Person:Gouverneur Wilkins (1)

GOUVERNEUR MORRIS WILKINS was born Nov. 4th, 1799, and died in New York City, Febr. 7th, 1871, aged 71 years. He studied law, but never practiced. He was an attache of the U.S. Legation in Paris in the reign of Louis Philippe, who was during most of his exile in this country, while Duke of Orleans, the guest of Gouverneur Morris, whose nephew and adopted son Mr. Wilkins was. Mr. Wilkins mingled but little in public life, preferring the private station which he so becomingly adorned. The record of some of his various services is found in the following pamphlets which he published: "A Letter to the Trustees of Columbia College, from a Citizen," 1856 ; "In the matter of the Extension of Central Park," 1861 ;"A Project for the Relief of Broadway," 1866.

His first wife was Mary, daughter of John Wood [Ward], Esq., of Charleston, S.C. One daughter survived this marriage, and has just deceased. Subsequently he married Catharine, eldest daughter of Gen. Stephen Van Rensselaer, of Albany, N.Y.

... Gouverneur Morris Wilkins, who died in New York, New York, February 7, 1871, and was the son of Martin and ———— (Nutter) Wilkins; no issue. ...

... As I told you in the last chapter, Gouverneur Morris Wilkins's first wife was my mother's elder sister, Mary Somersall Ward; his second wife was Catherine Van Rensselaer. She was always most sweet and kind to me, and I had a standing invitation to visit them whenever I liked. As I was always welcome I went there very often. Uncle Gouv was a splendid-looking man, somewhat such a man in appearance as Daniel Webster, and of great ability, genial and delightful in conversation, a graduate of Yale and extremely well read. If he had been a poor man and felt the spur of necessity he would have become distinguished, but he never went in for public life or any profession. Although he had been a slave-holder he was a Republican and a strong supporter and admirer of Lincoln.

On my visits at Castle Hill I usually drove with Uncle Gouv when he made his morning rounds. On these occasions he himself always drove the same large gray horse, everything spick and span and in perfect order. We would first go to the post-office in Westchester village and then do various errands in the neighborhood, stopping to talk with every one he met, as all his neighbors respected him and liked to hear his views; indeed, I found it part of a liberal education to hear him express them.

Castle Hill lay just at the junction of Westchester Creek and the Sound, directly opposite Zerega Point, and was one of the most beautiful places in the country. The house was an old one, having been built by Uncle Gouv's father or grandfather, and he had made additions to it himself with taste and discrimination. His library was a fine one, containing many of my grandfather Ward's books, which, of course, when Uncle Gouv died, went to his second wife. On her death she left it to Rensselaer Cruger, her nephew, but I do not know who now owns these books of my grandfather's, that he had brought from England and that had his coat of arms as a book-plate. The grounds of Castle Hill were terraced down to Long Island Sound and beautifully planted, with greenhouses at intervals. I remember the delicious hothouse grapes and figs that came from the forcing-houses and graperies against the back of the house. The dining-room was of fine proportions, wainscoted to the ceiling with oaken panels on which hung portraits of his father, his grandfather, and Uncle Gouv himself, by Elliot, and also a portrait of Mrs. Wilkins as a young girl in a large flat sort of light-colored garden-hat.

Mr. Wilkins left all his property, a very great estate, to his only daughter, Ellen, the first wife of John Screven,
who was without fortune. She died two or three years after Mr. Wilkins, leaving several children ...

... The Wilkins estate included Castle Hill, containing about three hundred acres, a large tract of land immediately adjoining it, and several hundred city lots on Harlem flat, comprising the whole north front on the Central Park, on 110th Street, and the block fronting on the Central Park from 108th to 109th Streets, and much other property besides. This Harlem flat property was a large farm called the "Nutter Farm," which Uncle Gouv inherited from his mother, who was a Miss Nutter. When Central Park was laid out four hundred lots were taken for the park, so the whole northern end of the park was once the "Nutter Farm" and belonged to Mr. Wilkins. ...

[more]