Isaac Newton Phelps

Isaac Newton Phelps (1802–1888) was a New York dry goods merchant who, after retiring in 1853, took up a second career in banking, brokerage and property. He founded The Mercantile Bank, was one of the founders of the Second National Bank, a director of the Greenwich Saving Bank and the Central Trust Company. Later his son-in-law, Anson Phelps Stokes joined him in the family banking business.

Phelps was descended from George Phelps (1606-1687), who came to America from England in 1630. His parents were Elizabeth Sadd (1768-1816) and Joseph Phelps (1766-1834), who was a farmer living in East Windsor, Connecticut. They had lost their property by acting as guarantors for friends and this hardship ended young Phelps's schooling at the age of thirteen. He started work as an apprenticed clerk in a general store and after eight years was offered a partnership in the business. In 1828 he married Sarah Maria Lusk (1808-1867), and moved to New York where he started dry goods sales in partnerships, first with William. N. Pickering (Phelps & Pickering), and then in 1834 with James Sheldon (Sheldon and Phelps).

In about 1850 Phelps left the hardware business and joined with John Jay Phelps in the real-estate company of I. N. & J. J. Phelps with offices at 45 Wall Street. An example of their projects was the development of the old Park Theatre site in 1850 with William Backhouse Astor Sr. At the same time Phelps was also on the board of several banks and insurance companies.

In 1852 Phelps acquired land on Madison Avenue in an area previously undeveloped and built a family house. Three other merchants built adjacent houses at the same time, these were William Earl Dodge, John Jay Phelps and George Dwight Phelps. The only house to have survived from that period is 231 Madison Avenue - the one built by I. N. Phelps - and is now part of the J. P. Morgan Library.

Phelps married Sarah Maria Lusk from Enfield, Connecticut on the 10 November 1828. They had two children, daughters Sarah Maria (1833-1859) and Helen Louisa (1846-1915). Sarah Maria married Henry Laverty King in 1859, but she died shortly afterwards. In 1865 Helen Louisa, married Anson Phelps Stokes, who was a distant cousin having also been descended from the George Phelps who came to America in 1630. Their first child was born in the Madison Avenue house on the 11 April 1867 and he was named Isaac Newton Phelps Stokes after his grandfather. Phelps’s wife had died earlier that year and he asked the newly-weds to move in with him. When in 1874 he remarried - to the widow Mrs. Anna Frances (Swartwout) Maullin, of Troy, New York - his daughter and family moved out to an adjacent property at 230 Madison Avenue.

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