Francis M. Bacon

Francis McNeil Bacon (June 27, 1835 – September 21, 1912) was an American woolen manufacturer and banker.

Early life Bacon was born on June 27, 1835, in Dorchester, Massachusetts. He was the eldest child of Lory Baldwin Bacon (1806–1877) and Sarah Ann ( Hammond) Bacon (1810–1886). Among his siblings were Sarah Walton Bacon and Louisa Fisher Bacon.

He was a grandson of Rufus Bacon of Sutton, who served with the Massachusetts militia during the Revolutionary War.

Career After graduating from Boston High School, he moved to New York City to "engage in the dry goods business." The following year, because of ill health, he went to California. In 1873, he founded Haines, Bacon & Col, woolen commission merchants. In 1877, the firm became Bacon, Baldwin & Col, which continued after Baldwin's death in 1892 when it was renamed to Bacon & Co, and located at 92 Franklin Street in New York. Before her death in 1876, they were the parents of five children: Margaret Gray Bacon (1866–1933), who Clinton Gilbert in 1899. They divorced in 1921. James Frederick Bacon (1867–1929), a daughter of John Bowers Lee and former wife of Ralph G. Miller, in July 1912. Elizabeth Chapman Bacon (1870–1873), who died young. an 1899 graduate of Harvard Law; he married Mabel ( Dean) Kalbfleisch, daughter of James Edward Dean and widow of Edward Kalbfleisch, in June 1912.

After her death, he married Katherine Paris Storrow (1842–1917) in October 1879. She was a daughter of Thomas Wentworth Storrow and Sarah Sanders ( Paris) Storrow and a grandniece of author Washington Irving. Her sister, Julie Grinnell Storrow, was the wife of Stephen Van Rensselaer Cruger. Together, they were the parents of one child: who served in France during World War I; he married actress Katherine La Salle Carpenter, daughter of Charles O. La Salle and former wife of Samuel Emlen Carpenter, in 1929. She had acted opposite John Barrymore in Master Mind.

He was a member of the Century Association, the Union Club, the Union League Club, the Players Club, the Merchants Club, the Church Club, and the Sons of the Revolution. In New York, their residence was at 20 West 10th Street.

After a "lingering illness", Bacon died on September 21, 1912, in Ridgefield, Connecticut. His funeral was held at the Episcopal Church of the Holy Communion on Sixth Avenue and 20th Street in Manhattan.

Descendants Through his eldest son Francis, he was a grandfather of Francis McNeil Bacon III (who married photographer Antoinette Wood Frissell, sister of explorer Varick Frissell, in 1932), and Pauline Bacon (who married attorney Harold Edward Herrick in 1918).