Augustus C. Gurnee

Gurnee was born on March 11, 1855, in Chicago, Illinois. He was the son of Mary (née Coe) Gurnee (1820–1893) and capitalist Walter Smith Gurnee (1813–1903), who served as Mayor Chicago from 1851 to 1853 and was the namesake of Gurnee, Illinois.{{cite news |title=WALTER S. GURNEE DEAD |url=https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1903/04/18/101989718.pdf |access-date=2 October 2018 |work=The New York Times |date=April 18, 1903}} Gurnee attended Harvard University and graduated with the class of 1878.{{cite book |title=The Harvard Index for ... |date=1876 |publisher=Welch, Bigelow |page=40 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zoYfAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA40 |access-date=2 October 2018 |language=en}} Through his maternal uncle, Dr. Matthew Daniel Coe, he was a first cousin of Frantz Hunt Coe, the physician, public official and educator. Among his siblings was Delia E. Gurnee, Mary Evelyn Gurnee, Frances Medora Gurnee, Walter Scott Gurnee, Grace Gurnee, and Isabel Gurnee.{{cite book |last1=Bartlett |first1=Joseph Gardner |title=Robert Coe, Puritan: His Ancestors and Descendants, 1340-1910, with Notices of Other Coe Families |date=1911 |publisher=private circulation |url=https://archive.org/details/robertcoepurita00bartgoog |page=[https://archive.org/details/robertcoepurita00bartgoog/page/n173 121] |access-date=2 October 2018 |language=en}}{{cite news |title=A DAY'S WEDDINGS. Thorndike — Gurnee. |url=https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1903/07/30/105056515.pdf |access-date=2 October 2018 |work=The New York Times |date=July 30, 1903}}

In 1863, the family moved to New York where his father engaged in banking and other businesses, serving as the treasurer and director of the Shelby Iron Company, the American Smelting and Refining Company, and the American Surety Company, among others.

After graduating from Harvard, where he was a member of the Hasty Pudding Club,{{cite book |last1=Club |first1=Hasty Pudding |title=Eleventh Catalogue of the Officers and Members of the Hasty-Pudding Club in Harvard College |date=1891 |publisher=W. H. Wheeler |page=87 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FKNIAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA87 |access-date=2 October 2018 |language=en}} he briefly worked as a banker in New York.{{cite book |last1=Epsilon |first1=Delta Kappa |title=Catalogue of the Delta Kappa Epsilon Fraternity ... |date=1900 |publisher=Council publishing Company |page=135 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xlw7AAAAMAAJ&pg=PA135 |access-date=2 October 2018 |language=en}} Gurnee was "free from the necessity of engaging in business" and, instead, spent his time "engrossed in the cultivation of the arts and spent much time in travel, living at intervals in Italy and France."{{cite book |title=Social Register, Summer |date=1907 |publisher=Social Register Association |page=104 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=AZJIAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA104 |access-date=2 October 2018 |language=en}}

In 1892, Gurnee was included in Ward McAllister's "Four Hundred", purported to be an index of New York's best families, published in The New York Times.{{cite news|last1=McAllister|first1=Ward|title=THE ONLY FOUR HUNDRED {{!}} WARD M'ALLISTER GIVES OUT THE OFFICIAL LIST. HERE ARE THE NAMES, DON'T YOU KNOW, ON THE AUTHORITY OF THEIR GREAT LEADER, YOU UNDER- STAND, AND THEREFORE GENUINE, YOU SEE.|url=https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1892/02/16/108210917.pdf|access-date=26 March 2017|work=The New York Times|date=16 February 1892|language=en}}{{cite book |last1=Patterson |first1=Jerry E. |title=The First Four Hundred: Mrs. Astor's New York in the Gilded Age |date=2000 |publisher=Random House Incorporated |isbn=9780847822089 |page=217 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZLwMAAAAYAAJ |access-date=13 June 2018 |language=en}} Conveniently, 400 was the number of people that could fit into Mrs. Astor's ballroom.{{cite book|last1=Keister|first1=Lisa A.|title=Getting Rich: America's New Rich and How They Got That Way|date=2005|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=9780521536677|page=36|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5dAtJf1hmAUC&pg=PA36|access-date=20 October 2017|language=en}}

Gurnee had a home in Bar Harbor, Maine, Paris, and Nice, France. His home in Maine, known as Beaudesert, was originally designed by William Ralph Emerson in 1881, but was renovated for Gurnee in 1900 by architect Fred L. Savage, who also designed the nearby Breakwater, Reverie Cove, Raventhorp, and the Philler Cottage.{{cite book |last1=Bryan |first1=John M. |title=Maine Cottages: Fred L. Savage and the Architecture of Mount Desert |date=2007 |publisher=Springer Science & Business Media |isbn=9781568986494 |page=280 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=cR_PAr6kYUsC&pg=PA280 |access-date=2 October 2018 |language=en}} In 1925, he donated his home in Nice, for the benefit of wounded soldiers, and a number of valuable works of art to the city of Paris,{{cite news |title=Augustus C. Gurnee, Art Patron, Dies |url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/458099903 |access-date=2 October 2018 |work=The San Francisco Examiner |date=July 7, 1926 |page=1 |language=en}} including twelve tapestries of Aubusson, Flanders, and Paris before the time of Gobelin.{{cite news |title=Ancient Tapestries Given to Paris. |url=https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1925/11/26/104196121.pdf |access-date=2 October 2018 |work=The New York Times |date=November 26, 1925 |language=en}} He was honored by France with the ribbon of the Chevalier of the Légion d’Honneur.

Gurnee, who did not marry, died on July 6, 1926, in Baden-Baden, Germany,{{cite news |title=AUGUSTUS C. GURNEE DIES IN BADEN BADEN; Was a Son of Chicago's First Mayor -- Acquired a Fine Art Collection. |url=https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1926/07/07/98488314.pdf |access-date=2 October 2018 |work=The New York Times |date=July 7, 1926 |language=en}} and was interred at the Gurnee Mausoleum at Sleepy Hollow Cemetery.{{cite book |title=Princeton Alumni Weekly, Vol. XXVII, No. 6 |date=1926 |publisher=Princeton Alumni Weekly |page=156 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=CRZbAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA156 |access-date=2 October 2018 |language=en}} In his will,{{cite news |title=A.C. GURNEE'S WILL BENEFITS HARVARD; University to Get Residuary Estate -- $300,000 and $20,000 Annuity for Secretary. |url=https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1926/07/31/98495896.pdf |access-date=2 October 2018 |work=The New York Times |date=July 31, 1926 |language=en}} Gurnee left many large bequeaths to charity, including the Presbyterian Hospital, St. Luke's Hospital, the Nursery and Child's Hospital, and the Association for Improving the Condition of the Poor, many trust funds for his relatives, and then left his residuary estate to Harvard.{{cite journal |title=Gifts Surpass $2,700,000 in Quarter Year |journal=The Harvard Crimson |date=March 31, 1950 |url=https://www.thecrimson.com/article/1950/3/31/gifts-surpass-2700000-in-quarter-year/ |access-date=2 October 2018 |language=en}} His secretary, Gustave Frederick Dutschke, who lived at 17 Avenue d'Iéna in Paris, received $300,000 in three and a half per cent Liberty bonds and $20,000 a year from the residuary estate.

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• [https://www.nyhistory.org/exhibit/augustus-coe-gurnee-dressed-vanderbilt-costume-ball-march-26-1883 Photograph of Gurnee dressed for the Vanderbilt costume ball, March 26, 1883] at the New-York Historical Society.

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Category:1855 births

Category:1926 deaths

Category:Harvard University alumni

Category:Knights of the Legion of Honour

Category:Burials at Sleepy Hollow Cemetery

Category:People from Chicago

Category:American bankers

Category:People from Bar Harbor, Maine