Marshall Owen Roberts (March 22, 1813 – September 11, 1880)[1] was an American merchant, financier, railroad man, and prominent art collector.

In this role, he "acted honestly by the Government, furnishing precisely the goods called for, in quality and quantity," which became the foundation of his wealth.

Roberts then offered to put his entire fortune into U.S. Bonds to help sustain the Government's credit during the U.S. Civil War.

He also received several large naval supply contracts, all of which helped increase his massive fortune by ten-fold by the War's end.

[5] In 1852, as a Henry Clay Whig, Roberts made his first appearance in politics as the party's nominee for U.S. Congress in the 7th District (which comprised the 9th, 16th, and 20th Wards), losing to Democratic candidate William Adams Walker.

[13] Her elder sister, Mary Boardman Smith, was the wife of abolitionist William Weston Patton (fifth president of Howard University).

After their marriage, Susan threw a lavish reception at their Fifth Avenue home on December 16, 1879, which included the Vanderbilts, Beeckmans, Agnews, Astors, Townsends, Van Rensselaers and Pierreponts.

[6] Before his death, they were the parents of: Roberts died from a stroke on September 11, 1880, at the United States Hotel in Saratoga Springs, New York.

[24] Roberts was a noted art collector and staunch supporter of American artists who never sold or exchanged a painting after he bought it.

[1] His best-known acquisition is Emanuel Leutze's 1851 painting Washington Crossing the Delaware,[26] which he bought for $10,000 (at the time, an enormous sum).

[27] In the art galleries at his Fifth Avenue home, he displayed his collection, which included Rembrandt Peale's Babes in the Wood,[28] Daniel Huntington's Venice and Old Lawyer, Frederick Stuart Church's Rainy Season in the Tropics, Paul Delaroche's Napoleon at Fontainbleau, Ernest Meissonier's The Smoker (1849) Thomas Sidney Cooper's Monarch of the Plain, Édouard Frère's The Industrious Mother,[29] John Frederick Kensett's Moon by the Sea Shore, Henry Peters Gray's Rose of Fiesole and Just Fifteen,[30] George A. Baker's Love at First Sight,[31] Wild Flowers and Children of the Wood, John George Brown's His First Cigar,[32] Thomas Cole's Old Mill, James McDougal Hart's Morning in the Adirondacks,[33] William Henry Powell's Landing of the Pilgrims,[34] William Sidney Mount's Raffling for a Goose,[35] Robert Swain Gifford's On The St. Lawrence, Eugene Benson's Thoughts in Exile, Thomas Sully's Woman at the Well and A Girl Offering Flowers at a Shrine,[36] Seymour Joseph Guy's Good Sister,[37] Charles Loring Elliott's Portrait of Himself, and George Henry Boughton's Gypsy Women, Jean-Léon Gérôme's The Egyptian Conscript,[38] as well as works by Édouard Detaille.