Author: WETMORE, Prosper Montgomery
Biography:
WETMORE, Prosper Montgomery (1798-1876: ancestry.com)
He was born in Stratford CT, son of Amelia (Hubbard) and Robert William Wetmore. (Some sources give a birthdate in 1799 and no birth record has been found, but the gravestone and most authorities give 1798.) The family moved to New York City when he was a child; after the death of his father, he started work at the age of nine as a clerk in a counting-house. From the age of 17 he is said to have contributed to periodicals, notably the New York Mirror.He later joined his brother Robert as partner in a dry-goods business. On his success as a businessman, despite some reverses, he built a solid reputation in the city and eventually became a board member and committee chairman on philanthropic and cultural institutions such as the American Art Union, the New York Institution for the Deaf and Dumb, and the New York Historical Society. Obituaries single out his role as a Regent of New York University from 1833. In 1819 he joined the State militia where he earned the rank of Major (1824), Lt.-Col. (1825), and Colonel (1826-30); his title of General, widely used in reports of his death, probably reflects his role as Paymaster General until 1841. In 1822 he married Lucy Ann Ogsbury (1802-79), with whom he had twelve children. Lexington was his only verse collection but he did also edit and write an introduction for Earl Rupert (1839) by the deaf poet James Nack (q.v.). He died at home in Great Neck, Long Island, and is buried in the cemetery of Trinity Church in Manhattan. (ancestry.com 25 Jan. 2021; Appleton; Duyckinck; findagrave.com 25 Jan. 2021) HJ