54 Facts About Chauncey Depew

Chauncey Mitchell Depew was an American attorney, businessman, and Republican politician.

Chauncey Depew is best remembered for his two terms as United States Senator from New York and for his work for Cornelius Vanderbilt, as an attorney and as president of the New York Central Railroad System.

Chauncey Depew's father was a merchant and farmer who pioneered river transportation between Peekskill and New York and was descended from Francois DuPuy, a French Huguenot who purchased land from natives at the present site of Peekskill.

Chauncey Depew attended Peekskill Military Academy for 12 years before matriculating at Yale College in 1852.

At Yale, Chauncey Depew joined many clubs and won several honors.

Chauncey Depew won second dispute appointments in his junior and senior years and was an honored speaker at Junior Exhibition and Commencement.

Chauncey Depew joined the Thulia Boat Club, Kappa Sigma Epsilon, Kappa Sigma Theta, Psi Upsilon, and Skull and Bones.

Chauncey Depew served as third president of the Linonian Society.

Chauncey Depew was admitted to the New York state bar in March 1858 and opened an office in Peekskill, where he practiced until 1861.

In 1865, Chauncey Depew was appointed and confirmed to the position of United States Minister to Japan, but he declined the appointment to pursue his career as a railroad and business lawyer.

In 1885, Depew was elected the railroad's president and served in that capacity until 1898 when he was succeeded by Samuel R Callaway.

Chauncey Depew then became chairman of board of directors of New York Central Railroad Company until his death in 1928.

Chauncey Depew was president of West Shore Railroad and served on the boards of directors for the New York and Harlem Railroad, the Chicago and North Western Railway, the Chicago, St Paul, Minneapolis and Omaha Railway, the Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago and St Louis Railroad, the Delaware and Hudson Railroad, the New Jersey Junction Railroad, the St Lawrence and Adirondack Railroad, the Wallkill Valley Railroad, and the Canada Southern Railroad.

Chauncey Depew represented Westchester County in the New York State Assembly in 1862 and 1863.

In 1867, Chauncey Depew became clerk of Westchester County but resigned after a short service.

Chauncey Depew had been commissioner of quarantine and president of Court of Claims of New York City as well as commissioner of taxes and assessments for the city and county of New York.

Chauncey Depew was one of the commissioners appointed to build the state capitol in 1874 and a member of the state's boundary commission in 1875.

In 1872, Chauncey Depew ran for Lieutenant Governor of New York on the Liberal Republican-Democratic ticket but was defeated.

In 1886, Chauncey Depew gave an oration at the unveiling of the Statue of Liberty.

In 1898, Chauncey Depew nominated Theodore Roosevelt for Governor of New York at the Republican state convention.

Chauncey Depew served as a delegate-at-large to each Republican National Convention from 1888 to 1904 and was elected delegate to all following conventions, including 1928, being elected the day before he died.

At the convention in 1888, Chauncey Depew received 99 votes for the presidential nomination.

Chauncey Depew made presidential nominating speeches for Benjamin Harrison in 1892 and Governor Levi Morton in 1896.

Chauncey Depew was a candidate for United States Senator in an 1881 special election, but withdrew his name from consideration after the 41st ballot.

In 1899, Chauncey Depew was elected to the Senate from New York and was re-elected in 1905.

Chauncey Depew served from March 4,1899, to March 3,1911.

In spring 1928, Chauncey Depew became ill while returning from Florida to Manhattan.

Chauncey Depew died of bronchial pneumonia in Manhattan on April 5,1928.

Chauncey Depew was buried in the family mausoleum in Hillside Cemetery, Peekskill.

Chauncey Depew was the daughter of William and Eliza Jane Hegeman.

Chauncey Depew was the daughter of Henry and Alice Palmer.

Chauncey Depew attended Saint Thomas Episcopal Church in New York.

Chauncey Depew was among those founding members of the Yale Club of New York City in 1897.

Chauncey Depew was a vice chairman of the $20,000,000 Yale Endowment Campaign and was elected an honorary member of Yale Class of 1889 in 1923.

Chauncey Depew served as trustee of his alma mater, the Peekskill Military Academy.

In 1877, Chauncey Depew became a regent of the University of the State of New York and served until 1904.

In 1918, Chauncey Depew was made life member of Lawyers' Club of New York.

Chauncey Depew was active in a number of patriotic and hereditary societies.

Chauncey Depew joined the Union League in 1868 and served as its president for seven years.

Chauncey Depew was elected an honorary life member at the close of his presidency.

Chauncey Depew was a member of the Connecticut Society of the Cincinnati, the New York Society of Colonial Wars, Holland Society, Huguenot Society and the New England Society of New York.

Chauncey Depew used to smoke 25 cigars a day but gave up smoking aged 65 upon the advice of his secretary.

Chauncey Depew stated that he had worked "practically every day" of his life.

Chauncey Depew avoided stress and slept 7 and half hours a day.

In 1908, it was widely reported in newspapers that Chauncey Depew had become a vegetarian.

Chauncey Depew received the French Legion d'honneur in the rank of Officer.

Chauncey Depew was an honorary member of the New York Genealogical and Biographical Society.

In 1887, Chauncey Depew became an honorary member of Columbia chapter of Phi Beta Kappa.

Chauncey Depew was a distinguished orator and after-dinner speaker and published many of those speeches.

In 1929, May Palmer-Chauncey Depew donated her late husband's papers and $120,000 to establish a department of public speaking to George Washington University.

In 1908, Chauncey Depew gave land to Peekskill, New York, which became Chauncey Depew Park.

Chauncey Depew worked along the Maine coast until 1925 when she was sold to the Day Line as an excursion boat between New York and Albany.

Chauncey Depew was refurbished and moored in the Hackensack River between Harmon Cove and the Hackensack River Route 3 Bridge, Another boat, a tugboat owned by the New York Central, was named for him.

Copies of an etching Muller-Ury made of Chauncey Depew, signed by the artist and the sitter, are in the American National Portrait Gallery in Washington, DC, the collection of the Newport Preservation Society of Rhode Island, and the University of Cincinnati College of Design.