NOTES on INDIVIDUALS of the GOULD, HAMPTON and WESTCOTT
Branches of the Neergaard Family Ancestry


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WESTCOTT's

Walter Westcott Hoke  1867-1932

Son of Susan Westcott and Walter Hoke, called Wessy, married to Dora M Crawford, no children.  An electrical engineer and patent attorney, he worked for Bell Labs and held several metallurgical patents.  He was part of Bell's London team that installed the Atlantic Cable. He later became chief patent attorney for General Foods at their headquarters in Hoboken, New Jersey.   [Reference:  Obit].  

Caroline Sackett Westcott  1869-1940

Daughter of Thomas Grant Westcott and Joanna Sackett Gould, second wife (of three) of Clifford Jones de Neergaard, with whom she had one child, Clifford Gould de Neergaard, who married Virginia Corcoran, had one child, Richard Hampton Neergaard who married Lois Jeanne Gardner, had four children:  Susan Westcott, Arthur Hampton, Richard Corcoran, John Peter.

Hampton Gould Westcott  1867-1932
Son of Thomas Grant Westcott and Joanna Sackett Gould.  Standard Oil VP whose office was said to be adjacent to that of John D. Rockefeller, Hampton Westcott was a major defense witness in Teddy Roosevelt's trust-busting trial of Standard Oil.

After a harrowing week of testimony and cross examination, Westcott  was confronted by a surprise witness (Tarbell?), a secretary whose secretly kept notes were introduced to demolish his statements, making Standard Oil's guilt apparent.  He is reputed to have cried "It's between God Almighty and the Standard Oil Company"  and collapsed on the witness stand (another version:  the evidence was stolen from Standard Oil's files by the prosecutor).

Westcott never regained his sanity, and was sent to live with his Aunt Caroline and her husband Keller in Waynesville North Carolina, where Keller had a furniture factory (financed by Standard Oil?)

Handsome but never married, Westcott was said to have contracted syphilis from a beautiful but licentious actress who entered his Pullman stateroom one night, unbidden but ......unrepelled.  He was on a long-term treatment of gold injections for this ailment, which may have abetted his mental collapse.

Susan Gould Westcott  1863-193
3

Daughter of Thomas Grant Westcott and Joanna Sackett Gould, married to Walter Hoke;  children:  Hampton (married Charlotte, had a son Hampton "Hampy" Hoke Jr);  Walter, married Dora Crawford;  Yolande ("Yoyo" married Gordon, children Jinx and Larry), and Virginia ("Nina", who married William A Newcomb, had a son William A Newcomb who married Susan Hester, children Geoffrey and Sylvia).  There exists a letter dated only "Brooklyn Sept 21", from her mother Joanna, in response to a letter of Susan announcing her marriage in Chambersburg to  to Walter Hoke, which letter from Joanna says that Susan's marriage comes as a very welcome surprise.

A newspaper article reports the suicide of Dr George W Curry, resident of Red Bank New Jersey and a founder of the Monmouth Boat Club.  He killed himself after attempting to shoot "Miss Susie Westcott".  The article concludes:  "Miss Westcott denied that she had claimed that William H Stephens, of whom young Curry was jealous, was affianced to her and said he was simply an acquaintance".

Walter Hoke was an American dentist practicing in Bordeaux.  After his marriage to Susan, they moved to France where their four children were born, and where for several years around 1910, the couple took in her younger sister Caroline and Caroline's son Clifford Gould, after Caroline's marriage to Clifford Jones de Neergaard had broken up.  Walter Hoke was said to have been particularly successful at his profession through using American dental treatment procedures then unavailable in Europe, once treating King of Spain.  Hoke was a fencing champion as well as a dentist, and wrote a coffee-table book on famous fencers of Bordeaux which was reviewed in the Bordeaux press as outstandingly elegant and beautiful, as well as gallant inasmuch as it was dedicated to "The Ladies of Bordeaux".

Susan had five half-uncles in Trenton, the sons of her grandmother Elizabeth Grant's second marriage, to William Grant Cook.  Cook, much older than Elizabeth, was a distant cousin whom her father had taken into his business;  the marriage was forced on Elizabeth by her father soon after she was widowed.  Susan authored, evidently in support of a lawsuit, a document in which she bitterly protests the bequest of the family fortune by the survivor of these uncles to the Trenton YMCA.  She recounts how much of the Grant family fortune had found its way into Cook ownership over the course of William Cook's involvement in the Grant business.  Edward Cook, one of the sons, was the lawyer that wrote William Grant's will, almost cutting out Grant's grandson from his daughter's first marriage, Thomas Grant Westcott (Susan's father), in favor of the five Cook grandsons.  

None of the Cook uncles, all of whom were distasteful to Susan, had children.  She describes her uncle Edward as an overbearing, not-very-bright, unforgiving snob who would not speak to his brother Hampton for years after Hampton's marriage, leading to Hampton's remorse, separation from his wife, a stroke, a reconciliation, and finally Hampton and his wife quitting Trenton permanently for New York.  Susan describes her uncle William as "not quite right" (he married a very young woman late in his life;  then as William was dying, his brother Hampton, who handled the brothers' finances, took over William's estate, leaving his widow with little, to die young and in want).  She characterized her uncle Henry as a morose troublemaker who left Trenton under a cloud and died of drink;  and her uncle Walter as likable and artistic but bringing nameless "disgraces" on the family, being at one time institutionalized.  The last surviving uncle, Hampton, who dominated his brothers' finances and had frequent "spells" after his stroke, developed an obsession of guilt about having no heirs to carry on the Cook name, and was persuaded by a Mr Dixon of the YMCA to bequest the family fortune to the YMCA which in turn would provide a plaque to memorialize the Cook father's name in perpetuity.  The YMCA building (and plaque) were demolished in the late 1980's.    

Thomas Grant Westcott  1835-1875

Son of Lieutenant Hampton Westcott, USN.  Married (2nd) Joanna Sackett Gould, daughter of Isaac Gould and Susan Smith Sackett with whom he had four children:  Virginia, Susan, Hampton, and Caroline.  (First wife was Sarah Head).  Was chief engineer for the South Mountain Railroad.  Wrote for Harper's Bazaar (as it was spelled it then).

Elizabeth Grant  1816-1858
 
Wife of Lt Hampton Westcott, mother of Thomas Grant Westcott.  After Lt Westcott's untimely death, the young widow was forced by her father William Grant (owner of the Island of Melrose, near Trenton, NJ.) to marry his business associate and distant cousin, the much older William Grant Cook, with whom she then had five sons, naming her first son after her first husband.  She died at 43 of a stroke.  

Lt Hampton Westcott  1803-1836

Son of Judge James Diamont Westcott and Amie Harris Hampton;  married Elizabeth Grant, had one child, Thomas.  Entered Navy in 1823, warranted Midshipman 5/10/1829, married 8/29/1832.  Died aboard the USS John Adams near Gibraltar and was buried at sea.  [Reference:  account of his life given in The New Jersey State Gazette, Trenton, 5/12/1837. ("U. S. Gazette" is also noted).  Also obits and extended newspaper coverage of notorious 1831 Hunter-Miller duel in which he was involved as second]

James D Westcott Jr      
Son of Judge James Diamont Westcott and Amie Harris Hampton, married to Rebecca B Sibley child James III.  First governor of  State of Florida under Jackson, later Senator.  Fought, and then negotiated a treaty with, the Seminole chief Osceola.  Served in Army in Mexican War.

A completely unreconstructed Southerner, he was banished from the United States for having helped escape a father and son accused, falsely as it turned out, of the assassination of President Lincoln.  He was later amnestied but unrelentingly furious, he remained in voluntary exile in Montreal Canada for 18 years until his death at 79.  He was a noted character there, opinionated, eloquent, brilliant and flamboyant.   His hatred of Northern institutions was so intense that during a flirtation occurring at that time with parts of Canada's coming into the US, he made a friend pledge, should annexation come to pass after his death, to dig up his bones and move them further north into what would still be the Dominion.

His son was a judge of the Supreme Court of Florida.  [References:  Obits, and Appleton's Cyclopedia of American Biography in which James Diamont Westcott is listed as Lawyer and US Senator from Florida, whose father is James D Westcott, Secretary of State for New Jersey and whose son is James D Westcott  III, Confederate Army Officer and Justice of the Supreme Court.]

Gideon Granger Westcott
     
Son of Judge James Diamont Westcott and Amie Harris Hampton, married to Caroline Dare, descendent of Virginia Dare, first white child baptized in Virginia. Children were Charles (married Annie Drake, had children Horace, Charles and Caroline), Amie (married Clark), Mary (married Sylvester), Horace and Hampton.  Extract from the Philadelphia Ledger "Gideon Granger Westcott was appointed Postmaster General of Philadelphia March 19, 1857.  He comes from an old American family;  his father and brothers are highly distinguished men.".   [Reference:  Progeny given in Susan Westcott's notes of 1919].

George Clinton Westcott     
Son of Judge James Diamont Westcott and Amie Harris Hampton, graduate of West Point, married to Charlotte Jeffers of Philadelphia.  Caroline Westcott de Neergaard's notes state:  ".....Captain John Westcott .....crossed the Delaware in the same boat with Washington, holding the flag.  A painting by Weir in the Capital at Harrisburg, Pennsylvania of 'Washington Crossing the Delaware', contains a portrait of his grandson Captain George Clinton Westcott who sat for Weir to represent his grandfather Captain John Westcott".

The State House archivist at Harrisburg does not know of such a painting, but says there had been a fire early this century in which much art was lost.  What was left is now mostly either in private hands or in the Pennsylvania State Museum, which also does not know of a Wier painting.  As far as can be ascertained, the senior Weir, Robert W (1803-1889), who was a patriotic painter of note, did not do a painting of Washington crossing the Delaware, nor did his artist relatives, two sons and a cousin.  Emanuel Leutz of course did the famous rendition of Washington Crossing the Delaware, which the Pennsylvania State Museum did once have on long-term  loan, and which is now in the Met in New York.  Leutz painted his version in  in 1850, so the timing corresponds with Caroline's notes, but in Düsseldorf.  Leutz however was supposedly quite keen to use as authentic models as possible, and corralled an American for this purpose whenever he could lay his hands on one.  Might Clinton Westcott have been in Europe at the time?  Or, since Leutz's first version was damaged (eventually destroyed) and he did a second, might he have done the replacement in America where his determination for authenticity could be supported by use of actual descendants as models?  

William Westcott
      
Son of Judge James Diamont Westcott and Amie Harris Hampton.  On the back of Lt Hampton Westcott's obit is a hand-written note that states: William - USA  married Sarah Nucomb, sister of Nelson Nucomb, who married Mary Westcott - 1828.

Richard D Westcott 
     
Son of Judge James Diamont Westcott and Amie Harris Hampton.  Only notation in family archives:  "Went to Texas".

Judge James Diamont Westcott  1775-1841
Son of Captain John Westcott and Sarah Diamont, married to Amie Harris Hampton, had 13 children:  Maria, Hampton, William. John, Gideon. Richard, Emma, George, Beyser, Isaac, James II, Clinton, and Rachel.  Secretary of State of New Jersey from 1830-1840.  Legend on back of Byzantine silhouettes of Amie and James Westcott, says he was born January 25th, 1775, in Bridgetown, New York.  Caroline Westcott de Neergaard's DAR application gives date of death as 1835.  The couple had 14 children of whom two died young.

Elizabeth Westcott
      
Grandniece of Captain John Westcott.  At the time of the revolution, when the Washingtons lived in the then capitol Philadelphia, they stayed in the house of Robert Morris, a financial manager of the Revolution.  George Westcott, Elizabeth's father and brother of Judge James Diamont Westcott, lived next door.  A warm friendship sprang up between the two families;  Elizabeth was the same age as Martha Washington's Curtis grandchildren.

Author of 6/27/1796 letter home, a young woman reporting somewhat breathlessly on her sojourn as a houseguest at Mt Vernon with the Washingtons ("..... rigorous and precise daily schedule"), and on another houseguest, the son of the Marquis de la Fayette (....."one of the most pleasing young men I have ever known").

Captain John Westcott  1741-1813

Son of Ebenezer Westcott and Barbara (another son was David).  Ebenezer's father was Daniel Westcott.  Captain John was married to Sarah Diamont, had children John, James, Rachel, Mary and George.  Captain John was listed as 1st Lt, Western Co., New Jersey Artillery, 1 March 1776;  made Captain-Lieutenant October 1776;  Captain of West Jersey Seeley's Brigade 1777, and fought in many battles in close association with George Washington.  Caroline Westcott de Neergaard's notes:  "In the early part of the Revolution, John removed his family from Philadelphia to the old home in Bridgeton New Jersey.  He joined Seeley's Brigade of West Jersey Artillery, rising to the rank of Captain.  He was commis-sioned by General Washington, and crossed the Delaware in the same boat with Washington, holding the flag.  A painting by Weir in the Capital at Harrisburg, Pennsylvania of 'Washington Crossing the Delaware', contains a portrait of his grandson Captain George Clinton Westcott who sat for Weir to represent his grandfather Captain John Westcott.  [References:  Stamford, Conn records;  Office of Sect'y of State, Trenton, NJ;  "Officers of the Continental Army" by FB Hutman p 582;  "Officers and Men of New Jersey in the Revolutionary War" by WS Stigher p 418.]

Daniel Westcott
   
Son of Richard Westcott, married Abagale, sons Samuel, Daniel and Ebenezer.  Notes by Caroline Westcott de Neergaard:  "Daniel Westcott represented his constituents in the General Court at Hartford, three different times. He was also a founder of Fairfield, New Jersey. His name appears frequently in the history of Stamford, Ct.  Termed 'First Colonist of Stamford'.  In 1676, Daniel Westcott was voted town lots and land for his aid against the common foe, the Pequot Indians.  He later sold out his property in Fairfield Township (which included Stamford in 1694), and with a few followers moved to New Jersey.  These settlers called their new home Fairfield after the old New England settlement and after the Fairfield in England, their mother country".  Other family notes:  "Daniel Westcott was an Indian fighter.  He represented his constituents in the General Court at Hartford three different times.  He died in 1702 leaving three sons....(who)....were among the founders of Salem, New Jersey and also Cumberland County (after it was cut off from Salem) and their record is an enviable one.  Many Westcotts were incorporated in, and supporters of, the founding of the First Presbyterian Church in Fairfield."

Richard Westcott
 
Son of Thomas de Westcott and Elizabeth Syttleton whose father Sir Thomas Syttleton of Worchestershire, was author of Treatisease Tenures.  Sir Thomas emigrated to Plymouth Colony from which in 1636 he was expelled, going to Rhode Island.  

A town map of Weathersfield shows Richard Westcott's residence with land of 3 acres.  Records attest he took an active role in public affairs.  He was also a founder of Fairfield, New Jersey. His name appears frequently in the history of Stanford, Connecticut.  Sons were Daniel and John, who was a founder of Westchester, New York.  [Reference: notes by Caroline Gould in Sackett book]



 GOULD's

Joanna Sackett Gould  1843-1896

Daughter of Isaac Gould and Susan Smith Sackett, married to Thomas Grant Westcott in 1863 by William Boswell.  Their children were  Virginia, Susan, Hampton, and Caroline.  Several letters of family correspondence exist, from her husband to her, and from both of them to their daughter Susan.  Joanna is the subject of one of the pair of oil portraits hanging in the Neergaard dining room;  the other is of her mother.

The book "Sacketts of America" contains on page 184 a harrowing contemporaneous account Joanna authored of the Hickory Dam flood of 11/1/1849, in which two of her siblings were killed.  (The author of the account is identified in print as "Mrs Gould's daughter Josie Truesdell" but there is no "Josie" daughter, and the associated dates are right for Joanna.  "Truesdell" is crossed out in faded ink, and "Westcott" is written in (was Truesdell a previous, or subsequent, marriage?  Her husband Thomas Grant Westcott died in 1875 when she was but 32, and evidently she remained social;  she saved an ardent letter written to her by one Geo K Tozer(?), a previous acquaintance, in which he asks permission to pay court, as his wife had recently died).  Her name was also spelled "Johanna";  she was also called "Josie".

Isaac Gould  1805-1864
Son of Elijah Gould, who a family note says was the son of Moses Gould, Revolutionary War General.  Isaac Gould, was married to Susan Smith Sackett, had children Susan born 1832, Elijah '34, William '37, Elisabeth '39, Joanna '43, Caroline '45, Winfield '48, Robert '49, Isabella '50.  Isaac owned, jointly with his brother Stephen and at least one other brother, several large tracts of timberland mainly in Carbon and Lycoming Counties, Pennsylvania.  

When Isaac and Susan Smith Sackett married, the newlywed couple lived on one of these tracts in a pioneer cabin by the bank of a mountain stream called Hickory Run.  A hamlet two miles downstream was also called Hickory Run;  four miles further along the stream emptied into the Lehigh River.  Isaac's brothers lived nearby;  all were there to manage their lumber business. (The Sackett family had long owned extensive tracts of real estate in the northeast, which eventually led them into the lumber business, undoubtedly laying the scene for Susan and Isaac to meet, marry and move into the cabin at Hickory Run).

On November 1st 1849 the dam of a neighboring lumber business upstream of the Gould home burst, washing the house away and killing two of the children.  (See "The Sacketts of America", page 184).  A few years after the Hickory Run disaster, the Goulds "purchased a beautiful home in Trenton, New Jersey, where they spent the remainder of their lives".

There's a family story that our Gould family is related to the financier Jay Gould (b1836 Roxbury NY-d 1892) through bastardy.  The story goes that Jay Gould's mother fell in love with someone her family considered socially unacceptable, prohibiting her marriage to him.  She left the family defiantly and bore her man a child, whom she then had to bring up in poverty, which was the basis of the source of Jay's anger at the world (the father's fate is not explained).  The story goes on to say, as if it were relevant, that the custom of the time was that a female giving birth out of wedlock would give the child her own surname, and a first name from the bible.  Likely scenarios of the potential relevance of this to any of the published facts of either Isaac or Jay Gould's family, are however elusive.  Jay Gould's immediate family, including a father named Gould, seems well accounted for by contemporaneous accounts.  Perhaps a sister or aunt of Isaac was Jay Gould's father's mother.

The fact that Susan Smith Sackett Gould's grand-daughter Caroline Westcott, who lived in Trenton, somehow became a childhood sweetheart of Clifford Neergaard, who lived in Manhattan, supports the family lore that Caroline and her mother Joanna Gould Westcott were frequent visitors to the Gould mansion, on 5th Avenue in Manhattan (the Neergaard family lived and ran their pharmacy on 28th Street just east of Fifth Avenue, a half mile south of Jay Gould's residence).  Carrie's relationship with Clifford which, after a ten-year hiatus, ended in marriage, adds credence to the story that there was indeed an Isaac-Jay Gould family connection which led to frequent and extended visits between Joanna Westcott née Gould, and Jay Gould, and consequently to contact between Joanna's daughter Caroline and the Neergaard Pharmacy, where Caroline met Clifford and their relationship began.


Family lore is that Caroline and her mother Joanna Gould Westcott were frequent visitors to the Gould mansion on 5th Avenue in Manhattan.  Carrie's relationship with Clifford Neergaard, which after a ten-year hiatus ended in marriage, adds credence to this story.  Carrie and Joanna lived in Trenton, not a casual journey from Manhattan in those days, but the Gould residence was only a half mile north of where the Neergaard family lived and ran their pharmacy on 28th Street just east of Fifth Avenue. a proximity which quite probably provided the occasion for the couple to meet.   This supports this piece of family lore and by extension, the story that there was indeed an Isaac-Jay Gould family connection.



HAMPTON's

Amie Harris Hampton - d 1849

Daughter of Dr John Hampton and Mercie Harris;  wife of Judge James Diamont Westcott, had 13 children:  Maria, Hampton, William. John, Gideon. Richard, Emma, George, Beyser, Isaac, James II, Clinton, and Rachel.  Colonial Dames' headquarters in Georgetown was Amie's home.  Legend on Byzantine silhou-ettes of Amie and James Westcott, done 1803 in Washington DC, says she died Oct 19 184(7?).

Mercie Harris
    
Wife of Dr John Hampton, child Amie Harris Hampton.  A note from an unidentified writer says:  "There exists a snuffbox with the engraving 'Mercy Westcott'.  A letter found inside the box from Aunt Nina [whose aunt is not stated, but the handwriting of the note is relatively contemporary, so it probably was written to Nina Westcott, daughter of Thomas Grant Westcott] says:  'This snuff box made by my grandfather, Lt Hampton Westcott, for his grandmother".  But Mercy Harris married a Westcott, not a Hampton.  The implication is that the records are somehow crossed:   or, Lt Hampton made the box as a kid and got his grandmas' names switched.

Dr John Hampton
  
Son of William T Hampton (whose father was Sir Adrian Hampton) and Amie Du Val.  Married to Mercie Harris, had daughter Amie Harris Hampton.  Was a surgeon in Colonel Seeley's Battalion during the Revolution [Reference: "Jerseymen in the Revolution"].  His daughter's husband's father, Captain John Westcott, was also in Seeley's Battalion.

Sir Adrian Hampton
Colonial governor of New Jersey, married to Lady Margaret Cummins, son Dr John Hampton.  Data on Hampton Family descendants are taken from "History of Fairfield, NJ".

Compiled by R H Neergaard,    12/1/91