Anthony T. Van Bergen

Anthony Thomas Van Bergen (January 7, 1827 – February 18, 1912) was a prominent and wealthy American businessman who lived in Paris. Early life Van Bergen was born on January 7, 1827, in New Baltimore, New York, and grew up at the Van Bergen homestead there. He was the youngest son of ten children born to Clarine (née Peck) Van Bergen (1785–1872) and Anthony Van Bergen, a judge and Democrat who represented Greene County in the New York State Assembly and served as the first president of the New York State Agricultural Society. Among his siblings were Lucy Ann Van Bergen (wife of the Rev. Leonard Bronk Van Dyck); Peter A. Van Bergen (who married Lucy A. Smart); Esther Van Bergen (wife of Stephen J. Matson); Rebecca Smith Van Bergen (wife of Roswell Read Jr.); Maria Van Bergen (who died unmarried); John Peck Van Bergen (who married Margaret Baker, a daughter of the Governor Joshua Baker); and James Oliver Van Bergen (who married Harriet Lay). His father, "an intimate friend of ex-president Martin Van Buren," was the only child of New York State Senator Peter A. Van Bergen (son of Col. Anthony Van Bergen of Van Bergen's Regiment in the Revolutionary War who was a descendant of Mayor Dirck Wesselse Ten Broeck) and Hester (née Houghtaling) Van Bergen (sister of Assemblyman Coenradt T. Houghtaling). After his grandfather's death in 1814, his grandmother remarried to Dr. James Oliver. His maternal grandfather was Capt. John Peck of Peck Tavern in Lyme, Connecticut. Career Van Bergen moved to Brooklyn Heights with his brother John Peck Van Bergen. He worked for the Arnold Constable & Co., a department store chain in the New York City. He permanently moved to Paris where he became the representative of the firm abroad under his firm, A. Van Bergen & Company of New York. All three of his children were born in Paris. He was also the foreign representative for the Equitable Life Assurance Society, a large American insurance company, for which he served on the board of directors for many years. He was an American Commissioner to the Paris exhibitions of 1878 and 1889.