Appendix E: Biographies

Mauran

Josephine Mauran (14 September 1825 – 16 February 1887) was the seventh of the thirteen children of a wealthy New York merchant, Oroondates Mauran (28 November 1791 – 6 October 1847; see Image 47), and of Martha (Eddy) Mauran (2 September 1793 – 31 October 1855) (married on 14 December 1814).1 Her father was one of the backers of the Italian Opera House in New York, which was built in 1833 on the corner of Church and Leonard streets.2 It survived only three seasons, “was sold at auction in 1836” to Mr. Mauran, and became the National Theatre.3 Together “with Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt he owned the Staten Island Ferry.”4 “Among the early tugboats of New York Harbor were two well-known side-wheelers, the Bolivar and the Hercules, in which he was interested.”5

Oroondates Mauran lived in New York City in winter and, as of 1831, on Staten Island in summer.6 He “was a bon vivant and very hospitable,” as well as “one of the oldest members of the Union Club in New York.”7 “He could be seen driving to his office daily in a sulky, with his pet horse ‘Charlie’,” who lived to be forty-six years old.8 He “travelled a good deal” at one point to Europe and spent “several winters in Havana.”9

Josephine Mauran’s paternal grandfather, Joseph Carlo Mauran, was “a native of Villefranche, Italy.”10 Impressed at the age of twelve, he “had spent two years of virtual captivity on board a British man-of-war, from which he … escaped when the ship was lying in the harbor of New London.”11 Her maternal grandfather was Judge Samuel Eddy (Johnston, RI 31 March 1769 – 3 February 1839), who served variously as secretary of state, a representative of Congress, and chief justice of the Supreme Judicial Court of the State.12

Josephine attended the Canda school at 17 Lafayette Place in New York with Deborah Delano Whistler and was described by John Stevenson Maxwell, who knew her brother, James Eddy Mauran (New York 8 June 1817 – Newport, RI 27 November 1888),13 as Debo’s “intimate friend and correspondent.”14 She married at Staten Island on 14 September 1853 Oliver Wolcott Gibbs (New York 21 February 1822 – Newport, RI 9 December 1908; see Image 48), BA Columbia University 1841; MA Columbia University 1844; MD College of Physicians and Surgeons, New York 1845; from 1863 to 1877 Rumford Professor and lecturer on the Application of Science to the Useful Arts, Harvard University.15

Josephine Mauran was mentioned only briefly in Anna Whistler’s diaries.

Notes