Edmund “Ned” and Margaret Ross at the Ross Farm.
Photos courtesy of their family.
The last name represented in our “Friends of the Boudinot-Southard-Ross Estate” belongs to Edmund Burke Ross, and his wife of 50 years, Margaret Riker Haskell Ross. Both Edmund and Margaret came from wealthy families who led glamorous lives. Their attraction stemmed from their mutual love of the outdoors, sports, and a shared passion for all sorts of animals. They consciously chose to live simply on this farm that they loved so much, and to not surround themselves with too many trappings of luxury. Edmund was born to Leland Hamilton Ross and Parthenia Burke Ross in 1919, the youngest of 3 children of the couple. In 1914 Leland built the spectacular mansion he called “Parland House” on the foundation of “Cecilhurst”, the residence of Adolphe DeBary, on Madison Avenue in Madison. Parland House still stands – it is now the stately “Catholic Center for Evangelization at Bayley Ellard”. The couple divorced when Edmund was a young boy, and he was sent to prep schools, and nurtured by Scottish nannies. Ross, like his father Leland H. Ross, grandfather P. Sanford Ross, his uncles and father in-law Amory Haskell before him graduated from Princeton in 1941. Just like his wife’s father, Edmund played hockey on the Princeton University team. Graduating as America entered the World War, he was commissioned a Lieutenant and commanded Battery A of the 255th Artillery Battalion of the Third US Army in the European Theater of World War II – earning a Bronze Star in the process, and attaining the rank of Captain.
After the war, Edmund dutifully went off to work in the corporate world of NYC. During this time he had the great fortune of meeting Margaret Riker Haskell in Palm Beach FL where both families had homes.
Margaret Riker Haskell was descended from among the oldest families of America. Her 7th Great Grandfather Abraham Ryker got title to lands from Peter Stuyvesant in what is now Queens, NY. What are now Riker’s Island, LaGuardia Airport, and Citi Field were once all part of his enormous estate. The house he built in 1655 still stands just west of the LaGuardia runways (the oldest home in New York that is still a privately owned residence). Congressmen, Revolutionary War officers, sea captains, Judges, inventors, titans of industry, art collectors, and philanthropists are all in her lineage. Her grandfather on her mother Annette’s side, the wealthy Henry Morgan Tilford, was a close business associate of John D. Rockefeller. Tilford founded and ran Standard Oil of California (later Chevron). Her other grandfather, Jonathan Amory Haskell was a top executive at DuPont and General Motors and built one of New Jersey’s grand estates named Oak Hill in Monmouth County on hundreds acres. Haskell and his wife, Margaret Moore Riker Haskell, were so wealthy, that they had her ancestral Queens home (what they called the “Auld House”) moved by boat to the grounds of Oak Hill and preserved near their new mansion.
Her father, the Princeton educated Amory Lawrence Haskell maintained homes on 57th St. in Manhattan, Palm Beach, and the new Woodland Farms mansion in Middletown. His wife Annette Tilford Haskell had a lifelong horse obsession, and it bit him hard also. He was the President of the National Horse Show at Madison Square Garden, the founder of Monmouth Park Race Track, and President of its Jockey Club. He almost single handedly got a NJ Constitutional Amendment passed in 1939 to allow horse race betting, and blue laws changed to allow racing on Sundays. The prestigious race Haskell Invitational is named in his honor.
Margaret Ross was educated at the Spence School in NYC, graduated from Sarah Lawrence College, and had her debutante ball at the Waldorf Astoria. Margaret and fellow horse lover Ned Ross courted and married in 1948
Edmund openly wished for a future in agriculture instead of business, and the couple longed for a more simple life that was free of the excesses of their upbringing. Ross left the NYC corporate world, and purchased a farm machinery dealership in Flemington, NJ. In 1952, the Rosses purchased the Basking Ridge farm property from Nathaniel Burgess. There the Rosses would happily remain for the rest of their lives, breeding thoroughbred horses, poultry, and raising lots of dogs who had the run of the farm.