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 68
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The Honorable William Mitchell, son of the Reverend Edward Mitchell, was a leading lawyer of his time. He was born in New York, February 24th, 1801, and died in 1886. He was prepared for college under the instruction of Joseph Nelson, and, entering Columbia, was graduated from that institution, in the class of 1820, taking the first honor. In 1823, his alma mater conferred upon him the degree of M. A., and in 1863, the degree of LL. D. After completing his college course, he entered upon the study of law, devoting himself especially to equity jurisprudence. He was admitted to practice in 1823, became solicitor in Chancery in 1824, counselor at law in 1826, and counselor in Chancery in 1827. An appointment as Master in Chancery came to him in 1840, and in 1849 he became a Justice of the Supreme Court, for the First Judicial District of the State. During the year 1856, he was a Judge of the Court of Appeals, and in 1857, was made the presiding Judge of the Supreme Court. Judge Mitchell edited an edition of Blackstone's Commentaries with reference to American cases, a work of much learning.
The mother of the Honorable Edward Mitchell, who was married to Judge William Mitchell, in 1841, was Mary P. Berrian, of New York. Her father was of the old Berrian family, of Long Island. Cornelius Jansen Berrian, who was the American ancestor of the family, was a Huguenot, a native of the village of Berrien, in Finistere. Driven from his native land by religious persecution, he came to this country and settled on Long Island, in 1670.
When Judge Mitchell died he left six children. Several of the sons have become well- known lawyers in this generation. The Honorable Edward Mitchell, the eldest son of the family, was born in New York City, in 1842. He graduated from Columbia College and the Columbia Law School, and had not completed his studies when the Civil War broke out. Leaving his books, he went into the service of the Sanitary Commission, his work taking him over the principal battle fields of Virginia and the West. After the war he returned to his studies and was admitted to the bar, forming a law partnership with his father and several of his brothers, and since that time has been in active practice.
A prominent member of the Bar Association of the City of New York, he was for eleven years treasurer of that organization, until pressure of business compelled him to decline further reelection. In 1879, he was elected a member of the Assembly, from the Twenty-first District in the City of New York. In 1883, and again in 1886, he was the candidate of the Republican party for a Supreme Court Judgeship. Since 1880, he has been a trustee of Columbia College, and of the College of Physicians and Surgeons. In 1889, President Harrison appointed him District Attorney of the Southern District of New York, and he held that position until 1893. He was appointed a Park Commissioner by Mayor Strong in 1897.
Mr. Mitchell holds a prominent social and professional position. He was one of the incorporators of the University Club, and is a member of the Century, Metropolitan, Union League, Riding, Tuxedo, and other clubs, and of the American Geographical Society. He married Caroline C. Woolsey, and has one daughter, Elsie Mitchell. His city home is at 31 East Fiftieth Street.
407
CLEMENT CLARKE MOORE
F EW American men of letters hold a more honorable position than the Right Reverend Benjamin Moore, who was president of Columbia College from 1801 until 1811. Bishop Moore, who was the great grandfather of Captain Clement Clarke Moore, was distinguished both as a clergyman and an educator. He was born in Newtown, L. I., in 1748, and received his education at King's, afterwards Columbia, College. Having studied theology for several years, he went to England to be ordained to the Episcopal ministry. Returning to this country, he became assistant minister of Trinity Church, and succeeded the Reverend Dr. David Provoost, as rector, in 1800. The following year, he was elected Bishop of New York. He died in Greenwich Village, then a suburb of New York City, in 1816. He was a man of high scholarship, and possessed both dignity and gentleness of character. He held at one time the offices of rector of Trinity Church, bishop of New York, and president of Columbia College, performing the duties of all these posi- tions in a wholly satisfactory manner. He was also the first vice-president of the New York His- torical Society, from the organization of that body in 1805. In 1778, he married Charity Clark, daughter of Captain Clement Clark.
Bishop Moore belonged to an old Colonial family of Long Island. He was the great-grand- son of Samuel Moore, who, in 1662, was a grantee of land in Newtown, Long Island, and held various public offices, being a magistrate for many years up to his death, in 1717. His wife was Mary Reed, who died in 1738. The great-great-grandfather of Bishop Moore was the Reverend lohn Moore, one of the settlers of Newtown, in 1652. He was the first minister of Newtown, and was ordained in New England.
William Moore, of New York, 1754-1824, a brother of the Right Reverend Benjamin Moore, graduated in medicine from Edinburgh University, in 1780. Returning to the United States, he practiced his profession for over forty years. He was president of the New York Medical Society, trustee of the College of Physicians and Surgeons, and a vestryman of Trinity Church. He married Jane Fish, daughter of Nathaniel Fish, and among his children were Nathaniel F. Moore, who became president of Columbia College; Maria Theresa Moore, who married Henry C. de Rham; Dr. Samuel W. Moore; Jane Moore, who married Henry Major; Sarah Moore, who married Edward Hodges, and William Moore, of the firm of de Rham & Moore.
Clement Clarke Moore, the grandfather of Captain Clement C. Moore, was the son of Bishop Moore, born in New York, in 1779, and graduated from Columbia College in 1798. Although he was educated for the ministry, he never took orders, but devoted himself to the study of Oriental and classical literature. The ground upon which the General Theological Seminary stands, in Ninth Avenue, was given by him to the trustees of that institution, in which he became professor of Biblical learning, and afterwards of Oriental and Greek literature, holding the chair for nearly thirty years, and becoming professor emeritus in 1851. He was the author of a Hebrew and Greek Lexicon, edited a volume of his father's sermons, and wrote much in lighter vein. He died in Newport, R. I., in 1863.
Benjamin Moore, the eldest son of Clement C. Moore, was the father of the subject of this article. He was born in 1815, married Mary Elizabeth Sing, in 1842, and died in 1886. He was devoted to a country life, being a keen sportsman, a lover of floriculture, and a student of natural history. He lived on an estate a little above Sing Sing, on the Hudson, given to him by his father.
Captain Clement Clarke Moore was born at his father's country home in 1843. He was educated at Churchill's school, in Sing Sing. During the Civil War he was Captain in a Massachu- setts regiment, and was present at the operations against Richmond, and the surrender of Lee. In 1879, Captain Moore married Laura M. Williams, daughter of William S. Williams. The three living sons of this marriage are William Scoville, Barrington and Benjamin Moore. Captain Moore resides in East Fifty-fourth Street, and has a house in Newport. He is a member of the United Service club, and of the Loyal Legion.
408
WILLIAM HENRY HELME MOORE
C OMING from a family that had long been settled in Suffolk, on the western shore of England, bordering upon the North Sea, Thomas Moore, who was born about 1615, was the earliest ancestor of the family to which Mr. William Henry Helme Moore belongs. Before he was twenty years of age, he married Martha Youngs, daughter of the Reverend Christopher Youngs, Vicar of Reydon, Suffolk County, England. Landing in New England about 1636, he first resided in Salem, Mass., but shortly removed with others of his countrymen to Long Island, in that district which they named Suffolk County, after the ancient home of their ancestors across the sea.
Thomas Moore became one of the most prominent citizens of Southold, the largest tax payer there, and frequently a representative to the General Court. In 1662, he became the owner of a large tract of land, bordering on the Sound, just northwest of the present village of Green- port, and there has been the homestead of his descendants for the last two hundred and thirty- five years. When the Dutch reobtained possession of New York in 1673 by expelling the Eng- lish, they offered Thomas Moore the magistracy of Southold as part of their plan to unite the territory of Long Island to the new government. But, loyal to the English rule, he declined to hold the position. In 1683, being a chief officer of the town, he was one of the committee appointed to select a representative to the first legislative assembly of the Province. He died in 1691.
The father of Mr. William Henry Helme Moore was Colonel Jeremiah Moore, a direct descendant from Thomas Moore, the pioneer. His mother was Julia Brush, of Smithtown, L. I. She was descended from the Reverend George Phillips, of Brookhaven, L. I., son of the Reverend Samuel Phillips, a graduate from Harvard College in 1650, and pastor of the Church in Rowley, Mass., until 1695. The father of the Reverend Samuel Phillips was the Reverend George Phillips, who, born in Rainham, England, in 1593, and graduated from Cambridge University, was one of the company that was brought from England by Sir Richard Saltonstall, and founded the town of Watertown, Mass., in 1630. Colonel Jeremiah Moore and his wife, Julia Brush, had three sons and three daughters. The eldest son was Charles B. Moore, who was born in 1808, was an eminent lawyer, associated at one time with Francis B. Cutting, and was also a master in chancery. He also had high standing as a genealogist, and was a vice-president of the New York Genealogical and Biographical Society. His wife was Frances Maria Jones, daughter of John H. Jones, of Cold Spring Harbor, Long Island. The second son was Jeremiah Moore, and the third was William H. H. Moore. The eldest daughter of the family, Frances Maria Moore, married the Reverend William Hunting. The other two daughters were Mary Adaline and Julia Moore.
Mr. William Henry Helme Moore was born in Sterling, Suffolk County, Long Island, in 1824. He was prepared for college at the Miller's Place Academy in his native town, and matriculated at Union College in 1840, graduating four years later. He began the study of law with his brother, Charles B. Moore. Admitted to the bar in 1847, he soon found himself most interested in that branch of his profession relating to the adjustment of marine losses. His devotion to that speciality led to his engagement with the Atlantic Mutual Insurance Company, of which he became the third executive officer, and was for thirty years its second vice-president, in 1886 becoming the first vice-president, and in 1895 president. He was also president of the Life Saving Benevo- lent Association, the Workingmen's Protective Union, and the New York Port Society, a trustee of the Seamen's Bank, a director of the Atlantic Trust Company, and the Phoenix National Bank, and one of the vice-presidents of the American Geographical Society. Since 1882, he has been a trustee of Union College, and in 1890 was president of the Union College Alumni Association of New York. For more than twenty-five years a member of the Union League Club, he is also a member of the Reform Club and the Bar Association. Mr. Moore married Adelaide L. Lewis. His residence is in West Seventy-second Street, and he has a country home at the ancestral seat of the family in Greenport, Long Island.
409
EDWIN DENISON MORGAN
F EW families have borne a more honorable part in public and business life in New England and elsewhere in the country than the Morgans. They are descended from two brothers, who came from Wales in the early years of the seventeenth century and settled in Massachusetts, James Morgan and Captain Miles Morgan. The ancestor of that branch of the family, which has been conspicuously represented in the present generation by New York's great war Governor, Edwin D. Morgan, the grandfather of Mr. Edwin Denison Morgan, was James Morgan, 1607-1685. He arrived in this country in 1636, lived in Roxbury, Mass., for several years, was one of the early settlers of Groton, Conn., a selectman of New London and one of the first deputies to the Connecticut General Court. His wife was Margery Hill, of Roxbury, Mass. The line of descent to Governor Morgan, from James Morgan, was through John Morgan, 1644- 1712, and his second wife, the widow Elizabeth Williams, daughter of Lieutenant-Governor William Jones; William Morgan, 1693-1729, and his wife, Mary Avery, daughter of Captain James Avery, of Groton, Conn .; Captain William Morgan, 1723-1777, and his wife, Temperance Avery, daughter of Colonel Christopher Avery and great-granddaughter of Captain James Avery; Captain William Avery, 1754-1842, who fought at Bunker Hill, and Jasper Morgan, who, born in 1783, was the father of Governor Morgan. The wife of Jasper Morgan was Catharine (Copp) Avery, 1775-1822, widow of Jasper Avery, of Groton.
Governor Edwin Denison Morgan was born in Washington, Mass., in 1811, and died in New York in 1883. He engaged in mercantile life, at the age of seventeen, in Hartford. In 1836, he removed to New York, where he was soon established in business on his own account. In 1843, he founded the firm of E. D. Morgan & Co. He became one of the great merchants of New York, and in the latter part of his life confined himself almost entirely to the banking business.
Even more prominent in public life than in the business world, Mr. Morgan began his public career as a member of the City Council of Hartford, when he was only twenty-one years of age. He was an assistant alderman in New York in 1849, and a member of the New York Senate, 1850-53. In 1856, he was vice-president of the National Convention of his party, in Philadelphia, and chairman of the Republican National Committee for the ensuing eight years. He was Commissioner of Immigration, 1855-58, and United States Senator from New York, 1863-69. Governor of the State of New York, 1859-62, he rendered signal service to the Union cause. He was confirmed as Secretary of the Treasury in the Cabinet of President Arthur, but declined the appointment. He was connected with many business enterprises, was governor and president of the Woman's Hospital, and for eight years vice-president of the Ameri- can Tract Society. He built a dormitory for Williams College, contributed generously to the Union Theological Seminary, the Presbyterian Hospital and other institutions, and by his will be- queathed about seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars to public purposes. The wife of Gov- ernor Morgan, whom he married in 1833, was Eliza Matilda Waterman, daughter of Captain Henry Waterman, of Hartford. He had several children, but only one of them survived, his son, Dr. Edwin D. Morgan, who was born in 1834 and died in 1881.
Mr. Edwin Denison Morgan is the only surviving son of Dr. Edwin D. Morgan. His mother was Sarah Elizabeth Archer, daughter of Thomas and Lucy Archer, of Suffield, Conn. He was born in New York, and graduated from Harvard College in the class of 1877 and is engaged in the banking business. He married Elizabeth Moran. Devoting much time to gentle- manly sports, he is a member of the New York Yacht, Eastern Yacht, Atlantic Yacht, Coaching, Rockaway Hunt, Meadow Brook Hunt and Westminster Kennel clubs. His literary and social clubs and organizations include the Metropolitan, Tuxedo, Union League, Knickerbocker and Union clubs, the Sons of the Revolution, the National Academy of Design and the American Geographical Society. He has a country estate, Wheatly, at Westbury Station, Long Island, and a cottage in Newport.
410
JOHN PIERPONT MORGAN
P OSSESSING an international reputation as a financier, Mr. Morgan is also to be considered as one of the best types of citizenship of our Republic. A New Englander by birth, he retains all the moral fibre which distinguished the Puritans. His family is one which from the first settlement of Western Massachusetts took a place of prominence in the Colony. Its founder, Miles Morgan, 1615-1699, arrived in Boston in 1636 and was one of the company, under the leader- ship of William Pynchon, which founded Springfield, Mass. In the allotment of lands, Miles Morgan received a plot on which he built a homestead that remained in the possession of his descendants until 1845. About 1643, he married Prudence Gilbert, of Beverly. Mass., and after her death he espoused Elizabeth, daughter of Thomas Bliss, of Springfield. The only son of this marriage, Nathaniel Morgan, 1671-1752, married Hannah Bird, their son being Joseph Morgan, born in 1702, whose wife was Mary Stebbins. The next in the line of Mr. J. Pierpont Morgan's descent was Captain Joseph Morgan, born in 1736, who married Experience Smith in 1765. His son, Joseph Morgan, 1780-1847, was for many years engaged in business in Hartford, Conn., and married Sarah Spencer, of Middletown, Conn.
Junius Spencer Morgan, their son and Mr. J. Pierpont Morgan's father, was born at Holyoke, Mass., in 1813. He began his eminently successful business career at an early age, becoming a merchant in Hartford and later in Boston. In 1854, he removed to London and was a partner of George Peabody, the famous Anglo-American philanthropist, founding in 1864, when Mr. Peabody retired, the banking house of J. S. Morgan & Co. His death occurred in Nice, France, in 1890, as the result of an accident, ending a life which had been wholly useful and patriotic. His activity as a layman in the affairs of the Protestant Episcopal Church was noteworthy and, among other institutions, Trinity College, Hartford, Conn., owes much to his munificence.
His wife, Juliet Pierpont, whom he married in 1836, was also of the best New England stock, while her English ancestry was a notable one. The progenitor of the Pierpont family was Sir Robert de Pierrepont, a commander in the army of William the Conqueror, who became the first Lord of the Manor of Hurst Pierrepont, in Yorkshire, his lineal representatives in successive generations holding a distinguished place in the landed aristocracy of England. Robert Pierrepont, the grandson of Sir George Pierrepont, in the seventeenth century, became the first Earl of Kingston-upon-Hull, the title being subsequently merged in that of the Dukes of Kingston, which was extinguished on the death without issue of Evelyn Pierrepont, the second duke, in 1773. William Pierrepont, a younger son of Sir George Pierrepont, was the father of James Pierepont, who died in Ipswich, Mass., in 1648, and grandfather of the Honorable John Pierepont, 1617-1682, of Roxbury, Mass. The latter's son was the Reverend James Pierpont, 1659-1714, a famous divine, who became pastor of the church at New Haven in 1685 and was one of the three ministers to whom the foundation of Yale College was due, and who, indeed, suggested it, thus reviving a plan of the Reverend John Davenport, the founder of New Haven. His third wife was Mary Hooker, granddaughter of the Reverend Thomas Hooker, the famous Puritan minister who led the migration of his flock from Newtown, now Cambridge, Mass., to Hartford, in 1636, and their son, James Pierpont, 1694-1776, graduated at Saybrook (afterwards Yale) College in 1718 and married Anna Sherman. Their son, another James Pierpont, 1761-1840, married Elizabeth Collins.
The Reverend John Pierpont, the poet, clergyman and patriot, who was Mr. Morgan's grandfather, was the son of James and Elizabeth (Collins) Pierpont and was born at Litchfield, Conn., in 1785, dying in 1866. He graduated at Yale College in 1804 and became a lawyer, but in 1819 was ordained a clergyman. Among his first charges was the pastorate of the Hollis Street Unitarian Congregation of Boston, but the earnestness of his views on slavery and temperance led to his relinquishing this post. He subsequently occupied pulpits in Troy, N. Y., and other cities, and at the beginning of the Civil War felt impelled, despite his advanced age, to enter the army as chaplain of a Massachusetts regiment, though he was soon compelled to retire. Shining as an
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orator, he also took a high rank among American poets of the past generation, many of his works, among them Airs of Palestine, obtaining a wide circulation. He married his cousin, Mary Sheldon Lord, in 1810, their daughter, Juliet Pierpont, being born at Baltimore, Md., in 1816.
Mr. John Pierpont Morgan is the only son of Junius Spencer and Juliet (Pierpont) Morgan and was born in Hartford, Conn., April 17th, 1837. Educated at Boston and Göttingen, Germany, he returned to the United States in 1857 and entered the banking business with Duncan, Sherman & Co., of New York. In 1860, he became attorney in America for George Peabody & Co., of London, and in 1864 was partner in Dabney, Morgan & Co. In 1871, the famous banking house of Drexel, Morgan & Co. was formed, which in 1895 was changed to the style of J. P. Morgan & Co. On the death of his father, Mr. Morgan also became the head of the firm of J. S. Morgan & Co., of London, and usually spends a portion of each year in that city.
It is scarcely germane to our purpose to dwell upon Mr. Morgan's eminence as a banker and financier. Indeed, the facts in this connection are too well known to require detailed mention. Acknowledgment must, however, be made of his services to the country in 1894 and 1895, when, largely by his efforts, the credit of the United States Treasury was protected, while the many great corporations he has restored to solvency have made his labors a matter of national importance.
In early life, Mr. Morgan married Amelia Sturges, daughter of Jonathan and Mary (Cady) Sturges, of New York, who died soon after. In 1865, he contracted a second matrimonial alliance, with Frances Louisa Tracy, daughter of Charles Tracy, 1810-1885, who graduated from Yale College in 1832 and was a leading member of the New York bar, and whose wife, Louisa Kirkland, was the daughter of General Joseph Kirkland, of Utica, N. Y. The Tracy family possesses a notable ancestry. Mrs. Morgan's grandfather was William Gedney Tracy, born at Norwich, Conn., in 1768, who settled at Whitesbough, N. Y., and married Rachael Huntington, of Norwich. His grandfather, Joseph Tracy, 1706-1787, for many years a town official of Norwich, was the son of Captain Joseph Tracy, 1682-1765, of Norwich, which town he frequently represented in the Connecticut Legis- lature. He was the son of Captain John Tracy, 1642-1702, one of the original proprietors of Norwich, who in 1670 married Mary Winslow, daughter of Josiah Winslow and niece of Governor Edward Winslow, one of the Mayflower emigrants. Lieutenant Thomas Tracy, his father, who came to Salem, Mass., about 1636 and was also an original proprietor of Norwich, Conn., was the son of Nathaniel Tracy, of Tewksbury, England, and grandson of Richard Tracy, of Stanway, and his wife, Barbary Lucy, daughter of Thomas Lucy, of Charlecote, near Stratford-on-Avon, Warwick- shire. Richard Tracy was High Sheriff of Gloucestershire, and a cadet of the Tracy, or de Traci, family of Todington, whose representatives in the middle ages were repeatedly sheriffs of Gloucestershire and held other high office.
Mr. and Mrs. Morgan have four children. Their only son, John Pierpont Morgan, Jr., born in 1867, graduated from Harvard University in the class of 1889 and is engaged in the banking business with his father. In 1891, he married jane Norton Grew, of Boston, and has a son, Junius Spencer Morgan, born in 1892. The three daughters of Mr. and Mrs. Morgan are Louisa Pierpont, Juliet Pierpont, the wife of W. Pierson Hamilton, and Anne Tracy Morgan. The burdens of business do not prevent Mr. Morgan from enjoying the social side of life. He is a member of the leading clubs, was one of the founders and president of the Metropolitan Club and is commodore of the New York Yacht Club. He also takes an active interest in many charitable organizations, is a warden of St. George's Church and has several times been a lay delegate from this diocese to the general conventions of the Protestant Episcopal Church. The family residence is in Madison Avenue, and his country seat is Cragston, at Highland Falls, N. Y. The three sisters of Mr. J. P. Morgan were Sarah Spencer, Mary Lyman and Juliet Pierpont Morgan. The first named, born in 1839, married George Hale Morgan, in 1866, and died in 1896. Their children are Junius Spencer Morgan, who married Josephine Adams Perry; George D. Morgan and Caroline L. Morgan. Mary Lyman Morgan, born in 1844, married, in 1867, Walter H. Burns, who was a member of the firm of J. S. Morgan & Co., of London, until his death in November, 1897. Juliet Pierpont Morgan, born in 1847, married the Reverend John B. Morgan, rector of the American Episcopal Church in Paris, France.
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