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 79

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

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Mr. Charles Remsen, the fifth son of William Remsen, was born in New York. Through his paternal grandmother, he is not only descended from the de Peysters and from Joris Jansen de Rapelye, as has already been shown, but he can also trace his lineage to the pioneers of the Roosevelt, Rutger and Bancker families. He is a physician, and is one of the executors of the estate of his father. He married Lilian Livingston Jones, and has two sons, one of whom, William Remsen, is named after his grandfather. His city residence is in East Eleventh Street, in that old residence locality bordering on Washington Square. He also has a country home in Remsenburg, Long Island, where he spends most of the year.

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EDWARD S. RENWICK

J AMES Renwick, the first of the family name in this country, came to New York with his son and daughter in 1785. He was a merchant, and in connection with his son, William Renwick, established the first line of packet ships sailing from New York to Liverpool at fixed regular dates. William Renwick went to Liverpool to take charge of the business there, and married Jennie Jeffrey, daughter of a Scotch clergyman, a famous beauty, and the theme of Burns' poem to blue-eyed Jennie. Their son, James Renwick, the second of the name, was born in Liverpool, England, in 1790, and was brought to this country by his parents when he was a child. He was graduated from Columbia College in 1807, was instructor in natural and experimental philosophy and chemistry in Columbia in 1813, was a professor in the same branches from 1820 to 1853, and was made Professor emeritus upon his retirement from active labor in his profession. In 1814, he was engaged in the United States service as topographical engineer with the rank of Major. From 1817 to 1820, he was a trustee of Columbia College, and in 1829 received the degree of LL. D. In 1838, he was one of the commissioners for the exploration and establishment of the northeast boundary line between the United States and New Brunswick.

On his mother's side, Mr. Edward S. Renwick is descended from Henry Brevoort, and from Captain Adam Todd, whose children and grandchildren have been the ancestors of many distinguished New York families. Margaret Todd, daughter of the second Adam Todd, married, in 1756, Captain William Whetten, of Devonshire, England, who, when a boy, before the French war, emigrated from England, and after commanding vessels in trade with the West Indies, settled in New York as a merchant. Sarah Whetten, daughter of this marriage, married, in 1778, Henry Brevoort, and their daughter, Margaret Ann Brevoort, became the wife of James Renwick, second of the name, in 1816.

Mr. Edward S. Renwick, son of Professor James Renwick, second of the name, and his wife, Margaret Ann Brevoort, was born in New York in 1823. He was graduated from Columbia College in 1839, and began his professional career as superintendent of an iron works. In 1849, owing to the depression of the iron manufacture, he became a patent solicitor in Washington. He has been one of the leading experts in this branch of business for a generation, the greater part of his work having been in cases before the United States Courts. In 1855, Mr. Renwick removed to New York, which he has since made the headquarters of his business. He is a skilful inventor and practical civil engineer of high attainments, besides being an original scientific investigator. Among his notable engineering achievements was the repair of the steamship Great Eastern, while afloat, in association with his brother Henry Brevoort Renwick. He was also one of the joint inventors of the first self-binding reaping machines, and has made other important and useful inventions. Mr. Renwick is a member of the Adirondack League, Union, Engineers and New York and Larchmont Yacht clubs, the Columbia College Alumni Association, and the American Geographical Society, and a patron of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the American Museum of Natural History.

In 1862, Mr. Renwick married Alice Brevoort, daughter of Henry Brevoort of the same family as that from which his mother was descended. He has a family of two sons and one daughter. The elder son, Edward Brevoort Renwick, was born in 1863. He lives in West Twenty-seventh Street and is a member of the Union, Seawanhaka-Corinthian Yacht and Engineers' clubs, and of the St. Nicholas Society. He is an accomplished mechanical engineer and stands in the front rank of his profession. The younger son, William Whetten Renwick, who was born in 1864, is an architect and partner in the firm of Renwick, Aspinwall & Owen, which was established by his uncle, James Renwick, third of the name, and the architect of St. Patrick's Cathedral. The youngest child of Mr. Edward S. Renwick is Mrs. W. C. Whittingham, who was born in 1867.

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FREDERICK WILLIAM RHINELANDER

I NHERITING a name conspicuously identified with the past two hundred years of New York's history, this gentleman, in the maternal line, is also a representative of a family of New England origin and Revolutionary record, which has been firmly established in New York since the independence of the United States was secured. A full account of the first American generations of the Rhinelanders will be found upon the succeeding page of this volume. The first of the name, as there set forth, was Philip Jacob Rhinelander, who came to New York and settled at New Rochelle, Westchester County, in 1696. His son was William Rhinelander, 1718-1777, of New York, who instituted the policy of investing their wealth in city real estate, which has since been pursued by his descendants. William Rhinelander, 1753-1825, second of the name, was his son, and the grandfather of the gentleman whose name heads this article. He married Mary Robert and was the father of five sons and two daughters. Philip Rhinelander, the eldest, married Mary Colden Hoffman, and their daughter, Mary C. Rhinelander, married John A. King, the three daughters of this marriage being Mary R., Alice, who married Gerardi Davis, and Ellen King. Eliza Lucile married Horatio Gates Stevens, and their daughter, Mary Lucille, married Albert R. Gallatin, their children being Albert Horatio Gallatin, who married Louisa B. Ewing, Frederic Gallatin, who married Almy Goelet Gerry, and James Gallatin, who married Elizabeth Hill Dawson. William Christopher Rhinelander married Mary Rogers and was the father of William Rhinelander, whose sons are J. T. Oakley Rhinelander and Philip Rhine- lander. John Robert Rhinelander married Julia Stockton, and has no descendants. Mary Robert Rhinelander married Robert J. Renwick. Frederick William Rhinelander, father of Mr. Frederick William Rhinelander, married Mary L. A. Stevens, and Bernard Rhinelander married Nancy Post.

Mary (Robert) Rhinelander, 1755-1837, the wife of William Rhinelander, second of the name, was of a Huguenot family, whose ancestor, Daniel Robert and his wife, Susanne Nicholas du Gaillean, came to America in 1686. Their son, Daniel Robert, second of the name, was the father of Christopher Robert, who, in 1743, married Mary Dyer, daughter of John Dyer and Christina Marcier, of Long Island, Mary Robert being their daughter. The brother of Mary (Robert) Rhinelander was Colonel Robert, of the Continental Army.

Frederick William Rhinelander, the elder, was the fourth son of William Rhinelander. He was born in 1796 and died in 1836. He married Mary Lucy Ann Stevens, daughter of General Ebenezer Stevens and his wife, Lucretia (Ledyard) Sands. General Stevens was a son of Ebenezer Stevens and Elizabeth Weld, of Roxbury, Mass. His grandfather, Erasmus Stevens, was one of the founders of the North Church, in Boston, and his mother was descended from the Reverend Thomas Weld, minister of the church at Roxbury in 1632. He was an active patriot and, in the Revolutionary War, became the most famous Artillery Commander of the Continental Army. After the Revolution, he became a merchant in New York, and was Major-General of the State Militia and commanded the defenses of New York in 1812. The children of Frederick William Rhinelander were: Lucretia Stevens, who married George F. Jones; Mary E., who married Thomas H. Newbold; Frederick W. and Eliza L., who married William Edgar.

Mr. Frederick William Rhinelander was born in New York, in 1828, and was graduated from Columbia College in the class of 1847. In 1851, he married Frances D. Skinner, daughter of the Reverend Thomas H. Skinner. They have a family of eight children: Mary F., who married William C. Rives; Frances L. ; Ethel L., who married the late Le Roy King; Frederick William Rhinelander, Jr., who was graduated from Harvard in 1882; Alice K .; Helen L., who married the Reverend Lewis Cameron; Thomas Newbold, Harvard, 1887, who married Katharine Blake, of Toronto, Canada, and Philip M. Rhinelander, who was graduated from Harvard in 1891. Mr. Rhinelander belongs to the Knickerbocker, City and Southside Sportmen's clubs, the Downtown Association, the Mendelssohn Glee Club, and the American Geographical Society. He is vice- president of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

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WILLIAM RHINELANDER

P HILIP JACOB RHINELANDER was the first of the Huguenot family of that name who sought refuge in America from the persecutions caused by the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. He was born near the town of Oberwesel, on the Rhine, the district being then subject to France, and, arriving in New York in 1686, settled in the town of New Rochelle. He was living in 1737, in hale old age, and acquired considerable property in Westchester County.

The son of the first settler, William Rhinelander, first of the name, was born in New Rochelle, in 1718. He purchased and long resided in a house in Spruce Street, which is now the oldest Rhinelander property in New York, died in 1777, and was buried in Trinity churchyard. He married Magdalen Renaud, daughter of Stephen Renaud, of New Rochelle.

William Rhinelander, second of the name, his son, was born in New York, in 1753, and lived until 1825. He was trustee of the family estate, and, like his ancestors and descendants, was an extensive landowner. In 1785, he married Mary Robert, 1755-1837, a sister of Colonel Robert, a line officer in the Army of the Revolution, and a descendant of Daniel Robert, a Huguenot, who arrived in America in 1686. She was the aunt of Christopher Rhinelander Robert, who founded Robert College, in Constantinople.

William Christopher Rhinelander, 1790-1878, was the third of the seven children of William and Mary Rhinelander. During the war of 1812, he served as quartermaster in Colonel Stevens' regiment, and was afterwards Lieutenant. He resided at 14 North Washington Square. In 1816, he married Mary Rogers, daughter of John Rogers and Mary Pixton, and granddaughter of John Rogers, who married Mary Davenport, niece of Dr. Benjamin Franklin. The children of William Christopher and Mary (Rogers) Rhinelander were Mary Rogers, who married Lispenard Stewart; Julia and Serena Rhinelander, and William Rhinelander, third of that name.

Mr. William Rhinelander was born September 19th, 1825. In 1853, he married Matilda Cruger Oakley, daughter of the famous jurist, Thomas Jackson Oakley. The latter, a graduate of Yale, was Chief Justice of the Superior Court of New York, from 1850 to 1858, was a Member of Congress in 1813-15, and again in 1827-29, and Attorney-General of the State in 1819. He was also requested to be a candidate for the Presidency of the United States, but declined. Judge Oakley's wife, the mother of Mrs. William Rhinelander, was Matilda Cruger, daughter of Henry Cruger, who was born in New York in 1739 and died in 1827. Remov- ing from New York to England, he became Mayor of the City of Bristol in 1781, and was twice a member of the British Parliament for that constituency, 1774-1784, having for his col- league, Edmund Burke. Returning to New York in 1790, he became a State Senator in 1792. Henry Cruger was the grandson of John Cruger, who came to New York prior to 1700, and was Mayor of the city, 1739-44, and married Maria Cuyler, daughter of Major Hendrick Cuyler, of Albany, who served in the French and Indian War. Mr. and Mrs. Rhinelander have two sons, T. J. Oakley and Philip Rhinelander.

Thomas Jackson Oakley Rhinelander, the elder son, was born January 15th, 1858, was graduated from Columbia College in 1878, and from Columbia's Law School in 1880. He served in the Seventh Regiment, and has mainly devoted himself to the care of the family property. In 1894, he married Edith Cruger Sands, daughter of Charles Edwin and Letitia 1. (Campbell) Sands, and has a son, Philip Rhinelander. Philip Rhinelander, the younger son, was born October 8th, 1865, and was graduated from Columbia College in 1882. In 1882, he married Adelaide Kip, daughter of Isaac Leonard Kip and his wife, Cornelia Brady. In 1884, the two brothers, T. J. Oakley and Philip Rhinelander, purchased the ancient castle of Schönberg, on the Rhine, near Oberwesel, overlooking the old town and in close vicinity to the lands owned by their ancestors. The castle is on the site of a Roman fortress, built by Cæsar, the building, which has suffered much from the lapse of time and the wars of many centuries, having been commenced as far back as A. D. 951.

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JOHN LAWRENCE RIKER

T HE Rikers were originally a German family of lower Saxony, as the district surrounding the mouth of the Elbe was known. There they possessed the manor of Rycken, from which their name takes its derivation. Hans Von Rycken, the Lord of the Manor in the eleventh century, and his cousin Melchoir took part in the first crusade to the Holy Land in 1096, leading eight hundred Crusaders in the army of Walter the Penniless, who organized the first expedition for the recovery of Jerusalem from the infidels. The Von Rycken family in the course of time, became numerous in lower Saxony, Holstein and Hamburg, and its branches also spread to Holland, and even into Switzerland.

During the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the ancestors of the American Rikers established themselves in the Netherlands, their home being the City of Amsterdam, Holland, where they were prominent and influential in the affairs of the municipality and of the Province of Holland for two centuries. They took part in the struggle which the people of the Low Countries instituted against the tyranny of Philip Il. of Spain, and were zealous supporters of William the Silent, Prince of Orange, in the movement which established the United Provinces as a free and independent power. Through the vicissitudes incident to the struggle for liberty, the Riker family encountered reverses in their fortunes, and when the establishment of the New Netherland Colony invited the venturesome to a home across the ocean, representatives of the name came hither to found the family in this country.

Among them were Abraham Rycken, or de Rycke, as his name was indifferently written in the old records of the Dutch Colony. Governor Kieft in 1638 allotted to him a large tract at the Wallabout, for which a patent was issued in 1640. He also engaged in business in New Amsterdam, his premises being on the Heeren Gracht, now Broad Street, at the corner of Beaver Street. He married Grietie, daughter of Hendrick Harmensen. They appear as members of the first Dutch Church in the list of 1649, and their children were baptized at the church which was built in the early days of the Colony by the inhabitants and the Government within the walls of Fort Amsterdam, on the site of the present Battery.

In 1654, Abraham Rycken received a grant of the farm at Bowery Bay, to which he subsequently removed. One of the last official acts of Governor Stuyvesant was to execute a patent to him on August 19th, 1664, for Hewlett's Island, in the East River. It appears that this grant was disputed by the English, as Governor Nicoll, the first English Governor, on December 24th, 1667, confirmed the Dutch Governor's grant to Rycken, and the island has ever since been called Riker's Island and continued in the possession of the family till 1845. It is now the property of the City of New York. Abraham Rycken died at his Bowery Bay residence in 1689, his will, which left his patent to his son, having been recorded with the Clerk of Queens County in that year, in Book A of the County Records. He had nine children, and to him the subject of this article traces his descent, as also do most of the Rikers of this State as well as those in other parts of the country.

Abraham, son of the pioneer, was born at New Amsterdam in 1655 and married Grietie, daughter of Jan Gerrits Van Buytenhuysen and Tryntie Van Luyt, who was born in Holland. The second Abraham added one-third of the Tudor patent to the paternal property, and died in 1746 at the age of ninety-one years. He left the homestead and estate to his son Andrew, 1699- 1763, having married Jane Berrien, daughter of John Berrien and widow of Captain Dennis Lawrence. His children were prominent in the stirring affairs of the Revolutionary period, taking an active part on behalf of the patriotic cause. One of his sons, John B. Riker, was educated at Princeton College and became eminent as a physician in later years. During the war he was a staunch patriot and, joining the army of Washington, served as Surgeon of the Fourth Battalion of New Jersey troops, in the Continental Army, from 1777 to the surrender of Cornwallis at York- town. The second son, Andrew, born in 1740, was commissioned a Captain in the American

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Army and was in the Canadian campaign of 1775, being present at the death of General Montgomery in the assault on Quebec in the winter of that year. At the head of a company in the Second New York Continental Regiment, he afterwards participated in the campaign against Burgoyne's army, and was engaged at the battle of Saratoga and in other contests, and died from spotted fever at Valley Forge, May 7th, 1778. Ruth, daughter of Andrew and Jane (Berrien) Riker, married the famous patriot, Major Jonathan Lawrence, who was very active in the service of his country during the whole Revolutionary War, sacrificing what was considered in those times a very large fortune to meet the exigencies of the patriotic cause to which he was so earnestly devoted.

The third son, Samuel Riker, was also a patriot but was a prisoner in the hands of the enemy during most of the war. When the troubles were over, he became very prominent in public life on Long Island and for several years held the supervisorship of the town of Newtown. In 1784, he was a member of the State Assembly of New York, and twice represented his district in the National Congress, the last time in 1807-9. He married Anna, daughter of Joseph Lawrence, one of the Long Island Lawrence family, in 1769, and had a family of nine children, dying in 1823. Several of the sons of Samuel Riker also became prominent in public life in this city and State. The one best remembered in the annals of New York City is probably the third son, the Honorable Richard Riker, who was born in 1773 and educated under the tuition of the Reverend Dr. Witherspoon, the famous patriot and head of Nassau Hall, Princeton College, New Jersey. In 1795, Richard Riker was admitted to the bar and several years later received the appointment of District Attorney for New York City. That position he held for several years, and in 1815 was made Recorder. With occasional short intermissions, he retained his seat on the bench until 1838. He left a record as one of the most learned and upright judges that the city ever possessed. His wife was the daughter of Daniel Phoenix, Treasurer of New York City, and one of a family of great business and civic prominence in the early part of the present century, references to them occurring throughout this work.

Another son of Samuel Riker was Andrew, a shipowner, who was Captain of the privateers Saratoga and Yorktown during the War of 1812. The youngest of the brothers was John L. Riker, who was born in 1787, educated at Erasmus Hall, Long Island, and at the age of sixteen taken into the law office of his brother, the Recorder. He remained there five years, and then entered upon the practice of his profession, continuing in it for more than a half a century. He resided throughout his long lifetime upon the paternal estate at Newtown, and married successively two daughters of Sylvanus Smith, of North Hempstead, Long Island, who for many years was Supervisor of Queens County. He was the lineal descendant of James Smith, a follower of the Reverend Richard Denton, who came to Massachusetts from England with Governor John Winthrop, settling at first at Watertown, Mass. Thence he removed successively to Wethersfield and Stamford, Conn., taking many of his congregation with him, James Smith being included among the number, the Colony finally locating at Hempstead. Long Island, the site of which was purchased by them from the Indians and title to it confirmed by a patent of Governor Kieft, dated November 16th, 1644.

Mr. John L. Riker, who represents this distinguished New York family in the present generation, is the child of John L. Riker, Sr.'s, second marriage, his mother being Lavinia Smith. He was born at Bowery Bay, Long Island, in 1830, was educated at the Astoria Academy under Dr. Haskins and by private tutors, and entering upon a business career, has been a leading merchant in New York City for many years. In 1857, Mr. Riker married Mary Anne Jackson, their surviving children being John Jackson. Henry Laurens, Margaret M. Lavinia, Samuel, Mattina, Charles Lawrence and May J. Riker. Mr. Riker resides at 19 West Fifty-seventh Street and has a summer home at Seabright, N. J., where he passes a large part of the year. He is a member of the St. Nicholas and Holland societies, St. Nicholas Club and the Sons of the Revolution, as well as of the Metropolitan, Union League, City, Riding. New York Yacht, Seawanhaka-Corinthian Yacht and New York Athletic clubs.

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SIDNEY DILLON RIPLEY

O N the paternal side, Mr. Sidney Dillon Ripley comes from several Colonial families of Massachusetts and Connecticut. His American ancestor was William Ripley, who, with his wife, two sons and two daughters, came in one of the earliest companies of Colonists from Hingham, Norfolk County, England, and settled in Hingham, Mass., in 1638. He was a native of England, and was probably born in the vicinity of Hingham. He was a freeman of Hingham, Mass., in 1642, and his son, John Ripley, who lived until 1684, married Elizabeth Hobart, daughter of the Reverend Peter Hobart, first pastor of the Church of Hingham. Joshua Ripley, son of John Ripley and grandson of William Ripley, the pioneer, was born in 1658 and died in 1739. His wife was Hannah Bradford, daughter of William Bradford, Jr., Deputy Governor of the Plymouth Colony, and granddaughter of Governor William Bradford of Plymouth. Joshua Ripley and his wife settled first at Hingham, Mass., but moved to Norwich, Conn., in 1688, and in 1691 to Windham, Conn., of which place he was the first town clerk and treasurer, and also a justice of the peace.

Joshua Ripley was the ancestor in the seventh generation of Mr. Sidney Dillon Ripley. The line of descent is through Joshua Ripley, 1688-1773, and his wife, Mary Backus; Ebenezer Ripley, 1729-1811, and his wife, Mehitable Berbank; Abraham Ripley, 1761-1835, and his wife, Mary Leonard; Harry Ripley, 1798-1820, and his wife, Azuba Snow. Josiah Dwight Ripley, the father of Mr. Sidney Dillon Ripley, was born in 1841. He married Julie Dillon, eldest daughter of Sidney Dillon, in 1862. The parents and grandparents of Josiah Dwight Ripley were long-time residents of Springfield, Mass. The maternal grandfather of Mr. Sidney Dillon Ripley, after whom he is named, had an international reputation as one of the greatest railroad managers and capitalists of his day. Sidney Dillon, who was born in Northampton, Montgomery County, N. Y., in 1812, lived until 1892. He came of Revolutionary stock, his maternal grandfather having been a soldier in the Continental Army of 1776. His father was a prosperous farmer of Central New York, and gave his son a good education. When young in years, he made his first connection with the railroad business, which was destined to be his life employment, and in which he rose to success surpassed by very few in his generation. He was employed upon the Mohawk & Hudson

Railroad, and afterwards on the Rensselaer & Saratoga Railroad. In the course of time, he came to hold responsible positions in connection with the construction of the Boston & Providence, the Stonington, and other railroads in New England. Afterwards becoming a contractor on his own account, he executed much of the heavy contract work on the Troy & Schenectady, the Cheshire, the Vermont & Massachusetts, the Philadelphia & Erie and other roads.

The great work of Mr. Dillon's life was, however, the building of the Union Pacific Railroad. With that enterprise he was conspicuously identified from its beginning, in 1865, until the work was completed, in 1869. Twice he was elected president of the Union Pacific Railway, and he was also a director of the Canada Southern, Rock Island & Pacific, Delaware, Lackawanna & Western, Manhattan Elevated, Wabash and other railroads, the Pacific Mail Steamship Company, the Western Union Telegraph Company, the Mercantile Trust Company and many financial corporations. Mr. Ripley's maternal grandmother, whom Sidney Dillon married in 1841, was Hannah Smith. She died in 1884. Her mother was Betsy Otis, a relative of the distin- guished Massachusetts statesman, Harrison Gray Otis.

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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 79

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