Percy R. Pyne

Percy Rivington Pyne (May 5, 1857 – August 22, 1929) was a banker, financier, and philanthropist.

He was born in 1857 in New York City, the son of Percy Rivington Pyne (1820-1895) and Albertina Shelton (Taylor) Pyne. His maternal grandfather was Moses Taylor, founder of the First National City Bank of New York and a stockholder in the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad. His older brother, Moses Taylor Pyne, inherited much of the family fortune and was a major benefactor of Princeton University. [http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F30913FC3A5C177A93C1AB1783D85F4D8285F9 Percy R. Pyne Dies; Noted Financier] ] . "The New York Times", August 23, 1929.]

Pyne received a B.A. degree from Princeton in 1878 and an M.A. degree in 1881. On June 20, 1889, he married Maud Howland (b. May 17, 1866), daughter of New York merchant Gardiner Greene Howland.Reynolds, Cuyler. [http://books.google.com/books?id=iNIUAAAAYAAJ "Genealogical and Family History of Southern New York and the Hudson River Valley"] , Vol. 3 (1914), pp. 1413-14.] Maud's brother Dulany Howland married Marguerite McClure, who later remarried Ogden H. Hammond, the father of Millicent Fenwick. [Shapiro, Amy. "Millicent Fenwick: Her Way" (2003), p. 30.]

He began his business career under the tutelage of Moses Taylor, serving as a partner in the firm of Moses Taylor & Co. He would follow in his grandfather's footsteps, becoming director of the National City Bank as well as manager of the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad.

In New York City, Pyne and his family lived at 680 Park Avenue at the corner of East 68th Street, now home to the Americas Society. [ [http://www.nyc-architecture.com/UES/UES041.htm Americas Society] , New York Architecture Images.] In 1899, he built the mansion Upton Pyne in Bernardsville, New Jersey as a summer home. It was named after Upton Pyne in Devon, England, his family's ancestral manor. It was the largest mansion in the area until it was destroyed by fire in 1982. [Schleicher, William A. and Susan Winter. [http://books.google.com/books?id=pl6JF54vnRIC "In the Somerset Hills: The Landed Gentry"] . Arcadia, 1997, p. 43.]

Percy and Maud Pyne had five children: Grafton Howland Pyne (b. August 11, 1890), Herbert Rivington Pyne (b. January 16, 1892), Mary Percy Pyne (b. November 27, 1893), Percy Rivington Pyne Jr. (b. November 9, 1896), and Meredith Howland Pyne (b. October 5, 1898).

Pyne died at his Bernardsville home in 1929 at the age of 72.

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