Andrew C. Zabriskie

Andrew Christian Zabriskie (May 30, 1853 – September 15, 1916) was an American heir and real estate investor.

Early life Zabriskie was born in New York City on May 30, 1853. He was the son of Sarah Jane Zabriskie (1822–1892) and Christian Andrew Zabriskie (1806–1879), who was prominent in Episcopal church circles in Bergen County, New Jersey. His father never engaged in business, instead preferring the "quiet enjoyments of county life."

His paternal grandparents were Mary (née Ryerson) Zabriskie, a direct descendant of Joris Jansen Rapelje, Besides his father, his paternal uncles were Martin, John, and John Jacob Zabriskie, (His uncle, John Jacob Zabriskie, owned a cotton mill in Ho-Ho-Kus, New Jersey and built what is today known as the Zabriskie House there.) His maternal grandparents were Captain William M. Titus, who served in the War of 1812, and Maria (née Gardner) Titus.

Military service In 1873, he joined Company B of the 7th Regiment, N.Y.N.G. and served as Inspector of Rifle Practice for the 71st Regiment, where he served as Captain of Company C until his resignation in 1897.

Political career In Duchess County, he was a member of the Democratic State Executive Committee and chairman of the Duchess County Board of Supervisors. He ran against the sitting Assistant Treasurer of the United States, Hamilton Fish II, who was a son of former U.S. Senator and Secretary of State Hamilton Fish. Also from his district was neighbor and the incumbent Democratic Lt. Gov., Lewis Stuyvesant Chanler, who was running for Governor against the incumbent Republican, Charles Evans Hughes (later the Secretary of State and Chief Justice of the United States). Both Zabriskie and Chanler lost in their bids. Fish received 22,832 votes to Zabriskie's 19,725 votes.

Personal life

In June 1895, Zabriskie was married to Frances Hunter (1866–1951) at the Madison Square Presbyterian Church. Frances' maternal grandparents were George Zabriskie and Susan Van Campen (née Romeyn) Zabriskie. (Through her maternal aunt, Susan Maria (née Zabriskie) Gray (1814–1904), Frances was a first cousin of John Clinton Gray and George Zabriskie Gray.) Together, were the parents of two children:

Julia Romeyn Zabriskie (1897–1931), a débutante who married Edward Powis Jones (1880–1927), a Harvard Law School educated lawyer, in 1918. Christian Andrew Zabriskie (1899–1970), a noted bibliophile and collector of art. In 1937, he donated a Mortlake tapestry known as "The Seizure of Cassandra by Ajax from a set of The Horses", to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

He was a noted collector of medals, giving speeches and writing a book on the topic. He was "particularly proud of his collection of medallions of Abraham Lincoln." Zabriskie was a member of the St. Nicholas Society, the Holland Society, the Society of Colonial Wars, the Military Society of the War of 1812, the Union Club of the City of New York, the Army and Navy Club, the Riding Club the Aero Club of America, He was buried at Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx. His estate, consisting mainly of an estimated $5,000,000 to $10,000,000 of real estate, was left entirely to his widow. After the death of his widow in 1951, Zabriskie's son donated 825 acres of the Blithewood estate, including its manor house, seven other houses, three barns, and two garages on the property, to Bard College, in exchange for $1. Today Blithewood is home to the Levy Economics Institute.

Residences In New York City, the Zabriskies variously lived at 12 East 30th Street, 2 West 56th Street and 34 West 53rd Street. Around 1886, Zabriskie built a large mansion, a boathouse, and wharf on the Canadian side and the island was known as Zabriskie's Island. Zabriskie kept his steam yacht Dodo docked at the island.

In 1899, Zabriskie purchased Blithewood from John Bard's 1,000-acre estate and commissioned Francis L. V. Hoppin, a McKim, Mead and White alumnus, to tear down the old home and build a new 42-room Georgian-style manor house in the Beaux-Arts style. Bard had purchased Blithewood in 1853 from Robert Donaldson Jr., who had hired landscape designer Andrew Jackson Downing to transform the grounds upon his 1835 purchase of the 92-acre estate, then known as Annandale (owned by John Church Cruger, the father of Stephen Van Rensselaer Cruger and son-in-law of Stephen Van Rensselaer).