Alfred Wagstaff Jr. (March 21, 1844 – October 2, 1921) was an American lawyer and politician from New York. He was president of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals from 1906 until his death in 1921.^[1]

Wagstaff was born on March 21, 1844, at 27 Waverly Place in New York City.^[2] He was the son of Sarah Platt (née DuBois) Wagstaff (1813–1897)^[3] and Dr. Alfred Wagstaff Sr. (c. 1803–1878), a physician in New York City,^[4] who "was the largest landowner on Long Island until the Vanderbilts."^[5]

His paternal grandfather was David Wagstaff, an English immigrant who made a fortune as a notable merchant.^[5] His maternal grandparents were Cornelius DuBois and Sarah Platt (née Ogden) DuBois.^[2] Through his maternal grandmother, he was descended from Robert Ogden, a lawyer who worked in New Jersey and New York, and served as quartermaster during the Revolutionary War.^[3] Among his extended DuBois family was cousins, Eugene Floyd DuBois and Dr. Henry Augustus DuBois (grandson of Peter Augustus Jay),^[6] and uncle Cornelius DuBois, who married Mary Ann Delafield DuBois (a niece of Richard Delafield and cousin of Dr. Francis Delafield).^[7]

In 1863, then only 19 years old, he was commissioned as a colonel of the 16th Reg. of the New York National Guard. Wagstaff served during the New York Draft Riots in Brooklyn. In 1864, his regiment was transferred to the Union Army and stationed at Staten Island. In November 1864, he was commissioned a first lieutenant of the 91st New York Veteran Volunteers, and was detailed to the staff of Gen. William Walton Morris.^[8]

In February 1865, he was promoted to major, served as chief of staff of General Samuel W. Crawford with the Army of the Potomac until the end of the war, and was brevetted as a lieutenant colonel.^[8]

On March 30, 1880, he married Mary Anderson Barnard (1860–1938). Mary was the daughter of Fannie (née Anderson) Barnard and George Gardner Barnard, the former Recorder of New York City.^[13] Together, they were the parents of five children, including:^[8]

• Alfred Wagstaff III (1881–1930),^[14] who married Blanche LeRoy Shoemaker (1886–1967), sister of Henry W. Shoemaker, in 1907. They divorced and she remarried to Donald Carr.^[15]
• David Wagstaff (1882–1951),^[16] a Harvard graduate who was a member of Dominick & Dominick and who married Isabelle Tilford (1887–1956), daughter of Henry Morgan Tilford.^[17]
• Samuel Jones Wagstaff (1885–1975),^[18] who married Pauline Leroy French (1886–1964), daughter of Amos Tuck French,^[19] in 1908.^[20][21] They divorced in 1920,^[22] and in December 1920, he married Polish émigré Olga May (née Piorkowska) Thomas and in March 1921, she married Donald Oliver MacRae.^[23] They also divorced,^[24] and in 1933 he married Cornelia Scranton (1896–1976), a daughter of Walter Scranton (president of the Lackawanna Steel Company) and niece of William Walker Scranton.^[25]
• George Barnard Wagstaff (b. 1886), who married Mary Cutting Cumnock, sister of Arthur Cumnock in 1914.^[26] They divorced and he remarried to Dorothy Frothingham, a daughter of Charles F. Frothingham.^[27] They also divorced and he remarried to Lilian Hyde Feitner (widow of Quentin Field Feitner) in 1940.^[28]
• Margaret Barnard Wagstaff, who married Harold Edgar Logan. She later married Arthur Perkins.^[29]

Wagstaff died on October 2, 1921, at his home, "Tahlulah", in Babylon, New York, at age 77 from "a combination of ailments due to his age".^[1]