BIOGRAPHY: Schuyler Livingston; New York co., NY
surname: Livingston

submitted by Elizabeth Burns (burns at asu.edu) 
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Submitted Date: June 1,2005
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Author: Walter Barrett

Schuyler Livingston
Page 72
Old Merchants, 
By Walter Barrett, 
Thomas R. Knox, 1885

Last Sunday evening I was walking up Greenwich Street and when I reached No. 
337, I stopped and looked at the old house, once in a fashionable locality, 
and occupied by one of the first merchants of the city, Schuyler Livingston.  
I saw him only a few weeks since, as he tottered along the street to his 
counting-house in Beaver Street and complained of rheumatism. On Monday, the 
2nd of September he died at Whitestone, Long Island, He was 58 years old.

Mr. Livingston was very much pleased with what I had written about him. I do 
not think he ever had as much said about him before or since. Schuyler 
Livingston was a true New York merchant. He was educated to it, serving a 
regular clerkship of five years, as nearly all of our great shipping merchants 
have done.

In 1819 when he was sixteen years old, he entered the counting-house of Henry 
and George Barclay.  This house had been in business about five years, having 
commenced just after the war.  Their office was at No. 3, in the famous 
Phoenix stores, that stood at the corner of Water and Wall Streets, as late as 
1830.

There were three of the Barclay brothers--Henry, George and Anthony.  They 
were sons of Colonel Thomas Barclay, who was Consul General of Great Britain 
for the Eastern States, appointed after the War of 1812.

This firm was continued for some years. In 1824, when Schuyler Livingston 
became of age, he was taken in a partner but his name did not appear, nor was 
the style of the firm changed from H. & G. Barclay until 1834, when it became 
Barclay and Livingston. This change was owing to the law passed and no name of 
a person should be kept in a firm when he was not in it.  Henry Barclay had 
removed from New York to Saugerties some years pervious and the brother 
Anthony, (afterwards British Consul) with George Barclay, made the firm of 
Barclay and Livingston. The last firm has continued to this day, George 
Barclay being in it.

They were the agents of "Lloyds" London. For nearly half a century this house 
has done business and for forty years Schuyler Livingston was its main pillar.

That man's whole life from boyhood was devoted to the mercantile profession.  
He had no ambition outside of it. In forty-three years, since he swept out the 
office as under clerk, he has not probably been out of New York over a week at 
a time.

To rise early in the morning, to get breakfast, to go downtown to the
counting-house of the firm, to open and read letters--to go out and do some
business, either at the Custom House or elsewhere, until twelve, then to take
a lunch and a glass of wine at Delmonico's or a few raw oysters at Downings,
to sign checks and attend to the finances until half past one, to go on
change; to return to the counting-house and remain until time to go to dinner
and in the old time when such things as "packet nights" existed, to stay
downtown until ten or eleven at night, and then go home and go to bed--this
for forty three years had been the twenty four hour circle for Mr. Livingston. 
The credit of his house--it's standing at home and abroad--was dearer to his
heart than all the national difficulties of Europe.  He thoroughly understood
his business and never neglected it.

The Evening Post said of him on his death, "He was a man of great
intelligence, probity and kindness of heart.  In politics he was always a 
staunch democrat and though always refusing office, he was for many years 
prominent in the councils of party.  By his death the city loses another of 
those merchants of the old school who made her name and her wealth and 
enterprise known the world over.