Livingston was the eldest son of Judge Robert Livingston (1718–1775) and Margaret (néeBeekman) Livingston, uniting two wealthy Hudson River Valley families. He had three brothers and five sisters, all of whom wed and made their homes on the Hudson River near the family seat at Clermont Manor. Among his siblings were his younger brother, Edward Livingston (1764-1836), who also served as U.S. Minister to France, his sister Gertrude Livingston (1757–1833), who married Governor Morgan Lewis (1754–1844), sister Janet Livingston (d. 1824), who married Richard Montgomery (1738–1775), sister Alida Livingston (1761–1822), who married John Armstrong, Jr. (1758–1843) (who succeeded him as U.S. Minister to France), and sister Joanna Livingston (1759–1827), who married Peter R. Livingston (1766–1847).[2]
After serving as chancellor for almost 24 years, Livingston left office on June 30, 1801. During that period, he became nationally known by his title alone as "The Chancellor", and even after leaving office, he was respectfully addressed as Chancellor Livingston for the remainder of his life.
Declaration of Independence
The Committee of Five stands at the center of John Trumbull's 1817 painting Declaration of Independence. Thomas Jefferson is depicted presenting the draft Declaration to Congress with Benjamin Franklin at his side. Behind them are, from left to right, John Adams, Roger Sherman, and Livingston.Livingston is depicted on the 1953 postage stamp commemorating the signing of the Louisiana Purchase
On June 11, 1776, Livingston was appointed to a committee of the Second Continental Congress, known as the Committee of Five, which was given the task of drafting the Declaration of Independence. After establishing a general outline for the document, the committee decided that Jefferson would write the first draft.[9] The committee reviewed Jefferson's draft, making extensive changes,[10] before presenting Jefferson's revised draft to Congress on June 28, 1776. Before he could sign the final version of the Declaration, Livingston was recalled by his state. However, he sent his cousin, Philip Livingston, to sign the document in his place. Another cousin, William Livingston, would go on to sign the United States Constitution.
U.S. Minister to France
Following Thomas Jefferson's election as President of the United States, once Jefferson became president on March 4, 1801, he appointed Livingston U.S. minister to France. Serving from 1801 to 1804, Livingston negotiated the Louisiana Purchase. After the signing of the Louisiana Purchase agreement in 1803, Livingston made this memorable statement:
We have lived long but this is the noblest work of our whole lives ... The United States takes rank this day among the first powers of the world.[11]
During his time as U.S. minister to France, Livingston met Robert Fulton, with whom he developed the first viable steamboat, the North River Steamboat, whose home port was at the Livingston family home of Clermont Manor in the town of Clermont, New York. On her maiden voyage, she left New York City with him as a passenger, stopped briefly at Clermont Manor, and continued to Albany up the Hudson River, completing in just under 60 hours a journey that had previously taken nearly a week by sloop sailboat. In 1811, Fulton and Livingston became members of the Erie Canal Commission.
Freemasonry and the Society of Cincinnati
Livingston was a Freemason, and in 1784, he was appointed the first Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of New York, retaining this title until 1801. The Grand Lodge's library in Manhattan bears his name. The Bible Livingston used to administer the oath of office to President Washington is owned by St. John's Lodge No. 1 and is still used today when the Grand Master is sworn in, and, by request, when a President of the United States is sworn in.
Margaret Beekman Livingston, mother of Chancellor Robert R. Livingston
On September 9, 1770, Livingston married Mary Stevens (1751–1814), the daughter of Continental CongressmanJohn Stevens and sister of the inventor John Stevens III.[13] Following their marriage, he built a home south of Clermont, called Belvedere, which was burned to the ground along with Clermont in 1777 by the British Army under General John Burgoyne. In 1794, he built a new home called New Clermont, which was subsequently renamed Arryl House, a phonetic spelling of his initials "RRL", which was deemed "the most commodious home in America" and contained a library of four thousand volumes.[14][15] Together, Robert and Mary were the parents of:[2]
Margaret Maria Livingston (1783–1818), who married Robert L. Livingston (1775–1843), the son of Walter Livingston and Cornelia Schuyler, on July 10, 1799.
Death
Livingston died on February 26, 1813, and was buried in the Clermont Livingston vault at St. Paul's Church in Tivoli, New York died a natural death age 75
Livingston family
Through his eldest daughter Elizabeth he was the grandfather of four:
^At the time, the Livingstons used their father's first names as middle names to distinguish the numerous members of the family, as a kind of patronymic. Since Robert and his father had the same name, he never spelled out the middle name but always used only the initial.
^Johnson, Rossiter; Brown, John Howard, eds. (1906). The Biographical Dictionary of America. Vol. VI. Boston: American Biographical Society. Retrieved 2022-05-09 – via Internet Archive.
^Jay, Elizabeth Clarkson (April 1881). "The Descendants of James Alexander". The New York Genealogical and Biographical Record. XII (2): 61. Retrieved 2022-05-09 – via Google Books.
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