Part of a 14-panel panorama etching of 17th-century buildings in St. Petersburg, Russia

Appendix E: Biographies

Winans1

Ross Winans (Sussex County, NJ 14 October 1796 – Baltimore, MD 11 April 1877; see Image 228), the future Baltimore locomotive builder, married on 22 January 1820 in New Jersey Julia DeKay (10 August 1800 – 21 May 1850).2 They had five surviving sons and one daughter: Thomas DeKay (1820–1878; see Image 229), William Lewis (5 April 1823 – 22 June 1897; see Image 232), Julia DeKay (1825–1875; see Image 16), Ross Jr. (August 1831 – Paterson, NJ 25 June 1863), DeWitt Clinton (1838 – 27 November 1892), and Walter Scott (1840–1928).3

Ross Winans had come to Baltimore in 1827, when the work of building the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (B&O), the first railroad in the United States, began. He had become interested in this mode of transportation and had “devised a model ‘rail wagon’, having the ‘friction wheel’ with outside bearings,” that became “for at least a century the distinctive pattern for railroad wheels.”4 In 1828, the B&O sent George Washington Whistler (see Images 7–8, 21), Ross Winans, William Gibbs McNeill (see Image 31), and Jonathan Knight to England, where they remained from November of that year to May 1829 “to study the railroad system.” When Ross Winans returned home, he became an engineer (1829–1830) for the B&O.5 “In 1835 he and his partner, George Gillingham, took over the company shops at Mount Clare.”6 “About 1840 Winans began a career as an independent locomotive builder, setting up his own shops adjacent to the Mt. Clare Station.”

When the Russian government expressed its wish to have the rolling stock for the St. Petersburg–Moscow Railway built in Russia by a company that would be willing to relocate, Major Whistler proposed Ross Winans. When the model locomotive that Winans built to compete with an “English firm also building a locomotive for Russia” was “shipped … in the spring of 1843, Ross Winans did not wish to leave his factory in Baltimore but sent instead his son Thomas, also a gifted mechanic, to put it into operation.”7

Thomas DeKay Winans (Vernon, Sussex County, NJ 6 December 1820 – Newport, RI 10 June 1878; see Image 229) is the only member of the Winans family who appears in Anna Whistler’s St. Petersburg diaries. He was ten years old when his family moved to Baltimore. He received “a common-school education” and was then “apprenticed … to a machinist, under whom he displayed such skill that before he attained his majority he was entrusted with the headship of a department in his father’s establishment.”8 He became acquainted with Major Whistler when, “scarcely eighteen years old, he [was] charged with the delivery of some engines for the Boston and Albany Railroad.” It is, therefore, not surprising that his father also entrusted him with the delivery and setting up of the model locomotive in Russia, and that Major Whistler had no objection.

On route to Russia, Thomas DeKay Winans met Joseph Harrison Jr. (see Image 226), of the firm of Eastwick and Harrison, who had been invited by the Russian government “to come to Russia to bid for the locomotive contract.”9 Harrison invited Winans “to participate with him in the negotiations.”10 They were awarded the contract, for some three million dollars, which they “signed on December 27, 1843/January 8, 1844.”11 The contract was for six years.12 The partnership was now called Harrison, Winans and Eastwick.

Thomas DeKay Winans was a bachelor, who, like the Harrison and Eastwick families, lived in the “village on the grounds” of the Alexandrofsky Head Mechanical Works (see Images 223–225), as did “the government workers with their families.”13 Anna Whistler (see Images 1–5) records in her diaries that he could not leave the Works during the day and came only at night to consult with Major Whistler. Unlike the Harrisons and Eastwicks, he is never mentioned as attending any of the festivities at the Whistler home, nor does Anna Whistler ever record that he was present when they visited the Harrisons and Eastwicks. She mentions seeing him on only one occasion, when they took Aunt Alicia (see Image 39) to visit the Harrisons and showed her the foundry where the locomotives were being built. As a bachelor, he seems to have moved in completely different circles and thus to have met Celeste Louise Revillon (c. 1828 – Baltimore, MD 19 March 1861; see Images 230–231), then eighteen years old, who, until 1847, had been away “at school in Paris for the last four years.”14 She was the eldest of eleven siblings of her father, George Revillon (1802 – 24 March 1859) and Marguerite Louise (Bonjour) Revillon.15 “Her father [was] at the head of a large type foundry” in St. Petersburg and had resided there from about 1837.16 She did “not speak English and Mr. Wynans knowledge of French [was] limited, but they both [had] some knowledge of the Russian language.”17 They were married on 11/23 August 1847 “in [both] the British and American Chapel [see Image 125] and the Catholic Church.”18 Probably because Anna Whistler was in England with James and Willie at the time of the Revillon–Winans wedding, she does not record this event. The Winanses’ first child, George, was born on 30 March 1849 at Alexandrofsky.19 Their second son, Ross Revillon (1850–1912), was also born in Russia.20

It is said that Ross Winans’s second son, William Lewis (Vernon, Sussex County, NJ 3 April 1823 – London 22 June 1897; see Image 232),21 went to Russia at the same time as Thomas DeKay, but he himself stated that he “resided 16 years in the state of Maryland, from whence [he] removed in the year 1845, to St. Petersburg in Russia.”22 “In Russia he seems to have played a very minor role in the activities of Harrison, Winans and Eastwick, not being a formal member of the firm.”23 “Although the firm … remained legally in existence until October, 1850,” Eastwick left Russia in May 1849, after a quarrel with Harrison and Thomas Winans.24 It was then that William Lewis Winans came to play a major role in the firm. On 21 October (OS) 1849, they “formed a formal partnership with [him]” called Winans, Harrison and Winans, and on 25 August (OS) 1850 signed a six-year contract with the Russian government “for the remount (repair and maintenance) of the moving machinery of the St. Petersburg and Moscow Railway.”25

The articles of their agreement put William Lewis Winans completely in control. He was to manage “all matters connected with the carrying out of the contract, having sole power to make decisions” and had “to remain in Russia for the full term of the contract,” while his brother and Harrison “could leave Russia if they wished,” never to return.26 Nor was he obliged to act upon advice from either of them, unless that partner returned to live in Russia.27

Thomas DeKay Winans left Russia for the United States in September 1850. Eastwick, who had returned to Russia in 1850, left permanently for the United States in October of that year, after being bought out. Harrison returned to the United States in December 1852, after spending “1851–52, in England and travelling on the Continent.” William Lewis Winans remained in Russia, “manag[ing] the Alexandrovsk Factory until 1862.”28 All became very rich.29

Thomas DeKay Winans returned to Baltimore. He built two lavish houses, one in Baltimore, called “Alexandroffsky,” after the place in Russia where he had lived; the other, a country house outside Baltimore, called “Crimea.”30 He also built a villa at Newport, which he called “Bleak House.”31 Two more children were born: William (2 March 1852 – 9 December 1871) and Celeste Marguerite (Paris 16 April 1855 – Alexandroffsky Estate, Baltimore, MD 28 February 1925). George died in August 1851. Celeste Marguerite Louise (Revillon) Winans died following the still birth on 19 March 1861 of her fifth child, Thomas.32 When their mother died, the three remaining children were eleven, nine, and six years old, but there is no indication that Thomas DeKay Winans married again.

Thomas DeKay Winans devoted much of the rest of his life to inventions: “the cigar-shaped hull which he and his father devised in 1859, designed for high-speed steamers in trans-Atlantic service”; “a device which made the organ as easy of touch as the piano”; “a mode of increasing the strength and volume of sound on the piano”; “an improvement in ventilation which he applied at ‘Alexandroffsky’”; “glass feeding vessels for fish, adopted by the Maryland Fish Commission”; “an ingenious use of the undulation of the waves to pump the water of a spring to the reservoir at the top of his villa at Newport, R.I.”33 He also “had a natural skill in clay-modelling.”

He is said to have come out of retirement twice: once to “serve as a director” of the B&O when it was completed, and once to establish “a soup station opposite his home” in 1861, when the Civil War broke out.

William Lewis Winans married on 30 November / 12 December 1851 at the British and American Congregational Church in St. Petersburg, Rev. T.S. Ellerby (see Image 256) officiating, Maria Ann Delarue (1825 – Hove, Sussex 18 December 1904).34 They had two sons: Walter (Alexandrofsky, Russia 5 April 1852 – Parsloes Park, Barking, Essex 12 August 1920) and Louis William (Russia 1857 – Hove, Sussex 31 October 1927).35 Apart from running the Alexandrofsky Head Mechanical Works, he succeeded William Hooper Ropes as American consul in St. Petersburg in 1854; he resigned that post on 15/27 March 1856.36

In 1862, “a consortium of French capitalists won the ‘remount’ contract through a lower bid,”37 and William Lewis Winans settled permanently in England. “In 1865, the Russian government, dissatisfied with [the French],” invited the Winanses “to resubmit their bid.”38 In 1866, Thomas DeKay and William Lewis Winans traveled to Russia once more, this time to sign an eight-year contract. “With them was associated Major George Washington Whistler’s son, George William Whistler, in the firm of Winans, Whistler and Winans.”39 In 1868, the Russian government bought them out, “reimburs[ing] them for their outlay [and] paying them a bonus of several million dollars.”40

The 1881 Census for London shows that the home of William Lewis Winans was next to Kensington Palace, and that he had a staff of eighteen servants to care for a household of four.41 At his death, he left an estate of over £20 million.42

Of the remaining siblings of Thomas DeKay Winans, mention should be made only of his sister, Julia DeKay (New Jersey 24 October 1825 – Newport, RI 26 September 1875; see Image 16), who married on 18 June 1854, as his second wife, George William Whistler (New London, CT 9 July 1822 – Brighton, Sussex 24 December 1869; see Images 12–13), James Whistler’s half-brother.43

* * *

The biography of George William Whistler in the 1850s and 1860s44 is thus closely associated with that of the Winans family as well as with the Ducatel family. In the first half of the 1850s, he was superintendent of the Erie, and New York and New Haven railroads and lived in New York.45 He frequently visited James (see Images 24–29) at West Point and, like all the other family members, was worried about whether James, because of his continuing demerits, would be allowed to complete the course of study at the USMA. On 18 June 1851, George and Mary (Ducatel) Whistler became the parents of a son, George Worthen Whistler (d. 28 March 1908). Mary became very ill and both she and the baby were sent to Baltimore to be taken care of by her family.46 In addition to Mary Ann, Julius Timoleon Ducatel (Baltimore, MD 6 June 1796 – Baltimore, MD 23 April 1849; see Image 14) and Joanne Barry (Baltimore, MD 1800 – Baltimore, MD 16 November 1873) had four other daughters. Eliza Ducatel (bap. 6 March 1827 – 1852), who had married on 29 February 1851 Alonzo V. Jones, died, like Mary Ann, in 1852.47 Louisa Ann Emilie Ducatel (bap. 6 November 1836) married on 14 January 1863 Henry R. McNally.48 The third Ducatel daughter, who did not marry, was Josephine (Maryland 1842 – Baltimore, MD 13 April 1867).49 Their fourth daughter, who also did not marry, was Rose Polymnia (bap. 14 May 1831 – Baltimore, MD 17 January 1875. According to the 1870 U.S. Federal Census, she continued to live with her mother, Joanna Ducatel. The name Belinda in the 1860 Census is obviously a mistake and should read Polymnia.50 Mary died on 25 February 1852, and Eliza died, too, some six weeks later.51 There were doubts as to whether the baby would survive, but he did.52

George William Whistler, who had earlier been employed by Ross Winans and had resigned in a huff before marrying Mary Ducatel, moved to Baltimore and reestablished contact with the Winans family. On 20 April 1854, he and Julia DeKay Winans were married in Trinity Church, New York (see Image 49).53 They had five surviving children: Julia DeKay (c. 1855 – West Byfleet, Surrey, England 30 November 1930); Thomas Delano (St. Petersburg 19 January 1856 – Nagold, Württemberg, Germany 21 November 1921); Ross Winans (b. St. Petersburg 12/24 July 1858; bap. 30 August / 11 September 1858; d. Nassau, Bahamas 12 February 1927); Neva (b. St. Petersburg 24 March / 5 April 1860; bap. 6/18 July 1860; d. Paris, France 29 April 1907; buried Green Mount Cemetery, Baltimore, MD); and Joseph Swift (Frankfort, Germany 25 August 1865 – Lennox, MA 28 November 1905).54

George Worthen Whistler, born in New Haven, Connecticut, on 18 June 1851 and taken to Baltimore with his ailing mother to be cared for by his maternal grandmother, Joanna (Barry) Ducatel, and her other daughters, was not a healthy child. As late as 1854, his possible death alarmed the family.55 When he was six, Anna Whistler, who was visiting the Winanses, announced that “two years of blight have crippled and deformed the once so beautiful first borne of George.”56 Anna Whistler may have meant that his growth had been stunted, for, when applying for a passport in 1873, at the age of twenty-one, his “stature” was recorded as four feet nine inches.57

All family members took an interest in the new baby and remained in contact with him all his life, writing to him and of him, and visiting him when they could.58 Anna Whistler had him stay with her in refreshing landscapes such as Stonington, Connecticut, and Scarsdale, New York, to get him away from urban and stifling-hot Baltimore.59 The Haden children doted on a daguerreotype of him that Anna Whistler brought them when she visited Debo in England in 1852.60 She and Debo’s family hoped George William would come to England for Christmas 1852 and bring Georgie with him.61 In 1858, George Worthen was having his portrait painted by Giuseppe Fagnani (1819–1873), who was also painting one of Mary (Ducatel) Whistler.62 The death of George William Whistler in 1869 brought, in Anna Whistler’s mind, “a cloud over the orphans future,”63 but George William Whistler had provided for George Worthen in his will equally with the children of his second marriage.64 He remained in Baltimore with his grandmother and aunts and on the death of his last aunt, Polymnia, in January 1875, was alone. He married on 23 June 1875, at a relative’s house in Washington City, his cousin, Esther Ann Barry (Baltimore 28 July 1849 – Lausanne, Switzerland 25 November 1921) called “Hetty.”65 Kate Livermore, Anna Whistler’s close friend from Lowell, Massachusetts days, wrote her: “I hope you have been well enough to see your Grandson and his bride dear Mrs. Whistler! I am glad to know that George has the comfort of a good little wife now that he has no longer the tender care of his Aunt.”66

George and Esther had a daughter, Esther Marion (March 1876 – 14 December 1889), who is recorded in the 1880 U.S. Federal Census as four years old. Her father’s occupation is recorded as “Not in any business.” She died in 1889 at the age of 13.67 They also had a son, George Delano Whistler (Baltimore 9 January 1880 – Zürich, Switzerland 26/27 September 1937).

Eventually George Worthen Whistler was committed to Mount Hope Retreat, a mental institution in Baltimore, where he was treated for many years and died on 28 March 1908. The 1900 U.S. Federal Census for the institution declares him to be an “Insane Patient.” His date of birth is given as “Not known,” his age as “49,” and “Yes” is given as the answer to the queries about whether he can read, write, and speak English. His obituary indicates that at the time of his death his wife and son were living abroad; passport applications and their death certificates show that they had been doing so for a long period for their health.68 His middle name, “Worthen,” is incorrectly incised on his grave monument as “Warthen” and his date of death as July 1908.69

After 1850, Winans, Harrison and Winans carried out remount (repair and maintenance) work on the St. Petersburg–Moscow Railway. In 1865, the Russian government, dissatisfied with the consortium of French capitalists to whom they had given the remount contract in 1862, invited the Winanses to rebid. In 1866, Thomas DeKay and Willam Lewis signed an eight-year contract. The firm by now was called Winans, Whistler and Winans. George William Whistler had been living in St. Petersburg since at least 1856, as his second child, Thomas Delano, was born there in 1856.70 This had not pleased Anna Whistler. Correspondence of the 1860s shows that she wanted him to live in the United States, where she perhaps hoped to live near or with him.71 But, as his father-in-law, Ross Winans, was planning to move to England, George did not wish to live in the United States.72

On 24 March / 5 April 1867, George William Whistler drew up a will in St. Petersburg, revoking all others.73 In 1868, the Russian government, compensating them handsomely for breaking the contract, bought out Winans, Whistler and Winans. On 24 February / 8 March 1869, in St. Petersburg, George William Whistler added a codicil to his will. In both his will and the codicil, where he changed the size of their shares, he divided his estate among his wife, Julia DeKay; the children of their marriage; and the child of his first marriage, George Worthen.74 In 1869, the family moved to Brighton, England. There, on 24 December 1869, George died of heart failure, as his father had. Joseph Harrison Jr. wrote Anna Whistler a letter of condolence, which she sent to Julia DeKay Winans. In Anna Whistler’s response to Harrison, she described George’s last months:

altho dear Julia had the strength given her (not her own she said) to support her thro the unexpected trial of the death of dear George, she realizes more every day the sadness of her bereavement, his health was failing, but he had always needed her good nursing & she hoped her care of him & the quiet release from business secured, he might be spared to carry thro his parental guidance & accomplish the educating his sons religiously as good Citizens, for tho he was physically so feeble, his mental energy increased thro this noble ambition, that the standard for manly character his Father had left for him so bright an example to attain, he might train his boys for George’s career resembled his dear Fathers & opinions were the same, he remarked in the weeks & illness, to an intimate friend from Russia that he had sometimes a mysterious impression as he was so nearly the age of his father at his death, he might not have his mortal term extended beyond his 49th year! but it was not in a serious tone he said this, he was able to leave his bed each day & gladden the family circle by the cheerfulness of his loving tones at the head of his table at dinner, until on the evening of the 22nd of Decr a sudden sensation very oppressive hastened dear Julia’s getting her beloved Patient to bed. The next day a Consulting Physician was sent for to London, his opinion was that recurrence of the hemorage must be fatal, but otherwise he might be raised up from that attack & live to suffer many years, but the disease of the liver of so long standing was incurable! We in this home that very day had received dear George’s invitation for us to join his family at Christmas dinner, you may judge of the dreadful shock the Telegram brought us early on the 24th telling us George died at midnight the hemorage returned with fatal violence & he suffered only a few hours, his last remark upon realizing the prospect of the end was “Man proposes, but God disposes.75

In 1870, Julia DeKay took their five children to Dresden to live until the boys had been educated and hiring a governess, Miss Willis, for the girls.76 Some two years later, she gave up the house in Dresden and went to live in Baltimore, because her father, Ross Winans, wanted her and his grandchildren near him. They arrived in New York on 13 August 1872. Thomas DeKay Winans bought a house in Baltimore for her as a present.77

Julia DeKay Winans died in Baltimore on 29 September 1875 of cancer.

Notes

1   I wish to express my deep gratitude to Dr. Beatriz B. Hardy, then library director at the MdHS, for the superlative research she carried out in the Winans Papers on my behalf and for transcribing letters which could not be photocopied.

2   Friends of Orianda House, accessed 17 December 2020.

3   Genealogy of the Winans Family, MdHS: Winans Papers. Thomas DeKay and William Lewis will be discussed at length in this essay. Julia DeKay, their sister, will also be discussed at length, as the second wife of George William Whistler in the 1850s and 1860s. Information on DeWitt Clinton (d. London November 27, 1892) and Walter Scott can be found in the following sources: an obituary of 30 November 1892 (the Baltimore newspaper from which the clipping is taken is not identified); Baltimore News Post, June 7, 1942; The Times (London), December 1, 1892; National Probate Calendar (UK), 1893; John E. Semmes, John H.B. Latrobe and His Times, 1803–1891 (Baltimore, MD: Norman Remington, [1917]), pp. 390–391; and Friends of Orianda House, accessed 17 December 2020. Ross Winans Jr. was in St. Petersburg in November 1858 when his wife, Margaret (Wentz) Winans, died there: 19 November / 1 December 1858 (Wm. L. Winans to Thomas Winans, St. P., Nov. 17/29, 1858, and Nov. 27/Dec. 9, 1858, MdHS: Winans Papers, MS 916, box 22). He died in Paterson, NJ, on 21 June 1863 (The Sun [Baltimore, MD], Friday, June 26, 1863).

4   This and the following quotation are from Dictionary of American Biography, s.v. “Winans, Ross.”

5   Dictionary of American Biography, s.v. “Winans, Ross.”

6   This and the following quotation are from Haywood, Russia Enters the Railway Age, p. 121n42.

7   Haywood, p. 98. In 1860, Ross “Winans retired from locomotive building.” “During the Civil War his sympathies were with the Confederacy,” and “he was twice arrested [… and] released.” With his sons, he developed the “cigar-steamer.” He also “published numerous pamphlets on problems of local hygiene and water supply” for the city of Baltimore and “wrote … on religious subjects.” His philanthropy consisted of building modest-rental houses for working people (“Winans Row”), but this project ultimately failed. He married in 1854, as his second wife, Elizabeth K. West (1807 – March 1889) of Baltimore (all quotations are from the Dictionary of American Biography, s.v. “Winans, Ross”).

8   This and the following quotation are from Dictionary of American Biography, s.v. “Winans, Ross.”

9   Haywood, Russia Enters the Railway Age, p. 97.

10  Haywood, p. 98.

11  Haywood, p. 104.

12  Haywood, p. 364.

13  Haywood, p. 106.

14  BUHG: Colin Ingersoll Journal, pt. 1, fol. 96; The Sun (Baltimore, MD), Wednesday, March 20, 1861. Her birth date is given in the Winans genealogy as 1823, but as Colin Ingersoll says she was eighteen years old in 1847, and her obituary in 1861 says she was in her thirty-third year, she must have been born in 1828 or 1829. On a travel manifest of 5 December 1850, she is listed as 22, further suggesting her birth year as 1828 (IGI; see also Friends of Orianda House, accessed 17 December 2020).

15  Calendar of Letterbook of William L. Winans to Thomas Winans: 5 April 1859, St. P. W.L. W. has “received letter from Betsy Revillion [sic] telling of Mr. Revillion’s death (March 24, 1859),” MdHS: Winans Papers, MS 916, box 22, item 59. Betsy (van der Vliet) Revillon was George Revillon’s second wife (MdHS: Winans Papers, box 4, fol. 107, Revillon Genealogy; Friends of Orianda House, accessed 17 December 2020).

16  BUHG: Colin Ingersoll Journal, pt. 1, fol. 96; G. Iu. Sternin, U istokov novoi knizhnoi grafiki [At the Sources of New Book Graphics], in the appendix to the facsimile of the first edition of A.P. Bashutskii, Nashi, spisannye s natury russkimi [Our People, Drawn from Life by Russians], 1841 (Moscow: Kniga, 1986), p. 61n1.

17  BUHG: Colin Ingersoll Journal, pt. 1, fol. 96. Extant letters from Celeste Winans to Thomas Winans reflect her imperfect English and poor spelling as well as a certain playfulness (Celeste Winans to You ugly fellow, Wednesday morning [Nov. 1851], and My dear Tommy, Thursday morning, 9 oclock [no date], MdHS: Winans Papers, MS 916, box 26, fol. 32).

18  The Sun (Baltimore, MD), Tuesday, October 26, 1847; Amburger Datenbank, IDs 93547, 88854; BUHG: Colin Ingersoll Journal, pt. 2, fols. 5, 6; invitation to Revillon–Winans wedding, Ralph McAllister Ingersoll Collection, box 35, BUHG. Ross Winans had hoped that Thomas DeKay, who had expressed his general interest in marriage in 1846 (there are no extant letters from Thomas in this file), would wait until he permanently returned to the United States before seeking a wife (Ross Winans, Sr. to Thomas Winans, Balt, July 12 1846, MdHS: Winans Papers, MS 916, box 2, fol. 23; Beatriz Hardy, director of MdHS, Baltimore, MD, to E. Harden, 15 November 2004).

19  “First child born at 11 o’clock at night [written in: at Alexandroffsky, near St. Petersburg],” entry of March 30, 1849, Calendar of Thomas Winans’s Journal, 1845–1854, MdHS: Winans Papers, MS 916. This information is taken from a typewritten calendar, in which significant events from the journal are summarized very briefly. The MdHS does not have the actual journal, nor do they know whether it is in another institution nor indeed survives at all (Beatriz Hardy, MdHS, Baltimore, MD, to E. Harden, 22 June 2005).

20  Ross Revillon Winans married, as his second wife, his first cousin, Neva Whistler (1860–1907), daughter of George William and Julia DeKay (Winans) Whistler, Genealogy of the Winans Family, MdHS: Winans Papers.

21  Friends of Orianda House, accessed 17 December 2020.

22  William L. Winans [to the Honourable Mr. L. Marcy, Secretary of State], Consulate of the United States, St. Petersburg, June 29/July 11, 1854, M81 Despatches from US Consuls in St. P., 1803–1906, roll 5, vols. 7–9, Dec. 31, 1847 – Dec. 30, 1857, NAUS. He was issued a passport (no. 267) in the United States on 16 May 1845 and a second one (no. 1685) in Great Britain by the American Embassy on 17 June 1845, destination Hamburg and St. Petersburg (NAUS: Passports, M1371, roll 2, p. 7, passport no. 267; and RG84, C18.2, passport no. 1685; Haywood, Russia Enters the Railway Age, p. 418n89). In addition, Capt. William Henry Swift, in a letter to his brother in May 1843, had announced that not four but “three good men” – Fairbanks, Harrison, and “a son of Winan’s” – had left for Russia (Capt. W.H. Swift to Gen. J.G. Swift, Washington, 13 May 1843, NYPL: Swift Papers).

23  Haywood, Russia Enters the Railway Age, p. 418n89.

24  Haywood, pp. 404, 405. See Eastwick in this Appendix for details of the quarrel.

25  Haywood, pp. 371, 405, 407.

26  Haywood, pp. 405–406.

27  Haywood, p. 406.

28  Haywood, pp. 371, 406, 411–412.

29  Haywood, pp. 408–410 gives an explanation of how the remount contract made them so wealthy.

30  The contents of “Alexandroffsky” were sold by his granddaughters, Elsie C. Hutton (1884? – November 1966) and Lucette M. (Hutton) Prichard (1882 – 3 August 1957), the children of his daughter, Celeste (Winans) Hutton (1855 – February 1925), who had married Gaun Hutton (1848 – September 1916). “Hutton had operated the Alta foundry and sawmill in San Francisco during the height of the gold rush … went to Russia, … worked for [William Lewis Winans], succeeded him as acting vice-consul in 1856, and later established a large hardware business in Moscow, which he ran for many years” (Norman E. Saul, Distant Friends: The United States and Russia, 1763–1867 (Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1991), pp. 226, 244, 260, 261, 262, 264, 265, 267). The auction took place in the mansion, starting on 5 November 1925, and continued for five days. The auctioneers were the E.T. Newell Company of Howard Street, Baltimore. A catalogue was issued, and viewing began on November 3. The property, which the city had found too expensive to buy, was bought by a syndicate. Everything on it was razed in the spring of 1926 and replaced by commercial buildings. “Crimea” became “part of the city parks system” and “still stands in Leakin Park.” All of the foregoing information is taken from an article by Margaret McCampbell and Lance Gifford, “Grand Estate on Baltimore’s West Side: Alexandroffsky,” Maryland (Winter 1979): pp. 26–31. “Crimea” even had a “servants burying ground,” now vanished, where “the mostly Irish servants of the family” were interred (Jane Bromley Wilson, The Very Quiet Baltimoreans: A Guide to the Historic Cemeteries and Burial Sites of Baltimore [Shippensburg, PA: White Mane, 1991], p. 102). It has not been possible to locate a copy of the abovementioned auction catalogue.

31  For information about the Newport villa, see Bertram Lippincott III, “The Hutton Family of ‘Shamrock Cliff,’” in Newport History: Bulletin of the Newport History Society 64, pt. 4, no. 221 (1991): pp. 165–166.

32  Genealogy of the Winans Family, MdHS: Winans Papers; List of Family Members Interred in the Winans Vault in Green-Mount Cemetery in Baltimore (courtesy of staff member, Mary Murray). The Genealogy gives 1852 as the year of George’s death, while the List records that he was buried in August 1851. See also Friends of Orianda House, accessed 17 December 2020.

33  This and the following three quotations are from Dictionary of American Biography, s.v. “Winans, Thomas De Kay.”

34  Transcript of Marriages in the British and American Congregational Church, St. Petersburg, Russia, 22 June 1844 – 1 November 1886, RG 33/145, fol. 23, PRO; The Times (London), December 21, 1904; National Probate Calendar (UK), 1905; IGI.

35  The Times (London), August 13, 1920 and November 1, 1927; National Probate Calendar (UK), 1921 and 1927; IGI. Walter Winans became an outstanding sportsman. He was an excellent shot and a talented sculptor, especially of the horse. In 1912, at the Olympic Games in London, he was awarded both the gold medal for hunting-rifle shooting and the gold medal for sports sculpture. For ten years he was world-champion pistol shot. He frequently traveled to Russia to hunt. He was a great lover of horses and had a racing stable containing several horses of the Orlov breed and a stud farm in Austria. “He … executed a beautiful statue of Joan of Arc, copies of which were … sold for the benefit of the French Red Cross Fund.” He was “the owner of Surrender Park, in Kent.” He inherited real estate at Ferry Bar, Maryland, from his father. He did not visit the United States until he was fifty-seven years old (The Times (London), August 13, 1920; The Sun (Baltimore, MD), Friday, June 25, 1897; Baltimore News, April 12, 1911; “Walter Winans (1852–1920),” AskART, accessed September 28, 2020, https://www.askart.com/ artist/Walter_W_Winans/88881/Walter_W_Winans.aspx; Semmes, John H.B. Latrobe, pp. 394–395; “Russkaia troika v Anglii” [A Russian Troika in England”], Stolitsa i Usad’ba [The Capitol City and the Country Estate] 6 (15 March 1914): 18–20; Genealogy of the Winans Family, MdHS: Winans Papers). Photographs of his castle in England and of him in a troika can be seen in the abovementioned Russian article. Walter Winans did not marry.

36  M81 Despatches from US Consuls in St. P., 1803–1906, roll 5, vols. 7–9, Dec. 31, 1847 – Dec. 30, 1857, NAUS.

37  Saul, Distant Friends, p. 357.

38  Saul, p. 357.

39  B. Latrobe Weston, “Whistler, The Winans Brothers and the Russian Contract,” Baltimore Evening Sun, August 14, 1940.

40  Biographical Cyclopedia of Representative Men of Maryland and The District of Columbia (Baltimore, MD: National Biographical Publishing, 1879), p. 365.

41  1881 Census for 15 Palace Gdns Hos, Knightsbridge, London, Middlesex.

42  Semmes, John H.B. Latrobe, p. 394.

43  New York Evening Post (June 1, 1854); IGI.

44  Some of the information in this biography of George William Whistler is compiled from the following sources: Appleton’s Cyclopaedia, s.v. “Ducatel, Julius Timoleon” and “Whistler, George William”; Thomas William Herringshaw, Herringshaw’s National Library of American Biography, 5 vols. (Chicago, IL: American Publishers’ Association, 1914), vol. 5, p. 661; Genealogy of the Winans Family, MdHS: Winans Papers; Mary Murray, Green-Mount Cemetery, Baltimore, MD, to E. Harden, October 2004; and Foreman, “Colonel William Whistler,” p. 325; see also the biography of George William Whistler in “The Whistlers as They Were in the 1840s” and Whistler … Fairfax in this Appendix.

45  Anna Whistler to my beloved Jemie Stonington Wednesday Aug 27th [18]51, GUL: Whistler Collection, W395.

46  The Ducatel family members taking care of her and the baby were his grandmother, Joanna (Barry) Ducatel, and his aunts Polymnia, Louisa, and Josephine. Their married sister Eliza (Ducatel) Jones was ill.

47  Alonzo V. Jones’s will, written in 1857, shows that his wife Eliza was deceased, and Anna Whistler confirms that Eliza died some six weeks after Mary Ann Ducatel (Anna Whistler to my dear James Stonington Thursday April 22nd, GUL: Whistler Collection, W408; IGI; Ducatel Family Bible Marriages; Basilica of the Assumption [Baltimore, MD] Baptismal Records; 1850 U.S. Federal Census. Alonzo V. Jones and Eliza Ducatel were married in Baltimore on 29 February 1851 (New York Evening Post, Tuesday, February 18, 1851). It is impossible to determine further information about her husband given the number of Alonzo Joneses living in New York at the time, but it is most likely that he was Alonzo Vermilyon Jones (New York, NY 26 October 1822 – Sing Sing, NY 23 August 1864), son of John S. and Sarah V. Jones (IGI).

48  IGI; Ducatel Family Bible Marriages; 1850 and 1860 U.S. federal censuses; Basilica of the Assumption [Baltimore, MD] Baptismal Records.

49  1850 and 1860 U.S. federal censuses; Basilica of the Assumption [Baltimore, MD] Baptismal Records; The Sun (Baltimore), Monday, April 15, 1867), p. 2.

50  Basilica of the Assumption [Baltimore, MD] Baptismal Records; 1850, 1860, and 1870 U.S. federal censuses. In the 1860 Census Joanna Ducatel’s occupation is given as “Boarding House” and her personal estate as one thousand dollars. In the 1870 Census, her occupation is given as “Keeping House,” and no personal estate is given.

51  Anna Whistler to My dear friend Pomfret Wednesday p-m Oct 8th [18]51, LC: PW, box 34, fols. 33–34; Anna Whistler to Well darling Jemie Pomfret Thursday p-m Nov. 13th [18]51, GUL: Whistler Collection, W402; Anna Whistler to My own dear Jemie Pomfret thuesday night Feb. 10th, W406; Anna Whistler to My own dear James Pomfret March 3rd 1852, W407. “My dear friend” is Margaret Getfield Hill, a lifelong friend of Anna Whistler’s who lived in Scarsdale, New York.

52  Anna Whistler to My dear Margaret, Pomfret Sunday night Aug 3rd [1851], Call no. “Carl A. Kroch Library, 1629,” Department of Manuscripts and University Archives, Cornell University Library; Anna Whistler to my own precious Jemie Pomfret Aug 6th 1851 Wednesday morning, W394; Anna Whistler to My beloved Jemie Stonington Wednesday Aug 27th [18]51, W395; Anna Whistler to dearest Jemie Pomfret Dec 17th 1851 Wednesday, W404. “My dear Margaret” is Margaret Getfield Hill, a lifelong friend of Anna Whistler’s who lived in Scarsdale, New York.

53  New York Evening Post, Thursday, June 1, 1854. Once married to Julia DeKay, George still had to resolve the dilemma of where to be confirmed. “Willie … reported their resolve to take a pew in some church.” George was constrained by the idea that it would disturb his first wife, Mary (Ducatel) Whistler, a Catholic, if he should be confirmed in the Episcopalian Church (Anna Whistler to You know my own dear Jemie 176 Preston Street Bolton Terrace Nov 26th [1854], GUL: Whistler Collection, W441).

54  Anna Whistler to my own dear Debo Scarsdale Dec. 10th 1855, GUL: Whistler Collection, W465; The Tennessean (Nashville, TN), Thursday, June 12, 1879, p. 2; M1490: Passport Applications, 1906 – March 31, 1925, roll 749, application no. 75883 for Thomas Delano Whistler, NAUS; Emergency Passport Applications (Passports Issued Abroad), 1877–1907, vol. 81 (England), passport no. 661 for Joseph Swift Whistler, NAUS; IGI; Genealogy of the Winans Family, MdHS: Winans Papers; see also the biography of George William Whistler in “The Whistlers as They Were in the 1840s” and Whistler … Fairfax in this Appendix.

55  “…[George’s] summons to Balt to watch the sinking strength of his invalid, the doctor had small hope of the cherub boy lingering much longer! & George thought him rapidly going” (Anna Whistler to My own dear Jemie Scarsdale April 3rd 1854, GUL: Whistler Collection, W432).

56  Anna Whistler to my dear Jemie Alexandroffsky Villa April 27. [18]57, GUL: Whistler Collection, W478.

57  M1372: Passport Applications, 1795–1905, roll 194, application no. 31498 for George Worthen Whistler, NAUS. George Worthen’s stature was actually recorded in the “feet” column as “4.9 feet nine inches.” The “9” was then erased but still visible, and “4 feet” recorded in the “feet” column, while “9 inches” was recorded in the “inches” column.

58  Anna Whistler describes hims as follows:

    I think your little nephew GWW looks much as you did at his age, for you had the same unfair play, not enough to eat which he has & you know the old rule Jemie “pretty babies grow up plain” so lament not over your thin visage now, you were a pretty baby when you plump’d up & so will your nephew be. He is a darling now! I don’t wonder that Mary sheds tears when they roll from his full blue eyes, or that she is delighted when he smiles, his fingers are long & tapered & his nails like pink shells, his hair is brown & inclined to curl like Uncle Jems! (Anna Whistler to My beloved Jemie Stonington Wednesday Aug 27th 51 GUL: Whistler Collection, W395)

In 1852, Anna Whistler expressed her hope that George William was coming to England and would bring George Worthen, as everyone wanted to see him and were fond of the baby in a recent dageurreotype (location unknown) (Anna Whistler to my dearest Jemie 62 Sloane St Wed. Nov. 24th 1852, GUL: Whistler Collection, W418; Anna Whistler to my own dear precious Willie 62 Sloane St Feb 27th 1853 The Lords day evening, W420). Although George Worthen was being raised by his grandmother and aunts, he spent Christmas in 1852 with his father in Baltimore (Anna Whistler to dear Jemie 62 Sloane St the old years Eve 31 December 1853, 4 and 7 January 1853, GUL: Whistler Collection, W419). Willie Whistler wrote to the teenaged George Worthen (Anna Whistler to James H. Gamble 7 Lindsey Row Old Battersea Bridge Chelsea, London Feb 10th 1864, GUL: Whistler Collection, W516), and Anna Whistler visited him in Baltimore at Perine’s house in September 1867 along with Joanna (Barry) Ducatel and her daughers (Anna Whistler to My dear Mr Gamble Homeland [residence of David M. Perine Sr.] W. Baltimore Sept. 16th 1867).

59  Anna Whistler to my dear Jemie Scarsdale Thursday p-m July 29th [1852], GUL: Whistler Collection, W411; Anna Whistler to My own loved Jemie Scarsdale Scarsdale Sunday night Sept. 12th 1852, W414.

In June 1853, the Ducatels brought George Worthen from Baltimore to Scarsdale to visit for a fortnight; Anna Whistler wrote of the visit in September (Anna Whistler to Jemie my son Stonington tues 13 [September 1853], GUL: Whistler Collection, W410)

I wish you could have seen his cherub expression, as clasping his tiny tapered hands he would say as he gazed with delight on the beautiful harbor of Stonington “big waters! How nice!” but whether such a fragile bud is to bloom in our world of blighted promise, seems to me improbable, Little Georgie’s mother was early taken to the home of the blessed, yet gladdens the sorrow stricken Grandmamma & fond young Aunts now in their Baltimore home. (Anna Whistler to My dear and esteemed friend [James H. Gamble] Scarsdale Wednesday Sept. 28th [1853], GUL: Whistler Collection, W423)

60  Anna Whistler to George William, William McNeill and James Whistler 62 Sloane St Nov 18th 1852 Thursday night, GUL: Whistler Collection, W417.

61  Anna Whistler to my dearest Jemie 62 Sloane St Wed. Nov. 24th 1852, GUL: Whistler Collection, W418; Anna Whistler to my own dear precious Willie 62 Sloane St Feb 27th 1853 The Lords day evening, W420.

62  Anna Whistler to my beloved Jemie Richfield Springs Augt 1st 1858. Sunday, GUL: Whistler Collection, W493.

63  Anna Whistler to my dear Mr Gamble 2 Lindsey Houses Chelsea London Sept 7th 1870, entry for Sat 10th, GUL: Whistler Collection, W539.

64  National Probate Calendar (UK), 1870.

65  Anna Whistler to My dear friends [James H. and Harriet Gamble], Talbot House. 43 St Marys Terrace Hastings entry of Saturday 18th in the letter of Sept. 9th 1857 GUL: Whistler Collection, W548.

66  Kate Livermore to my ever beloved friend Northland Terrace Londonderry July 27th 1875 Tuesday, GUL: Whistler Collection, L157.

67  The Sun (Baltimore, MD), Monday, December 16, 1882, p. 2.

68  M1490: Passport Applications, 1906 – March 31, 1925, roll 321, application no. 33106 for George Delano Whistler, and roll 472, application no. 6191 for Esther Ann Whistler, NAUS; Death Reports of U.S. Citizens Abroad, box 4240: 1910–1929 and box 1529: 1930–1939, NAUS.

69  “George Warthen Whistler,” Find A Grave, accessed 5 February 2022.

70  A letter from Anna Whistler to her son James implies that George saw James Whistler in Paris in 1856 (Anna Whistler to dear Jemie Stonington Sept 23rd [18]56, GUL: Whistler Collection, W471), and Anna Whistler wrote in 1857: “I hear … of the arrival of George Whistler wife and child at St. Petersburg” (Anna Whistler to my dear Mr Gamble Scarsdale Tues Jan 13th [18]57, GUL: Whistler Collection, W474).

71  Anna Whistler to My Dearest friend & Sister Margaret 2 Lindsey Row Chelsea London Monday night Decr 14th 1868, entry for Saturday Dec 19th, LC: PW, box 34, fols. 49–50. The addressee is Margaret Getfield Hill, Anna Whistler’s lifelong friend, who lived in Scarsdale, New York.

72  Anna Whistler to Jamie darling Saturday Nov 25th [1865], GUL: Whistler Collection, W520; Anna Whistler to my dearest Debo 34 Schloss Strass Coblentz Wednesday Jan 24th 1866, W522; Anna Whistler to Mr Dear Mr Gamble 189 Henry St Brooklyn [New York 27 August 1867], GUL: Whistler Collection, W529; Anna Whistler to My dear Mr Harrison 2 Lindsey Row, Chelsea, London, S.W. May 14th 1868, LC: PW, box 34, fols. 47–48.

73  Massachusetts Probate Records, 1871, no. 51862, pp. 216–219.

74  Massachusetts Probate Records, 1871, no. 51862, p. 220.

75  Anna Whistler to My dear Mr Harrison SW 2 Lindsey Row Chelsea London Febry 5th 1870, LC: PC, box 34, fols. 53–54.

76  Anna Whistler to My dear Mr Gamble 2 Lindsey House Chelsea London Sept 7th 1870, entry for Sat 10th, GUL: Whistler Collection, W539.

George William Whistler’s library was sold at auction by Sotheby, Wilkinson and Hodge in London on 7, 8, and 9 August 1871. A copy of the Catalogue of a Portion of the Library of General George W. Whistler may be found in the Special Collections department of the Library of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

77  All information in this paragraph and the next is taken from Anna Whistler to My beloved Friend [James H. Gamble] 2 Lindsey Houses Chelsea London Tuesday evening Nov 5th 1872, GUL: Whistler Collection, W456.