Frederick S. Winston

Frederick Seymour Winston (October 14, 1806 – March 17, 1885) was an American businessman who served as president of the Mutual Life Insurance Company of New York.

Early life Winston was born on October 14, 1806, in Ballston Spa, New York, where he received "a good academic education." Through his brother, he was uncle to Frederick Hampden Winston, the U.S. Minister to Persia under President Grover Cleveland.

In 1896, at fourteen years old, he was elected president of the Mutual Life Insurance Company of New York, of which he had been a trustee since 1846, and completed in twelve months, "a feat never before performed in his or any other land."

Gustavus Storrs Winston (1834–1899), a physician who served in the Union Army during the Civil War, (During the Civil War, he was surgeon with the Eighth Regiment, and was captured and confined in Libby Prison at Richmond, Virginia.) He escaped through a friend of the Winston family, who, although Southern, sympathized with the North. Mary Hoadley Winston (1835–1918), who married Harvey B. Merrill; they were the parents of Frederick Winston Merrill, William Winston Merrill and Seymour Winston Merrill. Frederick Mervyn Winston (1836–1866), the cashier of Mutual Life; he married Mary Louise Erben, a daughter of Henry Erben, in 1861; they were the parents of lawyer Frederick James Winston. James Cook Winston (1839–1890), who served with Gen. Butler in the Civil War at the Capture of New Orleans; he was a corresponding clerk for Mutual Life for 25 years. Joseph Sands Winston (1844–1868), who attended Columbia College; he died in Vienna. Sarah Cotton Winston (1846–1921), who married George Gilpin, son of John Ferris Gilpin of Philadelphia, in 1872; she died at Territet, Switzerland.

Winston died from a paralytic stroke on March 17, 1885, in Fernandina, Florida. After a funeral at the Calvary Episcopal Church, of which he was a warden, he was buried at New York Marble Cemetery in Manhattan. His widow died just under a year later on March 14, 1886.