Harriet Wadsworth Harper

{{Short description|Virginia equestrian}}

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Harriet Travers Wadsworth Harper ({{date|21 October 1881|MDY}} – {{fdate|2 November 1975|MDY}}) was an American equestrian and foxhunter.

Harriet Travers Wadsworth was born on {{date|21 October 1881|MDY}} in Newport, Rhode Island.{{Cite book|last1=Carpenter|first1=Edward|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WzEfAAAAMAAJ|title=Samuel Carpenter and His Descendants: Comp|last2=Carpenter|first2=Louis Henry|date=1912|publisher=private circulation|pages=243|language=en}} She was the daughter of US Representative James Wolcott Wadsworth and Maria Louisa Travers, daughter of businessman William R. Travers.{{Cite web|title=Wadsworth Family: A Subject Finding Aid|url=https://www.livingstoncounty.us/DocumentCenter/View/11709/Wadsworth-Family-Finding-Aid?bidId=|website=Livingston County Historian’s Office}}

She came from a family with a strong background in horse riding and fox hunting; her uncle W. Austin Wadsworth was Master of the Genesee Valley Hunt.{{Cite web|title=History {{!}} Genesee Valley Hunt|url=https://geneseevalleyhunt.org/history/|access-date=2022-02-13|website=geneseevalleyhunt.org}} She began riding sidesaddle at age five. She was later diagnosed with scoliosis and the doctor suggested ridding sidesaddle facing the offside (right) of the horse, opposite of the customary position. She rode in this fashion the rest of her life.{{Cite book|last=Symington|first=James W.|url=http://archive.org/details/heardoverheardwo0000symi|title=Heard and overheard : words wise (and otherwise) with politicians, statesmen, and real people|date=2015|publisher=Washington, DC : New Academia Pub./Vellum Books|others=Internet Archive|isbn=978-0-9864353-3-1|pages=103}}{{Cite book|last=Biscotti|first=M. L.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8UglDwAAQBAJ|title=Six Centuries of Foxhunting: An Annotated Bibliography|date=2017-06-23|publisher=Rowman & Littlefield|isbn=978-1-4422-4190-9|pages=174|language=en}}

Growing up, she made frequent visits to her aunt Elizabeth Wadsworth Post in the United Kingdom. On one of those visits, she met a young Eleanor Roosevelt, a friend and classmate of her cousin Nelly Post, and recalled her as “the little American girl who was so homesick."{{Cite book|last=Michaelis|first=David|url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1139765459|title=Eleanor|date=2020|isbn=978-1-4391-9201-6|edition=First Simon & Schuster hardcover|location=New York, NY|pages=69–70|oclc=1139765459}}

In 1913, Wadsworth married Fletcher Harper (1874-1963), a polo player who was the grandson of Fletcher Harper. They were engaged while Harper was in the hospital with a broken leg following "a tussle with a fractious horse". They eventually settled in Friendship Farm near The Plains, Virginia. Fletcher Harper was master of the Orange County Hunt from 1920 to 1953. The couple are credited with promoting the sport of foxhunting in the area, working with local landowners to open the land to the sport and popularizing it there among American elites.{{Cite web|last=Connolly|first=John|date=2015-08-26|title=Mr. and Mrs. Fletcher Harper|url=https://nslmblog.wordpress.com/2015/08/26/mr-and-mrs-fletcher-harper/|access-date=2022-02-13|website=Drawing Covert|publisher=National Sporting Library & Museum|language=en}}{{cite news|date=5 November 1963|title=Fletcher Harper, Authority On Fox Hunting, Dies at 89|work=The New York Times|url=https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1963/11/05/89575556.pdf|access-date=10 May 2017}}{{cite journal|date=1 January 1913|title=The Spur, Vol. XII Number 1|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=GhZLAQAAMAAJ&pg=RA1-PA52|language=en|publisher=Angus Company|access-date=10 May 2017}}{{cite book|last1=Winants|first1=Peter|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=scsVAAAAQBAJ&pg=PA38|title=Foxhunting with Melvin Poe|date=August 12, 2002|publisher=Derrydale Press|isbn=9781461734673|pages=38–39|language=en|access-date=10 May 2017}}

In 1930 Harper and her husband were painted by the portrait painter Ellen Emmet Rand. Both portraits were included in Rand's 1936 New York exhibition Sporting Portraits.{{Cite web|last=Pfeiffer|first=Claudia|date=2017-01-17|title=Ellen Emmet Rand Slept Here|url=https://nslmblog.wordpress.com/2017/01/17/ellen-emmet-rand-slept-here/|access-date=2022-02-13|website=Drawing Covert|publisher=National Sporting Library & Museum|language=en}}

In 1966, she published an autobiography, Around the World in Eighty Years on a Sidesaddle.

Harriet Travers Wadsworth Harper died on November 2, 1975, in Warrenton, Virginia.{{Cite news|last=UPI|date=November 6, 1975|title=Harriet Harper rites held|pages=2B|work=Democrat and Chronicle|url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/136921702/}}