Henry Ledyard
Henry Ledyard (March 5, 1812 – June 7, 1880) was the mayor of Detroit, Michigan and a state senator, briefly served as assistant secretary under Secretary of State Lewis Cass, and was the president of the Newport Hospital and the Redwood Library in Newport, Rhode Island.
Early life and family
Henry Ledyard was born in New York City March 5, 1812, the son of prominent New York lawyer Benjamin Ledyard and Susan French Livingston (the daughter of Revolutionary War Colonel and US Supreme Court justice Henry Brockholst Livingston and granddaughter of New Jersey governor William Livingston). Henry Ledyard graduated from Columbia College in 1830, and began practicing law in New York. When Lewis Cass was appointed Minister to France, Ledyard accompanied him to Paris, eventually becoming chargé d’affaires of the embassy.
In 1839, Ledyard married Cass's daughter Matilda Frances. The couple had five children:
Elizabeth Ledyard, born October 1, 1840, and married to Francis Wayland Goddard in 1862.