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 86
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Through his mother, who was Esther Mary Woodruff, Mr. Smith is descended from Elias Woodruff, who was his great-grandfather and was Commissary-General of the Revolutionary forces of New Jersey. Elias Woodruff's wife was Mary Joline, a direct descendant of a Huguenot merchant of New York, André Joline. Their son, Aaron Dickinson Woodruff, a resident of Trenton, and Mr. Smith's grandfather, graduated from Princeton College as valedictorian of the class of 1779. He was admitted to the bar in 1784 and was Attorney-General of New Jersey for seventeen years. Both father and son were ardent patriots and were personal friends of Washing- ton. Some thirty members of the Woodruff family took part in the Revolutionary War, of whom nine were commissioned officers. The history of Princeton College records the names of the various members of the Woodruff family among its founders and benefactors.
Born in 1832, at Exeter, N. H., where his father, the Reverend John Smith, had a parish, Mr. Charles Stewart Smith was educated in his native place, came to New York a mere youth in 1846, and entered the wholesale dry goods trade. His business career throughout was attended by a success corresponding with his ability and the broad-minded energy which is one of his charac- teristics. Soon after attaining his majority, he became associated with the well-known firm of S. B. Chittenden & Co., and was for a number of years their representative in Europe. Afterwards he became the senior of the firm of Smith, Hogg & Gardner. His prominence and success as a merchant only ended in 1887, when he permanently retired from active business. Possessing, however, extensive interests, Mr. Smith is associated in the direction of some of the foremost financial, insurance and other similar institutions of the city, including the United States Trust Company, the Merchants, Fourth National and Fifth Avenue banks, the Equitable Life Assurance Society and the German-American Insurance Company.
Although consistently declining public office, his interest in politics was always keen, and, an active member of the Union League Club, he has served as vice-president of that institution. His great service to New York was, however, rendered in 1894. As president of the Chamber of Commerce, he impressed upon the members of that venerable body the fact that the prevalent mal- administration of the affairs of the city was a menace to its material prosperity. Largely through Mr. Smith's efforts, the celebrated Committee of Seventy, of which he was a leading member and chairman of the executive committee, was formed and his effective and disinterested share in bringing about the civic revolution of that year was warmly acknowledged by all classes of his fellow citizens. The value of the work which he performed at this crisis in New York's municipal affairs in fact becomes more apparent with the lapse of time. The overthrow of a corrupt adminis- tration of the city's affairs is but one feature of the matter. It was of even more importance that the citizens should be aroused to a sense of their power and of the real weakness of the mercenary and often corrupt class of politicians. The demonstration of these facts, it is generally admitted, have had a most salutary effect and will for many years to come exercise an influence on the action of political parties in selecting candidates for municipal honors as well as on the conduct of the duly elected officials. It is due to Mr. Smith to say that he was one of the few who realized that New Yorkers of all ranks and stations possessed a civic pride and an attachment for their city, and it was on his initiative that this feeling was so successfully appealed to in the instance referred to.
Mr. Smith is a member of the Union League, Metropolitan, Century, Players, Lawyers' and other clubs, a trustee of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, a patron of the American Museum of Natural History and the National Academy of Design, and a member of the New England Society, and the Sons of the American Revolution. He has a city residence, 25 West Forty-seventh Street, and a country seat, Fairlawn, at Stamford, Conn. He has two sons, Stewart Woodruff Smith and Howard Caswell Smith, who are engaged in business in New York City.
James Dickinson Smith, the brother of Mr. Charles Stewart Smith, is the head of the bank- ing firm of James D. Smith & Co., of this city. He has long been a leading member of the New York Stock Exchange and is an ex-president of that institution. Some years since he was commo- dore of the New York Yacht Club. His son is Archibald H. Smith and his daughter, Helen Woodruff, is the wife of Homer S. Cummings.
513
GOUVERNEUR MATHER SMITH, M. D.
O N both sides, Dr. Smith's descent is from families famous in the early Colonial history of New England and New York as well as in the Revolutionary struggle. He is a native of the metropolis, his father being the distinguished Dr. Joseph Mather Smith, who was born in New Rochelle, and was for many years one of the foremost physicians in America, and professor for forty years in the New York College of Physicians and Surgeons, where an annual prize now bears his name. His grandfather was Dr. Matson Smith, who came of an old New England family, having been born at Lyme, Conn., but who established himself at New Rochelle, where he became a leading physician and was also known for his activity in religious matters. He was president of the Westchester County Medical Society, founded in 1797. His wife, the grandmother of the subject of this sketch, was a daughter of Dr. Samuel Mather, of Lyme.
The position of the Mather family in New England Colonial history is well known, and a branch of it settled in Connecticut at an early day. Dr. Smith's great-grandfather, Dr. Samuel Mather, 1741-1834, was a Captain in Colonel Saltonstall's regiment of Connecticut militia, 1775-79, but exchanged it for the equally honorable and useful rank of Surgeon in Colonel Parson's regiment, 1779-80. His father, Dr. Eleazer Mather, of Lyme, 1716-1798, also served the patriotic cause, hav- ing been appointed by the General Assembly of Connecticut to examine candidates for the post of surgeon in the Continental army and navy. Joseph Mather, another direct ancestor, one genera- tion further removed, was Lieutenant during the French and Indian War.
In the maternal line, Dr. Smith is related to a number of the older New York families, such as the Lispenards, Marstons and Rutgers. He is a descendant of Antoine or Anthony Lispenard, 1643-1696, the founder of the family of that name, which now exists only through its female descendants. It was this Anthony Lispenard, a Huguenot refugee, who, among other public services, bore despatches from Governor Dongan to the French Governor of Canada. Another ancestor was the famous Colonel Leonard Lispenard, 1715-1790, who was a member of the Pro- vincial Assembly of New York in 1759-68, and a delegate to the first Colonial Congress held in 1765 at Philadelphia. Another worthy who appears in Dr. Smith's family tree is Anthony Rutgers, member of the New York Assembly, 1726-37, while, going further back, we find among his ances- tors on the paternal side Major-General Humphrey Atherton, Commander of the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company in 1650, Major-General in 1661, Speaker of the Massachusetts House of Deputies in 1653, and Governor's Assistant of Massachusetts, 1654-61.
Dr. Gouverneur Mather Smith was graduated from the New York University in 1852. He studied at the College of Physicians and Surgeons and received the degrees of M. A. and of M. D. in 1855, entering at once upon active practice. The beginning of the Civil War aroused his patriotic instincts, and he offered his services gratuitously as medical officer of the United States Sanitary Commission transport Daniel Webster. In 1862, he was appointed Acting Assistant Surgeon in the army and served until the end of the war. In 1864, he was appointed executive officer in charge of the United States Army General Hospital, at which he was stationed. On the death of his father, in 1866, he succeeded him as an attending physician at the New York Hospital, where he is now one of the consulting physicians. Dr. Smith's professional honors cannot, how- ever, be traced in full, though it should be mentioned that he was vice-president of the New York Academy of Medicine, 1875-78, and since then has been one of its trustees. In 1887-88, he was president of the New York Society for the Relief of Widows and Orphans of Medical Men. Dr. Smith has been a writer not only on medical topics, but is a contributor to periodical literature in a lighter vein of both verse and prose. He is a member of the Metropolitan Club and the Century Association, was a manager of the Sons of the Revolution and is a member of the Society of Colonial Wars. He is surgeon of the Society of the War of 1812, consulting physician of the St. Nicholas Society, and one of the managers of the New York Association for Improving the Condi- tion of the Poor, and of the New York Institution for the Blind.
514
WILLIAM ALEXANDER SMITH
A NCESTORS of Mr. William Alexander Smith, who were of Scotch origin, were early settled in Colonial New York. His great-grandparents were William and Elizabeth C. Smith. His grandfather, Robert Smith, 1752-1838, served as a Major during the War of the Revo- lution, being wounded at the battle of White Plains. After the war, he was in business in Phila- delphia. Upon the establishment of the United States Bank, he was elected a director and then a trustee, serving in that capacity for forty-eight years.
The wife of Robert Smith was Rebecca (Hobart) Potts, daughter of Enoch Hobart and great- granddaughter of Thomas Hobart, son of Enoch Hobart, of Hingham, Mass., by his wife, Hannah Harris, daughter of Thomas Harris. The father of Enoch Hobart was Joshua Hobart, 1614-1682, who came to this country with his parents in 1633, and went to Hingham, Mass., in 1635, being a free- man in 1634, a selectman in 1662, a deputy to the General Court for twenty-four years after 1643, Speaker of the House of Deputies in 1674 and Captain of a military company in King Philip's War. His wife was Ellen Ibrook, daughter of Richard Ibrook. His father was Edmund Hobart, of Hingham, 1570-1646, who arrived in Massachusetts in 1633 from Hingham, England, was a freeman in 1634, and a deputy to the General Court in 1642; he married Margaret Dewey.
Robert Hobart Smith, father of Mr. William Alexander Smith, was a native of Philadelphia. Graduated from the University of Pennsylvania, he studied law and then entered the Theological Seminary at Princeton. He was licensed to preach in 1829, and for many years was ruling elder in the Second Presbyterian Church of Philadelphia and treasurer of the General Assembly. His death occurred in 1858. The wife of Robert Hobart Smith was Mary Potts, of Pottsgrove, Pa., daughter of Joseph Potts, 1766-1824, and Sarah Potts, daughter of David and Mary (Aris) Potts. The grandfather of Mary Potts was Samuel Potts, 1736-1793, who during the Revolution was engaged in casting heavy cannon for the Continental Army, was a member of the Assembly from Philadel- phia County in 1767-69, associate judge and member of the First Constitutional Convention in Pennsylvania. His wife was Joanna Holland, daughter of Thomas Holland, of Philadelphia. Samuel Potts was a son of John Potts, 1710-1768, the founder of Pottstown, Pa., whose wife was Ruth Savage, daughter of Samuel and Anna (Rutter) Savage and granddaughter of Thomas and Rebecca (Staples) Rutter. The father of John Potts was Thomas Potts, a native of Wales. He was sheriff in Germantown in 1702. His first wife, the mother of John Potts, was Martha Keurlis, a member of one of the twelve families that accompanied Pastorius to America.
Mr. William Alexander Smith, the eldest surviving son of Robert Hobart Smith and his wife, Mary Potts, was born in Pottstown, Pa., September 9th, 1820. Soon after coming of age, he set- tled in New York, and in 1845 entered Wall Street, being now senior partner of the banking house of William Alexander Smith & Co. He has been much interested in religious and philanthropic work. In 1848, he was treasurer of the New York Bible Society, has been president of the Shelter- ing Arms since 1893, treasurer of the General Clergy Relief Fund since 1868, trustee of the permanent fund of the Orphans' Home and Asylum since 1863, trustee of the parochial fund of the Protestant Episcopal Church since 1864, manager of St. Luke's Hospital since 1868, and vice-chairman of the executive committee of the same institution since 1896, vice-president of the Protestant Episcopal City Mission, and manager of the Home of Incurables and of the Society for Promoting Religion and Learning. He has been president and treasurer of the New York Stock Exchange, and is a vice-president of the Continental Trust Company.
In 1847, Mr. Smith married Clara Mary Bull, daughter of the Reverend Dr. Levi Bull. She died in 1857. His second wife, whom he married in 1863, was Margaret Jones, daughter of George and Serena (Mason) Jones. His children are Robert Hobart Smith, who married Dinah Watson Dunn; Clara H. Smith, who married the Reverend L. C. Stewardson; and William Alex- ander Smith, Jr., who married Emily Louisa Gurnee. The city residence of the family is in Madison Avenue and their country home is West Hill, Nyack-on-Hudson.
515
LORILLARD SPENCER
W ILLIAM Spencer came from England to America in 1631, and settled in Cambridge, Mass. He returned to England the following year, but came again to this country in 1633, bringing with him his brothers, Thomas and Jared. These three brothers were the ancestors of the various branches of the Spencer family which trace their lineage to Colonial times. William Spencer and his brother, Thomas, were among the first settlers of Hartford, Conn., where William was a land proprietor, a selectman of the town, and a deputy to the General Court of Connecticut, in 1639. He died in Hartford, in 1640.
Ambrose Spencer, great-grandfather of Mr. Lorillard Spencer, was lineally descended in the fifth generation from William Spencer, the Hartford settler. He was born in Salisbury, Conn., in 1765, and died in Lyons, N. Y., in 1848. Educated at both Yale College and Harvard College, and graduated from the latter in 1783, he made his home in Hudson, N. Y., and entered upon a career in which he became highly distinguished as a lawyer, Judge and public man. He was elected a member of the assembly of New York State, in 1793, and was a member of the State Senate for seven years after 1795. In 1796, he was Assistant Attorney-General of New York, in 1802 Attorney-General of the State, and in 1804 became Justice of the Supreme Court, being its Chief Justice, 1819-23. In 1809, he was Presidential elector, a member of the Constitutional Convention in 1821, Mayor of Albany 1824-26, a member of the National House of Representatives 1829-31, and president of the National Convention in Baltimore, in 1844.
The grandfather of Mr. Lorillard Spencer was Captain William Ambrose Spencer, U. S. N. He was born in New York in 1793, and died in 1854. Educated in the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis, Md., he entered the navy as a midshipman in 1809, was promoted to be a Lieutenant in 1814, attained to the rank of Captain in 1841, and resigned from the service in 1843. When Commodore Thomas McDonough achieved his famous victory over the British naval forces on Lake Champlain in 1814, Captain Spencer, who was then Acting Lieutenant, took part in that engagement, and for his bravery was presented with a sword by act of Congress. Captain Spen- cer was twice married. His first wife was Catherine Lorillard, born 1792, daughter of Peter A. Lorillard, 1763-1843, and his wife, Maria Dorothea Schultz. After her death, Captain Spencer married her younger sister, Eleanor Eliza Lorillard, born in 1801.
Lorillard Spencer, Sr., the son of Captain William A. Spencer, was born in New York in 1826, and died in Paris, France, in 1888. Inheriting considerable wealth, he did not enter profes- sional or business life, devoting himself, in a large degree, to scholarly pursuits. During the greater part of the last twenty years of his life, he resided in Europe. He married Sarah J. Griswold, daughter of Charles C. Griswold, a famous New York merchant, who, with his brother, John Griswold, owned the London line of packet ships. Mrs. Spencer was the granddaughter of Governor Matthew Griswold and Ursula Wolcott. The children of Lorillard Spencer, Sr., can thus trace, in both the paternal and maternal line, a descent from the most eminent families of Colonial Connecticut.
Mr. Lorillard Spencer, of the present generation, was born in New York, February 14th, 1860. He has spent much time in foreign travel, but resides in the city of his birth, where he possesses important interests. He has been particularly known as the owner of The Illustrated American. He married Caroline S. Berryman, a granddaughter of Stephen Whitney, one of old New York's most prominent merchants. The family has been conspicuous in the social life of the period in New York and in Newport, where Mr. Spencer's residence, Chastellux, is one of the most beautiful places in that city. Mr. Spencer is a member of the Metropolitan, Union, Whist and Aldine clubs, the Society of Colonial Wars, the Sons of the Revolution, and the Military Society of the War of 1812. The only sister of Mr. Lorillard Spencer is Eleanor Spencer, who married Virginio Cenci, Prince of Vicovaro, Grand Chamberlain to the King of Italy. The Princess Cenci was the first American to be appointed Dame du Palais by Queen Marguerita.
516
JAMES SPEYER
A LTHOUGH the name of Spire, or Spira, appears in the chronicles of Frankfort-on-Main as early as the middle of the fourteenth century, the first member of the Speyer family of whom accurate records have been kept, and from whom Mr. James Speyer is a direct descendant, was Michael Speyer, who died in 1586. The family has long been known for the broad spirit of philanthropy it has manifested and for its well-directed efforts in aiding those in need and in bettering the condition of the poor. In the commercial world, moreover, it has also, through the business enterprise and integrity of its members, long occupied a distinguished and prominent position. An interesting comment on the important standing of the family, even in 1792, is found in the fact that when, in that year, the French general, Custine, brought three leading citizens of Frankfort to Mayence as hostages to guarantee the payment of a war tax, one of them was the Imperial Court Banker, Isaac Michael Speyer.
In 1691, Michael Isaac Speyer was chosen head of the Hebrew community in Frankfort, in which position his two sons, Joseph Michael and Moses Michael, succeeded him. A third son, Isaac Michael Speyer, was the special representative of the entire Jewish community at the Imperial Court of Vienna, as well as before all other civil and judicial authorities of the country. Another member of the family was Imperial Court-factor at Michelstadt, and Wilhelm Speyer, who died in 1878, was a well-known musical composer of his day. The practical philanthropy of the family is shown by the establishment of various funds for the help of the poor and needy in different ways by Joseph Speyer in 1729, Isaac Speyer in 1807, and Moses Michael Speyer in 1801, all of which funds are still in existence and are the means of alleviating much distress.
Mr. James Speyer was born in New York in 1861. His father, Gustavus Speyer, who married Sophie Rubino in 1860, followed his brother, Phillip Speyer, to New York in 1845. Together, they founded the New York house of Phillip Speyer & Co., which, in 1878, became the firm of Speyer & Co. His grandfather, Joseph Speyer, died in 1846, and his grandmother, Jeanette Ellissen, in 1828. After receiving his education at Frankfort-on-Main, Mr. Speyer began his business career in his father's banking house in Frankfort when twenty-two years of age. He then went to Paris and London, and in 1885 returned to New York, where he is now a partner in the well-known banking house of Speyer & Co., as well as in the Frankfort house and its European branches.
Mr. Speyer has taken a prominent part in every kind of intelligent and well-directed philanthropic work in this community. He was one of the founders of the Provident Loan Society, of New York, of which he is now the president, and is also treasurer of the Univer- sity Settlement Society and a trustee of the German Savings Bank. In politics, he is a Democrat, but is independent and non-partisan, especially in municipal affairs. He was an active member of the executive committee of the Committee of Seventy, vice-president and treasurer of the German-American Reform Union in the Cleveland campaign of 1892, and is also an original member of the Citizens' Union. In 1896, he was appointed a member of the Board of Education by Mayor William L. Strong.
In November, 1897, Mr. Speyer married Ellin L. Prince (Mrs. John A. Lowery), daughter of the late John Dyneley Prince and Mary Travers, who was the daughter of John Travers and Susan Moale, both descendants of the oldest families of Baltimore, Md. Mrs. Speyer has long been prominent in efforts to brighten the lives and better the condition of the less fortunate, especially in connection with the working girls' clubs. She is treasurer of the Woman's Auxiliary of the Hospital Saturday and Sunday Association, vice-president of the Woman's Auxiliary of the University Settlement Society and a member also of the board of managers of the Loomis Sanitarium for Consumptives. Mr. Speyer is a member of the City, Manhattan, Players, Racquet, Reform, Lawyers', Whist and New York Yacht clubs, and the Deutscher Verein. Mr. and Mrs. Speyer reside at 257 Madison Avenue.
517
PAUL NELSON SPOFFORD
H ALF a century ago, Paul Spofford was one of the great New York merchants. He was born in 1792, his family being of old Massachusetts stock. When he was a boy of sixteen, he entered business in Haverhill, Mass., and was soon a junior partner, remaining there until 1818. He then formed a partnership with Thomas Tileston and came to New York, where he established an agency for the Boston Packet Line, and gradually engaged in trade with the West Indies and South America. Ultimately his firm came to have one of the largest shipping establishments in New York, and among their many notable achievements was the first successful inauguration of steam navigation on the ocean in this country. During the Civil War, the members of the firm gave substantial assistance to the Government. Outside of the shipping business, Paul Spofford had many important interests. He was also a member of the Council of the University of the City of New York and treasurer of the corporation.
Paul Spofford was a descendant from John Spofford, 1612-1678, who in 1638 settled in the town of Rowley, Mass. The ancestors of the family in successive generations down to Paul Spofford were John Spofford, 1648-1696, and his wife, Sarah Wheeler; Jonathan Spofford, 1684-1772, and his wife, Jemima Freethe ; Abel Spofford, 1718-1785, and his wife, Eleanor Poore; and Joseph Spofford, who died in 1825, and his wife, Mary Chaplin.
Not many families in this country can trace their lineage to European ancestry more surely and more accurately than the Spoffords. The name appears in the Domesday Book. Gamel, son of Orm, was Lord of Thorp-Arch on the river Wharf, Yorkshire, and had other domains in the eleventh century. From Gamelbar, Lord of Spofford, son of Gamel, Lord of Thorp-Arch, sprang the Spoffords of Yorkshire. Walter de Spofford was among those who were killed during the invasion of England by Malcolm II., King of Scotland. Thomas de Spofford became Bishop of Hereford in 1420.
In 1642, John Spofford was appointed by Parliament vicar of Silkeston, in Yorkshire, and it was his son, John Spofford, who came to Massachusetts.
In 1822, Paul Spofford married Sarah Spofford, also descended from John Spofford, of Rowley, the ancestor of her husband. Her father was Daniel Spofford, 1770-1805; her mother being Mary Nelson, of Georgetown, Mass. Her grandfather was Moody Spofford, 1744-1828, a justice in Georgetown, Mass., a representative to the General Court of Massachusetts for several successive terms, and a Lieutenant in the Revolutionary War. The great-grandfather of Mrs. Spofford was Colonel Daniel Spofford, who married Judith Follansbee, daughter of Francis and Judith (Moody) Follansbee, of Newbury, Mass. He was Colonel of the Seventh Regiment, Essex County, and led his regiment to Lexington and to Cambridge at the time of the battle of Bunker Hill. He was a representative of the General Court in 1776 and a member of the Constitutional Convention, in 1780. The great-great-grandfather of Mrs. Spofford was Captain John Spofford, who was born in 1678, a brother of Jonathan Spofford, the great-grand- father of Paul Spofford. By his wife Sarah, Paul Spofford had two children. The youngest child, a daughter, Mary Louisa, died in infancy. By his second wife, Susan B. Spring, daughter of the Reverend Gardiner Spring, he had five children, four sons and a daughter.
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