Lt. Gov. Lewis Stuyvesant Chanler, Sr.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_Stuyvesant_Chanler

Lewis Stuyvesant Chanler (September 24, 1869, Newport, Rhode Island — February 28, 1942) was a New York lawyer and politician.

Early life

He was a son of John Winthrop Chanler and Margaret Astor Ward of the Astor family. Lewis had nine brothers and sisters, including the artist Robert Winthrop Chanler and the soldier and explorer William Astor Chanler. His sister Margaret Livingston Chanler served as a nurse with the American Red Cross during the Spanish-American War. Chanler's eldest brother John Armstrong Chanler married novelist Amélie Rives Troubetzkoy. Chanler and his siblings became orphans after the death of their mother in 1875 and their father in 1877, both to pneumonia. The children were raised at their parents' estate in Rokeby (Barrytown, New York).

He attended Columbia University and graduated in 1891. Then he attended Cambridge University, matriculating in 1894. He became a lawyer, and practiced in New York.

Political career

He was elected Lieutenant Governor of New York in 1906 on the combined ticket of the Democratic Party and the Independence League, defeating the incumbent M. Linn Bruce, although his running mate William Randolph Hearst was defeated in his quest for the governorship by Republican Charles Evans Hughes. As the sitting lieutenant governor, he ran as the Democratic candidate for Governor against the incumbent Hughes in 1908 and was defeated. This candidacy was opposed by Hearst, who lampooned him in a series of cartoons.

While a resident of Barrytown, Dutchess County, New York, he was a member of the New York State Assembly (Dutchess Co., 2nd D.) in 1910, 1911 and 1912. Franklin D. Roosevelt had at first thought of running for this seat in the assembly, but Chanler refused to give it up. Thus, Roosevelt ran in November 1910 for the senate instead.

About 1920, Chanler and his first wife divorced and the next year he married Julia Lynch Olin, also a recent divorcee with two daughters of her own. The family bought a new home at 132 East 65th Street, in New York City. This house was later christened Caravan House.

He died in 1942 at his home in New York City. His obituary appeared in the New York Times on Mar 4. His funeral was conducted at St Mark's-in-the-Bouwerie by Rev. C.A.W. Brocklebank. After the scriptural reading, Mirza Ahmad Sohrab read from "the service for the departed" of the Bahá'í religion. Chanler was buried at St Paul's Churchyard in Glen Cove, Long Island.

Marriages and Children

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_Stuyvesant_Chanler#Marriages_and...