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 63
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Mr. Charles H. Ludington was the third son of Lewis Ludington. He was born in Carmel, N. Y., February 1, 1825, and was educated at Carmel Academy, and at the Polytechnic School in Owenville, now Croton Falls, Ridgefield, Conn. He came to New York, when seventeen years old, and was connected with the firm of Woodward, Otis & Terbell and Johnes, Otis & Co., for some years, and ultimately became a partner of the dry goods house of Lathrop & Ludington, after- wards Lathrop, Ludington & Co., remaining a member of that latter house until his retirement in 1868. During the Civil War he assisted in the raising of regiments, and otherwise rendered patriotic service to the Union cause. He has been a director in many corporations, and active in the management of important public institutions. Mr. Ludington married Josephine L. Noyes, daughter of Daniel Rogers Noyes, of Lyme, Conn. Her mother, whose maiden name was Phœbe Griffin Lord, was a maternal granddaughter of George and Eve (Dorr) Griffin. Through the latter she was a descendant of the Griswold and Wolcott families of Connecticut, and was also a niece of the Reverend Edward Dorr Griffin, D. D., President of Williams College, and of George Griffin, the eminent New York lawyer. In memory of his wife's mother, Phoebe Griffin (Lord) Noyes, Mr. Ludington is now erecting a free library at Lyme, Conn., to be under the control of the Ladies' Association of that place.
Mr. and Mrs. Ludington have three sons and three daughters. The eldest son, Charles H. Ludington, Jr., graduated from Yale College in 1887, and married Ethel M. Saltus. The second son, William Howard Ludington, graduated from Yale in 1887. The youngest son, Arthur Crosby Ludington, is now at St. Paul's School, Concord, N. H. The city residence of the family has been for thirty-six years at 276 Madison Avenue, their country home being in Lyme, Conn. Mr. Ludington is a member of the Union League Club and the Century Association.
377
EDWARD PHILIP LIVINGSTON LUDLOW
I T has been remarked by one of the historians of early New York, that few families in the United States, certainly none in this State, can trace their descent back to noble and even royal ancestors, with more certainty than the Ludlows. The genealogy descending from King Edward 1. of England is clear and exact, and the American representatives of the name of Ludlow enjoy a distinct relationship with the older feudal baronage of the parent country, as well as with some of the most distinguished families of the landed aristocracy which arose after the establishment of the Tudor and Stuart dynasties on the throne. It is therefore fitting that the New York branch of the Ludlows should have occupied almost from the time of the English occupation of New Netherland, a position of the highest importance, and that the marriages of its numerous offshoots should have connected it with nearly all the Colonial families of prominence.
Edward 1. of England, 1272, by his second wife, Margaret, daughter of Philip Ill. of France, became the father of Thomas Plantagenet, Earl of Norfolk. Margaret Plantagenet, daughter of Thomas Plantagenet, married John, the third Lord Segrave. Elizabeth Segrave, daughter of Lord and Lady Segrave, married the fourth Lord Mowbray, whose eldest daughter married the third Lord De le Warr. The eldest daughter of the latter married the third Lord West, whose son was the seventh Lord De la Warr; his great-granddaughter married Lord Windsor, whose daughter Edith married George Ludlow, of Hill Deverill, in Wiltshire. One of his descendants was Edmund Ludlow, the famous General of the Parliament in the Civil War, and a favorite Lieutenant of the Lord Protector, Oliver Cromwell. His most conspicuous service was the completion of the Conquest of Ireland, begun by Cromwell and Ireton. Notwithstanding his inheritance of Planta- genet blood, Edmund Ludlow, a zealous Puritan, did not hesitate to sit as one of the judges at the trial, in 1649, of King Charles I., and joined in condemning that unfortunate monarch to death. He escaped the fate which overtook the other surviving regicides at the Restoration by withdrawing to the Continent and lived almost until the beginning of the eighteenth century, at Vevey, in Switzerland, where his dwelling and tomb are still shown.
Gabriel Ludlow, descended from one of the junior branches of the Ludlow, of Hill Deverill, was a soldier in the service of King William III., and commanded the forces of that monarch in the Province of New Brunswick during the war with France. He came to New York in 1694, and was one of the foremost citizens of the Province. He was the father of a numerous family, his thirteen children contracting marriages with other distinguished Colonial families, so that a list of these alliances recalls many names of prominence in the past or present social history of New York, such as Ver Planck, Livingston, Brockholst, Bogert, Morris and Goelet. One of the most famous of his grandsons was Carey Ludlow, a leading merchant of old New York, who built the celebrated Ludlow mansion in State Street, facing the Battery, which in his own time and that of his daughter, Mrs. Jacob Morton, wife of the eminent merchant of that name, was the centre of the exclusive social life of the city. It was there that Lafayette was entertained, in 1824, by a ball, which was long regarded as the most magnificent social function New York had witnessed up to that time.
Mr. Edward Philip Livingston Ludlow is the grandson of Gabriel Ludlow, who was Governor-General and Commander-in-Chief of the forces in the British Province of New Bruns- wick. His father, Edward H. Ludlow, married Elizabeth Livingston, daughter of Edward P. Livingston, a prominent member of the powerful Livingston connection, and at one time Lieutenant-Governor of the State of New York. Mr. Ludlow's maternal grandmother was a daughter of Chancellor Livingston. He was born in Sing Sing, N. Y., in 1835, was graduated from Columbia College, and married Margaret Tonnélé Hall, daughter of Valentine Gill Hall, one of the most eminent merchants of the metropolis. Their two children are Mrs. Henry Parish, Jr., and Edward Hunter Ludlow. Mr. Ludlow has not engaged in business or professional life, and resides at 6 East Seventy-sixth Street. He has a country seat in Newport, and another in Tivoli-on-Hudson. He was one of the founders of the St. Nicholas Society.
378
WARD McALLISTER
O NE of the conspicuous figures in the social circles of New York in the present generation was Mr. Ward McAllister, who came of an old aristocratic family, first of Pennsylvania and then of the South. His direct ancestors were of Scottish origin, belonging to the Allaster clan that flourished early in the seventeenth century and of which Allaster McDonald, maternally descended from Isabella, sister of King Robert the Bruce, was the progenitor. In 1732, Archibald McAllister and his brother Richard, of this family, came from Scotland to Big Spring, Cumberland County, Pa. Archibald married Jane McClure, of an old and noble Scottish family, and had several children, his son Richard, who founded the town of Hanover, Pa., being one of the distin- guished men of York County, a Colonel in the Revolutionary War, one of the Committee of Safety in 1775, a member of the Provincial Conference of 1775 and 1776, a member of the Supreme Execu- tive Council of the State of Pennsylvania, 1783-84-85-86, a justice of the peace and Justice of the Court of Common Pleas. He married Mary Dill, of Dillsburg, and their son, Matthew, grandfather of Mr. Ward McAllister, was appointed, by President Washington, United States District Attorney of Georgia, and was also a Judge of the Superior Court of that State. He married a sister of Thomas Gibbons, of South Carolina, brother of William Gibbons, member of the First Continental Congress and member of the Continental Congresses in 1784 and 1786.
Matthew Hall McAllister, the father of Mr. Ward McAllister, was a famous lawyer and Judge of the United States Circuit Court of California, to which State he went from Georgia in 1850. His wife was Louisa Charlotte Cutler, daughter of Benjamin C. and Sarah (Mitchell) Cutler, of Boston. The father of Sarah Mitchell was Thomas Mitchell, a Scotch Laird, who married Esther Marion, sister of General Francis Marion, the "Swamp Fox." The Marions were French Huguenots, who came to this country and settled in the Carolinas. Mr. Ward McAllister was born in Savannah, Ga., and lived there until he was sixteen years of age, but was educated in the North. From 1850 until 1852, he was a resident of San Francisco, where he practiced law with his father. In the latter year he came to New York and lived here during the remainder of his life. He died in 1895.
On her father's side Mrs. McAllister, who became the wife of Mr. Ward McAllister in 1853, is of English origin. Born Sarah Tainter Gibbons, her father was William Gibbons, of Savannah, Ga., son of Thomas Gibbons. He was descended from Sir William Gibbons, who came to Barbadoes before 1700, his descendants removing to South Carolina and Georgia, where they took rank among the leading families. The paternal grandmother of Mrs. McAllister was a Heyward, sister of Thomas Heyward, of South Carolina, who signed the Declaration of Independence. To this family was granted, by the King of England, the Barony of Heyward. The mother of Mrs. McAllister was of Massachusetts Puritan descent. Among her lineal ancestors were Governor William Pynchon, of Springfield, Mass. ; Captain Richard Lord, of Connecticut; the Reverend Peter Bulkeley, of Concord, Mass. ; and Sir Richard Chitwood and Lord Woodhull, of England. Through the Chaunceys, Mrs. McAllister traces her descent to the Earls and Dukes of Northumberland and the Dukes of Norfolk, and thence to Louis Le Debonaire and Charlemagne, of France, and other kings in that royal line.
The city residence of Mrs. McAllister is in West Fifty-third Street, and her country place, Bayside Farm, is one of the celebrated establishments of Newport. She has three children, Hey- ward Hall McAllister, of New York, and Ward McAllister, who is a lawyer of San Francisco, and was at one time United States Judge in Alaska. Her daughter, Louise Ward McAllister, is a mem- ber of the Society of Colonial Dames and is the Honorary State Regent of the Daughters of the American Revolution for New York State. Heyward Hall McAllister is a member of the Union Club and the Society of Colonial Wars. The arms of the McAllister family are those of the McDonalds : Quarterly first, argent, a lion rampant, gules; second, or., a hand in armor, holding a cross-crosslet, fitchée, gules; third, a row-galley, the sails furled, sable; fourth, ayent, a salmon, naiant, in fess, proper. The crest is a hand in armor, holding a cross-crosslet, fitchée, gules. The motto is: Per mare per terras.
379
DAVID HUNTER McALPIN
T HE McAlpins who have been prominent in New York for more than half a century are of Scotch-Irish descent, from the clan Alpin, famous in the history of Scotland. Before the time of Cromwell their ancestors settled in Ireland. In common with other families of their religious faith they were subjected to persecution at that time, and leaving Ireland removed to Scotland and established themselves there. For several generations their descendants remained in Scotland, marrying into families of that country. But the grandfather of the subject of this sketch turned back towards the ancestral home of his family and, returning to Ireland, settled near the City of Belfast. His son, James McAlpin, father of Mr. David Hunter McAlpin, married Jane Hunter and came to the United States, establishing himself in business in Dutchess County, N. Y.
Mr. David Hunter McAlpin was born in Pleasant Valley, Dutchess County, N. Y., November 8th, 1816, the fourth in his father's family of eight children. Until 1836, when he was twenty years of age, he was engaged in various occupations in and about his native place. Coming then to New York, he soon went into business for himself and was so successful that in a few years he was able to embark in the tobacco trade. The career of Mr. McAlpin since that time has been one of steady progress. In 1857, he became a partner in the firm of John Cornish & Co., manufacturers of tobacco, and four years later, buying out his partners, established the firm at the head of which he has remained to this day, a period of thirty years, the concern being now for cervenience incorpo- rated under the title of the D. H. McAlpin Company.
Mr. McAlpin has for many years held large investments in real estate in New York City and elsewhere. He owns the McAlpin factory building in Avenue D, the Alpine, at Broadway and Thirty-third Street, and valuable properties in West Twenty-third Street. In 1866, ill health compelled him to move into the country for a time and he bought an estate in Morristown, N. J., to which property he has been constantly adding, until now it includes about fifteen hundred acres of valuable land. His country seat is one of the finest in New Jersey. Mr. McAlpin is a director in many corporations, including the Home Insurance Company, Manhattan Life Insurance Company, Standard Gas Light Company, Rutgers Fire Insurance Company, Union Trust Company and Eleventh Ward Bank of New York and the First National Bank of Morristown, N. J. He is a member of the American Geographical Society, a patron of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the American Museum of Natural History, and a director of the Union Theological Seminary. He has been generous in support of religious and charitable works. Olivet Chapel, in Second Street, was erected by him in memory of his son, Joseph R. McAlpin.
In 1845, he married Adelaide Rose, daughter of Joseph Rose, a member of the old Market Street Church, now Church of the Sea and Land. The Rose family has been long established in New York and gave its name to Rose Street. Mr. McAlpin has had ten children, of whom two died in infancy. The eldest son, Edwin A. McAlpin, has been prominent in public life and in military affairs. At first a member of the famous Seventh Regiment, he afterwards became a member of the Seventy-First and rose to be Colonel of that regiment. Three times he has been a Presidential elector. Active in the Republican club movement, he was president of the League of Republican Clubs in New York for four years and was elected president of the National League in 1895. He was Adjutant-General of the State during the administration of Governor Levi P. Morton. He married Anne Brandreth, daughter of Dr. Benjamin Brandreth.
The other children of Mr. David H. McAlpin were Joseph Rose McAlpin, who died in 1888; George L. McAlpin, who graduated from Yale College in 1879; Frances Adelaide McAlpin, who married James Tolman Pyle; Dr. David Hunter McAlpin, Jr., who was graduated from Princeton College in 1885, is now in active practice as a physician, and married Emma Rockefeller, daughter of William Rockefeller, of this city; William Willet McAlpin; and Charles W. McAlpin, who graduated from Princeton in 1888. The youngest son of Mr. McAlpin, John Randolph McAlpin, also graduated from Princeton in 1893 and died in the same year.
380
JOHN AUGUSTINE McCALL
I N Albany, the senior John A. McCall was a prominent citizen for fifty years previous to his death in 1887. Held in high esteem by his neighbors, he was frequently honored by public office. Mr. John A. McCall, the younger, now president of the New York Life Insurance Company, was born in Albany in 1849. He attended the Albany public schools, and was gradu- ated from the Albany Commercial College in 1868. Starting at once into commercial life, he became connected with an Albany business house, and soon after secured a position as book- keeper in the general agency for New York and Albany of the Connecticut Mutual Life Insurance Company. This was the beginning of his connection with the life insurance business, and the experience he gained in that position practically determined his career.
Giving up his position as bookkeeper, Mr. McCall engaged for a time in the real estate and insurance business, and then became a clerk in the State Insurance Department under Superin- tendent George W. Miller. From March, 1870, to May, 1872, when Mr. Miller resigned his position, Mr. McCall was employed in the actuarial branch of the department. For more than twenty years his connection with the department remained unbroken and was a record of steady advancement. In the spring of 1872, he was put in charge of the statistical work of the depart- ment's reports, and a few months later became examiner of companies by appointment of the new Superintendent, the Honorable O. W. Chapman. In 1876, when the Deputy Superintendent of Insurance, William Smythe, became the Acting Superintendent, Mr. McCall was advanced to be the Deputy Superintendent, and held that position for seven years under several superintendents.
Mr. McCall's long service made him thoroughly familiar with many evils that had crept into the Insurance Department under previous lax administrations. He also had perfect knowledge of the conditions of the different insurance companies doing business in the State, some of which were of a dishonest character. To expose fraudulent practices and to reform existing evils in the supervision of the insurance business of the State, was a Herculean task, but to this work Mr. McCall addressed himself with energy and uncompromising fidelity. Political and other influences were brought to bear to stop his investigations, but in spite of all the difficulties that were placed in his way, he pushed his work to the end, with the result that many fire insurance companies and eighteen life insurance companies of New York State, and fifteen companies outside of the State, were forced to go out of business, while three previously prominent officials of insur- ance companies were brought to the bar of justice, charged with fraud, and were convicted and punished by severe sentences of imprisonment.
This valuable service to the State won further promotion for Mr. McCall, and when the office of Superintendent of Insurance became vacant, in 1883, Governor Grover Cleveland elevated him to that position. As was easy to foresee, his administration of the department was a distin- guished success. During his term of office, many reforms were instituted and a healthful condition of insurance business maintained throughout the State. No insurance company in the Common- wealth failed in that time, and the department not only paid the expenses of its maintenance, but was able to turn over a handsome sum to the State Treasury. Upon the expiration of his term of office, Governor David B. Hill tendered a reappointment to Mr. McCall, but he declined the proffer and accepted instead the office of comptroller of the Equitable Life Assurance Society. In 1892, upon a change in the management of the New York Life Insurance Company, Mr. McCall was invited to take the presidency of that institution, and has held the position ever since with credit to himself and advantage to the interests of the company. Under his administration, the rebuilding and extension of the company's building, at Broadway and Leonard Street, making it a conspicuous object in the city's great thoroughfare, has been undertaken and completed.
Mr. McCall married Mary I. Haran. He lives on the West Side, near Central Park, and although the cares of his official position leave him scant time for club life, he belongs to the Metropolitan, City, Manhattan, Colonial, Merchants' and Lawyers' clubs.
381
JOHN JAMES McCOOK
I T is rare that any American family has achieved such notable distinction in its representatives in a single generation as has come to the McCooks. The first McCook in the United States was George McCook, of Irish blood, and also descended from an old Scottish family. Active in an Irish Revolutionary movement, he was forced to take refuge in America.
The two sons of George McCook were soldiers in the Civil War, and each of them the head of a family that furnished some of the most brilliant soldiers to the Union cause. The eldest son, Daniel McCook, was born in Canonsburg, Pa., in 1798. He was educated at Jefferson College, Pennsylvania, and went to live in Ohio. When the Civil War broke out he was sixty-three years of age, but was commissioned a Major, and was killed at Buffington's Island, Ohio, in 1863, when opposing a raid of Morgan's guerillas. His wife was Martha Latimer, and nine of his sons were in the military or naval service of the United States. Dr. John McCook, the second son of George McCook, the pioneer, was born in Canonsburg, Pa., in 1806, and was a volunteer surgeon in the Civil War. His wife was Catharine Julia Sheldon, of Hartford, Conn. Five sons of this family served in the army or navy.
"The Fighting McCooks," as they have been called, are further designated as the "tribe of Dan" and the "tribe of John." In "the tribe of John" were Major-General Edward M. McCook, who served in the Tennessee and Georgia campaigns, was United States Minister to the Hawaiian Islands, and afterwards Governor of Colorado Territory; General Anson G. McCook, who served in the Army of the Cumberland and in the Atlanta campaign, was a Member of Congress from New York, 1877-83, Secretary of the United States Senate, 1888-92, and City Chamberlain of New York City in 1897; Reverend Henry C. McCook, a chaplain in the army, and a well-known scientist; Roderick S. McCook, naval officer, and Lieutenant John James McCook, afterwards a professor in Trinity College.
"The tribe of Dan" furnished the larger number of "fighting McCooks." Latimer A. McCook was surgeon of an Illinois regiment. George W. McCook served in the Mexican War, organized several Ohio regiments in the Civil War, and was Attorney-General of the State of Ohio. Robert L. McCook attained the rank of Brigadier-General, and was killed during the war. Alexander McDowell McCook was a West Point graduate in 1852, and in the Civil War became a Major-General. Daniel McCook, Colonel of an Ohio regiment, commanded a brigade in the Army of the Cumberland, and was killed at Kenesaw Mountain in 1864. Edwin S. McCook became Brevet Brigadier-General and Major-General, and served in the Vicksburg and Atlanta campaigns. Charles M. McCook, a private in an Ohio regiment, was killed at the first battle of Bull Run.
Colonel John James McCook is the youngest son of "the tribe of Dan." He was born May 25th, 1845. When the war broke out he was a student at Kenyon College, and left his books to go to the defense of his country. Enlisting in an Ohio regiment, he was promoted to a Lieuten- ancy in the Sixth Ohio Cavalry in 1862, and became a Captain and aide-de-camp in 1863. He was brevetted Major for gallant conduct at the battle of Shady Grove, Va., in 1864, and was afterwards advanced to the brevet rank of Lieutenant-Colonel, and Colonel for gallant services. After the war he completed his college course, and studied law at Harvard University, and then came to New York, where he has become one of the leading lawyers of the country, having devoted himself especially to corporation practice. He is an active and influential Republican, and was offered, but declined, the position of Secretary of the Interior in the Cabinet of President Mckinley, a place for which his legal attainments eminently qualified him. Colonel McCook lives in West Fifty-fourth Street. He is a trustee of Princeton University, and a director of many railroad, insurance and financial institutions. He is a member of the Metropolitan, City, Union, Union League, A K E, University, Riding, Lawyers', Princeton, Harvard, New York Athletic and other clubs, the Bar Association of the City of New York, the Downtown Association, the Military Order of the Loyal Legion, and the American Museum of Natural History.
382
HENRY D. McCORD
I T is to Scotland that we naturally turn for the ancestry of the McCord family, which is a branch of and closely allied to the great Clan of MacDonald, the Lords of the Isles. The New York family of the present day, of which the gentleman named above is a prominent representative, traces its descent to James McCord, a personage of note in the Highlands of Argyleshire, who was born in the early portion of the seventeenth century, about 1620. His son, John, married Sarah MacDougall, and their son, James McCord, was born in 1688, and married a kinswoman, Sarah McCord. Several of their sons came to New York before the Revolution and settled upon the Hudson River, not far above New York City, in which portion of Westchester County their descendants have been numerous.
The great-grandfather of Mr. Henry D. McCord was Benjamin McCord, one of the sons of James and Sarah, who was born in Scotland in 1742 and who, coming to the New World, settled at Scarsdale, Westchester County, where he died in 1807. He was twice married, his second wife being Catharine Devoe, of the New York family of that name, and among their children was Jordan D. McCord, 1775-1830. He, like his father, was twice married; his first wife being Eunice H. Dusenbury, while the second one was Rachel Tompkins, a highly connected lady, also of an old Westchester County family, her uncle being the Honorable Daniel D. Tompkins. The latter, who was a native of Scarsdale, was born in 1774 and became Governor of the State, and was elected Vice-President of the United States for the two successive terms of President Monroe, from 1817 to 1825. Lewis McCord, father of Mr. Henry D. McCord, who was the eldest child of Jordan D. and Rachel (Tompkins) McCord, was born in 1810, married Nancy Mangam, and died in 1855.
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