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 61
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365
WILLIAM LIBBEY
1 OHN LIBBEY, who was born in England about 1602, came to America about 1630 and settled near what is now Scarborough, Me. During King Philip's War, he and his family were compelled to flee to Portsmouth, N. H., and then to Boston for safety. Subsequently they returned to Maine, and there he accumulated a competency before he died, at the age of eighty. Anthony Libbey, son of the pioneer John Libbey, was born in Scarborough about 1649, and lived in his native town and in Falmouth, N. H., where he died in 1718. His son, Isaac, who was born about 1690, in Hampton, N. H., spent most of his life in Rye and took an active part in the settlement of the town of Epsom. His grandson, Reuben Libbey, who was born in Rye in 1734, served a year in the Continental Army, in 1776, and died in Albany in 1820.
In the next generation Samuel Libbey, born in Rye in 1757, during the Revolution, was a soldier in a New Hampshire Regiment and was present at the surrender of General Bur- goyne. He also went on several privateering cruises, in which he was generally successful, but on two occasions was made a prisoner. William Seavey Libbey, the son of Samuel Libbey and the father of the subject of this sketch, was born in Rye, N. H., in 1787. His mother was Mehitable Seavey, daughter of William and Ruth (Moses) Seavey, of Rye. During the early years of his life he lived in Salem, Mass., but subsequently removed to Newburgh, N. Y., and then to New Brighton, Staten Island, where he died in 1869. His first wife was Sarah Farrington, daughter of Deacon Daniel and Sarah Farrington, of Windsor, Vt. She died in 1826, and he afterwards married Elizabeth Winfield, daughter of Dr. Richard Winfield, of New York.
William Libbey, son of the foregoing, was born in Newburgh, N. Y., March 7th, 1820. Prepared for college, circumstances compelled him to forego a college career and to engage in business. When he was fifteen years of age he entered a jobbing dry goods house in New York and remained about seven years. Continuing in this line of trade, in 1850 he became a member of the firm of Hastings, Libbey & Forbey, and subsequently was a member of the firm of William Libbey & Graef, which had branches in Philadelphia, and in Dresden and Aix-la-chapelle, Germany. In 1859, he became associated as partner and general manager with Alexander T. Stewart, and was at the time of Mr. Stewart's death his sole surviving partner. After that event, in 1876, he was associated with ex-Judge Henry Hilton in the great dry goods house for a few years, when he retired from active business. He was an executor of Mr. Stewart's will, was for many years a director of the National Bank of Commerce, the New York, Lake Erie & Western Railroad and the American Pig Iron Storage Warrant Com- pany, a member of the executive committee of the New York Historical Society, a trustee of the Sun Insurance Company and the United States Trust Company, and of Princeton University and Theological Seminary, a life member of the New England Society and American Geographical Society and connected with many charitable institutions. His contributions to charity and edu- cation were munificent, and he was especially a generous benefactor of Princeton University. His residence on Washington Heights still remains one of the finest estates upon that part of Manhattan Island.
In 1850, Mr. Libbey married Elizabeth Marsh, of Louisiana, daughter of Jonas Marsh and Elizabeth Morse. His eldest son, William, married Mary Elizabeth Green, daughter of Professor William Henry Green, of Princeton, N. J., and is a professor in Princeton University. Jonas Marsh Libbey, the second son of William Libbey, was born in Ridgewood, N. J., in 1857. He was graduated from Princeton, in 1877, and from 1877 to 1884 was editor and proprietor of The Princeton Review. He is a member of the Union League, Larchmont Yacht, Authors' and Press clubs and of the New England Society, and is a patron of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Frederick A. Libbey, the youngest son of William Libbey, was born in Jersey City, in 1860, graduated from Princeton in 1883, and married Helen Irving Dennis, of Wilkes Barre, Pa., in 1890. He lives at Montclair. N. J., and is engaged in business in New York.
366
JOHNSTON LIVINGSTON
A MONG the families in the United States descended from the ancient nobility of Eng- land and Scotland, none have a more distinct title, or a lineage more clearly traced, than that of Livingston. The immediate ancestor of the American family was the Reverend John Livingston, of Ancram-in-Teviotdale, who was born in 1603, and who, from religious persecution, went or was exiled to Holland. He married Janet Fleming, daughter of Bartholomew Fleming, of Edinburgh, and died in 1672. He was the son of the Rev- erend William Livingston, minister at Lanark, and Agnes Livingston, and a maternal grandson of the Reverend Alexander Livingston, minister at Monyabrook, and his wife, Barbara Livingston, daughter of William Livingston, of Kilsyth. William Livingston was descended in the seventh generation through the Livingstons and Erskines, from James l. of Scotland and Lady Jane Beau- fort, by their daughter, Princess Janette Stuart and her second husband, James Douglas.
According to the authority of Burke, in his Vicissitudes of Families, the house of Liv- ingston was founded in Scotland by Levingus, who is said to have been of noble Hungarian descent and settled in West Lothian toward the end of the eleventh century. Burke says: "Amongst the chief historical families of Scotland few have risen at various periods to greater power or higher honors, or have possessed more extensive estates than the Livingstons." The representation of the main line eventually merged in the younger branch of Callender, which had risen to great power by its acquisition of the ancient Thanedom of Callender, or Calynter. The Livingstons and the Callenders married with the most illustrious houses of Scotland, even the cadet branches following this aristocratic rule. To Robert Livingston, son of the Reverend John Livingston, Queen Anne granted a tract of land in the Province of New York, which became the Manor of Livingston. He was born in 1651, came to America in 1673 and died in 1728. His wife was Alida (Schuyler) Van Rensselaer, daughter of Philip Pieterse Schuyler.
Mr. Johnston Livingston is descended in direct male line from the first Robert Livingston through the eldest son, Philip Livingston, 1686-1749, second Lord of the Manor, and his wife, Cath- arine Van Brugh, daughter of Peter Van Brugh, Mayor of Albany, and Robert Livingston, 1708- 1790, the third Lord of the Manor, and his first wife, Mary Tong, daughter of Walter Tong and great-granddaughter of Rip Van Dam. The grandfather of Mr. Johnston Livingston was Robert Cambridge Livingston, 1741-1794, who married Alice Swift, daughter of John Swift, of Phila- delphia. His parents were John Swift Livingston, 1785-1867, and Anna M. N. Thompson, daughter of Adjutant William T. Thompson, of the Pennsylvania Line in the Revolution.
Mr. Johnston Livingston, the eldest surviving son of John Swift Livingston, was born in 1817. He was educated in Union College and has been identified with important railroad interests. In 1851, he married Sylvia Livingston, daughter of Henry W. Livingston and Caroline De Grasse De Pau. Mrs. Livingston's father was a son of Henry W. Livingston and Mary M. Allen, grand- daughter of Chief Justice William Allen, of Pennsylvania. The parents of the first Henry W. Livingston were Walter Livingston and Cornelia Schuyler, and his grandparents were Robert Livingston, third Lord of the Manor, and Mrs. Gertrude Schuyler, his second wife. The town residence of Mr. Johnston Livingston is in Fifth Avenue, and his country home is the ancient Livingston Manor House in Tivoli-on-Hudson. He is a member of the Tuxedo, Knickerbocker, Union, Union League and other clubs, the St. Nicholas Society and the Union College Alumni Association. His eldest daughter, Carola Livingston, is the wife of the Count de Laugier-Villars. Another daughter, Estelle Livingston, is the wife of Geraldyn Redmond.
Another branch of this historic family is that represented at the present time by John Henry Livingston, the son of Clermont Livingston, who died in 1895. The descent of John Henry Livingston represents a union of the lines of the three Lords of the Livingston Manors, namely, of Robert, the first proprietor of Clermont; of Robert, nephew of Robert, the first Lord, who married Margaretta, daughter of Colonel Schuyler; and further through her mother, of Gilbert
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Livingston, third son of the first Lord, who married Cornelia Beekman, daughter of Colonel Henry Beekman, and aunt of Margaret, wife of Judge Robert R. Livingston, of Clermont. Philip Livingston, the younger son of the second Lord of the Manor, was the signer of the Declaration of Independence, and married Christiana Ten Broeck, daughter of Richard Ten Broeck.
Their son, Philip P. Livingston, who married Sarah Johnston, had a family of ten children, among whom was Edward P. Livingston, who was born on the Island of Jamaica, was Lieutenant- Governor of the State in 1831, and was the father of Clermont Livingston. The wife of Edward P. Livingston was Elizabeth Stevens-Livingston, a daughter of Chancellor Robert R. Livingston and his wife, Mary Stevens. Chancellor Robert R. Livingston was a son of Judge Robert R. Livings- ton, and grandson of Robert Livingston, the first proprietor of Clermont Manor. He was a delegate to the Continental Congress in 1776, was one of the committee that drew up the Declara- tion of Independence, was Secretary of New York State during the Revolution, and afterwards became its Chancellor. Clermont Livingston was born at Clermont, Columbia County, in 1817, and made that his home throughout his life. He married Cornelia Livingston, daughter of Herman Livingston, of Oak Hill. The grandfather of Cornelia Livingston was John Livingston, of Oak Hill, a son of Robert Livingston, the third and last Lord of the Manor. The only son of Clermont and Cornelia Livingston is John Henry Livingston, who is a graduate from Columbia College in the class of 1869, and who, with his daughter, Katharine L. Livingston, is now the lineal represen- tative of this branch of the family.
The eldest son of John Swift Livingston and Anna M. N. Thompson, already referred to in this article, was the second Robert Cambridge Livingston, who was born in 1812, and married Maria B. Murray, daughter of James B. Murray, 1790-1860, and Maria Bronson, daughter of Isaac Bronson, a surgeon in the Revolutionary War, and a distinguished banker of New York. James B. Murray was the son of John B. Murray, a soldier of the Revolution, and a grandson of John Murray, a surgeon of the British Navy, and a descendant from the Archduke de Moravia. Maria B. Murray traced her descent to the Bronsons and other pioneer New England families.
Robert Cambridge Livingston, son of Robert Cambridge Livingston and Maria B. Murray, died in 1895. His widow, who was Maria Whitney, survived him, and lives in Islip, Long Island. Mrs. Livingston is a daughter of Henry Whitney and granddaughter of Stephen Whitney, the great New York merchant of the last generation. Her mother was Maria Lucy Fitch, a member of the famous Connecticut family of that name. Her grandmother was Phoebe Suydam, of the New York Suydam family. Through her father, Mrs. Livingston is directly descended from Henry Whitney, who founded the family in Huntington, Long Island, soon after 1620. Mrs. Livingston has seven children, Robert Cambridge Livingston, who is a member of the Knickerbocker Club; John Griswold, Henry Whitney, Maud Maria, Johnston, Louis and Caroline Livingston.
Maturin Livingston, who died in New York in 1888, at the age of seventy-three years, was at the time of his death the head of another branch of this family. He was the youngest son of Maturin Livingston, who was at one time Recorder of the city. The senior Maturin Livingston was the son of Robert James Livingston and his wife, Susan Smith, sister of Judge William Smith, the historian of New York. Robert James Livingston was the son of James Livingston and Elizabeth Kierstede, and grandson of Robert Livingston and Margaretta Schuyler. The wife of the senior Maturin Livingston was Margaret Lewis, daughter of General Morgan Lewis, soldier, Attorney-General, Chief Justice and Governor, and his wife, Gertrude Livingston, daughter of Judge Robert Livingston.
The widow of the second Maturin Livingston was Ruth Baylies, of Taunton, Mass., a descendant of Nicholas Baylies, of England, who came to Massachusetts early in the eighteenth century. She now lives in East Sixty-ninth Street, and has two daughters, her only children. One of her daughters is Mrs. Ogden Mills. The other married in 1880 William George Cavendish- Bentinck, the son of George Augustus Cavendish-Bentinck, Judge-Advocate General, and the grandson of General Frederick Cavendish-Bentinck and his wife, Lady Mary Lowther, daughter of the first Earl of Lonsdale. Mrs. Cavendish-Bentinck lives in London.
368
PHILIP LIVINGSTON
R EPRESENTING one of the important branches of the great Livingston family of New York, which has borne such a conspicuous part in the social and political affairs of New York City and State for more than two centuries, Mr. Philip Livingston is directly descended in the fifth generation from Philip Livingston, the signer of the Declaration of Independence, 1716- 1778, whose name he bears, and from that Philip Livingston's wife, Christina Ten Broeck. In generations further back, his lineage goes to Philip Livingston, the second Lord of the Manor, and his wife, Catharine Van Brugh, and Robert Livingston, the first Lord of Livingston Manor, to whom full reference will be found on other pages of this volume.
Philip Philip Livingston, of Livingston Manor, son of Philip Livingston, the signer of the Declaration of Independence, was the great-grandfather of Mr. Philip Livingston of this generation. He was born in Albany, and died in New York in 1787. His wife was Sarah Johnston, of the Island of Jamaica, in the West Indies. His son, Philip Henry Livingston, of Livingston Manor, married Maria Livingston, granddaughter of Robert Livingston, third Lord of the Manor. He was the father of a large family of children, among whom was Livingston Livingston, who was born at Livingston Manor, Tivoli, N. Y .; he was a well-known lawyer and referee, and died in Rome, Italy, in 1872. He was the father of the Mr. Philip Livingston who is the subject of this sketch.
The wife of Livingston Livingston, whom he married in 1859, was Mary C. Williamson, daughter of the Honorable William D. Williamson, of Bangor, Me., 1779-1846, historian, statesman and man of public affairs. Graduated from Brown University in 1804, he began to practice law in 1807. For eight years after 1808, he served as attorney for Hancock County and was a member of the Massachusetts Senate, 1816-20, the territory of Maine being at that time part of the State of Massachusetts. When Maine became a separate State, William D. Williamson was president of the first State Senate in 1820, and after the resignation of Governor William King was acting Governor. In 1821-23, he was a Member of Congress; in 1824-40, a probate judge for his county, and in 1838-41, bank commissioner for the State. He wrote much upon historical subjects, and was a member of several historical and literary societies in New York and elsewhere.
Mr. Philip Livingston was born in New York, November 9th, 1861. When his father gave up the practice of law and went abroad to travel, he took his young son with him, who thus enjoyed the advantages of foreign life at an early age. After his father's death, the son was prepared for college at the Cutler School in New York and, matriculating at Harvard, grad- uated from that institution in the class of 1884. Pursuing his studies further in the Law School of Columbia University, he was graduated in 1887 and admitted to the bar in the same year. After spending several years in the offices of Anderson & Man, Davies & Rapallo and Turner, McClure & Rolston, he entered into partnership with Guy Van Amringe, son of Dean Van Amringe of Colum- bia University, and has since been engaged in the practice of his profession.
In 1890, Mr. Livingston married Juliet B. Morris, youngest daughter of the late William H. Morris, of Morrisania. The father of Mrs. Livingston was a grandson of Brigadier-General Lewis Morris, signer of the Declaration of Independence, and great-great-grandson of Lewis Morris, the first Governor of the Province of New Jersey. Mr. and Mrs. Livingston have a country home in Morristown, N. J. While a student at Harvard College, Mr. Livingston was a member of the Hasty Pudding Club and vice-commodore of the Harvard Canoe Club, and is now commodore of the Mt. Desert Canoe Club, treasurer of the Upper East Side Association, one of the board of gov- ernors of the Sons of the Revolution and also of the Society of Colonial Wars, a trustee of the A Chapter of the A + Fraternity, a former vice-president of the A + Club, an honorary mem- ber of Company K, Seventh Regiment, National Guard State New York, and a life member of the Seventh Regiment Veteran Association. He is a member of the Metropolitan, Union, A +, Morris County Golf and Morristown clubs, the St. Nicholas Society, the St. Andrews Society and the Order of Descendants of Colonial Governors.
369
WILLISTON BENEDICT LOCKWOOD
A S his name indicates, Mr. Williston Benedict Lockwood is descended from two families which have been prominent in Connecticut ever since the first settlement of that part of the country. The Lockwoods and the Benedicts were both intimately associated with the foundation of Fairfield, Norwalk and other towns of the Colony. The remote American paternal ancestor of the gentleman named above, Robert Lockwood, a native of England, came to this country as a member of one of the earliest bands of Colonists, about 1630. Landing in Massachusetts, he settled first in Watertown, of which place he was made freeman in 1636. Ten years thereafter, he moved to Fairfield, Conn., being a freeman of that town in 1652, a Sergeant in 1657, and died there in 1658. His son, Ephraim Lockwood, who was born in Watertown, Mass., in 1641, became a resident of Norwalk, Conn., where he married, in 1665, Mercy Sention, or, as the name is now written, St. John, and was made a freeman in 1667.
In the succeeding generations, the paternal ancestors of Mr. Williston Benedict Lockwood were: Deacon Joseph Lockwood and his wife, Mary Wood, daughter of John Wood, of Stamford; Joseph Lockwood and his wife, Rebecca Rogers, of Huntington, Long Island, and Ebenezer Lockwood and his wife, Mary Godfrey. The son of Ebenezer and Mary Godfrey Lockwood, and the grandfather of the present Mr. Lockwood, was Benjamin Lockwood, who was born in Norwalk, Conn., in 1777, and died in Brooklyn, N. Y., in 1852. During the last twenty years of his life, he was a resident of Brooklyn, and engaged in business in New York. His wife. Elizabeth Kellogg, whom he married in 1803, was a native of Norwalk, Conn., where she was born in 1785, and was a daughter of Jarvis and Hannah (Meeker) Kellogg.
Le Grand Lockwood, the father of Mr. W. B. Lockwood, was born in Norwalk, Conn., in 1820. His life was spent in New York City, where he became one of the leading bankers of the last generation, a man of wealth and influential in the highest financial circles. He died in 1872. His wife, the mother of the subject of this article, was Anna Louise Benedict, who was born in Norwalk, Conn., in 1823, the daughter of Seth Williston Benedict and his wife, Fanny Roe Benedict. On both her father's and her mother's side, Mrs. Le Grand Lockwood was descended from Thomas Benedict, the pioneer of the Benedict family in America. Her father, who was a son of Nathaniel Benedict, was in the seventh generation of descent from Thomas Benedict, who came from England to America in 1638, and settled in Norwalk, Conn., in 1663. Her mother, Fanny Roe Benedict, was a daughter of William Benedict, son of Nathaniel Benedict, who was the grandfather of her husband, Seth Williston Benedict, she and her husband thus being cousins.
Mr. Williston Benedict Lockwood was born in New York, March 19th, 1846. He was educated in schools in New York and abroad, and afterwards at Yale College. When he was nineteen years of age, he, however, commenced the business career with which he has since been closely identified. His first experiences were in the office of his father's banking house, Lockwood & Co., in 1865. He remained there for eight years. From 1873 until 1879, he was in the stock brokerage business by himself. In 1879, he became connected with the house of R. P. Flower & Co., and is now with that firm, being a member of the New York Stock Exchange.
In 1869, Mr. Lockwood married Janet Isabel Dominick, of New York, who was born in 1851. The father of Mrs. Lockwood was James W. Dominick, a descendant of one of the oldest New York families, whose ancestor, George Dominique, was a Huguenot emigrant early in the eighteenth century. He was an early vestryman of Trinity Church, and Dominick Street was named for him. Mrs. Lockwood's mother was Mary Wells, of a well-known Hartford family. Mr. and Mrs. Lockwood reside at 125 West Fifty-eighth Street. Their children are Louise, the wife of Aldred K. Warren, son of the Reverend E. Walpole Warren and grandson of Samuel Warren, the author of Ten Thousand A Year; Bertha Day Lockwood and Isabel Dominick Lockwood. Mr. Lockwood is a member of the Union League, Lotos and New York Athletic clubs, of the New England Society and the Sons of the Revolution.
370
WALTER SETH LOGAN
T HE valley of the Shepaug River, in Western Connecticut, is a region of picturesque beauty, inhabited by a population of pure New England blood. Among its old towns is Washington, Litchfield County, founded by Connecticut soldiers in the Revolutionary War, who gave to the settlement the name of their illustrious commander. Mr. Logan comes of a family whose members were among the original settlers of the place, and have resided in Washington and its vicinity for several generations. Mr. Logan was born there in the year 1847. Seth S. Logan, his father, and his mother, Serene (Hollister) Logan, were both natives of the same town, as were also his paternal grandparents, Matthew Logan and Laura (Sanford) Logan, and those on the maternal side, who were Sherman Hollister and Patty (Nettleton) Hollister. The family names, Logan, Hollister, Sanford, Nettleton and Sherman, have throughout Connecticut's history been borne by many distinguished men. The famous Sherman family was closely connected with the Hollisters by numerous intermarriages.
After graduating at Yale College, in the class of 1870, Mr. Walter S. Logan chose the law as his vocation, studying his profession at the Law School of Harvard College, and in the law department of Columbia College, New York, and has the unusual honor of holding degrees from Yale, Harvard and Columbia; that of A. M. having been conferred by Yale, and LL. B. by both of the other two institutions. He made this city his permanent home, and, entering on the active practice of his profession, rapidly acquired and retains a distinguished position at the bar. He is first vice-president of the New York State Bar Association and chairman of the local council of the American Bar Association, and was on the committee of the former body which memorialized the President in regard to a permanent International Tribunal. An address which he delivered before the Arbitration Conference in 1896 was widely quoted and commended, being noted with great approval by the British Ambassador, Sir Julian Pauncefote.
In 1875, Mr. Logan was married to Eliza Preston Kenyon, daughter of Pardon Whitman Kenyon and Jeannette (Kelsey) Kenyon, of Brooklyn. Their children are three in number, and are named respectively, Hollister Logan, Janette Logan and Walter Seth Logan, Jr. The family reside at 260 West Seventy-second Street, and Mr. Logan owns a country residence, The Homestead, at his native place, Washington, Conn.
A public-spirited citizen, and convinced as to the duties which citizenship implies, Mr. Logan has taken an active part in politics, and has unselfishly devoted time and attention to movements designed to further the cause of good government. He is an active member of the Civil Service Reform Association, serving on important committees of that organization, and being an effective speaker, he is often called on to address political meetings in municipal and national campaigns. Public office, however, has never had attraction for him, and his usefulness has thus far been confined to the practical advocacy of clean politics. His club connections are largely of a political character, including the Manhattan, Democratic, Patria and Reform clubs. He was one of the originators of the latter, and contributed greatly to its success.
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