Frederick Sturges
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Frederick Sturges (June 1, 1833 – December 22, 1917) was an American businessman, philanthropist and art connoisseur who was, briefly, a brother-in-law of J.P. Morgan.
Sturges was born in Fairfield, Connecticut on June 1, 1833. He was the eldest son of Mary Pemberton (née Cady) Sturges (1806–1894)[1] and Jonathan Sturges.[2] He grew up in New York City and at his parents' Gothic Revival summer house (today known as the Jonathan Sturges House) on Mill Plain Road in Fairfield.[3][4] His elder sister Virginia was married to railroad executive William H. Osborn.[5][6] His younger siblings were Amelia Sturges (the first wife of J. P. Morgan),[7][8] Arthur Pemberton Sturges (who studied at Princeton Theological Seminary, but died before graduating),[9] and historian Henry Cady Sturges.[10]
His paternal grandparents were Barnabas Lothrop Sturges and Mary (née Sturges) Sturges. His great-uncle, Lewis Burr Sturges, and great-grandfather, Jonathan Sturges, were both U.S. Representatives from Connecticut.[11] His maternal grandparents were Ebenezer Pemberton Cady (a grandson of Ebenezer Pemberton) and Elizabeth Smith Cady.[12]
Career
Sturges maintained the books for the 1,000 family farm in Fairfield, Connecticut,[13] including "daily notations on the weather and the amount of labor expended, accounts with Sturges, and an inventory of 'his place.'[14] He also served as a director of the National Bank of Commerce in New York (alongside J. Pierpont Morgan, James N. Jarvie, Augustus D. Juilliard, John Stewart Kennedy, Charles D. Lanier, and Charles H. Russell),[15] of which his father was a founder and one of the original stockholders and directors in 1839, among John Austin Stevens, Peter Gerard Stuyvesant, Samuel Ward, and Stephen Whitney.[16]
A prominent philanthropist, he was a charter member of the Century Association, a trustee of the New York Public Library, and was especially active in the affairs of the Presbyterian Hospital where he founded the Florence Nightingale School for Trained Nurses.[17]
