Samuel Verplanck (19 September 1739 – 27 January 1820) was an American merchant and politician

Early life

Verplanck was born in

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

in the

Province of New York The Province of New York was a British proprietary colony and later a royal colony on the northeast coast of North America from 1664 to 1783. It extended from Long Island on the Atlantic, up the Hudson River and Mohawk River valleys to ...

, then a part of

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, on 19 September 1739. He was a son of Gulian Verplanck (1698–1751) and Mary (

née The birth name is the name of the person given upon their birth. The term may be applied to the surname, the given name or to the entire name. Where births are required to be officially registered, the entire name entered onto a births registe ...

Crommelin) Verplanck, who married in 1737. His father was a fourth generation New Yorker who owned significant property and amassed a considerable fortune.Narrett, David E. ''Inheritance and Family Life in Colonial New York City'',

Cornell University Press The Cornell University Press is the university press of Cornell University, an Ivy League university in Ithaca, New York. It is currently housed in Sage House, the former residence of Henry William Sage. It was first established in 1869, maki ...

(1992), pp 100-101 Among his siblings was younger brother, Gulian Verplanck, a wholesale importer and banker who twice served as

Speaker of the New York State Assembly The speaker of the New York State Assembly is the highest official in the New York State Assembly, customarily elected from the ranks of the majority party. As in most countries with a British heritage, the speaker presides over the lower hous ...

. His maternal grandfather was Charles Crommelin, a wealthy merchant who dealt in commerce between New York and Holland. Through his brother Gulian (who married Cornelia Johnston), he was an uncle of David Johnston Verplanck (editor of the ''

New York American :''Includes coverage of New York Journal-American and its predecessors New York Journal, The Journal, New York American and New York Evening Journal'' The ''New York Journal-American'' was a daily newspaper published in New York City from 1937 ...

''). Through his maternal aunt, Elizabeth (née Crommelin) Ludlow, he was a first cousin of Daniel Ludlow, the first president of the

Manhattan Company The Manhattan Company was a New York bank and holding company established on September 1, 1799. The company merged with Chase National Bank in 1955 to form the Chase Manhattan Bank. It is the oldest of the predecessor institutions that eventuall ...

, which was founded in 1799 by

Aaron Burr Aaron Burr Jr. (February 6, 1756 – September 14, 1836) was an American politician, businessman, lawyer, and Founding Fathers of the United States, Founding Father who served as the third vice president of the United States from 1801 to 1805 d ...

to rival

Alexander Hamilton Alexander Hamilton (January 11, 1755 or 1757July 12, 1804) was an American military officer, statesman, and Founding Fathers of the United States, Founding Father who served as the first U.S. secretary of the treasury from 1789 to 1795 dur ...

Bank of New York The Bank of New York Mellon Corporation, commonly known as BNY, is an American international financial services company headquartered in New York City. It was established in its current form in July 2007 by the merger of the Bank of New York an ...

and the New York branch of the

First Bank of the United States The President, Directors and Company of the Bank of the United States, commonly known as the First Bank of the United States, was a National bank (United States), national bank, chartered for a term of twenty years, by the United States Congress ...

. He attended and was among the first class to graduate from King's College and, later, served as a Governor of the College.

Career

After graduating from King's College, He went to

Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , ; ; ) is the capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, largest city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It has a population of 933,680 in June 2024 within the city proper, 1,457,018 in the City Re ...

to work for his maternal uncle, Daniel Crommelin, who was the senior partner of Daniel Crommelin & Sons, one of Holland's most important banking and commercial houses. Verplanck returned to New York City in 1763 where he became a successful wholesale importer and banker. In 1768, he was one of the 24 founders of the

New York Chamber of Commerce The New York Chamber of Commerce was founded in 1768 by twenty New York City merchants. As the first such commercial organization in the United States, it attracted the participation of a number of New York's most influential business leaders, inc ...

. He was appointed to the Committee of Safety in 1775 and was a delegate to the

New York Provincial Congress The New York Provincial Congress (1775–1777) was a revolutionary provisional government formed by colonists in 1775, during the American Revolution, as a pro-American alternative to the more conservative New York General Assembly, and as a repla ...

, representing the City and County of New York. Not long after signing the Declaration of Association and Union against Great Britain, he retired from taking any active role in the

War War is an armed conflict between the armed forces of states, or between governmental forces and armed groups that are organized under a certain command structure and have the capacity to sustain military operations, or between such organi ...

and chose to remain otherwise neutral. Amongst his personal friends in New York was William Howe, the Commander-in-Chief of British land forces. During to their conflicting sympathies, Samuel and his wife separated as Judith, a

loyalist Loyalism, in the United Kingdom, its overseas territories and its former colonies, refers to the allegiance to the British crown or the United Kingdom. In North America, the most common usage of the term refers to loyalty to the British Cr ...

, remained in New York City, and Samuel, a supporter of the Revolution, withdrew to the family summer home,

Mount Gulian Mount Gulian is a reconstructed 18th century Dutch manor house on the Hudson River in the town of Fishkill, New York, United States of America. The original house served as the headquarters of Major General Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben during ...

on the banks of the

Hudson River The Hudson River, historically the North River, is a river that flows from north to south largely through eastern New York (state), New York state. It originates in the Adirondack Mountains at Henderson Lake (New York), Henderson Lake in the ...

in the Town of Fishkill that had belonged to his father. There, Verplanck allowed Gen. Baron

Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben Friedrich Wilhelm August Heinrich Ferdinand Freiherr von Steuben ( , ; born Friedrich Wilhelm Ludolf Gerhard Augustin Louis Freiherr von Steuben; September 17, 1730 – November 28, 1794), also referred to as Baron von Steuben, was a German-b ...

to use his house as a headquarters of the

Continental Army The Continental Army was the army of the United Colonies representing the Thirteen Colonies and later the United States during the American Revolutionary War. It was formed on June 14, 1775, by a resolution passed by the Second Continental Co ...

.Lorenz, Janice Murphy. "The Verplanck's and Their HistoriC Mount Gulian Home", ''the Cross of Languedoc'', National Huguenot Society, Fall 2014
/ref> In 1804, he permanently retired to Fishkill in

Dutchess County Dutchess County is a county in the U.S. state of New York. As of the 2020 census, the population was 295,911. The county seat is the city of Poughkeepsie. The county was created in 1683, one of New York's first twelve counties, and later org ...

where his ancestor, Gulian Verplanck, had been one of the three original patentees of the

Rombout Patent The Rombout Patent was a Colonial history of the United States, Colonial era land patent issued by King James II of England in 1685 sanctioning the right of Francis Rombouts and his partners Stephanus Van Cortlandt and Jacobus Kip to own some of ...

Personal life

In 1761, while in Amsterdam, Verplanck was married to his Dutch cousin, Judith Crommelin (1739–1803), a daughter of Daniel Crommelin and Marie ( le Plastrier) Crommelin. Together, they lived in a large yellow brick mansion, at 3

Wall Street Wall Street is a street in the Financial District, Manhattan, Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City. It runs eight city blocks between Broadway (Manhattan), Broadway in the west and South Street (Manhattan), South Str ...

(which eventually was replaced by the U.S. Assay Building),The Crommelin Family Foundation, NL
/ref> and were the parents of several children, only one of whom lived to adulthood: * Daniel Crommelin Verplanck (1762–1834), a

U.S. Representative The United States House of Representatives is a chamber of the bicameral United States Congress; it is the lower house, with the U.S. Senate being the upper house. Together, the House and Senate have the authority under Article One of th ...

from New York who married Elizabeth Johnson, the daughter of

William Samuel Johnson William Samuel Johnson (October 7, 1727 – November 14, 1819) was an American Founding Father and statesman. He attended all of the four founding American Congresses: the Stamp Act Congress in 1765, the Congress of the Confederation in 1785–1 ...

, the 3rd President of Columbia College and a

U.S. Senator The United States Senate is a chamber of the bicameral United States Congress; it is the upper house, with the U.S. House of Representatives being the lower house. Together, the Senate and House have the authority under Article One of the ...

from Connecticut, in 1785. After her death in 1789, he married Ann Walton, daughter of William Walton (nephew and heir of

William Walton Sir William Turner Walton (29 March 19028 March 1983) was an English composer. During a sixty-year career, he wrote music in several classical genres and styles, from film scores to opera. His best-known works include ''Façade'', the cantat ...

) and Mary ( De Lancey) Walton, in 1790. Verplanck died on 27 January 1820.

Descendants

Through his son Daniel, he was a grandfather of, among others,

Gulian Crommelin Verplanck Gulian Crommelin Verplanck (August 6, 1786 – March 18, 1870) was an American attorney, politician, and writer. He was elected to the New York State Assembly and Senate, and later to the United States House of Representatives from New York, where ...

(1786–1870), who was also a member of the

U.S. House of Representatives The United States House of Representatives is a chamber of the bicameral United States Congress; it is the lower house, with the U.S. Senate being the upper house. Together, the House and Senate have the authority under Article One of th ...

Legacy

Portraits of Samuel and his then nine year old son

Daniel Daniel commonly refers to: * Daniel (given name), a masculine given name and a surname * List of people named Daniel * List of people with surname Daniel * Daniel (biblical figure) * Book of Daniel, a biblical apocalypse, "an account of the acti ...

, made in 1771 by

John Singleton Copley John Singleton Copley (July 3, 1738 – September 9, 1815) was an Anglo-American painter, active in both colonial America and England. He was believed to be born in Boston, Province of Massachusetts Bay, to Richard and Mary Singleton Copley ...

are today in the

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art, colloquially referred to as the Met, is an Encyclopedic museum, encyclopedic art museum in New York City. By floor area, it is the List of largest museums, third-largest museum in the world and the List of larg ...

, together with "the Verplanck Room", which contains other paintings, furnishings, and cermaics from the Verplanck house that were later moved to Fishkill.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Verplanck, Samuel 1739 births 1820 deaths Columbia College (New York) alumni Merchants from colonial New York American bankers 18th-century American merchants