William Kissam Vanderbilt

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William Kissam Vanderbilt
Born December 12, 1849
Died July 22, 1920
Paris, France

William Kissam Vanderbilt (December 12, 1849 – July 22, 1920) was a member of the prominent United States Vanderbilt family.

The second son of William Henry Vanderbilt, from whom he inherited $55 million, he was for a time active in the management of the family railroads, though not much after 1903. His sons William Kissam Vanderbilt II (1878-1944) and Harold Stirling Vanderbilt (1884-1970) were the last to be active in the railroads, the latter losing a proxy battle for the New York Central Railroad in the 1950s.

William K. Vanderbilt's first wife was Alva Erskine Smith (1853-1933), who he married on April 20, 1875. Born in 1853 to a slave-owning Alabama family, she was the mother of his children and was instrumental in forcing their daughter Consuelo (1877-1964) to marry the 9th Duke of Marlborough in 1895. Not long after this the Vanderbilts divorced, William K. later marrying Anne Harriman Rutherford Sands and Alva marrying Oliver Hazard Perry Belmont.

After the death of his brother Cornelius Vanderbilt II in 1899 he was generally regarded as head of the Vanderbilt family.

Like other members of his wealthy family, he built magnificent Vanderbilt houses. His homes included Idle Hour (1900) on Long Island, New York and Marble House (1892), designed by Richard Morris Hunt--who also designed his 660 Fifth Avenue mansion in Manhattan (1883)--in Newport. He was a co-owner of the yachy Defender which won the 1895 America's Cup.

In 1906, his son, William K. Vanderbilt, Jr., suggested the construction of a limited access highway, the Long Island Motor Parkway, between Great Neck, New York and Lake Ronkonkoma. Opened in 1908 and paid for by private citizens, it was the first road built specifically for automobiles in America. [1]

[edit] Thoroughbred horse racing

William Kissam Vanderbilt was one of the founders of the The Jockey Club. He was a shareholder and president of the Sheepshead Bay Race Track in Brooklyn, New York and the owner of a successful racing stable.

After his divorce from Alva, he moved to France where he built a château and established the Haras du Quesnay horse racing stable and breeding farm near Deauville in France's famous horse region of Lower Normandy. Among the horses he owned was the U.S. Racing Hall of Fame filly Maskette, purchased from Castleton Farm in Lexington, Kentucky for broodmare services at his French breeding farm.

Vanderbilt's horses won a number of important races in France including:


William Kissam Vanderbilt died in Washington DC in 1920. His remains were brought home and interred in the Vanderbilt family vault in the Moravian Cemetery at New Dorp on Staten Island, New York.

In World War II the United States liberty ship SS William K. Vanderbilt was named in his honor.

[edit] References

  1. ^ Hugill, P. J. (1982) Good Roads and the Automobile in the United States 1880-1929. Geographical Review. P343. [1]
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