Charles Coffey Alger was one of my great, great grandparents. Before he died, my father Frank Freeland Farrand (1908 to 1984) gave me some old family photos which included a photo of his mother Helena Willett Alger Farrand's grandfather Charles Coffey Alger and said I might like one day to research this man's life because he was prominent in his day in the iron business. Little did I know that I would start doing that starting around 1995 when I was two years into retirement from teaching. Over the years I have discovered many interesting things about C. C. Alger (as he liked to call himself.)
Charles Coffey Alger, born in 1809, was the son of Levi Alger, born January 1, 1781, and Grace Coffey born about 1783. Levi had a twin brother Jonathan Alger III. The twins were the sons of Jonathan Alger, Jr., born in Lyme, Connecticut in 1750 and Amy Garrison, born about 1748 to Joost Garrison and Magdalena Van Dyck in the Lower Hudson River Valley area of New York. The parents of Magdalena Van Dyck were Franz Van Dyck and Resule (Rosalie) Montross-Montrose. (It came as a surprise to me to discover that C. C. Alger had some Dutch ancestry in addition to the 100%English ancestry that I assumed to be the case in the beginning of my quest.)
Charles Coffey Alger was born on the 4th of July 1809 probably at Starksboro, Addison County, Vermont. (One of his passports says that he was born in Vermont and another one says New York State, so that wasn't very helpful.) Later the family moved to Southfields, (also known as Monroe and other names over time), Orange County, New York.
Charles Coffey Alger had a younger sister, Emily F. Alger who was born about 1819. His father died September 11, 1820 at the age of 39 and his mother remarried in 1823 at the Presbyterian Church of Monroe, Orange County, New York to the widower Col. James Youngs of Blooming Grove who had a surviving son, James Madison Youngs, who was just about the age of C. C. Alger, and an older Youngs daughter. There are no children from this second marriage of James and Grace that I can find in any records. "Ye Olde Coffey Grounds" by Marjorie Smeltzer-Stevenot gives information about Charles Coffey Alger and his sister, Emily F. Alger Pratt, and their parents and grandparents along with other relatives from Monroe, Orange County, New York. Charles is also mentioned in many other sources too numerous to list here mostly having to do with his iron business interests.
Charles Coffey Alger first married Sarah Palmer, born in White Plains, Westchester County, about 1810 to a William Palmer, at a Methodist Church in Manhattan on December 27, 1831. (Later in life he attended Episcopalian churches.) They had two children - Grace (never married who was born at Stockbridge, Berkshire County, Mass. 1833-1834 and died 1899 at Pittsfield, Berkshire County, Massachusetts) and Charles, (born Feb. 22, 1836 at Stockbridge and died Jan. 2, 1897 at Hudson, Columbia County, New York).
Charles Alger,the son, married Helena Willett Freeland Jan. 4, 1866 at Greenport, Columbia County, New York at the home of the bride's widowed and remarried mother, Mrs. Eliza C. Bryan Freeland Simonson. Charles and Helena had three daughters and one son. Helena died at Hudson Feb. 5, 1879 at age 32 of pneumonia at her mother-in-law's house on Allen Street in Hudson, New York and Charles never remarried. He had moved into his mother's house at 150 (later numbers became 332 and then 330) Allen Street before the birth of his fourth child and only son, Charles Francis Alger, who was born in October of 1877. Charles Francis Alger only had one child - son Carl Wirth Alger.
Sarah Palmer and Charles Coffey Alger were divorced in the first half of 1868. They had separated in 1861 while they were living in a mansion in Newburgh, Orange County, New York. (The mansion had been the home of landscape architect Andrew Jackson Downing which C. C. Alger bought from the architect's estate upon Downing's death in 1852.)
At some point about 1868 Charles Coffey Alger married a much younger (by at least 25 to 30 years) Marie Louise Molt but I can't find an exact date or place for the marriage. It is known that C. C. Alger and his new wife were in Paris in 1868 and again on his 60th birthday of July 4, 1869. (They also lived in London, England at least in the first quarter of 1869 because they had a child Marie Alger born and baptized there who apparently only lived a few months. She was their first of two daughters born to the marriage.)
According to information recorded on familysearch.org which I found about March 2014, Charles Coffey Alger and his second wife, Marie Louise Molt, had a daughter Marie Alger who was born at Marylebone, London, England. There are two baptismal records for the child on familysearch.org. One gives the date of birth as January 5, 1868 and the other as January 5, 1869. Both give the baptismal date as being January 15, 1869 at All Souls, St. Marylebone, London, England. She also appears to be the Marie Alger who died during the first quarter of 1869 at Marylebone, London, England according to a fourth record. I would assume that the child was born in 1869 but I can't be sure. This first child of the second marriage of Charles Coffey Alger was not known to me until I found the record from England and was never mentioned by my father or his other 'Alger' relatives but there is no doubt that she existed even if it was only for a short time because her baptismal record gives the name of the father as Charles Coffy (should have been spelled Coffey) Alger.
Charles Coffey Alger and Marie Louise (Molt) also had a daughter Lucile Alger born on October 10, 1870 at Norwich, Connecticut. That birth certificate says that she is the second child born to the mother who is unnamed on the certificate with the name of the father given as C. C. Alger. Lucile Alger never married and by 1901 had left Connecticut to settle in the area of Great Neck, Long Island, New York where she eventually built a mansion for herself. She had two known long term relationships with women - the longest one of 25 years with Louise Nathalie Grace, a daughter of William Russell Grace of the Grace financial empire) who died in February of 1954. Lucile Alger died Christmas Eve of 1936 at the Saddle Rock, Great Neck, Nassau County, New York mansion at a time when she and Louise had separated and Louise Nathalie Grace had gone back to live with her widowed mother. The Alger-Grace house was located on 110 acres of land in Saddle Rock which is one of the nine villages of Great Neck. Here Lucile
Alger and Louise Nathalie Grace had raised white and black show poodles for many, many years.
Charles Coffey Alger died at his summer home at New London, Connecticut on July 13, 1874 and the funeral was conducted from his home in Norwich. Lucile and her mother inherited most of Charles' considerable estate. The widowed Marie Louise Molt Alger died in November of 1886 on a trip to Hanover, Germany but her body was brought back to Norwich for burial at the Yantic Cemetery in Norwich where her husband was already buried.
Charles Coffey Alger was in the iron processing business at Stockbridge, Mass. and later Hudson, N. Y. He came to Hudson about 1849 and built, with additional financing from investors, the Hudson Iron Company which was completed about 1851. In 1851, he was living at the old 171 Allen Street house in Hudson, New York. The street numbers were changed in the late 1880's so that number would now be in the high 300s. I would think that that house would be right near the courthouse.
It is quite possible that while living at 171 Allen Street (house number before 1880), he was having a Gothic home built at 59 Allen Street which was designed by Alexander Jackson Davis.
About 1876, his divorced wife Mrs. Sarah Palmer Alger, bought the old 150 Allen Street house from the estate of Nathan Chamberlain. That house was 332 Allen Street in 1896 when my grandparents had their wedding reception in October of 1896. It is now known as 330-334 in the city of Hudson, Columbia County, New York records.
He had at least two patents on blast furnaces and designed the Hudson Iron Company blast furnace which has long since been demolished. He also had a part interest in the Lee-te iron deposits at West Stockbridge, Massachusetts. He was active in the promotion of the building of railroad connections in Berkshire County, Massachusetts and parts of New York State near his business interests. He was involved in the West Point Iron Company.
His most magnificent home was at Newburgh, Orange County, New York which he purchased in late 1852 from the estate of the landscape architect A. J. Downing who perished in a boat fire on the Hudson River in 1852. A. J. Downing was married to a granddaughter of Pres. John Adams. After Charles Coffey Alger purchased the estate he had noted architect A. J. Davis redesign the outside facade of the former Downing residence. By 1861 he had transferred ownership of the house to his daughter Grace in order to start protecting assets from his wife whom he stopped living with. They were not divorced, however, until the early part of 1868 when he soon remarried.
The Alger Institute, built at Cornwall, Litchfield County, Connecticut in 1848 (since demolished) was named after Charles C. Alger of Stockbridge, Berkshire County, Massachusetts. Charles Coffey Alger was an investor in the school and his son Charles Alger attended as a student in 1850 (per the U. S. Census of 1850 which also picked the son up living with his parents and sister at Hudson, New York).
Charles Coffey Alger hired Jacob Warren Hoysradt to be his assistant at Stockbridge, Massachusetts and later at Hudson, New York. Jacob bought the house that C. C. Alger owned on Allen Street near the Hudson River and later bought the landscape 'Lake Nemi' by Sanford Robinson Gifford from the estate of C. C. Alger while he was executor of the trust left mostly to C. C. Alger's second wife, Marie Louise Molt Alger, who died in November of 1886 while on a trip to Germany.
Sarah Palmer Alger, the first wife of C. C. Alger, outlived both her husband (he died July 13, 1874) and his second wife (died November 3, 1886) and even outlived Sarah's only son Charles Alger by about eight weeks. Sarah Palmer Alger died Feb. 28, 1897 and her son Charles Alger had died Jan. 2, 1897. The house had been the scene of a wedding brunch for 90 guests on October 14, 1896 after my grandparents Helena Willett Alger and Frank Farrand were married at Christ Episcopal Church with 400 guests in attendance. Since Sarah Palmer Alger had outlived her son, the house passed by terms of a trust set up by Sarah in 1881 to the ownership of three out of four of her grandchildren. It was sold in 1910 but still stands in spite of a recent serious fire since the present owners have elected to repair the extensive fire damage. Sarah had purchased the house in 1876 from the estate of the previous first owner, bank president Nathan Chamberlain.
Charles Coffey Alger, born in 1809, was the son of Levi Alger, born January 1, 1781, and Grace Coffey born about 1783. Levi had a twin brother Jonathan Alger III. The twins were the sons of Jonathan Alger, Jr., born in Lyme, Connecticut in 1750 and Amy Garrison, born about 1748 to Joost Garrison and Magdalena Van Dyck in the Lower Hudson River Valley area of New York. The parents of Magdalena Van Dyck were Franz Van Dyck and Resule (Rosalie) Montross-Montrose. (It came as a surprise to me to discover that C. C. Alger had some Dutch ancestry in addition to the 100%English ancestry that I assumed to be the case in the beginning of my quest.)
Charles Coffey Alger was born on the 4th of July 1809 probably at Starksboro, Addison County, Vermont. (One of his passports says that he was born in Vermont and another one says New York State, so that wasn't very helpful.) Later the family moved to Southfields, (also known as Monroe and other names over time), Orange County, New York.
Charles Coffey Alger had a younger sister, Emily F. Alger who was born about 1819. His father died September 11, 1820 at the age of 39 and his mother remarried in 1823 at the Presbyterian Church of Monroe, Orange County, New York to the widower Col. James Youngs of Blooming Grove who had a surviving son, James Madison Youngs, who was just about the age of C. C. Alger, and an older Youngs daughter. There are no children from this second marriage of James and Grace that I can find in any records. "Ye Olde Coffey Grounds" by Marjorie Smeltzer-Stevenot gives information about Charles Coffey Alger and his sister, Emily F. Alger Pratt, and their parents and grandparents along with other relatives from Monroe, Orange County, New York. Charles is also mentioned in many other sources too numerous to list here mostly having to do with his iron business interests.
Charles Coffey Alger first married Sarah Palmer, born in White Plains, Westchester County, about 1810 to a William Palmer, at a Methodist Church in Manhattan on December 27, 1831. (Later in life he attended Episcopalian churches.) They had two children - Grace (never married who was born at Stockbridge, Berkshire County, Mass. 1833-1834 and died 1899 at Pittsfield, Berkshire County, Massachusetts) and Charles, (born Feb. 22, 1836 at Stockbridge and died Jan. 2, 1897 at Hudson, Columbia County, New York).
Charles Alger,the son, married Helena Willett Freeland Jan. 4, 1866 at Greenport, Columbia County, New York at the home of the bride's widowed and remarried mother, Mrs. Eliza C. Bryan Freeland Simonson. Charles and Helena had three daughters and one son. Helena died at Hudson Feb. 5, 1879 at age 32 of pneumonia at her mother-in-law's house on Allen Street in Hudson, New York and Charles never remarried. He had moved into his mother's house at 150 (later numbers became 332 and then 330) Allen Street before the birth of his fourth child and only son, Charles Francis Alger, who was born in October of 1877. Charles Francis Alger only had one child - son Carl Wirth Alger.
Sarah Palmer and Charles Coffey Alger were divorced in the first half of 1868. They had separated in 1861 while they were living in a mansion in Newburgh, Orange County, New York. (The mansion had been the home of landscape architect Andrew Jackson Downing which C. C. Alger bought from the architect's estate upon Downing's death in 1852.)
At some point about 1868 Charles Coffey Alger married a much younger (by at least 25 to 30 years) Marie Louise Molt but I can't find an exact date or place for the marriage. It is known that C. C. Alger and his new wife were in Paris in 1868 and again on his 60th birthday of July 4, 1869. (They also lived in London, England at least in the first quarter of 1869 because they had a child Marie Alger born and baptized there who apparently only lived a few months. She was their first of two daughters born to the marriage.)
According to information recorded on familysearch.org which I found about March 2014, Charles Coffey Alger and his second wife, Marie Louise Molt, had a daughter Marie Alger who was born at Marylebone, London, England. There are two baptismal records for the child on familysearch.org. One gives the date of birth as January 5, 1868 and the other as January 5, 1869. Both give the baptismal date as being January 15, 1869 at All Souls, St. Marylebone, London, England. She also appears to be the Marie Alger who died during the first quarter of 1869 at Marylebone, London, England according to a fourth record. I would assume that the child was born in 1869 but I can't be sure. This first child of the second marriage of Charles Coffey Alger was not known to me until I found the record from England and was never mentioned by my father or his other 'Alger' relatives but there is no doubt that she existed even if it was only for a short time because her baptismal record gives the name of the father as Charles Coffy (should have been spelled Coffey) Alger.
Charles Coffey Alger and Marie Louise (Molt) also had a daughter Lucile Alger born on October 10, 1870 at Norwich, Connecticut. That birth certificate says that she is the second child born to the mother who is unnamed on the certificate with the name of the father given as C. C. Alger. Lucile Alger never married and by 1901 had left Connecticut to settle in the area of Great Neck, Long Island, New York where she eventually built a mansion for herself. She had two known long term relationships with women - the longest one of 25 years with Louise Nathalie Grace, a daughter of William Russell Grace of the Grace financial empire) who died in February of 1954. Lucile Alger died Christmas Eve of 1936 at the Saddle Rock, Great Neck, Nassau County, New York mansion at a time when she and Louise had separated and Louise Nathalie Grace had gone back to live with her widowed mother. The Alger-Grace house was located on 110 acres of land in Saddle Rock which is one of the nine villages of Great Neck. Here Lucile
Alger and Louise Nathalie Grace had raised white and black show poodles for many, many years.
Charles Coffey Alger died at his summer home at New London, Connecticut on July 13, 1874 and the funeral was conducted from his home in Norwich. Lucile and her mother inherited most of Charles' considerable estate. The widowed Marie Louise Molt Alger died in November of 1886 on a trip to Hanover, Germany but her body was brought back to Norwich for burial at the Yantic Cemetery in Norwich where her husband was already buried.
Charles Coffey Alger was in the iron processing business at Stockbridge, Mass. and later Hudson, N. Y. He came to Hudson about 1849 and built, with additional financing from investors, the Hudson Iron Company which was completed about 1851. In 1851, he was living at the old 171 Allen Street house in Hudson, New York. The street numbers were changed in the late 1880's so that number would now be in the high 300s. I would think that that house would be right near the courthouse.
It is quite possible that while living at 171 Allen Street (house number before 1880), he was having a Gothic home built at 59 Allen Street which was designed by Alexander Jackson Davis.
About 1876, his divorced wife Mrs. Sarah Palmer Alger, bought the old 150 Allen Street house from the estate of Nathan Chamberlain. That house was 332 Allen Street in 1896 when my grandparents had their wedding reception in October of 1896. It is now known as 330-334 in the city of Hudson, Columbia County, New York records.
He had at least two patents on blast furnaces and designed the Hudson Iron Company blast furnace which has long since been demolished. He also had a part interest in the Lee-te iron deposits at West Stockbridge, Massachusetts. He was active in the promotion of the building of railroad connections in Berkshire County, Massachusetts and parts of New York State near his business interests. He was involved in the West Point Iron Company.
His most magnificent home was at Newburgh, Orange County, New York which he purchased in late 1852 from the estate of the landscape architect A. J. Downing who perished in a boat fire on the Hudson River in 1852. A. J. Downing was married to a granddaughter of Pres. John Adams. After Charles Coffey Alger purchased the estate he had noted architect A. J. Davis redesign the outside facade of the former Downing residence. By 1861 he had transferred ownership of the house to his daughter Grace in order to start protecting assets from his wife whom he stopped living with. They were not divorced, however, until the early part of 1868 when he soon remarried.
The Alger Institute, built at Cornwall, Litchfield County, Connecticut in 1848 (since demolished) was named after Charles C. Alger of Stockbridge, Berkshire County, Massachusetts. Charles Coffey Alger was an investor in the school and his son Charles Alger attended as a student in 1850 (per the U. S. Census of 1850 which also picked the son up living with his parents and sister at Hudson, New York).
Charles Coffey Alger hired Jacob Warren Hoysradt to be his assistant at Stockbridge, Massachusetts and later at Hudson, New York. Jacob bought the house that C. C. Alger owned on Allen Street near the Hudson River and later bought the landscape 'Lake Nemi' by Sanford Robinson Gifford from the estate of C. C. Alger while he was executor of the trust left mostly to C. C. Alger's second wife, Marie Louise Molt Alger, who died in November of 1886 while on a trip to Germany.
Sarah Palmer Alger, the first wife of C. C. Alger, outlived both her husband (he died July 13, 1874) and his second wife (died November 3, 1886) and even outlived Sarah's only son Charles Alger by about eight weeks. Sarah Palmer Alger died Feb. 28, 1897 and her son Charles Alger had died Jan. 2, 1897. The house had been the scene of a wedding brunch for 90 guests on October 14, 1896 after my grandparents Helena Willett Alger and Frank Farrand were married at Christ Episcopal Church with 400 guests in attendance. Since Sarah Palmer Alger had outlived her son, the house passed by terms of a trust set up by Sarah in 1881 to the ownership of three out of four of her grandchildren. It was sold in 1910 but still stands in spite of a recent serious fire since the present owners have elected to repair the extensive fire damage. Sarah had purchased the house in 1876 from the estate of the previous first owner, bank president Nathan Chamberlain.
Charles Coffey Alger was one of my great, great grandparents. Before he died, my father Frank Freeland Farrand (1908 to 1984) gave me some old family photos which included a photo of his mother Helena Willett Alger Farrand's grandfather Charles Coffey Alger and said I might like one day to research this man's life because he was prominent in his day in the iron business. Little did I know that I would start doing that starting around 1995 when I was two years into retirement from teaching. Over the years I have discovered many interesting things about C. C. Alger (as he liked to call himself.)
Charles Coffey Alger, born in 1809, was the son of Levi Alger, born January 1, 1781, and Grace Coffey born about 1783. Levi had a twin brother Jonathan Alger III. The twins were the sons of Jonathan Alger, Jr., born in Lyme, Connecticut in 1750 and Amy Garrison, born about 1748 to Joost Garrison and Magdalena Van Dyck in the Lower Hudson River Valley area of New York. The parents of Magdalena Van Dyck were Franz Van Dyck and Resule (Rosalie) Montross-Montrose. (It came as a surprise to me to discover that C. C. Alger had some Dutch ancestry in addition to the 100%English ancestry that I assumed to be the case in the beginning of my quest.)
Charles Coffey Alger was born on the 4th of July 1809 probably at Starksboro, Addison County, Vermont. (One of his passports says that he was born in Vermont and another one says New York State, so that wasn't very helpful.) Later the family moved to Southfields, (also known as Monroe and other names over time), Orange County, New York.
Charles Coffey Alger had a younger sister, Emily F. Alger who was born about 1819. His father died September 11, 1820 at the age of 39 and his mother remarried in 1823 at the Presbyterian Church of Monroe, Orange County, New York to the widower Col. James Youngs of Blooming Grove who had a surviving son, James Madison Youngs, who was just about the age of C. C. Alger, and an older Youngs daughter. There are no children from this second marriage of James and Grace that I can find in any records. "Ye Olde Coffey Grounds" by Marjorie Smeltzer-Stevenot gives information about Charles Coffey Alger and his sister, Emily F. Alger Pratt, and their parents and grandparents along with other relatives from Monroe, Orange County, New York. Charles is also mentioned in many other sources too numerous to list here mostly having to do with his iron business interests.
Charles Coffey Alger first married Sarah Palmer, born in White Plains, Westchester County, about 1810 to a William Palmer, at a Methodist Church in Manhattan on December 27, 1831. (Later in life he attended Episcopalian churches.) They had two children - Grace (never married who was born at Stockbridge, Berkshire County, Mass. 1833-1834 and died 1899 at Pittsfield, Berkshire County, Massachusetts) and Charles, (born Feb. 22, 1836 at Stockbridge and died Jan. 2, 1897 at Hudson, Columbia County, New York).
Charles Alger,the son, married Helena Willett Freeland Jan. 4, 1866 at Greenport, Columbia County, New York at the home of the bride's widowed and remarried mother, Mrs. Eliza C. Bryan Freeland Simonson. Charles and Helena had three daughters and one son. Helena died at Hudson Feb. 5, 1879 at age 32 of pneumonia at her mother-in-law's house on Allen Street in Hudson, New York and Charles never remarried. He had moved into his mother's house at 150 (later numbers became 332 and then 330) Allen Street before the birth of his fourth child and only son, Charles Francis Alger, who was born in October of 1877. Charles Francis Alger only had one child - son Carl Wirth Alger.
Sarah Palmer and Charles Coffey Alger were divorced in the first half of 1868. They had separated in 1861 while they were living in a mansion in Newburgh, Orange County, New York. (The mansion had been the home of landscape architect Andrew Jackson Downing which C. C. Alger bought from the architect's estate upon Downing's death in 1852.)
At some point about 1868 Charles Coffey Alger married a much younger (by at least 25 to 30 years) Marie Louise Molt but I can't find an exact date or place for the marriage. It is known that C. C. Alger and his new wife were in Paris in 1868 and again on his 60th birthday of July 4, 1869. (They also lived in London, England at least in the first quarter of 1869 because they had a child Marie Alger born and baptized there who apparently only lived a few months. She was their first of two daughters born to the marriage.)
According to information recorded on familysearch.org which I found about March 2014, Charles Coffey Alger and his second wife, Marie Louise Molt, had a daughter Marie Alger who was born at Marylebone, London, England. There are two baptismal records for the child on familysearch.org. One gives the date of birth as January 5, 1868 and the other as January 5, 1869. Both give the baptismal date as being January 15, 1869 at All Souls, St. Marylebone, London, England. She also appears to be the Marie Alger who died during the first quarter of 1869 at Marylebone, London, England according to a fourth record. I would assume that the child was born in 1869 but I can't be sure. This first child of the second marriage of Charles Coffey Alger was not known to me until I found the record from England and was never mentioned by my father or his other 'Alger' relatives but there is no doubt that she existed even if it was only for a short time because her baptismal record gives the name of the father as Charles Coffy (should have been spelled Coffey) Alger.
Charles Coffey Alger and Marie Louise (Molt) also had a daughter Lucile Alger born on October 10, 1870 at Norwich, Connecticut. That birth certificate says that she is the second child born to the mother who is unnamed on the certificate with the name of the father given as C. C. Alger. Lucile Alger never married and by 1901 had left Connecticut to settle in the area of Great Neck, Long Island, New York where she eventually built a mansion for herself. She had two known long term relationships with women - the longest one of 25 years with Louise Nathalie Grace, a daughter of William Russell Grace of the Grace financial empire) who died in February of 1954. Lucile Alger died Christmas Eve of 1936 at the Saddle Rock, Great Neck, Nassau County, New York mansion at a time when she and Louise had separated and Louise Nathalie Grace had gone back to live with her widowed mother. The Alger-Grace house was located on 110 acres of land in Saddle Rock which is one of the nine villages of Great Neck. Here Lucile
Alger and Louise Nathalie Grace had raised white and black show poodles for many, many years.
Charles Coffey Alger died at his summer home at New London, Connecticut on July 13, 1874 and the funeral was conducted from his home in Norwich. Lucile and her mother inherited most of Charles' considerable estate. The widowed Marie Louise Molt Alger died in November of 1886 on a trip to Hanover, Germany but her body was brought back to Norwich for burial at the Yantic Cemetery in Norwich where her husband was already buried.
Charles Coffey Alger was in the iron processing business at Stockbridge, Mass. and later Hudson, N. Y. He came to Hudson about 1849 and built, with additional financing from investors, the Hudson Iron Company which was completed about 1851. In 1851, he was living at the old 171 Allen Street house in Hudson, New York. The street numbers were changed in the late 1880's so that number would now be in the high 300s. I would think that that house would be right near the courthouse.
It is quite possible that while living at 171 Allen Street (house number before 1880), he was having a Gothic home built at 59 Allen Street which was designed by Alexander Jackson Davis.
About 1876, his divorced wife Mrs. Sarah Palmer Alger, bought the old 150 Allen Street house from the estate of Nathan Chamberlain. That house was 332 Allen Street in 1896 when my grandparents had their wedding reception in October of 1896. It is now known as 330-334 in the city of Hudson, Columbia County, New York records.
He had at least two patents on blast furnaces and designed the Hudson Iron Company blast furnace which has long since been demolished. He also had a part interest in the Lee-te iron deposits at West Stockbridge, Massachusetts. He was active in the promotion of the building of railroad connections in Berkshire County, Massachusetts and parts of New York State near his business interests. He was involved in the West Point Iron Company.
His most magnificent home was at Newburgh, Orange County, New York which he purchased in late 1852 from the estate of the landscape architect A. J. Downing who perished in a boat fire on the Hudson River in 1852. A. J. Downing was married to a granddaughter of Pres. John Adams. After Charles Coffey Alger purchased the estate he had noted architect A. J. Davis redesign the outside facade of the former Downing residence. By 1861 he had transferred ownership of the house to his daughter Grace in order to start protecting assets from his wife whom he stopped living with. They were not divorced, however, until the early part of 1868 when he soon remarried.
The Alger Institute, built at Cornwall, Litchfield County, Connecticut in 1848 (since demolished) was named after Charles C. Alger of Stockbridge, Berkshire County, Massachusetts. Charles Coffey Alger was an investor in the school and his son Charles Alger attended as a student in 1850 (per the U. S. Census of 1850 which also picked the son up living with his parents and sister at Hudson, New York).
Charles Coffey Alger hired Jacob Warren Hoysradt to be his assistant at Stockbridge, Massachusetts and later at Hudson, New York. Jacob bought the house that C. C. Alger owned on Allen Street near the Hudson River and later bought the landscape 'Lake Nemi' by Sanford Robinson Gifford from the estate of C. C. Alger while he was executor of the trust left mostly to C. C. Alger's second wife, Marie Louise Molt Alger, who died in November of 1886 while on a trip to Germany.
Sarah Palmer Alger, the first wife of C. C. Alger, outlived both her husband (he died July 13, 1874) and his second wife (died November 3, 1886) and even outlived Sarah's only son Charles Alger by about eight weeks. Sarah Palmer Alger died Feb. 28, 1897 and her son Charles Alger had died Jan. 2, 1897. The house had been the scene of a wedding brunch for 90 guests on October 14, 1896 after my grandparents Helena Willett Alger and Frank Farrand were married at Christ Episcopal Church with 400 guests in attendance. Since Sarah Palmer Alger had outlived her son, the house passed by terms of a trust set up by Sarah in 1881 to the ownership of three out of four of her grandchildren. It was sold in 1910 but still stands in spite of a recent serious fire since the present owners have elected to repair the extensive fire damage. Sarah had purchased the house in 1876 from the estate of the previous first owner, bank president Nathan Chamberlain.
Charles Coffey Alger, born in 1809, was the son of Levi Alger, born January 1, 1781, and Grace Coffey born about 1783. Levi had a twin brother Jonathan Alger III. The twins were the sons of Jonathan Alger, Jr., born in Lyme, Connecticut in 1750 and Amy Garrison, born about 1748 to Joost Garrison and Magdalena Van Dyck in the Lower Hudson River Valley area of New York. The parents of Magdalena Van Dyck were Franz Van Dyck and Resule (Rosalie) Montross-Montrose. (It came as a surprise to me to discover that C. C. Alger had some Dutch ancestry in addition to the 100%English ancestry that I assumed to be the case in the beginning of my quest.)
Charles Coffey Alger was born on the 4th of July 1809 probably at Starksboro, Addison County, Vermont. (One of his passports says that he was born in Vermont and another one says New York State, so that wasn't very helpful.) Later the family moved to Southfields, (also known as Monroe and other names over time), Orange County, New York.
Charles Coffey Alger had a younger sister, Emily F. Alger who was born about 1819. His father died September 11, 1820 at the age of 39 and his mother remarried in 1823 at the Presbyterian Church of Monroe, Orange County, New York to the widower Col. James Youngs of Blooming Grove who had a surviving son, James Madison Youngs, who was just about the age of C. C. Alger, and an older Youngs daughter. There are no children from this second marriage of James and Grace that I can find in any records. "Ye Olde Coffey Grounds" by Marjorie Smeltzer-Stevenot gives information about Charles Coffey Alger and his sister, Emily F. Alger Pratt, and their parents and grandparents along with other relatives from Monroe, Orange County, New York. Charles is also mentioned in many other sources too numerous to list here mostly having to do with his iron business interests.
Charles Coffey Alger first married Sarah Palmer, born in White Plains, Westchester County, about 1810 to a William Palmer, at a Methodist Church in Manhattan on December 27, 1831. (Later in life he attended Episcopalian churches.) They had two children - Grace (never married who was born at Stockbridge, Berkshire County, Mass. 1833-1834 and died 1899 at Pittsfield, Berkshire County, Massachusetts) and Charles, (born Feb. 22, 1836 at Stockbridge and died Jan. 2, 1897 at Hudson, Columbia County, New York).
Charles Alger,the son, married Helena Willett Freeland Jan. 4, 1866 at Greenport, Columbia County, New York at the home of the bride's widowed and remarried mother, Mrs. Eliza C. Bryan Freeland Simonson. Charles and Helena had three daughters and one son. Helena died at Hudson Feb. 5, 1879 at age 32 of pneumonia at her mother-in-law's house on Allen Street in Hudson, New York and Charles never remarried. He had moved into his mother's house at 150 (later numbers became 332 and then 330) Allen Street before the birth of his fourth child and only son, Charles Francis Alger, who was born in October of 1877. Charles Francis Alger only had one child - son Carl Wirth Alger.
Sarah Palmer and Charles Coffey Alger were divorced in the first half of 1868. They had separated in 1861 while they were living in a mansion in Newburgh, Orange County, New York. (The mansion had been the home of landscape architect Andrew Jackson Downing which C. C. Alger bought from the architect's estate upon Downing's death in 1852.)
At some point about 1868 Charles Coffey Alger married a much younger (by at least 25 to 30 years) Marie Louise Molt but I can't find an exact date or place for the marriage. It is known that C. C. Alger and his new wife were in Paris in 1868 and again on his 60th birthday of July 4, 1869. (They also lived in London, England at least in the first quarter of 1869 because they had a child Marie Alger born and baptized there who apparently only lived a few months. She was their first of two daughters born to the marriage.)
According to information recorded on familysearch.org which I found about March 2014, Charles Coffey Alger and his second wife, Marie Louise Molt, had a daughter Marie Alger who was born at Marylebone, London, England. There are two baptismal records for the child on familysearch.org. One gives the date of birth as January 5, 1868 and the other as January 5, 1869. Both give the baptismal date as being January 15, 1869 at All Souls, St. Marylebone, London, England. She also appears to be the Marie Alger who died during the first quarter of 1869 at Marylebone, London, England according to a fourth record. I would assume that the child was born in 1869 but I can't be sure. This first child of the second marriage of Charles Coffey Alger was not known to me until I found the record from England and was never mentioned by my father or his other 'Alger' relatives but there is no doubt that she existed even if it was only for a short time because her baptismal record gives the name of the father as Charles Coffy (should have been spelled Coffey) Alger.
Charles Coffey Alger and Marie Louise (Molt) also had a daughter Lucile Alger born on October 10, 1870 at Norwich, Connecticut. That birth certificate says that she is the second child born to the mother who is unnamed on the certificate with the name of the father given as C. C. Alger. Lucile Alger never married and by 1901 had left Connecticut to settle in the area of Great Neck, Long Island, New York where she eventually built a mansion for herself. She had two known long term relationships with women - the longest one of 25 years with Louise Nathalie Grace, a daughter of William Russell Grace of the Grace financial empire) who died in February of 1954. Lucile Alger died Christmas Eve of 1936 at the Saddle Rock, Great Neck, Nassau County, New York mansion at a time when she and Louise had separated and Louise Nathalie Grace had gone back to live with her widowed mother. The Alger-Grace house was located on 110 acres of land in Saddle Rock which is one of the nine villages of Great Neck. Here Lucile
Alger and Louise Nathalie Grace had raised white and black show poodles for many, many years.
Charles Coffey Alger died at his summer home at New London, Connecticut on July 13, 1874 and the funeral was conducted from his home in Norwich. Lucile and her mother inherited most of Charles' considerable estate. The widowed Marie Louise Molt Alger died in November of 1886 on a trip to Hanover, Germany but her body was brought back to Norwich for burial at the Yantic Cemetery in Norwich where her husband was already buried.
Charles Coffey Alger was in the iron processing business at Stockbridge, Mass. and later Hudson, N. Y. He came to Hudson about 1849 and built, with additional financing from investors, the Hudson Iron Company which was completed about 1851. In 1851, he was living at the old 171 Allen Street house in Hudson, New York. The street numbers were changed in the late 1880's so that number would now be in the high 300s. I would think that that house would be right near the courthouse.
It is quite possible that while living at 171 Allen Street (house number before 1880), he was having a Gothic home built at 59 Allen Street which was designed by Alexander Jackson Davis.
About 1876, his divorced wife Mrs. Sarah Palmer Alger, bought the old 150 Allen Street house from the estate of Nathan Chamberlain. That house was 332 Allen Street in 1896 when my grandparents had their wedding reception in October of 1896. It is now known as 330-334 in the city of Hudson, Columbia County, New York records.
He had at least two patents on blast furnaces and designed the Hudson Iron Company blast furnace which has long since been demolished. He also had a part interest in the Lee-te iron deposits at West Stockbridge, Massachusetts. He was active in the promotion of the building of railroad connections in Berkshire County, Massachusetts and parts of New York State near his business interests. He was involved in the West Point Iron Company.
His most magnificent home was at Newburgh, Orange County, New York which he purchased in late 1852 from the estate of the landscape architect A. J. Downing who perished in a boat fire on the Hudson River in 1852. A. J. Downing was married to a granddaughter of Pres. John Adams. After Charles Coffey Alger purchased the estate he had noted architect A. J. Davis redesign the outside facade of the former Downing residence. By 1861 he had transferred ownership of the house to his daughter Grace in order to start protecting assets from his wife whom he stopped living with. They were not divorced, however, until the early part of 1868 when he soon remarried.
The Alger Institute, built at Cornwall, Litchfield County, Connecticut in 1848 (since demolished) was named after Charles C. Alger of Stockbridge, Berkshire County, Massachusetts. Charles Coffey Alger was an investor in the school and his son Charles Alger attended as a student in 1850 (per the U. S. Census of 1850 which also picked the son up living with his parents and sister at Hudson, New York).
Charles Coffey Alger hired Jacob Warren Hoysradt to be his assistant at Stockbridge, Massachusetts and later at Hudson, New York. Jacob bought the house that C. C. Alger owned on Allen Street near the Hudson River and later bought the landscape 'Lake Nemi' by Sanford Robinson Gifford from the estate of C. C. Alger while he was executor of the trust left mostly to C. C. Alger's second wife, Marie Louise Molt Alger, who died in November of 1886 while on a trip to Germany.
Sarah Palmer Alger, the first wife of C. C. Alger, outlived both her husband (he died July 13, 1874) and his second wife (died November 3, 1886) and even outlived Sarah's only son Charles Alger by about eight weeks. Sarah Palmer Alger died Feb. 28, 1897 and her son Charles Alger had died Jan. 2, 1897. The house had been the scene of a wedding brunch for 90 guests on October 14, 1896 after my grandparents Helena Willett Alger and Frank Farrand were married at Christ Episcopal Church with 400 guests in attendance. Since Sarah Palmer Alger had outlived her son, the house passed by terms of a trust set up by Sarah in 1881 to the ownership of three out of four of her grandchildren. It was sold in 1910 but still stands in spite of a recent serious fire since the present owners have elected to repair the extensive fire damage. Sarah had purchased the house in 1876 from the estate of the previous first owner, bank president Nathan Chamberlain.
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