Jonathan Sturges (businessman)
Jonathan Sturges | |
|---|---|
| File:Asher Brown Durand - Jonathan Sturges.jpg Portrait of Sturges by Asher Brown Durand, c. 1840 | |
| Born | Template:Birth date Southport, Connecticut, U.S. |
| Died | Template:Dda New York City, New York, U.S. |
| Occupation(s) | Businessman, arts patron, philanthropist |
| Spouse |
Mary Pemberton Cady (m. 1828) |
| Parent(s) | Barnabas Lothrop Sturges Mary Sturges |
| Relatives | Lewis Burr Sturges (uncle) Jonathan Sturges (grandfather) Henry Fairfield Osborn (grandson) William Church Osborn (grandson) |
Jonathan Sturges (March 24, 1802 – November 28, 1874) was a prominent American entrepreneur, benefactor of the arts, and philanthropist.
Early life
Jonathan Sturges entered the world in Southport, Connecticut, as the son of Barnabas Lothrop Sturges and Mary Sturges. His lineage included notable political figures; both his uncle Lewis Burr Sturges and grandfather Jonathan Sturges served as Connecticut's representatives to the U.S. Congress.
Career
Following a broad-based education, Sturges relocated to New York City in 1821 to begin his career as a clerk in the grocery enterprise of Luman Reed. By 1828, he had advanced to become a one-third partner in the restructured company Reed, Hemstead & Sturges, eventually assuming the role of senior partner after Reed passed away in 1836. It was through Reed that he developed an interest in supporting the arts. In 1868, he retired from his commercial ventures, handing over management to Benjamin G. Arnold, who later founded the Coffee Exchange.
Expanding beyond retail trade, Sturges engaged extensively in finance and transportation sectors. He played a founding role and held directorships at the Bank of Commerce of New York and the Illinois Central Railroad, while also investing in the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad. Moreover, he contributed to establishing the Union League Club of New York, where he served as its second president starting in 1863.
Arts patronage
As a key figure in American art patronage, Sturges was instrumental in acquiring Luman Reed's art collection alongside others after Reed's death in 1836. He commissioned important artworks from American painters, including Kindred Spirits, a homage to Thomas Cole created by Asher Brown Durand, who also rendered portraits of members of the Sturges family.
Together with associates, he helped found the New-York Gallery of Fine Arts to house Reed's collection, which was eventually transferred to the New York Historical Society. His support extended to artists such as Frederic Edwin Church, Henry Inman, William Sidney Mount, John Gadsby Chapman, Henry Kirke Brown, Henry Peters Gray, Charles C. Ingham, and Robert W. Weir.
In Henry Tuckerman's 1867 Book of the Artists, Sturges' art holdings were recognized as one of the ten most distinguished private collections in New York City.
Personal life
On October 25, 1828, Jonathan Sturges wed Mary Pemberton Cady (1806–1894), daughter of Ebenezer Pemberton Cady and Elizabeth Smith Cady. The couple maintained residences both in New York City and at their summer estate in Fairfield, Connecticut—the Gothic Revival Jonathan Sturges House designed by Joseph Collins Wells in 1840—which remains under family ownership. They had five children:
- Virginia Reed Sturges (1830–1902), who married railroad magnate William H. Osborn in 1853.
- Frederick Sturges (1833–1917), husband of Mary Reed Fuller.
- Amelia Sturges (1835–1862), who became wife to financier J. P. Morgan in 1861 but died soon after; Morgan later honored her memory with a $100,000 donation to a charity for consumptive patients.
- Arthur Pemberton Sturges (1842–1866), who enrolled at Princeton Theological Seminary but passed away prior to graduation.
- Henry Cady Sturges (1846–1922), married Sarah Adams MacWhorter.
Sturges passed away on November 28, 1874, at his Manhattan residence on East 36th Street. Funeral services were held at his home and subsequently at the Reformed Church on Fifth Avenue before he was interred at Fairfield East Cemetery. His testament appointed his son Frederick and son-in-law William Osborn as executors and trustees.
Descendants
His eldest daughter was the mother of Henry Fairfield Osborn (1857–1935), a distinguished geologist and paleontologist who held the position of president at the American Museum of Natural History. Osborn was married to Lucretia Thatcher Perry, a writer and daughter of Brigadier General Alexander James Perry, as well as sister to Josephine Adams Perry, who became the wife of Junius Spencer Morgan II. Another notable grandson, William Church Osborn (1862–1951), led the Metropolitan Museum of Art as its president and was wed to philanthropist Alice Clinton Hoadley Dodge, daughter of William E. Dodge Jr..
William Church Osborn received Sturges' painting View at Amalfi, Bay of Salerno from his grandmother and subsequently gifted this work by George Loring Brown to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1903, an institution with which Sturges had played a significant role in founding. In addition, he donated the 1846 artwork The Flower Girl by Charles Cromwell Ingham in 1902.