32 Facts About Vincent Astor

William Vincent Astor was an American businessman, philanthropist, and member of the prominent Astor family.

Vincent Astor was the elder child of John Jacob Vincent Astor IV, a wealthy businessman and inventor, and his first wife, Ava Lowle Willing, an heiress from Philadelphia.

Vincent Astor graduated in 1910 from St George's School in Middletown, Rhode Island, and attended Harvard College from 1911 to 1912, leaving school without graduating.

Vincent Astor served as commodore of the New York Yacht Club from 1928 to 1930.

Vincent Astor set out to change the family's image from that of miserly, aloof slum landlords who enjoyed the good life at the expense of others.

Vincent Astor was responsible for the construction of a large housing complex in the Bronx that included sufficient land for a large children's playground, and in Harlem, he transformed a valuable piece of real estate into another playground for children.

Vincent Astor appeared at No 12 on the first list of America's richest people, compiled by Forbes magazine.

Vincent Astor inherited Ferncliff, the Astor family's 2,800-acre estate in Rhinebeck, New York, where his father had been born.

However, Vincent Astor would be the last Astor family member to own the estate as well as the final Astor to occupy the "Ferncliff Casino", a Stanford White-designed 1904 Beaux-Arts style 40,000 square feet building, which was inspired by the Grand Trianon at Versailles.

On his death in 1959, Vincent Astor bequeathed a main house at Ferncliff to the Benedictine Hospital in Kingston, New York.

In 1963, Homer Staley, a retired businessman in the area, asked Brooke Vincent Astor to preserve the remaining natural acreage of woodlands from development.

Vincent Astor donated the woodlands to the Rotary Club of Rhinebeck, and the land became the Ferncliff Forest Game Refuge and Forest Preserve.

Upton Sinclair, author of The Jungle, wrote Vincent Astor an open letter, which he describes in The Brass Check and he sent to over half a dozen newspapers, requesting that he support the Socialist cause and help the poor, at a time when Sinclair claims Vincent Astor was erecting a million dollar estate, without benefiting the rest of society; the only newspaper to publish his letter was a Socialist newspaper, the New York Call.

Vincent Astor replied to this letter, and sent a copy out to over half a dozen newspapers, and according to Sinclair, all of them published his reply in full, including the New York Call.

Shortly after his divorce, Vincent Astor married Mary Benedict Cushing, the eldest daughter of Dr Harvey Williams Cushing and Katharine Stone Crowell.

Vincent Astor and Cushing divorced in September 1953, and the following month, Cushing wed James Whitney Fosburgh, a painter who worked as an art lecturer at the Frick Museum.

On October 8,1953, several weeks after divorcing his second wife, Vincent Astor married the once-divorced, once-widowed Roberta Brooke Russell.

Vincent Astor joined the Naval Reserve shortly after it was founded and was commissioned as an ensign on December 28,1915.

Vincent Astor was called to active duty as part of the New York Naval Militia in February 1917 by order of Governor Charles S Whitman to help guard bridges and aqueducts against possible German sabotage.

Vincent Astor was assigned to help guard the Brooklyn and Manhattan bridges.

Vincent Astor was later assigned to the armed yacht USS Aphrodite.

Vincent Astor was promoted to lieutenant on January 1,1918, and to lieutenant on July 1,1918.

Vincent Astor was joined in France by his wife, who did charity work with the YMCA at the naval base in Bordeaux, while he served as Port Officer at Royan.

Vincent Astor returned to the United States on the U-117 on April 25,1919, and was discharged on May 24.

In World War II, Vincent Astor again served on active duty with the Navy.

Vincent Astor was called to active duty with the rank of commander and given assignment as Area Controller for New York.

On December 13,1940, Vincent Astor began reporting to the US Treasury the Soviet weekly balances in an unbroken sequence up through at least 1945.

Vincent Astor died on February 3,1959, of a heart attack in his apartment at 120 East End Avenue in Manhattan.

Vincent Astor left all of his money to the Vincent Astor foundation, with Brooke surprising many.

Vincent Astor was first interred at his "Ferncliff Casino" estate along the Hudson River in Rhinebeck, New York.

When his widow, Brooke Vincent Astor, later disposed of the property, he was reinterred in the Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Sleepy Hollow, New York.

Vincent Astor was certain that Vincent was "mentally incompetent" when signing his last will in June 1958 due to frequent smoking and alcoholism, although Brooke insisted otherwise.