Samuel Ward (banker)

Samuel Ward III (born in Rhode Island, May 1, 1786; died in New York City, November 27, 1839) was an American banker.

Samuel Ward
Born	May 1, 1786 Rhode Island
Died	November 27, 1839 (aged 53) New York City, New York, U.S.
Spouse(s)	Julia Rush Cutler ​ ​ (m. 1812; died 1824)​
Children	Samuel Cutler Ward Henry Ward Julia Ward
Parent(s)	Samuel Ward, Jr. Phebe Greene
Relatives	Samuel Ward, Sr. (grandfather) William Greene, Jr.

Early life

Samuel Ward III was born in Rhode Island on May 1, 1786. He was the son of Col. Samuel Ward, Jr. (1756–1832) and Phebe Greene. His paternal grandparents were Samuel Ward, Sr. (1725–1776) and Anne Ray. His maternal grandparents were William Greene, Jr. (1731–1809) and Catharine Ray.

Career

After his education he entered a banking house as clerk, and in 1808 was taken into partnership, continuing as a member of the firm of Prime, Ward & King until his death. In 1838, he secured through the Bank of England a loan of nearly $5,000,000 to enable the banks to resume specie payments, and established the Bank of Commerce, becoming its president.

He was a founder of the University of the City of New York (now New York University) and of the New York Temperance Society, of which he was the first president, and was active in organizing mission churches. He was a patron of many charities and the giver of large sums in aid of Protestant Episcopal Churches and colleges in the west.

Personal life

Portrait of Ward's daughter, Julia Ward Howe, by John Elliott, 1925

In October 1812, he married Julia Rush Cutler (born in Boston, January 5, 1796; died in New York City, November 9, 1824), the sister of Rev. Benjamin Clarke Cutler (who was the brother-in-law of General Sir Roger Hale Sheaffe), and, through her mother, a grandniece of Francis Marion. Julia was a poet, and one of her poems is preserved in Rufus Wilmot Griswold's Female Poets of America (Philadelphia, 1848). They had seven children, including:

• Samuel Cutler "Sam" Ward (1814–1884), a lobbyist who married Emily Astor (1819–1841), daughter of William Backhouse Astor Sr.[1]
• Henry Ward (1818–1839)
• Julia Ward (1819–1910), a poet who married Samuel Gridley Howe (1801–1876)[2]
• Louisa Cutler Ward (1823–1897), who married Thomas Gibson Crawford (1813–1857), a prominent sculptor. After his death, she married Luther Terry (1813–1900), an artist.[3][4]

Descendants

His son, Sam Ward, had two children with Emily Astor before her death. Their only surviving daughter, Margaret Astor Ward, married John Winthrop Chanler, son of John White Chanler and Elizabeth Shirreff Winthrop, and had eleven children, including William Astor Chanler, Sr., Lewis Stuyvesant Chanler, and Robert Winthrop Chanler. After Emily's death, Sam married again and had two more children with his second wife, Medora Grymes, who both died in the 1860s.[1]

His daughter, Julia gave birth to six children: Julia Romana Howe (1844–1886), Florence Marion Howe (1845–1922), Henry Marion Howe (1848–1922), Laura Elizabeth Howe (1850–1943), Maud Howe (1855–1948), and Samuel Gridley Howe, Jr. (1858–1863). Julia was likewise an aunt of novelist Francis Marion Crawford.[5]

References

Notes

1. "Samuel Ward Papers" (PDF). nypl.org. New York Public Library Archives. Retrieved February 7, 2017.
2. "Julia Ward Howe (1819-1910)". National Women's History Museum.
3. "MRS. W. A. CHANLER, AUTHOR, MUSICIAN; Niece of Julia Ward Howe and the Half-Sister of F. Marion Crawford Dies at 91". The New York Times. December 20, 1952. Retrieved February 21, 2018.
4. "F. Marion Crawford". The New York Times. December 19, 1897. Retrieved February 22, 2018.
5. Martyris, Nina (March 16, 2016). "Battle Hymn At The Dining Table: A Famous Feminist Subjugated Through Food". NPR. Retrieved July 30, 2016.

Sources

• This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Wilson, J. G.; Fiske, J., eds. (1889). "Ward, Richard" . Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography. New York: D. Appleton.