1st July, 1868, in New York city, aged 83, was a Lieutenant in the U. S. Navy during the war of 1812, '15. He commanded a division of gunboats stationed in the Lower Bay for the protection of New York harbor. Commodore LAWRENCE KEARNY, U. S. Navy, was a second cousin of the preceding and third cousin of his nephew, Major-General PHILIP KEARNY. PHILIP KEARNY, the subject of this biographical sketch, who fell a Division Commander at Chantilly, 1st September, 1862, was born, according to the majority of accounts, the 2d of June, 1815— his brother-in-law, whose wife, SUSAN KEARNY, had the Family Bible, says the 1st June, 1814, which collateral circumstances would go to prove was the correct date-at No. 3 Broadway, in the First Ward of the city of New York, which, together with the adjoining building, No. 1, was formerly owned by his great uncle, Hon. ARCHIBALD KENNEDY, then Captain, B. N., who married Miss ANNE WATTS, eldest sister of Hon JOHN WATTS, Jr., who purchased, in 1792, subsequently lived and died in No. 3. No. 1 Broadway was built by this Captain KENNEDY, and stood next to the glacis of Fort George. It was an elegant mansion, and only rivaled by one other in the city, that of Hon. WILLIAM WALTON, Esq., in Queen Street, now Franklin Square, who married MARIA DE LANCEY, niece of the first JOHN WATTS and cousin of the second. Mr. WALTON'S affluence, and generous entertainment of the British officers, led to the taxation of the colonies, and eventually to the Revolution. While the British held New York, the first story of No. 3 served as a Post Office, the slits remaining evident in the doors down to 1836. The company-rooms, lofty and spacious, were in the second story. When public entertainments were given, these latter were connected with the grand apartments in No. 1 by a staircase and bridge. These two buildings were among the very few that escaped the great fires of 1776 and 1778. Hon. JOHN WATTS, Junior, maternal grandfather of Major-General PHILIP KEARNY, was a man more ennobled by his generosity and benevolence than he could have been by any hereditary titles or honors. He founded and endowed the LEAKE and WATTS' Orphan House, in the city of New York, one of the noblest and purest acts of benevolence, taking into consideration all the facts connected with its endowment, in the whole list of our country's elemosynary institutions. In regard to this, a reader will pardon the quotation from a speech, at one of the Anniversary Meetings: "There is yet another whose name we are accustomed to associate with that of JOHN G. LEAKE, and who deserves no less our admiration and our gratitude. Had he been less magnanimous, less generous than he was, this happy home, these invaluable privileges, would not have been ours. Through an informality in the will, the money devoted to the erection and support of this institution might have become the property of JOHN WATTS. His it was by inheritance and undisputed right. But he was one of those men whose heart extent of riches cannot narrow or degrade_who retain, amid the luxuries and opulence of fashionable life, noble and generous influences. He knew that his claim to this property was uncontested; yet without reluctance, he yielded it to fulfil the benevolent intentions of its donor. LEAKE and WATTS—their names are fitly associated, and worthy of being transmitted to the latest posterity. The rare benevolence of the one, the stern integrity of the other, are qualities which the Philanthropist and Christian will delight to contemplate, and which all will unite to admire. They stand out in prominent relief, in a depraved and sordid age, in evidence that there are always spirits which delight to bless and improve their race." This Orphan House is at once a magnificent monument to JOHN WATTS, the actual donor of its funds, and-through the designation he modestly and honorably gave it, sharing the honor by placing his own name second to that of anothers in the title-a memorial of his bosom friend and connection, from whom the money was originally derived. It is also a witness of Mr. WATTS' sorrows, since the property came to him through his finest son, ROBERT, who scarcely lived long enough to acquire legal possession of it, and died before he had the opportunity of enjoying this magnificent bequest of the brother-in-law of his great-aunt, MARGARET WATTS (married to Major ROBERT WILLIAM LEAKE* of the British Army), and the friend and fellow student of his father. This Mr. WATTS was a man as remarkable for his manly character as for his generosity. He was full of "saving, common-sense," "that most uncommon kind of sense." In his famous "Thoughts," * ROBERT LEAKE, the father of Major ROBERT WILLIAM LEAKE, was an officer who had seen much and varied service. He was wounded and maimed in the battle of Dettingen, in 1743, where his horse was shot under him, and he was engaged at Culloden, on the Royal side, in 1746. His loyalty was rewarded with the post of Commissary-General to the forces in North America, and in 1757 he was acting as Commissary General to the army commanded by the ill-fated Braddock. |