Frank K. Sturgis

Sturgis was born in New York City on September 13, 1847. He was the son of William Sturgis Jr. (1806–1895) and Elizabeth Knight (née Hinckley) Sturgis (1809–1849). Among his siblings was Annie Sturgis Freeman, William Sturgis (who married Anna Sprague), and Thomas Sturgis (who married Helen Rutgers), who became a rancher in Wyoming. His father was a prominent merchant of New York, Boston and London and his mother was from an old Yarmouth, Massachusetts family. Sturgis traced his earliest American ancestry back to Edward Sturgis, who was born in England in 1613, and arrived in America in 1630. His paternal grandfather was William F. Sturgis, a Boston merchant in the China trade, the California hide trade and the Maritime fur trade. His paternal aunt was Ellen Sturgis Hooper, a Transcendentalist poet who was the wife of Dr. Robert William Hooper (and the mother of society hostess Marian Hooper Adams, the wife of Henry Adams of the Adams political family). His paternal uncle was Russell Sturgis (the head of Baring Brothers in Londong and the father of Boston architect John Hubbard Sturgis and novelists Julian and Howard Sturgis). He was educated in the public schools in New York before beginning his business career. ==Career==

At the age of sixteen, Sturgis joined a mercantile firm as a clerk. serving on the governing committee (since 1876) and later becoming its vice president. set up to investigate the so-called "money trust" and, reportedly, gave "quick and incisive replies to the severe examination of Samuel Untermyer". "The death of Frank K. Sturgis has deeply moved those members of the New York Stock Exchange who remember the closing years of the nineteenth century. The Exchange at that time was a local institution dealing mainly in American railroad securities and had not yet developed into the great world market of today. In those earlier years, when the foundations were being laid for the present international market in New York, Mr. Sturgis was a conspicuous leader both as president and as governor of the Exchange. His clear judgment, his high ideals, as well as his charming personality, gave him a unique and commanding position among his fellow-members." Conveniently, 400 was the number of people that could fit into Mrs. Astor's ballroom. He was a member of the Union Club, the Knickerbocker Club (serving as vice president), and the New York Yacht Club. He was also a founder and president (in 1911) of the Metropolitan Club in New York. In Newport, he served as president of the Newport Casino and was a director of the Redwood Library and president of the Newport Historical Society. Sturgis was close friends with James Gordon Bennett Jr., fellow sportsman who was the publisher of the New York Herald. He bred horses and served as president of the National Horse Show Associations, Madison Square Garden (from 1891 until it dissolved in 1912), and the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. ==Personal life==

On October 16, 1872, Sturgis was married to Florence Lydig (d. 1922). She was the daughter of Philip Mesier Lydig, the family that owned the land that subsequently became the Bronx Park; the park now contains the New York Botanical Garden. Florence and Frank, who did not have any children together, resided at 17 East 51st Street in New York, a classical townhouse designed in 1905 by prominent architect Ogden Codman, Jr., another cousin of Sturgis. The Sturgis' owned a summer home in Lenox, Massachusetts known as Clipston Grange, where Frank bred horses. The home was originally built in 1870 in the village, but was moved to Kemble Street in 1893, shortly before the Sturgis' bought it in 1894 and had it enlarged into a colonial revival mansion. In Newport, they owned a villa known as Faxon Lodge on Cliff Avenue. Faxon Lodge was designed for the Sturgis' in 1903, also by Codman. in 1936. Today, the home is owned by Salve Regina University and is known as Conley Hall. His wife died in New York in March 1922 and was buried at Island Cemetery in Newport, Rhode Island. Upon his wife's death, in her honor, he endowed the Florence Lydig Sturgis Endowment Fund for the purpose of purchasing birds for the Zoological Park collection of the New York Zoological Society. In her will, she left the Lenox estate to Frank. After four years of near invalidism, Sturgis died on June 15, 1932, also at his home in New York City. he was buried beside his wife at Island Cemetery in Newport. Estate In his will, he left $55,000 in cash bequests to four public institutions, $1,300,000 to his relatives, and the residue of his multi-million dollar estate to the Winifred Masterson Burke Relief Foundation. In October 1932, 210 items from his estate were auctioned off including twelve paintings by English artists such as J.F. Herring, John Boultbee, Harry Hall, Charles Cooper Henderson, and Dean Wolstenholme. ==References==