[6] His maternal uncle, Gen. James I. Jones,[7] married his paternal cousin, Elizabeth Schermerhorn (Abraham's daughter and Caroline's sister).

[10] Schermerhorn was educated in private schools in New York before attending Columbia College, where he graduated with honors in 1840 (alongside Robert Lenox Kennedy and Ogden Hoffman Jr.).

[11] After being admitted to the bar in 1842, he commenced the practice of law, with an office at 41 Liberty Street, where he managed the large Schermerhorn estate.

[11] In the Spring of 1895, Schermerhorn and University President Seth Low, among others, oversaw the college's move from its old site on 49th Street to its current location in Morningside Heights.

[16] Schermerhorn Hall, designed by McKim, Mead, and White, to the left of Low Memorial Library (on the Amsterdam Avenue side), along with its twin, Havemeyer Hall, was one of the original buildings on the uptown campus and was devoted to science, with laboratories and lecture rooms for botany, geology and physics.

They first lived in the old Schermerhorn residence, on Lafayette Place and 4th Street, which Ann redecorated to resemble Louis XV's Versailles for a French-themed costume ball she gave in 1854 for six hundred New Yorkers,[19] at which the German Cotillion was introduced in America.

[20] In 1860, Schermerhorn built the family a large new home at 49 West 23rd Street, which was known for its picture gallery and music rooms and was considered one of the handsomest residences in the city.