Thursday, October 26, 2017

Are Princeton's Veblen House, Marquand Park and Drumthwacket Connected?



A document has been found online by our Veblen House historian-in-residence that suggests a long-standing connection--whether it be political, social, economic, or all of the above--between the builder of Veblen House and some of the most influential families in Princeton's history. In December of 1876, 22 prominent citizens of New York wrote a letter to the U.S. Congress about one of the most controversial presidential elections in U.S. history. The presidency remained in doubt until the following March, rivaling our more recently disputed election in 2000. The letter appears to be high-minded and nonpartisan, though the resolution of the election three months later would have immense ramifications for race relations.

What's relevant to this post are three names on the list: J and J Stuart and Co, Henry G. Marquand, and Moses Taylor.

One of the "J"s in J and J Stuart is James Stuart--the step-grandfather of Jesse Paulmier Whiton-Stuart, who brought what would later be called the Veblen House to Princeton in the early 1930s.

And might Henry G. Marquand have something to do with Marquand Park in Princeton? According to Roland Machold, who with his wife Pam helps oversee care of Marquand Park,
"Henry G. Marquand was the father of Alan Marquand, who purchased and named Guernsey Hall in 1885. Alan's wife, Eleanor, donated Marquand Park to Princeton Borough in 1953. Henry was a successful financier in New York City and served for many years as the head of the Board of Trustees of the Metropolitan Museum until 1902, when he died. His portrait hangs in the University art museum, as does his wife’s, painted by John Singer Sargeant."
It would be interesting to explore whether the donation of Marquand Park, which the Veblens would have passed on their way to the Institute for Advanced Study, might have provided some inspiration for the Veblens to donate Herrontown Woods as a nature preserve four years later.

And might the Moses Taylor who co-signed the letter be related to Moses Taylor Pyne, whose Drumthwacket estate in Princeton would later become the official residence of the governor of New Jersey? Pyne was "one of Princeton University's greatest benefactors and its most influential trustee." Here's a paragraph from the wikipedia entry:
The son of Percy Rivington Pyne and Albertina Shelton Taylor, Pyne was born in New York City in 1855, and graduated from Princeton in 1877. Pyne inherited an enormous fortune from his maternal grandfather and namesake, Moses Taylor who was first president of the First National City Bank of New York and a stockholder in the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad.
If the grandfathers of Jesse Whiton-Stuart and Moses Taylor Pyne moved in the same social and financial circles in New York, then it seems far less coincidental that Jesse and his wife Mary would move to Princeton and build their house on a parcel adjacent to what once was the horse farm for Moses Taylor Pyne's daughter-in-law.

Saturday, October 14, 2017

Themes from Veblen House Show Up in Children's Books


When the Veblen's donated their house to the public trust, they conceived of it becoming a museum and library. We hope to incorporate these elements into the house as part of its future use as a community gathering place for meetings, talks and performances. The library would ideally be a collection of books connected thematically to the Whiton-Stuart and Veblen families.

So it was that, amid the crowds of kids and parents exploring the sea of books and talking with the authors at the recent Princeton Children's Book Festival,  I sought out books with themes related to those who had built and lived at Veblen House.

Daniel Kirk's book, Rhino in the House, caught my eye. It tells the story of Anna Merz, who witnessed the plight of rhinos in Africa and decided to create a preserve where they would be safe from poaching. Our Veblen House historical research has uncovered a remarkable connection to these heroic efforts. The Whiton-Stuarts' grandson-in-law is Esmond Bradley Martin, who has devoted his life to saving rhinos and elephants in Africa and Asia. 

In Anna Merz's obituary, we learn that Esmond Martin was Merz's first contact in Africa as she became interested in rhinos.
Retiring to Kenya with her second husband in 1976, Merz learned from elephant and rhino conservationist Esmond Bradley Martin that rhinos were close to being poached to extinction throughout their range in both Africa and Asia. In 1982 Merz invested her own savings in helping David and Delia Craig to convert their Lewa Estate into the Ngare Sergoi Rhino Sanctuary.
This interview of Martin, in Swara Magazine: The Voice of Conservation in East Africa, includes a photo of Anna Merz with the orphaned rhino, Samia, that she raised and is featured in Kirk's book.


There's a short video about the book, with the author on location in Africa.

Author Jane Yolen's work first caught my eye with the assonant title "Thunder Underground". I had been looking (in vain) for books that depict the invisible mechanisms of climate change, and Thunder Underground seemed a related effort to convey the unseen to children.

But more relevant to Veblen House is her book, "The Devil's Arithmetic," about the detailed records the Nazi's kept of what became known as the Holocaust. Veblen led efforts to find employment for jewish physicists and mathematicians seeking refuge in the U.S. as the Nazi's took control of Germany in the 1930s.

Kate Hosford's "How the Queen Found the Perfect Cup of Tea" looks like good reading for an envisioned children's reading hour next to the hearth at Veblen House. The Veblens instituted the tradition of tea, first at the original Fine Hall mathematics center on Princeton University campus, then later at the Institute for Advanced Study. The tradition lives on, daily at the IAS, and periodically at what is now called Jones Hall. Elizabeth Veblen developed her passion for tea growing up in York, England, before moving to Princeton and meeting Oswald, whom she must have decided was her perfect cup of tea.