Thomas P. Peacock

    Thomas P. Peacock, a former assistant general counsel for the City of New York who chaired the successful capital campaign to restore and expand the Amagansett Library in 2004, died of prostate cancer on March 9 in Islamorada, Fla. He was 79.

    Mr. Peacock was a partner at Winthrop Stimson Putnam and Roberts and a founding partner at the law firm now known as Kramer Levin Naftalis and Frankel, both based in New York City. Besides serving as an assistant general counsel for New York City, he was a general counsel for the group of financial companies known as MONY.

     Amagansett, where he had spent weekends and summers, became Mr. Peacock’s home after he retired, although he spent winters in Florida. In addition to being on the board of the Amagansett Library, he was a member of the Amagansett Beach Association and the Devon Yacht Club. A sailor who had won many championships, he had participated in the Newport to Bermuda race and was a member of the New York Yacht and Racquet and Tennis Clubs.

    From 1955 though ’57, Mr. Peacock served in the Navy as a supply officer on the U.S.S. Thuban and at a communications station in Annapolis, Md.

    He was born on Aug, 8, 1933, in Charlotte, N.C., the son of William Trotter Peacock and the former Katherine Monk. Three years later, the family moved to Arlington, Va., when his father, a journalist, was assigned by the Associated Press to cover the White House and Congress.

    Mr. Peacock graduated from Washington and Lee High School in Arlington, and, in 1955, from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he was sports editor of the Daily Tar Heel newspaper and a member of Chi Phi fraternity. He graduated in 1959 from the Columbia University School of Law, where he was editor of the school newspaper.

    Mr. Peacock is survived by his wife, Catherine Lee Peacock, and by a brother, William T. Peacock Jr. of Oro Valley, Ariz.

    A funeral service was held on Friday at St. James the Fisherman Church in Islamorada, and a celebration of Mr. Peacock’s life will be held in Amagansett in the summer.

    The family has suggested donations to the Visiting Nurse Association and Hospice of the Florida Keys, 92001 Overseas Highway, Tavernier, Fla. 33070.