James Roosevelt
The Father of FDR
Feb 20, 2009 William L. Wunder
James was born July 16, 1828 in Hyde Park, NY, the son of Isaac Roosevelt and Mary Rebecca Aspinwall. Raised in an isolated and sufficating atmosphere, James rebelled against his religious and eccentric father. In college, James was frequently drunk, but managed to graduate from Union College in 1847.
Giuseppe Garibaldi
Isaac grudgingly allowed James to go to Europe and the Holy Land with his friends. For a month in Italy, James donned the red shirt of the army of liberal idealist Giuseppe Garibaldi, who was attempting to unite Italy. Eventually, James had second thoughts and did not want to die young. He managed to get a discharge.
After Italy, James buckled down. He graduated from Harvard Law School without incident. He married Rebecca Howland in 1853 and had a son, James Roosevelt Roosevelt, aka "Rosy" in 1854. The law firm James worked for assigned him to the board of directors of a client, a Maryland coal company. He learned so much about the industry that he founded his own coal company. However, due to the Panic of 1873, he was forced to resign as company president.
James also dabbled in transportation. He was vice president of the Delaware and Hudson Railroad and was president of the first American holding company, Southern Railway, a combination of several railroads south of Washington D.C.. James also invested in a company seeking to build a canal across Nicaragua, but eventually lost out to the Panama Canal proposal. Otherwise, James had the time to pursue interests on his estate, such as horse breeding, and declared himself a "gentleman farmer" in the 1880 census.
The Democrat
The Garibaldi experience also influenced his politics. According to Doug Wead, Italy sensitized James and he displayed no further interest in noble causes. He had no qualms in hiring a substitute to take his place in the Union Army, apparently not enamored of the war against slavery. James became good friends with General George B. McClellan, the 1864 Democratic nominee for President, and who was known to hate Abraham Lincoln and blacks.
As a Democrat, James was a local oddity. The New York City Roosevelts, like Theodore Roosvelt Sr., became Republicans during the Civil War. Also, many of James' gentleman neighbors were Republicans. His support for President Grover Cleveland earned him an offer of a diplomatic post in the winter of 1887. James turned it down, but his son Rosy was named First Secretary of the Legation at Vienna. In an interesting family story, when James and his other son visited Cleveland in the White House, the weary President put his hand on the head of the five year old and made a wish: he shall not be President.
Sara Delano
That five year old, Franklin Roosevelt, was the product of the marriage between James and Sara Delano in 1880, four years after the death of his first wife. The courtship lasted only ten weeks. The haughty Sara matched well with James, whom acquaintences described as arrogant and pompous. Some friends laughed behind his back, observing the imported English tweed clothes, riding crop, and full muttonchop whiskers, acting very much the English country squire.
Despite the pomposity, James took the care to teach Franklin how to row, sail, skate, sled, and ride horseback. He also taught him the importance of land stewardship and civic responsibility in his daily rounds of the estate, Hyde Park, and Pougkeepsie. Unfortunately, James suffered a heart attack in 1891, leaving him an invalid. Franklin saw the need to protect his father, to prevent any disturbance that might upset him. It is widely believed Franklin developed his trait of helping the disadvantaged- a characteristic of the New Deal- from this situation. Ultimately, with Franklin away at Harvard, James Roosevelt died in New York City, December 8, 1900.
Sources
Alter, Jonathan, The Defining Moment, Simon and Schuster: New York, 2006.
Freidel, Frank, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Back Bay: New York, 1990.
Goodwin, Doris Kearns, No Ordinary Time, Touchstone: New York, 1994.
Wead, Doug, The Raising of a President, Atria, 2006.
James Roosevelt, right, with son Franklin, 1899
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