senate of the State as well as in the senate of the nation, and had been Vice-Chancellor of the University and Lieutenant-Governor of New York; Greene C. Bronson, a judge of the Supreme Court, and one of the ablest of men; and Heman J. Redfield, whose high reputation had been nobly won in places of trust, and who occupied the post until 1857. President Buchanan coming upon the scene of public affairs, appointed Augustus Schell to the collectorship—a prominent lawyer of vast wealth and solid culture, who possessed the entire confidence of the community. He is now the honored President of the New York Historical Society. His successor, in 1861, was Hiram Barney, a lawyer of eminence; and in 1864 Simeon Draper, an able and influential man of scholarly tastes and generous impulses, was favored with the appointment. He was distinctively a politician, and long the warm friend of William H.Seward. In 1864 he was chairman of the Union State Central Committee; for many years, also, he was an administrator of the public charities. After the death of President Lincoln, Andrew Johnson appointed Preston King to the collectorship. He was a statesman of ability, a lawyer and an editor. He had been some years a member of Congress, and from 1857 to 1863 a factor of the national Senate. Within three months after his appointment he jumped from a ferry-boat during a fit of aberration of mind, and was drowned. He was in the sixtieth year of his age. Henry A. Smyth, a merchant of large wealth, was the next appointee. He was succeeded in 1869 by Moses H. Grinnell, who was forty-eight years a member of the Chamber of Commerce, and for some time its President, also a member of Congress, a presidential elector, a public spirited citizen, and a model philanthropist. His residence on the corner of Fifth Avenue and Fourteenth Street (subsequently rented to Delmonico) was the abode for many years of a generous and almost princely hospitality. Thomas Murphy was appointed Collector by General Grant in 1870, but resigned after a service of some eighteen months. In December, 1871, Chester A. Arthur received the appointment and entered upon his duties. He occupied the office until 1878. He is now the President of the United States. He was succeeded by Edwin A. Merritt, who had been many years in public life, and since 1877 the surveyor of the Port, and who subsequently was sent to London as United States consul-general by President Garfield—in 1881. William H. Robertson, the present Collector, has been for thirty or more years in active public service as assemblyman, county judge (for twelve years), presidential elector in 1860, representative to the Fortieth Congress, and in the senate of the State ten or twelve years, of which he was president pro tempore from 1874 to 1879.
