The Relationship between the Mills Family and St. Margaret's Church

When approaching Staatsburgh from the south, it is nearly impossible to miss the beautiful stone church in the center of the village of Staatsburg*.  St. Margaret's Episcopal Church has been an important feature of the village since it was built in 1891 and the parish was an important part of the community even before the current church was built.  Although Ruth and Ogden Mills were not full time residents of the village and permanent fixtures at Sunday services, generations of the family have been involved with the congregation in many ways.

St. Margaret's Episcopal Church, Staatsburg, NY 

Ocean View: How the Millses Summered in Style in Newport

There is something extraordinary about the sea and the summer season is a great time to enjoy the salty tides and coastal views far away from the bustle of the city.  Staatsburgh was generally quiet during the summer because the Mills family was usually headquartered in Newport, Rhode Island.  Newport was the center of the summer season for wealthy Gilded Age families. The elite flocked to the ocean breezes and built grand mansions along the shore.  The young Ruth Livingston spent summers as a young lady in Newport at her parent's cottage on Bellevue Court and even served as a bridesmaid at her twin sister's wedding to Englishman George Cavendish-Bentinck at the Episcopal Chapel of All Saints, which was one of the most anticipated events of the 1880 season.  Once Ruth married Ogden Mills, they visited Newport each summer and rented a home where they would reside during their time there until they purchased Ocean View in 1888.

As a port city on the Atlantic Ocean, Newport was the center for the New England slave trade during the Colonial era until the transatlantic slave trade was abolished in 1807.  Soon wealthy Southern plantation owners began to build summer homes in Newport to escape the heat and by the middle of the nineteenth century wealthy Yankee families began to do the same.  Most of the homes built during this era were shingle style cottages.  By the 1880's, the Newport season began to get longer, beginning in May and ending in October for some families, and the number of cottages occupied each summer continued to increase through the decade.  By this time, the style of the homes had changed, and most of the large mansions were built with marble and resembled prodigious European palaces (see Marble House).

On Right: Ocean View, the Ogden Mills Newport Mansion
located on Bellevue Avenue, circa 1932-34

Source: DeGolyer Library, Southern Methodist University

American Heiresses & English Lords: A Match Made in Heaven?

The staff at Staatsburgh are great fans of the television program Downton Abbey. We love the show because it illustrates the way a great estate like Staatsburgh would operate with opulent dinner parties and a strict hierarchy of servants. Watching the show can bring to life situations that would have happened here at Staatsburgh. We love it so much that we started a special Downton Abbey themed tour at the site. The tour will be offered again in September and October (check out our facebook page for dates), and in the spirit of Downton Abbey, this blog takes a moment to look at marriages between American heiresses and the European aristocracy.

There has been some interest in the practice of American heiresses marrying titled Englishmen because of the show.  On Downton Abbey, Robert Crawley, the Earl of Grantham, is married to an American woman, the former Cora Levinson, daughter of a dry goods millionaire. At Staatsburgh, Ruth Livingston Mills used her sister's position in English society after marrying an Englishman to help secure her daughter Beatrice's marriage to an Earl.  

Downton's Cora Levinson arrived in England in 1888 at age 20 chaperoned by her mother. She was presented at court and enjoyed a London Season. During a London Season, a young lady would attend countless parties and balls with hopes of meeting a potential suitor. By the end of Cora's first Season, she was engaged to the future Lord Grantham who needed to secure funds to rescue his large estate. What began as a marriage of convenience soon grew into love and on the show the marriage between the Earl and Countess of Grantham is portrayed as loving and happy. Other women who were forced into marriage like Conseulo Vanderbilt, Duchess of Marlborough, were not as lucky in love and many of these marriages later dissolved. Yet like the fictional marriage between Cora Levinson and the Earl of Grantham, a great influx of American money helped to maintain and preserve the great estates of the English nobility.