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 87

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

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Mr. Paul Nelson Spofford is the only son of Paul Spofford and his first wife. He is a member of the Union and Union League clubs, the American Geographical, Botanical, and New York Historical societies, the Society of Colonial Wars, and other organizations. When the engineer department in the militia of this State was established, he was appointed by Governor Young Engineer-in-Chief, with the rank of Brigadier-General. He organized the department and continued at its head, on the staff of Governor Hamilton Fish. Since then, Mr. Spofford has been much occupied with his own affairs and those of his father's estate. He is a bachelor, and resides at Hunt's Point, New York City, with his brother, Joseph L. Spofford, who married Cecilia, daughter of Lieutenant-Colonel Haws, and who has one son, Paul Cecil Spofford. The other surviving brother, Edward Clarence Spofford, resides on his estate at Tarrytown, N. Y.

518

MYLES STANDISH

O NE of the most picturesque figures in New England's early Colonial history was Miles, or Myles, Standish, the Pilgrim soldier. His fame has not been excelled by any of his associates in the Plymouth Colony, and Longfellow has preserved his memory in that famous poem, "The Courtship of Miles Standish." He was the ancestor in the ninth genera- tion of the gentleman whose name is at the head of this article. He came of an ancient English family of knightly rank, dating back before 1200, the records being legible to Thurston de Standish, in 1221. Myles Standish was born in 1584, in Lancashire, England, and was the rightful heir of the Standish Hall estates in that county. One of his ancestors, "the Squier of Kynges, called John Standysshhe," as Froisart has it, slew Watt Tyler in the time of Richard Il.

Inheriting the profession of arms, Myles Standish accepted a commission from Queen Eliza- beth in aid of the Dutch and passed much time in the Low Countries. He joined the Pilgrims, in Leyden, and came to this country in the Mayflower, in 1620. With him, came his wife, Rose, who died the same year. He later married his cousin, Barbara Standish, from whom the family in this country is descended. His military skill and bravery made him a leading man of the Plymouth Colony. He was one of the first signers of the " Compact," the "Germ of the Amer- ican Constitution." He was the champion of the settlement, defending it against the Indians.

In 1625, he revisited England as a representative of the Colony, returning the next year with supplies. After that, he settled in Duxbury, to which place he gave the name of the English home of his race, and for the remainder of his life was one of the Governor's Council and a magistrate. In 1649, he was chosen General-in-Chief of all the companies in the Colony, and in 1653, at the breaking out of the hostilities between England and Holland, he was again honored with the chief command. He died in 1656, "and the Pilgrims mourned for him as one who had ever been their stay in the time of peril, their support in more peaceful and prosperous times and their reliable counselor under any and all circumstances." A granite monument, surmounted by his statue, is erected to his memory, on Captain's Hill, Duxbury, dedicated to "The First Commissioned Military Officer of New England." His grave has been recently identified and appropriately marked.

Alexander Standish, the oldest son of Myles Standish, was a freeman of Duxbury, in 1648, the third clerk of the town, 1695-1700. He died in 1702. There is a special romantic interest attached to his first marriage, for his wife, Sarah Alden, was the daughter of John Alden, who was his father's friend and who, according to tradition, was commissioned to negotiate a marriage by Captain Standish with Priscilla Mullins, a transaction that ended in Alden marrying her himself. In the ensuing generations, the ancestors of Mr. Myles Standish were Ebenezer Standish, of Plympton, Mass., 1672-1759, son of Alexander and his wife, Hannah Sturtevant; Zachariah Standish, of Plympton, 1698-1770, and his wife, Abigail Whitman; Ebenezer Standish, 1721-1747, and wife, Averick Churchill; Shadrack Standish, of Plympton, 1745-1837, and his wife, Mary Churchill; Levi Standish, of Westport, Mass., 1779-1843, and his wife, Lucy Randall; John Avery Standish, of New Bedford, Mass., 1806-1865, and his wife, Emmeline, daughter of Joseph Bourne. Shadrack Standish was a soldier in the War of the Revolution. He was a member of Captain Thomas Sampson's company that formed part of Colonel Lothrop's regiment, and saw service in 1777 and 1781, when the British threatened a descent on Rhode Island.

Mr. Myles Standish was born in 1847, being the youngest and only surviving son of the late John Avery Standish, of New Bedford, Mass. He was educated at the Friends Academy, in New Bedford, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He has been a resident of this city for a number of years, and married the youngest daughter of the late James F. D. Lanier, of New York. He is a member of the Century, Metropolitan, City and Lawyers' clubs, the Society of Colonial Wars, and the New England and American Geographical Societies. His residence is in Fifth Avenue, near Washington Square.

519

JOHN STANTON

H ISTORY will record how much the development of the material prosperity of the United States during the present century should be credited to those of our citizens who, born in foreign lands, have come to this country and taken an energetic part in opening up new fields of enterprise, and in increasing the wealth of the country. Prominent among those who have been thus engaged will stand Mr. John Stanton and his father, who preceded him in the line of business in which he has now been engaged for nearly half a century. The father of Mr. Stanton was a native of England. He belonged to an old family and had been prosperous in business before he came to this country. Educated as a mining engineer, he was a considerable owner of coal properties in his native 'and and had accumulated a substantial capital. In 1835, looking to the New World for better opportunities for investment and enterprise, he came to this country. For a short time he lived in New York, but soon after removed to Pottsville, Pa., where he invested largely in coal mines. Afterwards he disposed of his interests in Pennsylvania and became interested in the iron mines near Dover, N. J.

Mr. John Stanton was born in Bristol, England, February 25th, 1830, and as a lad accom- panied his father when the latter removed to this country. He received his education in Pennsyl- vania, principally under the direction of his father, its tendency being chiefly of a scientific character. When, in 1846, his father engaged in iron mining in New Jersey, the son, although only sixteen years of age, was fully qualified to take an active part in the direction of mining operations. About 1852, he engaged in copper mining and for the next nine or ten years most of his time was devoted to the development of the copper deposits in Maryland, Virginia and Tennessee. The breaking out of the Civil War put an end to his business operations in that section of the country, and he lost heavily in the troubles incident to the time through the confiscation of his properties by the Confederate Government.

Thereupon Mr. Stanton turned his attention to the copper mines of the Lake Superior district. In a short time, he established business relations with several of the leading mining companies of that region, and became one of the most successful copper mine operators in the United States. He owns large interests in several important mines and is active, not alone in the material develop- ments of the property, but as well in the management of the financial affairs of the corporations by which they are owned. He is president of the Atlantic Mining Company, the Central Mining Company, the Allouez Mining Company and the Wolverine Copper Mining Company. In addition to his large mining interests in the Lake Superior region, he is also connected with mining affairs in Colorado and Arizona. Believing also in the ultimate value of the mineral deposits of the South, he has been one of the pioneers in the development of mining in that section of the country, and has done much to promote its industrial progress.

One of the founders and most enthusiastic supporters of the New York Mining Stock Exchange, Mr. Stanton was the first president of the Exchange in 1876, and upon the expiration of his term of service was elected to the treasurership. He is a member of the American Institute of Mining Engineers, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers and the North of England Insti- tute of Mining and Mechanical Engineers. His wife was Elizabeth Romaine McMillan. His residence is in West Twenty-third Street, in old Chelsea Village. He is a member of the Lawyers', Union League, Engineers' and Lotos clubs, the Downtown Association and the American Geo- graphical Society, and of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the American Museum of Natural History. His family consists of three children. John R. Stanton, the elder son, is engaged in busi- ness with his father, being treasurer of the Wolverine Copper Mining Company. He has been a member of the Seventh Regiment and belongs to the Engineers' and Seventh Regiment Veteran clubs, and the Sons of the Revolution. The younger son, Frank McMillan Stanton, is a mining and mechanical engineer and a graduate of Columbia College School of Mines. The only daughter of the family is Helen Louise Stanton.

520

FREDERICK AUGUSTUS STARRING

D ESCENDED in the fifth generation from Nicholas Starring, or Starin, General Frederick Augustus Starring represents one of the most important branches of this interesting family, of which no less than forty-three representatives are found on the muster rolls of the Ulster and Tryon County regiments in the Revolutionary War, while members of it also served in the French and Indian wars. Nicholas'Staring came to this country from Holland in 1696, and settled in Albany, and afterwards in German Flats, on the Mohawk River. Philip Frederick Adam Staring was the youngest son of the pioneer. He was born at German Flats, N. Y., in 1715, and married first, in 1743, Elizabeth Evertson, and second, Elizabeth Simmons, of German Flats.

Frederick Adam Starring, 1762-1854, was the youngest son of his father's first marriage. He lived in the counties of Montgomery and Herkimer, and in early life was a teacher, becoming in later years a merchant. He was a prominent member of the Dutch Reformed Church at Stone Arabia, N. Y., one of the oldest in the Mohawk Valley. Sylvanus Seaman Starring, the third son of Frederick Adam Starring, was the father of the gentleman whose name heads this sketch. He was born in Herkimer County in 1807, and died at St. Charles, Ill., in 1862. Receiving a good education, he became a civil engineer. He removed to Buffalo in 1830, and became successful in his profession and a prosperous man of affairs. He took a prominent part in the Papineau Rebellion in Canada in 1836, and in that connection obtained the title of Captain, being one of the party which boarded the steamboat Caroline, when that vessel was set on fire and sent adrift over Niagara Falls. The first wife of Sylvanus Seaman Starring was Adaline Morton Williams, who was born at Fredonia, N. Y., in 1810. Her father, William Williams, was one of the founders of Fredonia, N. Y. Two of her brothers were killed in the battle on Lake Erie.

General Frederick Augustus Starring is the eldest son of Sylvanus Seaman Starring. He was born at Buffalo, May 24th, 1834. Graduated from the High School of Buffalo in 1851, he afterwards studied at Harvard College and also in Paris. He became a civil engineer on the Illinois Central Railroad, and in 1856 located the boundary line between Arkansas, Texas and the Indian Territory. When the Civil War began, he at once volunteered, and was in the first battle of Bull Run, and was made Major of the Forty-Sixth Illinois Infantry in the summer of 1861, and in the autumn Major of artillery. In 1862, he was selected as Colonel of the First Chicago Board of Trade Regiment, Seventy-Second Illinois Infantry, was Provost Marshal, General of the Department of the Gulf, 1864-66, and made Brigadier-General for gallant and meritorious services in 1865. He was in all the campaigns in the Mississippi Valley, and took part in the actions of Fort Donaldson, Fort Henry and Island Number Ten, Fort Pillow, the Yazoo Pass Expedition and the siege and campaign of Vicksburg, Grand Gulf, Raymond, Jackson, Champion Hills, Big Black, etc., and that against Mobile, as well as other operations, and was assigned by General Grant to the surrender of arms from the Confederates at the fall of Vicksburg. He received the Vicksburg medal of honor, the MacPherson badge and other decorations.

After the war, General Starring traveled extensively in Europe, and, returning home, assisted in organizing the Grand Army of the Republic, of which he was the first Inspector-General, in 1869. He designed the Badge and Ritual and has Badge No. 1. From 1869 to 1883, he was engaged in the public service, one of his most conspicuous duties being that of agent to examine consular and diplomatic affairs in Europe, to which position he was appointed in July, 1869. He has traveled extensively in all parts of the world. He married, in 1889, Louise Perlé (Whitehouse) Evans. General Starring's residence is in Fifth Avenue. He belongs to the Union League, Manhattan, United Service and New York Yacht clubs, the Military Order of the Loyal Legion and the Army and Navy Club, of Washington. The Starring arms, borne by their ancestors in Guilderland, Holland, are: Azure, an eight-pointed star, or., in an annulet of the same. Crest, an eight-pointed star, or.

521

EDWIN AUGUSTUS STEVENS

F OR three generations Castle Point, Hoboken, has been the home of a family foremost in all that has made New York preeminent. John Stevens, the first of the name to come to this country, was a native of Middlesex County, England. He arrived in New York in 1699, and was a law officer of the Crown. His wife was Ann Campbell, daughter of John Camp- bell, one of the original proprietors of New Jersey, and related to the Duke of Argyle.

John Stevens, second of the name, was the eldest son of his father's family. He was born in Perth Amboy, N. J., and early in life was in mercantile business, afterwards having interests in the Rocky Hill copper mine, and being engaged in foreign trade. He was paymaster of the Old Blues Regiment, of New Jersey, an Indian commissioner in 1758, a member of the King's Council in 1762, vice-president and afterwards president of the Board of Proprietors of East New Jersey, and president of the Convention of New Jersey in 1787. He died in 1792. His wife was Elizabeth Alexander, a daughter of James Alexander, whose wife was a granddaughter of Johannes de Peyster, and whose son was the Revolutionary hero, General William Alexander, Lord Stirling.

John Stevens, third of the name, 1749-1838, was graduated, in 1768, from Kings College, and developed a genius for mechanical invention. One of his chief titles to fame is his labors for the introduction of steam navigation, in which work he was intimately associated with Robert Fulton and Chancellor Livingston. His wife, whom he married in 1738, was Rachel Cox, daughter of John Cox, of Bloomsburg, N. J., one of the founders of Hoboken. He left a family of thirteen children, five of whom were sons. During the latter part of his life he lived on the Castle Point estate, which he acquired in 1784.

Three of the sons of John Stevens were famous as engineers, or in the transportation busi- ness, Robert L., James H., and Edwin A. Stevens. Another son, John C. Stevens, was a prominent yachtsman. The other son, Richard Stevens, died young. Edwin Augustus Stevens, who was born in 1795, through inheritance and by purchase from his brothers, acquired the entire Castle Point property. He was distinguished for his benefactions, and established and endowed the Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken. He died in 1868, leaving a widow and eight children.

Mr. Edwin Augustus Stevens, the present head of this family, was born in Philadelphia, March 14th, 1858, and graduated from Princeton College in 1879. He is president of the Hoboken Land and Improvement Company, and is actively interested in many other business enterprises and in public affairs. He has been park commissioner, tax commissioner, president of the Hoboken Ferry Company, and of the Hackensack Water Company, a director in several banks, and a trustee of the Stevens Institute. Prominent in State and national politics, he has been a member of the Democratic State Committee of New Jersey, and was Democratic Presidential elector in 1888 and in 1892. In military affairs he has been Adjutant of the Ninth Regiment, N. G. N. J., an aide on the Governor's staff, and Colonel of the Second Regiment. He is a member of the Society of Mechanical Engineers, an associate of the Association of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers, and a member of many other societies and clubs, including the University and Lawyers' clubs, of New York, and the German and Columbia clubs, of Hoboken. He married Emily C. Lewis, and lives at Castle Point.

The elder son of this family, John Stevens, born in 1856, married Mary McGuire, and died a few years ago. The third son, Robert Livingston Stevens, was born in 1862, graduated from Columbia College in 1887, and married Mary Whitney. The fourth son, Charles Albert Stevens, was born in 1863, graduated from Columbia College in 1887, and married Mary M. Brady. The youngest son, Richard Stevens, born in 1865, graduated from Columbia College in 1890, and mar- ried Elizabeth Stevens. The eldest daughter, Caroline Bayard Stevens, who was born in 1859, married Archibald Alexander, who is not now living. The other daughter is Julia Augusta Stevens. The widowed mother of the family, Mrs. Edwin A. Stevens, Sr., is still living at Castle Point.

522

GEORGE THOMAS STEVENS, M. D.

I N the first records of Connecticut, John Stevens's name appears as one of the Colonists who, under the lead of the Reverend John Davenport, came to New Haven in 1639. John Stevens, who was of a Devonshire family, joined, soon after his arrival in America, in the settlement of the town of Guilford, Conn., where he gained prominence and influence. His son, William Stevens, lineal ancestor of the subject of this article, was the first settler of Killingworth, Conn. One of his descendants, at the period of the American Revolution, was Elnathan Stevens, Dr. Stevens's paternal grandfather, who served in the Continental Army throughout the struggle. A son of this patriot was the Reverend Chauncey Coe Stevens, who became a noted minister in the Congregational Church, and who, leaving his native Connecticut after his ordination, passed fifty years in Essex County, of this State, during forty of which he was pastor of the Second Church at Crown Point.

Dr. George Thomas Stevens was born in Essex County, N. Y., in 1832, and was the son of the Reverend Chauncey Coe Stevens and his wife, Lucinda Hoadley Stevens. Dr. Stevens's first maternal ancestor in America was John Hoadley, also of the New Haven Colony, and one of those who went to Guilford, where he was one of "the seven pillars" in the church. Returning to England, he became Chaplain to Oliver Cromwell. One of his sons was Benjamin Hoadley, the famous liberal Bishop of Winchester. William Hoadley, a son of John, who remained in this country, was an original settler at Saybrook, and is the direct ancestor of Dr. Stevens. The maternal grandfather of Dr. Stevens, Samuel Hoadley, was, like Elnathan Stevens, a soldier in the Army of the Revolution. Dr. Stevens received the degree of Doctor of Philosophy from Union College. He graduated in medicine in 1857 at the Castleton Medical College, Vt., and has been active in professional practice since that time. At the outbreak of the Civil War, he was commissioned Surgeon of the Seventy-seventh New York Volunteers, and took part in all the campaigns of the Army of the Potomac, becoming operating Surgeon to his brigade and for a time Medical Inspector of the Sixth Corps. At the conclusion of the war, he was elected Professor of Physiology and of Diseases of the Eye and Ear in the Medical College of Albany, N. Y. In 1880, Dr. Stevens removed to New York, where he has since continued in practice. He is the author of many medical works, more particularly of several upon subjects relating to the eye, which are well known in his profession, and he has devised a number of important optical, surgical and scientific instruments, which are in use both in America and in Europe. Among other works from his pen are Three Years in the Sixth Corps, The Flora of the Adirondacks, and Through North Wales by Train and Coach.

In 1861, Dr. Stevens married Harriet W., daughter of William L. Wadhams, of Wadhams Mills, N. Y., and his wife, Emeline Cole Wadhams. Mrs. Stevens's family is of Somersetshire extraction, the founder of Wadham College, Oxford, having been of it. John Wadhams, who was an original settler of Weathersfield, Conn., in 1650, was the American ancestor. Luman Wadhams, a Major in the United States Army, was Mrs. Stevens's grandfather. He served at the battle of Plattsburg, in the War of 1812, and was officially complimented for his conduct. He subsequently became a Brigadier General of State troops and was a man of much prominence. The late Reverend Dr. Edgar P. Wadhams, Bishop of Ogdensburg, was Mrs. Stevens's uncle, while among her ancestors was Governor Leete, of Connecticut.

The two children of Dr. and Mrs. Stevens are, Frances Virginia, now the wife of Dr. George Trumbull Ladd, Professor of Philosophy in Yale University, and Dr. Charles Wadhams Stevens, a graduate of Princeton and of the College of Physicians and Surgeons, who is a practicing physician in the city. In their frequent visits abroad, Dr. and Mrs. Stevens have met and enjoyed social relations with many of the most distinguished persons in social and scientific circles, and have entertained many European visitors in the United States. Dr. Stevens is a member of a number of clubs and societies in New York, and of scientific bodies.

523

JOHN AIKMAN STEWART

A S the name would indicate, the subject of this sketch comes of Scottish stock. His father, John Stewart, was a native of the Hebrides, and emigrated from Stornoway to this country in 1815, and although a man of moderate circumstances, soon established himself successfully in business and became a citizen of prominence. For many years he was one of the assessors for the old Twelfth and Sixteenth Wards, and subsequently became Receiver of Taxes of the City of New York. In 1817, he married Mary Aikman, who was also a member of a Scottish family. He died in 1849 at the age of fifty-eight, leaving a large family of children.

The first son of John Stewart was Mr. John Aikman Stewart, who was born in Fulton Street, New York, August 22d, 1822. His father had attained comfortable circumstances while he was growing up, and he, in consequence, secured a liberal education. After his preparatory schooling was over, he entered Columbia College, from which institution he was graduated in the literary and scientific course in 1840. Two years after graduation, when he was only twenty years of age, the clerkship of the Board of Education of this city was offered to him, and he held that position until 1850, when he resigned his place in the Board of Education to become the actuary of the United States Life Insurance Company.

In 1853, Mr. Stewart, with other business men, undertook the organization of the United States Trust Company, and secured its charter from the Legislature. He became the first secretary of the corporation, with which he has been connected ever since, succeeding to the presidency in 1865, when its president, Joseph Lawrence, resigned on account of ill health and advancing years. As president of the United States Trust Company, Mr. Stewart occupies an extremely influential position. The institution is the largest, as well as one of the oldest, trust companies in the country, and under his management has become an important factor in the New York financial world. Mr. Stewart has other weighty financial responsibilities in addition to the presidency of the United States Trust Company. He is a director in the Equitable Life Assurance Society, the Merchants' National Bank, the Greenwich Savings Bank, the Liverpool and London and Globe Insurance Company and the Bank of New Amsterdam.

For about a year, Mr. Stewart held public office, when, in 1864, at the urgent invitation of President Lincoln and the Honorable William Pitt Fessenden, Secretary of the Treasury, he became Assistant Treasurer of the United States at New York. The office had been tendered to him before, but was declined, and he finally accepted it only from a sense of patriotic duty to his country, then distracted by Civil War. In his early life, Mr. Stewart was a Democrat, but on the issues of 1861 he supported President Lincoln, and has been a Republican in his political views from that time forward.

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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 87

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