Carrie Astor Wilson

Caroline Schermerhorn Astor Wilson (October 10, 1861 – September 13, 1948)

Carrie was a descendant of many prominent Americans. Her paternal grandparents were William Backhouse Astor Sr. and Margaret (née Armstrong) Astor while her maternal grandparents were Abraham Schermerhorn and Helen Van Courtlandt (née White) Schermerhorn of the Van Cortlandt family. She was also a great-granddaughter of John Jacob Astor, America's first millionaire, wealthy merchant Peter Schemerhorn, and Continental major and U.S. Senator John Armstrong Jr. and Alida (née Livingston) Armstrong of the Livingston family. known for its ballroom.

Society life

In 1883, wealthy socialite Alva Vanderbilt, the then-wife of railroad tycoon William Kissam Vanderbilt, planned an elaborate masquerade ball for 1,000 guests (reportedly costing $3 million) to celebrate the opening of her new home at 660 Fifth Avenue, known as the William K. Vanderbilt House. The ball was to feature entertainment given by young society figures, including a dance in which young Carrie was to participate. However, at the last minute, Carrie learned that she was not invited, because Carrie's mother, Caroline Schermerhorn Astor – the Mrs. Astor and the undisputed head of New York society – had never formally "called upon" Alva. Alva then extended an invitation to the Astors, and they attended the ball. Reciprocally, Mrs. Astor invited the Vanderbilts to her annual ball, which was considered a formal acknowledgement of the Vanderbilts' full acceptance into the highest echelon of New York society.

After her 1884 marriage, Carrie became a noted society hostess in her own right. Despite her family's initial reluctance at the marriage, her father purchased them a new home at 414 Fifth Avenue (not far from her parents at 350 Fifth) as a wedding present, which was furnished by Wilson's father. Her mother also built a new Astor residence uptown, at the northeast corner of Fifth and East 65th Street, for Mrs. Astor and Carrie's brother, John Jacob Astor IV, at 841 and 840 Fifth Avenue and designed by society architect Richard Morris Hunt. At the inaugural ball at her mother's new residence on February 3, 1896, Carrie led the cotillion in the new ballroom while her brother's wife (the former Ava Lowle Willing) led the cotillion from the other side. Wilson bought the property in 1896, began construction in 1900, and the six-story limestone mansion with forty rooms was completed in 1903. The sixty-five feet wide residence had a Beaux Arts facade of Indiana Limestone and a mansard roof of blue slate and featured five bays and featured a circular atrium. On January 21, 1904, a banker from Loudon, Tennessee who had served the Commissary-General of the Confederacy and became rich investing in railways (leading to claims of war profiteering). Wilson and his siblings were known in New York and Newport society as the "Marrying Wilsons" due to their marriages into the wealthiest and most prominent families. His sister Grace married Cornelius Vanderbilt III, and his brother, Richard Jr. was married to Marion Steedman Mason, granddaughter of Rear Admiral Charles Steedman of Charleston, South Carolina, and great-granddaughter of the U.S. Senator of New Hampshire, Jeremiah Mason. Another sister, Belle, was married to Sir Michael Henry Herbert (the British Ambassador to the U.S. during Theodore Roosevelt's presidency and brother to the Earl of Pembroke ), and Mary, who married New York real estate heir Ogden Goelet (parents of Mary Goelet, who married the Duke of Roxburghe).

Reportedly, Carrie "starved herself into bulimia until her mother gave in and agreed to the marriage." On November 18, 1884, Carrie was married to Wilson at the Astor mansion.

Marshall Orme Wilson Jr. (1885–1966), who was appointed U.S. Ambassador to Haiti by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1944. Richard Thornton Wilson III (1886–1977), who married Harriet Appleton Post (1894–1969), a granddaughter of George B. Post, in 1923. They divorced and he later became the third husband of Florence Magee Ellsworth (1902–1943) in 1942. Harriet married Sumner Welles in 1952.

Her husband died on April 1, 1926, in New York City, and he was buried at Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx. In his will, Carrie received their residence and all of its belongings, and their sons inherited the residual estate, including funds left by their paternal grandfather in trust for them.

Carrie lived another twenty-two years and died on September 13, 1948, at the home of her son Richard, 1 Sutton Place (the former home of Anne Harriman Vanderbilt). She was the last surviving child of her parents. After a funeral at Trinity Church, she was buried alongside her husband at Woodlawn Cemetery. After her death, her former home was sold to the Indian Government to house their diplomats in New York for $500,000.

In popular culture In the HBO series The Gilded Age, Carrie is a recurring character portrayed by actress Amy Forsyth.