Hi - I have quite a lot on William Jennings Demorest, as my Demorest hubby is a somewhat distant cousin.

William Jennings Demorest was born 22 June 1822, died 09 April 1895. He married Ellen Louise Curtis, born 1825, died 10 Aug 1898. Their lives were extremely full and interesting!

Ellen developed the first commercial clothing patterns in the 1850s. Her patterns were only surpassed by Ebenezer Butterick's in the 1880s as he had the foresight to patent the idea in 1865. BTW, she ripped off the idea from her maid. Ellen opened a couture shop on the lower eastside of Manhattan; various locations throughout the years but best known address was 17 E. 14th Street. Ellen influenced fashion worldwide and opened another shop in Paris (5 Rue Scribe) as well as London (11 Bouverle Street.) In fact, the "Detroit Free Press" gives her credit in 1878 for designing dresses that, for the first time, did not have to touch the floor. She teamed up with premier NYC real estate developer Susan A. King to be the first woman owner of a commercial ship, built specifically to import tea from Asia.

What was William Jennings Demorest doing? A lot! He was into publishing, foremost his wife's fashions in their own magazine "Mme. Demorest's Mirror of Fashion," begun in Aug 1860. He also published "Demorest's Illustrated Monthly" begun Sept 1864, the juvenile magazine "Young America," and sheet music. He invented a bicycle, and a sewing machine in 1860 that rivaled Singer's technology at the time.

When you read about them, you'd think they were very conservative. Actually they were staunch liberals. They championed causes such as women's rights and emancipation. Their only illiberal stance was that they were a major temporance force. William J. began the National Prohibition Bureau in 1885 and started a worldwide Medal Contest in 1886 for children who wrote Prohibition essays. The town of Demorest, Georgia is named for him because of his efforts.

Most of this info can be found in a book written about the couple: "Crusades & Crinolines," by Ishbel Ross. New York: Harper & Row. 1963. (There are other books that include them, too.) Some of the info is from my research, especially from old Demorest mags. I'm a collector of Demorest paraphenalia (cheap hobby considering my source. ha!) and can tell you that you can find a lot of it inexpensively on the internet: Demorest magazines, Demorest Victorian trade card (what was really a business card back then for the store), sheet music, even Demorest Prohibtion Medals and dress patterns. You can find the book mentioned VERY cheaply.

So that ought to bring you up to speed on William Jennings Demorest. Cool that you live in one of his houses! You probably won't find much genealogy stuff on him & I don't know why. I never see him in anyone's tree, even when he belongs. So, for the sake of all you Demorests out there that don't know where he belongs, I'll do a brief tree. Then you'll figure it out right away:

Jean des Marets + Maguerie de Herville(Beauchamps, France to New Milford, New Jersey)
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David des Marets + Marie Sohier
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Samuel Demarest + Marie de Ruine
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Samuel Demarest + Annatie Van Hoorn
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Peter Demarest + Maria Demarest
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Cornelius Demarest + Maria Demarest
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Petrus Demorest + Jane Brower
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William Jennings Demorest + Ellen Louise Curtis