Robert S Masterton (1854-)

Robert S Masterton (1854-)

Real Estate Broker - and Messy Divorcee

Robert S Masterton, real estate broker in New York was sued for alimony in his wife's suit for separation. This sad story of family disruption was notorious enough to reach the pages of the New York Times.

Genealogy

Robert S Masterton was fifth in a family of seven born to Robert Morgan Masterton, wholesale grocer, and Avis Seaman of New York. This places him as part of the large group of Mastertons originating from Forfar. Robert Morgan's parents were Alexander Masterton and Euphenius Morrison. Alexander Masterton had emigrated from Forfar to the USA in 1814 and had become a successful quarry owner and contractor. A fuller genealogy of the extended family of Robert S Masterton can be found at this link

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New York Times

SEER POISONED MIND OF WIFE, HE CHARGES.
R.S. Masterton Lays Trouble to Gypsy's Story and a Letter of Twenty Years Ago.
CHILDREN DEFEND MOTHER

Broker Ordered to Pay $50 a Week Alimony and $250 Counsel Fees in Action for a Separation.

In answering charges brought against him by Mrs. Kate S. Masterton in her suit for separation, Robert S. Masterton, a real estate broker, says that his wife's accusations are based upon a fanciful tale told to her many years ago by a fortune teller.
Mrs. Masterton said that several years ago, when she and her husband were living in Nyack, N.Y., she chanced to open one of her husband's letters and discovered with horror that it was not an innocent bill, as she had supposed, but a letter from a woman whom her husband evidently had wronged. Mrs. Masterton said that she accused her husband, and that, after some deliberation, he confessed the truth and asked her forgiveness. Mr. Masterton denies that he made such a confession.

"The plaintiff told me about the time this letter was received," Mr. Masterton says, "that a gypsy fortune teller in Nyack had told her that her husband was unfaithful. I can only conclude that the minds of my children have been poisoned against me because of the reiteration of the false and malicious rumors and accusations, founded on a letter my wife opened nearly twenty years ago."

Mr. Masterton said that all his efforts to find out who wrote the letter had been in vain.
The defendant submitted an affidavit to Justice Philbin of the Supreme Court accusing his son, the Rev. Robert Coolidge Masterton of All Saints' Protestant Episcopal Church, of unfilial conduct. The Rev. Mr. Masterton and his sisters, Mrs Avis G. Dusenbury and Miss Dorothy Masterton, filed affidavits in their mother's behalf in connection with her application for $250 a week alimony and $1,000 counsel fees.
Mr. Masterton said that he had been on good terms with his children until his wife began her suit. His son, he said, had asked him to visit him, but the only thing the son wanted, according to Mr. Masterton, was to point him out to a process server.

"I consider this outrageous conduct," Mr. Masterton said, "on the part of a son toward his father, who has done the very best he could for him for twenty-eight years. This is the son who has been ordained a minister of the Gospel."
Mrs. Masterton accused her husband of failing to care properly for her or for his children. "He has been close and penurious with his family," she said, "but has not stinted himself. He even objected because my daughter and I used cream in our coffee. I am now compelled to live on an income of $250 a year from my father's estate with assistance from my children." Mrs. Masterton said that she and her husband were married in 1875 and that her husband used to spend $10,000 a year.

The Rev. Mr. Masterton backed up his mother's statement by saying: "For years my father has treated my mother with cruelty and inhumanity. He has used harsh and abusive language to her in my presence and before the other children. This has been profoundly grieving and humiliating to her. My father has neglected to provide for my mother without any excuse or justification. Although he has made large sums of money himself, he has been close and penurious in his expenditures at home, I also know that he spent money which my mother got as inheritances."
Justice Philbin directed Mr. Masterton to pay his wife alimony of $50 a week and $250 counsel fees.

The New York Times
7th June, 1914


Deaths

MASTERTON-Robert Seaman, son of the late Robert Morgan Seaman and Avis Leggett Seaman, suddenly, at Schenectady, N. Y., in his seventy-ninth year. Funeral service at the Burr David Mortuary, 15 4th Av., Mount Vernon, N. Y., Friday afternoon, 3 o'clock.

The New York Times
12th August, 1932, p15