Office: | President of the Bank of the Manhattan Company |
Term Start: | 1847 |
Term End: | 1860 |
Predecessor: | Jonathan Thompson |
Successor: | James M. Morrison |
Birth Name: | Caleb Ogden Halsted |
Birth Date: | 13 June 1792 |
Birth Place: | Elizabeth, New Jersey |
Death Place: | New York City, New York |
Parents: | Matthias Halsted Nancy Norris |
Children: | 5 |
Caleb Ogden Halsted (June 13, 1792 – October 7, 1860) was an American merchant and banker.
Halsted was born in Elizabeth, New Jersey on June 13, 1792. He was the third son of Maj. Matthias Halsted (1759–1824) and Nancy (Norris) Halsted. His elder brother was Nathaniel Norris Halsted, who married Lucretia Perrine.[1] As his brother died young, Caleb adopted his nephew, Nathaniel Norris Halsted Jr. (later a Civil War General),[2] and raised him. His father served as Brigade Major on the staff of Gen. Winds, aide-de-camp to Gen. Philemon Dickinson, and quartermaster in the Continental Army during the American Revolution.[3]
The patriarch of the Halsted family was Timothy Halsted, who emigrated from England to America as early as 1660 and settled in Hempstead, New York before relocating to Elizabethtown.[3] His paternal grandparents were Caleb Halsted Jr. and Rebecca (Ogden) Halsted.[4] [5] His grandmother was a daughter of Robert Ogden who was a grandson of colonist John Ogden, an original patentee of the Elizabethtown Purchase, "the first English settlement in the Colony of New Jersey." His mother was, therefore, a first cousin of U.S. Senator and Governor of New Jersey Aaron Ogden and Col. Matthias Ogden.[6]
Halsted began his career as a cloth merchant. In 1847, however, he was made president of the Bank of the Manhattan Company,[7] [8] succeeding Jonathan Thompson, who had been made president in 1840. In 1853, the Manhattan Company became one of the original 52 members of the New York Clearing House Association and Halsted became its first president.[3] Halsted served as president until his death in October 1860. Later that year, the board of directors promoted James M. Morrison as president of the bank to succeed Halsted.[9]
In December 1823, Halsted was married to Caroline Louisa Pitney (1796–1879), a daughter of Dr. Aaron Pitney and Anna Bowne (Proovost) Pitney.[3] [10] Together, they were the parents of five children, three of whom died in infancy, including:[3]
Halsted died on October 7, 1860, in Manhattan.[12] After a funeral at the Presbyterian Church on University Place and 10th Street in Manhattan, he was buried in the churchyard of the First Presbyterian Church of Elizabeth.[13] His widow died in New York on July 1, 1879.[14]
Through his daughter Lucy, he was a grandfather of nine, including Caroline Morris Kean (1849–1887) (wife of U.S. Assistant Secretary of State George L. Rives), U.S. Representative and U.S. Senator John Kean (1852–1914),[15] U.S. Senator Hamilton Fish Kean (1862–1941) (who married Katharine Taylor Winthrop), and Christine Griffin Kean (who married Emlen Roosevelt).[16]