host to Presidents and Princes, was a prominent partner at J.P. Morgan & Co. and its Philadelphia affiliate Drexel & Co. for over fifty-five years. He also was an accomplished breeder of champion trotting horses, a conservationist, and a generous patron of art, opera and architecture. Although the number two Morgan partner for many years, he resisted the persistent attempts by J. Pierpont Morgan to convince him to move from Philadelphia to New York in order to help run the office there. Ever precise, shrewd and witty, E.T. Stotesbury played a key role in the founding and growth of many of America's great corporations.

Stotesbury, one of the nation's outstanding financiers, who headed the Philadelphia banking firm of Drexel Co. And was a partner of J. Of New York, died at 9:20 o'clock.

Stotesbury and his second wife Eva built three palatial estates: Whitemarsh Hall outside of Philadelphia; El Mirasol in Palm Beach, Florida; and Wingwood in Bar Harbor, Maine. The 147 room Whitemarsh Hall housed one of America's foremost collections of British eighteenth century portraits, and it was arguably the finest example of Palladian architecture in the country.

1. Formal garden at Whitemarsh Hall by Horace Trumbauer, residence for E.T. Stotesbury, Springfield, Pennsylvania, 1919 Due to the ongoing impact of COVID-19, all Free Library locations will remain.
2. Description, photos, references, ratings, reviews, gardens growing and nurseries selling the 'Mrs. Stotesbury' Rose.

The Stotesbury story is filled with appearances by characters such as General Douglas MacArthur, who married Stotesbury's stepdaughter Louise Cromwell Brooks in 1922; the 'Traction Twins' P.A.B. Widener and William L. Elkins; steel titans Andrew Carnegie, Joseph Wharton and Charles Schwab; horse breeders Judge William H. Moore and Alfred G. Vanderbilt; opera stars Mary Garden, Nellie Melba and Luisa Tetrazzini; architects Horace Trumbauer and Addison Mizner; tobacco heiress Doris Duke, known as 'the richest girl in the world,' who married Stotesbury's stepson James H.R. Cromwell in 1935; jeweler Pierre Cartier; New York model Dot King (whose murder remains unsolved to this day); art dealer Joseph Duveen; and of course Eva Stotesbury, whose exquisite wardrobe and jewels were exceeded only by her beauty, grace and charm. It tells of how a man who started as a clerk at Drexel & Co. in Philadelphia in 1866 worked his way to the top of one of America's great investment banking houses, and how he made--and lost--one of America's great fortunes.

E T Stotesbury

The richness of E.T. Stotesbury's life offers a wealth of information. Much as I would like to, I won't be able to include all of this in my book. This website provides greater details about some aspects of the life of E.T. Stotesbury than the book will be able to offer. Feel free to check back periodically as additional data is added from time to time, and I look forward to having the book ready for you to read soon.

--Wayne C. Willcox

The Stotesbury Regatta—the largest high school regatta in the world— is coming around (Friday and Saturday) as it does every year. And it’s time again to inform the thousands of young rowers and their families that there was a real person named Stotesbury. Not only that, he was famous in his time.

E T Stotesbury

Until his death in 1938, Edward T. Stotesbury was one of Philadelphia’s wealthiest and most accomplished men. He had had a huge career, as senior partner of the banking firms Drexel & Co. and J.P. Morgan. He was civic minded and served as president of the Fairmount Park Commission for 26 years. He owned a 100,000 square foot mansion in Philadelphia’s northern suburbs dubbed the “Versailles of Ameria.” Whitemarsh Hall had 147 rooms and 28 bathrooms not to mention 300 acres of land cared for by some 70 gardeners. (It’s now gone but for the gates that remind on a condo complex).

Stotesbury was also a big joiner of clubs, which is what society folks did back in the day. One club he joined at the age of 38 and belonged to until his death was the Bachelors Barge Club, though it’s not believed he was a rower. It was just a prestigious club to be part of and he probably liked the camaraderie of other members with names like Clothier, Burpee, and Wyeth.

By the 1920s, great rowers were emerging on Boathouse Row who were dominating world rowing (including John B. Kelly Sr. and Paul Costello). Stotesbury’s clubmate, Garrett Gilmore had won the silver single sculls medal in the 1924 Olympics, and like Kelly, he wanted to encourage youth rowing so Philadelphia could maintain its global clout.
So in 1927 he turned to the wealthy Stotesbury, then age 78, to donate a cup for a single “school boys” race.

Nowhere in his obituary in 1938 was it mentioned that he was a member of Bachelors and president of the club at the time of his death. Nor that he’d given a sliver cup for a high school regatta.

It is one of the ironies of history that this small gesture is the only thing for which this Philaldephian, so famous in his time, is remembered for today.