Henry Livingston, Jr.




Henry Livingston's Nieces and Nephews


Col. Henry A. LivingstonElizabeth Beekman
Cmdr Melancthon T. Woolsey Susan Cornelia Tredwell
Susan PlattJudge Richard R. Lansing
Joanna SchenckMatthew Mesier
Elizabeth LivingstonRev. George Boyd
Sarah LivingstonJustice Smith Thompson



Colonel Henry Alexander Livingston and Elizabeth Beekman
Colonel Henry Alexander Livingston [Son of John Henry]
(26 Aug 1776)
(1849, Poughkeepsie NY)
+ Elizabeth Beekman
(1779-1811)

Children:
Sarah Livingston [married Rev. Brogan Hoffe]
John A. Livingston [married Louisa Bradford]
Abraham H. Livingston [married Anna T. Greene]
Louisa M. Livingston [married Edward K. James]
Russell Livingston [married Louisa B. Finlay]
James Livingston [died unmarried]
Sarah Livingston [died young]
Eliza Livingston [died unmarried]
Philip Livingston [buried with mother]


+ Frederika Charlotte Ulrica Sayers
(14 Dec 1797, Bath England)
(14 Apr 1870, Poughkeepsie)

Children:
Frederika C. Livingston
Christiana T.B. Livingston
Cornelia Beekman Livingston
Jane Murray Livingston [married Robert Ralston Crosby]
Henrietta Ulrica Livingston
Henry Philip Livingston
Augustus Linlithgow Livingston
[married Elizabeth Matilda Danforth]


Agricultural Society
Lt. Colonel Militia
Daughter Dies
Running for Assembly
Duchess County Doorways Helen Wilkinson Reynolds
Henry Alexander Livingston was a leading citizen of Poughkeepsie for approximately half a century. In January, 1798, when he was about twenty-two years old he first emerges in local records as the purchaser of the property at the point where Mill and Main streets now merge and which then included a grist-mill and a dwelling. He held the same until October 16, 1799.

In the course of his fifty years of residence at Poughkeepsie Henry Alexander Livingston was called upon to fill several positions of trust and responsibility. His connection with the militia of Dutchess County began in 1809 and, finally obtaining command of a regiment, he was long spoken of as "Colonel Harry" Livingston. For twenty-four years he represented the town of Poughkeepsie in the board of supervisors; in 1827 he was a member of Assembly; and he was sent to four sessions of the state Senate, held in 1838-1841.

In 1811 he helped to organize the Middle District Bank; in 1814 he was a member of the first board of directors of the Dutchess County Insurance Company; when the Poughkeepsie Savings Bank was chartered he became the first president of the bank and held the office 1831-1833, during the period of organization; while in 1824, when General LaFayette visited Poughkeepsie, it was Colonel Harry Livingston who, as an outstanding citizen, made the address of welcome to the honored guest of the village.

When Colonel Livingston died in 1849 it was said of him in The Journal and Poughkeepsie Eagle that: "few men were more generally known and respected by all classes. [He was] an accomplished gentleman," "literally the friend of every body, from the highest classes down to the most humble, meeting and receiving all alike with the same courteous and ready cordiality, which made all feel at home in his presence. His residence, ever the home of sociability and hospitality, has long been regarded as classic ground among us.

[He] has lived since 1841 in retirement upon his farm below the village, his residence above spoken of being one of the most delightful on the Hudson river; yet he hardly ever missed a day when the weather would permit that he did not visit the village to talk over the news of the day and exchange greetings with his numerous friends." Two portraits of Colonel Livingston are in existence, both inherited by his descendants in the line of his daughter, Jane Murray Livingston, wife of Robert Ralston Crosby. One was painted by Gilbert Stuart, when Henry A. Livingston was eighteen and shows a sensitive refined face. One dates from the middle life of the subject. The portrait by Stuart is now in Canterbury, England, owned by the widow of Livingston Crosby, and the later picture is the property of Mrs. Alfred Duane Pell (Cornelia Livingston Crosby) of NYC.

At the death of Henry Alexander Livingston his house on the shore of the Hudson was occupied by his widow and unmarried daughters. One of the traditions handed down in Poughkeepsie is of these elderly spinster daughters, tall large of frame, riding to church in an ancient family-coach, drawn by horses of large and bony build. This was one of the familiar sights of a small town, that was suggestive of much to those who understood.


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Cmdr Melancthon T. Woolsey and Susan Cornelia Tredwell
Commodore Melancthon Taylor Woolsey [Son of Alida]
(5 Jun 1780, NYC)
(19 May 1838, Utica NY)
+ Susan Cornelia Tredwell 3 Nov 1817
(8 Dec 1796, Kingston)
(1863)

Children:
Major Richard Lansing Woolsey
Commodore Melancthon Brooks Woolsey
[married Mary Louisa Morrison]

James Tredwell Woolsey [died at 54]
Alida Livingston Woolsey
[married Rev. Isaac Pierson Stryker]
Robert Henry Woolsey [died at 62]
Susan Cornelia Woolsey
Richard Lansing Woolsey [died at 75]
Henry Livingston Woolsey


Biography


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Judge Richard R. Lansing and Susan Platt
Judge Richard R. Lansing
(Jul 1789, Albany NY)
(29 Sep 1855, Detroit MI)
+ Susan Platt 14 Jun 1813 [Daughter of Helena]
(1793, Whitesboro NY)
(?)

Children:
Edward Antill Lansing [married Ann Christina DeQuindre]
Jonas Platt Lansing [died in Yucatan at 23]
Manette Lansing [married Bayard Boyd]
Gerrit G. Lansing [married Mary Judson]
Helen Lansing [married Judge Sylvester Larned]
Charlotte Mills Lansing [married Elias Willard Smith]
Richard Lansing
Frances Tappan Lansing
Cornelia Platt Lansing
Melancthon Woolsey Lansing [married Mary Jane Abbott]
Phillipina S. Lansing
Susan Lansing [married Mr. Reese]

+ Elizabeth Davenport Livingston
(17 Mar 1805, Poughkeepsie NY)
(21 Mar 1886)
[Eliza's first husband was U.S. Supreme Court Justice Smith Thompson.]


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The Pioneers of Utica The Second Charter
p. 332-334
Richard Ray Lansing was born in July 1789, and graduated at Union College in 1809, pursued his professional studies with Judge Jonas Platt and then established himself in Utica, marying soon afterward Susan, the daughter of his preceptor. Declining to take up with the offer of George Parish, a great land holder of the northern part of the State, and become his agent in the sale of lands, as this involved the requirement that he should live at Mexico, in Oswego county, he entered, in 1815, into partnership with Judge Morris S. Miller. Ere long he was made clerk of the District Court of the United States, and held the office during his residence.

Being industrious, punctual, accurate and rapid in all his interactions, he acquitted himself excellently. His partners, after Judge Miller, were successively, G. John Mills, John H. Ostrom and Abraham Varick. He lived in Utica until about 1829, at first on Broad street, between Genesee and John, and later in the house on Chancellor square that is now the home of Mrs. Nicholas Devereux, which he built about 1825.

Mr. Lansing was cultured, agreeable and companionable, fond of society and of entertaining. He was fond also of his fishing and his gun. The weight reported of some of his piscatotorial captures seem akin to the fabulous, while his skill as a sportsman made him a popular fellow of the once notorious Unadilla Hunt. With rare bonhommie he was no less a bonvivant, for he loved the gains of his sport, and was an amateur of good things. But his economy was not proportionate with his industry, nor his tastes in harmony with his necessities, and so, though his gains were not small, he lived faster than he could afford, and found himself embarrassed in the end. The flood tide of his fortune, which the poet intimates as coming but once in a lifetime, would seem to have been opened to Mr. Lansing by the offer of Mr. Parish. Neglecting this, he was left upon the shoals, and had to struggle hard to support a numerous family in an expensive way of living.

Removing to New York, he entered upon the importation of wines and liquors, and for some years Lansing, Munroe and King were among the heaviest leaders in their line. But on returning to his store from his residence up town on the morning after the great fire of December 1835, he discovered that he had been burned to the ground and that his insurers as well as himself were ruined. He left the city and went to Michigan.

He became identified with the growth of that new State, was interested in land sales, and among the first to engage in the mining of copper on Lake Superior. In these transactions he was aided by the fortune he acquired through his second marriage. For having lost his first wife while in New York, he married her cousin, Eliza, daughter of Henry Livingston, and widow of Smith Thompson, judge of the Supreme Court of New York. For a few years he resided in Lansing, the capital of Michigan, to which place he had the honor of giving its name.

And it happened something on this wise: while on one of his fishing excursions, he stopped, as he had often done before, at a "four corners" where the half store, half-tavern had drawn around it a few rude buildings. The inhabitants aspired to a name, and were thne assembled to choose one. Some were advocates for antiquity and more for home recollections, but they were quite unable to agree, when someone called out: "Here's Dick Lansing, the cleverest fellow that ever came to these corners, let's call it after him." At once they assented and so gave appellation to the future capital of their State. It was not there, but at Detroit the place of his final residence, that he died Sept 29, 1855.




Matthew Mesier and Joanna Schenck
Matthew Mesier
(Bef. 1775, Of Wapp'Gr Falls NY)
(9 Feb 1858, Wappingers Falls NY)
+ Joanna Schenck [Daughter of Joanna]
(30 Mar 1781, Poughkeepsie NY)
(28 Feb 1857, Wappingers Falls NY)

Children:
Peter Jansen Mesier [died aged 16]
Joanna Mesier
Maria Mesier
Margaret Mesier [married George Bickham Reese]
Abraham Mesier
Henry Mesier


Marriage


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Rev. George Boyd and Elizabeth Livingston
Rev. George Boyd
(-3 Dec 1850, Philadelphia)
+ Elizabeth Livingston 6 Feb 1812 [Daughter of Robert Henry]
(17 Jan 1793, Poughkeepsie NY)
(Abt. 1847)

Children:
George Boyd, Jr. [married Bernetta Melick]
Susan Livingston Boyd [married Daniel Baxter Stedman, Jr.]


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Livingston Genealogy Reuben Hyde Walworth
He graduated at Columbia College in 1805, and was a lawyer and afterwards an Episcopal clergyman, & Rector of St. John's Church N.L. Philadelphia. He received the Honorary degree of D.D. from the University of Pennsylvania in 1839.



Justice Smith Thompson and Sarah Livingston

Smith Thompson-Sarah
Smith ThompsonSarah Livingston
Supreme Court Justice Smith Thompson
(11 Jan 1768)
(18 Dec 1843, Poughkeepsie NY)
+ Sarah Livingston1 10 Apr 1795 [Daughter of Gilbert]
(2 Mar 1777)
(22 Sep 1833, Poughkeepsie NY)

Children:
Louisa Maria Thompson [married Captain John Henry Clack]
Gilbert Livingston Thompson [married Arrietta Minthorne Tompkins]
Catharine Crannel Thompson [married Charles Joseph de Bresson]
Edward Thompson [died young]

+ Elizabeth Davenport Livingston 2 Nov 1836
(17 Mar 1805, Poughkeepsie NY)
(21 Mar 1886)

Children:
Smith Thompson [married Sarah A. Moore]
Eliza Livingston Thompson [died in infancy]
Jeannie Thompson


Costs of the Navy, 1821

Smith Thompson and the Bread
Smith Thompson on Supreme Court
Supreme Court
Smith Thompson conflict
Smith Thompson's fire buckets
Cows Running Loose
Daughter Dies
Selling House
No Court Today!


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Twentieth Century Biographical Dictionary of Notable Americans
THOMPSON, Smith, jurist, was born in Stanford, N.Y., Jan. 11, 1768. He was graduated from the College of New Jersey, A.B., 1788, A.M., 1791: subsequently studied law and taught school in Poughkeepsie, N.Y.; was admitted to the bar in 1792, and commenced practice in Troy, but returned to Poughkeepsie, when Chancellor James Kent, with whom he had studied, removed to New York city, in April, 1793. He was a member of the state assembly, 1800; was a delegate to the state constitutional convention, 1801, in which year he refused the attorneyship of the New York middle district; was associate justice of the state supreme court, 1802-14; chief justice, 1814-18; secretary of the navy, President Munroe's cabinet, 1818-23; and associate justice of the U.S. supreme court, appointed to succeed Judge Henry Brockholst Livingston, deceased, serving, 1823-43. He received the honorary degree of LL.D. from the College of New Jersey and from Yale in 1824, and from Harvard, 1835, and was vice-president of the American Bible society. He died in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., Dec. 18, 1843.


1941 DCHS YB
On April 22, 1838, Justice Thompson purchased a farm of 133 acres from the heirs of Thomas Mitchell, on which he established the home where he lived the remainder of his life. This land was part of the farm owned by John Conklin, father of Susannah Conklin, who in 1742 had married Henry Livingston. Susannah and Henry were the grandparents of both of Smith Thompson's wives. The farm was bounded on the east by the Post Road, on the west by Hudson's river, on the south by the land of edward James and on the north by the Livingston farm. Judge Thompson named his property at Poughkeepsie "Rust Plaetz," two Dutch words meaniing Resting Place. He did so because the little stream which ran through his farm was called the Rust Plaetz Kill. The Rust Plaetz Kill is still flowing. It rises from a spring on the east side of the Post Road, at a place called by the Dutch settlers the "Rust Plaetz" (the resting place) because the Indians camped or rested there. Judge Thompson's land is now part of the Poughkeepsie Rural Cemetery and it is an interesting and fitting coincidence that a stream always known as the "Rust Plaetz Kill" should traverse a modern burial ground.

Judge Thompson died at his home at Poughkeepsie December 18, 1843, and was buried in the Livingston family ground, formerly a part of the Livingston farm and now included within the bounds of the Poughkeepsie Rural Cemetery. At the time of his death, the New York Tribune (December 19, 1843), said of him: "He was a man of the simplest and least pretending manners and his unassuming dignity of deportment was in perfect firmness with the love of justice which always characterized him." And the New York Evening Post, of the same date, said: "Judge Thompson was one of the most illustrious ornaments of American jurisprudence."


[John Conklin's property must have had something good running through the water. It was on that property, next door to Locust Grove, that Charles Livingston found his future wife, little Eliza Clement Brewer, and Henry Jr. found his second wife, Jane McLean Patterson, the sister of Stephen Mitchell's wife, Margaret Patterson.

Ten years after Henry died, and two years after Smith Thompson married Henry's daughter, Eliza, Smith Thompson purchased the property where Eliza's sister-in-law Eliza had grown up.]


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