Frederic Bronson Winthrop (December 22, 1863 – July 14, 1944)[1] was an American philanthropist and lawyer with Winthrop & Stimson who was prominent in New York society during the Gilded Age.
Early life
Winthrop was born on December 22, 1863, in Paris, France, where his family was living during the U.S. Civil War. His parents were Egerton Leigh Winthrop[2] and Charlotte Troup (née Bronson) Winthrop.[3][4] He had two older siblings,[5][6] Egerton Leigh Winthrop, Jr., a lawyer and banker in New York,[7][8] and Charlotte Bronson Winthrop.[9] His father, also a prominent lawyer, was a former president of the Knickerbocker Club.[2]
In 1892, Winthrop, along with his father and several members of his mother's family, was included in Ward McAllister's "Four Hundred", purported to be an index of New York's best families, published in The New York Times.[17][18] Conveniently, 400 was the number of people that could fit into Mrs. Astor's ballroom.[19]
After his father's death, he inherited a one third portion of his estate, along with his brother and deceased sister's only child.[20] He received his father's New York home and Newport cottage with his brother as tenants in common.[20]
Winthrop, who did not marry, died at his home on Long Island on July 14, 1944.[1] He had a townhouse in New York City at 39 East 72nd Street. Winthrop's first summer home in Muttontown, New York (within the Town of Oyster Bay), now known as Nassau Hall, was designed by Delano & Aldrich around 1904.[21] He had the firm build him another home next door, a 12,000 square foot mansion, in 1911.[22] The 168 acre estate was purchased by Landsdell Christie, who sold the property to Nassau County in 1968.[23] The 1904 home is today called Nassau Hall and houses the Nassau County Museum's administrative offices.[23]
^Greene, Richard Henry; Stiles, Henry Reed; Dwight, Melatiah Everett; Morrison, George Austin; Mott, Hopper Striker; Totten, John Reynolds; Pitman, Harold Minot; Ditmas, Charles Andrew; Forest, Louis Effingham De; Mann, Conklin; Maynard, Arthur S. (1954). The New York Genealogical and Biographical Record. New York Genealogical and Biographical Society. Retrieved 29 June 2018.