Robert Lenox Kennedy
{{Short description|American banker and philanthropist (1822–1887)}}
{{infobox officeholder
| name = Robert Lenox Kennedy
| image = Robert Lenox Kennedy.jpg
| office = President of the Lenox Library
| term_start = 1880
| term_end = 1887
| predecessor = James Lenox
| successor = John Stewart Kennedy
| office1 = President of the National Bank of Commerce in New York
| term_start1 = 1868
| term_end1 = 1878
| predecessor1 = Charles Handy Russell
| successor1 = Henry F. Vail
| birth_date = {{birth date|1822|11|24}}
| birth_place = New York City, New York, U.S.
| death_date = {{death date and age|1887|09|14|1822|11|24}}
| death_place = At sea
| alma_mater = Columbia College
| parents =
| spouse = {{plainlist|
- {{marriage|Louisa Vanuxem Wurts|October 19, 1852|April 26, 1877|reason=died}}
- {{marriage|Sophia Heatly Dulles|February 10, 1879}}
}}
| children =
| relations = Robert Lenox (grandfather)
James Lenox (uncle)
}}
Robert Lenox Kennedy (November 24, 1822 – September 14, 1887), was an American banker and philanthropist who served as president of the National Bank of Commerce in New York and the Lenox Library.{{cite web |title=Kennedy, Robert Lenox, 1822-1887 |url=http://research.frick.org/directoryweb/browserecord.php?-action=browse&-recid=6274 |website=research.frick.org |publisher=Frick Art Reference Library |accessdate=7 August 2019 |language=en}}
Early life
Kennedy was born in New York City on November 24, 1822. He was the eldest child of David S. Kennedy (1791–1853) and Rachel Carmer (née Lenox) Kennedy (1792–1875), who were first cousins. He had three siblings, a brother, James Lenox Kennedy (who married Cornelia Van Rensselaer, a daughter of Henry Bell Van Rensselaer);{{cite news |title=DIED. |url=https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1864/12/19/78995865.pdf |accessdate=15 February 2019 |work=The New York Times |date=December 19, 1864}} and two sisters, Rachel Lenox Kennedy,{{cite news |title=Died. |url=https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1898/08/03/102493642.pdf |accessdate=7 August 2019 |work=The New York Times |date=3 August 1898}} who founded the Presbyterian Rest for Convalescents,{{cite web |title=National Register of Historic Places Registration Form - Presbyterian Rest for Convalescents |url=https://anthonywrobins.com/National%20Register%20nominations/Presbyterian%20Rest%20for%20Convalescents%20(YWCA).pdf |website=doi.gov |publisher=United States Department of the Interior |accessdate=7 August 2019}}{{cite news |title=RACHEL KENNEDY'S WILL; Proceedings to Establish Her Last Testament Begun. PAPERS LOST OR DESTROYED If the Document Is Proved, Churches and Charity Will Get a Big Part of the Estate. |url=https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1899/04/25/120423670.pdf |accessdate=7 August 2019 |work=The New York Times |date=25 April 1899}}{{cite news |title=RACHEL L. KENNEDY WILL CASE; Surrogate's Decree, Dismissing Petition for Probate, Sustained. |url=https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1900/07/18/102610510.pdf |accessdate=7 August 2019 |work=The New York Times |date=18 July 1900}} and Mary Lenox Kennedy, who both died unmarried.{{cite news |title=Died. |url=https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1922/04/20/109836886.pdf |accessdate=7 August 2019 |work=The New York Times |date=20 April 1922}} His father was a Scottish-American merchant and banker with Maitland & Kennedy who served as president of the Saint Andrew's Society of the State of New York.
His maternal grandparents were Robert Lenox, a Scottish-American merchant, and Rachel (née Carmer) Lenox. His maternal uncle was bibliophile and philanthropist James Lenox, from whom Kennedy inherited a portion of his estate.{{cite news|title=JAMES LENOX'S WILL.|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1880/03/16/archives/james-lenoxs-will.html|accessdate=15 October 2017|work=The New York Times|date=16 March 1880}} His paternal grandparents were Capt. John Kennedy and Mary (née Lenox) Kennedy (the sister of his maternal grandfather).{{cite book |last1=Morrison |first1=George Austin |title=History of Saint Andrew's Society of the State of New York, 1756-1906 |date=1906 |publisher=Saint Andrew's Society of the State of NY |location=New York |url=https://archive.org/details/historysaintand00morrgoog/page/n7 |access-date=26 July 2019}}
Kennedy attended and graduated from Columbia College in 1840 before studying law. He never practiced, however, and succeeded to his father's business and "assumed the various positions of trust occupied by him."
Career
In 1859, Kennedy was elected a director of the National Bank of Commerce in New York and was associated with the bank until his death. At the time of the National Banking Acts of 1863 and 1864, the Bank of Commerce was the largest bank in the country. In 1868, he began serving as the bank's fourth president. The first president of the bank was Samuel Ward, followed by John Austin Stevens and Charles Handy Russell (who was also a dry goods merchant with Charles H. Russell & Co.). He retired from the presidency in 1878 but remained involved as vice-president of the Bank under his successor Henry F. Vail (who had previously founded the Bank of the Republic with Gazaway Bugg Lamar). In 1929, the bank merged into the Guaranty Trust Company of New York (which later became the Morgan Guaranty Trust Company, predecessor to J.P. Morgan & Co.).{{cite news |title=GUARANTY TRUST MARKS CENTENARY; Merged Bank of Commerce Was Founded on Jan. 1, 1839, With $5,000,000 Capital |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1939/01/02/archives/guaranty-trust-marks-centenary-merged-bank-of-commerce-was-founded.html |access-date=23 June 2021 |work=The New York Times |date=January 2, 1939}}
He served as a director of many important New York institutions, including the Chemical Bank, the Bleecker Street Bank for Savings, the New-York Life and Trust Company, the Farmers' Loan and Trust Company, the Union Trust Company, the Equitable Life Assurance Society, the Louisville, New Albany, and Chicago Railway, the United Railroads of New Jersey, the Western Union Telegraph Company. In 1880, Kennedy replaced Edward Minturn of Grinnell, Minturn & Co. on the executive committee of the board of directors of the Farmers' Loan and Trust Company.{{cite news |title=THE FARMERS' LOAN AND TRUST COMPANY |url=https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1880/01/06/issue.html |access-date=18 June 2021 |work=The New York Times |date=January 6, 1880 |language=en}}
He was also a trustee of the New York Society Library, the Presbyterian Hospital and the New York Hospital, having been president of the latter, and was an active member of the Foreign and Home Missions of the Presbyterian Church. He was one of the organizers of the Union League Club and, during the U.S. Civil War he was a "strong Unionist and Republican, though he afterward took no part in politics." In 1854, Kennedy became a Fellow of the American Geographical Society and a member of its Council in 1884.{{cite book |title=Obituary: Robert Lenox Kennedy |date=1887 |publisher=Journal of the American Geographical Society of New York |location=New York |url=https://archive.org/details/jstor-196738 |access-date=23 June 2021}} He also served as the fourth president of the American Sunday School Union from 1873 to 1882.{{cite book |last1=Rice |first1=Edwin Wilbur |title=The Sunday-school Movement, 1780-1917, and the American Sunday-school Union, 1817-1917 |date=1917 |publisher=American Sunday School Union |isbn=978-0-405-03717-7 |page=342 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9WvOAAAAMAAJ |access-date=23 June 2021 |language=en}} Following his uncle's death in 1880, he succeeded Lenox as president of the board of trustees of the Lenox Library. Kennedy had previously donated Mihály Munkácsy's 1878 historical genre picture The Blind Milton Dictating Paradise Lost to his Daughters (which he bought from art dealer Charles Sedelmeyer) to the Library in 1879.{{cite web | url=https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/66760d80-c7f1-0135-7e34-49d3fe482577 | title= (still image) Blind Milton dictating "Paradise Lost" to his daughters, (1877)|author=Digital Collections, The New York Public Library |accessdate=June 23, 2021 |publisher=The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox, and Tilden Foundations}}{{cite book |last1=Senate |first1=New York (State) Legislature |title=Documents of the Senate of the State of New York |date=1882 |page=6 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=cpUlAQAAIAAJ |access-date=23 June 2021 |language=en}}
Personal life
Kennedy was twice married. His first marriage was in Philadelphia on October 19, 1852 to Louisa Vanuxem Wurts, a daughter of Mary (née Vanuxem) Wurts and Charles Stewart Wurts, a founder of the Delaware and Hudson Canal Company. After Louisa's death on April 26, 1877, he married Sophia Heatly Dulles, a daughter of Joseph Heatly Dulles and Margaret (née Welsh) Dulles, in Philadelphia on February 10, 1879.{{cite book |last1=Association |first1=Princeton Theological Seminary Alumni |title=Necrological Reports and Annual Proceedings of the Alumni Association of Princeton Theological Seminary |date=1891 |publisher=Princeton Theological Seminary |page=9 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=BqdVAAAAYAAJ |access-date=23 June 2021 |language=en}} Sophia's brother was the Presbyterian minister and author John Welsh Dulles (the grandfather of Secretary of State John Foster Dulles and Director of Central Intelligence Allen Welsh Dulles). The couple did not have any children.
On his return voyage following a four-month sojourn to Europe in hopes of improving his health, Kennedy died aboard the Norddeutscher Lloyd steamship Trave on September 14, 1887.{{cite news |title=IN AND ABOUT THE CITY; ROBERT LENOX KENNEDY DEAD DYING ON THE STEAMSHIP ON HIS WAY HOME. |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1887/09/17/archives/in-and-about-the-city-robert-lenox-kennedy-dead-dying-on-the.html |access-date=23 June 2021 |work=The New York Times |date=September 17, 1887}} His funeral was held at the First Presbyterian Church on Fifth Avenue and 12th Street in Manhattan.{{cite news |title=Robert L. Kennedy's Funeral. |url=https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1887/09/20/103454130.pdf |accessdate=7 August 2019 |work=The New York Times |date=20 September 1887}} In 1889, his personal library which included many rare works like "Aldine first editions of the classics, incunables, vellum manuscripts, historical and beautiful bindings, Americana, and other rarities" was sold at the Fifth-Avenue Art Galleries.{{cite news |title=MANY RARE WORKS.; THE ROBERT LENOX KENNEDY LIBRARY TO BE SOLD NEXT MONTH. |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1889/03/28/archives/many-rare-works-the-robert-lenox-kennedy-library-to-be-sold-next.html |access-date=23 June 2021 |work=The New York Times |date=March 28, 1889}}
References
{{reflist|30em}}
External links
- [https://www.si.edu/object/npg_NY260071 Portrait of Robert Lenox Kennedy] by Daniel Huntington, {{Circa|1890}}
- [https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47e2-a045-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99 Robert Lenox Kennedy, 1822-1887.] at the New York Public Library
- [http://archives.nypl.org/mss/1633 Robert Lenox Kennedy history notebook, 1838] at the New York Public Library
{{authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kennedy, Robert Lenox}}
Category:Columbia College (New York) alumni
Category:American Geographical Society