Ambrose Cornelius Kingsland

Early life

Kingsland was born on May 24, 1804, in New York City. He was the son of Cornelius Kingsland and Abigail (née Cock) Kingsland.

He was a member of the old New Jersey Kingsland family who had for nearly 200 years lived in and around Belleville, New Jersey. His maternal grandparents were Isaac Cock and Charity (née Haight) Cock. His paternal grandparents were Stephen Kingsland and Jane (née Corson) Kingsland. He was the uncle of William M. Kingsland, who owned 1026 Fifth Avenue.

Career

A successful merchant, Kingsland built businesses in grocery dry goods, sperm oil, shipping and real estate. He held public office as the 72nd mayor of New York City from 1851 to 1853, the first mayor to be elected to a two-year term. In 1851, he initiated the legislation that eventually led to the construction of Central Park.

Business

Kingsland began his career in 1820, in partnership with his brother Daniel C. Kingsland, as a general merchant and commission business, D & A Kingsland, at 49 Broad Street, then 5 Broad Street. The business expanded into sperm oil and international trade. D & A Kingsland operated whaling ships and owned several noteworthy clipper ships, including Typhoon and Western World, operating the Empire Line between New York and Liverpool and the Third Line of New Orleans packets, and entering the China trade around 1850.[1] The firm became D.A. Kingsland & Sutton in 1843, then A. C. Kingsland and Sons, located at No. 55 Broadway in lower Manhattan.

Public Office / Mayoralty

Kingsland was appointed a Commissioner of the Croton Aqueduct in 1848. During the year he held that position the Croton Aqueduct High Bridge commenced operation and the proposal was made to the city to purchase ground for a large new reservoir immediately north of the existing reservoir located at the center of Manhattan. This new reservoir was to become a factor in the creation of Central Park.

In 1850 he was nominated as the Whig candidate for Mayor of New York. Kingsland had little political experience and had not previously held elective office. His nomination was part of a concerted initiative undertaken by New York’s business community to mobilize behind a “Union ticket” promoting the Compromise of 1850 as critical to New York’s future prosperity. New Yorkers’ apprehensions about the nation’s growing disunity, and Kingsland’s high standing in contrast with doubts about the integrity of his Democratic opponent, Fernando Wood, contributed to Kingsland’s election by almost 4,000 votes over Wood.

Since the mid-1840s, articles and editorials had promoted a “great park” in uptown Manhattan, to remedy the inadequacy of Manhattan’s oppressed collection of small downtown parks; to preserve a large swath of greenspace for health and recreation before the opportunity was lost to imminent uptown development; to create a park that would put New York on a par with elegant European cities and their great parks.

Both candidates in the 1850 mayoral elections voiced the need for such a park. On May 5, 1851, Mayor Kingsland sent to the Common Council a message setting forth the necessity and benefits of a large uptown park, proposing that a sum be appropriated to procure a park "of sufficient magnitude" to "become the favorite resort of all classes", that "the establishment of such a park would be a lasting monument to the wisdom . . .of its founders". Kingsland's proposal was the first official step in a tortuous two-year process leading to the State legislation that authorized the creation of Central Park. The proposal, that public monies be appropriated to create a large urban park, was a conceptual novelty. Its eventual outcome – the expenditure of nearly $15 million(about five times the entire city’s 1851 budget), including the purchase of 760 acres out of one of the nation’s most expensive urban real estate markets, to create the nation’s first large landscaped public park, was revolutionary.

Personal life

Kingsland was married to Mary Lovett, whose father, George Lovett, was born in England. Together, they were the parents of eleven children (two died in infancy):

George Lovett Kingsland (1834–1892), who married Helen Schermerhorn Welles (1842–1911), a daughter of Benjamin Welles and aunt to Sumner Welles, the Ambassador to Cuba and United States Under Secretary of State.

Ambrose Cornelius Kingsland (1835–1890), who married Katharine Aspinwall (1847–1924), the daughter of prominent merchant William Henry Aspinwall.

Augusta Lovett Kingsland (b. 1839), who married Herman Leroy Jones.

Charles C Kingsland (b. 1836 d. 1837)

Henry Pierre Kingsland (b. 1838), who married Harriet Emily O'Brien, daughter of William Arthur O'Brien

Mary Helena Kingsland (1841–1934), who married William Wright Tompkins, son of Daniel Hyatt Tompkins and grandson of Daniel D. Tompkins, the 6th Vice President of the United States.

Daniel C Kingsland (b. 1845 d. 1866)

Walter Frederick Kingsland (1848–1929), who married Caroline Elizabeth Godbee (d. 1916), then Blanche Vanderbilt Marcelin (d. 1941), the daughter of Jules Marcelin and first wife of Franklin Morse Singer.

Albert Alexander Kingsland (1849–1917), who married Jennie Travis (1864–1930), the daughter of Gilbert Travis and Abbie Rogers Travis.

Cornelius Francis Kingsland (b. 1851 d. 1912)

Philip Kingsland (b. 1852 ), who died young.

Residences

Kingsland's home was at 114 Fifth Avenue (southwest corner at 17th Street), now the site of a Banana Republic store.

In 1866, Kingsland purchased Hunter Island, now part of Pelham Bay Park in the Bronx, for $127,501. Around the same time or earlier, he purchased a sizeable estate on the Hudson River in North Tarrytown (present day Sleepy Hollow). According to local historian Henry Steiner, by the 1870s, his lands extended over the northern Sleepy Hollow area and the area surrounding Tarrytown Lakes; it included the Upper Mills section of the former colonial Philipsburg Manor with the historic Philipsburg Manor House. Kingsland built a stone house on a Hudson River promontory that became known as Kingsland Point.

The sale of this land by his heirs to the Mobile Company of America, an early automotive manufacturer, helped open North Tarrytown's 20th century era as a major automotive factory town.

Legacy

In the 1920s, a parcel of the former estate where Kingsland's mansion once stood was acquired by New York's Westchester County and converted into a public park named Kingsland Point Park. That park still bears Kingsland's name, as does Kingsland Avenue in the Greenpoint neighborhood of Brooklyn, which he helped survey. There is also a Kingsland Avenue in the Baychester section of the Bronx.