John Cruger (1678-1744)

He was born in Germany and came to America via Bristol in England in 1698. From the coat-of-arms he brought with him he is supposed to have been of the same family as the Barons von Crueiger of Germany although his familys origins lay in Denmark. He began his career in New York in a mercantile firm as a shipmaster and slave trader and came to be described as, "a highly enterprising and distinguished merchant of this city during nearly the whole of the first half of the 18th century". He was elected an Alderman of New York in 1712 and became the city's 39th Mayor from 1739 until his death in 1744. His tenure was marked by his ruthless suppression of the Negro Plot in 1741. His portrait seen here hung in the Dining Room at "Idlesse," the country home on Long Island of his great-great-great-grandson, Civil War veteran Col. Stephen Van Rensselaer Cruger. In 1703, he married Maria Cuyler (sister of the Mayor of Albany, Johannes Cuyler) and they had seven children who survived infancy including two who married (Mrs Sarah Gouverneur and Henry Cruger). Their younger son, John, was also Mayor and the first President of the New York Chamber of Commerce.