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The President’s House was the first of many
grand homes inhabited by Margaret Hamilton,
later Lady Waterlow, whose father built the
home seen here early in the 20th century. It
still serves as the presidential residence.
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Margaret Hamilton was three months shy of her ninth birthday when she enrolled in Cornell’s
Primary Department in 1858. She lived in the grandest house in Mount Vernon (today the
President’s House), which her Irish-born father, William Hamilton, had built in 1850. William,
one of the original trustees of Cornell College, sold his house and general store in 1860 and moved
his family to Iowa City and then to San Francisco, where he made a fortune in banking and the
Hamiltons became intimates of the moguls of California society.
Hamilton died in 1870, and two years later Margaret married the son of a “Boston capitalist.” Within five weeks of their wedding, her husband had squandered her inheritance and abandoned
her. Her father-in-law arranged for a divorce and took her to China. Before Prozac, an ocean voyage
was thought an excellent cure for depression. After returning, she journeyed to Mount Vernon,
where President King entertained her in her former home.
In 1880, Sir Sydney Waterlow, baronet and a former Lord Mayor of London, lost his wife of
34 years, the mother of his eight children. He then embarked on a world tour to assuage his grief.
During his brief visit to California in the summer of 1881, he and Margaret met as guests of railroad
tycoon Charles Crocker in Monterey. Something sparked between them.
It would have been humiliating had she followed him to England on her own
and discovered he was no longer interested in her, and social suicide if the fact
became public. Her friend, Phoebe Hearst, wife of mining and publishing magnate
George Hearst and the mother of William Randolph Hearst, hatched a
plan: bring Margaret to London as her guest, arrange a chance meeting with
Sir Sydney at one of her parties, and let Cupid take over.
Phoebe and Margaret sailed from New York on Jan. 18, 1882. On March
28, Margaret and Sir Sydney were married in the British Embassy in Paris in
the presence of her mother and sister, Alice, also a Cornellian. This was the era
when American heiresses sought to marry titles, and titled European aristocrats married to replenish
their family's coffers. Margaret's circumstances were an anomaly. She was 32, divorced, and without
a fortune. Her titled husband, to the contrary, was one of the richest and most respected men
in England. She and her 59-year-old groom lived happily until his death in 1906. During a visit to
the United States, they stopped in Mount Vernon.
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As Lady Waterlow, she had a mansion in London, a huge country estate in Kent, and a villa
in Cannes that she named Monterey, to memorialize her first meeting with Sir Sydney. Here she
entertained lavishly. The king of Sweden was a regular guest during his annual winter visits to the
Riviera. Margaret was also an intimate of Queen Victoria’s daughter, Princess Louise, Duchess of
Argyll. The Waterlows traveled around the world, and in Tokyo they attended the first garden party
ever given for Westerners by the emperor of Japan. In 1903, a hybrid tea rose, the Lady Waterlow,
was named for her. Margaret died in Cannes in 1931.
Margaret’s father planted Cornell’s ginkgo tree. He came to Mount Vernon at the urging of
his wife’s brother-in-law, Andrew Safley, who had settled there in 1842 and ran a steam-operated
sawmill. Andrew was the uncle of Henrietta Safley, who married Stephen Dows. They were the
grandparents of Sutherland Dows Sr., president of Cornell’s board of trustees (1950–69), for whom
Dows Hall is named. |
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