Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-02-24
MRS. OGDEN GOBLET
DIES IN NEW YORK
Head of Noted and Wealthy
Family SuCcumbS to
Pneumonia.
Special Dispatch to The Star.

special Dispatch to The Star.
NEW YORK, February 23.-Mrs
Ogden Goelet, the head of Huguenot
family, which has been prominently
identified with business and the arts In
New York for more than two centuries
died of pneumonia at 80 o'clock this
afternoon.
Mrs. Goelet was one of the original
boxholders in the Metropolitan Opera
House, occupying box No. for many
years. She developed pneumonia
was born in 1855-had depleted her
power of resistance and she sank
rapidly.
At the bedside were her son, Robert
Eoelet; her daughter-in-law, Mrs.
Robert Goelet. who is the former Miss
Roberta willard; her sister, Mrs.
Cornelius Vanderbilt. wife of Brig. Gen.
Vanderbilt, and their son, Cornelius
Vanderbilt, jr., and Mrs. Geelet's
hsphews. Orme and Thornton Wilson.
Private funeral services will be held at
3 O'Clock tomorrow afternoon at the
Goelet residence, 500 Fifth avenue. The
Rev. DR.. Roolif H. Brooks of st. Thomas
will ofilciate. Burial will be in Wood
lawn Cemetery.
Mrs. Goelet's daughter, the Duchess
of Roxburghe, who formerly was Miss
May Goelet. was notified in England
by transoceanic telephone and is sailing
on Monday. Gen. Vanderbilt, who has
been in Cuba, also was notified and is
returning by special train. A brother,
Richard T. Wilson, has been seriously
III at Miami Beach, and Mrs. Wilson is
I'll at her home here.
Founders Of Bank.
Members Of the Goelet family have
,Aoeen leaders in the real estate and
banking development of New York for
generations. The Chemical National
Bank was founded by the GoeletS in
1924, and members of the family aSsidu-
eusly acquired property in the growing
City. AS New York grew, the Goelet
property steadily became more valuable.
but they made 1t rule never to SELL
and when Ogden Goelet did on his
Sacht' Mayfower (the present presiden-
tial craft off the Isle of Wight in 1897,
his family was counted the third richest
by inheritance in America.
Mrs Goelet was Mary Wilson, daugh-
Ger of Richard Thornton Wilson, banker,
cotton broker, railroad developer and
Confederate veteran, who came to New
York out of the South after the Civil
War and died here in 1910, leaving an
estate of $4,000, 900.
Mrs. Goelet's father. a descendant of
m cid Southern family, became a COM
E1issary general in the Civil War, later
Being sent abroad as fiscal agent for
the Southern government, and there
forming the connections which brought
him to New York after the war
This steady maintenance of real
estate, despite pyramiding values. so
characteristic of many old New York
families, was perhaps a sentimental in
heritance of the days when the Goelets
lived far downtown.
Family Manages Realty.
The Goelet estate became of such
EiZe that members of the family de-
voted themselves mostly to the manage
ment of their properties. Perhaps the
prime inStigator of Goelet progress was
Peter Goelet, born In 1927, who was a
comparatively wealthy dealer in must
cal instruments in Hanover square. lie
married Elizabeth Raise, and with her
inherited extensive lands.
Their son, Peter P. Goelet, thus ac-
CURED a considerable fortune, and fos-
Tered the family tradition by adding
real estate, steadily, but judlciously. He
married Amy Buchanan, whose father
had one of the finest mansions in Wall
street. MIR. Buchanan, a member Of the
Committee of One Hundred, which took
charge of the city in IT'S, owned
wilderness in what was to become the
~forties." A man might have bought it
for less than $4,000 if he considered
himself that foolish, but now it would
require hundreds of millions.