Clarence Dillon

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 This article may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards.
Please improve this article if you can. (May 2008)

Clarence Dillon, (September 27, 1882 - April 14, 1979) born Clarence Lapowski (name legally changed 17 September 1901) in San Antonio, Texas, financier, was the son of a Polish-Jewish immigrant, Samuel Lapowski, a dry goods merchant (probably Łomża, Poland, 1848 – San Francisco, California, 23 June 1912), who emigrated from Poland to San Antonio, Texas in 1878, and from there to Abilene, Texas, in 1884 and naturalized in Abilene District Court on 25 September 1891, legally changing his name to Samuel Dillon on 17 September 1901)[1], and wife (married at San Antonio, Texas, 1879) Bertha Stenbock (Denver, Colorado, 1862 – New York City, New York, 1 January 1951), paternal grandson of Joshua Lapowski and wife Paulina Dylion (daughter of a Frenchman Michel Dylion and wife) and maternal grandson of Gustav Stenbock, born in Sweden, miner prospecting for lead and silver in Western Colorado, and wife.

Graduated from Worcester Academy, then Harvard, 1905. Married at Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 4 February 1908 Anne McEldin Douglass (Peoria, Illinois, 26 September 1881 – Far Hills, New Jersey, 8 November 1961), daughter of George Douglass (Chillicothe, Ohio, 19 July 1843 – Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 29 September 1919) and wife and second cousin (married near Lafayette, Ohio, 6 October 1867) Susan Virginia Dun (near Lafayette, Ohio, 21 August 1846 – Richmond, Virginia, 8 January 1937).[2]

His son, C. Douglas Dillon (later Secretary of the Treasury, 1961-65) was born in Geneva, Switzerland in 1909 while they were abroad.

Dillon met William A. Read, founder of the Wall Street bond broker William A. Read and Company, through introduction by Harvard classmate William A. Phillips in 1912 and Dillon joined Read’s Chicago office in that year. He moved to New York in 1914. Read died in 1916, and Dillon bought a majority interest in the firm. In 1920, William A. Read & Company name was changed to Dillon, Read & Co..

His righthand man at Dillon Read, James Forrestal, became Secretary of the Navy, later Secretary of Defense, and died under mysterious circumstances at a Federal hospital.

During World War I, Bernard Baruch, chairman of the War Industries Board, (known as the Czar of American industry) asked Dillon to be assistant chairman of the War Industries Board.

Dillon was director of American Foreign Securities Corporation, which he had set up in 1915 to finance the French Government’s purchases of munitions in the United States.

In 1957, Fortune Magazine listed Dillon as one of the richest men in the United States, with a fortune then estimated to be from $150 to $200 million.

Clarence Dillon was attracted to France both because his mother was of French origin and by his own, personal tastes. In 1929, he installed an apartment in Paris where he stayed a part of each year.

After months of negotiation with André Gibert, Clarence Dillon bought Château Haut-Brion on May 13, 1935 for 2,300,000 francs.

Why did Clarence Dillon buy Château Haut-Brion? In his own words, Haut-Brion was his favorite wine. There is also the fact that Haut-Brion was near Bordeaux, and surrounded by good riding and hunting land.

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Katharyn Duff, Abilene ... On Catclaw Creek (1969), p. 133
  2. ^ For her ancestry, see Harry Wright Newman, A Branch of the Douglas family with its Maryland & Virginia connections (New York: Doubleday, 1967).

[edit] Further Reference

  • Dillon Read
  • / family tree
  • Robert C. Perez and Edward F. Willett, Clarence Dillon, a Wall Street enigma (Lanham: Madison, 1975)