William Andrews Clark Sr. (January 8, 1839March 2, 1925) was an American mining magnate, entrepreneur and politician who was known as one of Montana's Copper Kings alongside Marcus Daly, and F. Augustus Heinze. He was a U.S. Senator from Montana from 1901 to 1907.
Biography
Clark was born in Connellsville, Pennsylvania, in 1839 to John Clark and Mary Andrews, both of Scotch-Irish descent; his mother also claimed a strain of Huguenot ancestry. He moved with his family to Iowa in 1856 where he taught school and studied law at Iowa Wesleyan College. In 1862, he traveled west to become a miner. After working in quartz mines in Colorado, Clark made his way to new gold fields in 1863 to find his fortune in the Montana gold rush.
He settled in the capital of Montana Territory, Bannack, Montana, and began placer mining. Though his claim paid only moderately, Clark took on additional grunt work and invested his earnings in becoming a trader, driving mules back and forth between Salt Lake City and the boomtowns of Montana to transport eggs and other basic supplies. He undertook mail carrying contracts and ferried post from Walla Walla, Washington, to Missoula, Montana, for three years with his brothers.Bill Dedman, Paul Clark Newell, Jr., Empty Mansions: The Mysterious Life of Huguette Clark and the Loss of one of the World's Greatest Fortunes, London: Atlantic Books, 2013, p. 30
Clark moved to and expanded into banking in Deer Lodge, Montana. His bank foreclosed on many properties during the mineral busts, and he became more and more invested into mining. He continued to expand his mercantile businesses during this time as well.
Clark took his young family to New York City in the 1870s, and studied mining and mineralogy at what is now Columbia University. He travelled extensively in all areas between coasts of the United States and Hawaii, and made trips to Europe once or twice a year. He made a fortune with copper mining, smelters, electric power companies, newspapers, railroads (trolley and rail lines around Butte and other parts of Montana and the San Pedro, Los Angeles and Salt Lake Railroad from Salt Lake City to San Pedro and Los Angeles, California), banking, land development, commercial sales, agriculture and timber enterprises, and railroads. He became known as one of three major "Copper Kings" of Butte, Montana, along with Marcus Daly and F. Augustus Heinze.
The November 1903 Congressional Directory inaccurately claimed that Clark "was a major of a battalion that pursued Chief Joseph and his band in the Nez Perces invasion of 1877." In reality, Clark had led a medical relief mission after the battle.
Political career
Clark was twice named president of Montana Constitutional Conventions, in 1884 and 1889. He yearned to be a statesman, and used his newspaper, the Butte Miner, to push his political ambitions. At this time, Butte was one of the largest cities in the West. He gained popularity in Helena, Montana, by campaigning for its selection as the state capital instead of Anaconda. This battle for the placement of the capital had subtle Irish vs. English, Catholic vs. Protestant, and non-Masonic vs. Masonic elements.
Clark's longstanding dream of becoming a United States senator resulted in scandal in 1899 when it was revealed that he had bribed members of the Montana State Legislature in return for their votes. At the time, U.S. senators were chosen by their respective state legislatures. The corruption of his election contributed to the passage of the Seventeenth Amendment. The U.S. Senate and a Republican Congress refused to seat Democrat Clark due to the 1899 bribery scheme. When Montana's governor left the state temporarily to transfer a mining claim in San Francisco, the lieutenant governor surreptitiously appointed Clark to fill the Senate vacancy, but on the governor's return, Clark's hoped-for appointment was fully quashed. A later senate campaign was successful, and he served a single term from 1901 to 1907. In responding to criticism of his bribery of the Montana legislature, Clark is widely reported to have said, "I never bought a man who wasn't for sale."
Clark died at the age of 86 in his New York City mansion. His estate at his death was estimated to be worth $300 million (equivalent to $ in ), making him one of the wealthiest Americans ever.Matt Schudel, Huguette Clark, copper heiress and recluse, dies at 104 , The Washington Post, May 24, 2011; retrieved November 15, 2017.
In a 1907 essay, Mark Twain, who was a close friend and also benefactee of Clark's rival, Henry H. Rogers, an organizer of the Amalgamated Copper Mining Company, portrayed Clark as the very embodiment of Gilded Age excess and corruption:
Clark served a full term without much particular distinction, though he was active as a senator, particularly in issues that were important to his business, including land use and irrigation."National Irrigation Congress at Ogden," New York Times, July 26, 1903
Death Clark died of pneumonia on March 2, 1925, at his lavish 121-room mansion on Fifth Avenue in New York City. He was 86. According to reports at the time, he had contracted a cold just a few days prior but succumbed suddenly while surrounded by his family. Clark died as one of the richest men in this gilded era, and is interred at Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx, New York City.
Family
Clark was married twice. His first marriage was to Katherine Louise "Kate" Stauffer whom he knew from Connellsville in 1869, they were married until her death in 1893. Together, they had seven children: Mary Joaquina Clark (1870–1939) Charles Walker "Charlie" Clark (1871–1933) Infant Clark (1874–1874) Jessie Clark (1875–1878) Katherine Stauffer Clarks (1875–1974) William Andrews Clark Jr. (1877–1934) Francis Paul Clark (1880–1896)
After Kate's death in 1893, William married his second wife, the woman who had been one of many teenage wards of Clark, Anna Eugenia LaChapelle (March 10, 1878, Michigan – October 11, 1963, New York). They claimed to have been married in 1901 in France. Anna was 23 and William was 62. They had two children: Louise Amelia Andrée Clark (August 13, 1902, Spain – August 6, 1919, Rangeley, Maine) Huguette Marcelle Clark (June 9, 1906, Paris, France – May 24, 2011, New York City)
In early 1946, Anna commissioned the Paganini Quartet, and acquired the four famous Stradivarius instruments once owned by Niccolo Paganini for their use.
Mary Joaquina Clark de Brabant Clark's firstborn child was born in Helena, Montana in 1870. She married Dr. Everett Mallory Culver in 1891 in New York City, Charles Potter Kling in 1905 in New York City, and Marius de Brabant in 1925 in Los Angeles. Her first marriage produced her only child who survived to adulthood, Katherine Calder Culver. Mary had a mansion estate called "Plaisance" next to William Kissam Vanderbilt II's at Centerport Long Island, a New York City townhouse on 51st Street, and other estates throughout the country. She loved theatrics and music, and was the life of many parties, debutantes, and soirees that she hosted or attended as a prime socialite. Mary was philanthropically minded and among many hundreds of causes, she provided major gifts and endowments to many churches (including St. Thomas in New York City, St. John's Episcopal in Butte, and St. Thomas Episcopal in Clarkdale, Arizona), musical gifts to Carnegie Hall, the Emerald-Hodgson Hospital in Tennessee, the New York Diet Kitchen Association, the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, Berry College in Georgia, and the Women's Committee for the Repeal of the 18th Amendment. She died in 1939.
Charles W. Clark
Clark's firstborn son was born in Deer Lodge, Montana in 1871. He graduated from Yale University in 1893. He married Katherine Quinn Roberts in 1896, Celia Tobin (heiress of Tobin banking concerns) in 1904, and Elizabeth Wymond Judge in 1925. He had four children in his marriage with Celia Tobin, three daughters and a son. He was known mostly as "Charlie" and served in many substantial capacities for his father's business, political, and personal affairs in Arizona, California, and Montana. Like his younger brother though to a lesser extent, he collected rare books and manuscripts. He was quite prone to both heavy drinking and gambling. Like all his siblings, Charlie held many estates, including what would become known as the Clark Chateau in Butte; Charlie's "El Palomar" estate in California, with polo fields and race tracks; an Italianate mansion on Pebble Beach; New York City apartments; and other substantial properties.Bill Dedman, Paul Clark Newell, Jr., Empty Mansions: The Mysterious Life of Huguette Clark and the Loss of one of the World's Greatest Fortunes, London: Atlantic Books, 2013, p. 142
Katherine Louise Clark Morris Clark's second daughter was born in Helena in 1875. She married Dr. Lewis Rutherfurd Morris in 1900. He was the great-great-grandson of Lewis Morris. They had one child, Katherine Elizabeth Morris, who would marry John Hudson Hall. Catherine and Dr. Morris had a large apartment in New York City, the extensive Morris Manor Farm estate in upstate New York, and a South Carolina Plantation among other property holdings throughout the country. Much like her half-sister Huguette, she tended toward being reclusive particularly after her husband died in 1936. Catherine died at the age of 99, in 1974.
William Andrews Clark Jr.
Junior was born in Deer Lodge in 1877. He studied at University of Virginia and earned a degree in law. He was closely associated with Clark's major business interests in Butte and Arizona. In addition to being a primary funder for the Hollywood Bowl, Junior was founder of the Los Angeles Philharmonic in 1919 and its largest donor for many years. He left his library of rare books and manuscripts to the regents of the University of California, Los Angeles. Today, the William Andrews Clark Memorial Library specializes in English literature and history from 1641 to 1800, materials related to Oscar Wilde and his associates, and fine printing. Clark also provided buildings to the University of Virginia Law School Clark Hall (University of Virginia) and University of Nevada Reno. He had mansions and stables in Butte, Montana, a large cabin retreat property on Salmon Lake in Montana, and his largest mansion and mausoleum in Los Angeles. His Los Angeles property spanned more than a city block and included the exquisite library building, a large observatory building, elaborate guest housing, and manicured lawns and gardens.
Huguette Clark
Huguette (pronounced ), born in Paris, France, in June 1906, was the youngest child of Clark with his second wife, Anna Eugenia LaChapelle. She married once, but divorced less than a year later. She led a reclusive life thereafter, seldom communicating with the public nor with her extended family. For many years, she lived in three combined apartments, with a total of 42 rooms, on New York's Fifth Avenue at 72nd Street, overlooking Central Park. In 1991, she moved out and for the remainder of her life lived in various New York City hospitals.
In February 2010, she became the subject of a series of reports on NBC News after it was reported that the caretakers of her three residences (including a $24 million estate in Connecticut, a sprawling seaside estate in Santa Barbara, California and her Fifth Avenue apartments valued at $100 million) had not seen her in decades. These articles were the basis for the 2013 bestselling book Empty Mansions: The Mysterious Life of Huguette Clark and the Spending of a Great American Fortune. by investigative reporter Bill Dedman and Paul Clark Newell, Jr.