The Amazing Roosevelt Family KARL SCHRIFTGIESSER Publishers New York WILFRED FUNK, INC. Contents BOOK ONE: IMMIGRANTS PAGE Introductory: Against This World 3 I. The Dutch Trader 7 11. The Most Unpuritan of the Puritans 17 111. The Mayflower, Speedwell and the Germ of the New Deal 39 IV. New Amsterdam and the Future Pavements of New York 57 V. Panama Adventure '71 BOOK TWO: REVOLUTIONARIES AND TORIES Introductory: Little Old New York 83 VI. The Roosevelt Family Melting Pot 90 VII. Roosevelt Cousins 102 VIII. Isaac the Patriot and the Shot That Was Heard Around the World 108 IX. Hardware and Paddle Wheels 122 vii .. Vlll CONTENTS BOOK THREE: THE RESPECTABLE AGE PAGE Introductory: Changing Times 135 X. The Missing Twins 137 XI. James the Democrat and Tammany Hall 140 XII. A Million Dollar Will XIII. Mother Seton and the Archbishop of Baltimore 149 XIV. The Organ Maker 153 XV. A Ship Builder and Sailors 156 XVI. The Sportsman Reformer XVII. Towards Oyster Bay 168 XVIII. Back to the Hudson '77 \ BOOK FOUR: PRESIDENTS Introductory: Greatness At Last 207 XIX. Theodore Roosevelt 210 XX. The Princess and Little Nell 251 XXI. Franklin Delano Roosevelt 304 Index 359 A Roosevelt Family Chart THIS CHART is designed to show the descent of Theo- dore Roosevelt and Franklin Delano Roosevelt from their first common ancestor to come to America. Only the two branches of the Roosevelt Family leading to the two Presidents are shown. Capitalized names are those of direct antecedents. Itali- cised names are those of sons who carry on the direct line of the two branches. Dates signify year of birth. Names immediately beneath capitalized names are those of wives. Where more than one is given the order of marriage is followed. Names of wives by whom direct descent is carried on are marked with a star (*). CLAES MARTENSZEN VAN ROSENVELT. Jannetje (Samuels) Thomas. Christaien, 1650; d. inf. Elsje, 1652. Anna Margaret, 1654. Christina, 1 656. Nicholas, 1658. Anna. NICHOLAS ROOSEVELT (1658). Heyltje Jans Kunst. Jannetje, 1683. Margare tta. Nicholas 11, 1687. Johannes, 1689. Elsie. Jacobus, 1692. Sarah. Rachel, 1699. x A ROOSEVELT FAMILY CHART JOHANNES ROOSEVELT JACOBUS ROOSEVELT (1689). (1692). Heyltje Sjoerts. Catharina Hardenbroock. Margareta, 1709. Johannes, i 7 15. Olphert, 17 16. Nicholas 111, 1717. Maria, 1720. Helena, i 7 19. Jacobus, 1724. Jacobus, 172 1. Cornelius, i 73 1. Chritoful, 1724. Isaac, 1726. Abraham, 1728. Sarah, 1730. Peter, 1732. Adolphus, 1735. Christopher, i 739. JACOBUS ROOSEVELT ISAAC ROOSEVELT (1724)- (1726). Annetje Bogard. Cornelia Hoffman. Anna, 1748. Abraham, 1752, d. in£. Johannes, i 75 1. Martinue, 1754, d. inf. Heyltje, 1752. Catharine, 1756. Margarieta, 1755. Sarah, 1758. Maria, d. inf. Jacobus (James), 1760. Jacob us, 1759. Cornelia, 176 1, d. inf. Helena, 176 1. Maria, 1763. Maria, 1763. Martin, 1765. Nichol.as, 1767. Cornelia, 1767. Ann (by nd. marr.) Helena, 1768. A ROOSEVELT FAMILY CHART xi AMES J. ROOSEVELT JAMES ROOSEVELT (JACOBUS) (1759). (JACOBUS) (1760). Maria Van Schaack. Maria E. Walton* Catharine Barclay. Cornelius v S., 1794. Harriet Howland. James, "795. Nicholas, 1798. Isaac, 1790.. Catherine Angelica, 1803. Grace, 1'792. William Henry, 1806. James, 1'794. Alfred, 181 1. Walton, 1796. Edward, 1799. Richard, 180 1. Hamilton, 1805. Henry W., 1809. Susan (by sd. marr.) James CORNELIUS V. S. ISAAC ROOSEVELT I1 ROOSEVELT (1 794). (1790). Margaret Barnhill. Mary Rebecca Aspinwall. Silas Weir, 1823. James, 1828. James Alfred, 1825. John Aspinwall, 1840. Cornelius V.X., 1827. Robert Barnhill, 1829. Theodore, 1831. William Wallace, 1834, (d. inf.) xii A ROOSEVELT FAMILY CHART THEODORE JAMES ROOSEVELT ROOSEVELT (183 1). (1828). Martha Bullock. Rebecca M. Howland. Sarah Delano. * Anna, 1855. Theodore, 1858. James Roosevelt Roosevelt, Elliott, 1860. (by 1st marr.) Corinne, 1861. Frank Ein De Eano Roosewe 1t, 1882, (by 2d marr.) THEODORE FRANKLIN DELANO ROOSEVELT (1858). ROOSEVELT (1 882). Alice Hathaway Lee. Anna Eleanor Roosevelt. Edith Kermit Carow. Anna Eleanor, 1906. Alice Lee, 1884, (by 1st James, 1907. ma^.) Franklin Delano, 1909, Theodore, Jr., 1887. d. inf. Kermit, 1889. Elliott, 1910. Ethel Carow, 1891. Franklin Delano, 1g 14. Archibald Bullock, 1894. John Aspinwall, 1g 16. Quentin, 1897. Book One IMMIGRANTS Against This World THE BRINGER of the name Roosevelt to America was a shadowy Dutchman about whom extraordinarily little is known. He slips vaguely through the scattered annals of New Amster- dam, hardly more than a footnote to the history of that trading post which became an English colony almost before it was a Dutch town. If we accept the legend that has grown up around him, he was an amazing adventurer, a man of imagination and great courage, who deserves better recognition than he has man- aged to attain in the 304 years since his name first crept into the records of that outpost of the Old World. But if we seek his biography in the few blotted words that have survived, then he was just another farmer and trader who lived in reasonable honesty and industry from the fruits of a small acreage at the lower end of the island of Manhattan. The history of his descendants, however, stems from more documented sources than the hazy story of Claes Martenszen van Rosenvelt or Nicholas, the son of Martin, of the Rose Field, as the Dutch progenitor of all the Roosevelts was known in his time. Indeed it does not properly begin with his un- recorded arrival in New Netherland, but in England and with two men of slight contemporary distinction-the one a weaver and the other a tailor-who busied themselves with the affairs of Separatism and the founding of the English colony at Plymouth on Massachusetts Bay. And it quickly includes a dozen or more common people of mixed European extraction 3 4 THE AMAZING ROOSEVELT FAMILY who, like the Dutch farmer and the English tradesmen, played their own comparatively inconspicuous parts in the tremendous drama the entire Western World was experiencing as the Seven- teenth Century dawned. Not one of the immigrant antecedents of Theodore and Franklin Delano Roosevelt came closer to greatness than the outermost fringe. They were ordinary folk who were picked up and swept from the accustomed channels of their lives by the surging tide of history that was then changing the face of the world. Great forces beat against them and they reacted to the inescapable, as little people have at all times. Some were charged by a spiritual emotion that caused them to turn like Saint Andrew from home and kindred; others were carried along by the fierce drift of those forces of economic expansion which they could not understand and over which they had no control. All of them-English and Dutch and German and French-eventu- ally reached the New World. And there, through the mysteries of life-through love or the hope of greater fortune-they met and merged. Time and genetics did the rest. The personal motives which brought to America the men and women who were to form the Roosevelt family, as it has come down to the present time in two straight lines, were as varied as their names. As was the case with all who crossed the seas to settle on these unfriendly shores they were moved to do so by a variety of general reasons that underlay the entire colo- nization of America, whether English or Dutch or French. As any number of authorities have shown, these were partly religious but primarily economic, and this truism applies as well to those who froze and starved at Plymouth as to those who dodged the Indians along the Hudson or planted corn in Virginia's warmer sun. The sanctification of the codfish as much as any desire for religious freedom made the settling of New England a possi- bility and the Dutch never denied they were seeking the beaver rather than a place in which to worship God without restraint. These forces .did not break suddenly upon an unsuspecting world. They had been building up slowly, gradually gaining momentum over a long stretch of time. Nor did they cascade without warning upon the shores of the Americas, throwing great armies of builders and toilers into the new land. The AGAINST THIS WORLD 5 infiltration from the Old World was slow and that from England was not part of a conscious plan for empire. As the Sixteenth Century drew into its last quarter some Englishmen and many Scotsmen, it is true, had begun to look across the seas with quizzical and even hungry eyes. But even then the bulk of Eng- land's sea dogs were only fishermen. It was not until 1578 that Sir Humphrey Gilbert, who was Sir Walter Raleigh's half- brother, received the first patent from the Crown giving him the right to colonize and rule such lands as he might choose from those he discovered. There was no cry of Lebensraum in those days, Neither Eng- land nor Holland was crowded with people restless from the lack of food or work. And so there was no exodus en masse from either country. Indeed, as a colonizer Sir Humphrey was a fail- ure and for several years thereafter colonization was looked upon as a bad investment by the London adventurers who, in the changed economy of their country, were seeking a return for their growing wealth. Feudalism was rapidly disappearing from the island and commercialism was in the ascendancy, based on the fortunes brought back by the privateers who preyed on the ships of Spain. With this new-found wealth there was a demand for luxuries and the London merchants fattened their purses as ship after ship came home, deep-laden with treasure from distant lands.