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 78
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465
JOSIAH COLLINS PUMPELLY
A ROMAN origin is evident in the case of the Pompelly family. There was a tribune Pompilius in Rome circa 420 B. C., and other notices of the surname occur. In its Italian form of Pompili, it appears in the mediaval records of Spoletto, and one of the family went with Pope Clement V. to Avignon, and through him a branch became established in France. The arms of the race are in the records of the Italian nobility.
The founder of the American branch of the family was Jean Pompilie, a Huguenot, who early in the eighteenth century came from France to Canada, and thence to New England, where he married an heiress, Miss Monroe. His son, John Pumpelly (as the name was Anglicized), was born in 1727. In his twelfth year he ran away, became a drummer in the English Army and finally joined Roger's Rangers and served throughout the French War, was promoted for bravery and stood near Wolfe when he fell at Quebec. During the Revolution, he was commissary to General Putnam. His eldest son, Bennett, who was also an officer of the Continental Army, was honored with Lafayette's friendship. Another son, Barnard, was killed at St. Clair's defeat. John Pumpelly was married first to Eppen Meijer and second to Hannah Bushnell, of Salisbury, Conn., and resided there until 1802, when he moved to Danby, N. Y., where he died in 1819.
Two sons of his second marriage, James and Harmon, were early settlers in Tioga County, New York State, where they became extensive land owners and agents for the Livingston and other estates. The Honorable James Pumpelly, the grandfather of Mr. Josiah C. Pumpelly, was born at Salisbury in 1775, and married Mary Pixley, daughter of David Pixley, of Stockbridge, Mass., a Colonel in the Continental Army, who came to Owego, N. Y., in 1790, and, like Mr. Pumpelly, was one of the proprietors in the large body of land between Owego Creek and the Chenango River awarded to Massachusetts, and known as the Boston Purchase or Ten Townships. James Pumpelly represented Broome County in the Legislature. His son, George James Pumpelly, born at Owego in 1805, graduated at Yale in 1826, and at Litchfield Law School in 1828. He took an active part in creating the Erie Railway, and rendered great service in advancing the agricultural interests of the southern tier of counties. He was a Christian gentleman of the old school, a true lover of books, and possessed a most generous and hospitable nature. He married his cousin, Susan Isabella Pumpelly, born in 1809, the daughter of Charles Pumpelly, who was an officer in the War of 1812, her mother being an Avery. Through her great-great-grandmother she traced her ancestry back ten centuries through a notable array of British sovereigns, statesmen and soldiers. Samuel Avery, the great-great-grandfather of Mr. Pumpelly, was a soldier of the Revolution.
Mr. Josiah Collins Pumpelly was born at Owego, in 1839, graduated at Rutgers College in 1860, and from the Columbia College Law School in 1863. Literary pursuits and social problems interested him more than professional life, and after some years of travel in Europe, the East, and the United States, he settled at Poughkeepsie, N. Y., and later at Morristown, N. J. In 1876, he married Mrs. Margaret (Lanier) Winslow, a descendant of the Huguenot, Louis Lanier. After the death of his wife, Mr. Pumpelly established himself in New York City, where he has become identified with public movements and particularly with the City Improvement Society, of which he was a founder, and is now the honored secretary. Its object is to secure the enforcement of laws for the improvement of the city, and the proper discharge of their duties by municipal authorities, a cause in which he has accomplished much practical good. In 1896, Mr. Pumpelly married for his second wife Mary Amelia Harmer, a descendant of the Revolutionary General Josiah Harmer, and of the old Huguenot family of Sandoz. In literary and antiquarian research Mr. Pumpelly has covered a wide field. He has published much on these subjects, and is an officer of the New York Genealogical and Biographical Society. He was one of the founders of the Huguenot Society, of the New Jersey State Charities Aid Association, and of the Society of the Sons of the American Revolution, and has taken a warm interest in church work as well as in philanthropic organizations. He is a veteran member of the Union League Club, and one of the Executive Board of the Civil Service Association.
466
GEORGE HAVEN PUTNAM
I N Buckinghamshire, England, the Putnam family was of high standing, as far back as the fifteenth century. Their arms were : Argent, crusily fitchee, sable, a stork of the last ; crest, a wolf's head, gules. John Putnam, the first of the name in America, was the ancestor of all the Putnams who trace their lineage to Colonial days. With John Putnam, in 1634, came his wife Priscilla, and their three sons, Thomas, Nathaniel and John. They settled in Salem, Mass., acquired large estates, and the sons became men of prominence and influence. In 1681, one- seventh of all the tax levied upon the ninety-four tax payers of Salem was paid by the three Putnams. Thomas Putnam also acquired by marriage great wealth in Jamaica and Barbadoes.
The Putnam family has always been prominent in Eastern Massachusetts. In 1867, of the eight hundred voters in Danvers, fifty were Putnams, and in the parish of that town up to a few years ago, twenty-four of the seventy-four recording clerks, fifteen of the twenty-three deacons, twelve of the twenty-six treasurers, and seven of the eighteen Sabbath School superintendents had been Putnams. General Israel Putnam, the famous Revolutionary soldier, was the most conspicuous member of the family in his day. Other members of the family have achieved distinction, among them being General Rufus Putnam, cousin of General Israel Putnam, also a Revolutionary soldier, and one of the explorers of the Ohio region; Judge John P. Putnam, of Connecticut ; Judge Samuel Putnam, of Massachusetts ; Judge William L. Putnam, of Maine ; Judge James Putnam, of New Brunswick ; General A. S. Putnam, of the Civil War, and Professor Frederick W. Putnam, the noted anthropologist and scientist. A great-grandson of Thomas Putnam, eldest son of the founder of the family in America, was Henry Putnam, 1788-1822, a lawyer of Boston. His wife was Catherine Hunt Palmer, a daughter of General Joseph Palmer, 1718-1788, who was a member of the Provincial Congress of Massachusetts in 1774, a member of the Committee of Safety, appointed by that body, and in command of the Massachusetts militia for the defense of Rhode Island in 1777.
George Palmer Putnam, the son of Henry and Catherine (Hunt) Putnam, was the first publisher of the name. Born in 1814, he became a clerk in the New York book store of Leavitt Brothers at the age of fourteen, and was in business for himself as a member of the firm of Wiley & Putnam, in 1840, and independently eight years later. In 1852, he established Putnam's Magazine. In 1862, he was appointed by President Lincoln United States Collector of Internal Revenue. In 1866, the publishing house that he founded in 1848 took the name of G. P. Putnam & Sons. Mr. Putnam was one of the earliest advocates of international copyright, organized in 1837 the first copy- right association, was a founder of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the author of several books. He died in 1872. He married, in 1840, Victorine Haven, daughter of Joseph Haven, a merchant of Boston. Mrs. Putnam's maternal grandfather was Colonel Francis Mason, who had command of the ordnance in the army of Washington, in 1776.
Mr. George Haven Putnam, born in London, England, April 2, 1844, succeeded his father at the head of the publishing house of G. P. Putnam's Sons. He was educated in Columbia College and in the University of Göttingen, Germany. He left the University in 1862 to enlist in the One Hundred and Seventy-sixth Regiment, New York Volunteers, in which he served until the close of the war, retiring with the rank of Major. He was a Deputy Collector of Internal Revenue in 1866, and has been a publisher for thirty years. As an author he has won distinction by magazine and cyclopædia articles on literary subjects, and by several books upon copyright, publishing and kindred topics. He was one of the founders of the Reform and City clubs, and is a member of the Century and the Authors' clubs, the Savile Club of London, and the Loyal Legion, and is secretary of the Publishers' Copyright League. His services for the cause of free trade, civil service reform, sound money and international copyright, have given him a national reputation. At the request of the Société des Gens de Lettres, of Paris, he received in 1891 the cross of the Legion of Honor.
467
EDWARD S. RAPALLO
U PON a country estate in Italy, not far from the town of Rapallo, the family of which Mr. Edward S. Rapallo is the leading American representative, has resided for many generations. There, Anthony Rapallo, who established the family in this country, was
born. Owing to his republican tendencies, he came into disfavor with his family and the Vatican, in consequence of which he emigrated to this country in early life and settled in New York. In this city, he first supported himself by teaching, and afterwards studied law, beginning the practice of that profession in 1818. For a long time, his home was a rendezvous for Garibaldi and the other Italian patriots. Later, however, he was counsel to one of the Italian Governments.
Anthony Rapallo married, in 1819, Elizabeth, daughter of Benjamin Gould, of Newburyport, Mass. Benjamin Gould was a Revolutionary patriot, born in Topsfield, Mass., in 1751. When hostilities broke out, in 1775, he headed a company of minute men that marched from Topsfield to take part in the battle of Lexington. In that engagement, he received a bullet wound, but was Captain of his company at Bunker Hill, and was the last patriot to leave the Heights on Charlestown Neck after that engagement. Later in the war, he fought at White Plains, Bennington and Stillwater, and commanded the main guards at West Point when Benedict Arnold fled and Major Andre was captured. He was at one time a delegate from Massachusetts to the General Assembly. A son of Benjamin Gould was Benjamin A. Gould, 1787-1859, a Harvard College graduate, principal of the Boston Latin School, an East India merchant in Boston, an author and public official. A daughter of Benjamin Gould was Hannah Flagg Gould, the poetess, 1789-1865. A son of Benjamin A. Gould was Benjamin Apthorpe Gould, an astronomer of this genera- tion, who was connected with the United States Coast Survey in 1851, was director of the Dudley Observatory in Albany, in 1856, founder and editor of The Astronomical Journal, and from 1868 to 1885, in charge of the National Observatory and the Astronomical Service of the Argentine Republic.
The Honorable Charles A. Rapallo, for many years an Associate Judge of the Court of Appeals of the State of New York, was a son of Anthony Rapallo and the father of Mr. Edward S. Rapallo. He was born in New York City, in 1823. At that time, Anthony Rapallo was associated with the celebrated John Anthon. The son was brought up under the personal direction of his father, who supervised his education in his early years and personally taught him the classics and the modern languages. In his boyhood, he spent many days in his father's office, where he had the advantages of contact with some of the leading lawyers of that time. When he was twenty-one years of age, he was admitted to practice, and in 1848 formed a law partnership with Horace F. Clark, the firm acting for many years as principal attorneys for Cornelius Vanderbilt.
In 1867, when Mr. Clark retired, Mr. Rapallo formed a partnership with James C. Spencer. Three years later, in 1870, he was elected Associate Justice of the Court of Appeals of the State of New York, at the same time that Sanford E. Church was elected Chief Judge of the same court. In 1880, when Mr. Church died, Mr. Rapallo received the unanimous nomina- tion of the Democratic party for the position of Chief Justice, but was defeated by Chief Judge Charles Andrews. He held his seat as Associate Judge during the remainder of his life. The wife of Judge Rapallo was a daughter of Bradford Sumner, one of the most celebrated lawyers of Boston in his generation. Mr. and Mrs. Rapallo were married in 1852, and Mrs. Rapallo survived her husband. With her daughters, she lives in West Thirty-first Street and has a country residence at Green Farms, Conn.
Mr. Edward S. Rapallo is the eldest son of Judge Charles A. Rapallo. Born in New York, he was graduated from Columbia College in 1874, and from the Columbia Law School, and is a practicing lawyer. He married Emma Van Volkenburgh and lives in Fifth Avenue. He is a member of the Manhattan, University, Democratic and University Athletic clubs, and belongs to the Century Association, the Bar Association and the Columbia College Alumni Association.
468
AMASA ANGELL REDFIELD
W ILLIAM REDFIN, or Redfield, came from England before 1630, with one of the first companies of Colonists. He took up land on the Charles River, near Boston, and was one of the first settlers of Newtown, which afterwards became Cambridge. Later in life, he removed to Pequot, now New London, Conn., where he died, in 1662. He was the ancestor of a family that has had many distinguished representatives. The name appears in the original records variously, as Redfin, Redfen, Redfyn, Redfyne. After the family came to Connec- ticut, the name was gradually changed to its present form.
James Redfield, 1646-1723, son of William Redfield, married first Elizabeth How, daughter of Jeremy How, of New Haven; and second, Deborah Sturgis, daughter of John Sturgis, of Fairfield, Conn. Peleg Redfield, grandson of James Redfield, and son of Theophilus Redfield and Priscilla (Grinnell) Redfield, was born in Killingworth, Conn., in 1723, and died in 1760. In the French War, he took part as a Captain in the Second Regiment of Connecticut troops under command of Colonel Nathan Whiting. His wife was Sarah Dudley, of Guilford, Conn.
The father of Mr. Amasa Angell Redfield was Luther Redfield, of Tarrytown, N. Y. He was the son of Luther Redfield, who was born in Richmond, Mass., in 1780, and died in Monroe, Mich., in 1867; a grandson of Beriah Redfield, 1744-1819, of Richmond, Mass., and a great- grandson of Captain Peleg Redfield. Luther Redfield was born in Junius, N. Y., in 1815, and died in Bloomfield, in 1878. He was a merchant and banker of high reputation in New York. His wife, whom he married in 1836, was Eliza Angell, daughter of Amasa and Mary (Ward) Angell. Miss Angell belonged to the Angell family of Providence, who were among the earliest settlers of that place. Her maternal ancestry included one of the patentees of Dutchess County, N. Y.
Several of the Redfield family have been prominent in literature and journalism. The Honorable Lewis H. Redfield, son of Peleg Redfield, a son of Theophilus Redfield, father of the first Peleg Redfield, was a well-known newspaper publisher and editor in the Onondaga Valley and Syracuse, N. Y. His wife, Anna Maria (Treadwell) Redfield, was a well-known authoress. Of the same family was the Honorable Timothy Redfield, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Vermont, and professor in Dartmouth College, and his brother, Isaac F. Redfield, who acted as special counsel of the United States Government in Europe, in connection with the recovery of property of the Southern Confederacy. Among the other members of the family who have attained distinction, were J. S. Redfield, editor and United States Consul at one time ; William C. Redfield, the scientist ; and John H. Redfield, known for his researches in natural history.
Mr. Amasa Angell Redfield was born in Clyde, N. Y., May 19th, 1837. Educated at the University of New York, he entered the legal profession in New York, and attained an extensive practice and high distinction. Afterwards he became official reporter of the Surrogate's Court and Court of Common Pleas, a position he held from 1877 to 1882. Early in life he devoted himself to literary work and was for many years a contributor to The Knickerbocker Magazine. He also wrote upon legal subjects, and compiled several legal works, among them A Hand-Book of United States Tax Laws, Reports of the Surrogate Courts of the State of New York, Law and Practice of Surrogate Courts, and in collaboration with Thomas G. Shearman, The Law of Neg- ligence. In 1863, Mr. Redfield married Sarah Louise Cooke, daughter of Robert Latimer Cooke and his wife, Caroline Eliza Van Deventer. Mrs. Redfield was descended from the Cookes of Vermont and the Latimers of New London, and also on the maternal side from the Talmages and the Van Deventers, who came from Holland in 1634. They have two children. Robert Latimer Redfield, their son, is a practicing lawyer, in association with his father, and married, in 1894, Emma J. Balen, a descendant of the Stickney family. The daughter of Mr. Amasa A. Redfield, Edith Redfield Cooper, is the wife of Frederic T. Cooper, professor in the University of New York. Mr. Redfield has a country residence, The Hemlocks, at Farmington, Conn., and is a member of the Lawyers' Club and the Bar Association.
469
WHITELAW REID
T HE family of which Mr, Whitelaw Reid is a representative, was originally of Scotland. His grandfather, a Scotch Covenanter, was one of the founders of the town of Xenia, O., and his mother, Marion Whitelaw Ronalds, descended from a Highland family. The parents of Mr. Whitelaw Reid gave him the advantage of a thorough education. He studied in the Academy of Xenia, his native town, and was graduated with the scientific honors from Miami University in 1856, when he was not yet nineteen. After a year he became editor and proprietor of The Xenia News, and during the first Lincoln campaign achieved reputation by his political writings and speeches. He next went to Columbus, O., as a legislative newspaper correspondent, and soon after became connected with The Cincinnati Gazette. During the Civil War, he did remarkably brilliant work as a correspondent, being at the front in the two West Virginia cam- paigns, and with Grant at Shiloh and elsewhere. After the war he was Librarian of the House of Representatives in Washington, correspondent of The Cincinnati Gazette, and finally one of that journal's proprieters and editors. He also traveled in the South and wrote a book, After the War, and in 1868 published a two-volume history, Ohio in the War, one of the most important early works treating of the Civil War.
In 1868, Mr. Reid became connected with The New York Tribune by invitation of Horace Greeley. His first position was that of editorial writer, but he soon became managing editor, and in 1872, when Mr. Greeley accepted the Liberal Republican and Democratic nomination for the Presidency, Mr. Reid was placed in full charge of the paper. Upon the death of Greeley, immediately after that campaign, Mr. Reid became the principal owner of The Tribune. The paper was not in a flourishing condition when he took charge of it, as many of its old-time readers had been alienated in the latter years of Mr. Greeley's life. Under Mr. Reid, however, The Tribune was successfully developed and put in the forefront of success and influence among Republican newspapers. The Tribune Building, which has been erected during his administration, and largely on his ideas, is a monument to his large and eminently practical views.
Public honors have naturally come to Mr. Reid. In 1876, he was chosen a Regent of the New York State University. The position of United States Minister to Germany was tendered to him by President Hayes, and again by President Garfield, but was declined in both instances. President Harrison appointed him United States Minister to France in 1889, and he made a brilliant diplomatic and social success in Paris during the four years that he occupied that post. In 1892, he was Chairman of the New York Republican State Convention to choose delegates to the National Convention, and subsequently at the National Convention of that year was nominated for the Vice-Presidency on the ticket with President Harrison. In 1897, Mr. Reid was appointed by President Mckinley, special Envoy of the United States, to the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria, a mission which he fulfilled with great satisfaction to both Great Britain and his own country.
In 1881, Mr. Reid married Elizabeth, daughter of Darius O. Mills, and has one son and one daughter. His city residence is in Madison Avenue, and his country home, Ophir Farm, in Westchester County, near White Plains, is an extensive estate.
Mr. Reid is a member of the leading literary clubs of the city, including the Century, University, Grolier, the A K E and Lotos. His presidency of the latter for fourteen years was one of the most notable in the history of that brilliant society of letters. Besides the books on the South and Ohio already referred to, Mr. Reid is the author of a biographical and memorial sketch of Horace Greeley, Schools in Journalism, The Scholar in Politics, and Some News- paper Tendencies, and has also been a frequent contributor to the reviews and periodicals. His social and political club connections include the Metropolitan, Union League, Republican, Tuxedo and Riding clubs, and he belongs to the Ohio, New England, St. Andrew's and American Geographical societies. He is also an honorary member of the Chamber of Commerce, a distinc- tion that has been conferred upon only fifteen persons during the history of that organization.
470
CHARLES REMSEN
A LL the Remsens are descended from Rem Jansen Vanderbeeck, who emigrated from West- phalia in the early days of the Dutch settlement of Manhattan Island. In the old country, the family was of gentle origin, the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa having granted, in 1168, to one of the house, a coat of arms displaying the waving lines which suggested the waters of a brook, and gave the family its European cognomen, Vanderbeek. Rem Jansen Vanderbeek settled in Albany and married, in 1652, Annetje, daughter of Joris Jansen de Rapelye. When his father-in-law removed to the Wallabout, on Long Island, he accompanied him and settled upon a farm. Some of the original landed possessions of this pioneer have remained in the hands of his descendants even down to this day. He was a leader in the Colony, being a magistrate during the second occupancy of New Netherland by the Dutch, and died in 1681. He left fifteen children, and the sons, in accordance with a custom of the times, adopted as their sur- names their father's Christian name, with a suffix to indicate their sonship, which is the origin of the name of Remsen, by which the descendants of Rem Jansen Vanderbeeck have been known.
Many of the family were prominent in the early history of the city and of the Province. Hendrick, born in 1708, was a wealthy merchant, and his son, Henry, born in 1736, became one of the largest importers of his day, and was also prominent in public affairs in the Revolutionary period. He was a member of the famous committee of one hundred citizens, chosen in May, 1775, to control the affairs of the city, and uphold the Provincial Congress. Jeremiah Remsen was a member for Brooklyn to the first Provincial Congress of 1775. Henry Remsen, 1762-1843, the son of the first Henry, was in early life private secretary to John Jay, Secretary of Foreign Affairs, and later on, Secretary to Thomas Jefferson, when the latter was President of the United States. Afterwards, in 1790, he engaged in the banking business as a partner of the firm of Henry Remsen & Son, of this city, was a teller of the Branch of the United States Bank in New York in 1793, cashier of the Manhattan Company's Bank in 1799, and in 1808 president of the Manhattan Company, which position he retained until 1826. In 1808, he married Elizabeth, daughter of Abraham R. de Peyster, who belonged to the historic New York family of that name. They had nine children.
William Remsen, son of Henry Remsen and Elizabeth de Peyster, was born in New York, January 13th, 1815. His early instruction was received in the schools of the city, and he was graduated from Princeton College in 1835. After studying law for three years, he was admitted to the New York bar, but gave up a professional career in order to take charge of the estate left by his father. He became one of the leading business men of the city, being particularly interested in real estate, and was a director in several banks and other corporations. By his marriage with Jane Suydam, daughter of John Suydam, of the old New York Dutch family of that name, he became the father of eight children, five of whom, Robert G., Jr., Charles, Jane, who married Joseph T. Thompson; Elizabeth, and Sarah, who married William Manice, survived him. He was one of the founders of the St. Nicholas Society, and of the American Geographical Society. Robert G. Remsen, brother of William Remsen, and uncle to Mr. Charles Remsen, was long a conspicuous figure in New York society, and died in 1896. A full reference to him will be found in another part of this volume.
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