Percy Rivington Pyne II

Biography

He was born on May 5, 1857 in Manhattan, New York City, the son of Percy Rivington Pyne I (1820-1895) and Albertina Shelton Taylor. His maternal grandfather was Moses Taylor, founder of the First National City Bank of New York and a stockholder in the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad. His older brother, Moses Taylor Pyne, inherited much of the family fortune and was a major benefactor of Princeton University.

Pyne received a B.A. degree from Princeton in 1878 and an M.A. degree in 1881. On June 20, 1889, he married Maud Howland (b. May 17, 1866), daughter of New York merchant Gardiner Greene Howland. Maud's brother Dulany Howland married Marguerite McClure, who later remarried Ogden Haggerty Hammond, the father of Millicent Fenwick.

He began his business career under the tutelage of Moses Taylor, serving as a partner in the firm of Moses Taylor & Co. He would follow in his grandfather's footsteps, becoming director of the National City Bank as well as manager of the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad. Pyne also served as treasurer of the New York Zoological Society from 1903 to 1922.

In New York City, Pyne and his family lived at 680 Park Avenue at the corner of East 68th Street, now home to the Americas Society. In 1899, he built the mansion Upton Pyne in Bernardsville, New Jersey as a summer home. It was named after Upton Pyne in Devon, England, his family's ancestral manor. It was the largest mansion in the area until it was torn down by his daughter 1982.

Pyne died at his Bernardsville, New Jersey home on August 22, 1929 at the age of 72.

Family

Percy and Maud Pyne had five children: Grafton Howland Pyne (b. August 11, 1890), Herbert Rivington Pyne (b. January 16, 1892), Mary Percy Pyne (b. November 27, 1893), Percy Rivington Pyne Jr. (b. November 9, 1896), and Meredith Howland Pyne (b. October 5, 1898).