Caleb Hyatt (1880 - 1972)

Born 21 Jan 1880 in Scarsdale, Westchester, NY

Ancestors

Husband of Elvira Roxanna (Pierson) Hyatt — married about 1906 in Buffalo, New York [uncertain]

Descendants

Died 18 May 1972 at age 92 in Stamford, Fairfield, CT

Problems/Questions Profile manager: Halsey Bullen [send private message]

Biography

Caleb was born in 1880 in the house of his father and grandfather, the second oldest house in Scarsdale, which later became his house.

See The Cudner-Hyatt House: The Story of its Two Families, published in 1987 by the Scarsdale Historical Society, for a full account of Caleb Hyatt's life as well as his father's and grandfather's lives. The Society has restored and maintains its headquarters in Caleb Hyatt's house at 937 White Plains Post Road in Scarsdale.

Career

NYU, 1901, Civil Engineering

Worked on the building the Niagara Falls electrical generation plant (where he met his wife Elvira), later worked at the Hastings Paving Company, with asphalt block plant in Hastings-on-Hudson, and offices at 22 Broad Street, New York. There, he helped build the Bronx River Parkway, the first parkway anywhere, among other roads. The distinctive asphalt blocks of Hastings Paving are still common sights in the New York area.

Leisure Activities

Never really at leisure, Caleb was an active archer, winning a National Championship in long-distance shooting. A weekend farmer, first in Scarsdale and later in Cherryplain, NY. A photographer with his own darkroom. A lover of automobiles, starting with the 1901 Dirac he bought new, including among others a war surplus Jeep bought disassembled and preserved in cosmoline grease and a mid-1950's Studebaker Hawk, and ending with a bright red 1965 Corvair.

With his wife Elvira, raised five children, two successsful dairy farmers and three very active homemakers

And was senior warden of the Church of St. James the Less, Episcopal for almost 50 years.

Death

Caleb died at the age of 92.

Sources

• Family records, personal knowledge