William Hayes Ackland

William Hayes Ackland
Born William Hayes Acklen
September 6, 1855
Nashville, Tennessee
Died February 16, 1940 (1940-02-17) (aged 84)
Resting place Ackland Art Museum
Residence Belmont Mansion
Nationality American
Occupation
  • Author
  • Lawyer
  • Art collector
Spouse(s) Laura Crocker
Parent(s) Joseph Alexander Smith Acklen
Adelicia Acklen
Relatives Joseph H. Acklen (brother)

William Hayes Ackland (September 6, 1855 – February 16, 1940) was an American author, lawyer and art collector.

Belmont Mansion

Early life

William Hayes Acklen was born on September 6, 1855, in Nashville, Tennessee.[1][2][3] He later changed his last name to Ackland.[1] He was the son of Colonel Joseph Alexander Smith Acklen (1816–1863), a lawyer from Alabama who had served in the Mexican-American War of 1846–1848, and Adelicia Acklen (1817–1887), a wealthy widow and socialite.[1][4] His maternal grandfather, Oliver Bliss Hayes (1783–1858), was a lawyer and later Presbyterian minister from South Hadley, Massachusetts; he was related to Rutherford B. Hayes (1822–1893), who went on to serve as the 19th President of the United States from 1877 to 1881.[1][4] His brother, Joseph H. Acklen (1850–1938), served as U.S. Representative from Louisiana from 1878 to 1881.[1]

Acklen grew up at his family plantation home, the Belmont Mansion, in Nashville, and on family plantations in Louisiana.[1] He received a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Nashville, followed by a Bachelor of Laws from Vanderbilt University.[1][3] Indeed, he was one of the very first students at Vanderbilt, as he attended when the university had just been opened.[1]

Career

Acklen's legal residence was in Washington, D.C., where he officially practised as a lawyer.[1] However, he became a socialite, spending much of his time attending society galas and balls in Washington, but also in Ormond Beach, Florida, Lake Mohonk, and York Harbor, Maine.[1][2] He would go to England once a year for the English season.[1][2] He became known as a genteel gentleman and a member of high society.[1]

Acklen published a novel about Sterope, one of the seven Pleiades in Greek mythology, and three volumes of poetry.[1][2][3] He also wrote his memoirs.[1] In the 1880s, he did some journalism in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.[1] He also wrote plays and attended theater performances often.[1][2] He also corresponded with Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882), Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882), Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809-1894), James Russell Lowell (1819–1891), and John Greenleaf Whittier (1807–1892).[2]

Additionally, over the years, Acklen became an important art collector.[1][3] To preserve his art collection, he wanted to establish a museum on a Southern university campus.[3] However, the idea of a museum in his honor was rejected by Duke University and Rollins College.[3][4][5] Instead, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill agreed, and the Ackland Art Museum was established on its campus.[2][4][6]

Personal life and death

Acklen married Laura Crocker (1871–1931) on June 2, 1896, in Cleveland, Ohio.[3] They had no children and divorced a year later.[3] He inherited US$100,000 from one of his late half-sisters.[3] By the time of his death, he left an estate of US$1,350,000.[3]

Acklen died on February 16, 1940.

Works

Further reading

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 Ackland Art Museum: Biography of William Hayes Ackland
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 UNC University Libraries
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Robert Franklin Durden, The Launching of Duke University, 1924–1949, Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press, 1993, p. 288
  4. 1 2 3 4 Daphne Athas, Chapel Hill in Plain Sight, Eno Publishers, 2010, p. 193
  5. ↑ James Vickers, Chapel Hill, Mount Pleasant, South Carolina: Arcadia Publishing, 1996, p. 114
  6. ↑ Sue Clark, Angela Harwood, Steve Kirk, Artie Sparrow, Anne Holcomb Waters, Travel North Carolina: Going Native in the Old North State, John F. Blair Publisher, 2010, p. 261
  7. ↑ Google Books
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