Robert Livingston (1688–1775)

[2] Upon reaching the age of twenty-five, he returned to America and opened a law office in Albany.

Margaret was the daughter of a wealthy English merchant in New York and granddaughter of Captain Bethlow, a Huguenot after whom Bedloe's Island is named.

Their only child was: Margaret died in December 1758 and was interred in a burial vault constructed 200 yards north of the Livingston family home at Clermont.

[5] His grandson, Edward Livingston (1764–1836) described Robert of Clermont at eighty-four as: "... a gentleman... tall and somewhat bent, but not emaciated by age which had marked, but not disfigured, a face once remarkable for its regular beauty of features, and still beaming with the benevolence and intelligence that had always illuminated it.

He marked the epoch at which he retired from the world by preserving its costume: the flowing wool powered wig, the bright brown coat, with large cuffs and square shirts, the cut velvet waistcoast, with ample flaps and the breeches scarcely covering the knee, the silk stocking, rolled over them with embroidered clocks, and shining square-toed shoes, fastened near the ankle and small embossed gold buckles.

These were retained in his service, not to affect a singularity, but because he thought it ridiculous at his time of life to follow the quick succession of fashion.

A failure in the law, in business, and in the eyes of his own parents, he nonetheless entered his final years with the satisfaction that he had not only maintained the estate passed on to him by his father, but had increased it 40-fold through his speculation in Catskill Mountain lands.