Page:The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 03.djvu/238

 DEPEW

DE PEYSTER

secretary of state and made .1 remarkable can- vass, sjieaking twice eacli week day for six con- secutive weeks, and led the ticket, being elected by over 30.(»00 majority. He wiis apjKiinted by President John.son collector of the |)ort of New York iu 1800. but the President withdrew the apiKnntment when the New York sen- ators refused to sus- tain his veto of the civil rights bill. The President subse- quently nominated him as United States minister to Japan, and the senate con- tirmed the nomina- tion, but after one month's considera- tion he declined to serve, having been appointed attorney of the New York &

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Harlem railroad company by Commodore Vander- bilt. In 1S69. ujKjn the consolidation of the New York Central and the New York & Harlem roads. he was appointed attorney of the new corporation. In 1876 he was the general counsel of the Lake Shore & Michigan Southern, Michigan Central, Chicago & Northwestern, St. Paul & Omaha, West Shore. Nickel Plate and New York Central & Hudson River roads and a director in each. In 1872, as a supporter of Horace Greeley for President of the United States, he accepted the Democratic nomination for lieutenant-governor of New York and was defeated with the ticket. In 1874 he was appointed on the commission to superintend the erection of the state capitol, and served as commissioner of quarantine; president of the New York court of claims, and commis- sioner of immigration, and of taxes and assess- ments in New York. In 1881 he was a candidate before the Republican caucus of the state legis- lature for U.S. senator to succeed Thomas C. Piatt, resigned. He led the candidates of his party and had succeeded in receiving within ten votes of those neces.sary for a choice, when the exigencies of the party resulting from the assas- sination of President Garfield determined him to withdraw his name, thus breaking a deadlock that had been maintained for eighty -two days. On the forty-eighth ballot Warner Miller was nominated by the joint legislative caucus. In 1882 on the resignation of William H. Vanderbilt as president of the New York Central & Hudson River railroad and the succession of James H. Rutter to the office. Mr. Depew was made second vice-president of the road, and in I880. upon the deatli of President Rutter, he succeeded to

the presidency. On April 20, 1898, he rasigned the j)residency to become cliairman of the board of directors of the entire Vanderbilt system. In the Republican national convention of 1888 at Chi- cago, Mr. Depew was a prominent candidate for the nomination as President of the United States and on the first ballot received ninety-nine votes to eighty for Harrison and two hundred twenty- nine for Sherman. After the third ballot he withdrew his name and New York's vote went largely for Harrison, who on the succeeding Monday was nominated. He was offered by President Harrison the portfolio of state, which he declined. In 1899 he was elected U.S. senator as successor to Edward Murphy, Jr., whose term expired March 4, 1899. He was elected president of the West Shore railroad company; of the Union league club in 1887, and of the Yale alumni association of New York city in 1883. He was made a member of the New York chamber of commerce; and a director of the Union trust company, the Western Union telegraph com- pany, the Equitable life assurance society, and St. Luke's hospital, and president of the Repub- lican club. He was married Nov. 9, 1871, to Elsie, daughter of William A. O. Hegeman, and grand- daughter of Judge Adrian Hegeman of Peekskill, N.Y. She died at her home in New York citJ^ May 7, 1896. Yale conferred on him the honorary degree of LL.D. in 1887, and elected him a fellow June 26, 1888. In 1874 he was elected a regent of the University of the state of New York. His more notable public addresses delivered in New York city were those on the unveiling of the statue of Alexander Hamilton; on the centennial of the formation of the New York state constitu- tion; on the life and character of James A. Gar- field; on the unveiling of the Bartholdi statue of liberty; on the thirty-second anniversary of the Young men's Christian association and at the Washington centennial celebration, 1889. He nominated Benjamin Harrison for President at i^Iinneapolis in 1892, delivered the address at the World's Columbian exposition at Chicago, 1893; and the inaugural address on the open- ing of the Nasliville (Tenn. ) exposition in 1897. In 1897 Pope Leo XIII. sent to Mr. Depew, a medal bearing the likeness of the Pope and the papal coat of arms.

DE PEYSTER, Abraham, colonial cliit-f justice, was born in New York city, July 8, 1058. He was a merchant in New York, then mayor, 1691-'95, afterward becoming (liief justice, in 1701. He died in New York Aug. 10. 1728.

DE PEYSTER, Frederic, histoi*in. was born in New York city, Nov. 11, 1796; son of Frederick de Peyster; greats-grandson of Abra- ham de Pey.ster, mayor of New Y^ork. 1091-95; chief justice of the province, treasurer of both