Frank Armstrong Crawford Vanderbilt

Frank Armstrong Crawford-Vanderbilt

Born Frank Armstrong Crawford
January 18, 1839
Mobile, Alabama
Died May 4, 1885(1885-05-04) (aged 46)
New York City
Occupation Philanthropist
Religion Methodist
Spouse(s) Cornelius Vanderbilt
(m. 1869—1877; his death)
Parent(s) Robert Leighton Crawford
Martha Eliza Everett

Frank Armstrong Crawford Vanderbilt (January 18, 1839 – May 4, 1885) was an American socialite and philanthropist. She was also the widow of Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt.

Early life

Frank Armstrong Crawford was born on January 18, 1839 in Mobile, Alabama to Robert Leighton Crawford (1799—1853) and Martha Eliza Everett (1820—1898).[1][2][3] Her parents named her after their best friend, Frank Crawford Armstrong, before she was born, not knowing she would be a girl.[2] Growing up in Mobile, she attended St. Francis Street Methodist Church.[4] After the American Civil War of 1861-1865, she moved to New York City with her mother, even though she supported the Confederate States of America.[3][5][6] Augusta Jane Evans (1835-1909) described her as a "zealous Methodist."[6]

Philanthropy

She persuaded her husband, Cornelius Vanderbilt (1794—1877), to give $1 million to Bishop Holland Nimmons McTyeire (1824—1889), the husband of her cousin, Amelia Townsend (1827—1891), to found Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee.[3][4][5][7] Cornelius saw this gift as an olive branch to the South, after he had helped defeat the Confederate States Army with his USS Vanderbilt during the Civil War.[3] However, he never visited the university.[3]

Personal life

She was briefly married to John Elliott, but quickly divorced.[8] In 1869, she married Cornelius Vanderbilt after the death of his first wife, Sophia Johnson (1795—1868) (a mutual cousin).[1][3][6] He was her mother's cousin.[5] She signed a pre-nuptial agreement, agreeing to receive $500,000 in bonds after his death, a great sum at the time but a fraction of Vanderbilt's fortune.[5][9] Braxton Bragg (1817—1876) was at the wedding.[3]

Death and legacy

She died on May 4, 1885 in New York City.[1][2] Her funeral was conducted by the Rev. Charles Deems in the Church of the Strangers, a church for Southerners in New York that she attended regularly.[1][3] She was buried in the Moravian Cemetery in New Dorp on Staten Island.[1]

Her portrait, painted by William J. Whittemore (1860-1955) in 1906, was donated by her brother Robert Leighton Crawford, Jr. to Vanderbilt University; it is in Kirkland Hall.[2]

Crawford Hall, one of the ten houses on the Martha Rivers Ingram Commons at Vanderbilt University, was named in her honor.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 FindAGrave
  2. 1 2 3 4 Tennessee Portraits: Frank Armstrong Crawford Vanderbilt
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 T.J. Stiles, The Commodore’s Civil War, Vanderbilt Magazine, Spring 2011
  4. 1 2 Lyle Lankford, Women to the Rescue, Vanderbilt Magazine, Summer 2009
  5. 1 2 3 4 Kara Furlong, Commodore's 'strange gift' became educational legacy, 03/27/06
  6. 1 2 3 Augusta Jane Evans, A Southern Woman of Letters: The Correspondence of Augusta Jane Evans Wilson, University of South Carolina Press, 2002, p. 153
  7. ↑ Tennessee Portrait Project: Amelia Townsend McTyeire
  8. ↑ Stiles, The First Tycoon, p. 476
  9. ↑ Stiles, The First Tycoon, p. 549
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