Elizabeth Astor Winthrop Chanler

Elizabeth Astor Winthrop Chanler Chapman (February 23, 1866 – June 5, 1937) was an American heiress and socialite during the Gilded Age.

Elizabeth Chapman
Portrait of Elizabeth by John Singer Sargent, 1893
Born
Elizabeth Astor Winthrop Chanler

(1866-02-23)February 23, 1866
DiedJune 5, 1937(1937-06-05) (aged 71)
Barrytown, New York, U.S.
Spouse(s)
​
​
(m. 1899; died 1933)​
ChildrenChanler Armstrong Chapman
Parent(s)John Winthrop Chanler
Margaret Astor Ward
RelativesSee Astor family

Early life and family

Elizabeth, or "Bessie", was the eldest surviving daughter born to U.S. Representative John Winthrop Chanler (1826–1877) and Margaret Astor (née Ward) Chanler (1838–1875) of the wealthy Astor family. Through her father, she was a descendant of Peter Stuyvesant, the last Dutch Director-General of New Amsterdam,[lower-alpha 1] Wait Winthrop and Joseph Dudley. Through her mother, she was a grand-niece of Julia Ward Howe, John Jacob Astor III, and William Backhouse Astor, Jr. (wife of The Mrs. Astor, Caroline Schermerhorn Astor, who was Elizabeth's godmother).[2] Chanler and her siblings became orphans after the death of their mother in December 1875 and their father in October 1877, both to pneumonia. The children were raised at Rokeby, their parents' 43 room estate in Barrytown.[3]

Elizabeth, a "beautiful and tough-minded woman who even in the nursery was known as 'Queen Bess' by her siblings,"[4] had nine brothers and sisters, including John Armstrong Chanler (who married novelist Amélie Louise Rives);[5] politicians William Astor Chanler,[6] Lewis Stuyvesant Chanler, and the artist Robert Winthrop Chanler. Her sister Margaret Livingston Chanler,[7] served as a nurse with the American Red Cross during the Spanish–American War (and wife of Richard Aldrich), Winthrop Astor Chanler, served in the Rough Riders in Cuba[8] and was wounded at the Battle of Tayacoba.[9]

Society life

Her father's estate was valued between $1,500,000 (equivalent to $36,014,063) and $2,000,000 (equivalent to $48,018,750 in 2019 dollars) at his death in 1877.[10] John Winthrop Chanler's will provided $20,000 a year for each child for life, enough to live comfortably by the standards of the time.[11]

In 1892, Elizabeth, her sisters, Margaret and Alida,[12] and her brother Winthrop and his wife Margaret, were all included in Ward McAllister's "Four Hundred," purported to be an index of New York's best families, published in The New York Times.[13] Conveniently, 400 was the number of people that could fit into Mrs. Astor's ballroom.[14] Elizabeth was a member of the Cosmopolitan Club of New York.[15]

In 1893, while she was in London for a brother's wedding, John Singer Sargent, the most famous and sought after portrait artist of the day, painted a portrait of the then twenty-six year old Elizabeth. According to Sargent, she had "the face of the Madonna and the eyes of a child."[16] Her son donated the portrait to the Smithsonian American Art Museum in 1980.[16][17]

Personal life
Photograph of Elizabeth's husband John Jay Chapman, c. 1899.

On April 23, 1899, Chanler was married to author John Jay Chapman (1862–1933). He was the son of Henry Grafton Chapman, a president of the New York Stock Exchange, and Eleanor Kingsland (née Jay) Chapman, a great-granddaughter of the first Supreme Court Chief Justice John Jay. Chapman was previously married to Minna Timmins, who died in 1898.[lower-alpha 2] Elizabeth and her husband had one child together:

  • Chanler Armstrong Chapman (1901–1982),[21] who married Olivia James, a niece of Henry James. They divorced and he married the former Helen Riesenfeld, a writer, in 1948.[22] After her death in 1970, he married Dr. Ida R. Holzbert Wagman in 1972.[23] Reportedly, Chapman served as the model for Saul Bellow's 1959 novel Henderson the Rain King.[21]

Her husband died at her home, "Good Hap", on November 4, 1933 near Barrytown, New York.[18][24] After his death, Elizabeth spent several years working on a volume of his collected letters, which she completed just before her own death.[2]

Elizabeth died on June 5, 1937 and was buried at Saint Matthew's Episcopal Churchyard in Bedford, New York.[15]

Residences

In 1902, Elizabeth bought the former Livingston mansion, known as Edgewater, and located next to her childhood home, Rokeby, in Barrytown, New York for $20,000 from the estate of the second owner, Robert Donaldson Jr.[25] In 1906, she and her husband moved into a new house, known as Sylvania,[26] that was designed by architect Charles A. Platt, and built on the hill above Edgewater. Thereafter, her mother-in-law lived at Edgewater from 1910 until at least 1914.[27][28] In 1917, Elizabeth sold Edgewater to her stepson, Conrad Chapman, for $1.00. Conrad lived abroad most of his life and eventually sold the house in 1947.[29] The house was later owned by writer Gore Vidal and financier Richard Jenrette.[30][31] Shortly before her husband's death, they moved into a cottage built on the grounds of Sylvania they named "Good Hap" and turned Sylvania over to her son Chapman.[2][32]

References
Notes
  1. Elizabeth's grandfather, the Rev. Dr. John White Chanler, was married to Elizabeth Shirreff Winthrop (1789–1866), daughter of Benjamin Winthrop and Judith (née Stuyvesant) Winthrop (1765–1844). Judith's grandfather Peter Gerard Stuyvesant (1691–1777), was himself a grandson of Peter Stuyvesant.[1]
  2. From his first marriage, her husband had three children: Victor Emmanuel Chapman (1890–1916), the first American aviator to die in France during World War I;[18][19] John Jay Chapman Jr. (1893–1903), who died in his youth in Switzerland;[18] and Conrad Chapman (1896–1989), who married Judith Daphne McBurney in 1934.[20]
Sources
  1. 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.
  2. Lucey, Donna M. (2017). Sargent's Women: Four Lives Behind the Canvas. W. W. Norton & Company. pp. 178–179. ISBN 9780393634785. Retrieved 18 February 2019.
  3. Green, Penelope (21 July 2010). "In an Old Mansion, Creativity and History Meet". The New York Times. Retrieved 18 February 2019.
  4. Middleton, Daniel (n.d.). The Chanler Chapman Show. Duchess County, New York: About Town.
  5. Lucey, Donna M. (2007). Archie and Amélie: Love and Madness in the Gilded Age. Three Rivers Press. ISBN 9780307351456. Retrieved 18 February 2019.
  6. "Wm. Astor Chanler Is Dead In France. African Explorer and Soldier a Member of Celebrated American Family. Once Served In Congress. Great-Grandson of Original John Jacob Astor. Brother of Late Robert W. Chanler". New York Times. March 5, 1934. Retrieved 2013-12-10.
  7. "Margaret Livingston Chanler". digitalgallery.nypl.org. NYPL Digital Collections. Retrieved 18 February 2019.
  8. Rice, Wallace (1898). Heroic Deeds in Our War with Spain: An Episodic History of the Fighting of 1898 on Sea and Shore. G. M. Hill. Retrieved 18 February 2019.
  9. "FIGHTING FILIBUSTERS; Expedition to Cuba Has Several Brushes with Spaniards. GEN. NUNEZ'S BROTHER KILLED Winthrop Chanler of New York and Five Cubans Wounded. Guns of the Peoria Do Great Execution Among the Enemy -- Two Shiploads of Supplies for the Insurgents Landed". The New York Times. 15 July 1898. Retrieved 18 February 2019.
  10. "JOHN WINTHROP CHANLER'S WILL". The New York Times. December 21, 1877. Retrieved 7 February 2017.
  11. Thomas, Lately. The Astor Orphans: A Pride of Lions, W. Morrow, 1971. ISBN 1881324036
  12. Jacob, Kathryn Allamong (2010). King of the Lobby: The Life and Times of Sam Ward, Man-About-Washington in the Gilded Age. JHU Press. p. 158. ISBN 9780801893971. Retrieved 18 February 2019.
  13. 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.
  14. 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.
  15. "MRS. JOHN JAY CHAPMAN; Widow of Essayist and Poet Dies at Her Home in Barrytown" (PDF). The New York Times. 6 June 1937. Retrieved 12 October 2017.
  16. "Elizabeth Winthrop Chanler (Mrs. John Jay Chapman)". americanart.si.edu. Smithsonian American Art Museum. Retrieved 18 February 2019.
  17. Wouters, Gina; Gollin, Andrea (2016). Robert Winthrop Chanler: Discovering the Fantastic. The Monacelli Press, LLC. p. 236. ISBN 9781580934572. Retrieved 18 February 2019.
  18. "JOHN J. CHAPMAN, AUTHOR, POET, DIES; New Yorker Succumbs to Long Illness at Age of 71 in Poughkeepsie Hospital. ABANDONED LAW TO WRITE Was Central Figure in Several Controversies Funeral in This City Next Wednesday". The New York Times. 5 November 1933. Retrieved 12 October 2017.
  19. "FRANCE AWARDS MEDAL FOR VICTOR CHAPMAN; Sends Decoration Here to Father of First Flier Killed in Lafayette Escadrille". The New York Times. 29 July 1924. Retrieved 12 October 2017.
  20. "DAPHNE M'BURNEY; Announcements Received From London of Her Betrothal . to Conrad Chapman. BoTH'ARE LIVING ABROAD Prospective Bride Educated in England -- Wedding to Take Place in Near Future". The New York Times. 23 October 1934. Retrieved 12 October 2017.
  21. "Chanler Chapman dead at 80". Poughkeepsie Journal. March 24, 1982. Retrieved 12 February 2019.
  22. "HELEN RIESENFELD MARRIED AT HOME; Vassar Graduate, a Writer, Becomes Bride of Chanler A. Chapman, Also an Author". The New York Times. 10 August 1948. Retrieved 12 October 2017.
  23. Times, Special To the New York (5 March 1972). "Chanler A Chapman and Dr. Ida Wagman Are Wed". The New York Times. Retrieved 12 October 2017.
  24. "HUNDREDS ATTEND CHAPMAN FUNERAL; Bishop Manning Officiates at Service in Christ Church for Lawyer and Author". The New York Times. 9 November 1933. Retrieved 12 October 2017.
  25. Deed recorded September 17, 1902, Robert Bronson, executor, to Elizabeth Chapman, for $20,000.
  26. Rand, Christopher T. (2014). Silver Diaspora. p. 28. ISBN 9781491739945. Retrieved 18 February 2019.
  27. Social Register Association, New York 1911 Social Register, November 1910, page 105.
  28. Social Register Association, New York 1915 Social Register, 1914, page 115.
  29. Conrad Chapman's address in his 1921 NY Social Register entry was Oxford, England, and in the 1931 edition, Paris.
  30. Jenrette, Richard Hampton (2010). More Adventures with Old Houses: The Edgewater Experience. Classical American Homes Preservation Trust. ISBN 9780982573709. Retrieved 18 February 2019.
  31. Foreman, John (16 June 2015). "Big Old Houses: A Consummation of Earthly Bliss". New York Social Diary. Retrieved 18 February 2019.
  32. Matthews, Kathryn (6 July 2007). "The 'Great Love' of a Collector of Old Mansions". The New York Times. Retrieved 18 February 2019.
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