Lewis Cass Ledyard

Lewis Cass Ledyard (April 4, 1851 – January 27, 1932) was a New York City lawyer. He was a partner at the firm Carter Ledyard & Milburn, personal counsel to J.P. Morgan, and a president of the New York City Bar Association.

Early life Lewis Cass Ledyard was born in Detroit, Michigan, in 1851, to an established American family. He was the fourth of five children born to Henry Brockholst Ledyard (1812–1880) and Matilda Frances Cass (1808–1898). His father was a lawyer, diplomat, and mayor of Detroit.

His maternal grandfather, General Lewis Cass (1782–1866), had been governor of the Michigan Territory and a United States senator from the state of Michigan, and served as secretary of state under President James Buchanan. His maternal grandmother, Elizabeth (née Spencer) Cass, was the granddaughter of Major-General Joseph Spencer, who served in the American Revolution under George Washington. His aunt, Isabella Cass, married Theodorus Marinus Roest van Limburg, Baron van Limburg (1806–1887), the Dutch Minister of Foreign Affairs. His niece, Matilda Cass Ledyard (1871–1960), married Baron Clemens von Ketteler (1853–1900), a German diplomat.

Education Ledyard prepared for college at Charlier Institute, a French school in New York City.

Career

In 1875, Ledyard was introduced to the lawyer James Coolidge Carter, and joined his firm, then known as Scudder & Carter, the same year. He was admitted to partnership in 1880. In 1904, the lawyer John G. Milburn of Buffalo joined, creating the modern firm of Carter, Ledyard & Milburn. Ledyard also served as counsel to the United States Steel Corporation and the New York Stock Exchange, as well as personal counsel to John Pierpont Morgan.

In 1903, Ledyard also oversaw the passage of a bill in the New York State Legislature requiring the electrification of the rail lines at Grand Central Station following a deadly train collision in 1902. The bill and subsequent improvements resulted in the covering of the railroad tracks outside the station, the extension of Park Avenue, and the expansion of valuable real estate in the surrounding area.

Civic involvement In addition to his professional career, Ledyard was a prominent figure in New York society and civic life. Along with John Lambert Cadwalader, he was a founder of the New York Public Library and served as its president from 1917 until 1932. He served as a trustee of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Pierpont Morgan Library, and was a founding trustee of the Frick Collection.

After his first wife's death in 1905, he sold their home at 2 East 87th Street and took an apartment in the Tiffany Apartment at 27 East 72nd Street. On June 6, 1906, and had two daughters, Jean Morris Barnes (1893–1963), who married Mansfield Ferry (1882–1938), and Muriel Hennen Morris, who first married Barrington Moore Sr. (1883–1966), in 1910, and later, Richard L. Stokes (1883–1957), in 1929.

Lewis Cass Ledyard died at his home in New York City on January 27, 1932. He was buried at the Island Cemetery in Newport, Rhode Island. His services were conducted by Rev. Dr. George A. Buttrick and the Rev. Dr. Henry Sloane Coffin. His estate was valued in excess of $10,000,000 upon his death.

Descendants Through his son, he was the grandfather of Lewis Cass Ledyard III (1911–1990), Dorothy Cass Ledyard, who first married Hugh McLeod Fenwick (1905–1991) (he divorced her in 1931 to marry Millicent Vernon Hammond), and later, Richard Allen Knight (d. 1947), in 1933, and Ruth Emery Ledyard, who married William de Rham, a great-great-grandson of Stephen Whitney, in 1928, and later, William Vernon Chickering Ruxton (1891–1958), Her second marriage also ended in divorce in 1943, after the couple had been living at Wraxall Manor in Dorset, England.