His father had been a fourth generation New Yorker who owned significant property and amassed a considerable fortune.

[5] Through his maternal aunt, Elizabeth (née Crommelin) Ludlow, he was a first cousin of Daniel Ludlow, the first president of the Manhattan Company, which was founded in 1799 by Aaron Burr to rival Alexander Hamilton's Bank of New York and the New York branch of the First Bank of the United States.

[2] After graduating from King's College in 1768, his elder brother sent him to Holland to acquire practical experience in mercantile and banking procedures by working at his uncle's firm, Daniel Crommelin and Sons.

[7] "When the Duke of Clarence, then a young midshipman, afterward William IV, was in New York, Gulian Verplanck was his associate, skated with him upon the Collect, and rescued him from drowning when he fell through a hole in the ice.

Two years after his death, his widow married George Cairnes, the Reporter of the Supreme Court of New York State.