Edward Cooper (1824-1905)

He was born in New York City and spent two years at Columbia College, but did not graduate. However, it was at Columbia that he met Abram Hewitt. They travelled together in Europe in 1844 and survived when they were shipwrecked off the east coast of the States on their return voyage home. They were lifelong best friends, business partners (co-owners of the Trenton Iron Company), brothers-in-law after Abram married Edward's only sister, and both of them became Mayors of the City of New York. In 1871, he participated in the overthrow of Boss Tweed and after his father's death in 1883 he succeeded to the Presidency of the Cooper Union. In 1890, Cooper and Hewitt partnered with Hamilton M. Twombly and established what became the Union Sulphur Company. In 1854, he married Cornelia, daughter of James Morton Redmond of Trenton, N.J. They had two children of whom only one (listed) would live to adulthood. They lived at 12 Washington Square (see images) in New York City and Cooper was both a member of the "Four Hundred" and one of the 52 "Patriarchs" of New York City.