Introduction
Herbert Livingston Satterlee (October 31, 1863 – July 14, 1947) was an American lawyer, writer, and businessman who served as the United States United States Assistant Secretary of the Treasury and then the Assistant Secretary of the Navy from 1908 to 1909.
Biography
Herbert Livingston Satterlee was born in New York City in 1863, the son of George Bowen Satterlee and Sarah Wilcox. Through his paternal grandmother, Mary LeRoy Livingston, he is a direct descendant of Robert Livingston, the first Lord of colonial America's Livingston Manor.
He received his undergraduate and law degrees from Columbia University. During the Spanish–American War, he volunteered for duty in the Navy, serving as a lieutenant in the Navy Department in Washington.
Before and after the war, Satterlee pursued a successful law practice, focused primarily on corporate law and commercial law. Together with George F. Canfield and Harlan Fiske Stone, he was a founding law partner of Satterlee, Canfield & Stone, a predecessor of the present-day firm Satterlee Stephens Burke & Burke LLP. On November 15, 1900, he married Louisa Pierpont Morgan (1866–1946), daughter of J. P. Morgan. They had two daughters.
In 1908, President of the United States Theodore Roosevelt nominated Satterlee as Assistant Secretary of the Navy. Satterlee held this office from December 3, 1908, to March 5, 1909.
In 1910, Satterlee and his wife purchased the Sotterley Plantation in Hollywood, Maryland.
Satterlee authored several books, including a 1939 biography of his father-in-law entitled J. Pierpont Morgan: An Intimate Portrait.
In failing health, Satterlee committed suicide with a pistol shot through his right temple at his apartment at 1 Beekman Place in Manhattan, New York City on July 14, 1947, at the age of 83.