Richard Ray (1792-1836)

He kept a box at the Italian Opera and hosted a party for 300-guests in 1832 at the City Hotel (then the only hotel of note in New York) in honor of Washington Irving who had returned to the United States after spending 17-years abroad. In the same year, he married Mary Rebecca Lloyd Boggs, daughter of James Boggs, Auctioneer, of 113 Chambers Street, New York City, and granddaughter of Governor John Broome. They lived at 3 University Place, New York, that was described by Philip Hone in 1834: "Mr Ray has the finest house in New York, and it is furnished and fitted up in a style of the utmost magnificence - painted ceilings, gilded moulding, rich satin ottomans; curtains in the latest Parisian taste, and splendid mirrors which reflect and multiply all the rays great and small". He and his wife had two daughters and they both died in Paris.