Mortimer Norton Buckner (March 10, 1873 – February 25, 1942)^[1] was an American banker who served as president and chairman of the board of New York Trust Company, the New York Clearing House, and the National Credit Corporation.

Buckner was born on March 10, 1873, in New Orleans, Louisiana,^[2] and named after his maternal grandfather, who had died six months earlier.^[3] He was the only son of Newton Buckner (1841–1899) and Permelia Grant (née Norton) Buckner (1846–1933).^[4] Among his sisters were Katherine (née Buckner) Avery,^[5] Clara Norton Buckner (who died young), Minnie Norton (née Buckner) Barkley,^[5] Edith Fearn (née Buckner) Howard,^[6] and Frances Hewitt (née Buckner) Kemper.^[7]

His paternal grandparents were Henry Sullivan Buckner, a cotton broker who built a mansion at 1410 Jackson Avenue in New Orleans in 1856,^[8] and Catharine (née Allan) Buckner.^[9] His aunt, Ellen Buckner,^[10] was the wife of U.S. Senator from Louisiana and Ambassador to France James B. Eustis.^[11] His maternal grandparents were Mortimer Oliver Hubbard Norton, a prominent New Orleans merchant,^[3] and Anna Richardson (née Grant) Norton, a first cousin of President Ulysses S. Grant (through his father, Jesse Root Grant, Anna's half-uncle).^[12]

After attending the Cathedral School of St. Paul in Garden City,^[4] Buckner graduated from Yale University with the class of 1895.^[13] He later served as president of the Yale Club of New York until 1922 when he was succeeded by George Townsend Adee.^[14] In 1928, he was elected a Fellow of the Yale Corporation,^[15] the same year he received an honorary M.A. degree from Yale. He retired from the Yale Corporation in 1940.^[16] In 1932, he received an honorary Doctor of Laws from Colgate University.^[4]

After graduating from Yale, Buckner worked as a traveling salesman and insurance salesman before coming to New York City in 1901 to join the Continental Trust Company as a clerk working out of the Blair & Co. Building on Broad Street.^[17] In 1903, he was made vice president of the company and the following year, Continental Trust merged with the New York Security and Trust Company.^[18] New York Security and Trust's president, Charles S. Fairchild, became chairman of the board of trustees, and Continental's president, Otto T. Bannard,^[19] became president of the new entity, which was renamed the New York Trust Company the following year in 1905.^[20] In January 1916, Buckner succeeded Bannard as president of the New York Trust Company and Bannard became Chairman of the Board and of the Executive Committee.^[21]

In 1921, New York Trust merged with Liberty National Bank of New York. Harvey Dow Gibson, the former president of Liberty, became president while Buckner succeeded Bannard as chairman of the board.^[22] The merged company had capital of $10,000,000 and "undivided profits and surplus of nearly $20,000,000" and occupied offices that had been prepared for Liberty in the American Surety Company Building at 100 Broadway.^[23]

In 1919, he was named a director of Interborough Rapid Transit Company, replacing Daniel G. Reid.^[24]

On April 25, 1908, Buckner was married to Paula Kellerman in Kingston, New York.^[40] In Manhattan, the Buckners lived at 430 Park Avenue (and later at 142 East 71st Street). They were the parents of:

• Caroline Buckner (1909–1972), who married Harvard graduate Owen Lloyd Winston, a son of Owen Winston of Gladstone, New Jersey,^[41] a director of Brooks Brothers.^[42]
• Newton Buckner (1913–2005), a graduate of St. Paul's School and Yale who served as a Lt. Commander in the U.S. Naval Reserve during World War II and as the Assistant Secretary to Gov. Thomas E. Dewey. In 1937, he married Joan Sterling, a daughter of John C. Sterling of Greenwich, Connecticut.^[43][44] Around 1969, he married Dorothy Blake.^[45]

Between 1927 and 1929, Buckner hired the Olmsted Brothers to design the landscape architecture at his summer residence in Fishers Island, New York.^[46]

Buckner died at Doctors Hospital in Manhattan on February 25, 1942, after suffering a heart attack the day before at his office.^[1] After a service attended by former President Herbert Hoover at St. Bartholomew's Church in Manhattan, he was buried at Cave Hill Cemetery in Louisville, Kentucky.^[47] At the time of his death, it was estimated that the entire value of his estate was $120,000, all of which was personal property.^[48] Buckner left a gross estate of $387,086, while his debts, administration and funeral expense total $1,320,240, primarily state and federal taxes.^[38] His widow died in Saratoga, California, in 1971.^[49]