James Kirke Paulding (1778-1860)

He was born in Dutchess Co., New York, and after a spartan education in a log hut, when he was twenty (1798) he went to New York City where he became friends with Washington Irving. Together they produced Salmagundi a short-lived (1807-08) satirical periodical from which the word "Gotham" was first ascribed as a name for New York City. He was part of the "Knickerbocker Group" which also included among others: Washington Irving, Fitz-Greene Halleck, Joseph Rodman Drake, James Fenimore Cooper, William Cullen Bryant, Gulian Crommelin Verplanck, Robert Charles Sands, Henry Brevoort, Charles Hoffman, and Nathaniel Parker Willis. His writings were satirical and violently anti-British, as shown in The Diverting History of John Bull and Brother Jonathan (1812). He wrote numerous long poems and serious histories, and among his novels were Konigsmarke, the Long Finne (1823) and The Dutchman's Fireside (1831). He is best known for creating the inimitable Nimrod Wildfire, the "half horse, half alligator" in The Lion of the West (1831). From 1838 to 1841 he served as the 11th U.S. Secretary of the Navy in the administration of Martin Van Buren, by which time he had become an ardent and outspoken defender of slavery, later endorsing southern secession.

In 1818, he married Gertrude, the sister of his friend Gouverneur Kemble, and they had four children. They lived at Placentia in Hyde Park, Dutchess County, New York. All three of their surviving sons married daughters of Isaac Green Pearson, of Hamilton Grange.