Southaven Park's Belmont Legacy

Those walking in Southaven Park follow in the footsteps of August Belmont and other luminaries who were members of the Suffolk Club, a private group of millionaires who preserved the property for hunting and fishing. Many know him for the Belmont race track in Elmont and the Triple Crown horse race held there every year, but few are familiar with his lasting impact on Long Island by creating the 1,356-acre Brookhaven park.

Born Aaron Schönberg in 1813, Belmont was a German-American financier, diplomat, and politician who served as chairman of the Democratic National Committee. His early years were vastly impacted by the Rothchild Family, which possessed one of the largest private fortunes in modern history. Sent to Cuba via New York to manage the family’s holdings in the Spanish Empire, he found that the Panic of 1837 had collapsed their operations in the U.S. Since the situation called for immediate action, Belmont acted on his own judgment and salvaged the family's resources. They eventually approved of his decisions and made him their permanent agent in America.

Photograph of August Belmont File Photo

Belmont experienced instantaneous success, serving as disbursing agent, dividend collector, and news gatherer for the Rothschilds and their customers. The financial house he created handled deposits and invested in foreign exchange markets, commercial and private loans, and commercial paper. His European connections attracted private investment from corporations, railroads, and state and local governments. In the wake of the 1837 Panic, Belmont used Rothschild credit to buy up wildcat bank notes, securities, commodities, and property at severely depressed rates. Innovating modern securitization techniques, he was a pioneer on Wall Street, rapidly shifting money and commodities in complex international spirals of credit the financial market had never before seen. He was considered a skilled arbitrageur, earning him the nickname "King of the Money Changers."

Within three years of his arrival in the city, he had amassed a personal fortune of $100,000, almost $3 million in today’s dollars, making him one of the richest men in New York. At age 26, he became one of the three most important private bankers in the United States.

Belmont was a lifelong member of the Democratic Party, first engaging in political campaigning in 1844 as a supporter of James K. Polk for president. The same year, he became a naturalized citizen and was appointed consul general of the Austrian Empire in New York, representing the Habsburg family in diplomatic matters throughout the Mid-Atlantic States. His winning streak in politics continued with his support of Presidents James Buchanan and Franklin Pierce, but fizzled with the Democrat failures of Horatio Seymour and Horace Greeley against Ulysses S. Grant.

Belmont married Caroline Slidell Perry, daughter of naval officer Matthew Calbraith Perry, a captain and commodore in the U.S. Navy, later famous for his expedition to open trading ports in Japan. Together, they were the parents of six children, with three of his sons becoming involved in politics. Belmont had previously been accused of an affair with a married woman and responded by challenging the accuser to a duel, in which he was shot in the hip.

Heavily involved in thoroughbred horse racing, Belmont served as the president of the National Jockey Club and owned the Nursery Stud horse-breeding farm near Babylon. He was an avid sportsman and debuted the race that would become the Belmont Stakes at Jerome Park Racetrack, owned by Belmont's friend, Leonard Jerome, the maternal grandfather of Winston Churchill. After his death in 1890 at age 77, the Southaven preserve was managed by Anson Hard, who eventually transferred it to Suffolk County in 1960. Other members of the Millionaires Club who frequented the Carmens River preserve were John Van Buren, the president's son, and banker and railroad executive W. Butler Duncan.