Halsted, William M.

Born: 1825-08-30 New York

Died: 1895-02-28 New York, New York

Alternate name: Halstead

William M. Halsted was a merchant, dry goods dealer, bank director, philanthropist, and Presbyterian. He entered the business world in New York City, and, at age twenty-one, partnered with R. T. Haines. The two founded Halsted, Haines and Company, a dry goods importing firm that soon became very successful. In February 1851, he married Mary L. Haines, with whom he eventually had four children. The family became prosperous and prominent in New York, and Halsted became involved in several philanthropic endeavors. He was one of the founders of both the Union Theological Seminary and the American Bible and Tract Society. He also served as director of Manhattan Bank for a time, was an elder in the University Place Presbyterian Church, and a governor of the New York Hospital and Bloomingdale Asylum.

U.S., Presbyterian Church Records, 1701-1970, 30 August 1825, New York, NY (Lehi, UT: Ancestry.com Operations, 2016); U.S. Census Office, Seventh Census of the United States (1850), Ward 18, New York, New York County, NY, 129; New Jersey, U.S., Marriage Records, 1670-1965, 21 February 1851, Essex County (Lehi, UT: Ancestry.com Operations, 2016); W. G. MacCallum, William Stewart Halstead, Surgeon (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1930), 2-3; E. Porter Belden, New York: Past, Present, and Future (New York: Prall and Lewis, 1851), 69; U.S. Census Office, Ninth Census of the United States (1870), Ward 19, New York, New York County, NY, 38; The New-York Times (New York), 2 March 1895, 5:5.