Hamilton Fish II

Hamilton Fish II (April 17, 1849 – January 15, 1936) was an American lawyer and politician who served as Speaker of the New York State Assembly and a member of the United States House of Representatives. and Hamilton Fish (1808–1893). He graduated from Columbia College of Columbia University in 1869 and was a member of St. Anthony Hall. He also received a Master of Arts degree from Columbia.

His paternal grandparents were Elizabeth (née Stuyvesant) Fish and Nicholas Fish (1758–1833), a leading Federalist politician and notable figure of the American Revolutionary War, From 1873 to 1874 he was aide-de-camp to Governor John Adams Dix with the rank of colonel.

He was elected to twelve terms as a member of the New York State Assembly, He resigned from the Treasury in 1908 to run for the United States House of Representatives against Andrew C. Zabriskie.

For many years Fish was considered to be one of the top Republican bosses in the State of New York, controlling Putnam County.

Personal life In 1880, Fish was married to Emily Maria Mann (1854–1899) at St. John's Church in Troy, New York. She was the daughter of Francis N. Mann (1802–1880) and Mary J. (née Hooker) Mann (1822–1875). Before her death in 1899, they were the parents of: Julia Kean Fish (1884–1960), who married William Lawrence Breese (1883–1915) in 1908. He was killed in World War I. His older sister, Eloise Lawrence Breese (1882–1953), was married to Gilbert Heathcote-Drummond-Willoughby, 2nd Earl of Ancaster (1867–1951), and his younger sister, Anne Breese (1885–1959), who was married to Lord Alastair Robert Innes-Ker (b. 1880), the second son of James Innes-Ker, 7th Duke of Roxburghe, and a first cousin of Winston Churchill. Lord Alastair's brother, Henry Innes-Ker, 8th Duke of Roxburghe, also married an American, Mary Goelet (1878–1937), the daughter of the New York real-estate millionaire Ogden Goelet. His younger brother, Lord Robert Edward Innes-Ker (1885–1958), married the actress José Collins. Emily Rosalind Fish (1886–1975), who married John Wilson Cutler (1887–1950), an investment banker, in 1910. Hamilton Stuyvesant Fish III (1888–1991), also a U.S. Representative, who married Grace Chapin Rogers (1885–1960), daughter of Brooklyn Mayor Alfred C. Chapin in 1921. After her death in 1960, he married Marie Blackton in 1967. After her death in 1974, he was married to Alice Desmond from 1976 until their divorce in 1984. He married for the fourth time in 1988 to Lydia Ambrogio, whom he remained married to until his death at the age of 102. Helena Livingston Fish (1893–1970), who married Henry Forster (1889–1989), a son of Frederick Prentiss Forster and Edith (née Allen) Forster, in 1920.

After his first wife's death, he married Florence Delaplaine (1849–1926) in 1912. Florence, a widow of both James Beekman (1848–1902), a great-grandson of James Beekman, and Gustav Amsinck (1837–1909), was the daughter of Isaac C. Delaplaine and Matilda (née Post) Delaplaine (1821–1907).

In the late 19th century, he purchased the Rock Lawn and Carriage House at Garrison, New York.

Fish died at the home of his daughter Julia, in Aiken, South Carolina, on January 15, 1936. He was buried at Saint Philip's Church Cemetery in Garrison.

Descendants Through his daughter Julia, he was the grandfather of William Lawrence Breese Jr. (1909–2000), founder and chairman of the Longview Foundation for Education in World Affairs and International Understanding, and Hamilton Fish Breese (1910–1920). a thirteen-term U.S. Representative from New York who held office from 1969 to 1995, and Lillian Veronica Fish married David Whitmire Hearst (1915–1986), son of William Randolph Hearst.