Representative Gouverneur Kemble

Gouverneur Kemble (January 25, 1786 – September 18, 1875) was an American diplomat, industrialist, and two-term United States Congressman from New York from 1837 to 1841. He was born in 1786 in New York City to a prominent family, the eldest son of prosperous attorney and merchant Peter Kemble of New Jersey. Through his grandmother Gertrude Bayard, he was descended from both the Schuyler and Van Cortlandt families, placing him within some of the most influential colonial and early national lineages in New York. The family firm, Gouverneur & Kemble, operated ships that conducted trade in the West Indies, Europe, and China, exposing him early to international commerce and maritime enterprise.

Kemble was educated in New York and graduated from Columbia College in 1803. After completing his studies, he entered the mercantile business, working within the commercial networks developed by his family. In New York City he moved in literary and social circles that included Washington Irving and other members of the city’s cultural elite. They frequently gathered at Cockloft Hall, an old family mansion on the Passaic River at Woodside, Newark, which Kemble inherited and which was sometimes known as “Salmagundi” or the “Bachelor’s Elysium.” He was a founding member of the convivial group known as the “Lads of Kilkenny.” His family connections further linked him to prominent literary and political figures; his sister Gertrude married author and later Secretary of the Navy James Kirke Paulding in November 1818.

Kemble’s early public service was tied to American naval and diplomatic interests in the Mediterranean. During the Second Barbary War, he was sent to the Mediterranean as a naval agent, a role that acquainted him with the logistical and material needs of modern navies. In 1816, as a young man with strong political connections, he was appointed United States Consul at Cádiz, Spain. While serving in Cádiz, he observed the Spanish government’s advanced methods of casting cannon, an industrial process that would shape his subsequent career. His exposure to these state-of-the-art techniques convinced him that similar capabilities were needed in the United States.

Upon returning home, Kemble sought to introduce the modern cannon-casting process to American industry. Around 1817, together with his brother William Kemble and a consortium of investors that included General Joseph Gardner Swift of the U.S. Army, he founded the West Point Foundry Association to produce artillery pieces for the United States Government. The need for such an establishment had been underscored by the War of 1812, which revealed deficiencies in domestic armaments production. The foundry was constructed in the village of Cold Spring, New York, across the Hudson River from the United States Military Academy at West Point. Under Kemble’s leadership, the West Point Foundry soon expanded beyond artillery to manufacture cast iron steam engines for locomotives, gears, water pipes, and a variety of other iron products. Despite an initial shortage of local artisans and craftsmen skilled in ironworking, Kemble and his partners overcame these obstacles, notably by hiring William Young, a native of Belfast, Ireland, whose expertise contributed to the foundry’s success. Robert P. Parrott became superintendent in 1836, and under his management the foundry weathered the financial turmoil of the Panic of 1837. Kemble remained president of the association until the expiration of its charter and became known locally as the “Patriarch of Cold Spring” for his charitable activities and civic leadership in the village. During the American Civil War, the West Point Foundry emerged as a major producer of artillery, including the famous Parrott guns, and played a significant role in supplying the Union war effort.

Kemble’s industrial interests extended beyond Cold Spring. In 1823 he leased land in Orange County, New York, for the mineral rights to mine iron ore, further integrating his enterprises with the region’s natural resources. Four years later, in 1827, the Kembles acquired most of the nearby Greenwood Iron Foundry and related industries, consolidating their position in the iron business. In 1839, Gouverneur and William Kemble sold the Greenwood foundry to Robert P. Parrott, who had already been associated with their West Point operations. The following year, in 1840, Kemble’s sister Mary married Parrott, reinforcing the close personal and business ties between the families.

An active member of the Democratic Party, Kemble entered elective office in the late 1830s. He was elected to the Twenty-fifth and Twenty-sixth Congresses, representing a district that included Westchester and Putnam counties in New York, and served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1837 to 1841 during the presidency of Martin Van Buren. His tenure in Congress coincided with a period of economic instability following the Panic of 1837 and with debates over banking, internal improvements, and federal economic policy, areas in which his background as an industrialist and businessman was particularly relevant. In 1840 he declined a nomination for a third term, choosing to return to his business and civic pursuits rather than continue in national elective office.

Kemble remained engaged in Democratic Party affairs after leaving Congress. He served as a delegate to the Democratic National Convention in 1840 and again in 1860, participating in party deliberations during two pivotal election years in antebellum and sectional politics. In 1846 he was elected as a delegate to the convention called to revise the New York State Constitution, contributing to the restructuring of the state’s fundamental law in the mid-nineteenth century. His political activity thus extended from local and state concerns to national party politics over several decades.

In his later years, Kemble devoted considerable energy to transportation, the arts, and civic institutions. He was an active supporter of the Hudson River Railroad, which helped transform the economic landscape of the Hudson Valley, and of the Panama Railway, one of the earliest trans-isthmian rail projects linking Atlantic and Pacific trade routes. A lifelong art collector and patron, he supported artists and cultural organizations in New York. Together with David Hunter Strother, who later gained fame for his illustrated articles in Harper’s Monthly, Kemble helped found the Century Club (Century Association), an important New York City institution for artists, writers, and intellectuals. In recognition of his support for the arts, he was elected an Honorary Academician of the National Academy of Design in 1854. An 1853 oil portrait of Gouverneur Kemble by the noted Hudson River School painter Asher Brown Durand is held by the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., attesting to his prominence in the cultural life of his era. He was also one of the last surviving members of the Tontine Association, a notable early New York financial and social institution.

Gouverneur Kemble spent his final years in Cold Spring, where his industrial, philanthropic, and civic activities had long made him a central figure in the community. He died there on September 16, 1875, at the age of 89, and was buried in Cold Spring Cemetery. His influence in the region was such that famed Civil War general Gouverneur Kemble Warren, born in Cold Spring in 1830, was named for him, reflecting Kemble’s close friendship with Warren’s father, Sylvanus Warren. Through his work as a diplomat, industrial pioneer, legislator, and patron of the arts, Kemble left a lasting imprint on both the economic development of the Hudson Valley and the broader political and cultural life of nineteenth-century America.