Samuel Untermyer

Samuel J. Untermyer (March 6, 1858 – March 16, 1940, although some sources cite March 2, 1858, and even others, June 6, 1858) was a prominent American lawyer and civic leader. He is also remembered for bequeathing his Yonkers, New York estate, now known as Untermyer Park, to the people of New York State.
Life.
Samuel Untermyer was born in Lynchburg, Virginia to Isadore Untermyer and Therese Laudauer, both of whom were German Jews who emigrated to the United States from Bavaria. His father, a planter, served as a lieutenant in the Confederate States Army. Following his death in 1866, the family moved to New York City. 
He began his higher education at the City College of New York before receiving his LL.B. from Columbia University in 1878.
Following his admission to the bar, Untermyer started practicing in New York City. His younger brother, Maurice Untermyer, was later admitted, while he also recruited Columbia classmate Louis Marshall to join the firm in 1895. They, with Randolph Guggenheimer and his descendants, practiced as Guggenheimer, Untermyer & Marshall for 45 years.
Untermyer gained fame as a lawyer focusing on corporate law. An exponent of the Progressive Era, he became an advocate of stock market regulations, government ownership of railroads and various legal reforms. However, he was also the first attorney to earn a million dollars on a single case.
Career.
Between the start of his practice and 1921, Untermyer was counsel in many celebrated cases, specifically:
Political involvement.
Untermyer later served as a delegate to the Democratic National Convention from New York in 1932 and 1936. He was also a delegate to the New York Constitutional Convention in 1938.
Untermyer also identified as a Zionist and served as president of the Keren Hayesod, the agency through which the movement was then and still is conducted in America.
In 1933, he helped found the Non-Sectarian Anti-Nazi League to promote an economic boycott of Nazi Germany.
Untermyer Park.
Untermyer developed elaborate gardens at his primary residence, Greystone, in Yonkers, New York. The 150-acre estate was situated on land adjacent to the Hudson River.
Greystone had previously been owned by Samuel Tilden, the 25th Governor of New York and the Democratic presidential nominee in the disputed election of 1876. Untermyer, who purchased the estate shortly after Tilden's death in 1886, willed it to the federal, state or Yonkers municipal government to benefit the public. Eventually, the city agreed to accept part of the estate gardens; this parcel of land was renamed Untermyer Park in his honor. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1974.
Untermyer Gardens have undergone significant restorations, which are continuing, to recreate the original design.
Personal life.
On August 9, 1880, he married Minnie Carl, daughter of Mairelius Carl of New York City. They had three children, Alvin, who served in the 305th Field Artillery in France during World War I; Irwin Untermyer, a justice of the Appellate Division of the New York Supreme Court, First Judicial Department, and Irene, a philanthropist who married Louis Putnam Myers and, after his death, became the wife of Stanley Richter. Upon the outbreak of World War I, Untermyer, his wife, and two servants were vacationing in Carlsbad, Germany, and returned to the United States aboard the "Baltic" via London in late August.
Journalist Maury Terry (best known for his work on potential links between alleged ritualistic sacrifices at Untermyer Park and the Son of Sam murders) reported that Untermyer belonged to the New York City temple of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, although the provenance of corroborating evidence remains nebulous.
Untermyer died on March 16, 1940, in Palm Springs, California. His body was interred (with an accompanying sculpture by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney) at a family plot that he established in Woodlawn Cemetery.