The Commodore Issues Arrest Warrant

While working on a newspaper abstraction project completely unrelated to anything Vanderbilt I happened upon this news item.

Fayetteville Observer (paper of Fayetteville, NC)
22 Jun 1857

Probable Arrest of Gen. Walker – Commodore Vanderbilt has had a capias issued for the arrest of Gen.  Walker, charged with having combined with Messrs. C.K. Garrison and Charles Morgan to break up the Accessory Transit steamship line.  The Commodore is, of course, well aware that General Walker’s pockets must be completely empty.   He has had the writ issued as a matter of form.  The effect of the writ, though not particularly remunerative of the Commodore, will probably compel the General to show himself before a New York court.

Interested in the Peerage?

Some of you interested in the Vanderbilt families are also quite interested in the Peerage, i.e. English nobility.  I first became acquainted with the Peerage myself through my interest in the Vanderbilt’s.   To be more specific, as I was doing some work on Consuelo Vanderbilt and her marriage to the Charles Richard John Spencer-Churchill (aka “Ninth Duke of Marlbourough”), I came across the website thepeerage.com, which had further information on his lineage.

Well, Family Search Labs, who I believe is just doing wonderful things, has a website they launched in November called Community Trees that includes more information about “the peerage.”   The Community Trees project represents detailed work by many groups to create comprehensive lineages linked to source documentation on several major groups of communities or lineages.  I was particularly excited by this project though because of the technical infrastructure they are using for the site.

The site is developed with the very same genealogy software that I use for my own family tree and that I have been using for the Vanderbilt Family Genealogy and is called TNG: The Next Generation of Genealogy Sitebuilding.  I personally credit TNG with being the reason my interest in genealogy & family history became an obsession more than just an interest.  You see, the advantage that TNG offers is the ability to share your family history data in a highly interactive, flexible, and content-rich format that I have not found to be paralleled by any other online family tree building program (IMHO).   As I became more interested in the Vanderbilt’s,  I knew TNG would be a suitable platform as I could build upon their trees and also link to any source documents as I found them and make the interactive trees available for anyone else who was interested.

Getting back to my point, one of the databases included in Community Family Trees is one for the the peerage and you can browse it here (it may take awhile to load because of the large size of the database).  As I explored it, I went to see if any Vanderbilt’s were in it and sure enough, found Consuelo and her husband.  Her ancestral lineage stops with her father though, Wililam Kissam Vanderbilt.  I imagine their approach for those marrying into the peerage has been how I treat some of my non-direct trees when a person marries in – include a parent or two and then move on.  However, there is potential here to build this up as I have been trying to do on my own site!

Check it out – my page for Consuelo and theirs.  Of course, given the initial feed of their data, there are things that could be expanded up on as I have done w/ my tree.  For example:

• they have Conseulo’s birth date as “abt. 1875.”  She was born in 1877.  I have her 1880 census record linked to my page that shows she was 3 years old at the time.
• they have her as deceased, but no date of death.  She died December 6, 1964 and I have linked to my page an obituary published the following day in the New York Times newspaper.
• i’ve got pictures from newspaper articles attached to her record, including one of my favorite ones that has drawings of her and her bridesmaids
• they don’t have her mother attached to her record, Alva Erskine Smith Vanderbilt.  As I’ve learned though, her mother was the reason she married the Duke in the first place; there’s a book about them (which I still have not read), called Conseulo and Alva Vanderbilt: the Story of a Daughter & Mother in the Gilded Age, that goes into details about their relationship and what happened with this marriage.

Overall though, I envision this project has such great potential! If more people collaborated to help build these sets of trees and provide sources and documentation as TNG is built to do, it would be a great boon for the genealogy & history communities.  In just a few clicks, I’m able to see the Duke’s ancestry back several generations.  Since TNG includes a PDF generator, I can even get a handy PDF file.

Take some time to explore Community Trees – you may find someone else of interest in there too.   You can read about the trees they do have on their Learn More page.

Massachusetts Marriages, 1841 to 1915

Though I have not posted very often these past few months, I’d like to welcome all the new subscribers to the blog that have joined lately!  It seems we all have a common interest in the Vanderbilt family and I encourage everyone to let me know their background and offer suggestions for content to post here.

One item I would like to share is that I learned from another geneablogger that the LDS FamilySearch Record Search Pilot has a new database currently in progress that when complete, will cover marriages in Massachusetts from 1841-1915.  Currently, they indicate the collection is about 27% complete.

I entered “Vanderbilt” since I knew there were some relatives of the Commodore that lived in MA (at least two of his grandchildren died in Massachusetts - his daughter Phebe’s daughter Sophia Vanderbilt Cross Morse and his son William Henry’s daughter Emily Thorne Vanderbilt Sloane; and former MA governor William Henry Vanderbilt III is a descendant) and found a few relevant entries.  So far, I see

• Miverva Vanderbilt (b. 1881 in Brooklyn, NY) married to Charles V. Roberts on July 1, 1911 in Boston
• Charles Vanderbilt (b. 1887 in France) married to Clara E. Mell on September 4, 1901 in Methuen, MA
• John Vanderbilt (b. 1860 in Lynchburg, VA) married to Ella T. Walker on October 16, 1907 in Boston
• William D. Vanderbilt (b. 1872 in Brooklyn, NY) married to Sarah W. Sanderson on Oct. 8, 1907 in Greenfield, MA

Whether or not there are any connections to the Commodore remain to be seen, but it can be fun exploring! The site lets you see and save original microfilm images.  When I looked at the information for Charles & Clara for example, I learn their age, addresses, occupation, parents and more.  It is definitely worth keeping an eye on this resource.

Biltmore Estate Photos from Hugh Morton

The University of North Carolina @ Chapel Hill has recently placed online a collection of photographs from Hugh Morton, noted photographer and nature conservatist.   The collection can be found online at http://www.lib.unc.edu/dc/morton/index.html.

The online collection only represents a portion of the collection available at UNC, but there are a few pictures online of George Washington Vanderbilt’s Biltmore Estate.

I particularly like this aerial view.

You can view the others in the collection here.

I’ve Got Rand’s Book

My public library’s interlibrary loan department ROCKS! In the past few weeks, I’ve requested several books through interlibrary loan.  Today, I picked up the copy of Jean Rand’s book,  Some Descendants of Jan Aertsen Vanderbilt, and will begin to really start looking it over tomorrow.

The book is dense! Over 300 pages of geenalogical data about various Vanderbilt families and spans 10 generations of descendancy from Jan Aertsen.  I am very excited!

Hyde Park: Home of Frederick William Vanderbilt

Today is the anniversary of the death of Frederick William Vanderbilt.  He was a grandson of the Commodore and died June 29, 1938.  One of his homes was located in Hyde Park, NY and is now a National Historic Site.

Vanderbilt Mansion – Hyde Park. Digital image. LIFE Images. Google. <http://is.gd/1iuFn>.

Benny Goodman Weds A Society Girl

From the Dallas Morning News
March 23, 1942

Las Vegas, Nev. – March 22 (UP).  Benny Goodman, the king of swing, was married to Alice Duckworth, eastern socialite, in a brief ceremony performed by District Judge George E. Marshall in the Clark County Courthouse.  The 32-year-old orchestra leader had not been married previously.  It was the second marriage, however, for Miss Duckworth, 36.  She was divorced here Jan. 26 from her previous husband.

The couple came to the courtroom of Judge Marshall accompanied by the sister of the bride, Rachel McLenahan, and a friend, Ann Emmons, both of whom witnessed the ceremony.  Miss Duckworth was said to be the daughter of a wealthy manufacturer of musical insturments.

Miss Duckworth, was in fact Alice Frances Hammond, daughter of Emily Vanderbilt (Sloane) Hammond & John Henry Hammond.  Emily was a  great-granddaughter of the Commodore. Alice’s mother in fact caused quite the uproar in her selection of husbands, a “poor” lawyer as she was the only great-granddaughter of the Commodore not to unite her money with money.

Wordless Wednesday: Mrs. Reginald Vanderbilt’s Exquisite Skin Care

Mrs. Reginald Vanderbilt gives her skin this exquisite care. 1925. Emergence of Advertising in America, 1850-1920. Duke Digital Collections. <http://library.duke.edu/digitalcollections/eaa.P0186/>

Idle Hour Burns

“Idle Hour” was the home of William K. Vanderbilt Jr. and his wife, Virginia Graham Fair.  The couple were married in 1899 and an article from the 12 Apr 1899 issue of The San-Fransisco Call newspaper describes how it burned.  The home shown below, was located near Oakdale, Long Island.  The mansion built to replace this one, is now part of Dowling College.  On their website, you can read some more history and take a virtual tour.

You can read the whole article here.

Leasing Vanderbilt Land

The November 5, 1903 issue of the Kinston Free Press newspaper of Kinston, NC reported the following:

“E.B. Moore, manager of Kenilworth Inn, has returned from the north and said today that he was confident of effecting the lease of the famous Vanderbilt hunting preserve, which embraces about 150,000 acres.  It is said that the sum contemplated in the lease of this preserve is nearly $200,000.”

Kenilworth Inn, opened in 1890, has had quite an interesting history.  There is a Wikipedia article about the hotel and all the different events that have happened there, including a fire in 1909, and the various functions it has had. It is currently an apartment complex and their website is here. 

[image fromhttp://dlib.uncc.edu/special_collections/exhibits/ncscenes/ncpt7.htm]

A New York Times article from a few months after this news item gives a detailed account on George Vanderbilt’s possible lease of his property to be used as a hunting preserve.  E.B. Moore is Edgar B. Moore and he was forming a hunting club and apparently Vanderbilt’s land was just ripe for hunting.  The article reports that no hunting had occurred there in the 8-10 years which G.W. owned Biltmore.  The article can be found here. 

I must add this to my to-do list next time I visit Asheville.