The amazing Roosevelt family

373 Pages·2007·8.25 MB·English

T h e Amazing
Roosevelt Family
KARL SCHRIFTGIESSER
Publishers New York
WILFRED FUNK, INC.
Contents
BOOK ONE: IMMIGRANTS
PAGE
Introductory: Against This World 3
I. The Dutch Trader 7
11. The Most Unpuritan of the Puritans
17
111. The Mayflower, Speedwell and the
Germ of the New Deal
39
IV. New Amsterdam and the Future
Pavements of New York 57
V. Panama Adventure
'71
BOOK T W O : REVOLUTIONARIES
AND TORIES
Introductory: Little Old New York
83
VI. The Roosevelt Family Melting Pot
90
VII. Roosevelt Cousins 102
VIII. Isaac the Patriot and the Shot That
Was Heard Around the World
108
IX. Hardware and Paddle Wheels
122
vii
.. .
CONTENTS
Vlll
BOOK T H R E E :
T H E RESPECTABLE AGE
PAGE
Introductory: Changing Times 135
X. The Missing Twins 137
XI. James the Democrat and Tammany
Hall 140
XII. A Million Dollar Will
XIII. Mother Seton and the Archbishop of
Baltimore 149
XIV. The Organ Maker 153
XV. A Ship Builder and Sailors
156
XVI. The Sportsman Reformer
XVII. Towards Oyster Bay 168
XVIII. Back to the Hudson '77 \
BOOK FOUR: PRESIDENTS
Introductory: Greatness At Last 207
XIX. Theodore Roosevelt
210
XX. The Princess and Little Nell 251
XXI. Franklin Delano Roosevelt 304
Index 359
A Roosevelt Family Chart
THIS CHART is designed to show the descent of Theo-
dore Roosevelt and Franklin Delano Roosevelt from their first
common ancestor to come to America. Only the two branches
of the Roosevelt Family leading to the two Presidents are
shown. Capitalized names are those of direct antecedents. Itali-
cised names are those of sons who carry on the direct line of the
two branches. Dates signify year of birth. Names immediately
beneath capitalized names are those of wives. Where more than
one is given the order of marriage is followed. Names of wives
by whom direct descent is carried on are marked with a star (*).
CLAES MARTENSZEN VAN ROSENVELT.
Jannetje (Samuels) Thomas.
Christaien, 1650; d. inf.
Elsje, 1652.
Anna Margaret, 1654.
Christina, 656.
1
Nicholas, 1658.
Anna.
NICHOLAS ROOSEVELT (1658).
Heyltje Jans Kunst.
Jannetje, 1683.
Margare tta.
Nicholas 11, 1687.
Johannes, 1689.
Elsie.
Jacobus, 1692.
Sarah.
Rachel, 1699.
x A ROOSEVELT FAMILY CHART
JOHANNES ROOSEVELT JACOBUS ROOSEVELT
(1689). (1692).
Heyltje Sjoerts. Catharina Hardenbroock.
Margareta, 1709. Johannes, i 7 15.
Olphert, 17 16. Nicholas 111, 1717.
Maria, 1720. Helena, i 7 19.
Jacobus, 1724. Jacobus, 172 1.
Cornelius, 73 Chritoful, 1724.
i 1.
Isaac, 1726.
Abraham, 1728.
Sarah, 1730.
Peter, 1732.
Adolphus, 1735.
Christopher, 739.
i
JACOBUS ROOSEVELT ISAAC ROOSEVELT
(1724)- (1726).
Annetje Bogard. Cornelia Hoffman.
Anna, 1748. Abraham, 1752, d. in£.
Johannes, 75 Martinue, 1754, d. inf.
i 1.
Heyltje, 1752. Catharine, 1756.
Margarieta, 1755. Sarah, 1758.
Maria, d. inf. Jacobus (James), 1760.
Jacob us, 1759. Cornelia, 176 1, d. inf.
Helena, 176 Maria, 1763.
1.
Maria, 1763. Martin, 1765.
Nichol.as, 1767. Cornelia, 1767.
Ann (by nd. marr.) Helena, 1768.
A ROOSEVELT FAMILY CHART xi
AMES J. ROOSEVELT JAMES ROOSEVELT
(JACOBUS) (1760).
(JACOBUS) (1759).
Maria Van Schaack. Maria E. Walton*
Catharine Barclay.
Cornelius v S., 1794.
Harriet Howland.
James, "795.
Nicholas, 1798. Isaac, 1790..
Catherine Angelica, 1803. Grace, 1'792.
William Henry, 1806. James, 1'794.
Alfred, 18 Walton, 1796.
1 1.
Edward, 1799.
Richard, 180
1.
Hamilton, 1805.
Henry W., 1809.
Susan (by sd. marr.)
James
CORNELIUS V. S. ISAAC ROOSEVELT I1
ROOSEVELT (1 794). (1790).
Margaret Barnhill. Mary Rebecca Aspinwall.
Silas Weir, 1823. James, 1828.
James Alfred, 1825. John Aspinwall, 1840.
Cornelius V.X., 1827.
Robert Barnhill, 1829.
Theodore, 1831.
William Wallace, 1834,
(d. inf.)
xii A ROOSEVELT FAMILY CHART
THEODORE JAMES ROOSEVELT
ROOSEVELT (18 3 1). (1828).
Martha Bullock. Rebecca M. Howland.
*
Sarah Delano.
Anna, 1855.
Theodore, 1858. James Roosevelt Roosevelt,
Elliott, 1860. (by 1st marr.)
Corinne, 186 Frank Ein De Eano Roosewe 1t ,
1.
1882, (by 2d marr.)
THEODORE FRANKLIN DELANO
ROOSEVELT (18 58). ROOSEVELT (1 882).
Alice Hathaway Lee. Anna Eleanor Roosevelt.
Edith Kermit Carow.
Anna Eleanor, 1906.
Alice Lee, 1884, (by 1st James, 1907.
ma^.) Franklin Delano, 1909,
Theodore, Jr., 1887. d. inf.
Kermit, 1889. Elliott, 1910.
Ethel Carow, 1891. Franklin Delano, 1g 14.
Archibald Bullock, 1894. John Aspinwall, 1g 16.
Quentin, 1897.
Book One
IMMIGRANTS
Against This World
THE BRINGER of the name Roosevelt to America was a
shadowy Dutchman about whom extraordinarily little is known.
He slips vaguely through the scattered annals of New Amster-
dam, hardly more than a footnote to the history of that trading
post which became an English colony almost before it was a
Dutch town. If we accept the legend that has grown up around
him, he was an amazing adventurer, a man of imagination and
great courage, who deserves better recognition than he has man-
aged to attain in the 304 years since his name first crept into the
records of that outpost of the Old World. But if we seek his
biography in the few blotted words that have survived, then he
was just another farmer and trader who lived in reasonable
honesty and industry from the fruits of a small acreage at the
lower end of the island of Manhattan.
The history of his descendants, however, stems from more
documented sources than the hazy story of Claes Martenszen
van Rosenvelt or Nicholas, the son of Martin, of the Rose
Field, as the Dutch progenitor of all the Roosevelts was known
in his time. Indeed it does not properly begin with his un-
recorded arrival in New Netherland, but in England and with
two men of slight contemporary distinction-the one a weaver
and the other a tailor-who busied themselves with the affairs
of Separatism and the founding of the English colony at
Plymouth on Massachusetts Bay. And it quickly includes a
dozen or more common people of mixed European extraction
3
4 THE AMAZING ROOSEVELT FAMILY
who, like the Dutch farmer and the English tradesmen, played
their own comparatively inconspicuous parts in the tremendous
drama the entire Western World was experiencing as the Seven-
teenth Century dawned.
Not one of the immigrant antecedents of Theodore and
Franklin Delano Roosevelt came closer to greatness than the
outermost fringe. They were ordinary folk who were picked up
and swept from the accustomed channels of their lives by the
surging tide of history that was then changing the face of the
world. Great forces beat against them and they reacted to the
inescapable, as little people have at all times. Some were charged
by a spiritual emotion that caused them to turn like Saint
Andrew from home and kindred; others were carried along by
the fierce drift of those forces of economic expansion which they
could not understand and over which they had no control. All
of them-English and Dutch and German and French-eventu-
ally reached the New World. And there, through the mysteries
of life-through love or the hope of greater fortune-they met
and merged. Time and genetics did the rest.
The personal motives which brought to America the men
and women who were to form the Roosevelt family, as it has
come down to the present time in two straight lines, were as
varied as their names. As was the case with all who crossed the
seas to settle on these unfriendly shores they were moved to do
so by a variety of general reasons that underlay the entire colo-
nization of America, whether English or Dutch or French. As any
number of authorities have shown, these were partly religious
but primarily economic, and this truism applies as well to those
who froze and starved at Plymouth as to those who dodged the
Indians along the Hudson or planted corn in Virginia's warmer
sun. The sanctification of the codfish as much as any desire for
religious freedom made the settling of New England a possi-
bility and the Dutch never denied they were seeking the beaver
rather than a place in which to worship God without restraint.
These forces .did not break suddenly upon an unsuspecting
world. They had been building up slowly, gradually gaining
momentum over a long stretch of time. Nor did they cascade
without warning upon the shores of the Americas, throwing
great armies of builders and toilers into the new land. The