Chauncey R. Weeks

Weeks was the son and grandson of physicians in a family that had emigrated from Cape Cod to Somers, New York, in the eighteenth century. His father, Robert Weeks (d. 1816), was the first member of the Assembly (the state legislature) from the Southern Precinct of Dutchess County, and the prime mover in the establishment of Putnam County as a separate entity. He donated the land for the site of the Putnam County courthouse.

Chauncey, the youngest of his five children, was born in Carmel on March 12, 1812. He was educated in the public schools, and became a harness maker in the shop of James Raymond in Carmel. From then on these two men’s lives were almost constantly intertwined.

1835: Chauncey Weeks was an investor in the Zoological Institute, but does not seem to have participated in the operations of that monopoly.

1837: In December 1837 Weeks married Ada Raymond (1819-1895), eldest of James Raymond’s four children. In time, this union would produce five children of their own.

1847: He was elected to the Assembly, the state legislature, from Putnam County.

1856: Chauncey Weeks’ last year as a showman. He and Gregory put out Driesbach’s Circus and Menagerie and Van Amburgh & Co., two circus-menagerie combinations. Weeks had run again for the Assembly and had served in the session of early 1856. He was forty-four years old and decided to step down. Hyatt Frost, who had managed Van Amburgh & Co. for two seasons (1855 and 1856), bought Weeks interest and became Gregory’s partner.

Weeks was the last of the many managers and partners that James Raymond had relied upon to dominate the business for over twenty years. After selling out, Weeks invested in the People’s Line, a Hudson River steamboat company. He died in January 1887, two months short of his seventy-fifth birthday.