His private character was beyond reproach, unsullied as the virgin sheet. His person was tall and erect, his countenance bold, intelligent, and commanding; his manners urbane, gentlemanly, and affable; his feelings noble, generous, and humane; and his conduct open, frank, and republican. He never shrunk from what he deemed duty, and was always actuated by a desire to promote the interest of the human family and the general good of mankind. He was a refined philanthropist, an acute philosopher, an enlightened statesman, an impartial judge, an able magistrate, and a truly great and good man.
Men often engage in transactions and designs, that produce results in direct opposition to those anticipated. Thus, religious persecution scattered the primitive Christians into various parts of the earth, and, instead of annihilating the doctrines of the Cross, they were more widely spread and diffused through the world. For the enjoyment of the liberty of conscience, the emigrants to New England left their native homes; for the same reason, the Huguenots of France fled before the withering blasts of the revolution of the edict of Nantes in 1685, many of them settling in the city of New York. To the persecuted and oppressed, America was represented as a land of rest, and emigrants poured in upon our shores from France, Holland, Germany, England, Ireland, and Scotland; among whom were many eminent for piety, intelligence, and liberal principles. To the latter place, we trace the ancestor of the subject of this brief sketch. The great grandfather of Philip Livingston was an eminent divine in the church of Scotland, and, in 1663, emigrated to Rotterdam, a city of the Netherlands, in South Holland, where he died nine years after. His son Robert emigrated to America, and obtained a grant for the manor along the Hudson river, which is remarkable for the beauty of its location and the richness of its soil.
He had three sons, Philip, the father of the present subject, Robert, grandfather of Chancellor Livingston, and Gilbert, the grandfather of the Rev. Dr. John H. Livingston, who stood high as a scholar and divine. The subject of this memoir was his fourth son, born at Albany, 15th of January, 1716.