Mitchell family papers

1706-1957

The Mitchell family was descended from William and Margaret Mitchell of Coleraine, Northern Ireland. They had three sons, William, John and Edward (1769-1834). Their father, a bookmaker and stationer, died in 1773 and their mother was remarried in 1779, to John Fulton William and Edward immigrated to America around 1790. The two brothers set up a business as bookbinders in Philadelphia and then in New York. William later moved to Philadelphia, where he worked as a bookbinder and on the newspaper, The Porcupine's Gazette and died in 1798. Edward stayed in New York and married Cornelia Anderson in 1794. In 1801 he became a member of the Methodist Church and in 1803 he was ordained as a minister in the Society of United Christian Friends. He was active in this profession, until his death in 1834, writing and preaching many sermons and publishing a collection called The Christian Universalist. Mitchell had eight children, including William Mitchell, an attorney and Judge who served on the Supreme Court of the State of New York. William married Mary Penfold Berrien (daughter of Cornelius Penfold Berrien and Elizabeth Bruen Morris). One of their sons, Cornelius Berrien Mitchell served in the Civil War. He joined the Anthon Battalion Light Artillery in 1862 and joined the 84th Regiment of the National Guard of the State of New York in 1863, filling the ranks of Adjutant, Lieutenant Colonel, Inspector of Rifle Practice, Chief of Artillery and Colonel before resigning in 1882. He was also a merchant and an active member of many civic and religious organizations. In 1880 he married Mary Elizabeth Davis and he was the father of Cornelius von Erden Mitchell.

Henry Spingler was a New York merchant gardener, who purchased a 22-acre plot of land in lower Manhattan in 1762 from Elias Brevoort, a large portion of which has subsequently been transformed into Union Square Park. His name is on the Spingler Building, which stands on the site of the Spingler House hotel at 5-9 Union Square West, though most of this land was eventually sold back to the City. The site was also home to a prestigious school for girls in the nineteenth century, the Spingler Institute. Henry Spingler's daughter, Eliza M. Spingler Fonerden (who was married to Lieutenant James Fonerden, the son of Adam Fonerden an abolitionist from Baltimore, MD) selected a plot of this land to live on, and had a house built on it, which became the mansion at 21 West 14th Street, where descendants of the family continued to live for generations. Their daughter, Mary Spingler Fonerden married Michael Murray Van Beuren, who was later a Colonel in the in 11th Regiment of the Washington Guard and also managed his wife's property. Their daughter, Mary Louise Van Beuren married Captain John W. Davis, who was the son of Dr. John Davis. Their daughter, Mary Elizabeth Davis, married Cornelius Berrien Mitchell and was the mother of Cornelius von Erden Mitchell.