Chauncey Depew - Family

Family

His father, Isaac Depew, was a merchant and farmer; pioneer in river transportation between Peekskill and New York; son of Abraham Depew, who served in the Revolutionary Army, and Catherine (Crankheit) Depew, great-grandson of Captain James Cronkite of the Continental Army; descendant of Frangois DuPuy, a French Huguenot, who came to America about 1661, settled first in Brooklyn, N. Y., and in 1685 bought land from the Indians at the present site of Peekskill. Mother, Martha Minot (Mitchell) Depew; daughter of Chauncey Root Mitchell, a lawyer, and Ann (Johnstone) Mitchell; granddaughter of the Rev. Justus Mitchell (BA 1776); great-granddaughter of the Rev. Josiah Sherman (B A. Princeton 1754, honorary M.A. Yale 1765), who served as a Chaplain with rank of Captain in the Revolutionary War and who was the brother of American founding father Roger Sherman; descendant of Matthew Mitchell, who came to Boston from England in 1635, descended also from Capt. John Sherman, an English officer, who was born in Dedham, Essex County, in 1615, and from the Rev. Charles Chauncey (B.A. Trinity College, Cambridge, 1613), who came to Plymouth in 1637 and was the second president of Harvard.

Married (1) November 9, 1871, in New York City, Elise A., daughter of William and Eliza Jane (Nevin) Hegeman. One son, Chauncey Mitchell, Jr. . Mrs. Depew died May 7, 1893 Married (2) December 27, 1901, in Nice, France, May, daughter of Henry and Alice (Hermann) Palmer.

Depew was also the paternal uncle of Ganson and Chancey Depew, sons of his brother William Beverly Depew. Ganson Depew was a vice president of the Buffalo & Susquehanna Coal Company; and the personal assistant of his father-in-law Frank Henry "F.H." Goodyear. Goodyear who was the president of the Buffalo & Susquehanna Railway. Chauncey DePew, like his uncle, also worked for the Vanderbilt Railway Systems. His nephew Chauncey married Julia Catlin Park, but later divorced.

When Chauncey Depew died, he was buried in Peekskill. In his honor, the huge concourse of Grand Central Terminal was draped in mourning.

Depew was painted by a number of artists, including George Burroughs Torrey, but most frequently by the Swiss-born American artist Adolfo Müller-Ury who first painted Depew in 1889-90, the three-quarter length portrait of Depew seated on a bale of furs which was exhibited at the Paris Salon in 1890, and is now in the Yale Club of New York City. Several other portraits followed including a portrait painted for the New York State Capitol at Albany showing Depew as he was in 1863 (now New York State Museum). The artist gave a bust-length portrait to the Museum at Peekskill in 1918. Muller-Ury made an etching of Depew (copies, signed by the artist and the sitter, are in the American National Portrait Gallery in Washington DC and in the collection of the Newport Preservation Society Rhode Island, and University of Cincinnati College of Design). Muller-Ury also painted Depew's first wife in 1893, and his second wife in 1902 in eighteenth century costume.