Robert Livingston the Elder
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Robert Livingston the Elder (December 13, 1654 – October 1, 1728) was a New York colonial official, and first lord of Livingston Manor. He married Alida Schuyler van Rensselaer in 1679. He was the father of Philip Livingston (1686-1749) and Robert Livingston (1688-1775), uncle of Robert Livingston the Younger, grandfather of Philip Livingston, and great-grandfather of Henry Brockholst Livingston.
He was born in the village of Ancrum, near Jedburgh, in the County of Roxburgh, Scotland, one of seven children of the Reverend John Livingston, a lineal descendant of the fifth Lord Livingston, ancestor of the earls of Linlithgow and Callendar, a minister of the Church of Scotland, who was sent into exile in 1663 due to his resistance to attempts to turn the Presbyterian national church into an Episcopalian institution. The exiled family were raised in Rotterdam, in the Dutch Republic, thus Robert Livingston was fluent in the Dutch language, which helped him greatly in his later career in the former Dutch colony of New York.
Following the death of his father in 1673, Robert Livingston returned to Scotland and then sailed for Boston to find his fortune in North America. Livingston moved to Albany, New York where he became wealthy in the fur trade, and then obtained a patent to 160,000 acres (650 km²) that would become Livingston Manor in Columbia and Dutchess County.
With his brother-in-law Peter Schuyler, he led the opposition in Albany to Leisler's Rebellion. He served as Secretary for Indian Affairs from 1695 until his death. In 1696, he backed Captain William Kidd's privateer voyage on the Adventure Galley. He served as a representative to the New York provincial assembly in 1709–1711 and 1716–1725 and was elected speaker in 1718.
Another relation was niece Catherine Schuyler married into the De Peyster family; her son was loyalist Arent Schuyler De Peyster. A nephew of Arent was Abraham De Peyster a loyalist Officer who served with the King's American Regiment and was at Battle of King's Mountain; Abraham was married to Catherine Livingston a grandaugther of Philip Livingston {1686-1749 2nd Lord of the Manor}.
A son of Robert was Gilbert Livingston-his wife was Cornelia Beekman (a granddaughter of Schenectady Mayor Wilhelm Beekman); their daughter married New York Lt. Governor Pierre Van Cortlandt and were the parents of Congressmen Philip Van Cortlandt and Pierre Van Cortlandt Jr; Philip and Pierre Van Cortlandt's brother-in-law was Albany Mayor Philip Schuyler Van Rensselaer. A sister-in-law of Gilbert Livingston married the great-grandson of Peter Stuyvesant—they were grandparents of New York Governor Hamilton Fish.
Notable descendants include Presidents of the United States George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush, First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, actors Montgomery Clift and Michael Douglas, actresses Jane Wyatt and Alexandra Isles, poet Robert Lowell, cinematographer Floyd Crosby, his son David Crosby, and author Wolcott Gibbs.
