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 91
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Ryck Suydam, son of Hendrick Rycken, was born in 1675. His mother was Ida Jacobs. From 1711 until the time of his death, in 1741, he served as supervisor of the town of Flatbush and was sometimes a Judge. His son, John Suydam, died in Brooklyn about the close of the Revolutionary War. John Suydam's son, Hendrick Suydam, was born in 1736, and before the date of the Revolution, removed to Hallett's Cove, where he owned a mill on Sunswick Creek. For many years, he was an elder in the church in Newtown. His death occurred in 1818. He was married three times. His first wife, whom he married in 1762, was Letitia Sebring. She died in 1765, and he afterwards married Harmtie Lefferts, and in 1770, Phoebe Skidmore, daughter of Samuel Skidmore. His son, John Suydam, by his wife Letitia Sebring, was born in 1763, and was the grandfather of Mr. John R. Suydam. John Suydam was one of the prominent merchants of New York in the early years of the present century, being a member of the firm of Suydam & Wyckoff. One of his brothers, Samuel Suydam, was also a well-known merchant of the firm of Suydam & Heyer. John Suydam continued in business until 1821. He lived at 4 Broadway for many years, but late in life moved to Waverley Place. His wife was Jane Mesier, and he had a large family of children. His eldest daughter, Katherine Suydam, married Philip M. Lydig, and his youngest daughter, Jane Suydam, married William Remsen. He had several sons, who were also prominent in business and professional circles. His third son, John R. Suydam, father of Mr. John R. Suydam, of the present day, was born in the family mansion at 4 Broadway.
The mother of Mr. John R. Suydam was Ann Middleton Lawrence, who was born in 1823 and died in 1870, having married John R. Suydam, Sr., in 1854. She was the daughter of John L. Lawrence, 1785-1849, the eminent diplomat and man of public affairs, Secretary of the United States Legation to Sweden, a member of the New York State Assembly, State Senator, 1847-49, and Comptroller of the City of New York in 1849. The mother of Ann Middleton Lawrence was Sarah Augusta Smith, daughter of General John Smith, of Long Island, Revolutionary patriot and United States Senator, by his wife Elizabeth Woodhull, who was a daughter of General Nathaniel Woodhull of Revolutionary fame. The ancestry of John L. Lawrence, who was of the famous Lawrence family of Long Island and New York, has been reviewed on other pages of this volume.
Mr. John R. Suydam was born in Sayville, Long Island, and was educated in Columbia College, being graduated in the class of 1879 with the degree of M. E., and has since been engaged in the practice of his profession in New York. In 1883, he married Harriet Cochran, of Phila- delphia, and has two children, John R. Jr., and Lisa Cochran Suydam. Mrs. Suydam is a daughter of William Cochran, of Philadelphia, who was born in 1832, and his wife, Eliza Penrose, daughter of John Penrose. William Cochran was a son of William G. Cochran and Elizabeth Travis, who was the daughter of John Travis, of Philadelphia, and Elizabeth Bond. The maternal grandfather of Elizabeth Travis was Dr. Phineas Bond, of Philadelphia, 1717-1773, who married Williamena Moore, daughter of Judge William Moore, 1699-1783, and Lady Williamena Wemyss, 1704-1784, sister of David Wemyss, third Earl of Wemyss, and descended through the Wemyss and Leslie families from Robert III., of Scotland. The residence of the family is in East Forty-first Street, and their country home is Edgewater, in Sayville, Long Island, on the great South Bay. Mr. Suydam belongs to the Union and the Southside Sportsmen's clubs.
542
WALTER LISPENARD SUYDAM
I T N the eleventh century the Suydams held large possessions in Holland, their arms being argent, a chevron azure, of the chief two crescents gules, and a star of the same. Crest, a swan swimming among rushes, on a bar azure and argent. Motto, De Tyd Vliegt. Hendrick Rycken Van Suyt-dam, of this family, came in the seventeenth century from Suydam, Holland, to New Amsterdam, and settled at Flatbush, Long Island. His sons adopted the name of Suydam, and for many generations have been prominent in Long Island, especially in Kings County. Mr. Walter L. Suydam is a direct descendant of Judge Ryck Suydam, 1675-1743, the youngest son of the original Hendrick Rycken Van Suyt-dam.
Among his ancestors Mr. Suydam also embraces the names of Van Cortlandt, Van Rens- selaer, Schuyler, Schermerhorn and others of similar note in New York history. On the maternal side he comes, in several unbroken lines of descent, from royalty. His grandmother, Helen White, who married Abraham Schermerhorn, was the granddaughter of Augustus Van Cortlandt, of Yonkers, and his wife, Catharine Barclay, granddaughter of the eminent Colonial divine, the Reverend Thomas Barclay. The latter was the son of John Barclay, who was deputy governor of New Jersey, and a son of Colonel Davis Barclay, of Ury, and his wife, Catherine Gordon, grand- daughter of Dr. Gordon, dean of Salisbury, in 1603. The Gordon ancestry is traced to Henry III., of England, through his successors the three Edwards. Joan, daughter of Sir John de Bellfort, in the seventh generation from Henry, married James I., of Scotland, their descendants being the Earls of Huntly and Lords Gordon. Mr. Suydam is in the twenty-second generation from Henry Il1.
In 1875, Mr. Suydam married his distant cousin, Jane Mesier Suydam, daughter of John R. Suydam. Mrs. Suydam's ancestry is fully as distinguished as her husband's. Her grandfather was the famous John L. Lawrence, 1785-1849, Comptroller of New York 1849, and the incumbent of many State and national offices, including that of Secretary of Legation and Chargé d'affaires of the United States at Stockholm, State Senator and Presidential elector. His wife was the daughter of United States Senator, General John Smith, of Long Island. The Lawrence ancestry leads back to John Lawrence, progenitor of the Lawrences of Seahouse, St. Ives and St. Albans, who married a daughter of Eudo de Welles and Lady Maude Greystock. A descent from Henry III. is traced through his son, Edmund, Earl of Leicester, and the Lords of Mowbray and Welles to Eudo de Welles, in the seventh generation. From Ethelred, the Unready, it comes through his daughter, the Princess Goda, and the Earls of Hereford, Barons de Sudeley and Barons de Clifford, to which family Lady Maude de Greystock belonged. Through them, respectively, Mrs. Suydam descends in the twenty-second generation from Henry Ill. and in the twenty-seventh from Ethelred, the Unready. Mrs. Suydam is a member of the Colonial Dames of America, through descent from fifteen different ancestors distinguished in Colonial times.
Mr. Walter Lispenard Suydam was born in New York, May 20th, 1854. He was educated in Paris and this city, engaged in business in his youth, and was one of the original subscribing members of the New York Produce Exchange. After five years he retired from active business, but remained a member of the Exchange. He was long one of the managers of the Society for Improving the Condition of the Poor, but resigned in 1896. He is active in the Republican party organization in Suffolk County, has been long chairman of the Republican Committee of Brook- haven and was a delegate to the Republican National Convention, in 1896. He has, however, declined several nominations, believing that he can accomplish more good in a private station. Mr. Suydam resides at 43 East Twenty-second Street, and has a country house and estate of eighty acres called Manowtasquott, at Blue Point, on Great South Bay, Long Island. He belongs to the Metropolitan club, the Society of Colonial Wars, and the Westbrook Golf and the Great South Bay Yacht clubs, being an enthusiastic yachtsman. He is also interested in canoeing and belongs to the Canoe Club of Mount Desert, where he is a summer visitor. Mr. and Mrs. Suydam have a son, Walter L. Suydam, Jr., born in 1884.
543
FREDERICK GEORGE SWAN
A MONG the freemen of Medford, Mass., in 1639, was Richard Swan, 1600-1658, who pre- sumably arrived in America at least five years before. He and his wife, Ann, were members of the first church in Boston in 1638, and were dismissed from the church at Rowley in 1639. He was a settler of Rowley, Mass., in 1640, a representative to the General Court for thirteen years, served in King Philip's War, and was one of the proprietors of the Narragansett grant of land. His son, Robert Swan, of Haverhill, Mass., 1629-1697, was a soldier in King Philip's War. His son, Samuel Swan, of Haverhill, 1672-1751, had a son Timothy, 1694-1746, who removed to Charlestown, Mass., and served in the Indian wars.
Samuel Swan, Sr., of Charlestown, 1720-1808, son of Timothy Swan, was born in Charlestown, in 1720. The battle of Bunker Hill was fought on his farm. He was town treasurer of Charlestown, 1777-80, and died in 1808. In 1746, he married Joanna Richardson, of Woburn. His eldest surviving son, Samuel Swan, Jr., 1750-1825, grandfather of Mr. Frederick G. Swan, served under General Benjamin Lincoln during the Revolutionary War, being purchasing agent and quartermaster with the rank of Major. He married Hannah Lamson.
Benjamin Lincoln Swan, 1787-1866, father of Mr. Frederick George Swan, was the fifth child and fourth son of Major Samuel Swan. Removing to New York in 1810, he established himself in business and was very successful, retiring in 1821. He was a director in the Bank of America, and the Bank for Savings, a member of the University Place Presbyterian Church (the old Duane Street Church), vice-president of the New York Bible Society, and a governor of the New York Hospital and the Bloomingdale Asylum for the Insane. He married Mary C. Saidler, 1800-1857, and had a family of six children. The eldest son was Benjamin L. Swan, Jr., who died in 1892; he resided in West Twentieth Street, and his country place was Woodside Farm, Oyster Bay, Long Island. He was educated at Amherst College, was a member of the Union, New York and Century clubs, and the National Academy of Design. His first wife was Caroline Post, by whom he had two children, William L., and Caroline E. Swan, who married Thomas J. Young; his second wife was Mary Renwick.
Edward H. Swan, the second son, graduated from Columbia and Harvard, and married Julia S. Post. He lives in Oyster Bay, Long Island, and has four sons and four daughters. His daughter Elizabeth married Commodore Mckay, of the Cunard Steamship Line. His daughter Julia married the Reverend William Irvin, son of the late Richard Irvin. Otis Dwight Swan, another son, was educated at Columbia and Harvard. He married, first, Charlotte Anthon, daughter of the Reverend Dr. Henry Anthon, his second wife being Sarah M. Weed, by whom he had four children, Benjamin Lincoln, Mary C., Eliphalet W., and Sarah L. Swan. A fourth son was Robert J. Swan, president of the New York State Agricultural Society, who owned a model farm in Geneva, N. Y. He married Margaret Johnston, and two daughters survived him, Margaret Johnston and Agnes Swan, who married Waldo Hutchins, Jr. Mary C. Swan, the only daughter of Benjamin L. Swan, Sr., married Charles N. Fearing.
Mr. Frederick George Swan, the youngest son of Benjamin Lincoln Swan, Sr., was born in New York, February 22d, 1831. He was educated in private schools, and engaged in the dry goods commission business. In 1861, he joined the Open Board of Stock brokers, and afterwards the New York Stock Exchange, remaining in Wall Street until 1890. In 1861, Mr. Swan married Emily Wyeth, daughter of Leonard Jarvis Wyeth, a merchant of New York, who came of an old Massachusetts Colonial family, three of his uncles having been in the Lexington alarm in 1775. Mr. and Mrs. Swan have one daughter, Frances Wyeth Swan, who married Benjamin Welles. Mr. Swan was one of the first twenty members of the Union League Club. He also belongs to the Metropolitan Club, the Sons of the Revolution, the Society of Colonial Wars, the Order of Patriots and Founders of America, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. He is a life director of the New York Bible Society, and belongs to the New York Genealogical and Biographical Society.
544
HENRY COTHEAL SWORDS
T HOMAS SWORDS, the progenitor in this country of the family that bears his name, was born in Maryborough, near Dublin, Ireland, in 1738. He was of a family of importance in that country and secured a commission as ensign in the Fifty-Fifth Regiment of Foot in the British Army. He came to America in 1756, with the expedition under General Abercrombie, was wounded in the attack on Ticonderoga and promoted to be Lieutenant. Afterwards he was in command of military stations in the northern part of New York, notably that of Fort George. In 1776, he resigned from the army and made a home on land granted him by the Government in Saratoga County. During the Revolution, his sympathies were with the mother country, although he took little active part. At one time his house was the headquarters of the Royal Army, and the battles of Freeman's Farm and Green's Heights were fought not far away from his home. After the defeat of Burgoyne, he took his family to New York and remained there until his death, in 1780. The wife of Captain Thomas Swords, whom he married in Albany in 1762, was Mary Morrell, who died in 1798, in New York. Captain Swords and his wife are buried in the churchyard of St. Paul's Chapel. Three sons and two daughters were born to this couple. The eldest daughter married for her first husband Allan Jackson, her second husband being Douglass Anderson, a Scotch gentleman, and their daughter became the wife of Thomas B. Cummings, of New York. The youngest daughter married Henry Brewerton, and the son of this union was Brevet Major-General Henry Brewerton, U. S. A.
Richard Swords, the eldest son of Captain Thomas Swords, held a commission in the British Army and distinguished himself for bravery. While on service in Virginia in 1781, he was killed at the age of eighteen. The two youngest sons, Thomas and James Swords, learned the art of printing, and in 1786 established themselves in Pearl Street, New York, as booksellers and printers, soon taking the foremost position in that line of trade. Being members of the Episcopal Church, they became in effect the official publishing house of that denomination. Among their publica- tions were the authorized versions of the Common Prayer Book and standard editions of the Bible and a Church Almanac, which was one of the most important church publications brought out in this country up to that time.
After remaining in the publishing business nearly fifty years, James Swords retired and became president of the Washington Fire Insurance Company, a position which he held until his death. He left one daughter and two sons. The eldest son was Charles R. Swords, a well-known New York merchant of the last generation. Robert S. Swords, the youngest son, was Lieutenant-Colonel of the Second New Jersey Cavalry during the Civil War. Thomas Swords was for thirty years an active member of the vestry of Trinity Church. He continued in the pub- lishing business until his death, in 1843. He married Mary White, of Philadelphia, who died in 1868. One of his sons, Andrew Jackson Swords, was killed in the Mexican War, and another son was Brevet Major-General Thomas Swords, U. S. A., who was distinguished in the Florida, Mexican and Civil Wars. Two other sons, Edward J. Swords and James R. Swords, succeeded their father in the management of the publishing business. James R. Swords, the youngest, married Ann M. Cotheal, who survives him, and with her daughter, resides in West Thirty- sixth Street.
Mr. Henry Cotheal Swords, the representative of this interesting family in the present generation, is the son of James R. and Ann M. (Cotheal) Swords. He has been a member of the New York Stock Exchange since 1877, is president of the Real Estate Trust Company and a member of the Chamber of Commerce. His city residence is in West Thirty-eighth Street. He married Elizabeth Clarkson, daughter of the late Samuel Clarkson, of Philadelphia. Mr. Swords is a member of the Union League, Union, Calumet, Church and Riding clubs, the Downtown Association, the Seventh Regiment Veterans, the Sons of the Revolution, the Society of Colonial Wars, the St. Nicholas Society and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
545
EDWARD NEUFVILLE TAILER
A WEALTHY and enterprising merchant of Boston in the seventeenth century was William Tailer, 1611-1682. He married Rebecca Stoughton, daughter of Israel and Elizabeth Stoughton. Stoughton, a man of property and good family, came to America in 1632 and received a grant of land in Dorchester, near Boston, Mass. He was a representative to the General Court, commanded the Massachusetts forces in the Pequot War, and was one of the original incorporators of Harvard College. His death occurred in England in 1644. His most distinguished son was Governor William Stoughton, 1631-1701, Chief Justice of the Colony from 1692 to 1701.
William Tailer, 1675-1731, son of the first William Tailer and Rebecca Stoughton, became a prominent public man in the Colonial annals of Massachusetts. In the expedition sent by Governor Dudley against the French at Port Royal, now Annapolis, Nova Scotia, commanded by Sir William Phipps, William Tailer was an officer under Colonel Nicholson. He was a soldier of great valor and his services gained for him the approval of his commanding officers, as well as promotion. When he went to England, soon after, he carried letters of recommendation from his brother-in- law, Governor Stoughton, to the authorities there and brought back a commission as Lieutenant- Governor of the Province. He succeeded Povey in the office in question in 1704, and held it under Governors Dudley and Burgess, at one time acting as Governor in the interval between the He died while Lieutenant-Governor, in 1731.
departure of Dudley and the arrival of Burgess.
The gentleman whose name heads this article is a descendant of William Tailer and Israel Stoughton. His father, Edward N. Tailer, was the senior partner of the firm of Tailer & White, which was one of the best known financial houses in New York City three-quarters of a century ago, and retired from business in 1837. On his mother's side, Mr. Tailer traces his ancestry to the Bogerts, who came from Holland at the time of the first colonization of New Netherland. They settled in the upper part of Manhattan Island and were prominent on Long Island.
Mr. Tailer was born in New York City, July 20th, 1830, and was educated at the Penquest French Academy, a famous school at that date. In 1848, he became a clerk of the firm of Little, Alden & Co. He was subsequently connected with several other firms, and finally became a founder and partner in the importing and commission house of Winzer & Tailer, afterwards known as E. N. & W. H. Tailer & Co., one of the most prominent establishments of its class in the country. After a business life of thirty-six years, Mr. Tailer retired, and since that time has been principally occupied as the executor of important trusts and estates. He has traveled considerably, having crossed the Atlantic more than forty times since he made his initial voyage in the old steamship Arago in 1857. In the New York social world, Mr. Tailer and his immediate family have been more than ordinarily conspicuous for many years. His marriage to Agnes Suffern in 1855 united him with another prominent New York family. Miss Suffern was the daughter of Thomas Suffern, a merchant whose name was associated with all the affairs of the city, social, commercial and philanthropic, in the early part of the century. He was one of the first prominent men of his day to build a residence in Washington Square, and there he lived for fifty years. The children of Edward N. and Agnes (Suffern) Tailer are Mrs. Henry L. Burnett, Mrs. Robert L. Livingston, Mrs. Sidney J. Smith and T. Suffern Tailer, who married Maud Louise Lorillard, daughter of Pierre and Emily (Taylor) Lorillard.
Mr. Edward N. Tailer is a member of the vestry of the Church of the Ascension, takes part in the management of several religious and benevolent institutions, and is a director of the Northern Dispensary, the Greenwich Savings Bank and German-American Bank. His clubs include the Union, Union League, Merchants', Reform and Country. He is numbered among the prominent New Yorkers who have country residences at Tuxedo, is a patron of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and American Museum of Natural History, and a member of the New England and St. Nicholas societies and the American Geographical Society. His city residence is the old Suffern mansion, Washington Square North.
546
EDWARD BAKER TALCOTT
W ARWICKSHIRE was the original home of the Talcott family, though the first ancestor of whom there is a record was John Talcott, of Colchester, Essex. His son resided in Braintree, England, where he was a Justice of the Peace, and from him the American branch of the family sprung, through his son, John Talcott, who came to Boston in 1632. John Talcott removed to Hartford in 1636, where he was a magistrate.
Lieutenant-Colonel John Talcott, his son, was born in England, and came to America with his father. In 1650, he was Ensign, a Captain in 1660, a Deputy in 1654, and Treasurer of the Colony, 1660-76. In King Philip's War, he commanded the troops with the rank of Major and Lieutenant-Colonel. He was one of the patentees named in the Connecticut charter, and in 1650 married Helena Wakeman, daughter of John Wakeman, Treasurer of Connecticut, dying in 1688. His son, Hezekiah, was born in 1685, married Jemima Parsons, was one of the original proprietors of the town of Durham, and died in 1764. In the next two generations, the ancestors of Mr. Edward Baker Talcott were John Talcott, 1712-1765, and his wife, Sarah Parsons, and David Talcott, 1744-1786, and his wife, Anne Lyman. Noah Talcott, the son of the latter pair, who was born in Durham, Conn., 1768, and died in New York in 1840, became a merchant of New York in the early years of the present century. From 1798 to 1809, he was a partner of one of the famous Ellis brothers, and after continuing alone in business for the next six years, took his brother David into partnership, under the firm name of N. & D. Talcott. The firm was dissolved after eight years, but he continued in business, either alone, with other partners, or with his sons, until the end of his life. His wife, to whom he was married by Bishop Moore in Trinity Church, in 1803, was Eliza Woods, of Oxford, England, 1787-1866. Noah Talcott was one of the original members of the New England Society.
Frederick Lyman Talcott, his son, was born in 1813. Graduating from Columbia College in 1832, he and his brother, Daniel W. Talcott, were taken into partnership by their father, the firm becoming Noah Talcott & Son, and continued under that style until 1858, when Frederick L. Talcott retired and, with his two sons, Frederick L., Jr., and August B. Talcott, established the banking house of Talcott & Sons. Frederick L. Talcott was known as the " Cotton King," from his successful operations in the cotton market, and was president of the organization of merchants which afterwards became the Cotton Exchange. In 1842, he married Harriett Newell Burnham. Their children were : Frederick L. Talcott, who married Mary Picard ; August Belmont Talcott, who married Therese Polhemus; James Carleton Talcott, who married Laura Belknap; Mary Alice, who married Charles F. Palmeter; Harriett Elliott, wife of James R. Harrison; Edward Baker Talcott and Florence Louise Talcott.
Mr. Edward Baker Talcott, the fourth son of Frederick L. Talcott, was born in New York, January 21st, 1858, and was educated at the Fort Washington Institute. He began business in 1874, with Talcott & Sons, then passed four years with the house of Charles F. Hardy & Co., for whom he made successful business trips abroad and was offered a partnership. This he refused, and returning to Wall Street, he became a partner in Talcott & Sons in 1880, and joined the Stock Exchange. He remained with the firm for three years, and then became a most successful trader in the market. In January, 1897, he entered the firm of Bell & Co. Mr. Talcott represents the house, which is one of the leaders of the street, on the Exchange. From 1890 to 1894, he was identified with baseball affairs, and on returning from Europe in 1892, found the New York Baseball Club in a bankrupt condition. He was made managing director, with complete control, and at the end of the season of 1894 had discharged its debt and placed the club on a dividend-paying basis. He then sold his interest to the present owners.
In 1879, Mr. Talcott married Sara T. Roberson, daughter of W. H. Roberson. In 1880, a son was born to them, who died in 1886. Mr. Talcott resides at 147 West Seventy-second Street, and is a member of the Colonial, Manhattan, New York Athletic and Atlantic Yacht clubs.
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