Robert Livingston (1718–1775)

Robert R. Livingston (1718 – December 9, 1775) was a prominent politician, and a leading Whig in New York in the years leading up to the American Revolution.

Robert R. Livingston was born in 1718, the only child of Robert Livingston (1688–1775) of Clermont and Margaret Howarden (1693–1758). His paternal grandparents were Robert Livingston the Elder (1654–1728) and Alida Schuyler (née van Rensselaer) Livingston, daughter of Philip Pieterse Schuyler (1628–1683). His uncle was Philip Livingston (1686–1749), the second Lord of Livingston Manor. His great-grandfather was Reverend John Livingston, a Church of Scotland minister who died in exile in 1673.

Livingston, known as 'Judge Livingston' to distinguish him from his eponymous father and other prominent Livingstons, was a member of the New York Provincial Assembly from 1759 to 1768. He served as judge of the admiralty court from 1760 to 1763 and as justice of the colonial supreme court in 1763. He was a delegate to the Stamp Act Congress of 1765, and, in 1775, a member of the Committee of One Hundred, which briefly governed New York City.

In 1742, he married Margaret Beekman, daughter of Henry Beekman and Janet Livingston (his second cousin), a descendant of Wilhelmus Beekman and heir to immense tracts of land in Dutchess and Ulster counties. Their children included:

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