Sunday, February 26, 2017

William Welles Bosworth

Meet my "second cousin 3x removed", William Welles Bosworth. Another notable descendant of William Little Hull, my 4x great grandfather.

This is from his wikipedia page:

William Welles Bosworth (May 8, 1869 – June 3, 1966)[1] was an American architect whose most famous designs include MIT's Cambridge campus, the AT&T Building in New York City, and the Theodore N. Vail mansion in Morristown, New Jersey (1916), now the Morristown Town Hall. Bosworth was also responsible to a large degree for the architectural expression of Kykuit, the famous Rockefeller family estate north of Tarrytown, New York, working closely with the architects William Adams Delano and Chester H. Aldrich and the interior designer, Ogden Codman.[2]

Bosworth is not as well known in the United States as other Beaux-Arts architects of that time, because his career, under the auspices of John D. Rockefeller, Jr., led him to France in the 1920s, where he was put in charge of the restoration of the Palace of Versailles and Notre-Dame de Reims, projects Rockefeller was interested in and that he generously financed. In time, Bosworth was awarded the French Legion of Honor and the French Cross of the Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters, one of the few Americans ever to receive such honors. In 1918, Bosworth was elected into the National Academy of Design as an Associate member, and became a full member in 1928.

William Welles Bosworth

Wednesday, February 22, 2017

"Six Degrees of Separation" to President Woodrow Wilson

Once upon a time.... there was a husband and wife named William Little Hull (1786-1836) and Lydia Packard Hull (1781-1970). They had a 4x great grandson... that would be me! However, they also had a 3x great grandson, Donald Wilson Thackwell (1912-1962), who married a woman named Mary Faith McAdoo (1920-1988). The marriage took place in Delicias, Mexico 1946. I don't know when they were divorced but her next marriage was in 1966. Mary was the daughter of US Secretary of the Treasury William Gibbs McAdoo. Mary was also the granddaughter of US President Woodrow Wilson!

Mary Faith McAdoo as an infant with sister Ellen looking over her.

President Woodrow Wilson

US Secretary of Treasury William McAdoo

Mary Faith McAdoo had two other husbands. She was born on April 6, 1920 in New York City and died in Santa Barbara, California on November 14, 1988.