Edmund Henry Schermerhorn (1815-1891)
of 23rd Street, New York City & "Chepstow" Newport, R.I.; died unmarried
He was a first cousin of society hostess Lina Astor who summered at Beechwood in Newport. In 1860, he hired George Champlin Mason, Sr. to build him a summer home nearby, overlooking Narragansett Avenue. In 1911, it was sold to Emily Lorillard (Morris) Gallatin (first cousin of Lewis Gouverneur Morris) and she named it "Chepstow" for a picturesque seaside town in south Wales. Having failed to win the heart of Ruth Baylies (who married Maturin Livingston, of Staatsburg House, New York), he lived the rest of his life as a recluse, attended to by servants, and seeing no-one except for visiting singers and opera stars who he paid to perform for him in private in his home on 23rd Street. When he died, he left an estate said to be worth $1-million.
