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 67

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

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Among the many descendants of Vincent Meigs, the pioneer, who have attained to special renown in the history of the country, none stands more prominent than Return Jonathan Meigs, of Connecticut, who is a collateral ancestor of Mr. Titus Benjamin Meigs. Born in Middletown, Conn., in 1734, he marched to Boston, immediately after the battle of Lexington. First assigned to duty with the rank of Major, he was engaged in the assault upon Quebec, being captured there and held a prisoner until the following year. In 1777, he was promoted to be Colonel, and led in an attack upon the British at Sag Harbor, Long Island, afterwards commanding a regiment under General Anthony Wayne, at Stony Point.

The son of Colonel Return Jonathan Meigs, also named Return Jonathan Meigs, was another distinguished public man. Born in Middletown, Conn., in 1765, he died in Ohio in 1825. He was a graduate from Yale College in 1785, and studied law, and in 1803 was Chief Justice of the Ohio Supreme Court. Afterwards he was commissioned Lieutenant-Colonel in the United States Army, and placed in charge of the Louisiana District. At the same time, he was Judge of the Supreme Court in 1807, became a Judge of the United States Court of Michigan, was United States Senator from Ohio in 1809, Governor of Ohio in 1810-14, and Postmaster-General of the United States from 1814 to 1823.

Mr. Titus Benjamin Meigs was born in Hobart, N. Y., in 1831. During the greater part of his life he has been engaged in business in New York His wife, whom he married in 1860, was Lucia Jacobs, of Delhi. Mrs. Meigs is a lineal descendant of William Bradford and Elder Brewster, of the Mayflower. Her father, who was a distinguished physician, served in the Civil War as Brigade-Surgeon under Major-General N. P. Banks. Her brother, Ferris Jacobs, Jr., served with distinction during the entire five years of the Civil War, rising from the rank of Captain to that of Brigadier-General. Subsequently he was a Member of Congress.

Mr. and Mrs. Meigs have had five children. Lucia Lasell Meigs married the Reverend Douglas Birnie, of Boston, Mass. Titus Benjamin Meigs died in infancy. Ferris Jacobs Meigs was graduated from Yale University in the class of 1889, is in business with his father, and is a member of the University, City and other clubs. Walter Meigs is a member of the class of 1898, Yale University. Frances Lyman Meigs married, in 1896, Oliver Smith Lyford, Jr., of Pittsburg. The home of the family is in East Sixty-fifth Street, near Fifth Avenue, and they have a summer residence, Stag-Head-on-Follensbee, near Axton, N. Y. Mr. Meigs is a member of the City, Barnard and Patria clubs.

The ancestral home of the founder of the family is still standing in Dorsetshire. Over its front door the arms of the family are engraved on stone, as follows: Or., a chevron, azure, between three mascles, gules, on a chief sable, a greyhound, courant argent. Crest, a talbot's head erased, argent, eared sable, collared, or., below the collar, two pellets fessways, three acorns, erect issuing from the top of head, proper.

401

GEORGE MACCULLOCH MILLER

T HE family of Mr. George Macculloch Miller was originally of Scotland. His great-grand- father on his mother's side was an officer in the English Army, who served in India and was killed at Bombay. The maternal grandfather, George P. Macculloch, was brought from India to Scotland when he was only four years of age and was educated in Edinburgh, coming to America nearly a century ago. Mr. Miller's father, the Honorable Jacob W. Miller, of New Jersey, was a prominent lawyer and public man during the first half of the present century. He was born at German Valley, Morris County, N. J., in 1800, and died in 1862. He became a lawyer and had a very large and remunerative practice. In 1832, he was a member of the State Legislature, in 1839 a State Senator, and from 1841 to 1853 a United States Senator, from his native State. Originally a Whig, he became a Republican in 1855 on the slavery question.

Mr. George Macculloch Miller was born in Morristown, N. J., in 1832. Graduated from Burlington College when he was eighteen years of age, he studied law in his father's office and in the Harvard Law School, and in 1853 was admitted to the bar in the States of New York and New Jersey. He became a very successful practitioner and was employed as counsel for many railroad companies and other large corporate and business interests. Out of this grew ultimately his connection with transportation enterprises, and of late years much of his law practice has been for such interests. He is now at the head of the law firm of Miller, Peckham & Dixon, which was established by him, and is one of the oldest and most successful law firms in New York.

In 1871, Mr. Miller became president of the Newport & Wickford Railroad and Steamship Company, and two years later was elected a director of the New York, Providence & Boston Railroad Company. For ten years, 1879-89, he was president of the Providence & Stonington Steamship Company, his brother succeeding him in that position. For a period of six years, 1881-7, he was also president of the Denver, Utah & Pacific Railroad Company. Other extensive and important corporations have also enlisted his services. He was vice-president of the New York, Providence & Boston Railroad Company until its merger with the New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad Company, and is now president of the Housatonic Railroad Company and a director and one of the executive committee of the New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad. He is a trustee of the Central Trust Company, of the Bank for Savings and of Greenwood Cemetery.

The activity of Mr. Miller in the cause of religion, education and benevolence has scarcely been less notable than in his professional labors. He has given much of his time and contributed largely of his means to many worthy institutions of the city. A member of the Protestant Episcopal Church, he has for many years been on the standing committee of the diocese of New York. When the corporation of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine was chartered, in 1873, Mr. Miller became one of the original trustees and secretary of the corporation, and has done considerable work in connection with the enterprise of building the new cathedral on Cathedral Heights. Mr. Miller was one of the first to suggest this locality as a proper one for the cathedral, and he has also accomplished the locating of St. Luke's Hospital there, circumstances which have tended to make that section of the city the centre of religious, scholastic and eleemosynary institutions, and creating and fostering a civic pride therewith, that is highly creditable and advantageous to the city and its progress. He was a trustee and secretary of the corporation of St. Luke's Hospital for over twenty years, 1869-90, and since 1892 has been annually elected its president. He has also been a warden of St. Thomas' Episcopal Church for many years. In politics he is a Republican and has been an energetic worker in the cause of honest municipal government.

In 1857, Mr. Miller married Elizabeth Hoffman, daughter of Lindley Murray Hoffman, a member of the Hoffman family, distinguished in the public service of New York City and State. His children are Hoffman Miller, who is a lawyer in his father's office; Mary Louisa, wife of William B. McVickar, and Leverett S., Elizabeth and Edith Miller. His clubs include the Union League. Century, Union, City and Riding and he is a patron of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

402

JOHN BLEECKER MILLER

B Y several lines of descent, Mr. John Bleecker Miller comes from old Knickerbocker and English ancestors. In the sixth generation back, Eleazer Miller was a leading citizen in Easthampton, Long Island. Born in 1697, he died in 1788. From 1746 to 1769, he was a member of the New York State Assembly, in 1777 was a member of the General Convention of the State, and was one of the one hundred members of the famous Committee of Safety. Burnet Miller, also of Easthampton, son of Eleazer, 1719-1783, was a member of the Assembly, 1777-83, a member of the Constitutional Convention that met at Kingston in 1777, a Justice of the Peace in 1763, town clerk of Easthampton 1747-76, and Supervisor 1746-77. A son of Burnet Miller was Dr. Matthias B. Miller, an accomplished and devoted physician, who was born in 1749 and died in 1792, from yellow fever in Savannah, Ga., whither he had gone as a volunteer to help the plague- stricken people. Dr. Miller was a member of the Constitutional Convention with his father in 1777, belonged to the New York Medical Society and served as a surgeon in the Revolutionary Army throughout the war for independence.

The son of Dr. Burnet Miller and the grandfather of the subject of this sketch was Morris Smith Miller, of Utica, N. Y., who was prominent in the public life of the period in which he lived, 1779-1824. He was graduated from Union College in 1810, became private secretary to Governor John Jay, was a county Judge from 1810 to 1824, and a Member of Congress for one term, 1813-15. John Bleecker Miller, of the next generation, was born in Utica, N. Y., in 1820 and died in France in 1861. Graduated from the Harvard Law School, he became a member of the New York bar and practiced law for many years. For a time he was in the consular service, being the United States Consul to Hamburg, Germany, 1858-61.

Members of this historic family have connected themselves in marriage with other leading and influential families of the State for several generations. Eleazer Miller married Mary Burnet, daughter of Captain Matthias Burnet, niece of the Reverend Abraham Pierson, who was one of the founders and the first president of Yale College, and granddaughter of the Reverend Dr. Pierson, of Yorkshire, England. The wife of Dr. Matthias B. Miller was Phoebe Smith, daughter of Judge Isaac Smith, of Dutchess County, N. Y., and of Margaret Platt, descended from Captain Epenetus Platt, a patentee of Huntington, Long Island, in 1665; from Major Platt, a member of the New York State Assembly, 1723-39; and from Major Thomas Jones, Ranger-General of the Island of Nassau, 1710-13. The mother of John Bleecker Miller, Sr., was Marie Bleecker, daughter of John Rutgers Bleecker, of Albany, and a descendant from James Bleecker, Mayor of Albany in 1700; from Rutgers Bleecker, Mayor of Albany in 1726 and Judge, 1726-33; and as the names indicate, from the Rutgers family also. The wife of the same Mr. Miller, whom he married in 1850, was Cornelia Jones, daughter of Judge Samuel W. Jones, a descendant from the Honorable Samuel Jones, first Comp- troller of the State of New York. Miss Jones' mother was Maria Bowers Duane, a descendant from James Duane, who was born in 1733, son of Anthony Duane and Altea Ketteltas. He was a Member of Congress, 1774-83, and Mayor of New York, 1784-87. His wife was a daughter of Robert Livingston, the third Lord of Livingston Manor.

Mr. John Bleecker Miller, the representative of this family in the present generation, was born in Utica, N. Y., June 28th, 1856, and was educated in Germany, where he was graduated from the University of Berlin. Returning home, he studied law in the Columbia Law School and was admitted to the New York bar. He was one of the founders of the Church Club of New York and is the author of several interesting and valuable sociological treatises, including Trade Organizations in Politics, Trade Organizations in Religion, and Leo XIII. and Modern Civilization. He resides in the old-time fashionable quarter of the city, at 56 West Ninth Street. He is a mem- ber of the Reform, Lawyers' and City clubs, the Bar Association, the St. Nicholas Society, the Sons of the Revolution and the American Geographical Society. Mr. Miller's wife was Berthenia Stansbury Dunn. daughter of the Reverend Ballard Dunn, of Virginia.

403

SETH MELLEN MILLIKEN

I N the person of Mr. Seth M. Milliken, we have another example of that sturdy New England stock that has contributed so much to the growth of New York as the business and financial centre of the United States. Hugh Milliken, his ancestor and the progenitor of a family that has been prominent for two centuries and a half in Maine and Massachusetts, was a Scotchman who emigrated to this country with his family in 1650 and settled in Massachusetts. His sons and grandsons were active business men in the town of Boston, and took part in all the municipal life of the period to which they belonged. One of the grandsons of the pioneer, John Milliken, who was born in 1691, married Sarah Burnett, of Boston, and this couple were the founders of the Maine branch of the family. John Milliken purchased a farm in the town of Scarborough, Me., and died there in 1779. The line of descent from John Milliken to the subject of this sketch is through John Milliken, farmer, 1723-1766, and his wife Mrs. Eleanor Sallis; Benjamin Milliken, farmer and tanner, 1764-1818, and his wife, Elizabeth Babbridge; and Josiah Milliken, 1803-1866, who married Elizabeth Freeman. Josiah Milliken, the father of Mr. Seth M. Milliken, was a farmer, tanner and lumber dealer, of Minot and Poland, Me. He had a large family, and several of his sons have distinguished themselves by successful business careers. Weston E. Milliken, lumber merchant, banker, president of a steamship company and member of the Maine Legislature; Charles R. Milliken, president of the Portland Rolling Mill and the Poland Paper Company, and Seth M. Milliken, have been most conspicuous. Mrs. Josiah Milliken died in 1890.

Mr. Seth M. Milliken was born in Poland, Me., January 7th, 1836. He was educated in the public schools of Poland and spent three years in the Academy in Hebron, and two years in the Academy in Yarmouth. All this he had accomplished before he had attained to the age of seven- teen. Then he worked in a flour mill in Minot, Me., for a couple of years, taught school in Portland one winter, and in 1856 started a general country store in the village of Minot. When, at the end of five years, he was ready to give up the little store, he had accumulated some capital and a good business experience. With that to start upon, he moved to Portland and went into the wholesale grocery business with his brother-in-law, Daniel W. True. Four years later, he entered the firm of Deering, Milliken & Co., wholesale jobbers of dry goods, of Portland, and has kept his connection with that house unbroken for more than thirty years.

In 1867, Mr. Milliken established a branch of the Portland house in New York, and began the commission dry goods business in a small way. In 1873, he moved to the metropolis to take personal charge of that end of the business. He has since become largely interested in the manufacture of cotton and woolen goods, and is the guiding hand in several large manufacturing establishments, being leading owner of the Farnsworth Company, makers of flannels in Lisbon, Me .; president of the Pondicherry Company, woolen manufacturers in Bridgeton, Me .; the Cowan Woolen Manufacturing Company, of Lewiston, Me .; and the Dallas Cotton Manufacturing Com- pany, of Huntsville, Ala .; and a director of the Forest Mills Company, of Bridgeton, Me .; the Lockwood Company, of Waterville, Me .; the Spartan Mills, of Spartanburg, S. C., and the Lock- hart Mills, of South Carolina.

In New York Mr. Milliken is connected with important financial enterprises, being a director of the Mercantile National Bank and the Mutual Fire Insurance Company, and interested in other institutions. In 1892, he was a Presidential elector on the Republican ticket, but although an unswerving Republican, he has not generally taken an active interest in public affairs. He belongs to the Union League, Republican, Riding, Merchants', Driving and Suburban clubs, in New York, the Algonquin Club, of Boston, and the Cumberland Club, of Portland, Me. He is a member of the New England Society, and a supporter of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. His city residence is in Madison Avenue. In 1874, he married Margaret L. Hill, daughter of Dr. L. G. Hill, of Dover, N. H. Mrs. Milliken died in 1880, leaving a family of three children, Seth M., Jr., Gerrish H., and Margaret L. Milliken.

404

DARIUS OGDEN MILLS

F AMILIES bearing the name of Mills came from the north of England, near the Scottish border, at an early date prior to the Revolution. Several of them settled on Long Island, and others in Connecticut. Before long they spread into New York State, 'and one branch was established in Westchester County a century ago. James Mills, the father of Mr. Darius Ogden Mills, was early settled in Dutchess County. He married Hannah Ogden, who came of a Dutchess County family of prominence in the history of the State, and allied to the famous Ogden family of New Jersey. In the early part of the present century, James Mills removed to Westchester County, where he became a representative citizen. For many years he was a leading man in the town of North Salem, being a large landholder, supervisor of the town, postmaster and justice of the peace. His death occurred in 1841. He had six sons and one daughter.

Mr. Darius O. Mills, the fifth son of James and Hannah (Ogden) Mills, was born in West- chester County, N. Y., September 25th, 1825. He was carefully educated for a business career. In 1841, he commenced life as a clerk in New York, but in 1847, when he was twenty- two years of age, removed to Buffalo, and became cashier of a bank and partner in a business house. When gold was discovered in California, in 1848, he was among those who were attracted by the prospects of the new Eldorado. He left his home in December of that year, and arrived in San Francisco in June, 1849. Engaging in business as a banker and dealer in bullion, he was financially successful before the end of his first year on the Pacific coast. Returning East, he closed out his interests in Buffalo, and in 1850 settled permanently in California, and established in Sacra- mento the financial institution of D. O. Mills & Co. In 1864, in association with other business men of San Francisco, he organized the Bank of California, of which he became president, and which under his management was the largest institution of the State, and one of the best known in the country. He resigned that position in 1873, but in 1875 was called again to the presidency to rescue the bank from the ruin which had been brought upon it by his successors in the manage- ment. He retired permanently from active business on the Pacific coast in 1878.

In 1880, Mr. Mills was able to carry out his long cherished plan of returning to the East and making New York his residence. He transferred many of his interests to this city, and since that time has been financially and socially identified with New York. He still, however, retains an interest in many business enterprises in California. In this city one of his large investments is the splendid Mills Building in Broad Street, which is the headquarters of many of the most important corporations in the East. He is also the owner of a similar building in San Francisco.

While in California he manifested a deep and practical interest in matters concerning the higher education and literary advancement of the community, and was regent and treasurer of the University of California. He gave seventy-five thousand dollars to endow a professorship in the University, and has also been a generous contributor to the cause of public education in other directions. He was one of the trustees of the Lick estate, and aided materially in starting the great Lick Observatory on Mount Hamilton. In New York his benefactions have been generous, includ- ing among others the founding of the Training School for Male Nurses near Bellevue Hospital, and he has also given generously to the support of other philanthropic undertakings.

In 1854, Mr. Mills married Jane T. Cunningham, daughter of James Cunningham, of New York. His son, Ogden Mills, is a graduate from Harvard College, in the class of 1878, and is active in the management of the Mergenthaler Linotype Company. He married Miss Livingston, daughter of Maturin Livingston, and lives in East Sixty-ninth Street. He is a member of the Metropolitan, Union League and other clubs. Elizabeth Mills, daughter of Mr. D. O. Mills, mar- ried the Honorable Whitelaw Reid. The Mills residence is in upper Fifth Avenue, and they also have a large country place in California. Mr. Mills is a member of the Metropolitan, Union League, Union and Knickerbocker clubs, and is a trustee of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the American Museum of Natural History.

405

ROBERT SHAW MINTURN

I DENTIFIED as it has been for five generations with what is best, both socially and intellectually in the community, the Minturn family holds a leading position in the City of New York. William Minturn, the elder, was during the Colonial days a shipping merchant of Newport, R. l., whence he removed to New York and became one of those who gave to this city the commercial eminence it first began to enjoy in the period directly following the Revolutionary War. His wife was Penelope Greene, a cousin of the famous General Nathaniel Greene, of the Continental Army. Their son, William Minturn, Jr., also became a leading ship-owner, married a daughter of Robert Bowne, one of the most prominent and respected New York merchants of that day, and was the father of Robert Bowne Minturn, an honored philanthropist and the founder of some of the noblest works of charity the metropolitan city possesses.

Robert Bowne Minturn became associated in business with the old-time New York merchant Preserved Fish, who was for many years one of the financial powers of the growing metropolis. In 1829, the firm name was changed to Grinnell, Minturn & Co., the famous brothers, Moses H. and Henry Grinnell, and Robert B. Minturn being equal partners in the establishment. The Grinnells came from New Bedford, Mass., being the sons of Cornelius Grinnell, a prominent merchant of that place. The firm of Grinnell, Minturn & Co., it can safely be said, held for a long period the unquestioned reputation of being the foremost shipping house in America, and up to 1861 sent by far more ships upon the ocean under the American flag than any firm in the country. Apart, however, from its enormous and successful com- mercial transactions with all parts of the world, it gained additional fame from the wide charities of Mr. Minturn and the liberality of his partner and brother-in-law, Henry Grinnell, who despatched to the Arctic regions the two expeditions in search of Sir John Franklin with which the name of Dr. Elisha Kent Kane, the American explorer, is imperishably connected.

Robert B. Minturn was, as already stated, deeply interested in all charitable works. Among other instances of his philanthropy, he was one of the originators and the first treasurer of the New York Association for Improving the Condition of the Poor, and the establishment of St. Luke's Hospital, of which he was the first president, was largely due to his efforts and the financial aid which he gave it. He was also one of the founders of the Hospital for the Relief of the Ruptured and Crippled and served as its vice-president, being, in addition, closely identified with a great variety of other philanthropic and charitable works. His residence, at Fifth Avenue and Twelfth Street, was in that day the scene of a cordial and refined hospitality, and his wife, a daughter of Judge John Lansing Wendell, of Albany, was noted for her high intelligence and personal charm. The agitation for the establishing of Central Park was initiated by her, and carried to success by her husband and the friends whose interest in the plan she had aroused and inspired.

Their eldest son, Robert Bowne Minturn, Jr., graduated at Columbia College and was a man of high character and wide cultivation. He inherited both his father's philanthropic interest and business capacity and was a figure in the social, political, scholarly and financial life of the city. He married Susanna, daughter of the late Francis George Shaw, of Boston. One of Mrs. Minturn's sisters became the wife of George William Curtis, the renowned orator and man of letters, and her only brother was Colonel Robert Gould Shaw, the gallant young soldier, killed while leading the assault on Fort Wagner, and whose death is commemorated by the Shaw monument at Boston. Robert B. Minturn, Jr., died suddenly during the winter of 1889, while still in the prime of life.

Mr. Robert Shaw Minturn, the eldest son of Robert B. Minturn, Jr., is a graduate of Harvard University and of the Law School of Columbia College. He is a member of the bar of this city and is unmarried, residing with his mother and sisters in Gramercy Park.

406

EDWARD MITCHELL

T HROUGH his paternal grandmother, the Honorable Edward Mitchell is descended from one of the first settlers upon the Island of Manhattan. An ancestor, Peter Anderson, received a grant of land in the city of New Amsterdam, in 1645. His son, Peter Anderson, was born here, in 1669, and the granddaughter of Peter Anderson, Cornelia Anderson, was the mother of Judge William Mitchell, Justice of the Supreme Court, and was the grandmother of the Honorable Edward Mitchell. The latter's paternal grandfather was the Reverend Edward Mitchell, who was a native of Coleraine, Ireland. He emigrated to this country, in 1791, and went to Philadelphia. After a few years, he removed to New York, where he remained until his death, in 1834. He was earnest in the cause of religion, and for many years was pastor of the Society of United Christians. The church of which he was rector is still standing, on Duane Street, east of Broadway.

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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 67

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