Florence Adele Vanderbilt Twombly

Florence Adele Vanderbilt Twombly (January 8, 1854 – April 11, 1952) was an American heiress and a member of the prominent Vanderbilt family.

Biography

Early life

Florence was born on Staten Island in New York City on January 8, 1854. She was a daughter of William Henry Vanderbilt and Maria Louisa Kissam. Her paternal grandfather was the Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt, Jr.. Her siblings were Cornelius II, Margaret Louisa, William Kissam, Frederick William, Eliza Osgood, Emily Thorn, and George Washington II.

Houses

• Townhouse at 684 Fifth Avenue in New York City, designed by John B. Snook and given as a gift from her father, William Henry Vanderbilt.
  Twombly townhouse - 5th Avenue, NYC
  Demolished.
• Vinland, a Romanesque "cottage" in Newport, Rhode Island built in 1882 for tobacco heiress Catharine Lorillard Wolfe by Peabody & Stearns, purchased by the Twomblys in 1896 and greatly enlarged. Interiors by Ogden Codman. Now part of Salve Regina University and called McAuley Hall.
• Florham, an 800-acre estate in Florham Park, New Jersey designed by McKim, Mead & White in 1897. Part of it including the manor house now belongs to Farleigh Dickinson University.
• Townhouse, her second, a 70-room house at 1 East 71st Street, New York City. Designed by Whitney Warren. Demolished.

Personal life

She married Hamilton McKown Twombly (1849-1910) in 1877. They had four children: Alice Twombly (1879–1896) Died at the age of sixteen on the eve of her society debut; Florence Adele Twombly (1881–1969) (married William A. M. Burden); Ruth Twombly (1884-1954) Never married; Hamilton McKown Twombly, Jr. (1887-1906) Drowned in an incident at a summer camp where he was working as a camp counselor.

She died April 11, 1952 in New York City, having outlived her husband by 42 years. She is in interred at Woodlawn Cemetery (Bronx).