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 58

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

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When Grover Cleveland was elected President of the United States, in 1884, Mr. Lamont went to Washington with him as his private secretary. In the larger field of national affairs, he displayed the same qualities that had brought him into prominence at Albany, and won a national reputation as one of the ablest private secretaries of the Executive who had ever entered the White House. When the first administration of President Cleveland was at an end, Mr. Lamont became associated with the Honorable William C. Whitney and other capitalists in the manage- ment of the Metropolitan Traction Company and other corporations in this city. In 1892, he contributed much by his labors to the reelection of Grover Cleveland to the Presidency and to the success of the Democratic party in the general election of that year. In the formation of the new Cabinet, in 1893, Mr. Lamont was named Secretary of War, and held that portfolio throughout President Cleveland's second term of office. He was in that office eminently successful in the administration of the business of the War Department.

Since the close of President Cleveland's last term, in 1897, Mr. Lamont has remained in private life. He has, however, been mentioned for the Governorship of the State of New York, for the mayoralty of the city, and for a seat in the United States Senate. But to the present, he devotes his attention to business affairs. In the summer of 1897, he was elected to the vice- presidency of the Northern Pacific Railway Company and is president of the Northern Pacific Express Company. He is also a director in the Syracuse, Binghamton & New York Railroad Com- pany, the Monongah Railway Company, the National Union Bank and the American Surety Company. For some years past, his home has been in New York, save when residing in Wash- ington on account of his public duties. He lives at 26 West Fifty-third Street. He married Juliet Kinney, daughter of Orson A. Kinney, of McGrawville, Cortland County, N. Y., their family consisting of four young daughters.

Mr. Lamont is a member of the Metropolitan, Colonial, Lotos, Lawyers' and Democratic clubs, and the Union Alumni Association, and is a patron of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Union College conferred upon him the degree of A. M., in 1886.

348

FRANCIS G. LANDON

F ORTUNE and position in the social world of New York have never been any bar to the performance on the part of their possessors of useful and energetic service to the city and to the community at large. The gentleman to whom this article is devoted is an exemplar of the facts just referred to. The possessor of an honored family name, identified with the leading religious and benevolent interests of the metropolis, as well as with its most important business and financial organizations, and enjoying an extensive connection among the best social elements of the metropolis, joined to cultivated tastes and to sufficient means to gratify them at will, he has devoted his time and attention to the performance of duties of an exacting character in connection with an organization which has made itself a matter of pride to the city of his birth, and which, in addition to this, is a real bulwark of the entire community under the reign of law and liberty.

Mr. Landon's father, the late Charles Griswold Landon, was a descendant of English ancestors, whose settlement in the town of Southold, Long Island, dates back to 1640. In the course of time, some of its representatives became allied with old and notable Connecticut families, and took up their residence in that State. Charles Griswold Landon was born at Guilford, Conn., in 1818. He engaged in business in New Haven, but in 1842 came to New York, and was, for some years, a partner in the firm of S. B. Chittenden and its successor, George Bliss & Co., becoming finally head of the wholesale house of Charles G. Landon & Co. He was long identified with Grace Church Parish, of which he was the senior warden for many years, and was noted for his devotion to religious and benevolent work. He was a trustee of St. Luke's Hospital, and among other positions of prominence which he held in the business and financial world was that of a director in the Equitable Life Assurance Society, the Greenwich Savings Bank, the Central Trust Company and the Bank of America. He married, in 1849, Susan H. Gordon, daughter of Charles Gordon, of Virginia, and a descendant of the Hunt, Hunters and other distinguished families of the Old Dominion. She died in 1885. The children of this marriage were Henry H., Edward H., and Francis G. Landon ; Annie, the wife of L. Townsend Howes, and Mary G., wife of Dallas Bache Pratt. Mr. Landon died in New York City in 1893.

Mr. Francis G. Landon was born in New York, in 1859, and after completing his preparatory education at schools in this city, became an undergraduate at Princeton College, receiving his degree in the class of 1881. He has not engaged in active business, and has devoted himself, so far as cares of that nature are concerned, to the management of his property. He is a member of a number of the leading athletic and social organizations of the city, including the Racquet, New York Athletic and University clubs, as well as of the Calumet Club, the Country Club of Westchester County, the Princeton Club, and others of similar character and objects, and has been active in furthering their interests.

It is, however, with the staff of the famous Seventh Regiment, New York National Guard, that Mr. Landon has been most intimately identified. He joined the organization as a private in 1882, and was successively promoted to the various minor grades of military rank, in this notable regiment, up to that of First Sergeant of his company, the duties of which he assumed in 1887. He was distinguished from the beginning of his military service with the Seventh as a keen and enthusiastic soldier, and when, in 1891, a vacancy occurred in the position of Adjutant of the regiment, he was selected for that very responsible and exacting post. The honor was the more signal because the custom had invariably been to appoint a commissioned officer as Adjutant. Since April, 1895, he has been Captain of Company I of the Seventh.

Mr. Landon is to a rational extent a devotee of athletic and outdoor sport. He is also noted as an amateur actor of considerable versatility and talent, and has taken part, with great success, in a number of entertainments of that character. In May, 1897, Mr. Landon married Mary Hornor Toel, daughter of William Toel, of this city.

349

WOODBURY LANGDON

N TEW HAMPSHIRE, the establishment of which as a Colony followed that of Massachusetts by only a few years, attracted some of the best elements of the original Puritan emigra- tion. Among the families of this class which made it their home none have had a more notable position from the earliest times down to the present day than the Langdons. The first representative of that name in America crossed the ocean with the early Puritan emigration, since which time his descendants have held an honorable and distinguished place in New England's annals, while several of them have attained to national distinction by the prominent part that they have taken in public affairs. Tobias Langdon, who settled at Portsmouth, N. H., in 1662, became a selectman of the town two years later, and was otherwise locally prominent. He was the ancestor of Mr. Woodbury Langdon, who is the ninth in descent from the original Puritan immigrant of his name.

Mr. Langdon's progenitors were long identified with the town of Portsmouth, N. H., where several generations of the family were leading merchants. His great-grandfather, Wood- bury Langdon, was an ardent patriot during the Revolution, and was one of the leading men who brought New Hampshire into line in the struggle for independence. He was also, after the peace, a Judge of the Supreme Court of New Hampshire, serving from 1786 to 1789. The patriot's brother, John Langdon, was also a strong figure in the Revolutionary annals of New Hampshire, and after independence was achieved became Governor of the State for two terms, and a United States Senator. The present Mr. Langdon's father was also named Woodbury, and was a prominent merchant of Portsmouth, having large shipping interests in the days when America's merchant marine was a powerful factor in international commerce. His wife was Frances Cutter, daughter of Jacob Cutter, of Portsmouth, the Cutter family being of old New Hampshire descent, and of high social prominence.

Born October 22d, 1836, in the town where his family had been eminent for so many generations, Mr. Woodbury Langdon was educated at the celebrated Portsmouth Grammar School, in which some of the most famous men of New England received their training. He prepared for a college course, and only abandoned that intention because of his preference for a business career. He accordingly entered a Boston mercantile house at an early age, and in 1863 came to New York in charge of its business in this city. Since that date, Mr. Langdon has been most notably identified with the larger mercantile interests of New York. Among other positions of a prominent character in the financial world, he is a director of the New York Life Insurance Com- pany, the National Bank of Commerce, the Central National Bank, and the German American Insurance Company. He has been a member of the Chamber of Commerce for many years, has served on the executive committee of the organization since 1888, and has been active in con- serving the interests with which that important commercial organization is chiefly concerned.

In spite of the many responsibilities his business entails, Mr. Langdon has taken part in movements for the advancement of the city's interests. He has not been active in politics in the ordinary sense, and yet has recognized the duty which leading citizens of his own character and influence owe to the community at large. Tenders of public office he has often refused, but was prevailed upon to accept the position of a member of the Rapid Transit Commission. He is a Republican in national affairs, and is a member and served as vice-president of the Union League Club. In early life, he married Edith Eustis Pugh, daughter of David B. Pugh. She died some years since, and in 1896 Mr. Langdon contracted a second alliance, espousing Elizabeth Langdon Elwyn, daughter of Alfred L. Elwyn, of Philadelphia.

Besides the Union League, Mr. Langdon belongs to the Lawyers' and New York Athletic clubs, and was one of the founders, having long been an officer also, of the Merchants' Club. His town house is in West Forty-fifth Street, and he also has a country place at Fox Point, Newington, N. H.

350

CHARLES LANIER

W HEN John Washington, the great-grandfather of the first President of the United States, came to America from England, in 1655, he was accompanied by several friends, chief among whom was Thomas Lanier, a Huguenot refugee from France. They settled in Westmoreland County, Va., and in due course of time Thomas Lanier married a daughter of John Washington. From this couple have descended the Laniers in this country, who can claim a Colonial lineage. Sidney Lanier, the poet, was of this family, and other members of it have been distinguished in professional and commercial life. During the Revolutionary War, James Lanier, the great-grandfather of Mr. Charles Lanier, was a Captain of cavalry, in Colonel William Washington's Regiment, and a planter of considerable means, of which he gave freely to the patriot cause. In the War of 1812, his son, Alexander Chalmers Lanier, served under Harrison, and died as a result of his military service.

A son of Major Alexander Chalmers Lanier was James F. D. Lanier, for thirty years one of the leading bankers of New York. He was born, in 1800, at Washington, Beaufort County, N. C., and was educated in an academy at Newport, Ky., and in private schools. An appointment to the military academy at West Point was declined for family reasons, the death of his father having imbued his mother's mind with a deep seated aversion to military life. He graduated from the Transylvania Law School, in 1823, and began the practice of his profession in Madison, Ind. The same year he received the appointment of assistant clerk of the Indiana House of Representatives, and, in 1827, became the chief clerk of that body. In 1833, he assisted in organizing the Madison branch of the State Bank of Indiana, and was its first president. His genius for finance showed itself in this new position, and, in 1847, he was sent to London to arrange the settlement of the State debt of Indiana, a delicate mission, which he successfully accomplished. Two years later he removed to New York City, and, with Richard H. Winslow, started the firm of Winslow, Lanier & Co., primarily for the promotion of Western railroad interests, and afterwards for a general banking business. Mr. Lanier was always a public spirited and a patriotic man, and during the Civil War gave the government and the State of Indiana much practical assistance. He died in New York, in 1881.

The mother of Mr. Charles Lanier, wife of James F. D. Lanier, was Elizabeth Gardner, a member of one of the historic families of the State of Kentucky. She had seven children, five daughters and two sons. Mr. Charles Lanier was born in Madison, Ind., January 19th, 1837, and educated in New Haven, Conn. At the age of twenty-three, he was admitted to member- ship in the firm of Winslow, Lanier & Co., and is now the head of that house. He has been a director in many corporations, such as the West Shore Railroad, the Central Railroad of New Jersey, the Western Union Telegraph Company, the Central Trust Company, the Central and South American Telegraph Company, the National Bank of Commerce, and others.

Mr. Lanier married Sarah Egleston, daughter of the late Thomas Egleston. He belongs to the Tuxedo, Union, Metropolitan, Union League, Knickerbocker, Players, Riding, Lawyers', Aldine, New York Yacht, and Mendelssohn clubs, the Century Association, and the New England Society ; is a trustee of the American Museum of Natural History, and a supporter of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the American Geographical Society. His city home is in East Thirty-seventh Street, and his country seat is Allen Winden, Lenox, Mass. He has a family of one son and three daughters. His eldest daughter, Sarah Egleston, married Francis C. Lawrance, Jr., and died April 20th, 1893 ; Fannie L. is the wife of Francis R. Appleton ; Elizabeth G. is the wife of George E. Turnure. The son of Mr. Lanier is James F. D. Lanier, who was born in New York, in 1858, and was educated at Princeton University, graduating in 1880. He is engaged in the banking business, being a member of the firm of Winslow, Lanier & Co. His wife was Harriet A. Bishop. He belongs to the Tuxedo, Metropolitan, Union, Knickerbocker, Meadowbrook Hunt, Princeton, Calumet and Racquet clubs.

351

CHARLES PERCY LATTING

I N the fifteenth century, Pierre Lettin, who was the earliest known ancestor of the Lettin or Latting, family, lived at Malines, Flanders. His son, grandson and great-grandson, who in three successive generations bore the name of Jean Lettin, were secretaries and registrars of the Supreme Tribunal of Malines. John Lettin, in 1567, driven from his native land by the persecutions instigated by the Duke of Alva, settled in Norwich, England, where he died in 1640. From this John Lettin was descended Richard Lettin, Lattin or Latting, who in 1638 came from England to this country. First, he went to Concord, Mass., removed in 1646 to Fairfield, Conn., in 1653 came to Hempstead, Long Island, in 1661 settled in Huntington, and two years after removed to Oyster Bay. At Oyster Bay, he purchased from the Matinnecock Indians a large tract of land, where he established his family upon an estate that was named Lattingtown.

Josias Latting, son of Richard Latting and Joana Ireland, the head of the family in the next generation, was born in Concord, Mass., in 1641, and married, in 1667, Sarah Wright, daughter of Nicholas Wright. He resided at Oyster Bay, Huntington and Matinnecock, Long Island, was the owner of extensive landed property and held many public offices. William Latting, son of Joseph and Mary (Butler) Latting, 1739-1812, married Sarah Carpenter, daughter of Zeno Carpenter. He was a great-grandson of Richard Latting, the pioneer. Charles Latting, the grandfather of Mr. Charles Percy Latting, was the fifth in descent from Richard Latting. Most of his life was passed in mercantile pursuits, in association with his brothers in the firm of Latting & Deall, shipping merchants. His wife was Elizabeth Frost, daughter of Stephen Frost.

John J. Latting, the father of Mr. Charles Percy Latting, was a well-known lawyer, geneal- ogist and litterateur of the generation that is just passing away. He was born in Lattingtown, Long Island, in 1819, prepared for college in the Oyster Bay Academy, and entered Middlebury College, Vermont, in 1835, graduating in 1837. Studying law in the office of Francis B. Cutting, he was admitted to the bar in 1842. He began practice with Charles B. Moore, afterwards entered the firm of Cutting, Moore & Latting, then was successively associated with Lathrop S. Eddy and Caleb S. Woodhull, and a member of the firm of Wakeman, Latting & Phelps. In 1885, he retired and went to Europe, where he spent some time in travel. He died in New York in 1890.

The mother of Mr. Charles Percy Latting was Harriet A. Emerson, daughter of the Reverend Brown Emerson, of Salem, Mass. The father of Mrs. Latting was born in Ashley, Mass., in 1778, and died in Salem in 1872. Graduated from Dartmouth College, in 1802, he was ordained in 1805 as the colleague of the Reverend Daniel Hopkins, in the old South Church of Salem, remaining there until his death, a period of sixty-seven years, being sole pastor from 1816 to 1849. The mother of Mrs. Latting was Mary Hopkins, daughter of the Reverend Daniel Hopkins, the immediate predecessor of her husband in the pastorate of the old South Church. Daniel Hopkins was graduated from Yale College, in 1758, was a member of the Provincial Congress in 1775, and one of the leading Congregational ministers of Eastern Massachusetts in his generation. He was the great-grandson of Edward Hopkins, of Shrewsbury, England, an eminent merchant of London, who came to Boston in 1637.

Mr. Charles Percy Latting is the eldest child of his father's family. He was born in New York, May 28th, 1850. His brothers are Walter S. and Arthur D. Latting, and his sister is Harriet Emerson van Benthuysen, widow of Clarence R. van Benthuysen, of Albany. Two sisters, Grace Vernon and Alice Maud Latting, died in infancy. Mr. Latting is a graduate of Yale College, in the class of 1873, is a lawyer, and has held the office of United States Loan Commissioner for many years. His clubs are the University and Seawanhaka-Corinthian Yacht, and he also belongs to the Sons of the Revolution and the Bar Association of New York. He married Isabella W. Carter, daughter of James Carter, of Aberdeen, Scotland, and has three children, Helen Leslie, Emerson and Charles Percy Latting, Jr. He lives in West Thirty-eighth Street and has a country residence, Werah House, on the old family property in Lattingtown, Long Island.

352

EDWARD LAUTERBACH

N EAR the historic city of Nuremburg, in the hill country of Bavaria, is the town of Burgkundstadt, the acknowledged centre for many years of the Liberal party of Germany. Mr. Lauterbach's family were for more than four centuries among the leading professional men and merchants of this community. One of the most prominent of the number was Aaron Wolfgang Lauterbach, 1752-1826, a graduate of the University of Prague, and noted for his erudition, as well as for a remarkable share of wit and humor. Solon Lauterbach, the father of the subject of this article, was the youngest of his six children, and was born in 1806. Of an adven- turous spirit, and chafing under the political tyranny which oppressed Germany at that era, and which finally led to the Revolution of 1848, he left his ancestral home for this country in 1840, dying in New York in 1860. His wife, Mina Rosenbaum, was a member of a family noted for their intellectual gifts, a quality which she inherited to a remarkable degree. Her memory for poetry was particularly retentive, and she was noted as a Shakespearian scholar. She died in 1890, leaving three children, of whom Mr. Edward Lauterbach is the eldest.

Mr. Edward Lauterbach was born in New York in 1844, and was educated at the College of the City of New York, graduating in the class of 1864 with high honors. He has been for some time vice-president of the alumni of his alma mater and takes an active interest in its welfare, and is also a member of + B K. In 1870, Mr. Lauterbach married Amanda Friedman, daughter of Arnold Friedman, a retired merchant of this city. The Friedman family was also of prominence in the same portion of Bavaria from which Mr. Lauterbach's ancestors came. They were for generations respected and wealthy merchants, Aaron Friedman, 1740-1824, her great-great-grand- father, having been the owner of the baronial castle of Kunds, at Burgkundstadt, from which fortress the place took its name. Mrs. Lauterbach's grandparents, Samuel Friedman, 1796-1880, and Sarah (Greis) Friedman, 1800-1872, were noted for their philanthropy and benev- olence, having endowed the school of the district in which they lived, while Madame Friedman, at her death, bequeathed all her personal fortune to the poor of her city. Mrs. Lauterbach's mother, Wilhemina Straubel Friedman, was the daughter of Frederick Straubel, of Green Bay, Wis., whose wife belonged to a titled Saxon family. Mr. and Mrs. Lauterbach have four children : a son, Alfred, now an Assistant District Attorney of the County of New York, who took the degree of B. A. at Columbia in 1890, and LL. B. at the New York Law School in 1892, and three daughters, Edith, Florence and Alice. Florence is a graduate of the law school of the University of the City of New York, in 1897. Possessing a well trained voice, Mrs. Lauterbach has utilized it for the advantage of the many charities with which she is connected, and others. She also has been instrumental, after years of effort, in securing the passage of philanthropic measures, such as the laws known as the Mercantile Bill and the Anti-Sweaters' Bill, regulating beneficially the employ- ment of certain industrial classes.

Admitted to the bar of this city soon after his graduation from college, Mr. Lauterbach has been distinguished not only in its practice and for the possession of forensic and political oratorical powers, but as a law maker, having drafted and secured the adoption of many important public measures. While not an active politician, he takes a deep interest in public affairs, and was honored in 1894 by election as a delegate at. large to the New York Constitutional Convention. He is also a leader in the Republican party in the city and State of New York, and for two years, 1895-1897, was the Chairman of the County Committee of the party in this city, and in 1896 was a delegate at large for New York to the National Convention at St. Louis, which nominated Mr. Mckinley. He has been professionally and personally associated with the largest financial and commercial enterprises of the country and with the leaders of contemporary business and finance in New York. Though closely occupied with his profession and with the care of vast interests, Mr. Lauterbach finds rest and relaxation in society, and is noted for his devotion to music and the drama.

353

ABRAHAM RIKER LAWRENCE

T has been said of the Lawrences that "they were related to all that was most illustrious in England, to the ambitious Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, the favorite courtier of Queen Elizabeth, and to Sir Philip Sidney, who refused a throne." The earliest ancestor of this family, of whom there is an authentic record, was Sir Robert Lawrence, of Ashton Hall, Lancashire, who accompanied King Richard Cœur de Lion to Palestine, and was the first to plant his standard on the walls of Acre in 1191. His grandson, Sir James Lawrence, in the time of Henry Ill., married Matilda Washington. Among the descendants of this marriage were Sir John Lawrence, who, in the reign of Henry VII., was the owner of thirty-four manors; Henry Lawrence, a member of the Long Parliament, and William Lawrence, the friend of Milton.

The family was one of the first of distinction to send its representatives from England to the New World. Three sons of William Lawrence came to the American Colonies. John and William arrived in the ship Planter, and Thomas Lawrence, the youngest brother, afterwards joined them. They went first to New England, where their kinsman, Henry Lawrence, had received with Lord Say and Seal, Lord Brooke, Saltonstall and others a large grant of land in Connecticut, from which the settlement of Saybrook originated. Later they came to New Netherland and became landowners, men of wealth and influence in the Province. John Lawrence was Mayor of New York from 1673 to 1675, and again in 1691, and was a Justice of the Supreme Court and a member of the Governor's Council from 1672 to 1679. He left no male descendants.

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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 58

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