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 76

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

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While he was still a law student, in 1860, his father, Colonel Plympton, died. At the beginning of the Civil War, his two brothers and the husbands of two of his sisters were in the army. As a student, he was exempt from the operation of the draft, but being familiar with military duties, he offered his services gratuitously to the Government to instruct recruits and newly appointed officers. His services were not required, however, and he subsequently applied for a commission in the regular army, but as all the other men of his family were already in the army, he was prevailed on not to press the application, as his mother and sisters were left in his charge.

For some years after his admission to the bar, Mr. Plympton had a general practice, but later it was confined almost entirely to the Federal courts. His clients continued to grow in numbers, until they gave him an extensive practice. In his own cases, and as counsel for other lawyers, he was engaged in much of the important litigation of the time. Mr. Plympton, however, never had a fondness for his profession, which he entered mainly to please his father. Having earned an independence and his health having suffered from overwork, he decided in 1889 to retire from the practice of the law. In 1892, he organized, with his present partners, the well-known banking house of Redmond, Kerr & Co., of this city, which has since occupied his entire attention.

In 1863, Mr. Plympton married Mary S. Stevens, daughter of Linus W. Stevens, a well-known merchant of this city, whose family was identified with the State of Connecticut from an early period in its history, and who was one of the organizers and first Colonel of the Seventh Regiment. Mr. and Mrs. Plympton have one daughter, Mary Livingston Plympton. Their son, Gilbert Livingston Plympton, died an infant. Mr. Plympton has never held any public position, although'asked to do so. He has, however, been a director in various corporations, and was one of the founders and vice-president of the St. Nicholas Club. He is a member of the Union, Metropolitan, St. Nicholas, Riding, Westchester Country and New York Yacht clubs, of the Downtown Association, Sons of the Revolution, Society of Colonial Wars, Society of the War of 1812, Colonial Order of the Acorn, St. Nicholas Society, New York Historical Society, American Historical Society, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Botanical Society, Zoological Society and the Cham- ber of Commerce. His city residence is 30 West Fifty-second Street, where he has an exceptionally fine library, and the country home of the family is at East Gloucester, Mass. Mr. Plympton has been a frequent contributor to the papers and periodicals of the day, and is the author of several pamphlets, among them a monograph of the life and services of his father, Colonel Joseph Plympton, and a sketch of the Plympton family, extracts from which are freely used in this article.

454

The Plympton family is of English stock and originally came from the village of Plumpton, near Knaresborough, in the West Riding of Yorkshire. Eldred de Plumpton was a landholder there at the time of the Domesday Survey in 1086, and from him the family is descended. Its first representative in America was Thomas Plympton, born in England about 1620, who married Abigail Noyes. He was one of the founders of Sudbury, Mass., and was slain by the Indians in 1676. His son, Peter Plympton, 1666-1743, married Abigail Thomas, and their son, Thomas Plympton, 1723-1789, was a soldier in the Revolutionary Army. In the fourth American generation, Ebenezer Plympton, 1756-1834, was also a soldier in the Continental Army, and after peace had been restored was prominent in civil life, becoming a magistrate. His first wife, grandmother of the subject of this article, was Susanna Ruggles, 1764-1807, of Roxbury, Mass.

Colonel Joseph Plympton, the son of Ebenezer and Susanna (Ruggles) Plympton, was born in Sudbury, Mass., in 1787. Entering the United States Army as Second Lieutenant, at the beginning of the War of 1812, he saw active service in the campaigns on the Canadian frontier during that contest. In 1821, he was promoted to be First Lieutenant, and in 1831 became Captain of the First Infantry. From 1824 to 1834, he was on duty in the Northwest and took part in the Black Hawk War. He also served with signal distinction in the Florida War under General Worth, and in 1840 was raised to the rank of Major of the United States Second Infantry. At the beginning of the Mexican War, he was made Lieutenant-Colonel of the Seventh Infantry, and served under General Scott throughout the war. He was engaged in the battles of Cerro Gordo and Contreras and in the capture of the City of Mexico, and was brevetted for gallantry and coolness in action. In 1854, he was made Colonel of the First United States Infantry, and died in 1860 at Staten Island, after forty-eight years of highly distinguished service in the army. Many officers who afterwards became conspicuous in the Civil War saw service under Colonel Plymp- ton, among whom were Generals Ulysses S. Grant, Philip Sheridan and others. He protected the handful of settlers in what is now the City of St. Paul, Minn., from the Indians, and was the commandant of the last fort, Fort Dearborn, within the limits of the present City of Chicago. In 1824, Colonel Plympton married Eliza Matilda Livingston, who was born in 1801 and died in 1873. In her youth she was famed for her beauty and her wit, and through her the present Mr. Plympton, her son, is descended from some of the oldest New York Colonial families, as well as from noble ancestors in Europe. She was a daughter of Peter W. Livingston and his wife, Eliza Beekman, one of the well-known New York families of that name. The famous Robert Livingston, first Lord of Livingston Manor, was her great-great-great-great-grandfather. The mother of Mr. Gilbert M. Plympton also traced her ancestry in a direct line to the Earl of Linlithgow of Scot- land, the father of Lady Mary Livingston, who was one of the four Marys who in 1548 accompanied Mary Stuart to France to meet the Dauphin. When the Marquis de Lafayette made his second visit to America, in 1824, he displayed much interest in Lieutenant Joseph Plympton and his beautiful wife, and became their personal friend. The names by which their son, Mr. Gilbert Motier Plympton, was christened, were given in remembrance of his parents' friendship for the illustrious French patriot and Revolutionary hero.

Several other children of Colonel Joseph and Eliza Matilda (Livingston) Plympton were notable in their lives. Peter W. L. Plympton graduated from West Point in 1847. He served in the Mexican War and greatly distinguished himself in the Civil War in New Mexico under General Canby. He was twice brevetted for conspicuous bravery, attained the rank of Lieu- tenant-Colonel, and died in 1866. Joseph Ruggles Plympton, another son, was severely wounded in the Civil War. He died in 1895. The eldest daughter, Emily Maria Plympton, married Cap- tain Mansfield Lovell; Cornelia de Peyster Plympton married Colonel Henry M. Black, and the third daughter, Louisa Edmonia Plympton, married Lieutenant John Pitman, all officers of the United States Army.

The arms of the Plympton family, described in terms of heraldry, are: Azure, a fesse engrelé d'or., each fusil of the engrailed fesse charged with an escallop, gules. Crest, a phoenix or., surrounded by flames proper.

455

CHARLES COOLIDGE POMEROY

T HE Reverend Benjamin Pomeroy, paternal ancestor in the fifth generation of Mr. C. C. Pomeroy, was a prominent clergyman of Connecticut in the first part of the eighteenth century. He was pastor of a church in Hartford, and by his wife, Abigail, had a son, Eleazer Pomeroy, who died in 1783. Eleazer Pomeroy married, in 1764, Mary Wyllys, who was born in 1742. Samuel Wyllys Pomeroy, the eldest son of this union, born in 1764, resided for many years in Boston, whence he removed to Cincinnati, and thence to Pomeroy, O., where he died in 1841. His wife, whom he married in 1793, was Clarissa Alsop, daughter of Richard and Mary (Wright) Alsop, of Middletown, Conn., a member of an old Colonial family. His son, Samuel Wyllys Pomeroy, the father of the subject of this sketch, was born and brought up in Boston, removing later to Cincinnati, and in 1868 to Pomeroy, O., where he died in 1882. He married Catharine Boyer Coolidge, of Boston.

Through Mary Wyllys, who married Eleazer Pomeroy in 1764, Mr. Pomeroy is descended from a family famous in the annals of Connecticut. Mary Wyllys was the daughter of Colonel George Wyllys, 1710-1796. He was graduated from Yale College in 1729, was town clerk of Hartford in 1730 until his death, a Captain of the militia, and Lieutenant in the French War, 1757. In 1734, he succeeded his father as Secretary of State, and held that position for sixty-two years. The brother of Mary Wyllys was General Samuel Wyllys, 1738-1823. He was graduated from Yale College in 1758, and was a Captain and Lieutenant-Colonel in Colonel Joseph Spencer's regiment in 1775. Serving at the siege of Boston, and at the battles of Long Island and White Plains, he was from 1776 a Colonel in the Connecticut line. After the War, he succeeded his father as Secretary of State of Connecticut in 1796, holding that position until 1809, and was Brigadier-General and Major-General of the militia. His wife was Ruth Belden, a cousin. The father of George Wyllys, Hezekiah Wyllys, 1672-1741, held many offices in Hartford, and was Secretary of the Colony, 1712-34. Hezekiah Wyllys was the son of Samuel Wyllys and Ruth Haynes, and a grandson of Governor John Haynes, of Massachusetts and Connecticut. The wife of Governor John Haynes was Mabel Harlekenden, daughter of Richard Harlekenden, of England, and descended in the twelfth generation from Ralph de Neville, Earl of Westmoreland. Samuel Wyllys, the father of Hezekiah Wyllys, was for more than thirty years a magistrate of Con- necticut, and was one of the earliest graduates from Harvard College. He came to this country in 1638 with his father, George Wyllys, who was Colonial Governor of Connecticut in 1642. On the family estate, in Hartford, Wyllys Hill, stood the famous "Charter Oak."

Mr. Charles Coolidge Pomeroy was born in March, 1833, at Philadelphia, and was graduated from Harvard College. During and after the war, he served in the army as Captain in the Eleventh and Twentieth United States Infantry, and was brevetted Major and Lieutenant-Col- onel. The greater part of his business life has been spent in New York.

In 1863, Mr. Pomeroy married Edith Burnet, of Cincinnati, O., daughter of Robert Wallace Burnet and Margaret A. Groesbeck, and granddaughter of Judge Jacob Burnet and Rebecca Wal- lace. Judge Jacob Burnet was born in Newark in 1770. He was the son of William Burnet, of New Jersey, 1730-1791, and grandson of Ichabod Burnet, a physician, who came from Scotland and settled in New Jersey. William Burnet was a physician, a member of the Continental Con- gress, Surgeon-General of the army, during the Revolution, and an original member of the Society of Cincinnati. Judge Burnet removed to Ohio in 1796 and became prominent in public affairs, being a member of the State Legislature, Judge of the Supreme Court, and United States Senator, the first president of the Colonization Society of Cincinnati, O., and otherwise a distin- guished citizen. Rebecca Wallace, his wife, was the great-great-granddaughter of James Claypoole, the pioneer of Philadelphia, 1634-1686. Mr. Pomeroy lives in West End Avenue. He belongs to the Metropolitan, Union and Riding clubs, the Downtown Association, and the Harvard Alumni Association. He has two daughters, Margaret B. and Mary S. Pomeroy.

456

EDWARD ERIE POOR

O NE of the first settlers of the town of Newbury, Mass., in 1635, was John Poore, or Poor, who was born in Wiltshire, England, about 1615. Some thirty acres of land in the town of Rowley, Mass., was granted to him, on which he built a house, still standing, and died in 1684. Henry Poore, his son, was born in 1650, and was a large land owner in Newbury. He served in King Philip's War, in 1675, was made a freeman in 1680, and held various public offices. His wife, Abigail Hale, daughter of Thomas Hale, Jr., was descended from old English families through both her father and her mother. In the third generation, Benjamin Poore, who was born in Rowley, in 1695, was a Captain and one of the leading men of the neighborhood. In the sixth generation, Benjamin Poor, who was born in 1794, became an eminent merchant in Boston. His wife, whom he married in 1824, was Aroline Emily Peabody, born in Salem, Mass., in 1807, daughter of Jeremiah and Catherine (Kimball) Peabody.

The father of Mrs. Poor and the grandfather of the subject of this sketch was a native of Boxford, Mass., born in 1776. His father, Deacon Moses Peabody, born in 1744, belonged to one of the old families of Massachusetts. The pioneer of the Peabody family was Lieutenant Francis Peabody, of St. Albans, Hertfordshire, England. Born in 1614, he came to New England in 1635. He first resided at Ipswich, and in the summer of 1638 was one of the original settlers of Hampden, Norfolk County, Mass. There he resided for many years. In 1642, he was made a freeman, and in 1649 was chosen by the town of Hampden to administer some of its affairs. About 1650, he removed to Topsfield, Mass., and became one of the most prominent men of that town, and a large landowner in Topsfield, Boxford and Rowley. His wife was Mary Foster, or Forster, whose family, so prominent in the history of the Scottish border, is mentioned in The Lay of the Last Minstrel, and in Marmion.

Captain John Peabody, son of Lieutenant Francis Peabody, was the great-grandfather of Deacon Moses Peabody, the maternal grandfather of the subject of this sketch. Captain Peabody was born in 1642, lived in Boxford, where he was made a freeman of the town in 1674 and a representative, 1689-91, The descent to the wife of Benjamin Poor was through Ensign David Peabody, of Boxford, and his son, John Peabody, also of Boxford, the father of Deacon Moses Peabody. Jeremiah Peabody, the father of Mrs. Poor, was a cousin of George Peabody, the banker and philanthropist, while there are many other distinguished names on the roll of this eminent New England family.

Mr. Edward Erie Poor, the son of Benjamin Poor and his wife, Aroline (Peabody) Poor, was born in 1837 in Boston. He was educated at schools in Boston, and in 1851 entered the dry goods commission house of Read, Chadwick & Dexter, and in 1864 removed to New York City. He became a dry goods commission merchant, being partner in the firm of Denny, Jones & Poor. In 1879, the style was changed to Denny, Poor & Co., with Daniel Denny and James E. Dean as partners. Besides the New York establishment, the firm has branches in Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore and Chicago. Mr. Poor is vice-president of the Passaic Print Works, of Passaic. N. J., was one of the incorporators of the Dry Goods Bank, and in 1888 became a director of the National Park Bank. Elected vice-president of the latter institution in 1893, he became its president in 1895, which position he now holds. Mr. Poor is also a trustee of the State Trust Company, and has been a member of the Chamber of Commerce since 1872.

In 1860, Mr. Poor married Mary Wellington Lane, daughter of Washington J. and Cynthia (Clark) Lane, of Cambridge, Mass. They have seven children: Edward Erie, Jr., and James Harper Poor, partners in business with their father; Dr. Charles Lane Poor, a professor in Johns Hopkins University; Frank Ballou Poor; Horace F. Poor; Helen, wife of W. C. Thomas, of Hackensack, and Emily C. Poor. Mr. Poor's residence is at 16 East Tenth Street, and his home during the summer is at Hackensack, N. J. He is a member of the Union League, Manhattan, Military and Merchants' clubs of this city.

457

HORACE PORTER

A BRILLIANT record in both civil and military life is combined in the career of General Horace Porter with personal qualities that have made him one of New York's representa- tive men. His family has for three generations taken a distinguished part in the affairs of the country. His grandfather was General Andrew Porter, 1743-1813, of Montgomery County, Pa., who, in 1776, entered the Army of the Revolution as Captain, served in the battles of Trenton, Princeton, Brandywine and Germantown, and was engaged in the expeditions against the North- western Indians. After the Revolution, he held various offices in Pennsylvania, including those of General of the State militia and Surveyor-General. He was also a commissioner to establish the boundary between Pennsylvania and New York. General Horace Porter's father, the eldest son of the Revolutionary General, was the Honorable David R. Porter, 1788-1867, who was for two suc- cessive terms, 1839-45, Governor of Pennsylvania. An uncle, Judge James Madison Porter, 1793-1862, was prominent in State and National politics, and is remembered as a founder of Lafayette College, while General Andrew Porter, second of the name, 1819-1872, a first cousin of the present General Porter's father, was graduated from West Point, distinguished himself in the Mexican War, and in the Civil War became a Colonel in the regular army and Brigadier-General of Volunteers.

General Horace Porter was born in Huntington, Pa., April 15, 1837, and was educated in the Lawrenceville Academy and in the Scientific School of Harvard, entering West Point in 1855, from which he was graduated in 1860, third in his class. His first army service was in the ordnance and artillery, and on the outbreak of the Civil War he took part in the expeditions against Port Royal and Savannah, receiving promotion to the rank of Captain for gallantry at the reduction of Fort Pulaski. In 1862, he became Chief of Ordnance in the Army of the Potomac, under General McClellan, and participated in the battle of Antietam, being afterwards transferred to the West and assigned to staff duty in the Army of the Cumberland. He distinguished himself in the battle of Chickamauga, being on General Rosecran's staff. At this point of his career, he attracted the attention of General Grant, who, when appointed Lieutenant-General of the Union Armies, made him one of his aides, with the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel. Sharing in the battles of the Wilderness, the operations around Spottsylvania and Petersburg, he received successive promotions as Major, Lieutenant-Colonel, Colonel and Brigadier-General in the regular army, and in 1865 was on the staff of General Grant when the latter received the surrender of the Confederate Army from General Robert E. Lee at Appomattox.

After the termination of the war, General Porter continued closely connected, officially and personally, with General Grant, and was Assistant Secretary of War under the latter. On the elevation of Grant to the Presidency, General Porter became his private secretary, but in 1872 he resigned that position and also relinquished his rank in the army to engage in the railway business, which engaged his attention for the next twenty-five years. Since 1872, General Porter has been a resident of New York, and his record is one of business and social success. He has achieved a high place in the business world, and at the same time has rendered a full share of public service as vice-chairman of the committee in charge of the Columbian Celebration in 1892 and on other nota- ble occasions. He has also won reputation as a graceful and effective public speaker. His devo- tion to the memory of General Grant is a marked feature of General Porter's character and through his efforts the erection of the monument in Riverside Park to his dead chief was made possible.

Union College, in 1893, conferred upon General Porter the degree of LL. D. In 1897, President Mckinley appointed him United States Ambassador to France. He married Sophie K. McHarg. Until he went abroad, his city home was in Madison Avenue and he had a country residence in Elberon, N. J. He has been president of the Union League Club and of the Society of the Army of the Potomac, and president-general of the Sons of the American Revolution, and is a member of New York's most prominent social organizations.

458

GEORGE B. POST

D URING the life of the present generation, a transformation has occurred in the appearance of New York. Time-honored landmarks have disappeared, but loss in this respect is more than compensated for by the increased beauty of the city. Not only has New York's architectural progress kept pace in an artistic sense with its material wealth and importance, but it is here that a national school of the art has developed, and that American architects have found examples in which beauty and utility have been united with daring and original con- ceptions. Among the architects not only of the United States, but of the world, Mr. George B. Post occupies a position of preëminence. This is recognized by the public, as well as by his own profession, and it may be said that no one individual has done more to adorn the metropolis. Besides this, it is Mr. Post's distinction, that he has been instrumental by his work in maintaining high standards, and in uniting utility and art.

This eminent architect comes from an old New York family. He is descended from Lieutenant Richard Post, who went to Southampton, Long Island, about the year 1640. The Post family is of Dutch origin, and the founder of the American branch came from Holland to this country with a party of Pilgrims and settled in Massachusetts. The fourth in descent from Lieutenant Richard Post was Jotham Post, who was born in 1740 and left Westbury, Long Island, to come to New York City. He married Winifred Wright and had four sons, Wright, Joel, Jotham and Alison Post. The eldest son was the celebrated Dr. Wright Post, whose picture appears in the famous group representing the Court of Washington. The second son, Joel Post, owned an estate on the upper part of Manhattan Island, where he resided throughout his life. This property embraced the Claremont estate, and part of it, including the mansion and the site of General Grant's tomb, was acquired by the city from his descendants, when the Riverside Park was created. The father of Mr. George B. Post was Joel B. Post, the son of the above Joel Post, who married Abbey M. Church, of Providence, R. I., a direct descendant of Captain Benjamin Church, celebrated in the early Colonial wars.

Mr. George B. Post was born in New York City in 1837. His inclinations from his youth were scientific and artistic, and in 1858 he graduated in the class of civil engineering at the University of the City of New York. He then began the study of architecture under the late Richard M. Hunt. At the beginning of the Civil War, Mr. Post had just begun the practice of his profession. He temporarily laid aside his chosen career, however, entered the army as Captain in the Twenty-Second Regiment, New York National Guard, participated in many engagements, including that of Fredericksburg, where he served as aide on the staff of General Burnside, and was promoted to the rank of Colonel.

Returning to his profession at the close of the war, Mr. Post was not long in acquiring recognition. A record of his achievements in architecture includes many of the most famous residences in the city, together with such notable structures as the Equitable, the Mills, the Times, the St. Paul and the Havemeyer buildings, the New York Hospital, the Produce and Cotton Exchanges and Chickering Hall.

In 1863, Mr. Post married Alice M. Stone, daughter of William W. Stone, of New York. His residence is at 11 West Twenty-first Street. He is a member of the Union, Metropolitan, Knickerbocker, Century and other clubs, and president of the Architectural League of New York City and the American Institute of Architects. His only brother, Charles A. Post, is a lawyer, who now devotes his time to real estate management. He is well known as an amateur astronomer, possessing a private observatory at his place, Bayside, Long Island, and is a fellow of the Royal and other astronomical societies. The arms of the Post family, as recorded at the College of Heraldry, are: Argent on a fess gules, a lion passant between two roundels of the first between three arches with columns of the second. Crest, a demi-lion proper, tongued gules, resting his sinister paw on an arch with columns gules. Motto, In me mea spes omnis.

459

BROOKE POSTLEY

S EVERAL of the historic old families of Virginia are included among the antecedents of General Brooke Postley. The family whose name he bears was distinguished in the earliest Colonial days, and several of its members took an active and influential part in public affairs, in the Old Dominion in the pre-Revolutionary period. When the war broke out they were found upon the patriot side and rendered efficient service to the Continental cause. The grand- father of Mr. Postley was an officer in the Revolutionary Army. Charles Postley, his father, was an officer in the War of 1812, and in civil life was a successful business man, being the owner of extensive and valuable iron works, situated in Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania, and active in the developement of the industrial interests of those States.

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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 76

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