William Bay Coster was an American banker who was prominent in New York Society during the Gilded Age.
Early life
Coster was born in New York and lived at a large home at 103 East 71st Street. He was one of four children born to Charles Robert Coster and Marie Bay Coster, who were married in 1864. Among his siblings was brother Charles Coster, and sister Elizabeth Mary Coster, who married Alfred Egmont Schermerhorn. His father was a soldier and public official, who is best known for commanding a brigade at the Battle of Gettysburg. His maternal grandfather was Augustus J. James of Albany, the brother of theologian Henry James Sr., making William's mother Marie a first cousin of author Henry James, psychologist William James, and diarist Alice James. His paternal grandparents were John H. Coster and Sarah Adeline Coster, making his father a first cousin of fellow New York clubman, Harry Coster. His great-grandfather, John Gerard Coster, came from Haarlem in the Netherlands to the United States shortly after the Revolutionary War and founded the family fortune through the mercantile firm, "Henry A. & John G. Coster".
Career
Coster became a stockbroker and opened up an office with his brother Charles and John M. Knapp in 1893. He later transferred his seat to Knapp in 1907, and resigned from the firm. He later became a partner in Morgan Drexel. He was known as a speed walker, who could be seen "traversing the sidewalks between the New York Athletic Club and the stock exchange in record time." In 1908, his brother committed suicide "after he'd been caught bilking his customers out of millions of dollars." Although William was accused of wrongdoing, and, along with his other siblings, worked out of the same office as Charles, William himself was eventually declared by the New York Stock Exchange to be completely innocent in the debacle. Coster also served in the New York National Guard as the aide de camp of the First Brigade, achieving the rank of captain in 1896.
Society life
In 1892, Coster, one of the best-known bachelor clubmen, was included in Ward McAllister's "Four Hundred", purported to be an index of New York's best families, published in The New York Times. Conveniently, 400 was the number of people that could fit into Mrs. Astor's ballroom. Coster was a member of the Union Club.
Personal life
On October 1, 1900, Coster was married to Maria "Minnie" Griswold Gray at St. Saviour's Episcopal Church in Bar Harbor, Maine. Minnie, a close friend of etiquette author Emily Post, was the daughter of Henry Winthrop Gray and Mary Gray, and the granddaughter of William R. Travers. Her parents divorced and her father remarried to Matilda Frelinghuyhsen in May 1889. Together, William and Maria first lived in New York, then Paris, and became the parents of three children:
Matilda Gray Coster, who married Stanley Yates Mortimer Jr., a grandson of Valentine Hall Jr., nephew of Richard Mortimer, and first cousin of Eleanor Roosevelt, in 1925. They divorced in 1928, and she remarried to Luis Martínez de las Rivas, in 1932. They later lived in Cuernavaca, Mexico.
Mary Griswold Coster, who died of pneumonia at age 15.
William Bay Coster Jr., who rowed on the Pembroke College crew at Oxford and was an air-raid warden in London during World War II.
After living in New York and Paris for many years, Coster died "of a long illness, patiently borne," in Bournemouth, England on December 19, 1918. His widow, who lived in Paris at 5 Rue Vaneau, died at her home, 39 East 79th Street in New York, at the age of 79 in July 1947.
