Henry Brockholst Livingston, who generally used Brockholst as his familiar name, was born in New York City on November 25, 1757. He was the son of William Livingston and Susanna French Livingston and belonged to one of New York’s most powerful landed families. His father was a lawyer, political writer, and future governor of New Jersey; his uncles and cousins occupied prominent places in commerce and government. Through his sister Sarah’s marriage to John Jay, Brockholst also became closely connected to another important revolutionary family.

The Livingston household combined privilege, intellectual ambition, and political discussion. William Livingston opposed aspects of aristocratic pretension despite the family’s wealth and encouraged serious education. Brockholst entered the College of New Jersey, now Princeton University, where James Madison was among his classmates. He graduated in 1774 at only sixteen or seventeen. The curriculum emphasized classics, logic, moral philosophy, mathematics, rhetoric, and public disputation. He intended to continue into law, the profession followed by his father and many members of the colonial elite.

The Revolution interrupted that plan. In 1775 Livingston accepted a captain’s commission and joined the Continental Army, serving on the staff of General Philip Schuyler in the northern theater. He participated in operations connected with Ticonderoga and gained rapid experience in military correspondence, logistics, intelligence, and command. Promoted to major, he later served with General Arthur St. Clair and then as an aide to Benedict Arnold during the Saratoga campaign. He carried dispatches, witnessed combat, and was present for the surrender of General John Burgoyne’s army in 1777.

Livingston’s education continued through diplomacy as well as war. In 1779 he accompanied his brother-in-law John Jay to Spain as Jay’s private secretary, assisting the American effort to obtain recognition, loans, and supplies. Returning in 1782, he was captured at sea by the British and briefly imprisoned in New York before release on parole. He then resumed legal study in Albany and was admitted to the bar in 1783. Admission completed an unusually eventful formation that had combined elite schooling, military staff work, battlefield service, diplomacy, captivity, and legal apprenticeship before his professional career began.