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 81

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

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Mr. Samuel Montgomery Roosevelt was born in New York, February 20th, 1858. He was educated in New York and Paris, and studied painting under Benjamin Constant and Jean Paul Laurant. He is an accomplished artist, his work having been frequently exhibited, and he is a member of the Art Students' League. In recent years, however, he has engaged in business pursuits. In 1885, he married Augusta E. Shoemaker, of Baltimore, who, on her father's side, is descended from Edward Shoemaker, twice Mayor of Philadelphia, and on her mother's from J. B. Eccleston, Judge of the Court of Appeals of Maryland. They reside in Fifth Avenue and have a summer home at Skaneateles Lake. Mr. Roosevelt is a member of the Chamber of Com- merce and belongs to the Tuxedo, City, Knickerbocker, Manhattan, Fencers' and Larchmont Yacht clubs, the New York Historical Society and the Holland Society. A brother of Mr. Roosevelt was Nicholas Latrobe Roosevelt, who graduated from the United States Naval Academy in 1868 and saw naval service in Corea, being mentioned in dispatches to Congress for gallantry in action. He attained to the rank of Lieutenant in 1873, resigned in 1874, and died in 1892, He married Eleanor Dean, daughter of Joseph A. Dean and granddaughter of Judge Francis S. Lathrop, of New Jersey; she survived him with two sons and a daughter. The elder of his two sons, Henry Latrobe Roosevelt, is a cadet at Annapolis. His daughter, Louisa Dean Roosevelt, married, in 1897, Ensign Arthur Bainbridge Hoff, U. S. N., grandson of Commodore Bainbridge.

483

WILLIAM HAMILTON RUSSELL

O N both sides, the ancestry of this gentleman is of Scotch nationality, though in the maternal line the families represented are among the oldest and most distinguished in the records of New York's Colonial days. Mr. Russell's grandfather was James Russell, of Edinburgh, Scotland, a noted scientist, president of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, and cousin of the metaphysician Sir William Hamilton, and of Lord Sinclair. He was a member of the branch of the family whose estates are Kings Seat and Slipperfield (see Burke's Peerage), and which is related to many noble and prominent houses in Scotland.

The late Archibald Russell, Mr. William H. Russell's father, was born in Edinburgh, in 1811. Through his mother, he was descended from the Rutherfurds, of Edgarston, and one of his maternal ancestors was Eleanor Elliott, of the family of the Earls of Minto, whose descent from James II., of Scotland, is unbroken, and who are connected with the Dukes of Buccleugh and the Earls of Angus. Archibald Russell was graduated from Edinburgh University, completed his education at the University of Bonn, Germany, and studied law under the celebrated advocate, Fraser-Tytler. In 1836, he came to New York and thenceforth made it his residence, marrying a lady of one of the foremost New York families, and devoting his energies and no small part of his wealth to the cause of education and philanthropy. He was identified with many institutions and societies, but was especially prominent in a most useful educational and reformatory undertaking, the Five Points House of Industry, which was mainly his creation and of which he was the president for seventeen years. An inscription upon the tablet erected to his memory by the trustees of the charity with which he had been so long connected rightly says, "This institution is his monument." During the Civil War, he was one of the active members of the Christian Commission, and afterwards was chairman of the Famine Relief Committee, which effected much good in the desolated South. He was one of the organizers of the American Geographical Society, and was an active member and an officer of the New York Historical Society. His country seat was in Ulster County, and he founded and was long the president of the Ulster County Savings Institution. He died in New York City in 1871.

His wife, mother of the present Mr. Russell, was Helen Rutherfurd Watts, daughter of Dr. John Watts and his wife, Anna Rutherfurd. Dr. John Watts, though he died at forty, was very prominent in his profession, having been the first president of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of New York, and a founder of the New York Hospital. He was the son of Robert Watts and Lady Mary Alexander, daughter of Major-General Lord Stirling. His grandfather was the Honorable John Watts, of Rose Hill, and of the Kings Council in New York, who married Ann DeLancey. One of their daughters married the twelfth Earl of Cassilis and Marquis of Ailsa, and another married Sir John Johnson, of Johnson's Hall, who was distinguished in this country during the Revolution. Anna Rutherfurd, the grandmother of Mr. William Hamilton Russell, was the daughter of John Rutherfurd and Helena, daughter of Lewis Morris, the signer of the Declaration of Independence. John Rutherfurd was a United States Senator from New Jersey, a lawyer of eminence and one of the first regents of Columbia College. His father, Walter Rutherfurd, an officer of the British Army, was a son of Sir John Rutherfurd, of Edgarston, Roxburghshire, Scotland.

Mr. William Hamilton Russell was born in New York City in 1856 and was graduated from Columbia College in 1878. He adopted architecture as his profession and is a member of the firm of Clinton & Russell, who have designed many important buildings in this city, among the number being the Exchange Court, Hudson, Franklin and Woodbridge buildings, as well as the one at Thirty-ninth Street and Fifth Avenue.

Mr. Russell is a member of many societies and clubs, including the American Institute of Architects and the Architectural League, the University, Knickerbocker, Players, and Metropolitan clubs. In 1893, Mr. Russell married Florence Lucretia Sands, of the English family of that name. Mr. and Mrs. Russell have one son, William Hamilton Russell, Jr.

484

JOHN ALEXANDER RUTHERFURD

H ISTORY records that the Rutherfurds were once powerful on the Scottish border. The name first appears when Robertus de Ruddyefurde witnessed a charter from David I. to Gervasius de Rydel, in 1140. Edgerstone was the seat of the family from which the American branch is descended. In 1492, lands were granted to James Rutherfurd, by King James IV. The Rutherfurd arms are : Argent, an orle gules and in chief three martlets sable. The orle was assumed in remembrance of the family having defended the Scottish border, while the martlets commemorate the fact that some of its representatives had served in military expeditions to the Holy Land. In the eleventh generation from James Rutherfurd, Walter Rutherfurd, the sixth son of Sir John Rutherfurd, entered the navy at the age of fifteen. At one time his father had eighteen sons and grandsons in the army and navy. Walter Rutherfurd served in the navy until 1746, and then became an officer in the Royal Scots, and was paymaster in the campaigns in Flanders and Germany. In 1756, the French and Indian War brought him to this country. He was Judge Advocate and Major, and retired from the army in 1760. Walter Rutherfurd became a large land proprietor, receiving in 1775 a patent for five thousand acres, in consideration of his military services. He also acquired large landed property through his wife, Catharine Alexander, great-granddaughter of the Earl of Sterling. During the Revolution, he retired to his estate in New Jersey, but after peace had been declared returned to New York. He was interested in many public movements of his time, being president of the Agricultural Society, a founder of the Society Library, and president of the St. Andrews Society.

The Honorable John Rutherfurd, his son, 1760-1840, graduated from Princeton College, in 1779. Soon after he settled at Allamuchy, Warren County, N. J., and engaged in the care of his father's landed estates in Northern New Jersey. He became a member of the New Jersey Legislature, in 1788, and in 1790 he was elected to the United States Senate, and reelected to the same position in 1796. Two years later he resigned his office and moved to near Trenton, and afterwards to an estate on the Passaic. In 1807, he was, with Gouverneur Morris and Simeon De Witt, a member of the commission to lay out the City of New York above Fourteenth Street.

The grandfather of Mr. John Alexander Rutherfurd was Robert Walter Rutherfurd, the eldest son of John Rutherfurd. He was born at the family homestead, Tranquility, in New Jersey, in 1788, and graduated at Princeton College, in 1806. He was a member of the New Jersey Assembly, 1812-13-15, a member of the State Council, 1819-20, and was one of the prominent men in his section. His wife was his cousin, Sabinia Morris, daughter of Colonel Lewis Morris.

Mr. John A. Rutherfurd's father was Walter Rutherfurd, the second son of Robert Walter Rutherfurd. He was born in 1812, and was a prominent iawyer in New York, having graduated from Rutgers College, in 1831, and studied law with Peter A. Jay. His wife, whom he married in 1846, was Isabella Brooks. Her father, David Brooks, served in the Revolutionary War, and was an original member of the Society of the Cincinnati, while her grandfather, Daniel Niel, was killed at the Battle of Princeton, where he was serving as aide to General Hugh Mercer. Her mother, Frances Morris, was the daughter of William Walton Morris, who served in the Revolution as aide to General Wayne, and was third son of Lewis Morris, the signer of the Declaration of Independence.

Mr. John Alexander Rutherfurd is the eldest son of Walter Rutherfurd, and was born in Edgerston, N. J., March 2d, 1848. He graduated at Rutgers College, and is a stock broker and member of the New York Stock Exchange. He is interested in Southern railway and industrial development, and has been vice-president of the Richmond & Danville Railroad, and of the Richmond & West Point Terminal Company. He is now a director of the Sloss Iron & Steel Company, of Birmingham, Ala. Mr. Rutherfurd resides at 46 East Sixty-fourth Street, and is a member of the Metropolitan, Players, Manhattan, and other clubs, the Society of the Cincinnati, and the Sons of the Revolution.

485

AUGUSTUS SAINT-GAUDENS

B Y common consent Mr. Augustus Saint-Gaudens stands at the head of American sculptors. His achievements have not only won him reputation at home and abroad, but they have made him a compeer with the greatest sculptors of the world in the present generation and have established in the United States a new school of sculpture far in advance of, and differen- tiated from anything that has preceded it.

Mr. Saint-Gaudens is a native of Ireland. He was born in Dublin in 1848. His father, Barney Saint-Gaudens, was a Frenchman, who settled in Dublin, in the early part of the present century. His mother, Mary McGuinness, came from an old Irish family. When the son was but six month old, his parents emigrated to this country, and he may therefore fairly claim to be a thorough American, even though his birth occurred in Ireland. He early manifested the artistic talent which has developed him into the great master of sculpture of his generation, and when he was thirteen years of age, was sent to the Cooper Union, to study drawing. Four years after he was a student in the Art School of the National Academy of Design. While he was pursuing his studies he learned the trade of cameo cutting, and was a remarkably skilful workman. When he was nineteen years of age, he went abroad to study, primarily, with the intention of perfecting himself in cameo cutting, but once in Europe, he made up his mind to undertake the study of sculpture, and with that end in view, entered the atelier of Jouffroy, at the Ecole des Beaux Arts. He still continued to work at cameo cutting, but made rapid progress in sculpture until 1870, when the breaking out of the Franco-Prussian war sent him to Rome, where he opened a studio, and in 1871 produced his first figure, Hiawatha. This work was the turning point in his career, for it attracted the attention of connoisseurs, and gained him several commissions, including a bust of the Honorable William M. Evarts.

In 1872, Mr. Saint-Gaudens returned to New York. His bust of Mr. Evarts secured him patronage, on the strength of which he again returned to Rome, remaining there several years. Coming back to New York, he was selected to model a statue of Admiral David Farragut, and soon after received a commission for a statue of Captain Robert R. Randall, founder of the Sailors' Snug Harbor, on Staten Island. His cast of the Farragut statue was exhibited in Paris in 1880, and was received with enthusiasm by the greatest artists and critics of the French capital. When it was set up in Madison Square, it gained him additional fame and established him at the head of a school of American sculptors, that he has held unchallenged ever since.

Other great works of Mr. Saint-Gaudens, are the statues of Lincoln, an heroic bronze, that stands in Jackson Park, Chicago; the Puritan, a statue of Deacon Samuel Chapin, that stands in a public square in Springfield, Mass. ; the John A. Logan statue in Chicago, one of the masterpieces of sculpture of this generation; and the bas-relief memorial to Colonel Robert G. Shaw, of Boston, that was erected upon Boston Common, opposite the State House, in 1897. He modeled the reredos for St. Thomas' Church, New York, the caryatids for the Cornelius Vanderbilt house, assisted in the sculpture work for the decoration of Trinity Church, Boston, made the Peter Cooper statue, that stands in the triangle in front of the Cooper Union, New York, and has modeled busts and bas-reliefs of Robert Louis Stevenson, President Theodore D. Woolsey, of Yale College, General William T. Sherman, and other prominent persons. His bas-relief of the Reverend Dr. Henry W. Bellows is regarded as the most important work of its kind ever produced in this country.

In 1876, Mr. Saint-Gaudens married Augusta Homer, of Boston, who comes of an old New England family. He has one son, Homer Saint-Gaudens. His studio is in West Thirty-sixth Street. He is a member of the Metropolitan, City, Players and Riding clubs, the Century Associa- tion, the National Sculpture Society, and the Architectural League, and is numbered among the supporters of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the National Academy of Design. He has also been president of the Society of American Artists, which he was instrumental in founding.

486

HENRY WOODWARD SACKETT

O NE of the youngest officers in the Revolutionary Army of 1776 was Major Buel Sackett, of an old Rhode Island family. He performed notable service during the war and was in command of a detachment on duty at the execution of Major André. He was a native of Litchfield, Conn., born in 1763, his immediate ancestors having removed from Rhode Island to the former State. After the close of the Revolutionary War he settled in Lebanon, N. Y. Twice married, his first wife was Sally C. Beach, his second being Lydia Buel. He was the paternal great-grandfather of Mr. Henry Woodward Sackett. The founder of the Sackett family in America was John Sackett, who, in 1631, came from the Isle of Ely, England, to Massachusetts and settled in Cambridge. He was of Norman ancestry, his progenitors having come to England with William the Conqueror. The descendants of John Sackett went from Cambridge to Worcester, Mass., among its early settlers and thence to Rhode Island and Connecticut.

The father of Mr. Sackett, Dr. Solon P. Sackett, was born in Nassau, Rensselaer County, N. Y., and died in Ithaca in 1893. He was educated for the medical profession, being graduated from the Geneva Medical College in 1843. For many years he was a prominent physician of Ithaca, and secretary of the County Medical Society. His father was a Captain in the War of 1812 and married Lovedy K. Woodward, daughter of Charles Woodward, an English gentleman, who purchased a large tract of land between Cayuga and Seneca Lakes in Central New York, in the early part of the century, and settled there. He was devoted to the study of natural history, and at the time of his death owned one of the finest private ornithological and conchological collections in the country. His grandfather was Benjamin Woodward, who resided in the west of England and was a famous naturalist.

Mr. Henry Woodward Sackett was born in Enfield, N. Y., August 31st, 1853, and was pre- pared for college in the Ithaca Academy, then under the direction of Professor Samuel G. Williams. Admitted to Cornell University, when fifteen years of age, he spent one year in teaching before entering upon his college course. He was graduated from Cornell in the classical course in 1875, with the degree of A. B. He attained the highest rank in mathematics, was a @ B K man, class essayist at graduation and for two terms president of the leading literary society in the college. After graduation, he taught Latin and Greek for a year in the Monticello Military Academy, and then came to New York and entered the Law School of Columbia University. Shortly afterwards he began to report law cases for The New York Tribune, thus supplementing his legal studies with the observation of procedure in court, until he was admitted to the bar in 1879 and entered upon practice in the office of Cornelius A. Runkle. He finally became associated in practice with Mr. Runkle, and upon the death of the latter, in 1888, succeeded him as counsel for The Tribune. He then formed a partnership with Charles Gibson Bennett, under the name of Sackett & Bennett, which continued for six years, when Mr. Bennett was succeeded by William A. McQuaid, the firm name becoming Sackett & McQuaid. In October, 1897, Selden Bacon became a member of the firm, which has since continued under the name of Sackett, Bacon & McQuaid. For many years Mr. Sackett wrote the editorials upon legal subjects in The Tribune, and in 1884 prepared a work on the law of libel, especially in relation to newspapers.

In 1886, Mr. Sackett married Elizabeth Titus, daughter of Edmund Titus, of Brooklyn, one of the incorporators of the New York Produce Exchange. The family residence is in West Fifty- seventh street and their summer home is at Mamaroneck. Mr. Sackett was president of the Cornell University Club in 1896 and 1897, is a member of the + B K Alumni Association and belongs also to the University, City and Hardware clubs, the Bar Association, the American Geographical Society, the Society of Medical Jurisprudence, of which he was one of the organizers, and many other social and scientific organizations. For several years he was a non-commissioned officer in Squadron A, of the National Guard. In 1896, Governor Black appointed him aide-de-camp on his staff, with the rank of Colonel.

487

RUSSELL SAGE

T HE ancestors of Mr. Russell Sage were of Connecticut extraction. The family on both sides had been well established in that State from the earliest pre-Revolutionary period, but when the West began to attract the people of New England, among those who started for the new region were Elisha Sage and his wife, Prudence Risley. They proceeded, however, no further than Central New York, and settled in the township of Verona, Oneida County, in 1816, and afterwards in Durhamville, where Elisha Sage died in 1854, having become one of the substantial citizens in that section.

Mr. Russell Sage, his son, was born in Verona in 1816. He was educated in the schools of his native place. At an early age, he began life in the store of his brother in Troy, N. Y. When he had reached the age of twenty-one, he had accumulated capital of his own and went into business as a partner with another brother. After a few years, he became sole proprietor of the concern and in 1839, with a partner, established a wholesale store in Troy. From this it was a natural step to become a commission merchant with business connections with New York, and in the course of time the firm controlled the markets of Troy and Albany in several branches. Before 1850, the subject of transportation began to interest Mr. Sage, and in 1852, as a member of the Common Council of Troy, he took a leading part in the sale of the Troy & Schenectady Railroad, then owned by the city, but which is now part of the New York Central system. After the panic of 1857, Mr. Sage concentrated his attention upon matters of finance. He became a large owner in the La Crosse Railroad, now the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul, and was a director and vice-president of the company.

About the beginning of the war, in 1861, he began to operate in Wall Street, and since 1863 has been a resident of New York, a member of the Stock Exchange and one of the most conspicuous figures in the metropolitan financial world. Closely associated with the late Jay Gould, he has been active in the management of many of the Gould properties, having a large personal interest in them. Probably no other living man in the country has taken a larger part in the development of American railroads than Mr. Sage, and he has been president of more than twenty-five railroad corporations. He has also been connected with telegraph enterprises and is a director and large owner in the Western Union Telegraph Company. At the present time he is connected with many corporations, as a large shareholder and as filling important official positions in some of the largest organizations of this character.

In early life, Mr. Sage was deeply interested in public affairs and was prominent in New York State politics. While residing in Troy, in 1845, he was an alderman and afterwards treasurer of Rensselaer County, for seven years. In 1848, he was a delegate to the National Convention of the Whig party and took an active part in bringing about the nomination of General Zachary Taylor for the presidency. He was nominated for Congress in 1850, but he was not elected. Two years later, however, he was successful at the polls and in 1854 was re-elected by the overwhelming majority of 7,000 votes. He was active in the organization of the Republican party, but since 1857 has taken no direct part in public affairs.

Mr. Sage has been twice married. His first wife, whom he married in 1841, and who died in 1867, was Maria Winne, daughter of Moses 1. Winne, of Troy. In 1869, Mr. Sage married Margaret Olivia Slocum, daughter of the Honorable Joseph Slocum, of Syracuse, N. Y. Mrs. Sage is descended on the paternal side from Captain Miles Standish, of Plymouth, and on the maternal from Colonel Henry Pierson, of Sag Harbor, N. Y., whose name is identified with the first measures, about 1787, for the establishment of the public school system. Mrs. Sage is a graduate from the Troy Female Seminary, founded by Emma Hart Willard. One of the finest buildings connected with any educational institution in this country is the dormitory of the Seminary, presented by Mr. and Mrs. Sage in 1895, and known as Russell Sage Hall. Mr. and Mrs. Sage live in Fifth Avenue, near Central Park.

488

BENJAMIN AYMAR SANDS

S ANDS POINT, Long Island, was thus called from the settlement there during the seventeenth century of the progenitors of what has become one of the leading New York families. The name, however, is one which first appears in American records on the roll of New England's early emigrants. James Sands, a native of Reading, Berkshire, England, came to Ply- mouth, Mass., in 1658, and two years later was one of the associates who bought Block Island from the Indians. In 1661, he moved there with his family. John Sands, his son, whose wife was Sibyl Ray, came, however, to Long Island, and from the establishment of his residence at that place, Sands Point received its name. Various members of the family have ever since been promi- nent in Long Island, and, naturally, soon became connected with New York both commercially and through marriages with the older families of this city. Their names have been identified with the leading interests of the metropolis, social and otherwise.

John Sands, of Sands Point, had a son and a grandson, both called John, the latter of whom married Elizabeth Cornwell, and was the father of the Revolutionary patriot and merchant, Comfort Sands and of Richardson Sands, who was the great-grandfather of the gentleman whose ancestry is traced in this article. Comfort Sands was a notable figure at a stirring period in New York's history, for he was one of those men of wealth and influence who, at the beginning of the Revolution, did not hesitate to risk their lives and fortunes in the cause of their country. He was a member of the Committee of One Hundred chosen in May, 1775, to administer the affairs of the Province when the royal authority had broken down, and also sat in the various Provincial Con- gresses. After the peace of Versailles, he was president of the Chamber of Commerce. His son, Joseph, became a member of the firm of Prime, Ward & Sands, the first of New York's great banking houses, his sister, Cornelia, being the wife of the famous Nathaniel Prime, the head of that establishment.

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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 81

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