Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)/Jesup, Morris Ketchum

JESUP, MORRIS KETCHUM, an American banker; born in Westport, Conn., June 21, 1830; engaged actively in banking in 1852-1884, retiring in the latter year. In 1881 he became president of the New York City Mission and Tract Society, for which he built the DeWitt Memorial Church in Rivington street as a memorial of the Rev. Doctor DeWitt, his father-in-law. He was made president of the Five Points House of Industry in 1872; was a founder of the Young Men's Christian Association, of which he was chosen president in 1872; elected president of the Metropolitan Museum of Natural History in 1881, and of the New York Chamber of Commerce in 1899. He presented to the Metropolitan Museum of Art a collection of native woods valued at $100,000; to the Yale Divinity School, $51,000; to the Woman's Hospital in New York City, $100,000; to Yale University the Landbery Arabic MSS., for which he paid $20,000; and to Williams College, $35,000. In 1897 he provided funds for an anthropological exploration of Northwestern North America and eastern Asia, He died Jan. 22, 1908.