore was a daughter of John Moore, granddaughter of Benjamin and Anna (Sackett) Moore, great-granddaughter of Samuel and Mary (Read) Moore, and the great-great-granddaughter of the Reverend John Moore, the first minister of Newtown. The father of Mrs. Kernochan was a son of the famous New York merchant, Stephen Whitney, and his wife, Harriet Suydam, daughter of Hendrick and Phœbe (Skidmore) Suydam, of Hallet's Cove, N. Y. Stephen Whitney was in the fifth generation of descent from Henry Whitney, one of the first settlers in Connecticut and Long Island. Mr. and Mrs. Kernochan have a town house in Madison Square, and their summer home is at the Highlands of Navesink, N. J. They have three children, Eweretta, Mary S. W. and Frederic Kernochan. Mr. Kernochan is a member of the Tuxedo, University, City and Yale clubs, the Bar Association and the Downtown Association.
James P. Kernochan, another son of Joseph Kernochan, was born in New York, in October, 1831. Inheriting wealth from his father, he never actively engaged in business, but devoted his time to the management of his own property and the John Rutgers Marshall, the Lorillard, the Gasquet and the Spencer estates. Besides his town house, at 384 Fifth Avenue, he owned a beautiful country place at Ochre Point, Newport, and large tracts of real estate in New York. He was a member of the Union, Metropolitan, Knickerbocker, New York Yacht, Riding, and Meadow Brook Hunt clubs, and was a member of St. James' Protestant Episcopal Church. He died as
a result of an accident, March, 1897. His wife, who survived him, was Catherine Lorillard, daughter of Peter Lorillard. Her mother was Catherine A. Griswold, daughter of Nathaniel L. Griswold, of the great china importing house of W. L. & George Griswold. Her grandfather was Peter A. Lorillard, who was born in 1763 and died in 1843, and her grandmother was Maria Dorothea Schultz. Her great-grandparents were Peter Lorillard and his wife, Catherine Moore, sister of Blazius Moore. James Lorillard Kernochan, son of James P. Kernochan, married Eloise Stevenson, has a country home, The Meadows, in Hempstead, Long Island, and a summer residence in Newport. He is a member of the Knickerbocker, Metropolitan, New York Yacht, Riding and Meadow Brook Hunt clubs, and of the American Geographical Society. His sister, Catherine Lorillard, is the wife of Herbert C. Pell.
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HENRY SCANLAN KERR
O N the paternal side, Mr. Henry S. Kerr is descended from an English family. His grandfather was George Kerr, a native of England, who came to this country in the early part of the present century. He settled in the West, and there his descendants have attained distinction in professional and public life, and have been eminently successful in business pursuits. William H. Kerr, son of George Kerr and father of the gentleman whose family is here under consideration, was for many years Prosecuting Attorney of Ohio. On his mother's side, Mr. Kerr is descended from one of the old families of Ireland. His mother was Harriet Scanlan, daughter of Stephen Scanlan, of Ireland, and his wife, Mary Hardy. Stephen Scanlan and his wife were for a long time residents of Canada. A sister of Harriet Scanlan is the wife of Charles T. Wing, of New York. Stephen Scanlan was a member of the family to which Tyrone Power, the celebrated Irish comedian and dramatist, belonged. He was a cousin of Tyrone Power and second cousin of the present Sir William Tyrone Power, member of Parliament, who was the eldest son of Tyrone Power, the actor. His maternal ancestors were of an old family of Waterford.
Mr. Kerr is a native of Cincinnati, O., having been born in that city, September 4th, 1865. His early education was secured in the Chickering Institute, of Cincinnati. He then completed a course of study in the Montgomery Bell Academy, in Nashville, Tenn., and was graduated from that institution with first honors and as valedictorian of his class. Coming to New York, he engaged in business pursuits, entering the office of his uncle, Charles T. Wing, in Wall Street. There he remained from 1885 until 1892. In the last-mentioned year, he joined in organizing the firm of Redmond, Kerr & Co., of Wall Street, of which he is now one of the active partners. Interested in military affairs, he enlisted in Squadron A of the National Guard of the State of New York soon after coming to this city, and served six years. During that time, he had practical military experience with his command in the Buffalo and the Brooklyn railroad riots and on other occasions. He attained to the rank of First Sergeant and received his honorable discharge in 1894.
On October 16th, 1895, Mr. Kerr married Olive Grace, daughter of John W. Grace, of New York. The father of Mrs. Kerr is a member of the firm of W. R. Grace & Co., South American importers and shipping merchants. He is the brother of former Mayor William R. Grace, being the second son of his father's family, and was the founder of the San Francisco branch of the Grace mercantile house. He belongs to one of the ancient and honorable families of Ireland. His father, James Grace, of Queens County, Ireland, was born in 1794 and lived at Sheffield House, where John W. Grace was born, in 1836. The wife of James Grace, whom he married in 1827, was Ellen Mary Russell, daughter of Michael Russell, of Ninagh, County Tip- perary. The Russell family is one of the well-known Protestant families of Ireland. James Grace died at Farranville House in 1869. He was the son of John Grace and Alice Horenden, John Grace being the great-grandson of Michael Grace, of Gracefield, 1682-1760, and Mary Galwey, daughter of John Galwey, of Lota House, County Cork. The Grace family was originally of Norman extrac- tion, and in the early centuries its members were large landholders in Queens County. Being devoted Catholics, they lost their possessions when Ireland was subjugated by the English, but they have still remained residents of the country with which their ancestors and themselves have been so conspicuously identified.
Mr. and Mrs. Kerr have one son, Henry Grace Kerr, who was born August 15th, 1896. Their residence is in East Seventy-fifth Street, at the corner of Madison Avenue, but they spend the summer months at their country place in Great Neck, Long Island. Mr. Kerr is a member of several of the leading clubs, including the Union League, Union and Racquet. Gentlemanly sports engage his attention to some extent, and he is a member of the New York Yacht Club and the Country Club of Westchester County. For several years he has been a member of the Chamber of Commerce, and as a loyal son of Ohio is a member of the Ohio Society.
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ALEXANDER PHOENIX KETCHUM
O N both sides of the house, Colonel Alexander Phoenix Ketchum and his brother, Edgar Ketchum, trace their ancestry from illustrious New York families. Their paternal grandparents were John Jauncey Ketchum and Susanna Jauncey, who were nearly related, having descended from Guleyn Vigne, one of the first settlers of New Amsterdam, who came to this country in the first decades of the seventeenth century. The son of Guleyn Vigne was Jean Vigne, the first male child born in New Amsterdam of European parents. The date of his birth has been set down as 1614, and his father owned a farm near Wall Street, then a suburb of the town of New Amsterdam, which property the son inherited. Jean Vigne also owned a large windmill, was a brewer as well as a farmer, and was one of the great burghers of the city and held several times the honorable position of a schepen. His three sisters were wedded by representatives of prominent Dutch families of that period. Maria married Abraham Verplank, ancestor of the famous New York family of that name which has had many notable represen- tatives in the history of the State. Christiana became the wife of Dirk Volckersten, and Rachel was the second wife of Cornelis Van Tienhoven.
It is from Cornelis Van Tienhoven and his wife Rachel that the Ketchums are descended, Sarah Van Tienhoven, their daughter, becoming the wife of John Jauncey, the father of John Jauncey Ketchum. Cornelis Van Tienhoven was an important member of the settlement of New Amsterdam. He was secretary under Governor William Kieft, and was retained in that position under Governor Peter Stuyvesant; was one of the first surveyors of the village, appointed in 1647; was sent by Stuyvesant as one of his representatives to The Hague in 1648, and was appointed to the office of sheriff in 1650. The mother of Colonel Ketchum was Elizabeth Phoenix, daughter of the Reverend Alexander Phoenix and Patty Ingraham. Alexander Phoenix was the eldest surviving son of Daniel Phoenix. To those who have studied the early social and political history of New York City, the name of Daniel Phoenix is sufficiently familiar, for he held many conspicuous and honorable positions. He was born about 1737, and as merchant and city officer played an active part in the commercial and public life of the city during and after the Revolutionary period. He was a man of wealth, for those days, and his reputation for financial ability and probity was such among his fellow citizens that he was selected by them to be their first city treasurer and their first city chamberlain when the municipality assumed its present form. For twenty years he held those posts and discharged their duties in a manner that commanded the admiration and the approval of the entire community. He was also a leading member of the Chamber of Commerce, and when General Washington entered the city, on November 26th, 1783, after the evacuation by the British troops, Mr. Phoenix headed the delegation that welcomed the Commander-in-Chief of the American forces. He died in 1812 and left several children, one of whom was the mother of Judge Daniel P. Ingraham, while another was the wife of the famous Richard Riker, the Recorder of New York City. The Reverend Alexander Phoenix was born in 1777 and graduated from Columbia College in 1794. He was pastor of the Congregational Church of Chicopee for many years and died in New York City, in 1863.
Edgar Ketchum, Sr., who married Elizabeth Phoenix, was born in 1811. He was a lawyer and a man of public affairs, at one time public administrator, for twelve years United States Loan Commissioner, Collector of Internal Revenue during President Lincoln's administration, and Register in Bankruptcy from 1867 to the time of his death, in 1882. Much of his time was devoted to educational and benevolent undertakings, and he was prominently identified with the administration of the public school system in the city, of which he was a great benefactor. During many years, he was president of the board of managers of the House of Refuge on Randall's Island. The Harlem Presbyterian Church, the Pilgrim Congregational Church in Harlem, the American Missionary Society, the Harlem Library and the Hampton Institute, for the education and training of colored youth, were also objects of his intelligent and benevolent attention. Mr. Ketchum had
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four sons and one daughter. The daughter of his family, Susan Ketchum, married the Reverend S. Bourne.
Colonel Alexander Phoenix Ketchum, the eldest son of Edgar Ketchum, was born in New Haven, Conn., May 11th, 1839. He was educated in the public schools, and graduated from the College of the City of New York with the degree of B. A. in 1858. In 1861, he received the degree of M. A., from his alma mater, and the same year was graduated from the Albany Law School with the degree of LL. B. When Fort Sumter was fired upon, he answered the call for troops, and was assigned to a place on the staff of General Rufus Saxton, Military Governor of South Carolina. Subsequently transferred to the staff of General O. O. Howard, he served until 1867, when he resigned from the army. In 1869, President Grant appointed him an assessor of internal revenue, from which position he was promoted to be collector of internal revenue, and in 1874 was appointed general appraiser in the customs department of the port of New York. During the administration of President Chester A. Arthur, in 1883, he again entered the service of the National Government and was made chief appraiser at New York, a position that he held for several years.
Colonel Ketchum left the public service to devote himself to the practice of law. He was admitted to the bar in 1860, and is now one of the leading lawyers of the metropolis. Interested in religious and educational matters, he was one of the promoters of the New York Collegiate Institute, and has been an active worker in the Young Men's Christian Association. He is a member of the Republican Club of New York, and of the Harlem Republican Club, the Military Order of the Loyal Legion, and the Bar Association of New York ; was president of the Presbyterian Social Union, and has been for several years president of the City College Club. His membership in other social organizations includes the Larchmont Yacht, Atlantic Yacht, New York Yacht, Quill and A A + clubs, the New England Society, and the American Museum of Natural History. He is also a member of the Board of Education of New York, having been originally appointed a commissioner by Mayor William L. Strong, to fill an unexpired term in that body, and was afterwards reappointed for the full term of three years. His residence is in Mount Morris Park West.
Edgar Ketchum, the second son of Edgar Ketchum, Sr., was born in New York, July 15th, 1840, and graduated from the College of the City of New York in 1860. He studied law in his father's office and afterwards in the Columbia College Law School, from which he was graduated, in 1862, with the degree of LL. B., and was admitted to the bar. The degree of A. M. was conferred upon him by his alma mater in 1863. But the practice of law was set aside by the call to battle, and he went to the front as an officer of the Regular Army, having previously served in the ranks of New York's celebrated Seventh Regiment. Appointed by the President an officer in the Signal Corps, he served in the Army of the James before Richmond, and took a conspicuous part in the second Fort Fisher expedition, and the capture of Fort Anderson and Wilmington, N. C. His gallant conduct twice brought him promotion, and in that campaign he served on the staff of Generals A. H. Terry, C. J. Paine, John M. Schofield and Jacob D. Cox. At the close of the Civil War, he formed the decision of leaving the army and was honorably discharged from the service with the rank of Captain.
Returning to civil life, he began the practice of law, to which he has devoted himself ever since. He renewed his connection with the Seventh Regiment, but was soon afterwards appointed Chief Engineer, with the rank of Major, in the First Brigade, First Division, New York National Guard. Resigning that position after three years of service, he gave up military life. He is still, however, connected with many social and military organizations, being a member of the Military Order of the Loyal Legion, the War Veterans of the Seventh Regiment, Post Lafayette, G. A. R., the Society of the Army of the Potomac, and the Veteran Signal Corps Association. He married Angelica S. Anderson, daughter of Smith W. Anderson, and granddaughter of James Anderson, in 1870, and has two children, one son and one daughter. He lives in the northern part of the city, in a house that stands upon part of the Anderson ancestral estate.
340
EDWARD KING
H ISTORY has awarded to Rufus King one of the highest places among American statesmen and patriots of the period which succeeded the Revolution. Born at Scarborough, Me., in 1755, the son of a merchant, Richard King, he graduated at Harvard in 1777, and in the following year served as aide to General Glover in an expedition to Rhode Island. In 1784-86, he was a delegate from Massachusetts to the Congress of the Confederation, and had the honor of proposing the immediate prohibition of slavery in the Northwest territory. He acted on the commission which settled the boundary between Massachusetts and New York, and in 1787 was one of the Massachusetts delegation to the convention which framed the Constitution of the United States. In 1786, he married Mary, daughter of the patriotic New York merchant, John Alsop, who had been a member of the first Continental Congress in 1774-76, of the New York Provincial Congresses of 1775-76, and the Committee of Safety in 1775. Removing to New York in 1788, Rufus King, who was already one of the champions of Federalism, found his adopted State no less ready than Massachusetts had been to bestow its honors on him. In 1789, it elected him, with General Schuyler, as its first United States Senators, and in 1796 he became Minister to England, where he remained till 1803. After ten years passed in private life, he was, in 1813, a second time elected a Senator by the State of New York, and was again chosen in 1819. When in the Senate, he combated slavery and opposed the Missouri Compromise. Appointed Minister to England once more, in 1825, he was forced by failing health to resign the position and returned to New York to die in 1827, after devoting fifty years of honorable and successful service to his country, leaving a name second to none among the patriots of that portion of our history as a nation.
His sons were John Alsop King, Governor of New York in 1857; Charles King, president of Columbia College, and James Gore King, the famous banker. The latter, Mr. Edward King's father, was born in New York in 1791, and died in 1853. He was educated in Europe, and in 1813 married Sarah Rogers Gracie, daughter of Archibald Gracie. Between 1818 and 1824, he resided in Liverpool, engaged in the American trade, but returned to New York to become a partner in the banking house of Prime, Ward & King. He was a Member of Congress in 1849, and was president of the Chamber of Commerce, while his services to the mercantile community are too numerous for rehearsal. One instance, however, must be mentioned. After the panic of 1837 and the suspension of specie payments, he went to London, and by his influence and ability induced the Bank of England to advance five million dollars in gold to his firm, which was the basis for the resumption of specie payments throughout the United States.
Mr. Edward King is the son of James Gore King and his wife, Sarah Rogers Gracie, and was born at the family country seat, Highwood, Weehawken, N. J., in 1833. He graduated from Harvard, and has been president of the Harvard Club of New York. Mr. King engaged in banking, and served as president of the New York Stock Exchange. In 1873, he was called to the presidency of the Union Trust Company, at a time when that institution's affairs were in a critical state. Under Mr. King's management, its position was soon restored and its present prosperity attained. He has taken no active part in public life, but has lent his influence in aid of the Government, giving assistance as well as expert counsel to the secretaries of the United States Treasury on occasions of difficulty with the national finances.
Mr. King is president of the St. Nicholas Society, and is a member of the Century Association, the Harvard and University clubs, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the National Academy of Design. He is also a member and treasurer of the board of trustees of the New York Public Library, Astor-Lenox-Tilden Foundations, and a governor of the New York Hospital. His residence in town is 1 University Place, and he has a country seat at Grymes Hill, Staten Island. He married, in early life, Isabella Ramsey Cochrane, niece of Dean Ramsey, of Edinburgh, and some years after her death contracted a second marriage with Elizabeth Fisher, of Philadelphia.
34I
ISAAC LEWIS KIP
I N the earliest annals of New Netherland, the name of Kip holds an honorable and distinguished place. Even before the first permanent settlements of the Hollanders were made on the shores of the Hudson, members of this notable old Dutch family took an active part in the work of exploration. Hendrick Kype was among the associates who, in 1594, dispatched an expedition from Holland for the purpose of discovering a northeast passage from Europe to the Indies, and on the failure of this attempt sent Hendrick Hudson upon his fruitful voyage to America in 1609. It will be remembered that the purpose of Hudson's exploration was to open up a sea route to the Pacific, and that his first impressions of our noble bay and the great river beyond were that they answered the object of his search. Disappointed in this respect, the accounts which Hudson brought back, however, led to the resolution of the Dutch West India Company to colonize New Netherland. In this, as in earlier efforts, Hendrick Kype took part, and in 1635 came to the infant settlement of New Amsterdam. He shortly, however, returned to the old country.
The De Kype family, from whom have come the Kips who have held high position in New York, formerly lived near Alençon, Bretagne, France. Ruloff Kype, grandson of Ruloff De Kype, who fell in battle in 1562, settled in Amsterdam, and Hendrick Kype, the American pioneer, was his son, born in 1576. Hendrick Kype had three sons, who remained in this country, Hendrick, Jacob and Isaac. Hendrick married a daughter of Nacasius de Sille. Jacob Kip is referred to on the following page of this volume as the ancestor of another branch of this historic family. From Isaac Kype, or Kip as the name finally became, is derived the branch of the family that has been represented in New York's social and business affairs in the present generation by the gentleman who is the subject of this sketch.
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