NOTES on
INDIVIDUALS of the GOULD - WESTCOTT branch of the family
WESTCOTTs
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.
The other children of Susan and Walter Hoke were: Hampton (married Charlotte, had a son
Hampton "Hampy" Hoke Jr);
Yolande ("Yoyo" married Gordon, children Jinks and Larry), and
Virginia ("Nina", who married William A Newcomb, had a son William A
Newcomb who married Susan Hester, children Geoffrey and Sylvia).
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, architect and professor, 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 Comptroller and 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, Hampton 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
Hoke 1863-1933
Daughter of Thomas Grant Westcott and Joanna Sackett Gould, married to
Dr. Walter Hoke; children: Hampton (married Charlotte, had a son
Hampton "Hampy" Hoke Jr);
Walter, married Dora Crawford;
Yolande ("Yoyo" married Gordon, children Jinks, Yolande 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 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 NJ 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 who set up his practice in
Bordeaux. After his marriage to
Susan, they moved to France where their four children were born, and where for
several years starting around 1910, the couple took in Susan's younger sister
Caroline and Caroline's son Clifford Gould, after Caroline's marriage to
Clifford Jones de Neergaard broke 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 Westcott's second marriage, to William Grant Cook. Both the Grants and the Cooks were
wealthy, influential families of Trenton, and there had been previous
intermarriages. Cook, older than
Elizabeth, was a distant cousin whom her father had joined with in
business. Elizabeth's first
husband, Navy Lieutenant Hampton Westcott, had died young, and the second
marriage was forced on her by her father soon after she was widowed. Elizabeth too died relatively young.
Some years later, 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 Thomas Grant Westcott, Susan's father and Grant's grandson from his
daughter's first marriage, in favor of his 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 the plaque -
were demolished in the late 1980's.
Susan's marriage to Walter Hoke eventually failed. First the four children, then Susan
herself, made their ways back to the States, where Susan lived with her widowed
daughter-in-law Dora, together with divorced daughter Nina. Daughter Yolande returned by virtue of
marrying an American Army officer, Major Gordon, she met in 1917 as she was
nursing war-wounded in Bordeaux.
They had their first child in Bordeaux, then she went with him from the
warmth of southern France where she had been born and raised, to Duluth, in mid-winter. Walter Hoke remained in France, and
after Susan eventually died, remarried.
Thomas Grant Westcott 1835-1875
Son of Lieutenant Hampton Westcott, USN. Married (2nd) Joanna Sackett Gould, daughter of Isaac Gould
and Susan Smith Sackett. He and Joanna
had four children: Virginia,
Susan, Hampton, and Caroline.
(First wife was Sarah Head).
He was chief engineer for the South Mountain Railroad, and wrote for
Harper's Bazar (as it was then spelled).
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 Diament 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 and which led to a revamping of the NavyÕs policy on Dueling]
James D Westcott Jr -
Son of Judge James Diament 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. (Nevertheless, his body is interred in Florida.)
His son was a judge of the Supreme Court of Florida. [References: Obits, and Appleton's Cyclopedia of American Biography in
which James Diament 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 Diament 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 Diament 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 1850, so the timing corresponds
with Caroline's notes, but in DŸsseldorf.
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 descendents
as models?
William Westcott -
Son of Judge James Diament 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 Diament Westcott and Amie Harris Hampton. Only notation in family archives: "Went to Texas".
Judge James Diament
Westcott 1775-1841
Son of Captain John Westcott and Sarah Diament, married to Amie Harris
Hampton, had 15 children of whom two died young. The others were Maria, Hampton, William. John, Gideon.
Richard, Emma, George, Beyser, Isaac, James II, Clinton, and Rachel.
First 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 15 children.
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 Diament
Westcott, lived next door. A warm
friendship sprang up between the two families; Elizabeth was the same age as Martha Washington's Curtis
grandchildren.
When Elizabeth was a houseguest at Mt Vernon, she authored a 6/27/1796
letter home, a young woman reporting somewhat breathlessly on her sojourn 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 Diament, 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 commissioned
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 Abigail, 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 Lyttleton whose father Sir
Thomas Lyttleton of Worchestershire, was the 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]
GOULDs
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, which 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"; the 1850 census lists her as Hannah.
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 the Gould family is related to the
financier Jay Gould (b1836 Roxbury NY-d1892) 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, the source of Jay's anger at the world (father's
fate unexplained). 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 well-established fact that Susan Smith Sackett Gould's
grand-daughter Carrie Westcott, who lived in Trenton, somehow became a
childhood sweetheart of Clifford Neergaard who lived in New York City, suggests
that Carrie might have been a frequent visitor to the part of Manhattan where
the Neergaard family had their home and ran their pharmacy: 28th Street just east of Fifth Avenue. This was less than a mile south of Jay
Gould's 5th avenue mansion, visiting which might have been the reason for
Carrie and her mother Joanna Gould Westcott to travel to New York. The unlikelihood that Carrie's
relationship with Clifford (which, after a ten-year hiatus ended in marriage)
developed out of just casual shopping trips to New York in those days of
daunting logistics, and the proximity of the Neergaard-Gould residences in
Manhattan, combine to add credence to the story that there was indeed an
Isaac-Jay Gould family connection which led to frequent and extended visits
between Joanna Westcott nŽe 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.
HAMPTONs
Amie Harris Hampton -1849
Daughter of Dr John Hampton and Mercie Harris; wife of Judge James Diament 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 silhouettes 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 was 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.
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, New Jersey".
Warranted Midshipman 5/10/1829, entered Navy in 1823. Died aboard the USS John Adams and was
buried at sea.
Caroline Westcott Neergaard's DAR application gives Westcott's year of
death as 1836.
Reference: account of his
life was given in The New Jersey State Gazette, Trenton, 5/12/1837. ("U.
S. Gazette" is also noted).
Marriage certificate says they were married Wednesday the Twenty-Ninth
of August 1832.
[Obits; extended article
on notorious duel in which he was involved as second. The scandal brought about a fundamental change in the policy
of the Department of the Navy regarding dueling, essentially forbidding what
had heretofore been considered an ÒhonorableÓ recourse]
Wife of Lt Hampton Westcott.
She was forced by her father to remarry, to William G Cook, after she
had been widowed. She named one of
her sons with William Cook after her late husband, Lt Hampton Westcott. She was unhappy in this second marriage
and died young of a stroke.
Cook was her cousin, degree unspecified, but may have been second, if
James Grant, who
Emigrated from Scotland to Trenton where he founded a line of
prosperous farmers, was the
brother of Phillip Grant, who was also an early settler of New Jersey.
Cook was the mortgage holder for properties of Elizabeth Grant's 1st
Cousin Garret Schenk.
When Schenck died of malaria in the Civil War, Cook foreclosed.
RHN 8/25/92