Oliver Bronson

Oliver Bronson (October 3, 1799 – June 21, 1875) was an American physician and educator who was "heir to a wealthy Connecticut financier, banker, and real estate speculator." He was eldest surviving son of ten children born to Anna (née Olcott) Bronson (1765–1850), and Isaac Bronson (1760–1838), a surgeon during the American Revolutionary War who was a successful banker and land speculator credited with co-founding the New York Life Insurance and Trust Company and Ohio Life Insurance and Trust Company. Among his siblings was sister Maria Bronson (who married Col. James Boyles Murray) and Frederic Bronson Sr. (who married Charlotte Brinckerhoff, a granddaughter and heir of Robert Troup).

His maternal grandfather was Thomas Olcott and his paternal grandparents were Captain Isaac Bronson and Mary Bronson. Through his brother Frederic, he was an uncle of prominent lawyer Frederic Bronson, who married Sarah Gracie King (a granddaughter of James Gore King and William Alexander Duer).

Bronson attended Yale University and graduated from the College of Physicians and Surgeons, later a part of Columbia University, in 1818. with the Bronson House serving as the residence of the school's director until . The house was declared a National Historic Landmark in 2003.

Personal life On May 15, 1833, Bronson was married to Joanna Donaldson (1806–1876) at the Murray Street Presbyterian Church in New York. Joanna, who was born in North Carolina, was the daughter of Sarah (née Henderson) Donaldson and Robert Donaldson Sr., a Scottish born merchant, and the younger sister of Robert Donaldson Jr., a prominent banker and patron of the arts. Together, they were the parents of:

Isaac Bronson (1835–1872), a lawyer who married Harriet Whitney Phoenix (1835–1864), daughter of U.S. Representative Jonas P. Phoenix and granddaughter of Stephen Whitney, at St. Paul's Chapel in New York on March 1, 1859. Harriet died of diphtheria in Baden-Baden, Germany, five years after their marriage, during the Civil War. After her death, he married Alice Whetten, with whom he had a daughter, Julia Ethel Bronson (1870–1924), who married in Rome, Italy, on 16 May 1903, Prince Giambattista Rospigliosi. Oliver Bronson (1837–1918), a graduate of Williams College and Harvard Law School who married Julia Frances Colt (1844–1921) at Trinity Church on June 2, 1870. He was a St. Johns County Commissioner during Reconstruction. Willett Bronson (1840–1917), who married Margaret O'Farrell (1846–1903) on November 16, 1871. He was a lawyer and real estate investor who eventually went bankrupt by 1883 after buying up-town lots and having houses built on them in New York. Robert Donaldson Bronson (1845–1912), who married his cousin Isabel Donaldson (1846–1931).

The painting was later acquired by Richard Jenrette and displayed at his residence in the Hudson Valley, Edgewater in Barrytown, New York.

Bronson died on June 21, 1875, in Richfield Springs in Otsego County, New York. After a funeral at the Church of the Strangers, a church for Southerners in New York, he was buried at Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn. Less than a year after his death, his widow died on February 13, 1876, in Baltimore, Maryland.

Descendants Through his son Oliver, he was a grandfather,