Robert Barnwell Roosevelt

Robert Barnhill Roosevelt, also known as Robert Barnwell Roosevelt (August 7, 1829 – June 14, 1906), was an American sportsman, author, lawyer, and Democratic politician who served as a United States Representative from New York from 1871 to 1873 and as United States Minister to the Netherlands at The Hague from 1888 to 1889. A prominent member of the Roosevelt family, he was an uncle of President Theodore Roosevelt and played an active role in New York political, social, and conservation circles in the latter half of the nineteenth century.

Roosevelt was born on August 7, 1829, in New York City, into a well-established mercantile and political family of Dutch and English descent. He was the son of Cornelius Van Schaack Roosevelt, a wealthy hardware merchant and one of the five richest men in New York, and Margaret Barnhill Roosevelt. Growing up in an affluent household, he was part of the Oyster Bay branch of the Roosevelt family that would later produce President Theodore Roosevelt and President Franklin D. Roosevelt. His upbringing in New York City exposed him early to both commercial life and public affairs, and his family’s status provided him with access to the city’s leading educational and social institutions.

Roosevelt received a solid formal education in New York City and then studied law, gaining admission to the bar before establishing a legal practice. Alongside his legal work, he developed a strong interest in outdoor life, angling, and wildlife, pursuits that would later shape his public reputation as a sportsman and conservation advocate. He became known as an accomplished writer on outdoor subjects, contributing articles and books that promoted ethical hunting and fishing and the protection of game and fish populations. His early professional years thus combined law, letters, and civic engagement, laying the groundwork for his later political and diplomatic service.

Roosevelt’s political career was rooted in New York’s Democratic Party, with which he became active in the years following the Civil War. He was associated with reform elements in city politics and took part in efforts to challenge corruption in New York’s municipal government. Elected as a Democrat to the United States House of Representatives, he represented New York for one term from 1871 to 1873, serving in the Forty-second Congress during a significant period of Reconstruction-era national politics. In Congress he participated in the legislative process on behalf of his New York constituents, contributing to debates over economic policy, governance, and postwar national development. After leaving Congress, he remained engaged in public life and party affairs in New York.

In 1873 Roosevelt purchased the Meadow Croft property at Sayville, New York, on Long Island. This estate became an important family residence and was later developed by his son as the John Ellis Roosevelt Estate. Reflecting both the family’s prominence and the historical significance of the property, Meadow Croft was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1987. Roosevelt’s life at Meadow Croft complemented his identity as a sportsman and author, providing a rural setting for his outdoor pursuits and writings while he continued to maintain an active presence in New York City’s legal and political circles.

Roosevelt’s personal life was complex and intertwined with several notable American families. With his first wife, he was the father of Margaret Barnhill Roosevelt (1851–1927), who married Augustus Van Horne Kimberly (1845–1927) in 1889; John Ellis Roosevelt (1853–1939), who in 1879 married Nannie Mitchell Vance (1860–1912), daughter of Hon. Samuel B. H. Vance, at the recently built St. Nicholas Collegiate Reformed Protestant Dutch Church at Fifth Avenue and 48th Street in New York City; and Robert Barnhill Roosevelt Jr. (1866–1929). Samuel B. H. Vance, Nannie’s father, was active in New York State Republican politics, was a manufacturer, and served as Acting Mayor of New York City for the month of December 1874. These marriages further linked the Roosevelts to influential political and business networks in New York.

After the death of his first wife in 1887, Roosevelt married his longtime companion, Irish immigrant Marion Theresa “Minnie” O’Shea. Although his children with Minnie were his biological children, they had been born prior to his marriage to her and were publicly known as his stepchildren. For legal and social reasons of the time, they were listed as having a father named “Robert Francis Fortescue” and retained the Fortescue surname throughout their lives. Together with Minnie, Roosevelt was the father of Kenyon Fortescue (1871–1939), who became an attorney; Major Granville Roland “Rolly” Fortescue (1875–1952), who married Grace Hubbard Bell (1883–1979), a niece of inventor Alexander Graham Bell; and Maude Fortescue (1880–1961), who married Ernest William Sutton Pickhardt in 1900 and moved to London. Pickhardt was the son of Manhattan millionaire Ernest W. Pickhardt and the brother of Baroness Irene von Colberg; Maude and Ernest later divorced before his suicide in 1909, and in 1945 she married Brigadier General Richard L. A. Pennington. These relationships extended Roosevelt’s family connections into transatlantic social and military circles.

In addition to his congressional and diplomatic service, Roosevelt was active in hereditary and patriotic societies that reflected his interest in American history and lineage. He was a member of the Order of the Founders and Patriots of America, an organization composed of descendants of early colonial settlers and Revolutionary-era patriots. In 1906 he became the Order’s sixth Governor General, a position he held until his death later that year. Robert Barnhill Roosevelt died on June 14, 1906, leaving behind a legacy as a New York lawyer, Democratic legislator, diplomat, conservation-minded sportsman, and influential member of the Roosevelt family whose public and private life intersected with many of the leading figures and institutions of his era.