THE LIFE OF LUCY LAPHAM
HOWE (written by Céline Samson)
https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/details/MM7B-6G9
Born in Boston on October 27, 1865, died in New York on February 5, 1943 at age 77
Before Marguerite Yourcenar and Grace Frick purchased Petite Plaisance in Northeast Harbor in 1950, the cottage was known as "Brooks Cottage", and sometimes, though much less frequently, as Howe Cottage. Lucy Howe owned the cottage from 1890 to 1909. In 1897, Lucy sold half her interest in the cottage to Arthur Hendricks Brooks (who sold it on in 1905). The paths of Lucy and Arthur probably crossed early on: both were members of the best society of Boston and Cambridge, but it is difficult to pinpoint exactly when they first met.
Lucy Lapham Howe was born in a wealthy Boston neighborhood (44 Rutland Street) on October 27, 1865. The Howe family was well connected and active in civic, abolitionist, and intellectual circles. Lucy's father, William Greene Howe, was listed as a broker at the time of her birth. William was born in 1838 in Pomeroy, Ohio. After being educated at the University of Michigan, he came to Boston During the American Civil War, he enlisted in the army and was commissioned as a lieutenant. In 1862, he was promoted to the rank of captain of the 30th Massachusetts Infantry, a unit of the Union Army. His regiment accompanied General Butler’s expedition and took part in the capture of New Orleans. He narrowly escaped death after being shot during the Battle of Baton Rouge, and for a time it was thought his leg would have to be amputated He married Annie Lucy Hale in 1863 and became Provost Marshal of the Fourth District of Massachusetts that same year until the end of the war. William Howe was the grandson of Judge Samuel Howe of the Court of Common Pleas in Worcester, Massachusetts, and the great-grandson of Uriah Tracy, a U.S. senator from Connecticut who served from 1796 to 1807.
Lucy's mother, born Annie Hale, came from an even more prominent family. Her father, Ezekiel James Madison Hale of Haverhill, Massachusetts, was a business tycoon, a philanthropist, and the largest
1 Howe Family Photograph Albums; Photo. Coll. 412, Vol. 10, p. 37; Massachusetts Historical Society
private textile manufacturer of his day in the United States. Ezekiel’s wife was Lucy Lapham (Parker) Hale, after whom Lucy Lapham Howe was named. The Hale family in New England traces its roots to Thomas Hale and his wife Thomasine who came to the New World from England in 1635 and settled in Newbury.
Lucy was the first child born to William and Annie. Three daughters followed, Susan, Mabel and Jeannette.
In 1870, after having just lost little Susan2 , the family settled in Chicago where, according to the U.S. census, William worked as a commission merchant. Two Irish maids were also part of the household. The census shows that the family's wealth indeed came from the mother, whose assets were valued at $20,000, i.e. 13 times the amount of her husband's personal assets, estimated at $1,500. In 1871, the Howes were among the 100,000 who were left homeless after the Great Chicago Fire, which killed 30,000 people. The Howes took refuge in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in the house built by William's parents, Uriah and Sarah Howe (née Coolidge), at 55 Garden Street, a stone's throw from Harvard University.
In 1939, in an article for the Cambridge Historical Society, the architect Lois Lilley Howe recalled her first visit to 55 Garden Street and her meeting with the three little girls, Lucy, Mabel and Jeanette:
“The first thing that I remember about this house is being brought here to see three little girls, children of my cousin William Greene Howe. They, with their parents, were refugees from the Chicago Fire of October, 1871. This was of course exciting but disappointing, as not only were their dresses intact but I could discover no holes burned in their shoes and stockings3.” William, Annie and their daughters remained in the vicinity of Cambridge, living for a time on Holyoke Place, before moving to an apartment on Bulfinch Place in Boston. Lois Howe remembered later having been allowed to go into Boston by herself to spend Saturdays with her little cousins, and riding an elevator for the first time4
At the age of 7, Lucy traveled to Europe alone with her mother – both of their names appear on the manifest of the steamer Hecla, which arrived in Boston from Liverpool on October 28, 1873.
2 Susan Hillard Howe, 1866-1868, who died of scarlet fever
3 Proceedings of the Cambridge Historical Society, Volume 25, 1938-1939, 55 Garden Street, Lois Lilley Howe, p. 95 https://historycambridge.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/Proceedings-Volume-25-1938-1939.pdf
4 About Lois Howe, see https://historycambridge.org/tag/lois-lilley-howe/
In 1876, a new tragedy struck the Howe family when the youngest child, Jeannette, succumbed to meningitis at the age of five and a half. Twenty-two months later, it was Lucy's mother's turn to die at the age of 35, the registered cause of death being peritonitis and exhaustion. Lucy was then 12 and Mabel only 85
In 1880, Lucy (14) and Mabel (11) were listed as pupils at a religious school in Peekskill, Westchester County (New York), which took in orphan girls6 Lucy would remain in education until the end of her secondary school, at around age 187 William Howe seems to have been unable to look after his two girls at this time, leaving them either in the care of the nuns, or in the care of his parents and one of his sisters, Katherine Coolidge Howe, a schoolteacher, who still resided at 55 Garden Street. It is likely that William was already in the early stages of the tuberculosis that would take his life a few years later.
In 1881, Lucy and Mabel's future became secure following the death of their maternal grandfather, Ezekiel JM Hale. They received an annuity of $1,000 ($31,000 in today's money), which would rise to $1,500 when they reached 21, followed by an inheritance of $10,000 at age 25 and $15,000 at age 30. In short, this money meant that they would never have to earn a living They also knew that in a few years' time, their inheritance would be even greater. Ezekiel’s will specified two sorts of annuities: life annuities and temporary annuities. The big pay-out would be triggered by "the decease of the last survivor of the life annuitants named in my foregoing will, and that then the said residue and remainder, with all the accumulated interest thereof, shall be divided equally among my grandchildren per stirpes, to hold to such grandchildren so distributed and to their heirs, executors, administrators and assigns forever". Ezekiel’s will was so large (between $5 and $9 million at the time) that its main provisions were published in the Boston and New York newspapers after probate in 1881. From that time, Lucy and Mabel would therefore have been widely known as future heiresses to a great fortune
5 Perhaps the constant moving didn't help. The various official documents show that the family moved at least three times between 1876 and 1877.
6 Lucy and Mabel were probably students of St. Gabriel’s School (Community of St Mary). See https://www.newyorkalmanack.com/2016/01/peekskills-historic-community-of-st-mary/of St Mary.
7 The highest level of education reported for Lucy in the 1940 New York census is high school, 4th year
In August 1882, Lucy and Mabel were – presumably – on an outdoors holiday in the mountainous region of Intervale (New Hampshire), with their cousin Lois and other acquaintances. A picture was taken to mark this occasion. We also have another picture of Lucy and Lois which dates from the same year.
In June 1884, at the age of 18, Lucy was officially introduced by her aunt Katherine Howe, now Mrs. Henry Nathan Wheeler, to the Cambridge society. The reception was mentioned in The Boston Globe: 10
Three months after the party, Lucy and Mabel incredibly escaped another fire. Perhaps to continue Lucy's introduction to high society, Katherine Wheeler took Lucy and Mabel on a cruise up the Saint Lawrence River aboard the luxury steamer Le Saguenay. On September 25 1884, just after midnight, the boat was moored in La Malbaie, Quebec, when a fire broke out. The flames were first seen by people on shore, who raised the alarm. When the passengers became aware of the danger, it was impossible to get past the middle of the boat. Those at the front rushed to the wharf, but those at the other end were cut off from escape by water on one side and fire on the other Eventually a lifeboat was lowered and everyone was saved. However, all the animals on board died except for a horse. Most of the passengers lost all their possessions. The captain then jettisoned the moorings and the ship was consumed in flames away from the shore. The refugees were then cared for by local people 11
8 Howe Family Photograph Albums; Photo. Coll. 412, Vol. 10, p. 22; Massachusetts Historical Society
9 Howe Family Photograph Albums; Photo. Coll. 412, Vol. 10, p. 23; Massachusetts Historical Society
10 The Boston Globe, June 8, 1884, p. 12
11 The Toronto Daily Mail, 29 Sept. 1884, p. 5
In January 1885, a few more posed photos were taken when Lucy and Mabel were spending time with Lois Howe and a family friend. Lucy was 19 and Mabel 16 at the time.
Around the same time these pictures were taken, Lucy and Mabel's father, William Howe, who had been suffering from tuberculosis, went to Colorado in a last attempt to regain his health. The state was then known as "the sanitarium of the world". On March 19, 1866, he lost his battle and died in Denver at the age of 47. He was buried in the family plot at Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge. Lucy and Mabel were now orphans.
In 1888, Lucy’s name appeared on a list of passengers traveling from Boston to Bremen aboard the steamship La Bourgogne14 Amongst her traveling companions was a certain S. D. Sargent. We’ll assume that this is a typo, and that the person in question was actually Samuel Duncan Sargeant, one of Northeast Harbor's first "cottagers", who helped raise money to build what is undoubtedly Mount Desert Island's most beautiful road, Sargeant Drive along the Somes Sound. The drive was named in memory of him in 190415
We meet Lucy again in January 1890; she is 24 years old and this is the first time, to my knowledge, that the names Howe and Brooks are mentioned together in a newspaper: 16
12 Howe Family Photograph Albums; Photo. Coll. 412, Vol. 10, p.29; Massachusetts Historical Society
13 Howe Family Photograph Albums; Photo. Coll. 412, Vol. 10, p.28; Massachusetts Historical Society
14 The Boston Post, October 20, 1888, p. 3
15 See https://www.mainememory.net/record/78957
16 The Cambridge Chronicle, Vol. 45, No. 2288, January 4, 1890, p. 5
Of course, we know that Mrs. Wheeler, i.e. Katherine Howe, was not Lucy's sister but her aunt. Katherine was 14 years older than Lucy, but the fact that both women are listed as sisters in this entry suggests that Lucy and Mabel may have lived in their grandfather's house at 55 Garden Street, Cambridge, after the death of their parents18 Indeed, in 1900, when Mabel Howe married the physician Philip Davie Kerrison, the wedding reception was held in that very same house19, 20
On the same day the “german” or party was held in honor of Margaret Brooks, i.e. on January 15, 1890, Lucy became the owner of the cottage in Northeast Harbor that would one day become Petite Plaisance, which she bought from Daniel E. Kimball21 The fact that both events happened on the same date is unlikely to be a coincidence
Almost immediately after the purchase, although Lucy was named in the deed as the sole purchaser, the property appeared on various maps as "a lot belonging to Mrs. John Brooks" or as Brooks Cottage (and much more rarely as Howe Cottage). One cannot help but wonder why this is. It is quite possible that Lucy, a rich heiress and more or less alone in the world, was taken under the wing of the Brooks family. In 1887, Mrs. Harriet Brooks (mother of Margaret and Arthur) had, for her part, already purchased some land on Little Cranberry Island, following the advice of Charles Eliot, president of the Harvard University and the most prominent founder of the summer colony in Northeast Harbor The purchase of the Northeast Harbor cottage from Daniel E. Kimball may have been suggested to Lucy by Harriet Brooks22. Similarly to Katherine Wheeler, Mrs. Brooks may have been a surrogate mother figure for Lucy. In fact, we can see from various documents that Lucy and Harriet had several occupations in common; for example, they both worked at some point in their lives for charitable organizations that helped deprived children. Furthermore, Harriet Brooks was a suffragette and in favor of women's emancipation in general23; she may therefore have encouraged Lucy to gain more independence by buying her own summer cottage. It is also possible that she provided some of the funds as a "silent partner", in advance of Lucy’s receipt of her $10,000 inheritance from Ezekiel’s will on her 25th birthday, which fell on October 27, 1890.
17 Howe Family Photograph Albums; Photo. Coll. 412, Vol. 1, p. 11; Massachusetts Historical Society
18 In her article for the Cambridge Historical Society mentioned earlier, Lois Lilley Howe discusses Katherine Wheeler: “My cousin Katie Howe, afterward Mrs. Wheeler, was an extremely active and interesting woman. She had a successful school for girls in this house [55 Garden Street] for some years, giving it up at the time of her marriage. She was one of the ringleaders of a group of young people who were much addicted to private theatricals”. Lois Howe added that these performances took place inside 55 Garden Street, before the Cambridge Dramatic Club was formed.
19 Proceedings of the Cambridge Historical Society, Vol 25, 1938-1939, 55 Garden Street, Lois Lilley Howe, p. 95
20 Mabel Howe is listed as living at 55 Garden Street in the marriage register
21 See https://records.hancockcountymaine.gov/AcclaimWebLive/Document/DocDetails?incomingTransactionItemId=eseraeiMrgQRnz3zBTyS_4uDdrJp_moWamjFQuRnchFx3O9rWnnHSntg9kqlP1o&rowId=1
22 Lucy may also have taken advice from S. D. Sargeant during her 1888 transatlantic voyage.
23 Source: Harriet Brooks’s obituary, The Cambridge Tribune, February 13, 1915
Map mentioning a “lot belonging to Mrs. John Brooks” along Main Road, now South Shore Road (circa 1891, likely drawn by Fred Savage, with later annotations)24
Detail from Belle Smallidge's rough sketch of Northeast Harbor (1902), showing that the name of the cottage could vary (it is shown here as Brooks/Howe Cottage). We note that Samuel Duncan Sargeant had two cottages nearby25
In May 1890, a few months after the purchase of the cottage, the theatre play Mr. Perrichon's Journey (adapted from the play by Eugène Labiche) was performed at Brattle Hall in Cambridge, a stone's throw from Harvard Square, in aid of the Massachusetts Indian Association. Lucy and Arthur were amongst the cast. This is the first time that the names of Arthur Brooks and Lucy Howe appeared together in a publication26 .
24 Source: https://nehl.digitalarchive.us/items/show/1617
25 Source: https://nehl.digitalarchive.us/items/show/2578
26 Arthur and Lucy moved in the same circles and lived in the same area, Lucy probably living at 55 Garden Street while Arthur lived at 5 Ash Street (there is about 700 yards between the two residences).
It is possible, although I can find no trace of it in the social announcements of the newspapers of the time, that Lucy Howe and Arthur Brooks were engaged. In the spring of 1890, Arthur, a law student at Harvard, was 21 years old, some three years younger than Lucy. In 1891, Arthur obtained his Bachelor of Laws (LL.B.) degree. In 1894, he received his Master of Laws (A.M., Magister Artium) degree, and was admitted to the bar. He then joined for the Cambridge firm of James J. Myers, where he became a partner within a few years.
In 1890, the social announcements reported that Mr. John Brooks and his family, as well as Miss Howe of Cambridge, Massachusetts, were staying at Brooks Cottage in Northeast Harbor28
The following year, a new announcement reported that Miss Howe, Mr. John Brooks and his family were vacationing at Howe Cottage29 The name of the cottage had already begun to fluctuate
In May 1892, the Cambridge Dramatic Club gave a new show at Brattle Hall, entitled A Sheep in Wolf's Clothing. The cast included Mrs. Henry Nathan Wheeler and Lucy Howe, but Arthur was not mentioned this time.
One month and a half after the show, Harriet Brooks, her children Margaret and Arthur, and Lucy Howe traveled to Europe, aboard the SS Cephalonia, sailing from Boston to Liverpool30 . By organizing this trip, was Harriet – who seems to have been the powerhouse of the Brooks family – trying to "force" a union between Arthur and Lucy in what could be seen as a "pre-engagement trip"? The four travelers returned three months later on board the Werra, which left Genoa on September 16, 1892.
27 Boston Sunday Globe, May 11, 1890, p. 13
28 BHR, August 21, 1890, p. 7
29 BHR, July 30, 1891, p. 2
30 The Cambridge Tribune, Volume XV, Number 4, April 9, 1892
In January 1893, Lucy was part of the cast of Henry James Byron's play Our Boys, again produced by the Cambridge Dramatic Club, in which she played, somewhat ironically, the poor cousin of an heiress. The following summer, Lucy seems to have spent her vacation alone at Brooks Cottage32
Around 1894, Lucy made the acquaintance of the Wagstaffs, a very wealthy family who would play an important role in her life, and with whom she eventually lived. She appears to have been very close to Amy Wagstaff (née Colt, 1857-1934), the wife of Cornelius Dubois Wagstaff, and to their two children, Oliver and Mary The Wagstaffs were a patrician family and the largest landowners on Long Island prior to the arrival of the Vanderbilts. Hunting and breeding dogs seem to have been their sole occupation
33
As early as 1895, Lucy accompanied Amy Wagstaff to Europe along with Mary (Molly) and Oliver Wagstaff (ages 15 and 10, respectively) On the way back, the travelers boarded the SS Augusta-Victoria, which sailed from Hamburg via Cherbourg and Southampton, arriving in New York in early August. It is possible that Lucy traveled with Amy to help her care for the two children.
Also in 1895, an article in the Bar Harbor Record noted that Lucy Howe attended the wedding in Northeast Harbor of Florence Gardiner, the granddaughter of the first bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Albany in the United States, William Croswell Doane, one of the founders of the village’s summer colony The article mentioned that Lucy lived in Cambridge at that time
In June 1897, Lucy sold a half share of Brooks/Howe cottage and its land to Arthur Brooks34. The deed stated that Lucy lived in West Islip (a settlement on the south shore of Long Island, New York). It is therefore likely that Lucy was already living at this time with the Wagstaffs, who had a summer residence there ("Church Lawn") – or at least that she lived with them for part of the year.
31 The photographs of Harriet, Margaret and Arthur Brooks were provided by Holly Brooks, granddaughter of Arthur Brooks.
32 Bar Harbor Record, July 6, 1893, p. 8
33 See https://www.massapequapost.com/articles/the-search-for-westminsters-sensation-continues/
34 See https://records.hancockcountymaine.gov/AcclaimWebLive/Document/DocDetails?incomingTransactionItemId=itRnR7IhTgpZLWQUjrNRDI8AwzgRMbphr1V4RMtanJ8_70qNLFgmvXLt9MbCFAq&rowId=1
In September 1899, Lucy and Arthur jointly purchased a parcel of land at the rear of Brooks Cottage from Herman Savage36 This piece of land would later become Marguerite Yourcenar and Grace Frick's wooded garden, which the two women would call "Grande Plaisance". The deed mentioned that Lucy lived in New York (possibly with the Wagstaffs – although Lucy’s name does not appear on the 1900 New York census of the Wagstaff family). Arthur, on the other hand, still lived with his parents in Cambridge.
Still in 1899, architect Fred L. Savage of Northeast Harbor was commissioned, presumably by Lucy and Arthur, to draw up plans for the construction of a large mansion that was to replace the modest Brooks/Howe Cottage on its newly enlarged lot. The house in question was never built, which in a way is a good thing, because otherwise Petite Plaisance would no longer exist. The architectural blueprints were titled: “House for Miss Lucy Howe and Mr. Arthur Brooks”37
35 Source of the image and text: Long Island: Historic Houses of the South Shore, by Christopher M. Collora, p. 52 (2013)
36 See https://records.hancockcountymaine.gov/AcclaimWebLive/Document/DocDetails?incomingTransactionItemId=6BF5Pw7a5inqVsWqpDmACX hwJRawfDbSl3nwl2rT_D-LLROXdd_2Ga1DdkyguAQZ&rowId=1
37 https://nehl.digitalarchive.us/items/show/1576
The purchase of the land and the plan to build an opulent mansion to replace the humble cottage suggests that there may have been a romantic relationship between Lucy and Arthur. Indeed, one wonders why two people would consider building a house if they didn't intend to live in it together and eventually start a family. By 1899 however, time was running out for Lucy: she was already 34 years old Arthur, of course, was much less dependent on the passage of time.
If ever there was an engagement, it was a very long one, and Lucy and Arthur do not seem to have been very close, at least geographically. If there was no romantic relationship between the two of them, which is also possible, we can imagine that they were merely friends or associates, and that Brooks Cottage was a financially advantageous investment for both
It is also possible that Arthur and Lucy gradually lost interest in each other. Lucy may have become increasingly attracted to the opulent, festive lifestyle offered by the Wagstaffs. As for Arthur, a handsome, reserved and athletic young man (he enjoyed sailing, tennis and baseball, among other activities), he was a courted bachelor, perhaps under pressure from his mother, and seemed reluctant to make a commitment such as marriage In the Harvard College Class of 1891 Report published in 1911, Arthur's former classmate, Frederick Wright Burlingham, alluded to this in a smug and condescending paragraph:
“In December, 1906, I gathered four Ninety-oners, Billy Sears, Henry Washburn, Jack Duff and Arthur Brooks, in Claremont, New Hampshire and gave them a few words of plain advice about the desirability of getting married, and set them a good example by getting married myself. All save Brooks have since that time shown marked intelligence by following suit.”39
Around 1901, 14 years after buying land there, Harriet and John Brooks began vacationing in Isleford (Little Cranberry Island). They felt there were too many people in Northeast Harbor, and they didn't like the noise of the iron tires of carts and wagons after the village streets were paved. In 1904, they had a house built in Islesford (Glan-y-mor), which was destroyed in 1915 by an arsonist before being rebuilt.
38 Source: https://nehl.digitalarchive.us/items/show/1576
39 Source: https://www.forgottenbooks.com/es/download/HarvardCollege_10273051.pdf
In 1901, Lucy's niece, Katherine Kerrison (the daughter of Mabel Howe and Philip Kerrison) was born, becoming Lucy's only (indirect) descendant.
From time to time, Lucy would rent her cottage during the summer, either through Loren Kimball, brother of Daniel E. Kimball and owner of the nearby Kimball House Hotel, or through the real estate agent Belle Smallidge Knowles The latter didn't seem to know exactly who owned the cottage, as evidenced by the heading on the file she drew up 1901, where she wrote: “Miss Lucy Howe’s Cottage or Mrs. John Brooks’s cottage” .
However, in the typed description that followed, Belle Knowles specified that the cottage belonged to Lucy Howe40. Was this constant confusion about the ownership a source of conflict between Lucy and the Brooks family? This might have been the case as if there is one thing we can be sure of, it's that the cottage never belonged to Harriet Brooks.
In 1902, while spending the summer at the Wagstaffs’ residence in West Islip/Babylon, New York, Lucy was arrested for speeding. On August 15, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle reported that Mrs. Lucy L. Howe, of Manhattan, and a summer resident of West Islip, accompanied by Mrs. Cornelius Du Bois Wagstaff, had been arrested for violating the "Cocks Law" after driving at a high rate of speed on West Main Street in Babylon. Lucy claimed that it was impossible for her car could to have been going that fast, but despite her vehement protests she was taken to court and fined $541 In another newspaper (The Horseless Age), Lucy was described as a "prominent New York society woman"42
40 See https://nehl.digitalarchive.us/items/show/2175
41 The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, August 15, 1902, p. 12
42 About Lucy’s speeding, see also https://www.massapequapost.com/articles/the-search-for-westminsters-sensation-continues/
In 1905, Lucy’s name appeared on a list of passengers disembarking in New York. She had traveled with Amy Wagstaff and her daughter Mary from Bremen. Lucy was listed as 30 years old (she was actually 40). Amy Wagstaff stated that she was 45 (she was 48). Only Mary gave her exact age (25).
That same year, Arthur Brooks seemed to lose interest in Brooks/Howe Cottage and sold his half share to Loren Kimball43 Presumably, the relationship between Lucy and Arthur had completely broken down by that time. Arthur's descendants would not know that there had been a Brooks Cottage and that Marguerite Yourcenar's house had once been part of their family until I informed them of the fact in 2023. Arthur eventually married in 1913, to a woman fifteen years his junior, with whom he had four children
In 1907, after the deaths of all the recipients of the life annuities under Ezekiel Hale's will, and after a lengthy legal battle against the descendants by an attorney who blocked the dissolution of the trust for a time, Lucy finally became the very wealthy heiress she had promised to be. She received an estimated $292,000 (the equivalent of $9 million today!). That same year, Lucy visited Paris with Amy Wagstaff, her daughter Mary and Allen Wagstaff.
In 1908, Lucy took another trip to Europe with Amy and Mary Wagstaff. On their return, they traveled aboard the Vaderland, which left Antwerp and arrived in New York on April 15.
Two months later, Lucy bought a Marion automobile. She was listed as living in Babylon, Long Island.
In 1909, it was Lucy’s turn to sell her remaining half interest of Brooks/Howe Cottage to Loren Kimball44 The house became one of the cottages rented during the summer by the Kimball House Hotel under the name of Brooks Cottage45. With a few exceptions, this would continue to be the case until 1950, when Marguerite Yourcenar and Grace Frick acquired the cottage, which would from then on be known as Petite Plaisance
In 1910, at the age of 44, Lucy appeared on the New York census as living with the Wagstaffs, at 131 East 61st Street, in a new building on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, a posh address. The household included four servants. Lucy was listed as a cousin, which she wasn’t. She would continue to live with the Wagstaffs until her death in 1942
43 See https://records.hancockcountymaine.gov/AcclaimWebLive/Document/DocDetails?incomingTransactionItemId=QQ_Dxdiwc5BF0FIfjhuBzM2e iuSqTGRkUt8mng1D_FlCrYCjMjDHENSCvfDEE9M0&rowId=1
44 See https://records.hancockcountymaine.gov/AcclaimWebLive/Document/DocDetails?incomingTransactionItemId=UKVkc3UWQFs_IiUAIYxKcKY4 bC1L_JwykZ8GjRMJLc-SDilPVW13WdbQxI-IVI6P&rowId=3
45 See https://nehl.digitalarchive.us/files/original/7235/GEN_0829_a.pdf, p. 3 (cottage No. 5)
In 1913, Lucy traveled aboard the SS Lapland, which left Antwerp on April 19 for New York. Her travelling companions were Cornelius, Amy and Mary Wagstaff.
In 1918, Lucy was listed in the New York Social Register as a summer resident of the "Church Lawn" cottage, Babylon, Long Island, along with Amy and Cornelius Wagstaff, and their two children, Oliver and Mary.
In 1920 (at age 54), Lucy was once more listed in the New York census as living in Manhattan with Amy (63), Oliver (35), Mary (39), and three servants. Cornelius Dubois Wagstaff had died one year following an operation
In 1920, Lucy was decorated in New York by the French government for her work accomplished during the First World War on behalf of the Junior Emergency Relief Society (an organization founded in 1914 of which Lucy had become vice-president). This 600-member organization made children's clothing, layettes and surgical supplies for charities abroad and at home.
In 1921, Lucy was also a member of the executive committee of the Coast-to-Coast Labrador Branch of the Needlework Guild of America, which sought to provide clothing assistance to the poor families of deep-sea fishermen46
46 See https://collections.mun.ca/digital/collection/hs_fisher/id/1715/
In 1922, in preparation for a trip to Europe with Amy and Mary Wagstaff aboard the President Van Buren (New York-London), Lucy applied for a passport and submitted the photograph opposite. We learn that Lucy had gray eyes and that she was quite tall (5 ft. 8 in.) In the affidavit paragraph, Amy Wagstaff stated that she had known Lucy for 28 years and considered her as a member of her own family. In Amy's passport application affidavit, Lucy stated that she was a "distant cousin" of Amy’s. The women declared that they were travelling to Great Britain, France, Italy and Switzerland for "pleasure".
In August 1925, Lucy made her love of Mount Desert official once again by purchasing a cottage at 53 Harborside Road in Northeast Harbor from Charlotte Robert, mother of Romeyne Ranieri di Sorbello48, 49 Newspapers show that before that date, Lucy may have rented the house in question, which had a view over the harbour, and out to sea. Prior to the purchase, Lucy again asked Fred Savage to draw up plans to remodel the interior and exterior of her cottage. Lucy's house was known as ‘Howe Cottage’ until 1932, when it was renamed ‘Overfloat’
Once the sale of the cottage was finalized, Lucy travelled to Europe with Amy and Mary Wagstaff. On their return, the three women boarded the SS Pittsburgh in Southampton, arriving in New York on October 21, 1925
47 United States Passport Applications, 1795-1925
48 See https://records.hancockcountymaine.gov/AcclaimWebLive/Document/DocDetails?incomingTransactionItemId=gG_9H1yKutA2UzenJrgiuiZ2Q uSJ0gtPx8N-XzypXpy_ynBweRQX5-UHAQY54_Ke&rowId=989
49 Charlotte Robert was also a friend of the Wagstaffs. See https://www.sorbellofoundation.org/wpcontent/uploads/2018/01/UguccioneVExtendedBio.pdf
50 Source: https://nehl.digitalarchive.us/items/show/156
In 1928, Lucy traveled aboard the President Harding, which sailed from Cherbourg to New York on October 18. Her traveling companions were Amy and Mary Wagstaff.
Was Lucy, like so many others, dispossessed of part of her fortune during the Great Depression? Although she may have been, she was not forced to sell her newly acquired cottage.
In 1931, Lucy, Amy and Mary Wagstaff traveled aboard the steamer Olympic, which left Southampton on October 1 and arrived in New York six days later.
In 1933, Lucy lost her sister Mabel, who didn't live very far from her, being also based in the Upper East Side (15 East 69th St, New York). Were the two women close after their youth? We never see them mentioned together in society articles or in the passenger lists for trips to Europe It is likely that Lucy was much closer to her adopted family, the Wagstaffs. We have photos of the Kerrisson family dating from 1921, taken at the time of their passport application. The Kerrison family traveled a lot, always first class.
In 1934, Lucy suffered another loss, that of her great friend Amy. She continued to live in the Wagstaffs’ apartment in New York with Mary and Oliver Wagstaff, who never married. Oliver Wagstaff, a banker, was probably gay, as implied in several articles of the time, as well as in the book Women of Privilege100 Years of Love & Loss in a Family of the Hudson River Valley by Susan Gillotti (2013) where he is described as “heavy-set and unattractive, with a falsetto voice and on his way to alcoholism”.
Did incompatibility play a role in the non-union between Lucy and Arthur? As well as, to some extent, depression? We know from his descendants that Arthur had a melancholy temperament. And we can assume that Lucy herself, because of all the losses she had suffered, may have been prone to dark moods despite her wealth.
In the 1940 census, Lucy, 74, was still listed as living in New York with Oliver Wagstaff (55), his sister Mary (59) and three servants.
The last newspaper mention of Lucy appears to be in the Bar Harbor Times of August 27, 1942, which stated that Lucy was spending the summer with Mary and Oliver Wagstaff at her Overfloat cottage. Lucy and the Wagstaffs may, who knows, have crossed paths with Marguerite Yourcenar and Grace Frick, as indeed it was that same summer that Marguerite and Grace vacationed for the first time on Mount Desert Island, taking a break from their grueling schedules at the Hartford Junior College in Connecticut, where they both taught The two women stayed first in Seal Harbor and then in Somesville, and it's no exaggeration to say that they fell in love with the island at first sight. From then on, Marguerite and Grace would return every summer, tirelessly exploring the roads and paths of Mount Desert Island to
51 United States Passport Applications, 1795-1925
find the little house of their dreams, the place where Yourcenar would be able put down roots for the first time in her life, so far away from her old Europe. This would be Lucy's old cottage, which the two women finally discovered in 1949. Thirty years later, Yourcenar confided to the radio host Jacques Chancel: "For a long time, I searched for a cabin. My friend Grace came with me on long walks. We were impatient. One evening, it was almost nightfall, an old wooden house caught our eye, called out to us. It was Petite Plaisance. The dwelling bore no resemblance to a château, or even a suburban home. But it was what we had been waiting for: a place of tranquility, of possible abandon52 "
The summer of 1942 was the last summer Lucy spent at Northeast Harbor A few months later, on February 5, 1943, she died at the Wagstaffs' New York home at the age of 77 As an ultimate proof of her connection to the Wagstaffs, Lucy was buried in their family plot in the Babylon Rural Cemetery (444 Deer Park Avenue, Babylon, NY 11702), next to the Wagstaffs’ Celtic cross
In her will, Lucy left her Harborside Road cottage to Mary Wagstaff, the remainder of her fortune going equally to Oliver Colt Wagstaff and Mary Wagstaff in the form of a trust Upon their death, it was stipulated that the remainder of her estate should go to her niece, Katherine Kerrison Boote53 . Oliver Wagstaff died in 1973 in New York and Mary Wagstaff died in 1976 at the age of 95 in Northeast Harbor (where she may very well have known Marguerite Yourcenar and Grace Frick)54
52 Marguerite Yourcenar, Radioscopie de Jacques Chancel, p. 12 (Éditions du Rocher, 1999) Translation by Joan E. Howard.
53 See https://records.hancockcountymaine.gov/AcclaimWebLive/Document/DocDetails?incomingTransactionItemId=9lpfjw90Ntev5ke3qtU7mDF9 T4kJMiBndNzuzmCbjsRha8fWLpN6g8IYx6T3oyc7&rowId=1
54 Jane Straßgütl, who works as a docent at Petite Plaisance and who was a neighbor of Marguerite Yourcenar as a child, has provided some anecdotes about the Wagstaffs: "Oliver and Mary Wagstaff were very much a presence in Northeast Harbor in the 60s and of course for my parents even earlier. When I pass by Harborside Inn and glance over to the cottage where the Wagstaff siblings summered, I always have to chuckle. They were priceless snobby New Yorkers, well aged then and ludicrous. They were quite stout and dressed in the faded fashion of their former times. There are many stories of Ollie and ‘Mollie’ (Mary). The best one is when the Brown boys jacked up their car while Ollie and Mollie were at the Past Time movie house where the bank is now. Just to hear Mollie howling at Ollie for not being able to drive the car away was worth the practical joke. It's part of Northeast Harbor lore. The Brown boys came to the ‘rescue’ and Ollie was able to drive away."