Frederic W. Stevens

Frederic William Stevens (September 19, 1839 – January 20, 1928) was an American lawyer and banker.

Early life Stevens was born on September 19, 1839, in Manhattan. He was a son of Frances ( Gallatin) Stevens (1803–1877) and banker Byam Kerby Stevens (1792–1870), who inherited Stevens House, the historic home of his grandfather. Among his siblings were Byam K. Stevens Jr. and Alexander Henry Stevens, both well-known bankers.

His paternal grandparents were Maj.-Gen. Ebenezer Stevens and Lucretia (née Ledyard) Sands Stevens. Among his many prominent relatives were uncles John Austin Stevens, a banker with his father, and Alexander Hodgdon Stevens, a surgeon. Among his first cousins were John Austin Stevens, founder of the Sons of the Revolution, and Lucretia Stevens (née Rhinelander) Jones, the mother of author Edith Wharton. His maternal grandfather was Albert Gallatin, the 4th U.S. Secretary of the Treasury who served as the U.S. Ambassador to the United Kingdom and France. His uncle was James Gallatin, the second president of the Gallatin National Bank who married Josephine Pascault, a daughter of Louis Pascault, Marquis de Poleon.

After receiving preparatory training Richard P. Jenks, he attended Yale, where he graduated seventh in the class of 1858. Before their legal separation in 1886, they had a home on Bellevue Avenue in Newport called "the Cedars", who married Frederick Hobbes Allen, son of U.S. Representative Elisha Hunt Allen, a former U.S. Minister to the Kingdom of Hawaii. Joseph Sampson Stevens (1865–1935), a Rough Rider who married Clara Harriet ( Sherwood) Rollins (1869–1924), the daughter of William Keeler Sherwood and former wife of stockbroker Edward Warren Rollins, in 1899. Frederic William Stevens Jr. (1867–1868), who died young. Frances Gallatin Stevens (1868–1956), who married Count Charles Alexandre Gaston de Gallifet in 1890. After his death in 1905, she married Count Maurice des Monstiers de Mérinville (1867–1936) in 1914. Mabel Ledyard Stevens (1872–1959), who married Count Micislas Orlowski, a polish diplomat and soldier, in 1891.

After their divorce, his wife remarried to the Maurice, Marquis de Talleyrand-Périgord in 1887 (who was recently divorced from Elizabeth Beers-Curtis, another American heiress). They divorced in April 1903, shortly before Stevens married Alice Caroline Seely in New York City on December 8, 1904. Alice was a daughter of Daniel James Seely and Charlotte Louise ( Vail) Seely of Saint John, New Brunswick. They were the parents of one daughter:

Frederica Stevens (1907–2000), who married John Hone Auerbach (1883–1962) in 1927. After their divorce in 1944, she married French oil executive Philippe Roger Bérard (1893–1977), a grandson of American painter William Parsons Winchester Dana, in 1949.

Stevens died on January 20, 1928, at 925 Park Avenue, his residence in New York City. After a funeral St. James' Church, he was buried in the family vault at Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn. His widow received a life interest in his estate with most of the estate going to his youngest daughter Frederica.