Charles Phelps Taft

Charles Phelps Taft (December 21, 1843 – December 31, 1929) was an American lawyer and politician who served as editor of the Cincinnati Times-Star, and owned both the Philadelphia Phillies and Chicago Cubs baseball teams. From 1895 to 1897, he served one term in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Early life "Brother Charley" shown as part of president Taft's entourage. Taft was born on December 21, 1843, in Cincinnati, Ohio. He was the eldest child born to Fanny Phelps and Alphonso Taft. His father served as the 34th United States Attorney General and 31st United States Secretary of War, both under President Ulysses S. Grant. Among his younger half-brothers was William Howard Taft, the 27th President of the United States and 10th Chief Justice of the United States, and Horace Dutton Taft, the founder of The Taft School in Watertown, Connecticut, to which he donated $150,000 in 1929.

His maternal grandfather was Judge Charles Phelps, of Townshend, Vermont, and his paternal grandparents were Peter Rawson Taft (1785–1867) of the Taft family and Sylvia (née Howard) Taft. He was the uncle of Robert Alphonso Taft and Charles Phelps Taft II, and the granduncle of Robert Taft Jr. In 1867, he received another degree from the University of Heidelberg.

Baseball team ownership In 1905, Taft became a minority owner of the Chicago Cubs when Charles Murphy purchased the club. In 1909, Taft and Murphy funded Horace Fogel's purchase of the Philadelphia Phillies. The pair publicly denied that they had purchased a second club, but did acknowledge that Taft was the owner of Philadelphia's National League Park. After Fogel received a lifetime ban from baseball in 1912, Taft sold the Phillies to William H. Locke. Taft sold the Cubs to Charles Weeghman, with some financial backing from William Wrigley Jr., after the 1915 season.

Personal life 1908 drawing by Marguerite Martyn of Louise Taft (left) and Anna Sinton Taft (right). On December 4, 1873, where he was buried at Spring Grove Cemetery. He left an estate valued at $6,367,374.

Descendants Through his daughter Jane, he was the grandfather of First World War flying ace David Sinton Ingalls (1899–1985), who married Louise Hale Harkness, daughter of William L. Harkness and granddaughter of Daniel M. Harkness, who was instrumental in the formation of Standard Oil. He was also the grandfather of Anne Taft Ingalls, who married Rupert E. L. Warburton, "a scion of one of England's oldest families," in 1929. His nephew, Charles Phelps Taft II who served as Mayor of Cincinnati, Ohio from 1955 to 1957 was named after him.

Legacy Following his death, Annie (Anna) Sinton Taft donated $5 million to the University of Cincinnati in 1930 and established a memorial fund after his name. This fund was transformed in 2005 into the Charles Phelps Taft Research Center at the University of Cincinnati. The city of Taft, Texas was named after him in 1904.

His art collection was said to be the most valuable in the West in 1908. He owned at least two works each of Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, Jean-François Millet and Ernest Meissonier, many pieces of fine Chinese porcelain, Portrait of a Man Rising from His Chair by Rembrandt, The Tompkinson Boys by Thomas Gainsborough, and The Cobbler's Apprentice by Frank Duveneck, as well as paintings by Anthony van Dyck, Frans Hals, Jan Steen, Meindert Hobbema, Francisco Goya, Joshua Reynolds and Rousseau.