Joseph Edward Willard

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Joseph Edward Willard, 1913

Joseph Edward Willard (* 1. May 1865 in Washington, DC , † 4. April 1924 in New York ) was an American politician and diplomat , the 1902-1906 Vice Governor of Virginia and 1913-1921 Ambassador of the United States in Spain was.

Life

Joseph Edward Willard was born in 1865 to Joseph Clapp Willard (1820–1897) and Antonia Ford Willard (1838–1871). Joseph Clapp Willard had during the Civil War as a Major of the Union , the Confederate spy imprisoned Antonia Ford. When, after seven months of imprisonment in the Old Capitol Hall Prison, they threatened to lose their love affair, he said goodbye and married Antonia Ford in 1864, who died in 1871 of her poor health and two stillbirths. Joseph Clapp Willard owned the famous Willard Hotel in Washington, DC

Joseph Edward Willard attended Episcopal High School in Alexandria and the Virginia Military Institute in Lexington from 1882 to 1886 and studied at the University of Virginia Law School . As a hotel heir and through his other possessions and investments, Willard was one of the richest men in Virginia at an early age and lived on the Layton Hall estate.

At the Spanish-American War , he took originally as captain of a company of the Third Virginia Volunteer Infantry in part, then as adjutant of General Fitzhugh Lee and deputy quartermaster of the 7th Corps.

Willard was married to Belle Layton Wyatt Willard (1869-1954) since 1891. For eight years, from 1893 to 1901, Willard sat in the Virginia House of Delegates . A little later he was elected 19th lieutenant governor of Virginia. He held this office from 1902 to 1906. After unsuccessfully applying for the office of governor, he gave up that of lieutenant governor. Willard then served as commissioner for the Virginia State Corporation Commission for four years .

In 1913 he was appointed by US President Woodrow Wilson as the first US ambassador to Spain after the last war. During the outbreak of World War I , Willard was on vacation in the United States. He returned to Europe on board the armored cruiser USS Tennessee , although his daughter Belle (1892–1968), who was married to Theodore Roosevelt's son Kermit Roosevelt , had typhus . Belle later recovered from the serious illness. Willard himself had applied for his return to active service when the war broke out, but this was rejected. In the following years he tried to use his personal fortune to protect the US investments in Spain and improved the Spanish-American relationship.

Joseph Eward Willard served as US ambassador to Spain until 1921 and returned to New York. As a philanthropist, Willard had been socially committed to the citizens of his home town of Fairfax and constructed a townhouse in 1900 that he donated to the community.

Willard died in New York in 1924 at the age of 58 of complications from angina pectoris . He found his final resting place in Oak Hill Cemetery in Washington, DC The Spanish king, who had honored him while he was still alive, sent a personal confidante to Willard's funeral.

Afterlife

The former civil parish of Willard in Loudoun County , Virginia was named in his honor. The Old Town Hall he constructed is now a venue for concerts and other events; Layton Hall was sold for development in 1972. Today there is a shopping mall on the site . The Willards' second daughter, Mary Elizabeth Willard, married the British diplomat Mervyn Herbert, son of Henry Herbert, 4th Earl of Carnarvon . Joseph Edward Willard's grandson Kermit Roosevelt Jr. (1916–2000) later took a leading position within the CIA .

literature

  • Alice Pierce Flannigan: The role of Joseph E. Willard as American ambassador to Spain. University of South Carolina 1991.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Catherine Davis Morgan: Antonia Ford: Wellborn Methodist, Confederate spy. In: Virginia United Methodist heritage. Bulletin of the Virginia Conference Historical Society. vol. 37, no.1 (spring 2011), pp. 1–6.
  2. ^ Amy Murrell Taylor: The Divided Family in Civil War America. University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, NC, 2005, p. 236.
  3. ↑ http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2005694166/
  4. ^ Richard Jay Hutto, June Hall McCash, Stillman Rockefeller (Eds.): Their Gilded Cage: The Jekyll Island Club Members . Indigo Custom Publishing, Macon, Ga, 2006, p. 160.
  5. ↑ Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary (Spain)
  6. ↑ Cruiser Off With $ 5,750,000 in gold to Aid Americans, New York World, Aug. 7, 1914th
  7. ^ Historical Views of Layton Hall , In: Trevor Owens: Fairfax County. Arcadia Publishing, Charleston, SC, 2010, p. 35.
personal data
SURNAME Willard, Joseph Edward
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American politician and diplomat
DATE OF BIRTH May 1, 1865
PLACE OF BIRTH Washington, DC
DATE OF DEATH April 4, 1924
Place of death new York