Name Isaac Roosevelt | Parents Jacobus Roosevelt Cousins Jacobus Roosevelt Children James Roosevelt | |
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Died October 1794, New York City, New York, United States | ||
Siblings Helena Roosevelt Barclay | ||
Isaac Roosevelt (December 19, 1726 – October 1794) was an American merchant and Federalist politician. He served in the New York State Assembly and the state Constitutional Convention and achieved the most political success of any Roosevelt before Theodore Roosevelt. Isaac was the patrilineal great-great-grandfather of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
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Early life
Roosevelt was born in New York City and baptized in the Reformed Dutch Church of New York. He was the sixth son of Jacobus Roosevelt (1692–1776) and Catharina Hardenbroek, who wed in 1713. His siblings were Johannes (b. 1714), Johannes (b. 1715), Nicholas (b. 1717), Helena (1719–1772), Jacobus (b. 1721), Christoffel (b. 1724), Abraham (b. 1729), Sara (b. 1730), and Adolphus Roosevelt (b. 1735).
His paternal grandfather was Nicholas Roosevelt (1658–1742) and his great-grandfather was the Dutch immigrant Claes Maartenszen Van Rosenvelt (d. 1659), who established the Roosevelt family in America. His maternal grandparents were Johannes Hardenbroek and Sarah (née Van Laer) Hardenbroek.
Career
He was one of the first large-scale sugar refiners in New York City. He built one of the first sugar refineries in the city and originally had his store on Wall Street, later removing to St. George's Square.
"Isaac Roosevelt is removed from his house in Wall Street to the house of his late brother, Jacobus Roosevelt, Jr., deceased, near the Sugar house, and opposite to Mr. William Waltons, being on the northwest side of Queen Street, where his customers may be supplied as usual with double, middling and single refined loaf sugars, clarified, muscovado and other molasses, & etc." - April 25, 1772
Active in the community, he was one of the first members of the New York City Chamber of Commerce, organized in 1768, and he was one of the original incorporators of the first public hospital in New York in 1770. He was a cofounder of the Bank of New York in 1784, and became its second president, a post he held from 1786 to 1791.
Political office
A noted patriot, he was elected to the New York Provincial Congress on April 22, 1775. He was one of the Committee of One Hundred that took control of the state government in May 1775. Though he felt no allegiance to England, he was initially a moderate, hoping to prevent conflict. However, he withdrew from New York when the British occupied the city, and spent the period of occupation at his wife's home in Dutchess County, serving with the Sixth Regiment of the Dutchess County Militia. After the war, as one of ten representatives from New York City (among John Jay, Alexander Hamilton, and Robert R. Livingston), he took part in the New York State Convention at Poughkeepsie on June 18, 1788 that deliberated on the adoption of the United States Constitution. He was a member of the New York State Senate (Southern District) from 1777 to 1786, and from 1788 to 1792.
Personal life
On September 22, 1752, he married Cornelia Hoffman (1734–1780), daughter of Tryntje (née Benson) (1712–1765) Martinus Hoffman (1706–1772), a prominent Dutchess County landowner and member of the Hoffman family. She was the sister of Anthony Hoffman (1739–1790) and the aunt of Josiah Ogden Hoffman (1766–1837). Together, Isaac and Cornelia had ten children:
Roosevelt died in October 1794.
Descendants
Through his son, James, he was a grandfather to Isaac Roosevelt (1790–1863) who married Mary Rebecca Aspinwall (1809–1886), Grace Roosevelt (1792–1828), who married Guy Carlton Bayley (1786–1859), James Roosevelt (1794-1823), Walton Roosevelt (1796–1836), Edward Roosevelt (1799–1832), Richard Varick Roosevelt (1801–1835) who married Anna Maria Lyle, Hamilton Roosevelt (1805-1827), Henry Walton Roosevelt (1809–1827), Susan Barclay Roosevelt (1813–1867), and James Barclay Roosevelt (b. 1815).
Through his daughter Cornelia, he was a grandfather to: Cornelia Catharine Kissam who married Dr. Caspar Wistar Eddy, Benjamin Roosevelt Kissam (b. 1793) who married Mary A. Berdan, Maria Ann Kissan (1788–1871), Helen Kissam (1790–1870) who married John L. Lefferts, Richard Varick Kissam (1795–1869) who married Maria Latourette, Emma Charlotte Kissam who married Francis Armstrong Livingston (1795–1851) a nephew of Peter R. and Maturin Livingston, and Ameila Charlotte Kissam (b. 1799).