To Marry an English Lord
Page 7
In 1861, America had a mere handful of millionaires. By 1900, there would be four thousand of them. Not all the new millionaires could pass on a legacy of wealth and style, anecdote and accomplishment that would make their names recognizable generations after heir death. While the Sporting Men left behind tales of dinner parties and yacht races, the Silent Partners left behind railroads. Or they were men like Frank Leggett, stepfather to the future Countess of Sandwich, who ran a wholesale grocery business in New York City. Or Anson Stager, father of the future Marchioness of Ormonde, whose obituary was subheaded “The Busy Career of the Prominent Electrician.” More concrete, but less memorable.
The Silent Partner may have been a titan of industry, but he was a social pygmy. Passion, personal style, ambition—these were entirely the province of his wife and daughter. It was for him to stay out of focus, somewhere in the background, the black-suited, ashen-faced figure a few exhausted steps behind his superbly outfitted ladies. To Elizabeth Drexel Lehr, later Lady Decies, he and his fellow Wall Street warriors were “too nerve-racked by the strain of building a fortune to be able to relax. They were prepared to spend their last cent in gratifying the whims of their womenfolk, but they were incapable of amusing themselves.”
The Silent Partner’s gear was a far cry from the Sporting Man’s buggy whip.
Rendered unsuitable for the drawing rooms of Europe by his ceaseless, conversation-killing attention to business, the Silent Partner was sooner or later banished from the side of his insatiable loved ones. It was his fate to become but the faceless name that followed “daughter of” in Burke’s Peerage: “W.S. Chamberlain of Ohio” or, more vaguely still, “H. Gordon Lister, USA.” While his daughter lived it up in the Old World—waltzed with the Prince of Wales, stood in the Royal Enclosure at Ascot, kissed the hand of the Queen—he was left behind in the New, sleeping in a hotel or boarding house, taking meals at his club.
The Silent Partner’s only communication with wife and daughter was by cable and on the subject of “drawing” (getting more money out of the bank), his only required response permission in the form of the single word “Draw.” “Your letter and draft for £2,000 came today with the kindest message,” wrote Mrs. Leggett, wife of the wholesale grocer. “You have blessed manners. I almost expected an impatient reply to my letter or complaint, and so hoped it wouldn’t come and it hasn’t; just sweetness and a cheque.”
The old New York Stock Exchange. At left are the offices of Drexel, Morgan—names that would soon be familiar to the British peerage.
THE TOP DOLLARS
In the land of opportunity, where nobody’s past was held against him, where hard work was the norm and the vast scale of the country produced similar-size profits, there were innumerable ways to get rich. And portions of some of these fortunes subsidized the aristocratic leisure of a daughter’s English husband. The men who struck it rich (and the daughters, in most cases, on whose behalf their money went to England) are listed here.
NELSON BECKWITH
(Helene, Lady Leigh): import-export; estate valued at $1 million.
CHARLES BONYNGE
(Virginia, Viscountess Deerhurst): San Francisco landscape gardener turned stockbroker; Comstock Lode millionaire.
WILLIAM BORDEN
(Mary, Lady Spears): dairy products.
WILLIAM L. BREESE
(Anna, Lady Alastair Innes-Ker; Eioise, Countess of Ancaster): Wall Street broker.
WALTER BURNS
(Mary, Viscountess Harcourt): J.P. Morgan’s son-in-law.
SEN. J. DONALD CAMERON
(Martha, Hon. Mrs. Ronald Lindsay): banking, railroads; worth $4 million at death.
HORACE CARPENTIER
(“unofficial niece” Maud Burke, Lady Cunard, who was also rumored to be daughter of William O’Brien of Comstock Lode): San Francisco real estate.
SAMUEL COLGATE
(widow Cora, Countess of Strafford): industrial manufacturer.
DANIEL CORBIN
(Louise, Countess of Orford): railroads, among them Spokane Falls & Northern Railroad.
JOHN H. DAVIS
(Flora, Marchioness of Dufferin): banker.
Marshall Field, of department store fame, at age twenty-four.
ANTHONY J. DREXEL
(Margaretta, Countess of Winchilsea and Nottingham): banking, investments; Philadelphia real estate.
MARSHALL FIELD
(Ethel, Countess Beatty): Chicago department store tycoon.
HAMILTON FISH
(Edith, Hon. Mrs. Hugh Northcote): lawyer; New York real estate (his mother inherited Stuyvesant farm, 10th to 23rd streets east of Third Avenue).
WILLIAM J. FITZGERALD
(Caroline, Lady Fitzmaurice): husband of coheiress of White real estate fortune on New York’s Fifth Avenue and Upper West Side.
WILLIAM GARNER
(Florence, Lady Gordon-Cumming): fabric mills in upstate New York.
WILLIAM GARRISON
(Martha, Hon. Mrs. Charles Ramsay): son of San Francisco bank founder; Missouri Pacific Railroad and urban elevated railroads.
OGDEN GOELET
(May, Duchess of Roxburghe; dowry reckoned as high as $8 million): New York real estate (family owned land on both sides of Fifth Avenue from 46th Street to Union Square).
WILLIAM W. GORDON
(Mabel, Hon. Mrs. Rowland Leigh): Savannah-Macon Railroad.
George Jay Gould, slightly more respectable son of swashbuckling financier Jay Gould.
GEORGE GOULD
(Vivien, Lady Decies): son of Jay Gould, quintessential robber baron whose worth was assessed at $82 million when he died; large Western Union interests.
JOHN W. GRACE
(Olive, Lady Greville): brother of W.R. Grace, founder of steamship line (and first Catholic mayor of New York).
MICHAEL P. GRACE
(Elena, Countess of Donoughmore; Elisa, Hon. Mrs. Hubert Beaumont): another brother of W.R. Grace; in charge of Peruvian arrangements when company was in shipping and mining. (Among his partners was Donoughmore, Elena’s future father-in-law.)
LOUIS HAMMERSLEY
(widow Lily Duchess of Marlborough): New York merchant who invested wisely.
HIRAM E. HOWARD
(Hannah, Hon. Mrs. Octavius Lambart): banker in Buffalo; managing officer of Marine Bank.
LEONARD JEROME
(Clara, Mrs. Frewen; Jennie, Lady Randolph Churchill; Leonie, Lady Leslie): stock speculator.
Frank Leggett, wholesale grocer.
CHISWELL LANGHORNE
(Nancy, Lady Astor): Virginia real estate; worth over $1 million despite protestations of poverty.
WILLIAM TRACY LEE
(Lucy, Mrs. Ernest Beckett): New York banker.
FRANK LEGGETT
(Frances, Viscountess Margesson; stepdaughter Alberta Sturges, Countess of Sandwich): wholesale grocery business.
LEVI Z. LEITER
(Daisy, Countess of Suffolk; Mary, Lady Curzon): Marshall Field’s original partner; Chicago real estate speculator.
Pierre Lorillard, tobacco magnate.
PIERRE LORILLARD
(Maude, Lady Revelstoke): heir to tobacco fortune begun by grandfather; developer of Tuxedo Park.
WILLIAM H. MCVICKAR
(Katharine, Lady Crantley): stockbroker.
BRADLEY MARTIN
(Cornelia, Countess of Craven): son-in-law of Isaac Hull Sherman, who made a fortune from lumbering interests in upstate New York.
HENRY MAY
(Lily, Lady Bagot): Baltimore lawyer.
JOHN MEIGGS
(Helen, Lady M’Grigor): partner in Michael P. Grace’s Peruvian railroads.
Henry Phipps, associate of Andrew Carnegie in iron and steel.
OGDEN MILLS
(Beatrice, Countess of Granard): son of Darius O. Mills, successful California merchant, president of Bank of California and later a New York-based investor in eastern banking and industry.
CHARLES PFIZER
(Helen, Lady Duncan)
: founder of the chemical fortune.
HENRY PHIPPS
(Amy, Hon. Mrs. Frederick Guest): Andrew Carnegie’s best friend and business partner in iron and steel; fortune estimated at $50 million.
Henry Huttleston Rogers, mastermind of the oil pipeline.
JAMES W. PINCHOT
(Antoinette, Hon. Mrs. Alan Johnstone): prominent New York merchant.
FREDERICK G. POTTER
(Clara, Lady Green-Price): New York banker and lawyer.
WHITELAW REID
(Jean, Lady Ward): son-in-law of Darius Mills; journalist, editor of New York Tribune; co-developer of Mergenthaler linotype machine.
HENRY HUTTLESTON ROGERS
(Cora, Lady Fairhaven): Standard Oil executive, partner of William Rockefeller; interests in gas, banking, railroads; a director of U. S. Steel and associated with Anaconda Amalgamated Copper; business manager of Mark Twain, whose work he admired.
BENJAMIN A. SANDS
(May, Hon. Mrs. Hugh Howard): lawyer; trustee and director of many banks and of Columbia University.
William Sharon, senator from Nevada and mining millionaire.
WILLIAM HOLT SECOR
(Rosalind, Lady Chetwynd): New York lawyer.
WILLIAM SHARON
(Flora, Lady Fermor-Hesketh): crooked senator from Nevada; Bank of California’s representative at Comstock Lode, with controlling stock in many mines.
WILLIAM WATTS SHERMAN
(Mildred, Lady Camoys): husband of Rhode Island heiress Anne Wetmore, then of Sophia Brown, whose father founded Brown University.
GEORGE S. (“CHICAGO”) SMITH
(niece Mary, Lady Cooper): stock speculator; bequeathed $20 million to Mary in will.
ANSON STAGER
(Ellen, Marchioness of Ormonde): Western Union executive, also involved with Vanderbilt interests; president, Western Electric and Western Edison.
PARAN STEVENS
(Minnie, Lady Paget): hotels (notably Fifth Avenue Hotel, where Prince of Wales stayed when in New York).
Anson Phelps Stokes, real estate investor and clock manufacturer.
ANSON PHELPS STOKES
(Sarah, Baroness Halkett of Hanover): Phelps, Dodge executive; founder of two realty companies; official of Ansonia (Conn.) Clock Co.; brother of William Stokes, who developed the Ansonia Hotel on Broadway at 74th Street.
WILLIAM THAW
(Alice, Countess of Yarmouth): coal mining interests; major shareholder in Pennsylvania Railroad.
WILLIAM A. TUCKER
(Ethel, Countess of Lindsay): Boston banker; founder of Tucker, Anthony & Co.
LAWRENCE TURNURE, JR.
(widow Romaine, Lady Monson): New York banker and stockbroker; director of National City Bank.
WILLIAM K. VANDERBILT
(Consuelo, Duchess of Marlborough): president, New York Central Railroad and its subsidiaries; chairman, Lake Shore & Michigan Southern Railroad.
GEN. JAMES SAMUEL WADSWORTH
(Elizabeth, Lady Barrymore): rental income from huge land holdings in upstate New York, managed in near feudal arrangement.
WILLIAM FITZHUGH WHITEHOUSE
(Lily, Hon. Mrs. Charles Coventry): Chicago and New York lawyer; director, Louisville & Nashville railroad.
WILLIAM COLLINS WHITNEY
(Pauline, Lady Queenborough): developer of New York City’s trolley monopoly, later consolidated into Metropolitan Transit; realized personal profit of $40 million in five years.
RICHARD T. WILSON
(Belle, Lady Herbert): Georgia merchant who served as commissary general for Confederate Army; later, New York banker and railroad investor.
FRANK WORK
(Frances, Hon. Mrs. James Burke-Roche): stockbroker for Vanderbilts; Wall Street speculator.
ANTONIO YZNAGA
(Consuelo, Duchess of Manchester; Natica, Lady Lister-Kaye): Spanish owner of Louisiana plantation and merchant in Natchez, Mississippi.
Eugene Zimmerman, petroleum millionaire.
EUGENE ZIMMERMAN
(Helena, Duchess of Manchester): early investor in petroleum; major stockholder in Standard Oil, with additional railroad and mining interests.
THE SIEGE OF LONDON
The year after Jeannie Chamberlain’s wedding, Mary Leiter was among the Americans invading London. Another classic Self-Made Girl, she was the daughter of Levi Leiter, Marshall Field’s original partner, who made a fortune in Chicago real estate. The family moved to Washington, where Mary (despite her mother’s astounding vulgarity) became an habitué of the White House and a bosom friend of the young Mrs. Cleveland.
Her début in Washington was followed by successes in New York and Newport. “Miss Leiter represents exactly the sort of girl,” proclaimed the Boston Herald, “whom we should send over to England with pardonable pride.” But Mary’s triumph did not, initially, travel well. She and her family went to Europe several times in the late 1880s. They stayed at hotels with names like the Palace and the Metropole, thumbed their Baedekers and met no one. In June of 1890, Mary and her mother and sister were guests at Claridge’s in London and again felt themselves to be mere tourists. “I think London wonderfully delightful,” wrote Mary to her father, “although I know so little of its people. Everything is in full swing, and we read long accounts of balls we don’t go to!”
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“Over here husband-hunting?”
SIR WILLIAM GORDON-CUMMING to Leonie Jerome, on her arrival in London
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“It’s been the worst season I can remember, Sir James! All the men seem to have got married, and none of the girls!”—Cartoon published in 1884, commenting on the real purpose of the London season.
An 1889 miniature of Mary leiter painted for New York bachelor Peter Marié, who collected miniatures of the prettiest women of his day.
THE BERTIE FACTOR
And then, overnight, everything changed. Mary had a letter of introduction to Sir Lyon Playfair, an M.P. who was married to the former Edith Russell of Boston. On July 10, Sir Lyon took Mary to a formal luncheon at the Board of Admiralty in Greenwich. Among the guests was the Prince of Wales, to whom Mary was presented by the Duchess of St. Albans. That very evening the Duchess took her to Parliament, where she was introduced to Gladstone. She had wakened in her Claridge’s bedroom just another American tourist; by the time she went to Red that night, she had met a duchess, a former prime minister and the Prince of Wales.
COMME IL FAUT
Lavish, American-style tipping is considered vulgar in England.
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“American girls are livelier, better educated, and less hampered by etiquette. They are not as squeamish as their English sisters and they are better able to take care of themselves.”
THE PRINCE OF WALES
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She was invited to Parliament again, then to a fashionable wedding, then to visit Oxford with Sir William Harcourt and his American wife. And then, on July 17, Mary went to the Duchess of Westminster’s ball at Grosvenor House. It was the peak of the season. The reception rooms were brightly lit (the Duke was an early fan of electricity) and the ballroom already crowded when she arrived. The dancing was about to begin. As she entered the room, a statuesque beauty in a stupendous Worth gown, the Prince approached her. He wanted to open the quadrille with Mary as his partner. She agreed, and they took the floor.
Right: Like the wistful subject of “The Morning After the Ball,” Mary Leiter could only read about parties until the Prince took her under his wing.
Left: Young ladies waiting for partners at a ball: the initiative was entirely in the men’s hands.
By the mid-1880s the Prince was beginning to deserve the nickname “Jumbo,” given him by Jeannie Chamberlain.
Mary’s career, from that moment, was made. She was taken into the inner circle of London society, admired, applauded and, most important, invited everywhere. All because the Prince of Wales approved of her. Like Jeannie Chamberlain, like all American heiresses, Mary owed he
r success to the inclinations and influence of that one popeyed, rather paunchy, all-powerful man.
THE MARLBOROUGH HOUSE SET
The division of royal duties that had begun in the 1860s was now complete. While Queen Victoria, in her remote and brilliant way, ruled the British Empire, the Prince of Wales ruled British society. After training him in the ways of pleasure, the fashionable set now took his lead. In fact, it had been renamed the “Marlborough House Set” after the Prince’s London residence. When the Prince showed a preference for dinners lasting only an hour, rather than the usual four, short dinners became the vogue; when his wife had a stiff knee, society women took to walking with “the Alexandra limp.” When the Prince allowed cigarettes after dinner, in place of cigars, the traditional after-dinner port was abandoned in favor of brandy, which better suited the taste of cigarettes. Society men copied the Prince’s beard, his hats, his suits—to the extent that the streets of London swarmed, it seemed to some observers, with imitation Berries. And when the trend-setting Prince took up American heiresses, American heiresses became all the rage. Their spirit, irreverence and flirtatiousness appealed to him. They dressed well, and the Prince took particular pleasure in pretty girls in pretty dresses, going so far as to request that society women always wear new dresses to dine at Marlborough House. According to the Prince, American girls “could tell a good story and were born card players”—and he should know, having spent a lot of time listening to stories and playing cards. They were also new, and the Prince, boredom ever nipping at his heels, craved novelty.
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“It is you, sir, who will be the greatest show on earth.”
P.T. BARNUM, to the Prince of Wales
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THE FLIP SIDE: QUEEN VICTORIA’S COURT
Queen Victoria in 1886, aged sixty-seven. She had been Queen for forty-nine years and a widow for twenty-five.