Warts and All: How "That" Uncle At Your Holiday Dinner Is More Like A Livingston Than You Might Think

       The upcoming holidays have me thinking a lot about the complicated relationships we have with other people. Most people love their families, but we can all think of that one cousin or uncle who always says something weird that makes us uncomfortable during dinner, the family member whose opinions are completely out of touch with those of everyone around them. It does not make us hate them completely although it may make us want to throw yams at them. We accept family warts and all.

By the way, if you can’t think of "that" family member then I’ve got some bad news for you.

Its you. This is how your family sees you.

Anyway, we have a similar situation when looking at historical figures. They can be held as paragons in one hand and terrible people

in the other.  The classic examples that are always brought up are George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, leaders in American freedom, held enslaved people. Chancellor Robert R. Livingston also held enslaved people over the course of his life. When he traveled to Philadelphia to attend Congress, he always brought at least one enslaved man who would act as his body man. At the same time the Chancellor was also an early member of the New York Manumission Society, which worked to end slavery in New York. He even waffled a bit on the issue in his will, which called for his enslaved people to be freed but only if it was convenient for his wife Mary.

          

       We see more biases pop up from other members of the family as well.Margaret Beekman Livingston was a highly respectable woman. She ran a highly successful estate for twenty-five years following the

death of her husband, including rebuilding it from almost nothing following its destruction by the British. She raised ten highly successful children. Yet when her daughter Catherine wanted to get married Margaret refused to give her consent for years. She had no objections to the character of the man in question or his ability to support her daughter. She objected to the fact that he was a Methodist.

         

      Perhaps the most controversial character in the family’s history is Henry Beekman Livingston. No one disputes that Henry was a successful army officer from the time he joined the army in 1775 until he resigned in 1779. It’s after his marriage to Nancy Shippen that he became controversial. In her journal Nancy accused Henry of being a violent tempered paranoid who ruthlessly and systematically ruined her life. Some historians have even inferred from the journal that there may have some abuse in the relationship.

         

       On the other hand, there are documents that show that after

Nancy left him that Henry met Maria Van Clief. Henry and Maria had three children, John, Harriet and Charles. Although Henry and Maria never married Henry never denied the children were his. Maria died in 1809. During both the Jefferson and Madison administrations, Henry tried to get John an appointment in the army by writing directly to the presidents. Failing that he sent him to law school. Harriet never married and lived with Henry until his death. Charles was described by his uncle, Freeborn Garretson, as having an “imbecile mind.” From what we know Charles was in some way developmentally disabled, but Henry took care of him until he died. Sadly, Charles died only a month after his father.

          

        So, what does the hypocrisy, bias and other family problems tell us about the Livingston and about the other founders? It tells us they were people. Real people. They were not merely the marble statues and Gilbert Stuart paintings we are left with today. They were real people with problems, complicated thought processes, changing opinions and feelings. They did not do the things they did so that we could deify and worship them 250 years later but so that they could live the best lives they could in their own time. Sometimes they did things right and sometimes they did things wrong.

         

       It’s important to remember this as we enter into the season of family gatherings. Remember that we accept our family warts and all and most importantly refrain from throwing the yams. 

Unless your "uncle" is wearing a MAGA hat. In that case feel free to throw the yams at him. And the bowl they're served in. And a shoe.

Do Not Disrespect The Yams

Do Not Expose Yourself Needlessly

Margaret Beekman Livingston, a real person

Margaret Beekman Livingston was a strong woman. There is no denying that. She raised ten children, nine of whom turned out pretty well. She was known as a competent business woman, running her massive estate for twenty-five years after the unexpected death of her husband, Judge Robert Livingston.

When the British burned down her house and all of her outbuildings in the fall of 1777 she was able, through sheer force of will and perseverance, was able to convince Governor George Clinton to

release men from their militia obligations so they could be free to rebuild her house. She met military and political leaders, from George Washington to John Jay, and charmed them all.

Not that George Clinton

Closer

That's the one

Robert R. Livingston

On August 15, 1776 Margaret wrote a letter to her eldest son Robert Livingston where she revealed that under her tough demeanor was a mother, scared for her child’s safety. A letter that could have been written by any mother to any child in any time of war.  She wrote:

“I hear you are to be with Genl. Washington but in what capacity I cannot hear – must you too be exposed to the fire of our Enemies oh my Dear Child Consider your situation with respect to myself, and my other children Do Not Expose yourself needlessly. You are in the Civil Department let others be in the Military your country has need of yr counsel as well as your family”

The letter in question

The British Army had landed on Staten Island on July 2, 1776, the same day Congress had declared Independence. By August 1, 1776 the British had more than 32,000 soldiers in New York Harbor along with a fleet of some 400 ships. Margaret, like Washington, was concerned with where the British would land next. Which of her sons would be in danger? Would any of them die like her son in law Richard Montgomery at Quebec? Would she and her family be in danger if the British came up the river? The British landed on Long Island a week after she wrote her letter. Robert was not with the army but her son Henry, a Lieutenant Colonel in the 2^nd New York Regiment was trapped behind enemy lines for a period of time until he could escape to Connecticut.

Which brings up another reason for Margaret to be concerned about Robert’s safety. If something happened to him Henry Beekman Livingston would become the “man” of the family. While she had not kicked him out of the family as she later would he was still considered disagreeable at best.(Click here to learn about Henry)

Letters like this give us a glimpse into the real person, the very human, emotional person, who lived beneath the grand historical veneer that the Gilbert Stuart portrait puts upon her. We talk about her many accomplishments but can easily forget that she was a living breathing woman who feared for the safety of at least some of her children.

John R. Livingston Murderer?

  Of Judge Robert R. Livingston’s four sons John R. Livingston is perhaps the most forgotten. His oldest brother Robert helped to found this country. His next brother Henry found success as a soldier. Even his younger brother was a famous politician, serving in congress and on Andrew Jackson’s cabinet. But John is typically known merely as a merchant.

John R. Livingston

          John was born in 1754. He was the third son of Judge Robert R. Livingston and Margaret Beekman Livingston, and their seventh child overall. When the Revolutionary War broke out John served briefly under his brother-in-law, Richard Montgomery’s command during the expedition against Canada in 1775. He also served briefly at Fort Edward during the summer of 1777.

          Most of John’s time during the war was spent as a merchant. In 1776 he took over his father’s gun powder mill and soon built a second to supply gunpowder to the army. He spent a great deal of time in Boston during the war, buying and selling various war materials.

          But what if there was more to young John? What if he had a cruel streak like his brother Henry?

In 1879 a nearly century old manuscript was published by the New-York Historical Society as A History of New York during the Revolutionary War, and of Leading Events in Other Colonies at That Period. It contained the following disturbing passage:
 

When the news of the unlucky affair at Trenton arrived at New York, Erasmus Phillips, Esq., Captain of Grenadiers in the 45^th Regiment, was there. He immediately set off to join his regiment in Jersey. He was attended by a servant only. As he passed through Princeton he was observed by three persons who were concealed in a house at that place. The house stood upon the road. The Captain was to pass the door. When he came directly opposite, the three assassins fired, and lodged three bullets in his body. He instantly fell from his horse dead. The servant escaped. One of the party who committed the murder, his name shall be mentioned, was a John Livingston, one of the sons of Robert R. Livingston, late one of the Judges of the Supreme Court of the province of New York. This barbarian, in public company, in Middletown, in Connecticut, boasted of this murder as an act of heroism, a noble achievement; and so little remorse had he for his cruel act in which he had taken a principal part that he declared “That Captain Phillips made one of the handsomest corpses he had ever beheld. We stripped him “says he “of all of his clothes and left him naked in the street. I thought” added he “that I should have been obliged to have cut his head off, to get at his diamond stock buckle, but I effected my purpose by breaking his neck, and turning his head topsy-turvy.” This he concluded with a broad laugh, taking off his own stock, and saying, “Behold the buckle, it was worth the pains of breaking a dead man’s neck for.”

Whoa.

Let’s look first at the dead man. Captain Phillips was a captain in the 35^th Regiment of Foot, not the 45^th. In a history of the regiment compiled in 1873 he is listed as murdered on January 2, 1777 “by some of the country people apparently” although other sources list him as having died the next day at the Battle of Princeton. His will was executed in July of that year and is in the collection of New York Historical. So he definitely existed and died although the how is still in the air.

          As for John, while he would certainly not be called scrupulous, he does not seem to have been a killer. His business deals often trended toward shady but I could not find any contemporary evidence that he was accused of murder in 1777. He traveled to Rhode Island in late 1776 on a business trip but it seems unlikely that he would have been in Princeton, a British-held town, on January 2 in order to murder Phillips. Also, as Princeton was garrisoned by the British army it seems unlikely that the three shots that killed Phillips would have gone uninvestigated long enough to strip the dead man and break his neck.

 

A pleated neck stock without its buckle

         So where does this accusation come from? Thomas Jones, the author of A History of New York during the Revolutionary War, was a loyalist who prior to the war had been a Supreme Court Judge along with Judge Robert R. Livingston. In 1779 the Act of Attainder stripped Jones of all his land on Long Island and forced him to flee to England along with his wife. His wife, by the way, was Anna DeLancey of the DeLancey family who had been bitter political opponents of the Livingston family for years. So Jones is perhaps not the most unbiased source. In the same book he referred to Chancellor Robert R. Livingston as a “violent partisan”.

          There is one more twist in the publication of the manuscript. The editor in 1873 was Edward Floyd DeLancey, a descendant of the same rival family.

          Did John R. Livingston murder a British officer for his neck stock? Probably not. The rivalry between the Livingstons and the DeLancey family was well-known, possibly even bitter enough to merit a smear campaign of this nature.  But maybe it's John R.'s somewhat shady connections, both during the war and after, make him vulnerable to a story like this.