Frick was born in
Pittsburgh,
Pennsylvania, the son of the
coke and
steel magnate
Henry Clay Frick (1849–1919) and Adelaide Howard Childs. He grew up at the family's Pittsburgh estate,
Clayton, although the family later moved in 1905 to
New York City. He developed his lifelong love for animals playing in the wooded grounds and steep hills behind Clayton, later dedicated as
Frick Park. He attended
Shady Side Academy in Pittsburgh and graduated from
Princeton University in 1905, where he was a member of
Colonial Club. In 1913, Frick married Frances Shoemaker Dixon (1892–1953) of
Baltimore, Maryland. The couple had four children: Adelaide, Frances, Martha Howard (Marsie; wife of
J. Fife Symington Jr.), and
Henry Clay II. As a gift, Frick's father purchased a Georgian-style mansion in
Roslyn Harbor, New York, on land that originally belonged to the poet
William Cullen Bryant. The couple lived at the estate, named "
Clayton" after his childhood home, for more than 50 years. Henry Clay Frick famously played favorites with his two surviving children, Childs and
Helen Clay Frick (1888–1984). After the reading of their father's will, which favored Helen, the two siblings were estranged for the rest of their lives. Childs Frick was associated with
Bermuda, having established a residence in
Tucker’s Town, Bermuda. To this day there is a Frick's Point and Frick's Beach. Childs Frick was the philanthropic benefactor who helped support the expedition that rediscovered the
Bermuda Petrel or Cahow in 1951 just off his property on an uninhabited island. Childs Frick died of a heart attack at age 82 in Roslyn. He is interred alongside his wife and parents in the Frick family plot at Pittsburgh's
Homewood Cemetery. In 1969, Frick's Roslyn Harbor estate was purchased by
Nassau County for the purpose of conversion into the
Nassau County Museum of Art. ==References==