Marshall O. Roberts

Marshall Owen Roberts (March 22, 1813 – September 11, 1880) He was the son of Welsh born Dr. Owen Roberts and Mrs. (née Newell) Roberts, who was from Birmingham, England. His father, who came to New York in 1798,

Roberts was aided in his career by Robert C. Wetmore (a Whig) and Prosper Wetmore (a Democrat), wealthy brothers who "possessed great political influence" and became his friends and mentors. and serving as delegate to its first National Convention in Philadelphia in 1856. Roberts ran for office several times, but was unsuccessful each time.

Personal life Caricature of his son, Marshall O Roberts, with the caption, "Easton Hall" from the 22 February 1911 issue of Vanity Fair. Roberts was married three times. In 1830, Roberts was married to his first wife, Catherine Dodge Amerman (1813–1845). Before her death, they were the parents of:

Isaac K. Roberts (1835–1888), who worked with his father. Mary Matilda Roberts (1836–1919), who died unmarried. Marshall Owen Roberts Jr. (1843–1865), who died unmarried.

On November 17, 1847, he remarried to Caroline Danforth Smith (1827–1874), a daughter of Norman Smith Jr. and Caroline (née Danforth) Smith of Hartford, Connecticut. Her elder sister, Mary Boardman Smith, was the wife of abolitionist William Weston Patton (fifth president of Howard University). Caroline, a friend of President Abraham Lincoln, (Following the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, Roberts "sent his personal check for $10,000 to Mrs.) Lincoln."

Caroline Marshall Roberts (1849–1893), who married sculptor Ames Van Wart (1841–1927), a grandson of Henry van Wart (brother-in-law of Washington Irving) in 1869.

His third marriage was in 1875 to Susan Lawrence Endicott (1840–1926), a daughter of John Endicott of Salem, Massachusetts (descendants of John Endecott, the longest-serving governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony). After their marriage, Susan threw a lavish reception at their Fifth Avenue home on December 16, 1879, which included the Vanderbilts, Beeckmans, Agnews, Astors, Townsends, Van Rensselaers and Pierreponts. They divorced in 1921.

Roberts died from a stroke on September 11, 1880, at the United States Hotel in Saratoga Springs, New York. After a funeral at Calvary Church, where his pallbearers included William M. Evarts, Hamilton Fish, Peter Cooper, Edwards Pierrepont, Henry G. Stebbins, Percy R. Pyne, Samuel Sloan and Edward N. Dickerson, he was buried in the Roberts family vault at Woodlawn Cemetery, Bronx. The New York Times estimated his fortune at $10 million at the time of his death.

After his death, his widow remained involved in the New York social scene, before her remarriage to Ralph Vivian in 1892. They moved to London and she leased the Fifth Avenue mansion to Cornelius and Alice Gwynne Vanderbilt while they were building their chateau on upper Fifth Avenue. She died in London on March 22, 1926.

Art collection

Roberts was a noted art collector and staunch supporter of American artists who never sold or exchanged a painting after he bought it. He "made no pretensions to connoisseurship, but was guided in his purchases simply by fancy, or with a view to assisting some needy artist." which he bought for $10,000 (at the time, an enormous sum). In the art galleries at his Fifth Avenue home, he displayed his collection, which included Rembrandt Peale's Babes in the Wood, Daniel Huntington's Venice and Old Lawyer, Frederick Stuart Church's Rainy Season in the Tropics, Paul Delaroche's Napoleon at Fontainbleau, Ernest Meissonier's The Smoker (1849) Thomas Sidney Cooper's Monarch of the Plain, Édouard Frère's The Industrious Mother, John Frederick Kensett's Moon by the Sea Shore, Henry Peters Gray's Rose of Fiesole and Just Fifteen, George A. Baker's Love at First Sight, Wild Flowers and Children of the Wood, John George Brown's His First Cigar, Thomas Cole's Old Mill, James McDougal Hart's Morning in the Adirondacks, William Henry Powell's Landing of the Pilgrims, William Sidney Mount's Raffling for a Goose, Robert Swain Gifford's On The St. Lawrence, Eugene Benson's Thoughts in Exile, Thomas Sully's Woman at the Well and A Girl Offering Flowers at a Shrine, Seymour Joseph Guy's Good Sister, Charles Loring Elliott's Portrait of Himself, and George Henry Boughton's Gypsy Women, Jean-Léon Gérôme's The Egyptian Conscript, as well as works by Édouard Detaille.

Roberts served on the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Board of Trustees in 1870 and 1871,