Husband
Henry James, Partner
Martha Lincoln Draper
Queer Places:
1001 Park Ave, New York, NY 10028
Bayard Cutting Arboretum, 440 Montauk Hwy, Great River, NY 11739
Port Apple, 103 Main Rd, Tyringham, MA 01264
24 E 72nd St, New York, NY 10021
Green-Wood Cemetery
Brooklyn, Kings County (Brooklyn), New York, USA
Olivia Cutting James (September 5, 1892 – March 12, 1963) was the daughter
of
William Bayard Cutting
(1850–1912)
and
Olivia Peyton Murray (1855–1949).
William Bayard Cutting,[1]
a member of New York's merchant aristocracy, was an attorney, financier, real
estate developer, sugar beet refiner and philanthropist. Cutting and his
brother Fulton started the sugar beet industry in the United States in 1888.
He was a builder of railroads, operated the ferries of New York City, and
developed part of the south Brooklyn waterfront, Red Hook.
Olivia Peyton Murray by Alexandre Cabanel (1823–1889)
Olivia Murray Cutting married
Henry James (1879–1947), a Pulitzer Prize winner and the son of
psychologist William James, in 1917.[15] James
himself, has been suggested by Michael Anesko, was queer. The couple were
rather hastily married, the bride would have preferred to elope and avoid a
public ceremony altogether, but some who knew them already had misgivings
about the union. A few weeks after the wedding, as Henry's mother was on board
a ferry en route to Maine, she encountered
Katherine Loring (who had been
the long-time female companion of her sister-in-law, Alice
James), who pointedly congratulated her on Harry's "good marriage".
Pricked by Loring's ironic tone, Mrs James defensevely "said it was all that"
and that she was a "fortunate woman" to have Olivia for a daughter-in-law. But
six months after their marriage, Harry James discovered that his wife was
lesbian.
When Olivia and
Henry divorced, Dorothea Draper, sister
of Ruth Draper, became the second wife
of Henry James. She was the widow of Linzee Blagdon, a New York financier and close friend of James from college days at Harvard.
Dorothea and Ruth's other sister,
Martha Lincoln Draper, became the female companion of Olivia Cutting.
Olivia Cutting James built a small prefab summer house on top of a hill
overlooking the Hop and across from the Cobble in Tyringham. She lived with
her companion, Martha Draper, in a very simple way. The driveway up to the
house was very steep only drive able by the Model A Ford coupe with rumble
seat that was kept in her garage. They purchased one of the first
prefabricated portable houses and had it set up among the apple trees on a
lovely piece of property. They named it "Portapple". Serious, intelligent, and forthright, Martha was gently spoken, quite
mannish in dress and manner, but in no way masculine. She was "tweedy" and
"smoked like a chimney," a gold clip of a cigarette holder almost constantly
on her thin bony hand. Not at all pretty, Martha, in later years, had a pudgy
full face and lips. She was small and strong. Martha spent long summers there driving about the countryside
in her Model A Ford. She ice-skated with the children, cut and tidied the
three stumps in the woods, tramped about in knickers, and helped to wash the
dishes. She was an outdoor person who loved the land and the trees and the
stars, so attuned to nature that she always said she thought she could feel
the earth spinning.
Next to Olivia James lived Beulah Cannon, who owned and ran the Orchard
House Inn. During the summer elderly ladies and a few gentleman would spend
the summer there. During her forty-two years of operation,
distinguished names in literature, art, music, finance, diplomacy and
society were entered in her register. Soon after Orchard House opened
as an Inn, Alice Hegan Rice came there to write "Mrs. Wiggs of the
Cabbage Patch". In 1912 Jean Webster, niece of Mark Twain, made
a two week reservation, only to stay six months and write the book,
"Daddy Long Legs". The next year she returned with Anne Crawford
Flexner (Mrs. Abraham) to dramatize it. During the Institute of
Politics at Williams College, Behulah Cannon opened her inn to twelve
different nationalities attending the Institute. For many years Olivia James was a frequent guest
and even after she built "Port Apple" near by, she continued as a dinner guest.
The 22-room Orchard House was in the Cannon family for a century and a half.
Beulah Cannon, after 40 years, closed the business in 1945 and sold it in
1949.
The Great River Estate, known as "Westbrook" originally consisted of over one thousand acres. Only part of this area was deeded to the State of New York. In 1938, Mrs. Bayard James donated an additional three hundred eighty-two acres, and her mother, Mrs. William Bayard Cutting, established an endowment of over $1,000,000 for the maintenance of the arboretum. In November 1949, Mrs. Olivia Murray Cutting passed away and her daughter,
Olivia Bayard James, continued running the estate until 1952 when the
arboretum management was fully transferred to the Long Island State Park and
Recreation Commission, which at the time was headed by Robert Moses.
My published books:
BACK TO HOME PAGE
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westbrook,_Suffolk_County,_New_York
- The World of Ruth Draper: A Portrait of an Actress
Dorothy Warren
SIU Press, 1999
- https://jjdubois.com/2018/08/08/my-tyringham-boyhood/
- Anesko, Michael. Henry James and Queer Filiation . Springer International
Publishing. Edizione del Kindle.