Henry deForest

Henry Wheeler DeForest (October 29, 1855 – 1938) was an American railroad executive, capitalist and industrialist.

Early life DeForest was born in New York City on October 29, 1855. He was a son of Henry Grant DeForest and Julia Mary (née Weeks) DeForest. Among his siblings was older brothers Lockwood DeForest, a painter and interior designer, and Robert Weeks DeForest, a lawyer, financier, and philanthropist.

DeForest paternal grandfather was Lockwood DeForest, a prominent South Street merchant and direct descendant of Jessé de Forest, of French Huguenot ancestry, whose Dutch West India Company helped to settle New Amsterdam. Through his mother, he was distantly related to Frederic Church, the Hudson River landscapist, and his maternal grandfather was Robert Doughty Weeks, the first President of the New York Stock Exchange.

He was a graduate of Williston Seminary in Easthampton, Massachusetts, Yale University in 1876, and Columbia Law School in 1878. Together, they resided at 63 East 79th Street in New York, Nethermuir in Cold Spring Harbor (the former home of Chinese merchant Oliver Kimball Gordon), and were the parents of: Henry Wheeler DeForest Jr. (1901–1913), who died of a brain tumor in 1913. Charles Noyes DeForest (1905–1929), a Yale graduate who died in Palermo, Italy during a trip around the world. Alice Delano DeForest (1908–1988), who married Francis Minturn Sedgwick (1904–1967), son of Henry Dwight Sedgwick, in 1929.

DeForest died at his county home, Nethermuir, in Cold Spring Harbor on 1938. He was buried at Memorial Cemetery of Saint John's Church in Laurel Hollow, New York on Long Island.

Descendants Through his daughter Alice, he is the grandfather of Andy Warhol's muse Edie Sedgwick.