Sidney Dillon Ripley (January 11, 1863 – February 24, 1905)
was an American insurance executive and prominent member of New York society during the
Gilded Age
In United States history, the Gilded Age was an era extending roughly from 1877 to 1900, which was sandwiched between the Reconstruction era and the Progressive Era. It was a time of rapid economic growth, especially in the Northern and Weste ...
.
Early life
He was the son of Josiah Dwight Ripley and Julia Elizabeth (
née
A birth name is the name of a person given upon birth. The term may be applied to the surname, the given name, or the entire name. Where births are required to be officially registered, the entire name entered onto a birth certificate or birth re ...
Dillon) Ripley. After his father's death, his mother remarried to Gilman Smith Moulton on March 1, 1894. His younger brothers were Harry Dillon Ripley and Louis Arthur Dillon Ripley, the father of Julie Ripley Forman (founder of the
Forman School
The Forman School is a co-educational Boarding school, boarding and day school in Litchfield, Connecticut, United States offering a college preparatory program in grades 9 to 12 and a postgraduate year, postgraduate program (PG) exclusively for st ...
),
and
Sidney Dillon Ripley II, an ornithologist who served as Secretary of the
Smithsonian Institution
The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums and education and research centers, the largest such complex in the world, created by the U.S. government "for the increase and diffusion of knowledge". Founded ...
and married
Mary Livingston
Mary Livingston (c. 1541–1582) was a Scottish noblewoman and childhood companion of Mary, Queen of Scots, one of the famous "Four Marys".
Life
Mary Livingston was born around 1541, the daughter of Alexander Livingston, 5th Lord Livingston (c. ...
of the prominent
Livingston family
The Livingston family of New York is a prominent family that migrated from Scotland to the Dutch Republic, and then to the Province of New York in the 17th century. Descended from the 4th Lord Livingston, its members included signers of the Unit ...
.
His paternal grandfather was
Sidney Dillon, the financier and builder of the
Union Pacific Railroad
The Union Pacific Railroad , legally Union Pacific Railroad Company and often called simply Union Pacific, is a freight-hauling railroad that operates 8,300 locomotives over routes in 23 U.S. states west of Chicago and New Orleans. Union Paci ...
who served as its first president. Following his grandfather's death, who left an estate valued at $6,000,000, he received bequests giving him an annual income of $60,000.
Dillon came "from several Colonial families of Massachusetts and Connecticut. His American ancestor was William Ripley, who, with his wife, two sons and two daughters, came in one of the earliest companies of Colonists from Hingham,
Norfolk County,
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...
, and settled in
Hingham, Massachusetts
Hingham ( ) is a town in metropolitan Greater Boston on the South Shore of the U.S. state of Massachusetts in northern Plymouth County. At the 2020 census, the population was 24,284. Hingham is known for its colonial history and location on B ...
in 1638."
Career
Beginning in 1885, Ripley worked for
The Equitable Life Assurance Society
The Equitable Life Assurance Society (Equitable Life), founded in 1762, is a life insurance company in the United Kingdom. The world's oldest mutual insurer, it pioneered age-based premiums based on mortality rate, laying "the framework for sc ...
,
eventually serving as the corporate treasurer and a director for 13 years.
He also served as a director of the First National Bank of Hemstead, L.I., the Manganese Steele Safe Company, the
Mercantile Trust Company, the
Mount Morris Bank, and the Taylor Iron and Steel Company.
Society life
In 1892, Ripley and his wife were both included in
Ward McAllister
Samuel Ward McAllister (December 28, 1827 – January 31, 1895) was a popular arbiter of social taste in the Gilded Age of late 19th-century America. He was widely accepted as the authority as to which families could be classified as the cream o ...
's "
Four Hundred
400 (four hundred) is the natural number following 399 and preceding 401.
Mathematical properties
400 is the square of 20. 400 is the sum of the powers of 7 from 0 to 3, thus making it a repdigit in base 7 (1111).
A circle is divided into ...
", purported to be an index of New York's best families, published in ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
''.
Conveniently, 400 was the number of people that could fit into
Mrs. Astor
Caroline Webster "Lina" Schermerhorn Astor (September 22, 1830 – October 30, 1908) was a prominent American socialite of the second half of the 19th century who led the The Four Hundred (1892), Four Hundred. Famous for being referred to later ...
's ballroom.
He was a member of the
Meadow Brook Hunt Club, the
Metropolitan Club
The Metropolitan Club of New York is a private social club on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded as a gentlemen's club in 1891 for men only, but it was one of the first major clubs in New York to admit women, t ...
, the Chamber of Commerce, the
New York Zoological Society
New is an adjective referring to something recently made, discovered, or created.
New or NEW may refer to:
Music
* New, singer of K-pop group The Boyz
Albums and EPs
* ''New'' (album), by Paul McCartney, 2013
* ''New'' (EP), by Regurgitator ...
, the
New York Mycological Society
The New York Mycological Society is a nonprofit organization of people who share an interest in mycology as well as in mycophagy. The present NYMS was reincarnated in 1962 by the composer John Cage and a small group of other mushroom lovers and stu ...
, the
Coney Island Jockey Club
Sheepshead Bay Race Track was an American Thoroughbred horse racing facility built on the site of the Coney Island Jockey Club at Sheepshead Bay, New York.
Early history
The racetrack was built by a group of prominent businessmen from the New Y ...
, the
University Club, the Lawyers' Club, the Racquet Club, the Country Club, the
South Side Sportsmen's Club
South Side Sportsmen's Club was a recreational club that catered to the wealthy businessmen of Long Island during the gold coast era from the 1870s through the 1960s. Its main clubhouse and other facilities were added to the National Register o ...
, the
Rockaway Hunting Club
The Rockaway Hunting Club is a country club and sporting venue established in 1878 in Cedarhurst, New York (now Lawrence). In 1893 the original clubhouse was lost in a fire. In 1917 the golf course
A golf course is the grounds on which the ...
, the Automobile Club and the Turf and Field Clubs.
Residences
The Ripley's had a 48-room country home in
Hempstead on
Long Island
Long Island is a densely populated island in the southeastern region of the U.S. state of New York (state), New York, part of the New York metropolitan area. With over 8 million people, Long Island is the most populous island in the United Sta ...
(which is today across from
Hofstra University
Hofstra University is a private university in Hempstead, New York. It is Long Island's largest private university. Hofstra originated in 1935 as an extension of New York University (NYU) under the name Nassau College – Hofstra Memorial of Ne ...
at
California and Fulton Avenues), known as "Crossways."
In 1901, Ripley had commissioned
Warren & Wetmore
Warren and Wetmore was an architecture firm in New York City which was a partnership between Whitney Warren (1864–1943) and Charles Delevan Wetmore (June 10, 1866 – May 8, 1941), that had one of the most extensive practices of its time and w ...
them a 35-wide mansion in New York's
Upper East Side
The Upper East Side, sometimes abbreviated UES, is a neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan in New York City, bounded by 96th Street to the north, the East River to the east, 59th Street to the south, and Central Park/Fifth Avenue to the wes ...
at 16
East 79th Street. The five-story brick-and-limestone Georgia
home that featured a columned portico and two-step porch, was completed shortly before his death in 1905.
In 1912, his widow sold their New York City residence, which was described by ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' as the "dwelling occupies a plot 35 by 102.2 feet in the choicest upper Fifth Avenue residential section", for $400,000.
After she sold the residence, she moved to 101
East 72nd Street
72nd Street is one of the major bi-directional crosstown streets in New York City's borough of Manhattan. The street primarily runs through the Upper West Side and Upper East Side neighborhoods. It is one of the few streets to go through Cen ...
.
Personal life
On October 14, 1885, Ripley was married to
Mary Baldwin Hyde (1867–1938).
Mary was the daughter of
Henry Baldwin Hyde
Henry Baldwin Hyde (February 15, 1834–May 2, 1899) was an American businessman. He is notable for having founded The Equitable Life Assurance Society of the United States in 1859. By the time of Hyde's death, The Equitable was the largest l ...
, the founder of
Equitable Life Assurance, and Annie (née Fitch) Hyde, and the sister of
James Hazen Hyde
James Hazen Hyde (June 6, 1876 — July 26, 1959) was the son of Henry Baldwin Hyde, the founder of The Equitable Life Assurance Society of the United States. James Hazen Hyde was twenty-three in 1899 when he inherited the majority shares in the b ...
.
Together, they were the parents of:
* Annah Dillon Ripley (1886–1963), who married Count Pierre Joseph de Viel Castel (1875–1950),
a grandson of Count
Horace de Viel-Castel, in 1910.
They lived at 4 Avenue Marceau in Paris.
* Henry Baldwin Hyde Ripley (–1959),
who married Lesley Frederica Pearson, daughter of Commander
Frederick Pearson and grand-niece of
James Cook Ayer
James Cook Ayer (May 5, 1818 – July 3, 1878) was the wealthiest patent medicine businessman of his day.
Early life
James Cook Ayer was born in Groton, Connecticut on May 5, 1818, the son of Frederick Ayer (1792-1825) and Persis Herrick Coo ...
, in 1919.
* Sidney Dillon Ripley Jr. (1891–1970), a prominent real‐estate broker who married Betsy Ann Sherry.
* James Hazen Ripley (–1977),
who married Marguerite Doubleday (1901–1932) in 1925.
After his first wife's death, he remarried to Gladys Livermore in 1934.
In 1895, Ripley and James Lorillard Kernochan (son of
James Powell Kernochan) were arrested in Hempstead for playing golf, on a Sunday, on the greens opposite the clubhouse at the
Meadow Brook Hunt Club.
In 1899, he urged his brother, Harry Dillon Ripley, to take charge of his financial affairs after Hyde had run into debt of $100,000. Just before Ripley died, Harry sued Sidney and the
Knickerbocker Trust Company
The Knickerbocker Trust was a bank based in New York City that was, at one time, among the largest banks in the United States. It was a central player in the Panic of 1907.
History
The bank was chartered in 1884 by Frederick G. Eldridge, a frie ...
alleging "misconduct in managing his property."
After his death, the Supreme Court of New York Referee conducted an investigation and found that "the trust had been well and faithfully administered" and Sidney and the Knickerbocker Trust were exonerated and relieved of their duties.
Ripley died of
appendicitis
Appendicitis is inflammation of the appendix. Symptoms commonly include right lower abdominal pain, nausea, vomiting, and decreased appetite. However, approximately 40% of people do not have these typical symptoms. Severe complications of a rup ...
on February 24, 1905.
His will was quickly probated and his estate, valued in excess of $5,000,000, was left to his family.
His wife received their Long Island home, and all "jewelry, horses, carriages, and harness, and all property of the deceased for life."
All of the funds in trust he inherited from his grandfather passed to his children.
His wife received $848,505 and each of his children received $74,614 directly.
After his death, his widow remarried to Charles R. Scott, a Hong Kong-based British banker who was the son of Col. Robert Scott of the
Irish Fusiliers, in
Bar Harbor, Maine
Bar Harbor is a resort town on Mount Desert Island in Hancock County, Maine, United States. As of the 2020 census, its population is 5,089. During the summer and fall seasons, it is a popular tourist destination and, until a catastrophic fire i ...
in 1912.
Descendants
Through his daughter, he was the grandfather of Marie Bonne de Viel Castel (1914–1997),
who married Eugene Bowie Roberts Jr. in 1965;
Pierre Etienne de Viel Castel (1917–2012); and Édouard Louis de Viel Castel (1911–1968).
Through his son Henry, he was the grandfather of Henry Baldwin Hyde Ripley Jr. (1924–1998), who married Ethel Lachicotte Boyle,
and Malcolm Pennington Ripley (1927–2005).
References
;Notes
;Sources
External links
*
Miniature portrait of Mrs. Sidney Dillon Ripley by Fernand Paillet, 1889.
article about 16 East 79th Street.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ripley, Sidney Dillon
1863 births
1905 deaths
People from the Upper East Side
People included in New York Society's Four Hundred