26 Facts About Larz Anderson

Larz Anderson was an American diplomat and bon vivant.

Larz Anderson served as second secretary at the United States Legation to the Court of St James's, London; as first secretary and later charge d'affaires at the United States Embassy in Rome; as United States Minister to Belgium; and then briefly as the Ambassador to Japan.

Larz Anderson was born in Paris on August 15,1866, while his Cincinnati, Ohio, parents, who had married on March 28,1865, were on their planned year-long honeymoon, which was extended six months due to the birth of their son.

Larz Anderson was the great-grandson of Lieutenant Richard Clough Anderson Sr.

Larz Anderson was the grandnephew of Brigadier General Robert Anderson, who defended Fort Sumter at the beginning of the American Civil War.

Larz Anderson attended Phillips Exeter Academy in Exeter, New Hampshire, before attending Harvard College.

In June 1891, after Larz Anderson had dropped out of Harvard Law School, his father interceded with his 1858 Harvard classmate Robert Todd Lincoln, son of President Abraham Lincoln, who was then serving as the US minister to the Court of St James's in London.

In 1894, after three years in London, Larz Anderson was appointed first secretary of the American embassy in Rome and then, in 1897, served for several months as charge d'affaires, until he resigned to return to the US for his wedding to Isabel Weld Perkins.

Larz Anderson's resignation was at the time controversial, and American newspapers reported on his months-long efforts to be released from his post by the US Department of State.

Larz Anderson returned to the diplomatic corps in 1911 as United States Minister to Belgium, serving from November 18,1911 until November 15,1912, when he was appointed Ambassador to Japan.

Larz Anderson held this post as a fully accredited and confirmed American ambassador for only one day, March 3,1913, though he was in Japan from December 28,1912, until his return to the United States on March 16,1913.

Larz Anderson resigned when the Republican administration of William Howard Taft was replaced by the Democratic administration of Woodrow Wilson.

Larz Anderson seems to have been blissfully unaware of or unconcerned with the factors making for Anglo-American friendship in the early [eighteen]-nineties.

Larz Anderson's diaries shed no new light on Italian-American relations during the same decade.

Larz Anderson later received the Spanish War Service Medal, awarded to all who served on active duty in the United States Army anytime between 20 April 1898 and 11 April 1899 who were not deployed to a combat zone.

In 1896, while serving as First Secretary at the United States Embassy in Rome, Italy, Larz Anderson met Isabel Weld Perkins, a young debutante from Boston who was then on her grand tour of Europe, Egypt, and the Holy Land.

The Larz Anderson family had arrived in Jamestown 1634; and the Welds in the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1632.

Larz Anderson's inheritance was held in a trust for her until her twenty-fifth birthday.

Larz Anderson was a member of several organizations, including the Sons of the Revolution, the Loyal Legion and the Naval and Military Order of the Spanish War.

Larz Anderson was admitted to the Maryland Society of the Cincinnati in 1894, following the death of his father.

Larz Anderson was eligible for membership in the Society of the Cincinnati by virtue of being the great grandson of Lieutenant Colonel Richard Clough Anderson of Virginia, one of the founding members of the organization.

Larz Anderson was a loyal member of the Society and had various motifs based on the Society's insignia incorporated into the decoration of their Washington mansion, Larz Anderson House, along with those of other organizations he was connected with.

Larz Anderson died in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia, and was interred at Washington National Cathedral, where his remains rest in the St Mary Chapel with those of his wife.

Larz Anderson occasionally stayed in the house, but preferred her own small, rustic summer camp in a rural area of southern New Hampshire that she used as a writing retreat and for visits with her relatives.

Over time, the couple acquired an additional 7 acres of adjacent land, where Larz Anderson built three smaller mansions that were used as guest housing and storage.

Larz Anderson directed that architectural design elements from Lulworth Castle, an ancestral home associated with the Roman Catholic branch of the Weld family, be incorporated into the structure.