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Bronson Winthrop

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Bronson Winthrop
Born
Frederic Bronson Winthrop

(1863-12-22)December 22, 1863
Paris, France
DiedJuly 14, 1944(1944-07-14) (aged 80)
Alma materTrinity College, Cambridge
Columbia Law School
EmployerWinthrop & Stimson
Parent(s)Egerton Leigh Winthrop
Charlotte Troup Bronson

Frederic Bronson Winthrop (December 22, 1863 – July 14, 1944)[1] was an American philanthropist and lawyer with Winthrop & Stimson who was prominent in New York society during the Gilded Age.

Early life

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Winthrop was born on December 22, 1863, in Paris, France, where his family was living during the U.S. Civil War. His parents were Egerton Leigh Winthrop[2] and Charlotte Troup (née Bronson) Winthrop.[3][4] He had two older siblings,[5][6] Egerton Leigh Winthrop, Jr., a lawyer and banker in New York,[7][8] and Charlotte Bronson Winthrop.[9] His father, also a prominent lawyer, was a former president of the Knickerbocker Club.[2]

His paternal grandparents were Benjamin Robert Winthrop and Elizabeth Ann Neilson (née Coles) Winthrop.[10] Through his father, he was a descendant of Wait Winthrop and Joseph Dudley (both Massachusetts Bay Colony leaders), and through his great-grandmother, Judith (née Stuyvesant) Winthrop, he was a direct descendant of Peter Stuyvesant, the Director-General of New Netherland,[11] and Robert Livingston the Elder, the 1st Lord of Livingston Manor.[12][11][13] His maternal grandfather was Frederic Bronson and his uncle was Frederic Bronson Jr.[14] His great-grandfather, Isaac Bronson, was a founder of the New York Life and Trust Company.

Winthrop graduated with an A.B. degree and an A.M. degree from Trinity College, Cambridge in England in 1889. In 1891, he graduated with an LL.B. degree from Columbia University.[1]

Career

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Following his graduation from Columbia Law, he passed the bar and began the practice of law in New York. From 1893 until 1897, he was with the firm of Root, Howard, Winthrop & Stimson, of which Elihu Root (later a U.S. Senator, Secretary of War and Secretary of State under Theodore Roosevelt) was a partner.[1] In 1901, he formed Winthrop & Stimson with Henry L. Stimson, who later served as Secretary of State and Secretary of War.[15] Winthrop also served as treasurer of the New York City Bar Association.[16]

Winthrop was a director of the Bank of the Manhattan Company, a trustee of the American Surety Company and a vice president (honorary) of the Community Service Society.[1] In 1934, he was elected vice president of the Charity Organization Society and served in that role until 1939 when the organization joined with the New York Association for Improving the Condition of the Poor into the Community Service Society.[1]

Society life

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In 1892, Winthrop, along with his father and several members of his mother's family, was included in Ward McAllister's "Four Hundred", purported to be an index of New York's best families, published in The New York Times.[17][18] Conveniently, 400 was the number of people that could fit into Mrs. Astor's ballroom.[19]

He was a member of the Knickerbocker Club, the Union Club of the City of New York, the Century Club, the Downtown Club, the University Club of New York, the Grolier Club, the Republican Club, the Meadow Brook Golf Club, and the Piping Rock Club.[1]

Personal life

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After his father's death, he inherited a one third portion of his estate, along with his brother and deceased sister's only child.[20] He received his father's New York home and Newport cottage with his brother as tenants in common.[20]

Winthrop, who did not marry, died at his home on Long Island on July 14, 1944.[1] He had a townhouse in New York City at 39 East 72nd Street. Winthrop's first summer home in Muttontown, New York (within the Town of Oyster Bay), now known as Nassau Hall, was designed by Delano & Aldrich around 1904.[21] He had the firm build him another home next door, a 12,000 square foot mansion, in 1911.[22] The 168 acre estate was purchased by Landsdell Christie, who sold the property to Nassau County in 1968.[23] The 1904 home is today called Nassau Hall and houses the Nassau County Museum's administrative offices.[23]

References

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  1. ^ a b c d e f g "B. WINTHROP DEAD; STIMSON PARTNER; Senior Member of Law Firm Here Was 80; A Leader in Social, Charity Circles" (PDF). The New York Times. July 15, 1944. Retrieved 29 June 2018.
  2. ^ a b "EGERTON L. WINTHROP DEAD | Veteran Lawyer and Banker Was Ex-President of Knickerbocker Club" (PDF). The New York Times. April 7, 1916. Retrieved 29 June 2018.
  3. ^ "DIED. WINTHROP" (PDF). The New York Times. February 17, 1872. Retrieved 29 June 2018.
  4. ^ Lewis, Arnold; Turner, James; McQuillin, Steven (2016). The Opulent Interiors of the Gilded Age: All 203 Photographs from "Artistic Houses," with New Text. Courier Corporation. p. 70. ISBN 9780486319476. Retrieved 29 June 2018.
  5. ^ The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography: Being the History of the United States as Illustrated in the Lives of the Founders, Builders, and Defenders of the Republic, and of the Men and Women who are Doing the Work and Moulding the Thought of the Present Time. University Microfilms. 1967. p. 303. Retrieved 29 June 2018.
  6. ^ Greene, Richard Henry; Stiles, Henry Reed; Dwight, Melatiah Everett; Morrison, George Austin; Mott, Hopper Striker; Totten, John Reynolds; Pitman, Harold Minot; Ditmas, Charles Andrew; Forest, Louis Effingham De; Mann, Conklin; Maynard, Arthur S. (1954). The New York Genealogical and Biographical Record. New York Genealogical and Biographical Society. Retrieved 29 June 2018.
  7. ^ "EGERTON WINTHROP, IS DEAD; Formerly Was President of the Board of Education of This City. ACTIVE IN PHILANTHROPY Served for Years as Head of the Legal Aid Society -- Was Born In France" (PDF). The New York Times. January 13, 1926. Retrieved 29 June 2018.
  8. ^ Pennoyer, Peter; Walker, Anne (2003). The Architecture of Delano & Aldrich. W. W. Norton & Company. p. 31. ISBN 9780393730876. Retrieved 29 June 2018.
  9. ^ "Charlotte Winthrop (1863-1893)". www.nyhistory.org. New-York Historical Society. Retrieved 16 October 2017.
  10. ^ "FUNERAL OF BENJAMIN R. WINTHROP" (PDF). The New York Times. August 21, 1879. Retrieved 29 June 2018.
  11. ^ a b The Saint Nicholas Society of the City of New York: History, Customs, Record of Events, Constitution, Certain Genealogies, and Other Matters of Interest. V. 1-. Saint Nicholas Society of the City of New York. 1905. p. 32. Retrieved 30 March 2018.
  12. ^ Reynolds, Cuyler (1914). Genealogical and Family History of Southern New York and the Hudson River Valley: A Record of the Achievements of Her People in the Making of a Commonwealth and the Building of a Nation. Lewis Historical Publishing Company. pp. 1011-1015. Retrieved 30 March 2018.
  13. ^ "The Death of Hon. George Folsom" (PDF). The New York Times. April 11, 1869. Retrieved 29 June 2018.
  14. ^ MacRury, Elizabeth Banks (1968). More About The Hill: Greenfield Hill. Printed by City Print. Co. pp. 101, 163. Retrieved 29 June 2018.
  15. ^ Conant, Jennet (2013). Tuxedo Park: A Wall Street Tycoon and the Secret Palace of Science That Changed the Course of World War II. Simon and Schuster. p. 28. ISBN 9781476767291. Retrieved 2 July 2018.
  16. ^ Dietrich, Kris (2015). Taboo Genocide: Holodomor 1933 & the Extermination of Ukraine. p. 952. ISBN 9781499056082. Retrieved 2 July 2018.
  17. ^ McAllister, Ward (16 February 1892). "THE ONLY FOUR HUNDRED | WARD M'ALLISTER GIVES OUT THE OFFICIAL LIST. HERE ARE THE NAMES, DON'T YOU KNOW, ON THE AUTHORITY OF THEIR GREAT LEADER, YOU UNDER- STAND, AND THEREFORE GENUINE, YOU SEE" (PDF). The New York Times. Retrieved 26 March 2017.
  18. ^ Patterson, Jerry E. (2000). The First Four Hundred: Mrs. Astor's New York in the Gilded Age. Random House Incorporated. p. 234. ISBN 9780847822089. Retrieved 13 June 2018.
  19. ^ Keister, Lisa A. (2005). Getting Rich: America's New Rich and How They Got That Way. Cambridge University Press. p. 36. ISBN 9780521536677. Retrieved 20 October 2017.
  20. ^ a b "WILL OF EGERTON L. WINTHROP | Relics of Dutch Days and Stuyvesant Heirlooms Left to Sons" (PDF). The New York Times. April 18, 1916. Retrieved 29 June 2018.
  21. ^ "The Bronson Winthrop Estate". www.oldlongisland.com. April 13, 2010. Retrieved 2 July 2018.
  22. ^ Chamoff, Lisa (May 24, 2015). "Restored 1911 home on sale for $3.499M". Newsday. Retrieved 2 July 2018.
  23. ^ a b Kellerman, Vivien (April 5, 1998). "If You're Thinking of Living In/Muttontown, L.I.; Horse Country Just Below the Gold Coast". Retrieved 2 July 2018.
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