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 95
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On his mother's side, Mr. Toler descends from one of the foremost Revolutionary families of New Jersey, his mother having been a daughter of the Honorable William Pennington, 1796-1862, who was Chancellor of the State and its Governor from 1837 to 1843 and who, in 1860, became Speaker of the National House of Representatives. Her grandfather, Judge William S. Pennington, 1757-1826, was a Major of Artillery in the army of the Revolution, became in 1804 a Judge of the Supreme Court of New Jersey, was Governor of the State in 1813, and afterwards United States District Judge.
Mr. Henry Pennington Toler was born at Newark, N. J., April 28th, 1864, and graduated from Princeton College in the class of 1886. While a student of that institution, he was distin- guished as an athlete, being a member of the baseball nine and playing half-back on the football team with Lamar, when the latter made his celebrated run against Yale, winning the game and championship for the year. He was also very active in track athletics, holding the best college record for pole vaulting throughout his college course. He has fully retained his taste for athletics, having turned his attention recently to golf, in which pastime he ranks as one of the foremost amateurs in America, and has been a participant in some of the most famous matches that have been played here, having also won several of the open tournaments. He engaged in the business of a stock broker and is now a member of the New York Stock Exchange. In 1888, Mr. Toler married Virginia Wheeler, of Scarsdale, N. Y., daughter of the late George Minor Wheeler. The issue of this marriage is two children, Dorothy and Henry Pennington Toler, Jr. He is a member of the Union Club, in this city, and of many organizations devoted to golf and other sports. Mr. Toler's two brothers are William P. Toler, who married Miss Foote of Elizabeth, N. J., and Hugh K. Toler, a widower, who married the daughter of the late Dr. Thebaud, of New York. Mr. Toler lives at Short Hills, N. J., where he built a residence during the first year of his marriage.
565
JOHN CANFIELD TOMLINSON
N England, in the early centuries after the Conquest, the Tomlinsons belonged to the landed gentry. They were descended from a member of the nobility, who had received a coat of arms which is still handed down in the family. These arms are: Fess between three ravens volant; Crest, out of a ducal coronet a griffin's head, argent. George Tomlinson, the English ancestor of the American family, was a native of Yorkshire, and married Maria Hyde. His son, Henry Tomlinson, was the American pioneer. With his wife, Alice, and several children he arrived in 1652 and settled in Milford, Conn. After four years, he removed to Stratford and engaged in business there, dying in 1681. Jonas Tomlinson, son of Henry Tomlinson, married, and about 1675 settled in Derby, Conn., where he died in 1692. In the next generation, Abraham Tomlinson, who lived in Stratford in 1728, removed to Derby.
Augur Tomlinson, the great-great-grandfather of Mr. John Canfield Tomlinson, was a son of Abraham Tomlinson. He was born in Derby in 1713, married, in 1734, Sarah Bowers, daughter of the Reverend Nathaniel Bowers, and died in 1800. In the next succeeding generation came Joseph Tomlinson, of Derby, a man of wealth and position. He married for his first wife Nethiah Glover, and for his second wife, Jedida Wakelee.
David Tomlinson, son of Joseph Tomlinson, was one of the noted physicians of New York. Born in Derby, in 1772, he graduated from Williams College in 1798, studied medicine and surgery under the celebrated Dr. Wheeler, of Dutchess County, and began to practice in Rhinebeck, N. Y., in 1802. At one time he was president of the Dutchess County Medical Society, in 1812 was surgeon of the Second Regiment of New York Militia, and in 1819 was a member of the New York Assembly. The grandmother of Mr. John Canfield Tomlinson was Cornelia Adams, granddaughter of Chief Justice Andrew Adams, of Connecticut, and of the Honorable John Canfield, a member of the Continental Congress. She married David Tomlinson in 1810. Chief Justice Adams was born at Stratford, Conn., in 1736, and died at Litchfield, Conn., in 1797. Graduated from Yale College in 1760, he was admitted to the bar in Fairfield County, and practiced
law in Stamford and Litchfield. He was a member of the Connecticut Legislature, 1776-81, a delegate to Congress for two terms prior to the adoption of the Constitution, a member of the Governor's Council, a Judge of the Supreme Court in 1789, and Chief Justice in 1793.
The father of Mr. Tomlinson was the Honorable Theodore E. Tomlinson, who was born in Rhinebeck, N. Y., in 1817. Graduated from the University of the City of New York in 1836, he studied in the Law School of Yale College, and being admitted to the bar in 1839, began practice in New York. In 1850, he was attorney to the Corporation of the city, and was intimately associated with Charles O'Connor, James T. Brady, William C. Noyes and David Graham. He was an influential representative of the old Whig party, and was chairman of the Whig State Committee, 1850-55. In 1859, he was a member of the Assembly of New York State. His wife, whom he married in 1844, was Abbey Esther Walden.
Mr. John Canfield Tomlinson was born in New York in 1856, and graduated from New York University with the degree of A. B. in 1875, and from the Law School of the same institution with the degree of LL. B. in 1877. He received the degree of A. M. in 1882, and throughout his professional life has been in practice at the bar of the City of New York. In 1879, he married Frances French Adams, daughter of Charles W. Adams, of Boston, and Frances (Barker) French, of Bangor, Me. She died in 1886. For his second wife, he married, in 1888, Dora Morrell Grant, daughter of Daniel J. and Elizabeth (Crane) Grant, of Boston. Mr. Tomlinson has two children by his first wife, John C. Tomlinson, Jr., and Esther Walden Tomlinson. By his second wife, he has one son, Daniel G. Tomlinson. Mr. and Mrs. Tomlinson live in West Eighty-eighth Street, and have a country home at Goshen, Mass. Mr. Tomlinson is a member of the Bar Association, the Sons of the Revolution and the Society of Colonial Wars, and his clubs are the Manhattan, Lawyers', Colonial and Democratic.
566
AUGUSTUS CLIFFORD TOWER
I N most cases throughout the United Kingdom, the name of the Tower family is spelled Towers, though in Scotland it is sometimes found as Towars. Many in America who bear the name, trace their descent to John Tower, who came to this country early in the seventeenth century. Among the parishes in England that were in sympathy with the Puritian movement of that period, that of Hingham was prominent. There the Reverend Robert Peck had been installed as rector some years before John Tower was born, and it was under his ministry that the American pioneer passed his early life. The clergyman became an open dissenter; and, under the administration of Archbishop Laud, was reduced to the alternatives of submitting to the authorities or abandoning his parish. Choosing freedom of conscience to compliance, he decided to emigrate to this country, and in 1637 led hither a company drawn mainly from the members of his flock, among whom was John Tower.
John Tower, the founder of the family in America, was the son of Robert and Dorothy (Raymond) Tower and was born in 1609. After coming to this country, he was made a freeman of Massachusetts in 1638 and had land granted to him in Hingham, Mass., named after his home in the old country. In 1657, he was one of the way wardens and two years after was a constable of the town. His wife, whom he married in Charlestown, Mass., in 1638, was Margaret Ibrook, daughter of Richard Ibrook, who was among the early settlers of Hingham, Mass., coming thither with his wife and three unmarried daughters, Ellen, Margaret and Rebecca. In 1639, Rebecca Ibrook married the Reverend Peter Hobart, the minister of Hingham. Being thus by his marriage related to the clergyman of his town, John Tower became a leader in the community. In the second American generation came Benjamin Tower, 1654-1721, who had for his wife Deborah Garnet, daughter of John and Mary Garnet. Ambrose Tower, the son of Benjamin and Deborah Tower, was born in Hingham, in 1699, and through his wife, Elizabeth, became the ancestor of most of the Tower name, who were settled in Middlesex County, Ambrose Tower having removed from Hingham to Concord, Mass.
The great-great-grandfather of the gentleman whose name heads this article was Joseph Tower, born in 1723, who resided successively in Weston, Sudbury, Princeton, Shrewsbury and Rutland, Mass., dying in the latter place in 1779. His wife was Hepzibah Gibbs, whom he married in Sudbury in 1748. She was born in Sudbury, in 1730, the daughter of Isaac and Thankful (Wheeler) Gibbs, and died in Waterville, N. Y., in 1816. The great-grandfather of Mr. Augustus Clifford Tower was Jonas Tower, who was born in 1768. His wife was Fanny Parmenter, of Petersham, Mass., daughter of John Parmenter. She was the mother of Oren Tower, who was the grandfather of the subject of this sketch. Oren Tower was born in Petersham, Mass., in 1794. His first wife, whom he married in 1823, was Harriet Gleason, a daughter of Joseph Gleason. The parents of Mr. Augustus Clifford Tower were William A. Tower, who was born in Petersham in 1824, and his wife, Julia Davis, of Lancaster, Mass., who was born in Princeton in 1824, and whom he married in 1847. The children of William A. and Julia (Davis) Tower were Ellen May, Charlotte Gray, Augustus Clifford and Richard Gleason Tower.
Mr. Augustus Clifford Tower was born in Cambridge, Mass., in 1853. He was graduated from Harvard in 1877, and during his collegiate course took a prominent part in athletics. For three years he was a member of the First Corps of Cadets of Boston, and participated in the various Centennial celebrations of that period. He removed to New York early in life, entered business in Wall Street, served on the board of governors of the New York Stock Exchange, and has been identified with conservative banking and brokerage houses. In 1883, Mr. Tower married Louise G. Dreer, of Philadelphia. His home is at Lawrence, Long Island, and he was for a number of years president of the Rockaway Hunt Club, of Long Island, which is considered one of the foremost organizations of its character in the country. He is also a member of the Union, University and Westminster Kennel clubs.
567
HENRY ROBINSON TOWNE
W HEN William Towne, the first American ancestor of this distinguished family, came to this country early in the seventeenth century, he brought with him his wife, Joanna Blessing, whom he had married in 1620. He was a native of Yarmouth, Norfolk County, England, and upon his arrival in New England, went to Salem, Mass., afterwards becoming the proprietor of an estate in Topsfield. Edmund Towne, the son of William Towne, was born in England, in 1628, and was brought to this county by his father. When he grew to manhood he became a prominent member of the community in Topsfield, and, in 1675, was interested in the organization of the first military company to protect the inhabitants from the Indians. His wife was Mary Browning, daughter of Thomas Browning, and he died in 1678. The four successive generations of the family leading to the grandfather of the gentleman whose name appears at the head of this sketch were: Joseph Towne, 1661-1717, of Topsfield, and his wife, Amy Smith, daughter of Robert Smith; Nathan Towne, 1693-1762, of Topsfield, Boxford and Andover, and his wife, Phœbe; Nathan Towne, of Andover, and his wife, Mary Poole; Benjamin Towne, of Andover, who was born in 1747, and his wife, Mehitable Chandler.
John Towne, the grandfather of Mr. Henry Robinson Towne, was born in Andover, in 1787, and was, in many ways, a remarkable man. Early in life he was a teacher, but afterwards went to Baltimore, where for several years he was associated in business with Henry Robinson, of England. Then, in 1817, Mr. Towne, who had accumulated considerable means, went West and purchased a large tract of land near Pittsburg, where he made his home, and where he was also engaged in the steamboat business. In 1833, he removed to Boston and again became asso- ciated with Mr. Robinson in the ownership and management of gas works. Finally, he purchased a country seat in Huntington Valley, near Philadelphia, and spent the rest of his life there, dying in 1851. His wife, who died in 1833, was a sister of Henry Robinson.
John Henry Towne, the father of Mr. Henry Robinson Towne, was born near Pittsburg, in 1818. He was first educated at the Chauncey Hall private school, of Boston, and then studied engineering in Philadelphia with the firm of Merrick & Agnew. He then entered into a partnership with S. V. Merrick, under the firm name of Merrick & Towne, a relation that was continued until 1848, their works being known as the Southwark Foundry. Then he was engaged in the erection of gas works in various cities of the country, and before the Civil War, became a junior partner in the engineering concern of I. P. Morris, Towne & Co. He was actively interested in scientific pursuits of all kinds, and particularly in those connected with his profession. He was a member of the Franklin Institute, the American Philosophical Society, and of other institutions of similar character. Much of his time and means were given to the advancement of the University of Pennsylvania, and when he died, in 1875, he left one million dollars to its scientific department, which is named the Towne Scientific School, in his honor. The wife of John Henry Towne was Maria R. Tevis, of Philadelphia.
Mr. Henry Robinson Towne is a native of Philadelphia, where he was born August 28th, 1844. Educated in a private school and the University of Pennsylvania, he entered the Port Richmond Iron Works, with which his father was connected, and gained practical experience in manufacturing, being particularly engaged in building engines for the United States monitors. In 1868, he joined in organizing the Yale & Towne Manufacturing Company, for the manufacture of the celebrated Yale locks, and has ever since been the president of the company. He is interested in other large corporations, and is a member of the American Society of Civil Engineers, and the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. He married Cora E. White, daughter of John P. White, of Philadelphia, and the children of this union are: John Henry and Frederick Tallmadge Towne. The city residence of Mr. Towne is in lower Madison Avenue, and he has a country seat in Stamford, Conn. He is a member of the Century Association and the Engineers', University, Lawyers', Reform, St. Anthony and Hardware clubs.
558
HOWARD TOWNSEND
O N his mother's side, Mr. Howard Townsend is a descendant from no less than six of the greatest New York families of the Colonial period, the Van Rensselaers, Van Cortlandts, Livingstons, Schuylers, Bayards and Loockermans. He is in the ninth generation from Kiliaen Van Rensselaer, the director of the West India Company, who established the family name and fortunes in this country. By his second wife, Anna Van Wely, Kiliaen Van Rensselaer had four sons and four daughters. His second son, Jeremias, who married Maria Van Cortlandt, daughter of Olaf Stevensen Van Cortlandt, was the head of the extensive family to which Mr. Howard Townsend belongs. Jeremias and Maria (Van Cortlandt) Van Rensselaer had three sons. Johannes Van Rensselaer died unmarried, and from Kiliaen Van Rensselaer and his younger brother, Hendrick, have come all the members of the family in later generations who have borne the paternal name. Kiliaen Van Rensselaer, the grandson of the director of the West India Com- pany, was the first lord of the Rensselaerwyck Manor, and married Maria Van Cortlandt in 1701. His second son, Stephen, was the sixth patroon, born in 1707, and dying in 1747. He married Eliza Grosbeck in 1729. In the next generation, Stephen Van Rensselaer married Catharine Living- ston, daughter of Philip Livingston, signer of the Declaration of Independence.
Stephen Van Rensselaer, who was born in 1742, died in 1769, and his eldest son, Stephen, who was born in 1764, and was the great-grandfather of the subject of this sketch, was one of the most notable figures in social and public life in New York during the post-Revolutionary period. He attended Princeton College, and was graduated from Harvard in 1782, was Major-General of the militia in 1801, a member of either the State Assembly or the State Senate from 1788 to 1795, Lieutenant-Governor in 1795 and again in 1798, president of the Erie Canal Commission, 1824-39, a Major-General in the War of 1812, when he led the United States troops in the storming of Queenstown; a Regent of the State University in 1809, and Chancellor at the time of his death, and a Member of Congress, 1823-29. In 1824, he established in Troy a school for instruction in mechan- ical and industrial art, now known as the Rensselaer Institute, and for fourteen years supported It himself. General Van Rensselaer died at the Rensselaer Manor House, in Troy, in 1839. His first wife was Margaret Schuyler, daughter of General Philip Schuyler. His second wife, whom he married in 1802, was Cornelia Paterson, daughter of William Paterson, Judge of the Supreme Court of the United States, and second Governor of the State of New Jersey. His widow, with ten chil- dren, survived him.
Stephen Van Rensselaer, son of Major-General Stephen Van Rensselaer, was the grandfather of Mr. Townsend. He was born in 1789, and died in 1868. His wife was Harriet Elizabeth Bayard, daughter of William Bayard, and a descendant from Balthazar Bayard and his wife, Maria Loockermans, daughter of Govert Loockermans. The father of Mr. Townsend was Dr. Howard Townsend, for many years one of the leading physicians in Albany, brother of Adjutant-General Frederick Townsend. Dr. Townsend was born in Albany in 1823, and died there in 1867. He was a graduate from Union College, and from the Medical Department of the University of Pennsyl- vania. In 1851-52, he was Surgeon-General of the State of New York, and afterwards professor in the Albany Medical College. Mrs. Townsend, who was Justine Van Rensselaer, daughter of Stephen Van Rensselaer and Harriet Elizabeth Bayard, is still living. She has been president of the National Society of Colonial Dames and of the Colonial Dames of the State of New York, regent of the Mount Vernon Association, and vice-president of the Society of the Daughters of the Cincinnati.
Mr. Howard Townsend was born in New York and educated at Harvard College, graduat- ing in the class of 1880. Admitted to the bar, he has since been active in the practice of his profession. He lives in West Thirty-ninth Street. His wife was Anne Langdon. He belongs to the Tuxedo colony, and is a member of the Century Association, the Union, University, City and Harvard clubs, the Bar Association, the Downtown Association, the American Geographical Society and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
569
JOHN POMEROY TOWNSEND
A RRIVING at Lynn, in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, in 1637, Thomas Townsend was the first American ancestor of the subject of this article. The descendants of this Puritan pioneer lived for five generations in the City of Boston, and vicinity. Ebenezer Townsend, one of the representatives of the family in the latter generation, removed, however, to New Hampshire and settled in Chester, in that Colony, in 1775. John Townsend, the son of Ebenezer Townsend, was a prominent citizen of Merrimack County, N. H., in the early portion of the present century. He held a portion of local offices, and was a member of the State Legislature for several terms. He married Anne Baker, daughter of Benjamin Baker, of Salisbury, N. H., and their son, the father of Mr. John Pomeroy Townsend, was John Baker Townsend, who was born in Salisbury. He married Eliza C. Alvord, a member of a notable Vermont family, and removed to Middlebury, in that State. In 1835, he, however, established himself at Troy, N. Y., and became a prosperous and influential resident of that city.
Mr. John Pomeroy Townsend is the eldest son of John Baker and Eliza (Alvord) Town- send. He was born at Middlebury, Addison County, Vt., October 10th, 1832, and received his early education in the schools of Troy, N. Y. In 1850, he came to New York and entered business life. He has long been an active and prominent member of the Chamber of Com- merce, and among other positions held the office of president of the Maritime Exchange from 1885 to 1888, and treasurer of the New York Produce Exchange in 1885 and 1886. In 1875, he became vice-president of the Bowery Savings Bank and was elected president of the Knicker- bocker Trust Company in 1889, holding that office until 1894, when he became president of the Bowery Savings Bank, an office he still holds. He is also a director of the Knickerbocker Trust Company and of the Farmers' Loan & Trust Company, as well as of several railroad cor- porations.
Taking an interest in public affairs, especially in connection with the municipality of New York, Mr. Townsend was a member of the famous Committee of Seventy, in 1894. He is a director and trustee of several benevolent and charitable organizations, being secretary of the Hospital for the Ruptured and Crippled in this city. He has also been, for a number of years, a member of the board of trustees of the University of Rochester, which institution conferred upon him the degree of LL. D. Mr. Townsend is an authority upon savings banks, and has made valuable contributions to the literature of that subject, having written numerous essays on savings banks and postal savings banks, as well as on the silver question and other financial and economic topics. He is a foreign associate and honorary president of the Society of the Universal Scientific Congress of Provident Institutions of Paris, France, and contributed and read papers upon American savings banks at the meetings of that body in Paris, in 1878, 1883 and 1889. He is also the author of the section descriptive of savings banks in The Cyclopedia of Political History and Political Economy of the United States, as well as of A History of Savings Banks in the United States, which was published in 1896, and of A History of the Bowery Savings Bank of New York from 1834 to 1888, and other works of a similar character.
In 1853, Mr. Townsend married Elizabeth A. Baldwin, daughter of Nehemiah Baldwin, of New York. Mrs. Townsend's ancestry is traced to Joseph Baldwin, one of the founders of Milford, Conn., who came from England in 1635. Mr. and Mrs. Townsend have three children. Their daughter, Mary Eliza Townsend, married Alfred L. White. Their second child and eldest son, Charles John Townsend, married Louisa C. Wright, and their younger son, John Henry Townsend, married Caroline S. Van Dusen. Mr. Townsend has resided, since 1870, in East Fifty-fourth Street, near Madison Avenue, and owns a country place at Chester, N. H., on which is the house built by his great-grandfather, Ebenezer Townsend, in 1775. He is a member of the Union League, Reform and Grolier clubs, the Downtown Association, the National Academy of Design and the New England Society.
570
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN TRACY
C ENTRAL and southern New York was largely settled in the years immediately following the Revolution, by families from New England. Among these pioneers was Thomas Tracy, who, in 1790, with his wife and infant son Benjamin, settled on Tracy Creek, Broome County, the creek receiving its name from him. Two years after he removed to Caroline, in Tompkins County, and then to the Holland Purchase near Buffalo. His son, Benjamin Tracy, returned to Tioga County and settled on Appalachin Creek, near Oswego, and died in 1883.
The Honorable Benjamin Franklin Tracy, son of Benjamin Tracy, was born in Oswego, Tioga County, April 26th, 1830. He was educated in the Oswego Academy and in the law office of N. W. Davis and was admitted to the bar in 1851. Politics engaged his attention early in life. In 1853, he became the Whig nominee for district attorney in Tioga County, and was elected, although Tioga was at that time a Democratic stronghold, and three years later was reelected. In 1859, he declined another nomination for district attorney and two years later was elected a mem- ber of the State Assembly on a union Republican and Democratic ticket. In the Assembly he was chairman of several committees, including that of railroads.
In 1862, Governor Edwin D. Morgan appointed Mr. Tracy on the committee to oversee and promote volunteering in Tioga and the adjoining counties, and he recruited two regiments, the One Hundred and Ninth, and the One Hundred and Thirty-Seventh New York Infantry, becoming Colonel of the One Hundred and Ninth. For two years this regiment saw active service in and around Baltimore and Washington and then became part of the Ninth Army Corps of the Army of the Potomac. Colonel Tracy led his regiment at the battle of the Wilderness and at Spottsylvania, and as a result of his service was prostrated and obliged to retire on sick leave. Returning home, he was appointed Colonel of the One Hundred and Twenty-Seventh United States Colored Infantry and put in command of the military post, with prison post and draft rendezvous at Elmira, N. Y. In March, 1865, he was brevetted Brigadier-General of Volunteers.
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