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 89

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

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Mr. Joseph Suydam Stout, the only son of Andrew V. Stout, was born at the family homestead in Ridge Street, New York, December 27th, 1846, and was educated in the public schools and in the College of the City of New York. At the age of seventeen, he entered upon business life, taking a clerkship in the Shoe and Leather Bank, of which his father was then president. Two years later he was made assistant cashier of the bank. In 1865, he went into business for himself in Wall Street. His first connection was with the firm of Wiley & Co. Subsequently he was the senior partner of Stout & Dickinson, and afterwards was associated with his brother-in-law, John N. Ewell, under the firm name of Ewell, Stout & Co. For over twenty years he has been at the head of the firm of Stout & Co.

Mr. Stout is vice-president of the New York Mutual Gas Light Company, a director of the National Shoe and Leather Bank, the American Bank Note Company, the Broadway Insur- ance Company and the Holland Trust Company. He has been for many years a member of the Stock Exchange, the Produce Exchange and the Chamber of Commerce, belongs to the Union League and Metropolitan clubs, and is a member of the New England Society. Inheriting the religious predilections of his parents, he belongs to the Methodist Episcopal Church, being a member of the Madison Avenue Society. Deeply interested in the educational and benevolent undertakings of the denomination, he is a member of the board of directors of the Methodist Episcopal Hospital of Brooklyn, a trustee of Wesleyan University and of Drew Theological Seminary, and for ten years has been treasurer of the Board of Education of the Methodist Episcopal Church. He married, in 1868, Julia Frances Purdy, and his children are, Newton E., Andrew V., Joseph S. and Arthur P. Stout. He lives in East Sixty-seventh Street.

530

JAMES SAMUEL THOMAS STRANAHAN

I T is only four generations from Mr. James Samuel Thomas Stranahan, who has been distin- guished in the closing years of the nineteenth century as one of the most public-spirited citizens of New York and Brooklyn, to his ancestor, who came to this country in the first part of the eighteenth century. James Stranahan, who was born in 1699, came from the Old World to Scituate, R. I., in 1725. Later he removed to Plainfield, Conn., and there he died in 1792, at the age of ninety-three years. His son, James, had a large family, of which Samuel Stranahan, who removed to Peterboro, Madison County, N. Y., and died in 1816, was the fifth son.

Mr. James Samuel Thomas Stranahan, son of Samuel Stranahan, was born in Peterboro, April 25, 1808. He was sent to the local academies and before he was of age, he engaged in teaching and then fitted himself as a civil engineer. Mercantile life allured him, however, and in 1827 he became a trader along the Great Lakes. In 1832, Gerrit Smith, the philanthropist, who had made his acquaintance, engaged him to assist in the work of founding a manufacturing village in Oneida County, an enterprise represented to-day by the flourishing village of Florence. He was a member of the Whig party in those days, and in 1838 was a representative in the Assembly.

In 1840, Mr. Stranahan removed from Florence to Newark, N. J., and went into the business of railroad construction, in which he was engaged for some four years, when he took up his residence in Brooklyn, and began a career of public usefulness that has lasted for half a century. In 1848, he was elected to the Board of Aldermen, and three years later he was nominated for Mayor, but was not elected. In 1854, he was elected a Member of Congress.

When the Metropolitan Police Commission was organized, in 1857, Mr. Stranahan became a member of the board. In 1860, he was a member of the Republican National Convention, which nominated Lincoln, was a member of the National Convention of 1864, and the same year a presidential elector for Lincoln and Johnson, and also an elector in 1888 for Harrison and Morton. During the Civil War period, he was president of the War Fund Committee of Brooklyn. As the head of the Brooklyn Park Commission for twenty-two years, and made president of the com- mission by act of the Legislature in 1882, the crowning triumph of Mr. Stranahan's public labors was Prospect Park and the other parks and boulevards which are the pride of the city. A recognition of his unselfish public service by his fellow-citizens is seen in the bronze statue of him unveiled at the entrance to Prospect Park in 1891. For many years Mr. Stranahan was president of the Union Ferry Company, and was one of the originators of the plan for the Atlantic Docks, becoming their largest owner. He was a member of the first board of directors and a trustee of the Brooklyn Bridge, and was president of the board at the time of the dedication of that structure.

In 1837, Mr. Stranahan married Marianne Fitch, daughter of Ebenezer R. Fitch, of West- moreland, Oneida County, N. Y., and by her he had two children, a daughter, Mary, and a son, Fitch James, who died December 3d, 1896. Mrs. Stranahan was distinguished for her valuable work in the charities of Brooklyn. She was first directress of the Old Ladies' Home for many years up to the time of her death. She was at the head of the Sanitary Fair held for the benefit of the soldiers of the Civil War, and through her conduct of its affairs four hundred thousand dollars were collected. She died in 1866. The second wife of Mr. Stranahan was Clara C. Harrison, of Massachusetts, of the noted Baldwin ancestry. She was for many years a principal of one of the large private seminaries for young ladies in Brooklyn, and is still actively interested in educational work, being a founder and trustee of Barnard College, and vice-president of the alumnæ association of Troy Female Seminary, from which she was graduated. She is also president of the State Charities Aid Association for Kings County, vice-president general for New York State of the Daughters of the American Revolution, and was vice-president of the New York State Board of Women Managers for the Columbian World's Fair at Chicago in 1893. She has also won reputation as an authoress, her work entitled A History of French Painting, being recognized as a valuable contribution to the history of art.

531

WILLIAM A. STREET

A MONG the pioneers who came to New England in the exodus from the Old Country for the settlement of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, in the first twenty-five years of the seventeenth century, was the Reverend Nicholas Street, a clergyman of the Church of England, who immigrated in 1630. He was born in 1603, in Bridgewater, Somersetshire, where his family were prosperous merchants. He was graduated from Oxford in 1624, was living in Taunton, Mass., in 1638, and in New Haven, Conn., in 1659. His son, the Reverend Samuel Street, graduated from Harvard College in 1661. These divines were the first ancestors in this country of Mr. William A. Street.

On his mother's side, Mr. Street's great-grandfather was Joseph Reade, of New York, a member of the Governor's council during the administration of Governor Robert Monckton, in 1761. Reade Street, in this city, was named for him. He was also a warden of Trinity Church from 1721 to 1770. The Reades came from a line of British landed gentry of the name, who for centuries exercised great influence in public affairs. Lawrence Reade, the father of Joseph Reade, was born and married in England, removing to New York in the early part of the eighteenth century. His immediate ancestors were Sir William Reade and Sir Richard Reade. A son of Joseph Reade was John Reade, for whom Reade Hoeck (Red Hook) was named. By his descent from Joseph Reade, Mr. Street is connected with the Stuyvesant, Watts, Livingston, Kearny, de Peyster, and other great families of New York. Another of Mr. Street's ancestors-namely, his great-grandfather-Major Andrew Billings, was a member of General Washington's staff during the Revolutionary War. Mr. Street now has in his possession an autograph letter from Washington to Major Billings, dated June 7th, 1783. Attached to it is a lock of the hair of General and Mrs. Washington, which the letter refers to as having been sent. General Philip Kearny was Mr. Street's second cousin, and the latter bears the same relationship to Frederick de Peyster, long the president of the New York Historical Society.

The great-grandfather of Mr. Street was Caleb Street, a prosperous New York merchant of the early part of the present century. His grandfather, General Randall S. Street, was a lawyer of Poughkeepsie. He was of excellent rank in his profession and highly respected by his townsmen. Mr. Street's father, William 1. Street, was also a lawyer by profession, and married Susan Watts Kearny, daughter of Robert Kearny and his wife, Anna Reade. His brother, Alfred B. Street, the poet and author, was well known as a man of letters in the period of this country's intellectual and literary history which was dominated by Washington Irving and his associates, who were known as the Knickerbocker authors.

Mr. William A. Street was born in Poughkeepsie, N. Y., in 1843, but in 1850 his family removed to New York. His education was received in the city, but at an early age he entered upon a business career, entering the house of Sir Roderick W. Cameron, the shipping merchant. In 1862, he went to Australia, and during the next three years traveled extensively in that part of the world, gaining an invaluable knowledge of business and trade conditions in the countries through which he journeyed. In that time, he visited and studied the peoples of China, New Zealand, Java, Australia, the west coast of South America and islands of the Pacific. In 1870, Mr. Street became a partner of Sir R. W. Cameron, with whom he had long been associated, and the firm took the name of R. W. Cameron & Co. For nearly half a century this house has been one of the most active and most important in trade between the United States, Australasia and the far East.

In 1874, Mr. Street married Lucy Morgan, the children of this alliance being Arthur F. Street, Rosamond Kearny Street, Susan Watts Street and Anna Livingston Street. Mr. Street has a city residence at 43 Park Avenue. His country home is The Hermitage, at Seabright, N. J. He belongs to the Union and other clubs, and is a supporter of the prominent institutions of public interest, such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art and others of a similar character.

532

JOSEPH MONTGOMERY STRONG

N TORTHAMPTON, Mass., ranks among the oldest of New England towns, and was founded by John Strong, who was born at Taunton, Somersetshire, England, in 1605, and emigrated to the New World in 1630. Elder John Strong, as he was called, played a leading part in all the affairs of Church and State in early Massachusetts history, but, in addition, he became the progenitor of a large family whose branches now extend throughout the entire country. Many of its members have inherited not only the name but the energy and force of character of their Puritan ancestors, and among them are a number who have occupied positions of high distinction in public and private life. The Strong crest is an eagle rising from a mural crown, and its motto, Tentanda via est, and has been borne with honor by many men of eminence in the most distinguished stations of American professional and business life.

The New York branch of this typically American race was established by a great-grandson of Elder John Strong, Selah Strong, Jr., born in 1713. His son was Major Samuel Strong, born 1744, whose son, Joseph Strong, born 1766, married, 1792, his second cousin, Margaret, daughter of Judge Selah Strong, of Setauket, Long Island. This couple were the grandparents of Mr. Joseph Montgomery Strong, whose father, the Reverend Paschal Neilson Strong, was born in this city, in 1793, graduated from Columbia College in 1810, and adopted the profession of the ministry. The Reverend Paschal Neilson Strong became an eminent New York clergyman, and was for a long time the pastor of the old Collegiate Dutch Reformed Church, whose edifice then stood at the corner of Cedar and Nassau Streets, and is now located at the corner of Twenty-ninth Street and Fifth Avenue. His wife was Cornelia Adelaide Kane, a daughter of John Kane, Jr., a leading New York merchant in the early portion of the present century, and was a near relative of Dr. Elisha Kent Kane, the famous Arctic explorer, the Kane family being related to many of the most prominent names in the early history of the city and State.

The birth of Mr. Joseph Montgomery Strong occurred February 6th, 1822, and his marriage, October 15th, 1856, allied him to one of the foremost Colonial and Revolutionary families of the State-the Livingstons. Mrs. Strong, by birth Elizabeth Ludlow Livingston, was born at the Livingston Manor, at Dobbs Ferry, on the Hudson, and was the daughter of Van Brugh Livingston and granddaughter of Philip Livingston, secretary to Sir Henry Moore, the last English Governor of the Province of New York. Her great-grandfather, Peter Van Brugh Livingston, married Mary Alexander, sister of William Alexander, the Lord Stirling of the Army of the Revolution, and was president of the New York Provincial Congress in 1775, while his brother, Philip Livingston, was a signer of the Declaration of Independence, and another brother, William, was Governor of New Jersey. The descent of the family from Robert Livingston, the first Lord of Livingston Manor, and the public services which so many of its members rendered both in the days of the Province and in the modern State of New York are well known, the history of the family for many generations back being virtually that of the Colony and afterwards that of the State, to which it has ever supplied distinguished citizens.

The children of the Strong-Livingston alliance are Joseph Montgomery Strong, Jr., Peter Van Brugh Livingston Strong, Mary Livingston Strong, Philip Alexander Strong, Charles Livingston Strong and Josephine Gebhard Strong, the two latter being deceased.

The residence of the family is 41 West Fifty-fourth Street, while Mr. Strong's country seat is Cliffwood, an estate at Esopus, on the Hudson. Engaged in active business as a merchant for many years, he has, however, traveled in almost every part of Europe, and has been intimately connected with all that is best in the artistic or social development of New York. He was a stockholder of the Academy of Music, and joined the New York Club in 1846, while his membership in the Union Club dates from 1854. Mr. Strong was also some years ago a member of all the leading yacht clubs and other organizations devoted to the interests of sport, but with the approach of years relinquished active interest in that connection.

533

THERON G. STRONG

T HE families of Strong, in England, Scotland and of Ireland, have been closely associated, although the lines of connection have long been lost sight of. The English family, from which was descended John Strong, who came to this county in 1630, was originally of Shropshire, the name appearing on the old records as McStrachan, Strachan, Strahan and Strong. One of its members married into a family of County Caenarvon, Wales, and went thither to live in 1545. Richard Strong, who was born in the County Caernarvon, in 1561, was of this branch of the family. He removed to Taunton, Somersetshire, England, in 1590, and died in 1613. John Strong, son of Richard Strong, was born in Taunton, England, in 1605. Being a Puritan, he sailed for the New World, in 1630, and settled in Dorchester, Mass. In 1635, he removed to Hingham, being a freeman there the following year, and a freeman of Plymouth, in 1638. In 1641-3-4, he was a deputy to the General Court of the Plymouth Colony. Removing to Windsor, Conn., he had charge, with four others, of the settlement of that place, and in 1659, removing to Northampton, Mass., became a leading man in that commuinty also. The second wife of Elder John Strong was Abigail Ford, of Dorchester, Mass., daughter of Thomas Ford, who came over in 1630.

Jedediah Strong, son of Elder John Strong, was born in 1637, and was one of the early settlers of Coventry, Conn. His first wife was Freedham Woodward, daughter of Henry Wood- ward, of Dorchester, Mass. Preserved Strong, son of Jedediah Strong, was one of the prominent men of Coventry, Conn., and a member of its board of selectmen, in 1730. His great-grandson, Colonel Adonijah Strong, 1743-1824, was a Revolutionary patriot, a Colonel of a Connecticut regiment, and afterwards Commissary-General. In civil life he was a lawyer, and subsequently a Judge. Judge Martin Strong, of Salisbury, Conn., 1778-1838, was the eldest son of Colonel Adonijah Strong. He was a leading man in the community, a justice of the peace, and a member of the Legislature, and of the State Senate, and County Judge of Litchfield County.

The father of Mr. Theron G. Strong was the Honorable Theron R. Strong, second son of Judge Martin Strong, and was born in Salisbury, in 1802. He studied law in his father's office and afterwards in the law school of Judge Gould, at Litchfield. Removing to the western part of the State of New York, he settled first in Salem, and then in 1826 in Palmyra, where he practiced for the next twenty-six years. For many years he was a master and examiner-in-chancery, in 1834-39, was district attorney for Wayne County from 1839 to 1841, was a member of the United States Congress, and in 1842 a member of the Assembly of the State of New York. In the autumn of 1851, he was elected a Justice of the Supreme Court of the State of New York, in which capacity he served for eight years, the last year of his term as an Associate Justice of the Court of Appeals. In 1856, he removed to Rochester, and practiced there with great success for the next ten years, after which he came to New York City, where he continued the practice of law for the remainder of his life, which terminated in 1873. The mother of Mr. Theron G. Strong was Cornelia Wheeler Barnes, daughter of Wheeler Barnes, of Rome, N. Y.

Mr. Strong was born in Palmyra, N. Y., August 14th, 1846. In 1868, he was graduated from the University of Rochester, and then attended the Columbia Law School, graduating in 1870. In 1878, he married Martha Howard Prentice, daughter of the late John H. Prentice, a leading resident of Brooklyn. He is now the senior member of the firm of Strong, Harmon & Mathewson. In 1884, he was nominated to be a Judge of the Court of Common Pleas, and was renominated in 1885. He has been identified for many years with the public and religious life of the city, having been a deacon and elder in the Church of the Covenant, an elder in the Brick Church, one of the trustees of the Presbytery, a delegate to the General Assembly, a director of the New York Juvenile Asylum, the New York Bible Society, and other similar organizations. He is a member of the Society of the Cincinnati, of the State of Connecticut, the Society of Colonial Wars, the Sons of the Revolution, the New England Society, the Century Association, the Union League Club, the Downtown Association, and the Bar Association. He resides in East Sixty-fifth Street.

534

WILLIAM EVERARD STRONG

T HE family to which Mr. William Everard Strong belongs is one of the largest in New England, where it has existed for more than two centuries and a half. Its ancestor, Elder John Strong, of Northampton, Mass., came to this country in 1630, his career and that of his son, Thomas, being frequently referred to in this volume. In the third generation, Joseph Strong, 1672-1763, removed in 1716 from Northampton to Coventry, Conn., and was town treasurer there. In 1721, and for fifty-two times thereafter, he represented the town in the Legislature, being a member in 1762, when he was over eighty-nine years old. His wife was Sarah Allen, daughter of Nehemiah Allen and Sarah Woodford, of Northampton.

In the next generation, Captain Joseph Strong was born in 1701, in Northampton. He was for thirteen years a selectman of Coventry, Conn., a justice of the peace and for thirty-four years, 1739-73, a deacon of the First Congregational Church and a member of the Assembly at nine sessions. In 1724, he married Elizabeth Strong, a second cousin, daughter of Preserved Strong and Tabitha Lee. The son of Captain Joseph Strong was Deacon Benajah Strong, 1740-1809. He was a resident of Coventry, frequently a selectman, a justice of the peace, deacon of the First Congrega- tional Church, 1782-1809, and a member of the General Assembly in 1781. His wife was Lucy Bishop, daughter of Caleb Bishop and Keziah Hebbard, of Lisbon, Conn. Elizabeth Hale, the mother of Captain Nathan Hale, the Revolutionary martyr, was his sister.

Dr. Joseph Strong, the son of Benajah and Lucy (Bishop) Strong, was born in 1770 and graduated from Yale College in 1788. During the frontier troubles in the Northwest Territory, in the latter part of the last century, he was, from 1793 to 1795, surgeon under General Wayne. He settled in Philadelphia in 1795, practicing his profession there for several years, and died in 1812. His wife was Rebecca Young, of Philadelphia. The father of Mr. William E. Strong was William Young Strong, who was born in Philadelphia in 1806, while his father, Dr. Strong, was residing there in the practice of his profession. His youth was spent in Ohio, whither he went when a child of six years and he became identified with the development of that portion of the country. He afterwards removed to Terre Haute, Ind., where he died in 1866.

The wife of William Young Strong and the present Mr. Strong's mother, was Ann Massie, 1809-1860, a member of a notable family. Her father was General Massie, of Chillicothe, O., and her mother was Susan Everard Meade, a member of the well-known Meade family of Virginia. General Nathaniel Massie was born in Goochland County, Va., in 1793, and died at Paint Creek Falls, O., in 1813. When only seventeen years of age, he enlisted in the Continental Army and served during the closing years of the struggle for independence. Afterwards he became a surveyor, and among the important professional tasks in which he was employed was the survey, in 1791, of the first settlements upon the lands in Ohio, granted to Virginia's soldiers of the Revolution, between the Scioto and Little Miami rivers. In 1793-6, he was engaged in laying out the town of Chillicothe, and became, at the beginning of the present century, one of the largest land owners in Ohio. He took an intrepid and energetic part in the Indian Wars, was several times a member of the Ohio State Senate, served for one term as president of the Senate, was Major-General of the militia and a member of the Ohio Constitutional Convention in 1802. In 1807, he declined a nom- ination for Governor of the State.

Mr. William Everard Strong was born in Chillicothe, O., August 11th, 1836. He was educated in the public schools of his native place and came to New York to enter business at an early age. For many years past he has been one of the leading stock brokers of the metropolis. He married Alice Corbin Smith. of Alexandria, Va. Mr. Strong's city residence is 176 Madison Avenue, and he has a summer home, The Point, Seabright, N. J. He is a member of the Metropol- itan, City, Union, Knickerbocker, Riding, Lawyers', Racquet, Players and South Side Sportsmen's clubs and other organizations. Mr. and Mrs. Strong have two daughters, Anne Massie and Alice Everard Strong.

535

WILLIAM L. STRONG

A CONSPICUOUS exemplar of the American merchant, the Honorable William L. Strong, Mayor of the City of New York, has won approval as a successful business man and a capable chief magistrate. His parentage was of New England stock, his father, Abel Strong, being a native of Hartford, Conn., born in 1792. When eighteen years of age, he emigrated to Ohio, became a farmer in Richland County, and soon after his arrival there married Hannah Burdine, who was born in Pennsylvania in 1798.

The family of Abel Strong and his wife consisted of five children, of whom Mr. William L. Strong, born in 1827, was the eldest. Upon his father's death, when he was only thirteen years old, it devolved upon him to assume the responsibilities of caring for his mother and younger brothers and sisters. He accordingly commenced life as an employee in country stores of Londonville and Mansfield, O., where he remained until he was twenty-six years of age. Then, in 1853, he came to New York and started on a career that was to bring him fortune. At first he was connected with the wholesale dry goods house of L. G. Wilson & Co., and then held a position with Farnham, Dale & Co. and its successors for eleven years ending in 1869. The following year, with thirty years of commercial experience behind him, he founded the house of William L. Strong & Co. The firm commanded success from the start, and it now ranks as one of the leading houses in the wholesale dry goods trade.

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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 89

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