About Connections: Love it or hate it, history is a map. Those who hate history think it irrelevant; many who love history think it escapism. In truth, history is the clearest road map to how we got here: America in the 21st century.
It was 1893 but the tension between the prominent and the press, the mix of celebrity and corruption, remained the same then as now.
December 26, 1893
Anson Phelps Stokes wrote in his journal: “Costume dinner dance at our house [Shadow Brook] about 120 were present. Newton had arranged with a Boston photographer to take a photograph of this dinner (of course not for publication).”
Newton had attended a private, fancy-dress ball in Boston where the photographer was employed.
“The next day, the photographer came and told me that while he was at lunch, a copy had been stolen and taken to the New York Herald, which was going to publish it. I had grippe and could not leave the house, but sent Newton to the office of the newspaper where he was told that it had already been printed.
John E. Parsons, Esq., the eminent lawyer succeeded, however, in stopping the publication by firmly notifying the publishers of the paper that the publication would be against my wishes and against my rights.”
There the journal entry concludes.
Since Newton was his son, Anson trusted him. Betrayed, by accident or design of the photographer, Anson asked John E. Parsons to correct the matter. Parsons was not just any lawyer. He was the owner of a neighboring Berkshire cottage: Stonover.
1885
The Valley Gleaner reported, “Mr. John E. Parsons’ additions to his already sizeable mansion are approaching completion with its adjuncts of stable, lodge house, forest, field, and beautiful outlooks over lake and mountain.”
Shadow Brook was reputedly the largest private home in the United States, but Stonover was no poor second. Parsons’ bona fides as a true Berkshire cottager were reinforced not only by the improvement to his grounds, but by his second marriage to Mrs. David W. (Florence Field) Bishop.
David Wolfe Bishop made an impressive fortune the easy way: he inherited it from the spinster Catherine Wolfe. She in turn inherited it from her father. The Wolfe-Lorillard fortune was founded on New York real estate and tobacco. It was sufficient to endow major American art museums including the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Frick, and archeological digs. It founded charitable organizations including building lodging for homeless children, and supported David, his wife, their two sons, two Berkshire cottages (Interlaken and the Winter Palace), two city houses, and two houses in France.
David Wolfe Bishop died in 1900. Eleven months later, Florence Bishop of Interlaken married Parsons. By that marriage, Parsons became the stepfather of Cortlandt Field Bishop of the Winter Palace, Lenox. They maintained, therefore, three Berkshire cottages. Putting aside the cost of building three cottages, the annual maintenance cost was approximately equal to the annual salaries of 100 local families.
John E. Parsons was an attorney whose major clients were the American sugar refining company called the Sugar Trust, and Phelps Dodge & Company. Phelps Dodge was originally an import export company, taking cotton to England and bringing back metals such as tin and copper. Later, Phelps Dodge diversified into copper mining and railroads. Parsons was a founding member of the American Society for the Control of Cancer and the Cancer Hospital (later the American Cancer Society and Sloan Kettering Hospital).
John and Florence Parsons made the town of Lenox a gift of the park at Main and Sunset Streets (now called Lilac Park).
There were also seamier sides to life at Stonover. In 1912, Parsons was indicted for violation of the Sherman Anti-Trust Law and conspiracy. Although the prosecution was convinced he had convicted himself out of his own mouth when he testified, the trial resulted in a hung jury.
Parsons was a friend and a social peer of Anson Phelps Stokes. He was, therefore, a man who understood the gravity of the situation. If time, energy, imagination, and funds were expended to set the standards of taste and impress others by those standards set, why was publication of a veritable picture of success against Mr. Stokes’ wishes? Why would they deny the public a glimpse of the splendor in dress and equipage that they sought to attain? The achievement of an elegant lifestyle could put you into the social register: why was publicity about that achievement unwelcome?
Stonover was razed and the land sold for development although many of its “adjuncts,” as described in the Valley Gleaner, remain and are a country inn today. Interlaken and the Winter Palace were also razed. Shadow Brook burned to the ground; Kripalu is on its grounds today.
Even as the Berkshire cottages were being built, the seeds of the undoing of an American aristocracy were being planted. Even as the foundations were being dug, the ground was shifting. Depression was followed by war followed by another depression and another war. The era was erased, the vestiges of wealth razed, burned, or repurposed. Only the detritus of wealth remained. Still, while the music played, Parsons understood Stokes’ concern and rushed to suppress the picture because the Gilded Age aristocrats, as a group, performed only for one another.
