CANTIDAD:

500

RESUMEN

Arthur Astor Carey (Feb. 23, 1857 – Jun. 16, 1923), author and philanthropist, was born in Rome, Italy, to John Carey and Mary Alida Astor. Carey’s maternal great-grandfather, John Jacob Astor, made his fortune in the fur trade and then in New York City real estate. Astor is thought to have been America’s first multimillionaire, and this inheritance helped fund Athur Astor Carey’s philanthropy. In 1879, Arthur Carey obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree from Harvard College. Like many young men of his privileged class, he then embarked on a post-collegiate trip around Europe after graduation.


Carey lived and studied in Europe for several years before eventually returning to Harvard College as an Instructor of English. By the time he was 30 years old, Arthur Astor Carey was a billionaire, by modern standards. In 1887, he purchased 40 acres of land on Sagamore Creek for a summer home. This property, boasting a cottage designed by Carey’s former Harvard classmate, Alexander Wadsworth Longfellow, nephew of one of America’s famous poets, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, would eventually become a historical site protected by the residents of New Hampshire.

On October 15, 1889, Arthur Astor Carey married Agnes Laura Mary Whiteside, of London. Together, they raised four children, Henry Reginald, Arthur Graham, Alida, and Frances. Whiteside designed the elaborate Creek Farm gardens that completed the Portsmouth estate, where the Carey family would spend many summers among the elites of New England society on the shore of Sagamore Creek. The vacation home would gain its spot in history books in the summer of 1905, when the Careys hosted dinner and garden parties at the Creek Farm for President Theodore Roosevelt and delegates from Russia and Japan during peace negotiations now known as the Treaty of Portsmouth. The Creek Farm remains one of Arthur Astor Carey’s longest standing legacies in New England.

In 1900 Arthur Astor Carey was among many New England philanthropists and Harvard alumni who provided financial support for the Summer School for Cuban Teachers: he donated $500.

Later in life, Carey began to suffer from an unidentified nervous disorder. His solution for nervous tension became meditation and prayer - a method that centered on following the life and teachings of the biblical Jesus Christ. Through this practice, he began to discover his “spiritual manhood” which, to him, meant “pursuing self-knowledge, humility, gentleness, compassion, and...compromise.” His first book, titled New Nerves For Old (1914) sought to teach the reader to overcome depression by retraining neural pathways. His two other published works, The Scout Law in Practice (1915) and Boy Scouts at Sea (1921) focused on another one of his passions - the Boy Scouts of America.

Carey was also an early founder of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, a devotee of the Arts and Crafts movement, and a donor to libraries, schools, and a home for disadvantaged children.

Arthur Astor Carey died on June 16, 1923. He was 66 years old.


Further Reading

1. Jordan, Benjamin René. Modern Manhood and the Boy Scouts of America: Citizenship, Race, and the Environment, 1910-1930 (2016).

2. Robinson, J. Dennis. “Legacy Faces Wrecking Ball,” Seacoast Online. March 11, 2019. https://www.seacoastonline.com/news/20190311/legacy-faces-wrecking-ball