Note: William Torrey was probably born in one of the two houses owned by his grandmother Margaret Thompson Nichols on Broadway between Leonard and Franklin Streets. As a boy he played in the as-yet-unfinished City Hall and was taken by his father, a city alderman, for a ride on Robert Fulton's Clermont in 1807, the year the first economically practical steamboat was built. He wrote "Reminiscences of an Old Man" about his youth in New York City "when all above Grand Street was country." It appeared in Adam's Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 6, in 1892, the year after his death.
Shortly after his marriage, he formed the firm of Gillett & Torrey, importers of hardware. In 1836 he became the agent for the London financial firm of Timothy Wiggen & Co., and wound up that firm's affairs in New York after the panic of 1837. He spent most of his adult life developing real estate in New York City and New Jersey. In New York he built the first London Terrace on West 23rd Street, on the site of the present London Terrace complex. A picture of the first one can be seen in the book Lost New York.
In New Jersey, he was the principal developer of Lakehurst, the land of which had been given to Adeline Torrey by her father as a wedding present, and of the surrounding town of Manchester. The Torrey family owned thousands of acres in that area, built a railroad, named the Raritan and Delaware Bay Railroad, brick kilns, a general store, and other facilities. His contributions to early Manchester are detailed in the book Early Manchester and William Torrey by William S. Dewey, privately printed by the Manchester Publishing Company in 1982. There is a photograph of a portrait of him painted as a young man in that book.
The marriage of William and Adeline Torrey lasted just six months less than seventy years. A library table, bought by Adeline Torrey, probably at the time of her marriage, is in the possession of John Steele Gordon. Made of mahogany with drop leaves and a pineapple pedestal base with four legs, it is a splendid example of the New York style of the period.
Source: (Individual)
Abbreviation: Torrey
Title: Torrey family Bible
SOURCE:
http://www.johnsteelegordon.com/genealogy/n_0.html