George Lockhart Rives

George Lockhart Rives (May 1, 1849 – August 18, 1917), (William Cabell Rives (1793–1868), also a delegate from Virginia to the Provisional Confederate Congress and member of the Confederate Congress from Virginia, was the brother of Alexander Rives (1806–1885), a Judge of the Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals and Judge of United States District Court for the Western District of Virginia, appointed by President Ulysses S.) Grant.

He graduated from Columbia College in 1868 with a B.A., and again in 1872 with an A.M. Also in 1872, he graduated from Trinity College, Cambridge, and then from Columbia Law School in 1873.

Career Following his graduation from Columbia Law School, he passed the bar and began practicing law in New York City. Rives' term as Assistant Secretary of State ended in 1889 after Cleveland's defeat by Benjamin Harrison during the 1888 presidential election. Rives was succeeded by Boston lawyer William F. Wharton who served under Secretary James G. Blaine.

Philanthropy From 1882 until 1917, Rives was a trustee of his alma mater, Columbia University. From 1903 to 1917, he succeeded William C. Schermerhorn and served as chairman of the trustees. In 1917, he resigned as trustee and was awarded an honorary Doctor of Laws degree.

Rives also served as president of the New York Public Library, and chairman of the Trustees of the New York Hospital. Caroline, daughter of Col. John Kean, granddaughter of Peter Philip James Kean, and great-granddaughter of Continental Congressman John Kean, was the sister of U.S. Senators John Kean and Hamilton Fish Kean.

George Barclay Rives (1875–1935), George was married to Gisela Antonia Preinerstorfer (1882–1953).

After his first wife's death, Rives married for the second time to Sarah Swan (née Whiting) Belmont (1861–1924), the daughter of Augustus L. Whiting and Sarah (née Swan) Whiting, on March 20, 1889. From her first marriage to banker and socialite Oliver Belmont, she was the mother of Natica Caroline Belmont (1883–1908). After George's marriage to Sarah, he adopted Natica who took the surname Rives. In 1907, she married William Burden, brother of Arthur Scott Burden and James A. Burden Jr., though she died of asphyxiation in 1908, a few months after the marriage. Together, George and Sarah were the parents of two additional children:

Francis Bayard Rives (1890–1969), who married Helen Leigh Hunt (1893–1996), daughter of real estate investor Leigh S. J. Hunt and sister of Henry Leigh Hunt, who was married to Louise Lévêque de Vilmorin. Mildred Sara Rives (1893–1927), who married architect Frederick Marquand Godwin (1889–1961) of Cedarmere in Roslyn, New York, in 1917. Frederick was a cousin of Professor Allan Marquand.

The Riveses had a city residence at 69 East 79th Street in Manhattan designed by Carrère and Hastings in 1907–1908; a summer home in Newport, Rhode Island; and a country home in Tuxedo Park, New York. His widow died at her residence, 907 Fifth Avenue in New York, on May 29, 1924.