G. Hermann Kinnicutt

Kinnicutt was born on January 23, 1877 in New York City.[2] He was the eldest of two sons born to Susanna Eleonora (née Kissel) Kinnicutt (1852–1910) and Dr. Francis Parker Kinnicutt (1846–1913),[3] who served for many years as trustee and president of Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center.[4] Dr. Kinnicutt was also a close friend of novelist Edith Wharton, and owned a "rambling Colonial Revival house on Cliffwood Street overlooking the golf course," known as Deepdene (designed by Bruce Price) in Lenox, Massachusetts.[5] Among his siblings was brother Francis Harrison Kinnicutt, a Harvard Law School graduate who married Margaret Chanler Emmet (daughter of C. Temple Emmet, granddaughter of John Winthrop Chanler, and descendant of John Jacob Astor).[6]

He was named after his maternal grandfather, Gustav Hermann Kissel, a Hesse born banker,[7] and the husband of Charlotte Anna (née Stimson) Kissel.[8][9] His paternal grandparents were Francis Harrison Kinnicutt (a descendant of Roger Kinnicutt who emigrated to America c. 1635)[10] and Elizabeth Waldo (née Parker) Kinnicutt (herself a niece of Governor of Massachusetts Levi Lincoln Jr. and granddaughter of Levi Lincoln Sr., the 4th U.S. Attorney General).[8]

Kinnicutt graduated from Harvard University in 1896.[1]

Following his graduation from Harvard, Kinnicutt began his banking career in 1900 with J.P. Morgan & Co. Later, his father accompanied J. Pierpont Morgan on an excursion up the Nile in January 1912.[5] In 1904, he organized his own firm, known as Kinnicutt & Potter, which continued through various name changes (including Kissel, Kinnicutt & Co. with his uncle, Gustav Kissel).[11][12] In 1922, Kissel, Kinnicutt & Co. offered $3,000,000 in farm loan bonds for Chicago Joint Stock Land Bank.[13] In December 1931, it was announced that Kissel, Kinnicutt & Co. would merge with Kidder, Peabody & Co., at which point, Kinnicutt joined the new firm as a general partner on January 1, 1932.[14] At the time of his death, he was a senior partner with Kidder, Peabody which was located at 17 Wall Street.[1]

In 1934, Kinnicutt appeared in Washington before the House Interstate Commerce Committee as a representative of eighteen investment firms from New York to "protest what was termed the paralyzing legislation of the Fletcher-Rayburn stock exchange bill." He also joined with other prominent investment bankers to demand Federal supervision over regulation of stock markets.[1]

During World War I, Kinnicutt was chairman of the Liberty Loan Committee in New Jersey. Like his father, she served as a trustee of the Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center, and also as president of the Presbyterian Hospital School of Nursing.[1]

On April 18, 1907, Kinnicutt was married to May Appleton Tuckerman (1886–1947)[15] at the Church of the Incantation at Madison Avenue and 35th Street.[16] She was the daughter of Bayard Tuckerman and Annie Cotton (née Smith) Tuckerman, and sister of Bayard Tuckerman Jr.[17] Together, the Kinnicutts had homes in Manhattan, Maine, Paris, and a large summer home in Far Hills, New Jersey known as Mayfields. He collected antiques, including furniture later described by his interior designer daughter as "that awful English brown."[18] May and Hermann were the parents of four children, three of whom lived to adulthood:

• Francis Parker Kinnicutt (1908–1961),[19] who married Sybil Kane Jay (1914–1997),[20] daughter of Delancey Kane Jay (and niece of Peter Augustus Jay), on Valentine's Day, 1937.[21]
• Dorothy May Kinnicutt (1910–1994),[18] who married banker Henry Parish II, son of Edward Codman Parish, on Valentine's Day, 1930.[22]
• Gustav Hermann Kinnicutt Jr. (1912–1984), who married Iréne (née Schultze) Solmsen,[23] the former wife of Rudolph Solmsen, in 1948.[24]
• Bayard Tuckerman Kinnicutt (1920–1934), who died aged 17 while playing baseball at St. Mark's School in Southboro, Massachusetts.[25]

Kinnicutt died of a heart ailment on December 6, 1943 at 65 East 82nd Street, his home in Manhattan.[1] After a funeral at the Episcopal Church of the Ascension on Fifth Avenue attended by more than 400 mourners, he was buried at Saint Bernards Cemetery in Bernardsville, New Jersey.[26] His widow died a few years later on June 3, 1947.[15]

• Gustav Hermann Kinnicutt at Find a Grave