Ada Bampton Tremaine

Ada Byron Bampton was born in Poughkeepsie, New York, on either 21 or 24 June 1849 to Elizabeth Shepherd Bampton, who spent the last few months of her pregnancy and first few months as a new mother residing with a friend, Hannah North. originally from Little Sutton, Warwickshire, had left for the California Gold Rush on 25 January 1849 on one of the first schooners to depart New York City for San Francisco, the Roe, He arrived in San Francisco on 28 June 1849, only a few days after Ada was born. Richard remained in California until his death on 23 June 1889 in what then was known as Washington in Yolo County, California. Ada never met her father, and it is unclear whether he ever knew of her existence. Instead, Ada grew up in Manhattan and Brooklyn, living with her mother and her cousin Frederick Bampton, with whom she was particularly close, calling him her uncle even to her husband. In the late 1870s and early 1880s Ada studied engraving at Cooper Union under the direction of J. P. Davis. After the death of her mother on 4 May 1881, Ada went to live with Frederick and his new wife, Martha. the son of a Connecticut hotelier, a physician practicing in Providence, Rhode Island. Their only child, Frederick Bampton Tremaine, was born in Providence on 6 February 1890; he died eleven months later, on 12 January 1891, of unspecified causes. In the early 1900s William and Ada Tremaine moved from Providence to Rockport, Maine, where they bought a farm in Rockland called Alderbrook; Ada Bampton Tremaine died in Rockland on 6 August 1928, at the age of 79. She is buried in Woodlawn Cemetery. Court Challenge to Frederick Bampton's Will Most of what is known about Ada Bampton Tremaine's life comes from the records of a court case that arose from a dispute over the terms of her cousin Frederick Bampton's will, in which upon his death on 10 October 1900 Frederick, who had begun suffering from bouts of dementia, had been living with Ada and William Tremaine for over a year. His marriage of nearly 20 years to Martha Scott North had long been an unhappy one. He also did not leave any bequest to any other relatives other than Ada, "not ... because of any prejudice or want of consideration for them ... but because of the claim upon my affections of Ada B. Tremaine, my cousin's child, who for many years resided with me before her mother's death, and with whom I am now residing." Throughout the course of the court hearing, both attorneys for the contestants and the widow Mattie Bampton herself questioned Ada's parentage, and Frederick's lucidity at the time he drew up his will. which had been appraised at $150,000 (approximately $4.9 million dollars in 2021). == Philanthropy ==

In the 15 years after her husband William's death in 1913 until her own in 1928, Ada Bampton Tremaine supported a number of organizations, in particular giving generously to the Rhode Island Hospital, where she established a deficiency fund in the name of her late husband and endowed four permanent "free beds" at $4000 each (roughly $55,000 each in 2021 dollars) in memory of her mother, her husband, her cousin Frederick, and her son, making the final payment on those in 1924. (Free bed funds are specific donations that a hospital receives to provide free care to patients who cannot pay for all or part of their hospital stay.) She was also seemingly an annual contributor to the Camden Public Library, • Rockport received $5000 to be used for the construction of a library. • Camden, Maine, likewise received $5000 for the same purpose, although by the time her will was probated, the newly built Camden Public Library had already been open for two months. • The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals received $1000. • The Camden Home for Aged Women likewise received $1000. • A miniature of George III by Sarah Biffin Wright and a manuscript on her life were to be offered to the Metropolitan Museum of Art "if said Museum of Art will accept the same." • She provided $20,000 for the upkeep of Alderbrook Farm until the death of her husband William's cousin Grace Rockwell and Ada's sister-in-law Elizabeth Tremaine Field, when the farm was to revert to the Knox County General Hospital. The Bampton Lectures in America Once the other trust funds had been fulfilled, which happened in 1941 upon the death of Ada's sister-in-law Elizabeth Tremaine Field, as specified in Ada Bampton Tremaine's will, The trust funds were to be used for the establishment of a lecture series entitled the Bampton Lectures in America and for an endowed chair in theology — "an endowment large enough to guarantee the holding of the Bampton lectures in perpetuity," it was noted when the first lecturer, Arnold J. Toynbee, was invited to speak. Ada Bampton Tremaine's estate was one of the largest probated in Knox County up to that time, being assessed at $725,000 (almost $11 million in 2021), of which $610,000 (approximately $9.5 million in 2021 dollars) was earmarked for the Bampton Lectures at Columbia University. Columbia, however, needed to wait for more than a decade to receive these funds, which could not be paid out until the final trust fund was fulfilled. Six years later Toynbee gave the first set of Bampton Lectures, three talks grouped under the theme of "The Prospect of the Western Civilization," presented at Columbia's McMillin Theater on 14 April 1948 ("The Problem of War"), 19 April 1948 ("The Problem of Class"), and 21 April 1948 ("The Conflict Between Heart and Head"). == See also ==