purchased, September 28, 1748, from the two sisters of his wife, (one of whom was Mrs. Rev. Dr. Barclay), the remaining twothirds, thus becoming proprietor of the whole. This was the origin of what has since been known as the Lispenard estate. Lispenard was a large merchant; was Alderman of the city for a dozen or more years; was one of the active members of the Stamp Act Congress, and was connected with nearly all the later important committees. He was a member of the Assembly from 1765 to 1767. He was one of the original members of the Society of the New York Hospital, and one of its first governors from 1770 to 1777. He was, also, Treasurer of King's College for a long period. His country mansion was on Lispenard Hill, a handsome elevation overlooking what was afterwards St. John's Square. The centre of this hill was the present junction of Hudson and Desbrosses streets. He had three children: 1, Leonard; 2, Anthony; 3, Cornelia, who married Thomas Marston, of New York. Leonard Lispenard, Jr., was born in 1743, and was one of nine who graduated from King's College in 1762. He was a merchant and member of the Chamber of Commerce. He travelled exten

sively in Europe, and was spoken of as a man of fine education and intelligence; and great symmetry of character. He was the proprietor of the property known as "Davenport's Neck," in New Rochelle, where he had a summer residence. He never married. His brother, Anthony, married his cousin Sarah, daughter of Andrew Barclay (merchant), and niece of Rev. Dr. Barclay. He, Anthony, was proprietor of extensive breweries and mills on the Greenwich road, near the present foot of Canal street. He had six children, three sons and three daughters. They were: 1, Leonard (3d), who married his cousin (their mothers were both daughters of Andrew Barclay), Anna Dorothea, daughter of Theophylact Bache, and left four children; 2, Anthony, Jr., died unmarried; 3, Thomas, died unmarried; 4, Helena Roosevelt, married Paul Bache, son of Theophylact Bache; 5, Sarah, married Alexander Stewart, of New York, and was the mother of Lispenard Stewart; 6, Alice, died unmarried. The down-town streets, Leonard and Lispenard streets, were so called by the corporation of the city in honor of the family. Bache street, now spelled Beach, which was opened through the Lispenard farm, was named for Paul Bache. The Lispenards sleep in the family vault in Trinity

Churchyard. The honored name is now merged in the families of Stewart, Webb, Nicholson, Livingston, Le Roy, and Winthrop, who are among the descendents in the direct line.

Thus much for the Lispenards. My present wife, mother of my five younger children, is a direct descendent of that John Cram, who, in 1639, in company with others of "the Exeter Combination," settled New Hampshire; and the farm he then purchased from the Indians, remained in the family until since my marriage to Laura Cram, in 1849; when, upon the death of the last of her uncles, it was sold to settle the estate. Her father, Jacob Cram, was the class-mate of Daniel Webster, and Lewis Cass, at the Exeter Academy; and was educated for the church; but preferred a business career, and died, in 1869, one of the best known and among the wealthiest of our Merchant Princes. Upon the death of his cousin, Porter Cram, celebrated as one of the ablest leaders of the anti-slavery crusade, the Boston Advertiser said of him :

"Porter Cram was descended from an ancestor, who began the planting of New Hampshire with John Wheelwright, the schoolmate of Cromwell and William Wentworth, the kinsman of Strafford; he was born and died within a league of where his first ancestor bought his farm from the Indian sagamore of Piscataqua; and he spent his life in maintaining the simple framework of good goverment which John Cram, of Exeter, joined in building, under Wheelwright's direction. The Roman would have been proud, who could trace his ancestry to Romulus, and the legendary Æneas of Troy, by as clear a connection as the New England farmers can show between themselves and the founders of a government more powerful, and soon to be more universal than that of Rome.

"The Exeter combination' of 1639, as original and equitable as the Mayflower compact, bound John Cram and the other 'brethren of the church of Exeter, to erect and set up amongst us, such government as shall be to our best discerning, agreeable to the will of God;' and to submit themselves to such godly and Christian laws as are established in the realm of England,-and to all other such laws which shall, upon good grounds, be made and enacted amongst us, according to God.' This agreement was well

kept by the generations that succeeded, and by none more strictly or cheerfully, than by Porter Cram, who was always ready to assist in the administration of justice and preservation of the peace with body and goods and best endeavors, according to God,' as his pioneer forefathers made oath."

"The conspicuous occasion to do yeoman service, in the cause of liberty and good government, came to my old friend and political instructor, in 1845, when the slave power made its first great stride towards despotism in America, by the annexation of Texas."