Clermont Livingston Best

Portrait of Colonel Clermont Livingston Best, husband of Mrs. Tooker

Colonel Clermont Livingston Best (1824–1897) was an American military officer from New York. He was made Colonel of the 4th Artillery under Gen. Nathaniel P. Banks, and became a veteran of the American Civil War, fighting at the Battle of Gettysburg and other battles. He also served at Fort Adams, Rhode Island, of which he was the commander.

He married Mary Tooker, and was the brother-in-law of lawyer Gabriel Mead Tooker, member of Mrs. Astor's Four Hundred during the Gilded Age.

Biography

Clermont Livingston Best was born on April 25, 1824, in Tivoli, New York. He was a descendant of the Livingston family. He was the brother-in-law of Gabriel Mead Tooker, having married Mary Tooker, and uncle of Mrs. Tooker Whitney Warren, wife of the architect of Grand Central Terminal of the Vanderbilts. They were members of Mrs. Astor's The Four Hundred during the Gilded Age.

Best attended the military academy of West Point, and graduated in 1847. He was first appointed as Second Lieutenant to the First Artillery.

His funeral was attended by General Daniel Butterfield, Mrs. Gabriel Mead Tooker, NYC Police Commissioner Rhinelander Waldo, Mrs. G. Van Cortlandt Hamilton, wife Schuyler Hamilton Jr., great-grandson of Alexander Hamilton, Robert Goelet, brother of Ogden Goelet of Ochre Court, and others. His daughter with Mary Tooker was Annie Livingston Best, who married to socialite Elizur Yale Smith, son of millionaire Wellington Smith, and member of the Yale family.