News Of Long Ago - "Cornelia Stewart Smith Butler Becomes The First-Lady Of Smithtown"

News of Long Ago by Bradley Harris, Smithtown Historian

Previously I wrote about the five daughters of Judge John Lawrence Smith and their marriages. This article takes a look at the life of Cornelia Stewart Smith, the Judge’s oldest daughter who married Prescott Hall Butler, and had three children. During her lifetime, Cornelia Stewart Smith Butler became a much loved and respected first-lady of Smithtown. 

“Cornelia Stewart Smith Butler becomes the first-lady of Smithtown….”

When Judge John Lawrence Smith died in 1889, he was 73 and his oldest daughter Cornelia was 43.  She had been married sixteen years to Prescott Hall Butler and they had three children – Lawrence (14), Charles (13) and Susan (10).  The Butlers made their home in New York City in a house they owned at 22 Park Avenue.  Prescott was a lawyer with the firm of Everts, Choate, and Beaman, was one of the preeminent lawyers of his day, and according to the Butler family genealogy  “secured a commanding position among the masters of law in New York City.”   He seems to have made a comfortable income as a lawyer since in 1879, just four years after being admitted to the bar, he asked his friend and Harvard classmate Charles McKim to design a summer home for him in St. James.  He then built the house known as Bytheharbor.  (See the accompanying photograph.)  This house was gradually expanded into a very large estate where the Butler family spent their summers and their three children became very much attached to their home Bytheharbor in St. James.

When the Judge died, he willed the Homestead and 200 acres of land in Smithtown Branch to his son James Clinch Smith and Cornelia did not inherit anything from her father.  But when her mother, Sarah Clinch Smith, died a year later in April of 1890, Cornelia inherited a fortune from her mother’s estate.  Her mother was the niece of Cornelia Stewart, the wife of Alexander T. Stewart, the merchant prince of New York City who, when he died on April 10, 1876, left a fortune estimated to be $50,000,000.  His will, probated four days later at Mrs. Stewart’s request, left the entire estate to Mrs. Stewart and her heirs.  Since the Stewarts had no children, the heirs were Cornelia Stewart’s brothers and sisters and their children.  The will also stipulated that Henry Hilton, Stewart’s attorney, was to close and wind up A.T. Stewart’s business affairs and for this he was receive $1 million dollars.  William Libbey, A.T. Stewart’s CEO, was also to receive $1 million dollars when A.T. Stewart was liquidated.  The will made Mrs. Stewart, Henry Hilton, and William Libbey, executors of the estate.  

On the same day that the will was probated, Mrs. Stewart assigned virtually complete control over all her property to Henry Hilton by executing a power of attorney.  Another document transferred most of the business interests of A.T. Stewart to Henry Hilton for $1 million dollars. And yet another document created a general partnership between Henry Hilton and William Libbey who joined forces to continue business under the name of A.T. Stewart & Company.  For his $1 million dollars, Henry Hilton acquired A.T. Stewart’s assets estimated to be $40 million dollars.  The widow was left with the Stewart mansion on 5^th Avenue, land in Garden City and Saratoga, and other improved parcels of real estate in New York City.  The value placed on the remaining assets was thought to be $13 million dollars.  Clearly, Henry Hilton did a neat little job of lawyering and found a way to appropriate Stewart’s fortune.  

Miffed by Henry Hilton’s appropriation of the Stewart fortune, the Stewart heirs joined together and sued Henry Hilton claiming he had taken advantage of the distraught widow and gotten her to sign the documents under duress.  Drawing on Judge John Lawrence Smith’s legal expertise as a surrogate judge, the Stewart heirs seemed to be making headway in court when Henry Hilton agreed to an out of court settlement in 1890.   The heirs who brought suit wrestled the following properties from Henry Hilton:  “The Metropolitan Hotel and Niblo’s Garden Theater, the marble mansion of Mrs. Stewart, the Clarendon, St. James and Grand Hotels and several business blocks in Saratoga Springs.”  There were also “two lots of land at Hempstead Plains, one containing 7170 acres and the other containing 1062 acres, and the Greenfield cemetery at Hempstead…; various parcels of land in Oyster Bay; also thirteen miles of railroad running from Floral Park to Bethpage and all the equipment; also Bleeker Street property, and a great number of buildings in various streets in New York City.”  In addition to this real estate, the heirs divided some $12,000,000 which remained of the Stewart fortune.  (The information about the assets of the A.T. Stewart estate came from Vincent Seyfried’s The Founding of Garden City, Uniondale, N.Y.: Salisbury Printers, 1969, p. 43-53, the chapter entitled “Last Years of the Stewart Estate.”)

This inheritance passed through the eight heirs in the Clinch and Butler families to the J. Lawrence Smith family descendants and to the Butler family descendants who were living in Smithtown.  The sudden riches that Judge Smith’s children inherited made it possible for them to do what nouveau riche newcomers on Long Island’s north shore were doing – build their own estates.  Cornelia and Prescott Butler benefitted from inheriting two shares of the A.T. Stewart fortune – one share through Cornelia’s mother, Sarah Nicoll Clinch, and a second share through Prescott’s mother, Louise Clinch.  Cornelia and Prescott Butler were fabulously rich, and in the 1890’s, this fortune made it possible for them to improve their estate in St. James.  Prescott Butler started by building extensions onto Bytheharbor.   Then he had a windmill built on the harbor which was used to pump fresh water up the hill to his house near Moriches Road.  Then he purchased 800 acres of land that surrounded Bytheharbor and stretched to the south along Fifty Acre Road.  And finally he had a fine new stable built for his horses complete with “box stalls and all the fancy fixins.”  Lawrence Butler wrote in his own memoirs that his father built the stables at a time when “those sinful automobiles” were just “beginning to creep in” and he swore that he would never own an automobile.  He never did since he died of cancer in 1901 at the age of 53.  (Barbara Van Lieu, Head-of-the-Harbor, A Journey Through Time, Main Road Books, Inc. Laurel, N.Y., 2005, p. 37.)  

Following her husband’s death, Cornelia spent more of her time in St. James where she felt at home among family and friends.  She continued to live at Bytheharbor and was there in 1903 when a fire burned the new stables to the ground.  Cornelia then had a guesthouse built on the foundations of the stable.  This large building, which was behind Bytheharbor and further down the hill along Cordwood Path, was intended as a playhouse where large social functions could be held and athletic activities and events could be staged.  The north end of this building originally contained a squash court.  Immediately adjacent to the court was a central hallway that had showers and a tiled “plunge” located off the hallway.  After a strenuous squash match, players could take a dip in the pool.  In 1905, Stanford White  added a ballroom to the guesthouse, a huge addition that was two stories high and “seventy feet long, with a paneled stage at one end.”  The room was so large, 70’ long and 40’ wide, with a ceiling 22’ above the floor that it reminded people of a casino and it was referred to as Butler’s Casino.  Apparently Stanford White designed the ball room specifically for Cornelia Butler.  The ballroom was to become the site of many social functions in Smithtown – social functions that were sponsored and organized by Mrs. Cornelia Stewart Smith Butler, and after her death, by her son Lawrence Butler.  (The information about the Casino came from Butler-Smith and Allied Family Histories, Genealogical and Biographical, issued under the editorial supervision of Ruth Lawrence, published by National Americana Publications, Inc., New York, 1952, pp.10,11,13,14.  The book is in the Long Island Room of the Smithtown Library.)

Cornelia lived fourteen years following Prescott’s death, and during that time, she became the ‘first Lady’ of Smithtown, a real leader in Smithtown’s society.  Cornelia was a generous benefactor and helped the people of St. James by contributing $1,000 toward the cost of construction of a new schoolhouse on Three Sisters Road.  She convinced her brother-in-law, Stanford White to design the school.  She also supported the construction of the building known as the Assembly Hall for the people of St. James.   She generously donated the ½ acre of land in Smithtown Branch upon which the original Smithtown Library was built, and then she loaned the Smithtown Library money to pay for the cost of construction of the building.  She persuaded her son, Lawrence Butler, to design the building and oversee its construction.  And when the Smithtown Library opened its doors, Cornelia Butler became one of the first members of the Smithtown Library Board of Trustees.  

Cornelia Butler became known for her generosity and philanthropy and she quietly helped out many people in Smithtown. She sponsored Christmas parties for the children of St. James and paid for the distribution of Thanksgiving and Christmas turkeys to the firemen of St. James.  These things we know she did, but there were many more private and secret acts of kindness that she performed to help those in misfortune or distress that we will never know about.  When she passed away from pneumonia at the age of 69 on October 21, 1915, George Zabriskie, who knew of her generosity, was prompted to write the following obituary for the Smithtown Messenger:

“In all the generations of his (Richard Smythe’s) descendants that have lived and died during these two and a half centuries, no name is held now, or will be transmitted in our local traditions to those who come after us, in warmer affection or higher esteem than the name of Mrs. Cornelia Stewart Butler. …  She inherited from her father, the late J. Lawrence Smith, a deep love for Smithtown, its woods and fields and waters, its people, and its history, a love which grew with the seventy years she lived among us.”

“Her wide acquaintance among our people and her constant regard for them will be treasured in many households.  We have all known her interest in the Public Library, in the Town Hall, in the Assembly Hall, and in the St. James’ Church. Few but the recipients have known of her private and secret acts of kindness to many in misfortune or distress.  To everyone in Smithtown she was in unique sense our neighbor.  It is not the happiness of many persons to be so universally loved as Mrs. Butler was: not only here, the home of her heart, but also in New York, where every year a part of her life was passed. Those who knew her could not help loving her.”

“No difficult analysis is requisite to discover the reason; she loved other people.  A mind free from guile, simple and direct; a charity, that neither spoke nor thought evil of others; a humility, that thought little of herself but delighted to make much of everybody else; a sincere piety that expressed itself in service toward God and man; a sympathetic spirit, not free from anxiety, but chiefly troubled by the cares of others; a friendliness that evoked friendship; such qualities as these made knowing her equivalent to loving her.”

“Mrs. Butler in her gracious and useful life has added much to the happiness of those who came into contact with her.  The Town of Smithtown, the City of New York, are better for her living in them.”

Cornelia Stewart Smith Butler must have been a remarkable lady.  It is too bad that more of her philanthropic deeds are not known so that we could all truly appreciate what she did for others and for the people of Smithtown.  An indication of her generosity can be found in her will.  Upon her death, it was believed that the Butler estate was worth more than $1 million.  “The bulk of the property” was to go to her three children, Lawrence, Charles, and Susan Butler.  But there were “specific bequests.”  The St. James Episcopal Church received $5,000 and “a tract of land opposite the Church with the provision that it is to be used as a public park forever.”  The Grace Church of New York City received $1,000 “for general purposes.”  The Kips Bay Day Nursery received $500 and so did the Smithtown Library.  And the “Public School District of St. James” received “the income of $1,000 … to provide an instructive entertainment each Spring to the pupils.” (New York Times, “Mrs. Butler’s Will Filed,” November 7, 1915.)

So it can be seen that even after her death, Mrs. Butler’s philanthropic work continued.  She had instilled in her children the belief that they were obligated to help others in need and to help make their community a better place to live.  Her children would strive to do just that.