George T. Downing (1819-1903) was a prominent African American caterer, hotel owner and entrepreneur and civic leader who moved to Newport from New York about 1845. His wife, Serena Leonora deGrasse, had an extensive lineage back to the earliest years of New Amsterdam. Her father, George deGrasse, was born in Calcutta and was the adopted son of the family of Admiral Count deGrasse of American Revolution fame and a close acquaintance of Aaron and Theodosia Burr in New York. Serena’s mother was Maria Van Salee, sixth in descent from Abram Jansen “The Mulatto” Van Salee, Moroccan born resident of Brooklyn in 1658. After Van Salee’s death, Director General Peter Stuyvesant placed his children under the care of the Orphan Master and the Dutch Church and their descendants mixed freely (and free) with the Anglo-Dutch of New York for generations.
Illustration from Mary L. Booth’s History of the City of New York, 1867.