Judge Benjamin F. Hoffman ¹ son-in-law's promotion request 1 and request 2
25 Jan 1812 - 11 Aug 1909
+ Elizabeth Ann Hopkins Cleveland
17 Mar 1816 - 6 Nov 1867

Grace "Kitty" Hoffman ² Judge Advocate Holt asks after her health
27 Sep 1842 - 28 June 1864
+ 27 Oct 1858, Warren OH
Brigadier-General Henry Lawrence Burnett
26 December 1838 - 4 Jan 1916

1. Grace Hoffman Burnett
20 Jun 1860 - 3 Apr 1945
+ 28 Oct 1878, Paris FR
Major General Victor Siegmund von Oertzen ³
27 Mar 1854 - 27 Dec 1934

2. Katherine "Kitty" Cleveland Burnett ⁴
1864 -

3. Child Burnett

NOTES

1 Judge Benjamin F. Hoffman - took in the young Henry Burnett when the boy ran away from home, and let the boy study law with him.

2 Grace "Kitty" Hoffman - Kitty died after the birth of her 3rd child, while Henry was still acting as Judge Advocate for the Department of the Ohio. They lived in Covington KY, and he worked across the river in Cincinnati OH.

3 Major General Victor Siegmund von Oertzen - Grace's husband was in charge of a World War I American POW camp in Germany. After the war, the family was devastated by poverty. They had no children.

4 Katherine "Kitty" Cleveland Burnett - nothing is known of a marriage or descendants, but a family story tells of Texas relatives who could be connected to young Kitty.

Brigadier General Henry Livingston Lansing ¹
15 Jan 1818 - 30 Sep 1889
+ Catharine Olivia Gibson ²
28 Feb 1820 - 25 Oct 1897

Sarah Gibson Lansing
17 Aug 1846 - 11 February 1877
+ 4 Sep 1867, Buffalo NY
Brigadier-General Henry Lawrence Burnett
26 Dec 1838 - 4 Jan 1916

1. Lansing Burnett³
18 Jan 1869 - 20 Jan 1893

2. Catharine Olivia Gibson Burnett will, obituary
2 May 1873 - 20 Mar 1934
+ 5 Jan 1896, Canandaigua NY
Robert Jewett Mercur ⁴
1871 -

+ Jack Bell ⁵

+ 5 Nov 1911, Denver CO
Robert M. Van Deusen ⁶

NOTES

1 Henry Livingston Lansing, Brigadier General - a banker, and secretary/treasurer of the Buffalo and Erie Railroad, Henry Lansing was also in charge of the 31st New York National Guard of Buffalo. Three of his ancestors were Revolutionary War colonels (Col. Gerrit G. Lansing, Col. Edward Antill), and Col. Samuel Breese. His great-great grandfather was NJ Governor Lewis Morris. Lansing's sister was married to the son of S.F.B. Morse.

After the death of his first and second wives, Henry Burnett left the children of both marriages with the Lansings.

2 Catharine Olivia Gibson - her father, Henry Bicker Gibson, was one of the richest men in western NY, with a bank, a canal company and the presidency of two railroads, the Auburn & Rocester, and the Rochester and Syracuse. The latter was merged with others to form the New York Central, with Gibson on the Board of Directors for the first year. Port Gibson NY is named for him. Gibson's grandfather was Colonel Henry Bicker, a Revolutionary War officer with Washington at Valley Forge.

3 Lansing Burnett - got one vote in Canandaigua's beautiful contest for prettiest child under 5. Since Lansing was 12 at the time, we can assume that his single vote came from one of his young friends. Lansing was training to be a doctor when he died, unmarried, at the age of 24.

4 Robert Jewett Mercur - the son of a Buffalo manufacturer, Mercur simply disappears from history. Whether her daughter's daughter (Catharine Seymour, the wife of Otto Cross) had children is unknown.

5 Jack Bell - enters history with a newspaper account of their wedding trip by covered wagon to Mexico. Together they edit a newspaper, the Canon City Cannon. Catharine divorces him when she discovers he's unfaithful. They left descendants.

6 Robert M. Van Deusen - marries Catharine a few years after her divorce. They both work for the state of Colorado, then establish the Van Deusen Ranch in Granby CO. The ranch disappeared beneath a reservoir constructed by the Army Corps of Engineers.

Edward Neufville Tailer ¹
1830 - 1917
+ Agnes Suffern
1830 - 1917

Agnes Suffern Tailer ²
16 Mar 1860 -
+ 31 Jan 1882, New York City
Brigadier-General Henry Lawrence Burnett
26 Dec 1838 - 4 Jan 1916

Henry L. Burnett, Jr. ³
1882 -

2. Edward N.T. Burnett ⁴
9 Apr 1885 - 15 Nov 1966
Sophia Hunter
- 10 Jan 1978

3. Robert Suffern Tailer Burnett ⁵
4 Aug 1895 -

NOTES

1 Edward Neufville Tailer - a director in The German-American Bank and The Northern Dispensary and a member of the vestry of Ascension Church. His social standing is shown by his membership in the Union, Union League, Tuxedo, Country, Westchester Polo, and Merchants' clubs and The New England and St. Nicholas Societies. In 1874, he joined the Patriarchs.

2 Agnes Suffern Tailer - outlived her husband, but ran with too fast a crowd. Her place and date of death are unknown.

3 Henry L. Burnett, Jr. - graduating from Colombia in 1905, Henry Jr. might well have followed the same fast crowd as his mother. A codicil to his father's will places him as an inmate of Bloomindale Hospital, White Plains, New York.

4 Edward N.T. Burnett - graduated from Yale College in 1909. He moved to California and tended an orange grove. He has descendants.

5 Robert Suffern Tailer Burnett - died as an infant and is buried with his father in Goshen NY.