Flora Payne (1842-1893)

Cornelius Vanderbilt Whitney (1899-1992)

This posting begins with a 6-generation pedigree and ahnentafel showing the Whitney and Vanderbilt ancestry of Cornelius Vanderbilt Whitney (1899-1992). The marriage in 1896 of his Whitney father and Vanderbilt mother has been called “the all-American union of the aristocrat and the heiress.” His maternal great-great grandfather Cornelius “Commodore” Vanderbilt was born to a poor family but built a railroad empire and died in New York City in 1877 as the richest man in the world. Also included in this posting is an 11-generation pedigree and ahnentafel for the paternal grandmother Flora Payne (1842-1893), whose New England ancestry includes numerous Mayflower and royal lines.

The next posting will give an 11-generation pedigree and ahnentafel for a paternal great-great grandfather William Collins (1774-1869), whose ancestors include the famous Mayflower passenger William Bradford, the governor of Plymouth colony for more than thirty years. Additional 6-generation posts in the following weeks and months will cover most of the remaining ancestry—and all of the New England ancestry—of Cornelius Vanderbilt Whitney.

Cornelius Vanderbilt Whitney (Sonny to his friends) could have lived his life with a wealthy, idle mentality. He did just the opposite, making his first million on his own before he inherited any money from his family. He was a pioneer in motion pictures, producing La Cucaracha (the first Technicolor film) and the highly acclaimed The Searchers. He coproduced Gone With the Wind and A Star Is Born. He cofounded Pan American Airways and flew as a copilot for Charles Lindberg. He founded Hudson Bay Mining & Smelting of Canada and created Marineland in Florida (the first ocean aquarium in the world). He served as secretary of the Air Force and undersecretary of commerce for President Truman. He was one of the largest landowners in New York state, owning over 80,000 acres in the Adirondacks. He entertained and socialized with royalty, presidents and celebrities. He was twice U.S. Open polo champion and bred more stakes winners in the thoroughbred business than anyone else in the world for many years.

Following three failed marriages, Sonny finally met and married the love of his life, Marie Louise Schroeder Hosford (Marylou), who starred in his 1958 movie The Missouri Traveler. Beautiful and charming, Marylou was a recently divorced, thirty-one-year-old mother of four who gave him the kind of homelife and unflinching support he had not experienced in his previous sixty years. In return, he became a father to her children. In the 2000 book The Legend Of Cornelius Vanderbilt Whitney, the youngest of these four, Heather Mabee (who was barely two years old when her mother married Sonny) is quoted, “There is a man out there who biologically created me. But there is only one father in my life, and that was C.V. Whitney, and there couldn’t have been a better one….He always knew the right things to say. He always knew how to smooth down the rough moments.” In the same book, Marylou pays the following tribute: “Sonny was a loving man who loved God. Every day he visited one of our chapels to thank God for his blessings….he was the best father any child could ever have….I was lucky to have been married to this terrific man for thirty-four years….I do miss him, but I know he is looking down on me from heaven….”

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