In 1752, he founded a weekly journal, the Independent Reflector, along with fellow Presbyterian lawyers William Smith Jr., the son of his law teacher, and John Morin Scott.

Most notably, the Triumvirate attacked the founding of King's College (later renamed as Columbia University) as a conspiracy by Anglicans to install a bishop in America, including his former tutor Rev.

Publication of the Reflector ceased with the fifty-second issue in late 1753 after political pressure was brought to bear upon its printer, James Parker,[5] but Livingston and his allies continued to attack the college over the next year with columns in newspapers.

Livingston remained politically active and was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 1768 and served one term in the New York General Assembly until his political allies lost power in 1769 and was replaced by his nephew, Peter Robert Livingston, the eldest surviving son of his brother Robert.

A young Alexander Hamilton lived with Livingston for at least the winter while he attended Francis Barber's grammar school.

The Loyalist mayor of New York City, and a distant cousin through the Schuyler family, David Mathews, was suspected by being behind the attempted capture of Livingston.

[14][15] They had 13 children, including:[16][2][17] Livingston's daughter, Sarah, was born in 1756 and was educated at home in penmanship, English grammar, the Bible, and classic literature.

Sarah served in her hospitality role as the wife of the first Chief Justice of the United States and First Lady of New York.

Among the other prominent descendants of William Livingston were Julia Kean, wife of United States Secretary of State and New York Governor Hamilton Fish, a descendant of Peter Stuyvesant, the last Dutch Director-General of New Amsterdam; Thomas Kean, the 48th Governor of New Jersey and the grand-nephew of Hamilton Fish; Edwin Brockholst Livingston, a historian; and Henry Brockholst Ledyard, mayor of Detroit.

[20] Livingston died on July 25, 1790, in Elizabeth, New Jersey, and was originally buried at Trinity Church in Manhattan, but on May 7, 1844, was reinterred at Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn.

In 1747, Livingston wrote and published a long pastoral poem entitled, "Philosophic Solitude, or the Choice of a Rural Life".

In 1754, Livingston also played a key role in founding the New York Society Library, which is still in existence over a quarter of a millennium later.