Gabriel Mead Tooker

Gabriel Mead Tooker (December 12, 1839 – December 11, 1905)[1] was an American lawyer and clubman who was prominent in New York Society during the Gilded Age.

Gabriel Mead Tooker
Born(1839-12-12)December 12, 1839
New York City, New York, U.S.
DiedDecember 11, 1905(1905-12-11) (aged 65)
Monte Carlo, Monaco
Alma materColumbia College
Columbia Law School
Spouse
Margaret Augusta Peckham
​
​
(m. 1862; died 1888)​
Children3
RelativesWhitney Warren (son-in-law)
J. Wadsworth Ritchie (son-in-law)

Early life

Tooker was born on December 12, 1839, in New York City. He was the third of seven children born to John F. Tooker (1807–1849) and Mary A. (née Mead) Tooker (b. 1811), who married in 1835.[2] His maternal grandfather was William Mead of Greenwich, Connecticut.[2]

He was the uncle of Annie Livingston Tooker Best, wife of Elizur Yale Smith of the Yale family, and were prominent in New York and Newport society.[3][4][5] Her husband was the son of Wellington Smith, one of the world's largest paper manufacturer at the time, and was proprietor of a horsing estate that was later sold to William Douglas Sloane.[6][7]

Annie was a protegee of Mrs. Astor and Mrs. Stuyvesant Fish.[8] She had Gladys Vanderbilt of the Breakers and Countess Beroldingen at her debutante party in New York, and was personally invited to Mrs. Astor gala at the Beechwood Estate.[9][10] She was also announced by her son, John Jacob Astor IV, who later perished on the Titanic, and was a member of The Four Hundred during the Gilded Age, along with her cousin Charlotte Tooker Warren.[11]

Tooker graduated with an A.M. degree from Columbia College in 1859 and a LL.B. degree in 1861.[12]

Career

Tooker's family was prominent as merchants in New York City with the firm Tooker, Mead & Company.[13] The firm had been run by his parents families.[14] Tooker was a lawyer, with an office at 23 Nassau Street in lower Manhattan,[15] who was also known as a successful investor.[16]

Society life

In 1892, the widower Tooker was included in Ward McAllister's "Four Hundred", purported to be an index of New York's best families, published in The New York Times.[17] Conveniently, 400 was the number of people that could fit into Mrs. Astor's ballroom.[18] He was a member of the New-York Historical Society,[19] and an active member of the Reading Room, a gentlemen's club in Newport.[16]

The Tookers owned one of the finest homes in Newport, Rhode Island, referred to as the "Tooker villa",[20] at Kay and Bellevue Avenue, and took part in prominent society there.[21] In 1895, following the marriage of his youngest daughter Emily,[22] Tooker gifts the house, including all its furnishings, chandeliers, and draperies, to his children, who promptly divided the contents and sold the home.[23][24] His elder daughter was considered the "beauty of the family" and his younger daughter Emily, who was "not in the least bit pretty," was reportedly engaged to A. Lanfear Norrie.[25]

Personal life

On December 2, 1862,[2] Tooker was married to Margaret Augusta Peckham (1843–1888),[26] the daughter of Dr. Walton Hazard Peckham and Margaret (née Milderburger) Stuyvesant Peckham.[27] Margaret was the first cousin of biologist George William Peckham and Supreme Court Justice Rufus Wheeler Peckham[27] and niece of U.S. Representative Rufus W. Peckham and District Attorney Wheeler H. Peckham, all descendants of George Hazard, a Governor of the Colony of Rhode Island.[28] The Tookers New York residence was at 675 Fifth Avenue.[15] Together, they were the parents of:[29]

His wife died in Rome, Italy, on February 4, 1888.[26] Tooker died on December 11, 1905, at Monte Carlo in Monaco,[39] after having lived abroad for twenty years.[1] He was buried alongside his wife in Rome, however, a memorial was place at Island Cemetery in Newport, Rhode Island.

Descendants

Through his daughter Charlotte,[40] he was the grandfather of Charlotte Augusta Warren (1885–1957), who married William Greenough, and Whitney Warren Jr. (1898–1986),[41][42] who was a horticulturalist and patron of the arts.[43][44] Warren Jr. was referred to as "an overly rich bachelor operating in San Francisco"[42] who traveled around the world.[45]

References
  1. "Gen. G. M. Tooker Dies Abroad" (PDF). The New York Times. December 13, 1905. Retrieved 12 July 2018.
  2. Mead, Spencer Percival (1901). History and Genealogy of the Mead Family of Fairfield County, Connecticut, Eastern New York, Western Vermont, and Western Pennsylvania, from A.D. 1180 to 1900. Knickerbocker Press. p. 387. Retrieved 12 July 2018.
  3. Papa Bear’s second wife, Baby Best's Long Quest of a Perfect Man, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 02 Aug 1925, p. 87
  4. Separation of Elizur Yale Smith & Annie Best, The Washington Post Washington, District of Columbia, 08 May 1908, p. 12
  5. Nicholls, Charles Wilbur de Lyon (1904). The Ultra-fashionable Peerage of America: An Official List of Those People who Can Properly be Called Ultra-fashionable in the United States. G. Harjes. p. 54. Retrieved 12 July 2018.
  6. Separation of Elizur Yale Smith & Annie Best, The Washington Post Washington, District of Columbia, May 8, 1908, p. 12.
  7. The Springfield Gas Machine: Illuminating Industry and Leisure, 1860s–1920s, Donald W. Linebaugh, p. 192
  8. Mrs. Vladimir Behr, A Society Figure, 78, The New York Times, 6 July, 1964
  9. Papa Bear’s second wife, Baby Best's Long Quest of a Perfect Man, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 02 Aug 1925, p. 87
  10. Madsen, Christopher (2005), Chapter 18: Baby Best: A New Love for Brother Sackett, Mystic Seaport, Rosenfeld Collection, Library of Congress
  11. Madsen, Christopher (2005), Chapter 18: Baby Best: A New Love for Brother Sackett, Mystic Seaport, Rosenfeld Collection, Library of Congress
  12. Officers and Graduates of Columbia College, Originally the College of the Province of New York Known as King's College: General Catalogue 1754-1900. Columbia University. 1900. Retrieved 12 July 2018.
  13. The London Gazette. Great Britain: T. Neuman. 1845. p. 760. Retrieved 12 July 2018.
  14. The Old Merchants of New York City: By Walter Barrett, Clerk [pseud.]. M. Doolady. 1870. Retrieved 12 July 2018.
  15. "New York (City) Directory". 1880: 1550. Retrieved 12 July 2018. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  16. Patterson, Jerry E. (2000). The First Four Hundred: Mrs. Astor's New York in the Gilded Age. Random House Incorporated. pp. 225, 230. ISBN 9780847822089. Retrieved 12 July 2018.
  17. McAllister, Ward (16 February 1892). "THE ONLY FOUR HUNDRED | WARD M'ALLISTER GIVES OUT THE OFFICIAL LIST. HERE ARE THE NAMES, DON'T YOU KNOW, ON THE AUTHORITY OF THEIR GREAT LEADER, YOU UNDER- STAND, AND THEREFORE GENUINE, YOU SEE" (PDF). The New York Times. Retrieved 26 March 2017.
  18. Keister, Lisa A. (2005). Getting Rich: America's New Rich and How They Got That Way. Cambridge University Press. p. 36. ISBN 9780521536677. Retrieved 20 October 2017.
  19. Annual Report and List of Members of the New-York Historical Society. New-York Historical Society. 1846. Retrieved 12 July 2018.
  20. "THE RITCHIE-TOOKER WEDDING. Arrangements Completed for the Coming Event" (PDF). The New York Times. August 4, 1895. Retrieved 12 July 2018.
  21. "THE NEWPORT RESIDENTS.; Those Who Will Occupy Summer Cottages There" (PDF). The New York Times. April 15, 1894. Retrieved 12 July 2018.
  22. "THE DUKE MUCH FATIGUED Greatly Wearied by His First Social Effort in Newport. RESTING IN THE BIG MARBLE HOUSE A Grand Ball to be Given by Mrs. W.K. Vanderbilt this Evening in Honor of Miss Consuelo" (PDF). The New York Times. August 28, 1895. Retrieved 12 July 2018.
  23. "NEWPORT SEASON AT AN END.; A Few Families Still There, but Nothing of Importance Going On" (PDF). The New York Times. October 13, 1895. Retrieved 12 July 2018.
  24. "NEWPORT'S OCEAN HOUSE SOLD Believed that a New Hotel Will Be Erected on Its Site — The Herrick Cottage Rented" (PDF). The New York Times. May 5, 1897. Retrieved 13 July 2018.
  25. Town Topics, the Journal of Society. Town Topics Publishing Company. 1893. p. 5. Retrieved 12 July 2018.
  26. "DIED" (PDF). The New York Times. February 9, 1888. Retrieved 12 July 2018. TOOKER--At Rome, Italy, Feb. 4, 1888 MARGARET AUGUSTA, wife of Gabriel Mead Tooker and daughter of the late Dr. Walter H. Peckhan. Funeral and interment at Rome, Feb. 6. 1888.
  27. Robinson, Caroline Elizabeth (1896). The Hazard Family of Rhode Island, 1635-1894: Being a Genealogy and History of the Descendants of Thomas Hazard ... p. 164. Retrieved 12 July 2018.
  28. Robinson, Caroline Elizabeth Rodman (1919). The Gardiners of Narragansett: Being a Genealogy of the Descendants of George Gardniner. p. 159. ISBN 9780598995445. Retrieved 12 July 2018.
  29. Harvard College (1780-) Class of 1888 (1920). Harvard College Class of 1888 Secretary's Report. Rockwell and Churchill Press. p. 128. Retrieved 12 July 2018.
  30. "Warren, Whitney, 1864-1943. Whitney Warren papers, 1914-1926: Guide". oasis.lib.harvard.edu. Houghton Library, Harvard Library, Harvard University. Retrieved 12 July 2018.
  31. "A WEDDING IN NEWPORT | MR. WHITNEY WARREN, OF NEW-YORK, AND MISS TOOKER.FASHIONABLE SOCIETY WELL REPRESENTED—THE TOILETS OF THE LADIES—THE PRESENTS AND THE BRIDE'S HOUSE" (PDF). The New York Times. July 18, 1884. Retrieved 12 July 2018.
  32. "JOHN S. HOOKER WEDS MAUD J. HUNNEWELL | The Marriage Ceremony Performed in London July 15. Bride's Divorce from Hollis H. Hunnewell, Jr. Last October Recalled -- She Was Once Known as Horsewoman and Athlete" (PDF). The New York Times. July 19, 1903. Retrieved 12 July 2018.
  33. "TOOKER-RITCHIE WEDDING Notably Brilliant Society Event at All Saints' Chapel, Newport. ELITE OF THE COTTAGERS PRESENT Dr. Magill, Rector of Trinity, Officiated — Congratulations for Miss Cameron, Who Found the Bride's Cake-Ring" (PDF). The New York Times. August 25, 1895. Retrieved 12 July 2018.
  34. "Death List of the Week" (PDF). The New York Times. July 12, 1903. Retrieved 12 July 2018. RITCHIE--July 4, at Ashwell, Rutland, England, Emily, wife of J. Wadsworth Ritchie, daughter of Gabriel Mead Tooker, in the 32nd year of her age.
  35. Social Register, New York. Social Register Association. 1904. p. 390. Retrieved 12 July 2018.
  36. "PLANS FOR THE RITCHIE-TOOKER WEDDING It Will Take Place in Newport the Last Week in August" (PDF). The New York Times. June 29, 1895. Retrieved 12 July 2018.
  37. Anderson, H. Allen (15 June 2010). "RITCHIE, JAMES WADSWORTH". tshaonline.org. Handbook of Texas Online. Retrieved 12 July 2018.
  38. "Newport" (PDF). The New York Times. August 24, 1895. Retrieved 12 July 2018.
  39. Columbia University Quarterly. Columbia University. 1906. p. 178. Retrieved 12 July 2018.
  40. Boughton, James (1890). Bouton--Boughton Family: Descendants of John Boution, a Native of France, who Embarked from Gravesend, Eng., and Landed at Boston in December, 1635, and Settled at Norwalk, Ct. J. Munsell's Sons. p. 15. Retrieved 12 July 2018.
  41. "Philanthropist Whitney Warren dies at age 88". Santa Cruz Sentinel. 13 Jan 1986. p. 12. Retrieved 12 July 2018.
  42. Beaton, Cecil (2007). The Unexpurgated Beaton: The Cecil Beaton Diaries as He Wrote Them, 1970-1980. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. p. 421. ISBN 9780307429520. Retrieved 12 July 2018.
  43. Miller, Paul (2010). Lost Newport: Vanished Cottages of the Resort Era. Applewood Books. p. 64. ISBN 9781429091121. Retrieved 12 July 2018.
  44. Hanks, Tara (March 3, 2016). Born On This Day: Whitney Warren Jr. 1898-1986. Retrieved 12 July 2018.
  45. "WHITNEY WARREN JR. SAILS.; Leaves for 35,000-Mile Tour, Which Will Include South Seas". The New York Times. January 9, 1924. Retrieved 12 July 2018.
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