Edwin Bartlett (1796-1867)

He was born at Haverhill, Massachusetts, where his father was a U.S. Congressman and Sheriff of Essex County. He started his mercantile career in Lisbon, Portugal, and it continued in Bolivia and Peru. For several years, he was the U.S. Consul at Lima, Peru, where in 1830 he became Senior Partner of Alsop & Co., which established his fortune. In 1847, he went into partnership with William H. Aspinwall (among others) and co-founded the Pacific Mail Steamship Company. The success of that company allowed him to build Rockwood Hall in New York that was described as, "one of the most ornate and beautiful country seats in America" In 1857, he was elected Chairman of the Board of the Ohio & Mississippi Railroad Company, and he was a director of the Panama Railroad Company too. In 1860, he sold Rockwood for $100,000 to Aspinwall, and moved to Miramonte. He died without children.