Horatio Hollis Hunnewell

Horatio Hollis Hunnewell (July 27, 1810 – May 20, 1902) was an American railroad financier, philanthropist, amateur botanist, and one of the most prominent horticulturists in America in the nineteenth century. Hunnewell was a partner in the private banking firm of Welles & Co. Paris, France controlled by his in-laws, which specialized in trade finance between the two countries. Practicing horticulture for nearly six decades on his estate in Wellesley, Massachusetts, he was perhaps the first person to cultivate and popularize rhododendrons in the United States.

His paternal grandparents were Revolutionary War soldier Richard Hunnewell and Eunice (née Thompson) Hunnewell, and his maternal grandparents were Phineas Cooke and Abigail (née Durant) Cooke.

Career Hunnewell was a director of the Illinois Central Railroad from 1862 to 1871. He was a railroad entrepreneur in Kansas beginning in the 1860s, and president of the Kansas City, Fort Scott and Gulf Railroad and Kansas City, Lawrence and Southern Railroad around 1880. At the time of his death he was a director of 12 railroads and numerous mining, real estate, and other ventures. He also funded the conifer collection at Arnold Arboretum, Boston, Massachusetts, and donated the Arboretum's administration building (now Hunnewell Building) in 1892.

Hunnewell was a friend and neighbor of Henry Fowle Durant (1822–1881), who founded Wellesley College on Lake Waban directly across from Hunnewell's estate. Hunnewell made a donation to the College for Eliot Dormitory in 1887, and endowed the College's Chair of Botany in 1901.

Personal life In 1835, he was married to Isabella Pratt Welles (1812–1888), a daughter of Samuel Welles. She was the half sister of . Together, they had nine children, including:

Hollis Hunnewell (1836–1884), who married Louisa Bronson (1843–1890), sister of Frederic Bronson. Francis Welles Hunnewell (1838–1917), who married Gertrude Gouverneur Sturgis (1862–1890), daughter of John Hubbard Sturgis. Susan Hunnewell (1842–1843), who died in infancy. Walter W. Hunnewell (1844–1921), who married Jane Appleton Peele (1848–1893), daughter of Jonathan Willard Peele, in 1873. Isabella Pratt Hunnewell (1849–1934), who married Robert Gould Shaw (1850–1931), cousin of Robert Gould Shaw. Jane Welles Hunnewell (1851–1936), who married Francis Williams Sargent (1848–1920), grandparents of Governor Francis Sargent.

He died at home in Wellesley, Massachusetts, on May 20, 1902, at age 91. Hunnewell was buried in Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts, among his family. The Wellesley College Botanic Gardens has a distinct Hunnewell Arboretum, named in his honor, across the lake. Rhododendron hunnewellianum also honors him.

Along with Nathaniel Thayer Jr., Hunnewell is credited with bringing the game of Real Tennis (a precursor to modern lawn tennis) to America. The game was thought to have first been played in 1876 when Hunnewell and Thayer, who had played the game in England, brought an English professional, Ted Hunt, home with them from Oxford. They built a court on the corner of Buckingham and Dartmouth Streets in the Back Bay section of Boston and put Hunt in charge of it. When the land the court sat on was acquired by the New York & New Haven Railroad towards the end of the century, Hunnewell reorganized the club in a new building at the corner of Hereford and Boylston Streets, forming the Tennis and Racquet Club of Boston