Robert Fulton Cutting

Robert Fulton Cutting (June 27, 1852 – September 21, 1934), was an American financier and philanthropist known as "the first citizen of New York." Cutting and his brother William started the sugar beet industry in the United States in 1888.[1]

Robert Fulton Cutting
Born	(1852-06-27)June 27, 1852 New York City, New York, U.S.
Died	September 21, 1934(1934-09-21) (aged 82) Tuxedo Park, New York, U.S.
Alma mater	Columbia University
Occupation	Real estate developer, sugar beet refiner
Spouse(s)	Nathalie Charlotte Pendelton Schenck ​ ( m. 1874; died 1875) Helen Suydam ​ ( m. 1883; died 1919)
Children	7
Parent(s)	Fulton Cutting Elise Justine Bayard
Relatives	William Bayard Cutting (brother) Francis B. Cutting (uncle)

Early life

Cutting was born in New York City on January 12, 1850. He was the second son of Fulton Cutting (1816–1875) and Elise Justine (née Bayard) Cutting (1823–1852).[2] He was the younger brother of William Bayard Cutting, also a financier.[3]

His paternal grandparents were William Cutting (1773–1820) and Gertrude Livingston (1778–1864),[4] the sister of Henry Walter Livingston, a U.S. Representative from New York, and the daughter of Walter Livingston, the 1st Speaker of the New York State Assembly.[2] He was the nephew of Francis Brockholst Cutting,[2] also a U.S. Representative from New York.[5] His maternal grandfather, Robert Bayard, was Robert Fulton's partner. Cutting and Fulton were brothers-in-law who had married Livingston sisters. Cutting ancestors included members from the Bayard, Schuyler and Van Cortlandt families of colonial New York.[6]

Cutting graduated from Columbia University.[1]

Career

In 1888, Cutting and his brother William started the sugar beet industry in the United States.[1]

In 1895, Cutting and his brother laid out a golf course at Westbrook, known to be the first private golf course in the United States.[7]

Society life and philanthropy

Cutting was a member of the Century Club, City Club of New York, and the Tuxedo Club, among others.[8] He also served as president of Cooper Union, the Society for the Improvement Condition of the Poor, and the Metropolitan Opera and Real Estate Company.[9] Along with his brother, he was a member of the Jekyll Island Club.[10]

He was known for his fight against Tammany Hall and Republican party bosses.[10] In 1897, he formed the Citizens Union, an organization that studied political issues, developed policies, and presented them to the public to influence politics, particularly around elections. This later became the Bureau of Municipal Research.[1] He was also a vestryman at St. George's Church in Stuyvesant Square.[11]

Personal life

Cutting's home at 24 East 67th Street (demolished in 1962)

Cutting was married twice. His first marriage was to Nathalie Charlotte Pendleton Schenck (1852–1875) on June 9, 1874.[12] She was the daughter of Noah Hunt Schenck and Anna Pierce (née Pendleton) Schenck, and the sister of Anna Pendleton Schenck, who established the first female architectural firm in New York City along with Marcia Mead.[13] She died a year after their marriage, and they were the parents of one son:[14]

• Robert Bayard Cutting (1875–1918),[10] a Harvard graduate who died in Paris during World War I.[15]

After her death, he married secondly to Helen Suydam (1858–1919), the daughter of Charles Suydam and Anna White (née Schermerhorn) Suydam,[16] on January 25, 1883.[17] His wife was the sister of Walter Lispenard Suydam, the granddaughter of Abraham Schermerhorn, and the niece of Caroline Schermerhorn, who was married to William Backhouse Astor Jr..[18] Together, they were the parents of:

• Helen Suydam Cutting (1883–1971),[19] who married Lucius Kellogg Wilmerding Jr. (1880–1949).[20][21]
• Elisabeth McEvers Cutting (b. 1885),[22] who married Dr. Stafford McLean in 1916.[23] She later married Neville Jay Booker.[24]
• Robert Fulton Cutting (1886–1967), who married Mary Josephine Amory (1887–1971) in 1914.[25]
• Charles Suydam Cutting (1889–1972),[22] who was the first white Christian to ever enter the Forbidden City in Lhasa.[26]
• Ruth Hunter Cutting (1896–1948), who married Reginald LaGrange Auchincloss (1891–1984), brother of U.S. Representative James Coats Auchincloss.[20]
• Schermerhorn Cutting (1897–1897), who died young.[22]

In 1884, he purchased 724 Fifth Avenue along "Vanderbilt Row" as a home for his family in Manhattan. In 1895, however, Cutting purchased property further uptown and hired Ernest Flagg to design a new residence located at 24 East 67th Street, at the corner of Madison Avenue.[14] He also acquired a home in 1889 in the exclusive Tuxedo Park community,[8] a large residence designed by Bruce Price in 1887 and located on Tower Hill Road at the intersection of Clubhouse Road and Serpentine Road.[27]

Cutting died, aged 82, at his home in Tuxedo Park on September 21, 1934.[9][28] His funeral was attended by over 500 people and was held at St. Georges, and he was buried at Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, New York.[20] Following his death, Dr. William Jay Schieffelin paid tribute to Cutting during a radio address, stating "Robert Fulton Cutting devoted his life to advance social justice; he early saw that voters should disregard national parties in selecting city officers. New York owes much to his leadership in creating a prevailing public opinion in favor of non-partisan government. He have his devoted service and generous support to the Committee of Seventy, the City Club, the Bureau of Municipal Research and the Citizens Union--of which he was the first chairman."[29]

Notes

1. "The "Father" of the Research Bureau The "Father" Of The Research Bureau". "An Adventure in Democracy". 25 October 2014. Retrieved 10 May 2018.
2. Bergen, Tunis Garret (1915). Genealogies of the State of New York: A Record of the Achievements of Her People in the Making of a Commonwealth and the Founding of a Nation. Lewis Historical Publishing Company. Retrieved 28 July 2017.
3. "W.B. CUTTING DIES ON TRAIN" (PDF). The New York Times. 2 Mar 1912. p. 1. Retrieved February 18, 2013.
4. Livingston, Edwin Brockholst (1901). The Livingstons of Livingston manor; being the history of that branch of the Scottish house of Callendar which settled in the English province of New York during the reign of Charles the Second; and also including an account of Robert Livingston of Albany, "The nephew," a settler in the same province and his principal descendants. New York: The Knickerbocker Press. Retrieved 28 July 2017.
5. "CUTTING, Francis Brockholst - Biographical Information". bioguide.congress.gov. Biographical Directory of the United States Congress. Retrieved 28 July 2017.
6. Columbia University Quarterly Volume 14, 1912, Page 286
7. Lynn Beebe Weaver (September 1973). "National Register of Historic Places Registration: Bayard Cutting Estate". New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation. Retrieved 2010-02-20. See also: "Accompanying six photos".
8. Who's Who in the World, 1912. International Who's Who Publishing Company. 1912. p. 342. Retrieved 10 May 2018.
9. "FULTON CUTTING, N.Y. REAL ESTATE HEAD, DIES AT 82 -- Noted for Philanthropic Activities". Chicago Tribune. September 22, 1934. p. 16. Retrieved 10 May 2018.
10. Hutto, Richard Jay (2005). The Jekyll Island Club Members. Indigo Custom Publishing. p. 43. ISBN 9780977091225. Retrieved 10 May 2018.
11. "DIED. CUTTING--Robert Fulton" (PDF). The New York Times. 23 September 1934. Retrieved 10 May 2018.
12. "Married. Cutting-Schenck" (PDF). The New York Times. 11 June 1874. Retrieved 10 May 2018.
13. "Miss Anna P. Schenck, Architect, Dies" (PDF). New York Times. April 30, 1915. Retrieved 2014-01-20.
14. Miller, Tom (26 March 2012). "Daytonian in Manhattan: The Lost 1899 R. Fulton Cutting Mansion -- No. 24 East 67th Street". Daytonian in Manhattan. Retrieved 10 May 2018.
15. "R.B. CUTTING DIES IN FRANCE; New Yorker Was a Y.M.C.A. Officer Worker in War Service" (PDF). The New York Times. 5 April 1918. Retrieved 10 May 2018.
16. "DIED. Cutting" (PDF). The New York Times. June 20, 1919. Retrieved January 14, 2018.
17. "MARRIED. Cutting--Suydam" (PDF). The New York Times. January 27, 1883. Retrieved January 14, 2018.
18. "William Astor Is Dead; Stricken Suddenly at the Hotel Liverpool, Paris. He Leaves a Fortune of Many Mill- Ions -- John Jacob Astor Will Inherit It -- the Body Will Be Brought Home for Burial" (PDF). The New York Times. April 27, 1892. Retrieved January 14, 2018.
19. "Mrs. Wilmerding". The New York Times. 25 March 1971. Retrieved 10 May 2018.
20. "NOTABLES MOURN FOR R.F. CUTTING; Funeral of Philanthropist and Financier Held at St. George's Church" (PDF). The New York Times. 25 September 1934. Retrieved 10 May 2018.
21. "L. WILMERDING, 69, STOCKBROKER HERE; Banker, Former Limited Partner in Harris, Upham & Co. Dies.---Aided Philanthropies" (PDF). The New York Times. 16 July 1949. Retrieved 10 May 2018.
22. Moffat, R. Burnham (1904). The Barclays of New York: who They are and who They are Not,-and Some Other Barclays. R. G. Cooke. p. 205. Retrieved 10 May 2018.
23. "MARRIED. McLean--Cutting" (PDF). The New York Times. 16 June 1916. Retrieved 10 May 2018.
24. "Neville Booker Will Probated". The Courier-News. July 23, 1953. Retrieved 10 May 2018.
25. "MISS AMORY, BRIDE OF FULTON CUTTING; Society Attends Nuptials of New Yorker and Daughter of Francis I. Amory of Boston. IN ST. PETER'S, BEVERLY Bishop Lawrence Officiates -- Suydam Cutting His Brother's Best Man -- Couple to Live in Tuxedo" (PDF). The New York Times. 23 June 1914. Retrieved 10 May 2018.
26. "C. Suydam Cutting, Who Made Historic Visit to Tibet, Is Dead" (PDF). The New York Times. 25 August 1972. Retrieved 10 May 2018.
27. "Building-structure inventory form: Robert Fulton Cutting :: Tuxedo Park Library". www.hrvh.org. Village of Tuxedo Park National Register of Historic Places Inventory. Retrieved 10 May 2018.
28. Dunn, Elwood D.; Beyan, Amos J.; Burrowes, Carl Patrick (December 20, 2000). Historical Dictionary of Liberia. Scarecrow Press. ISBN 9781461659310. Retrieved 30 April 2017.
29. "SCHIEFFELIN PAYS TRIBUTE TO CUTTING; Cites, in Radio Talk, Civic Worker's Activities in Behalf of Good Government" (PDF). The New York Times. 2 October 1934. Retrieved 10 May 2018.

External links

• Robert Fulton Cutting at Find a Grave