Robert Leighton Stuart (1806-1882)

Stuart and his brother, Alexander, made their fortune refining sugar. As employers, their popularity was never more evident than during the New York Draft Riots of 1863, when of their own free will, their workers successfully defended against the angry mob that threatened to over-run their factories. Remembered as among the most generous of New York's philanthropists, Robert Stuart was a co-founder of the American Museum of Natural History, and his extremely philanthropic widow, Mrs Mary Stuart, left their $5 million fortune almost entirely to charitable causes.