Columbus Iselin

Columbus O'Donnell Iselin (September 26, 1851 – November 11, 1933) was an American financier and philanthropist who was prominent in New York Society during the Gilded Age. His siblings were Adrian Iselin Jr., who married Louise Caylus, and Sarah Gracie King Bronson, the widow of Frederic Bronson; William Emil Iselin, who married Alice Rogers Jones; Eleanora Iselin, who married DeLancey Astor Kane, brother of Woodbury Kane and great-grandson of John Jacob Astor; who married Fannie Garner, and later, Edith Hope Goddard; Georgine Iselin, and Emilie Eleanora Iselin, who married John George Beresford, a cousin of Lord Charles Beresford and grandson of Henry Beresford, 2nd Marquess of Waterford. in 1898.

His paternal grandparents were Isaac Iselin, who was born in Basel, Switzerland, and emigrated to the United States in 1801, and Aimee Jeanne (née Roulet) Iselin. In Switzerland, the Iselin family had been merchants, public officials, and military and professional men since the 14th century.

Career Iselin's father, a former dry goods merchant, founded the investment bank of A. Iselin and Co., located at 36 Wall Street, in 1854. After his father's death in 1905, he and his elder brother Adrian Iselin Jr. took control of the firm. His nephew, Ernest Iselin, was director of the company from 1929 to 1934 and chairman of the board from 1936 to 1954. The firm was in existence until 1936 when it was merged with Dominick & Dominick, an investment and merchant banking firm that exists to this day. of which he began serving as president in 1885 and later as the secretary-treasurer. Conveniently, 400 was the number of people that could fit into Mrs. Astor's ballroom.

He was also a member of the Union Club, the Seawanhaka Corinthian Yacht Club, the Downtown Club, the University Club, the Knickerbocker Club, Metropolitan Club, the Country Club of New York, the Larchmont Yacht Club and the New York Yacht Club.

His father had purchased extensive property along Davenport Neck, the Long Island Sound shore community in New Rochelle where he built a country estate for himself, All View, and for Columbus and his siblings.

Personal life Iselin was married to Edith Colford Jones (1854–1930). In addition to their country estate in New Rochelle, the Iselin's lived at 3 West 52nd Street in Manhattan. Together, they were the parents of:

Columbus O'Donnell Iselin (1877–1877), who died as an infant. Lewis Iselin (1879–1928), who married Marie de Neufville (1883–1979) O'Donnell Iselin (1884–1971), who married Margaret Urling Sibley (1893–1951) in 1919.

Iselin died at his estate in New Rochelle on November 11, 1933. His estate was left to his children and grandchildren. By 1937, his estate was valued at $4,833,550.

Descendants Through his son Lewis, he was the grandfather of Columbus O'Donnell Iselin (1904-1971), the oceanographer who was the director of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and a Professor of Physical Oceanography at Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Through his son O'Donnell, in 1952.