Roosevelt family
The Roosevelt family is an American business and political family from New York whose members have included two United States Presidents, a First Lady, various merchants, inventors, clergymen and socialites. Progeny of a mid-17th century Dutch immigrant to New Amsterdam, many members of the family became locally prominent in New York City business and politics and intermarried with prominent colonial families. Two distantly related branches of the family from Oyster Bay on Long Island and Hyde Park in Dutchess County rose to national political prominence with the elections of Presidents Theodore Roosevelt and his fifth cousin Franklin D. Roosevelt, whose wife, First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, was Theodore's niece; the earliest known ancestor of the family was a man from the Netherlands named Claes van Rosenvelt. It has been suggested that he was related to the Van Roosevelts of Oud-Vossemeer, who were amt lords in the Tholen region of the Netherlands. While evidence suggests that Claes van Rosenvelt indeed came from the Tholen region where the Van Roosevelts were landowners, no records exist that prove that he is related to the noble family.
It may be a coincidence, or Claes van Rosenvelt may have chosen the name purposefully because of its noble origins or to honor his local amt lord, as was common practice for peasants of the time. Claes Martenszen van Rosenvelt, the immigrant ancestor of the Roosevelt family, arrived in New Amsterdam some time between 1638 and 1649. About the year 1652, he bought a farm from Lambert van Valckenburgh comprising 24 morgens in what is now Midtown Manhattan, including the present site of the Empire State Building; the property included what is now the area between Lexington Avenue and Fifth Avenue bounded by 29th St. and 35th St. Claes' son Nicholas was the first to use the spelling Roosevelt and the first to hold political office, as an alderman. Nicholas' children Johannes and Jacobus were the progenitors of the Oyster Bay and Hyde Park branches of the family. By the late 19th century, the Hyde Park Roosevelts were associated with the Democratic Party and the Oyster Bay Roosevelts with the Republican Party.
President Theodore Roosevelt, an Oyster Bay Roosevelt, was the uncle of Eleanor Roosevelt wife of Franklin Roosevelt. Despite political differences that caused family members to campaign against each other, the two branches remained friendly. In heraldry, canting arms are a visual or pictorial depiction of a surname, were and still are a popular practice, it would be common to find roses in the arms of many Roosevelt families unrelated ones. Grassy mounds or fields of green would be a familiar attribute; the Van Roosevelts of Oud-Vossemeer in Zeeland have a coat of arms, divided horizontally, the top portion with a white chevron between three white roses, while the bottom half is gold with a red lion rampant. A traditional blazon suggested would be, Per fess vert a chevron between three roses argent and Or a lion rampant gules; the coat of arms of the namesakes of the Dutch immigrant Claes van Rosenvelt, ancestor of the American political family that included Theodore and Franklin D. Roosevelt, were white with a rosebush with three rose flowers growing upon a grassy mound, whose crest was of three ostrich feathers divided into red and white halves each.
In heraldic terms this would be described as, Argent upon a grassy mound a rose bush proper bearing three roses gules barbed and seeded all proper, with a crest upon a torse argent and gules of Three ostrich plumes each per pale gules and argent. Franklin Roosevelt altered his arms to omit the rosebush and use in its place three crossed roses on their stems, changing the blazon of his shield to Three roses one in pale and two in saltire gules barbed seeded slipped and left proper; the Roosevelts - 2014 PBS documentary Notes Further readingCobb, William T.. The Strenuous Life: The Oyster Bay Roosevelts in Business and Finance. William E. Rudge's Sons. Collier, Peter; the Roosevelts: An American Saga. Simon & Schuster. ISBN 0-671-65225-7. Hubert, Philip G.. The Merchants' National Bank of the City of New York. Schriftgiesser, Karl; the Amazing Roosevelt Family, 1613–1942. Wildred Funk, Inc. Scoville, Joseph A.. The Old Merchants of New York City. New York, NY: Carlton. Whittelsey, Charles B.. The Roosevelt Genealogy, 1649–1902.
Booknotes interview with Peter Collier on The Roosevelts: An American Saga, August 7, 1994. Booknotes interview with Betty Boyd Caroli on The Roosevelt Women, May 9, 1999. Booknotes interview with Susan Dunn on The Three Roosevelts: Patrician Leaders Who Transformed America, May 6, 2001
Astor, Florida
Astor is an unincorporated community and census-designated place in Lake County, United States, located on the west side of the St. Johns River between Lake George and Lake Dexter; the community straddles State Road 40, with the community of Volusia in Volusia County across the St. Johns to the east and Astor Park to the west; the population was 1,487 at the 2000 census. It is part of the Orlando–Kissimmee–Sanford Metropolitan Statistical Area. Astor is located at 29°10′N 81°32′W. According to the United States Census Bureau, the CDP has a total area of 2.5 square miles, all land Astor lies within the boundaries of the Ocala National Forest. Astor is accessible by land via State Road 40, the main highway through the community. State Road 40 bisects the Ocala National Forest, approaching Astor from the west and continuing east over the Astor Bridge across the St. Johns River to Volusia, in Volusia County; the Astor area and much of the land along the St. Johns River was inhabited by Timucua natives prior to settlement by Europeans.
Early attempts at settlement included an English trading post in 1763, in 1822 a plantation growing sugar cane and oranges was established by Jewish immigrant Moses Elias Levy. By 1838 the Seminole Wars had begun and the United States government established Fort Butler to defend the river as the primary route of transportation inside Florida; these earliest efforts at settlement all met with failure due to war or disease, until the 1870s the area was deserted. In 1874, William Backhouse Astor, Jr. from New York City's wealthy Astor family purchased over 12,000 acres of land, upon which he began to establish a town he called Manhattan. New settlers arrived by steamboat to the town which Astor had endowed with a church, botanical garden, free cemetery. William Astor built a hotel, saw mill, a railroad, the St. John's and Lake Eustis Railway, which departed town headed inland towards the communities of Eustis and Leesburg. A few miles to the west of town, a satellite community called Astor Park grew up along the shore of Lake Schimmerhorn.
Over the next twenty years Astor saw his town grow. When William Astor died in 1892, the town was renamed Astor in his honor. John Jacob Astor IV inherited his father William's estate and continued to promote the town and their business interests in Florida. Following his demise in the sinking of the RMS Titanic in 1912, the estate passed to his son, Vincent. William Vincent Astor was not interested in his grandfather's Florida enterprises, so the Astor family's interests in the area were sold. This, combined with a severe decline in steamboat travel on the St. Johns due to increased availability of rail travel signaled the end of the town's prosperity and prominence; the first Astor Bridge was built in 1926. Today the community of Astor is reliant upon tourism, is a popular spot for winter visitors from the north and fishing and boating enthusiasts; as of the census of 2000, there were 1,487 people, 641 households, 444 families residing in the CDP. The population density was 603.3 people per square mile.
There were 1,027 housing units at an average density of 416.6/sq mi. The racial makeup of the CDP was 96.97% White, 0.67% African American, 0.81% Native American, 0.07% Pacific Islander, 1.21% from other races, 0.27% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 9.15% of the population. There were 641 households out of which 20.3% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 55.2% were married couples living together, 7.6% had a female householder with no husband present, 30.7% were non-families. 24.3% of all households were made up of individuals and 12.6% had someone living alone, 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.32 and the average family size was 2.68. In the CDP, the population was spread out with 19.9% under the age of 18, 5.2% from 18 to 24, 20.4% from 25 to 44, 30.6% from 45 to 64, 23.8% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 48 years. For every 100 females, there were 97.0 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 93.7 males.
The median income for a household in the CDP was $31,284, the median income for a family was $31,786. Males had a median income of $22,074 versus $20,949 for females; the per capita income for the CDP was $14,467. About 9.2% of families and 12.5% of the population were below the poverty line, including 15.3% of those under age 18 and 6.7% of those age 65 or over
Astor Row
Astor Row is the name given to 28 row houses on the south side of West 130th Street, between Fifth and Lenox Avenues in the Harlem neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City, which were among the first speculative townhouses built in the area. Designed by Charles Buek, the houses were built between 1880 and 1883 in three spurts, on land John Jacob Astor had purchased in 1844 for $10,000. Astor's grandson, William Backhouse Astor, Jr. was the driving force behind the development. The design of the three-story brick, single-family houses is unusual, in that they are set back from the street, all have front and side yards – an oddity in Manhattan – as well as wooden porches; the first group of houses, numbers 8 through 22, comprises freestanding pairs, while the remainder, numbers 24 through 60, are connected together at the rear. The Astor Row houses were designated New York City Landmarks on August 11, 1981; when William Backhouse Astor died, the houses were divided among his grandchildren: Mary and Sarah Van Alen.
Ownership stayed in the Astor family until 1911, when the westernmost 10 of the houses were sold to real estate investor Max Marx, who traded them in part for an apartment building in Washington Heights. The new owners, the Brown Realty Company, defaulted on their mortgage, the houses passed to the New York Savings Bank. In 1920, the houses were described by a reporter for The New York Times as "one of the most attractive and exclusive home centers" in Harlem, presenting "a picture of domestic tranquility and comfort which few other blocks in the city possess." The Astor Row townhouses rented for $1,100 per year and were so popular that for years there was a waiting list for them. The townhouses were occupied by whites, but in 1920, 20 of the 28 houses – the 10 owned by New York Savings Bank, plus 10 still owned by the Astors – were purchased by James Cruikshank, a real estate operator and leased to black tenants; the houses were not well maintained, the porches were lost. In 1978, the second edition of the AIA Guide to New York City described the row as having "restrained beauty, tarnished by years of economic distress."
In 1981, New York City designated the entire row as landmarks, money was raised to restore their facades, improve their plumbing, heating systems, electrical lines where needed. The group overseeing and financing the work included the New York Landmarks Conservancy, New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission, the Vincent Astor Foundation, Manhattan Community Board 10, the Abyssinian Development Corporation, the Commonwealth Fund, the New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development, several local banks. In 1992, Ella Fitzgerald performed at a benefit at Radio City Music Hall to raise money for the restoration. By the end of the 1990s, the porches and other decorative elements had been restored to all the buildings on the block. In August 2009, The New York Times would write "the block is at the center of an intense but, as yet, unfinished revival of the surrounding streets in Central Harlem." The restoration of the row was overseen by Roberta Li/Saltzman. In his novel Home to Harlem, Claude McKay described Astor Row as "the block beautiful."
List of New York City Landmarks Adams, Michael Henry. Harlem: Lost and Found. Monacelli. P. 103. Gill, Brendan. "The Sky Line: On Astor Row". The New Yorker. P. 51. "Past & Present On Astor Row in Harlem, Two Restorations Stand As Reminders Of What Once Was". Newsday. October 8, 1992. P. 77. Media related to Astor Row at Wikimedia Commons
Ferncliff Forest
Ferncliff Forest is a 200-acre old-growth forest preserve of deciduous and hemlock trees located in Rhinebeck, a town in the northern part of Dutchess County, New York, USA. The property was bought by John Jacob Astor IV in 1900 and remained in the Astor family until 1963, when it was donated as a forest preserve and game refuge; the preserve is maintained by a private, non-profit organization. Towers on the property were used for map-making, surveillance for President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's home during World War II, as well as recreational sight-seeing. Visitors can hike the four miles of trails free-of-charge; the most built fire tower in Ferncliff Forest measures 80 feet tall, with 109 steps. It was erected in the first since 1941 in New York. In 1942, the observation towers in Ferncliff Forest were manned by soldiers from the Army Air Corp 24 hours a day; the newest tower was constructed as a gift for the community for recreational purposes including hiking and mountain biking with an intricate trail system.
Before the establishment of Ferncliff Forest, individual farms made up the landscape of the east Hudson River. In 1853, William Backhouse Astor Jr. purchased several of these farms. His mother had grown up a few miles north of this property area in Rokeby. A neighboring property of 125 acres hosted a farm colony; this property was donated to the Methodist Church as a retreat for members of the clergy, becoming known as the Mount Rutsen farm colony. When the colony was failing in 1900, 106 acres were sold to John Jacob Astor IV for $5,500, adding to the property that he owned. After his death on the Titanic in 1912, the farm property was inherited by his son, William Vincent Astor who continued to expand the property by purchasing adjacent land. By 1940, William Vincent Astor had 2,800 acres reaching down to the Hudson River. After his death in 1959, Ferncliff Farm was left to Brooke Russell Astor, she was asked by Homer Staley Sr in 1963 to donate the land to the Rhinebeck Rotary club for a Forest Preserve/Game Refuge and for it to be deemed "Forever Wild".
In 1972 the Rhinebeck Rotary formed a 501c3 non-for-profit organization named "Ferncliff Forest inc" Ferncliff Forest inc is controlled by a board of directors and relies on donations and fundraisers for funding, a wish of its founder Homer Knickerboker Staley, Sr. At the highest point of Ferncliff Forest, 350 feet above sea level, an old stone observation tower was built by the Astors. A second tower was built for the U. S. National Geodetic Survey to help with map-making; the second tower was built during World War II by the Army Corp of Engineers as a watch tower. This enclosed tower contained a telephone as well as utilities for full-time occupation so that enemy planes could be spotted; this tower was useful in watching out for planes attempting to attack President Roosevelt's home and those approaching New York City. After the war, the tower was purely recreational. In 2006, the tower was replaced in 2007 by the current observation tower. Ferncliff Forest was featured in the New York Times in a 2008 article about scenic views of the Hudson Valley, along with four other locations along the river.
In 2010, restoration efforts began to clean and improve the health of a 100-year-old pond in the forest. Weeds had made the pond uninhabitable for fish. Previous projects had cost Ferncliff over $200,000, in 2014 the park began another round of weed removal in the pond. Workers had dug out a 1.5-acre area to place the weeds, to be turned into a field as part of the preserve. In November 2015, an annual 5 km race benefited Ferncliff Forest, raising money for maintaining the preserve; the first race, known as the "Turkey Trot", occurred in 2008. The route ends at the forest. Ferncliff Forest
Hereditary peer
The hereditary peers form part of the peerage in the United Kingdom. As of 2019 there are 814 hereditary peers; the numbers of peers – of England, Ireland, Great Britain, the UK – whose titles are the highest they hold are: dukes, 24. Not all hereditary titles are titles of the peerage. For instance and baronetesses may pass on their titles, but they are not peers. Conversely, the holder of a non-hereditary title may belong to the peerage, as with life peers. Peerages may be created by means of letters patent, but the granting of new hereditary peerages has dwindled. From 1963 to 1999, all peers were entitled to sit in the House of Lords, but since the House of Lords Act 1999 was passed, only 92 are permitted to do so, unless they are life peers. Peers are called to the House of Lords with a writ of summons; the hereditary peerage, as it now exists, combines several different English institutions with analogous ones from Scotland and Ireland. English Earls are an Anglo-Saxon institution. Around 1014, England was divided into shires or counties to defend against the Danes.
When the Normans conquered England, they continued to appoint earls, but not for all counties. Earldoms began with a perquisite of a share of the legal fees in the county. Like most feudal offices, earldoms were inherited, but the kings asked earls to resign or exchange earldoms. There were few Earls in England, they were men of great wealth in the shire from which they held title, or an adjacent one, but it depended on circumstances: during the civil war between Stephen and the Empress Matilda, nine Earls were created in three years. William the Conqueror and Henry II did not make Dukes, but when Edward III of England declared himself King of France, he made his sons Dukes, to distinguish them from other noblemen, much as Royal Dukes are now distinguished from other Dukes. Kings created Marquesses and Viscounts to make finer gradations of honour: a rank something more than an Earl and something less than an Earl, respectively; when Henry III or Edward I wanted money or advice from his subjects, he would order great churchmen and other great men to come to his Great Council.
The English Order of Barons evolved from those men who were individually ordered to attend Parliament, but held no other title. This order, called a writ, was not hereditary, or a privilege. Which men were ordered to Council varied from Council to Council. Under Henry VI of England, in the 15th century, just before the Wars of the Roses, attendance at Parliament became more valuable; the first claim of hereditary right to a writ comes from this reign. The five orders began to be called Peers. Holders of older peerages began to receive greater honour than Peers of the same rank just created. If a man held a peerage, his son would succeed to it. If he had a single daughter, his son-in-law would inherit the family lands, the same Peerage. Customs changed with time. In the 13th century, the husband of the eldest daughter inherited the Earldom automatically. After Henry II became the Lord of Ireland, he and his successors began to imitate the English system as it was in their time. Irish Earls were first created in the 13th century, Irish Parliaments began in the same century.
A writ does not create a peerage in Ireland. After James II left England, he was King of Ireland alone for a time; the Irish peers were in a peculiar political position: because they were subjects of the King of England, but peers in a different kingdom, they could sit in the English House of Commons, many did. In the 18th century, Irish peerages became rewards for English politicians, limited only by the concern that they might go to Dublin and i
Oregon Country
The Oregon Country was a predominantly American term referring to a disputed region of the Pacific Northwest of North America. The region was occupied by British and French Canadian fur traders from before 1810, American settlers from the mid-1830s, with its coastal areas north from the Columbia River frequented by ships from all nations engaged in the maritime fur trade, most of these from the 1790s through 1810s being Boston-based; the Oregon Treaty of 1846 ended disputed joint occupancy pursuant to the Treaty of 1818 and established the British-American boundary at the 49th parallel. Oregon was a distinctly American term for the region; the British used the term Columbia District instead. The Oregon Country consisted of the land north of 42°N latitude, south of 54°40′N latitude, west of the Rocky Mountains—with the eastern border running on or close to the Continental Divide—westwards to the Pacific Ocean; the area now forms part of the present day Canadian province of British Columbia, all of the US states of Oregon and Idaho, parts of Montana and Wyoming.
The British presence in the region was administered by the Hudson's Bay Company, whose Columbia Department comprised most of the Oregon Country and extended north into New Caledonia and beyond 54°40′N, with operations reaching tributaries of the Yukon River. George Vancouver explored Puget Sound in 1792. Vancouver claimed it for Great Britain on 4 June 1792, naming it for one of his officers, Lieutenant Peter Puget. Alexander Mackenzie was the first European to cross North America by land north of New Spain. Arriving at Bella Coola on what is now the Central Coast of British Columbia in 1793. From 1805 to 1806 Meriwether Lewis and William Clark explored the territory for the United States on the Lewis and Clark Expedition. David Thompson, working for the Montreal-based North West Company, explored much of the region beginning in 1807, with his friend and colleague Simon Fraser following the Fraser River to its mouth in 1808, attempting to ascertain whether or not it was the Columbia, as had been theorized about it in its northern reaches through New Caledonia, where it was known by its Dakleh name as the "Tacoutche Tesse".
Thompson was the first European to voyage down the entire length of Columbia River. Along the way, his party camped at the junction with the Snake River on July 9, 1811, he erected a pole and a notice claiming the country for Great Britain and stating the intention of the North West Company to build a trading post on the site. In 1811, on the same expedition, he finished his survey of the entire Columbia, arriving at a constructed Fort Astoria two months after the departure of John Jacob Astor's ill-fated Tonquin; the earliest evidence of the name Oregon has Spanish origins. The term "orejón" comes from the historical chronicle Relación de la Alta y Baja California written by the new Spaniard Rodrigo Motezuma and made reference to the Columbia river when the Spanish explorers penetrated into the actual North American territory that became part of the Viceroyalty of New Spain; this chronicle is the first topographical and linguistic source with respect to the place name Oregon. There are two other sources with Spanish origins such as the name Oregano which grows in the southern part of the region.
It is most probable that the American territory was named by the Spaniards as there are some populations in Spain such as "Arroyo del Oregón", situated in the province of Ciudad Real considering that the individualization in Spanish language "El Orejón" with the mutation of the letter "g" instead of "j". Another subsequent theory is that French Canadian fur company employees called the Columbia River "hurricane river" le fleuve d'ouragan, because of the strong winds of the Columbia Gorge. George R. Stewart argued in a 1944 article in American Speech that the name came from an engraver's error in a French map published in the early 18th century, on which the Ouisiconsink was spelled "Ouaricon-sint", broken on two lines with the -sint below, so that there appeared to be a river flowing to the west named "Ouaricon"; this theory was endorsed in Oregon Geographic Names as "the most plausible explanation". The Oregon Country was claimed by Great Britain, France and Spain; the extent of the region being claimed was vague at first, evolving over decades into the specific borders specified in the US-British treaty of 1818.
The U. S.-based its claim in part on Robert Gray's entry of the Columbia River in 1792 and the Lewis and Clark Expedition. Great Britain based its claim in part on British overland explorations of the Columbia River by David Thompson and on prior discovery and exploration along the Coast. Spain's claim was based on the Inter caetera and Treaty of Tordesillas of 1493–94, as well as explorations of the Pacific coast in the late 18th century. Russia based its claim off its explorations and trading activities in the region and asserted its ownership of the region north of the 51st parallel by the Ukase of 1821, challenged by the other powers and withdrawn to 54°40′N by separate treaties with the US and Britain in 1824 and 1825 respectively. Spain gave up its claims of exclusivity via the Nootka Conventions of the 1790s. In the Nootka Conventions, which followed the Nootka Crisis, Spain granted Britain rights to the Pacific Northwest, although it did not establish a northern boundary for Spanish California, nor did it extinguish Spanish rights to the Pacific Northwest.
Spain relinquished any remaining claims to territory north of the 42nd parallel to the United States as part of the Adams-Onís Treaty of 1819. In the 1820s, Russia gave up its claims south of 54°40′ and east
New York Public Library
The New York Public Library is a public library system in New York City. With nearly 53 million items and 92 locations, the New York Public Library is the second largest public library in the United States and the third largest in the world, it is a private, non-governmental, independently managed, nonprofit corporation operating with both private and public financing. The library has branches in the boroughs of Manhattan, the Bronx, Staten Island and affiliations with academic and professional libraries in the New York metropolitan area; the city's other two boroughs and Queens, are not served by the New York Public Library system, but rather by their respective borough library systems: the Brooklyn Public Library and the Queens Public Library. The branch libraries consist of circulating libraries; the New York Public Library has four research libraries, which are open to the general public. The library chartered as The New York Public Library, Astor and Tilden Foundations, was developed in the 19th century, founded from an amalgamation of grass-roots libraries and social libraries of bibliophiles and the wealthy, aided by the philanthropy of the wealthiest Americans of their age.
The "New York Public Library" name may refer to its Main Branch, recognizable by its lion statues named Patience and Fortitude that sit either side of the entrance. The branch was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1965, listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1966, designated a New York City Landmark in 1967. At the behest of Joseph Cogswell, John Jacob Astor placed a codicil in his will to bequeath $400,000 for the creation of a public library. After Astor's death in 1848, the resulting board of trustees executed the will's conditions and constructed the Astor Library in 1854 in the East Village; the library created was a free reference library. By 1872, the Astor Library was described in a New York Times editorial as a "major reference and research resource", but, "Popular it is not, and, so is it lacking in the essentials of a public library, that its stores might as well be under lock and key, for any access the masses of the people can get thereto". An act of the New York State Legislature incorporated the Lenox Library in 1870.
The library was built on Fifth Avenue, between 70th and 71th Streets, in 1877. Bibliophile and philanthropist James Lenox donated a vast collection of his Americana, art works and rare books, including the first Gutenberg Bible in the New World. At its inception, the library charged admission and did not permit physical access to any literary items. Former Governor of New York and presidential candidate Samuel J. Tilden believed that a library with citywide reach was required, upon his death in 1886, he bequeathed the bulk of his fortune—about $2.4 million —to "establish and maintain a free library and reading room in the city of New York". This money would sit untouched in a trust for several years, until John Bigelow, a New York attorney, Andrew Haswell Green, both trustees of the Tilden fortune, came up with an idea to merge two of the city's largest libraries. Both the Astor and Lenox libraries were struggling financially. Although New York City had numerous libraries in the 19th century all of them were funded and many charged admission or usage fees.
Bigelow, the most prominent supporter of the plan to merge the libraries found support in Lewis Cass Ledyard, a member of the Tilden Board, as well as John Cadwalader, on the Astor board. John Stewart Kennedy, president of the Lenox board came to support the plan as well. On May 23, 1895, Bigelow and George L. Rives agreed to create "The New York Public Library, Astor and Tilden Foundations"; the plan was hailed as an example of private philanthropy for the public good. On December 11, John Shaw Billings was named as the library's first director; the newly established library consolidated with the grass-roots New York Free Circulating Library in February 1901. In March, Andrew Carnegie tentatively agreed to donate $5.2 million to construct sixty-five branch libraries in the city, with the requirement that they be operated and maintained by the City of New York. The Brooklyn and Queens public library systems, which predated the consolidation of New York City, eschewed the grants offered to them and did not join the NYPL system.
In 1901, Carnegie formally signed a contract with the City of New York to transfer his donation to the city in order to enable it to justify purchasing the land for building the branch libraries. The NYPL Board of trustees hired consultants for the planning, accepted their recommendation that a limited number of architectural firms be hired to build the Carnegie libraries: this would ensure uniformity of appearance and minimize cost; the trustees hired McKim, Mead & White, Carrère and Hastings, Walter Cook to design all the branch libraries. The notable New York author Washington Irving was a close friend of Astor for decades and had helped the philanthropist design the Astor Library. Irving served as President of the library's Board of Trustees from 1848 until his death in 1859, shaping the library's collecting policies with his strong sensibility regarding European intellectual life. Subsequently, the library hired nationally prominent experts to guide its collections policies.
Viscount Astor, of Hever Castle in the County of Kent (1917), with subsidiary title 
Baron Astor, of Hever Castle in the County of Kent (1916), and 
The Right Hon. William Waldorf Astor, 1st Viscount Astor (1848 - 1919)
The Right Hon. Lt-Col John Jacob Astor, 1st Baron Astor of Hever (1886 - 1971)
Wilson, J. G.; Fiske, J., eds. (1900). . Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography. New York: D. Appleton.
