Robert George Remsen

Robert George Remsen (March 25, 1821 – January 18, 1896)[1] was an American physician who was prominent in New York society.

Robert George Remsen
23rd President of the Saint Nicholas Society of the City of New York
In office
1879–1879
Preceded byWilliam Montgomery Vermilye
Succeeded byEdward Floyd DeLancey
Personal details
Born(1821-03-21)March 21, 1821
Manhattan, New York, U.S.
DiedJanuary 18, 1896(1896-01-18) (aged 74)
Manhattan, New York, U.S.
Spouse
Margaret Delprat
​
​
(m. 1856)​
RelationsAnna Remsen Webb (niece)
Children4
Parent(s)Henry Remsen
Eliza de Peyster Remsen
Alma materPrinceton University
Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons

Early life

Remsen was born on March 25, 1821, at the old Remsen homestead on Cherry Hill, near Catherine Street, in Manhattan. He was the son of Hendrick "Henry" Remsen III (1762–1843), the former private secretary of Thomas Jefferson,[2] and Elizabeth "Eliza" (née de Peyster) Remsen (1787–1826), who married in 1808.[3] Among his siblings was William Remsen (who married Jane Suydam); Henry Rutgers Remsen (who married Elizabeth Waldron Phoenix); Catharine Ann Remsen; and Elizabeth Remsen.[4]

His maternal grandparents were Catherine (née Bancker) de Peyster and Abraham B. de Peyster,[3] a direct descendant of the 23rd Mayor of New York City Johannes de Peyster.[lower-alpha 1] His paternal grandparents were Hendrick "Henry" Remsen and Cornelia (née Dickerson) Remsen. His paternal grandfather was the namesake of Remsen, New York, the original proprietor of the township and the inheritor of the Remsenburgh patent, which embraced some 48,000 acres (190 km2) in Oneida and Herkimer counties and was granted in 1766 (later re-granted by the Legislature in 1787) to Remsen and four other New York merchants. Remsen, a New York City merchant and owner of Henry Remsen Jr. & Co., was the descendant of some of the earliest Dutch settlers of New Amsterdam,[7] and was a member of the Committee of One Hundred and represented the city in the Provincial Congress from 1776 to 1777.[3] Remsen descended from the early Dutch family for whom Remsen Street in Brooklyn was named.[8]

Through his older brother, Henry Rutgers Remsen, he was an uncle of Anna Remsen Webb, the wife of Union Army General Alexander S. Webb; and through his brother William Remsen, he was an uncle of Charles Remsen, the husband of Lillian Livingston Jones.[1][9]

Remsen graduated from Princeton University, with an A.B. degree in 1842 and an A.M. degree in 1845.[10] He later graduated from the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons with a M.D. degree in 1845.[11]

Career

While Remsen was educated as a physician, he did not practice during his later years, instead, "preferring the leisure which ample means gave him for more congenial pursuits in the direction of large corporations, in club association and free intercourse with a large circle of friends."[12]

In business, Remsen was a director, and former vice-president, of the Manhattan Savings Institution, a director of the Knickerbocker Trust Company, the Union Trust company and the Third Avenue Railroad.[2]

Society life

Remsen served as a governor of the Union Club, a member of the New York Yacht Club and the South Side Sportsmen's Club.[13] Remsen, along with Ward McAllister, was one of four founders of the Patriarchs in 1872, serving as president and credited as the originator of their ball.[2] At the time of his death, he was the last surviving founder.[1]

On May 5, 1877, at age forty-six, he was elected to the Century Association in New York.[12] In 1879, he became the 23rd President of the Saint Nicholas Society of the City of New York,[14] a charitable organization in New York City of men who are descended from early inhabitants of the State of New York.[11] He was elected to the Society on September 12, 1848,[9] and later elected a Steward in 1865.[15]

Personal life

Around 1856, Remsen was married to Margaret Delprat (d. 1920),[16] the daughter of Sophia (née Steuart) Delprat and John Charles Delprat.[17] Together, Margaret and Robert were the parents of four daughters:

  • Margaret Sophia "Maizie" Remsen (d. 1946), who did not marry.
  • Georgiana Delprat Remsen (1859–1933),[18] who married Charles Betts Hillhouse (1856–1937).[19][20]
  • Frances "Fannie" Remsen (d. 1934),[21] who married Winfield Hoyt Scott,[22] a grandson of Gen. Winfield Scott, in 1897.[23][24]
  • Caroline Remsen (1867–1934),[25] who married Robert Albert McKim, nephew of architect Charles Follen McKim, at Grace Church in March 1889.[26][27]

After an illness of several days from erysipelas, Remsen died at his home, 87 Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, on January 18, 1896.[1] He was buried in the family vault at Green Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn,[2] and in his will, he funded the Remsen Graduate Scholarship at New York University,[28] and donated $10,000 for the construction of a church near his country home along the shore.[29] After his death, his widow moved uptown to 3 East 80th Street.[11]

Descendants

Through his daughter Caroline, he was the grandfather of Robert Remsen McKim (d. 1938),[30] who married Helen Stagg in 1920;[31] Katherine McKim, who married Frank C. L. Dettman; Caroline Remsen McKim (1903–1936), who married Claude Claire Vickrey,[32] who courted Wallis Warfield (who was better known later in life as the Duchess of Windsor) at his graduating ball from the U.S. Naval Academy, and were the parents of painter Robert Remsen Vickrey (1926–2011).[13][33] Caroline and Claude later divorced and she remarried to Caleb van Heusen Whitbeck III,[13] in 1929.[34]

References
Notes
  1. Remsen's grandfather, Abraham B. de Peyster (1763–1801), was the son of William de Peyster Jr., and Elizabeth (née Brasher) de Peyster.[5] Remsen's great-aunt (Abraham's sister), was Elizabeth de Peyster was the second wife of painter Charles Willson Peale.[6]
Sources
  1. "OBITUARY RECORD.; Robert George Remsen" (PDF). The New York Times. 19 January 1896. Retrieved 8 May 2019.
  2. "ROBERT G. REMSEN DEAD. A NEW YORKER WHOSE FATHER WAS JEFFERSON'S SECRETARY". The Brooklyn Daily Eagle. 19 Jan 1896. Retrieved 8 May 2019.
  3. Lineage Book of the Daughters of the American Revolution. Daughters of the American Revolution. 1905. pp. 355. Retrieved 8 May 2019.
  4. Reynolds, Cuyler (1914). Genealogical and Family History of Southern New York and the Hudson River Valley: A Record of the Achievements of Her People in the Making of a Commonwealth and the Building of a Nation. Lewis Historical Publishing Company. p. 1457. Retrieved 5 March 2018.
  5. Belknap, Waldron Phoenix, Jr. The De Peyster Genealogy. Boston: Privately Printed, 1956, p. 89, fig. 23 Belknap, Waldron Phoenix, Jr. American Colonial Painting, materials for a history. Cambridge, Mass. Belknap, Harvard University Press, 1959, pp. 47-58, II-IV.
  6. "Abraham B. De Peyster (1763-1801)". nyhistory.org. New-York Historical Society. Retrieved 8 May 2019.
  7. Robert, Millard F. (1914). A Narrative History of Remsen, New York, Including Parts of the Adjoining Townships of Steuben and Trenton. Syracuse, New York: Lyman Bros. Inc. ISBN 9781116050066. Retrieved 8 May 2019.
  8. Barrett, Walter (1885). The Old Merchants of New York City. Thomas R. Knox & Company. p. 69. Retrieved 8 May 2019.
  9. The Saint Nicholas Society of the City of New York: History, Customs, Record of Events, Constitution, Certain Genealogies, and Other Matters of Interest. V. 1-. Saint Nicholas Society of the City of New York. 1905. pp. 126–127. Retrieved 8 May 2019.
  10. General Catalogue of Princeton University 1746-1906. Princeton University. 1908. p. 163. Retrieved 8 May 2019.
  11. Youngs, Florence Evelyn Pratt; Saint Nicholas Society of the City of New York (1914). Portraits of the Presidents of The Society, 1835-1914. New York, NY: Order of the Society. Retrieved 12 April 2019.
  12. "ROBERT G. REMSEN Physician/Civic Affairs". centuryarchives.org. Century Archives – The Century Association Archives Foundation. Retrieved 8 May 2019.
  13. Eliasoph, Philip; Vickrey, Robert (2008). Robert Vickrey: The Magic of Realism. Hudson Hills. p. 43. ISBN 9781555952921. Retrieved 8 May 2019.
  14. "The Late William M. Vermilye" (PDF). The New York Times. 25 June 1878. Retrieved 3 May 2019.
  15. "St. Nicholas Society--Election of Officers". The New York Times. 14 November 1865. Retrieved 8 May 2019.
  16. "REMSEN". New York Herald. 17 Feb 1920. Retrieved 8 May 2019.
  17. Shirk, Ida M. (2009). Descendants of Richard & Elizabeth (Ewen) Talbott of Popular Knowle, West River, Anne Arundel County, Maryland. Genealogical Publishing Com. p. 160. ISBN 9780806345840. Retrieved 8 May 2019.
  18. "MRS. HILLHOUSE, MEMBER OF SUMMER COLONY, DEAD. -- Deceased, Residing Here About 30 Years, Was Prominent Among Older Set". Newport Mercury. January 6, 1933. p. 2. Retrieved 8 May 2019.
  19. "Mrs. Charles Betts Hillhouse (ca. 1870-1933)". nyhistory.org. New-York Historical Society. Retrieved 8 May 2019.
  20. Family Charts (PDF). Yale University Library. p. 9. Retrieved 8 May 2019. Family charts of the Hillhouse, Lloyd-Woolsey, and Speyers families are found on the next five pages. The show kinship ties of prominent correspondents
  21. "Fannie Remsen Scott Leaves Half Million Net". Chicago Tribune. 30 Aug 1934. p. 12. Retrieved 8 May 2019.
  22. Social Register, Summer: Contains the Summer Addresses of Residents of New York, Washington, Philadelphia, Chicago, Boston and Baltimore. Social Register Association. 1904. p. 337. Retrieved 8 May 2019.
  23. "MARRIED". The United States Army and Navy Journal and Gazette of the Regular and Volunteer Forces. Army and Navy Journal, Incorporated: 770. June 12, 1897. Retrieved 8 May 2019.
  24. "THEIR WEDDING A SURPRISE. Miss Fanny Remsen and Winfield Hoyt Scott Married at New London". The World. June 3, 1897. Retrieved 8 May 2019.
  25. "MRS McKIM'S DEATH SUICIDE -- Coroner Holds Widow Shot Herself -- Five of Nine Shots Fired Hit Screen in New London". The Boston Globe. 26 May 1934. Retrieved 8 May 2019.
  26. "Pledged at the Altar; Four Charming Church Weddings Yesterday. M'kim-Remsen, Dickinson-Stebbins, O'gorman-O'connor, and Harper-Haxtun--Some Costly Gifts" (PDF). The New York Times. 1 March 1889. Retrieved 8 May 2019.
  27. "Mrs. M'Kim Estate Fixed at $196,863". The Brooklyn Daily Eagle. 23 Oct 1935. p. 10. Retrieved 8 May 2019.
  28. Bulletin of the National Research Council. National Academies. 1929. p. 85. Retrieved 8 May 2019.
  29. ""SPEONK" BUT A MEMORY; After Two Hundred Years Its Glory Has Departed. ITS NAME MEANT "STILL WATERS Dr. Remsen's $10,000 Gift Relegated It to Obscurity, and "Remsen- burg" Appeared" (PDF). The New York Times. March 2, 1896. Retrieved 8 May 2019.
  30. "McKim". The Brooklyn Daily Eagle. 24 January 1938. Retrieved 8 May 2019.
  31. "MISS STAGG WEDS ROBERT R. M'KIM; Niece and Adopted Daughter of Mrs. Arthur B. Benjamin Married at the Gotham. MISS GRACE LEYSER, BRIDE Wed to J.B. Boynton in Cathedral of St. John the Divine--Nuptials of Miss Stead and Dr. Booth" (PDF). The New York Times. 2 June 1920. Retrieved 8 May 2019.
  32. "Society Personals --Club Notes--". Hartford Courant. 17 May 1924. Retrieved 8 May 2019.
  33. Grimes, William (20 April 2011). "Robert Vickrey, Painter of Magic Realism School, Dies at 84". The New York Times. Retrieved 8 May 2019.
  34. "Mrs. Caroline McKim Vickery". Reno Gazette-Journal. 26 Mar 1929. Retrieved 8 May 2019.
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