Ogden Mills

Ogden Mills (December 18, 1856 - January 29, 1929) was an American financier and Thoroughbred racehorse owner.

Life and career

He was born on December 18, 1856 in Sacramento, California to Jane Templeton Cunningham and Darius Ogden Mills. His father was a highly successful banker and investor who in 1910 left Ogden Mills and his sister an estate valued at $36,227,391. As a result of his father's many corporate investments, Ogden Mills would serve on the Board of Directors of a number of companies including the New York Central Railroad.

Ogden Mills married Ruth T. Livingston, daughter of Maturin Livingston, Jr. and Ruth Baylies, granddaughter of Maturin Livingston and Margaret Lewis, great-granddaughter of Robert James Livingston and Susan Smith, great-great-granddaughter of James Livingston and Dutch American Marrietje Kierstede, and great-great-great-granddaughter of Robert Livingston, whose statue the State of New York put into the National Statuary Hall Collection in Washington, D.C. as one of its two most illustrious citizens.

She inherited the Livingston Mansion in Staatsburg, New York which the couple used as a summer home and where they raised horses. Ogden and Ruth Mills had twin daughters, Gladys and Beatrice, and a son, Ogden Livingston Mills, who would become the 50th United States Secretary of the Treasury.

Thoroughbred racing legacy

A member of The Jockey Club, Ogden Mills raced horses in the United States and maintained a racing stable in France in partnership with Lord Derby. Among their successes in that country, they won the 1928 Grand Prix de Paris with the colt Cri de Guerre, bred by Evremond de Saint-Alary. On his death in 1929, Ogden Mills left to his daughter Beatrice, a resident of London, England, married to Bernard Forbes, 8th Earl of Granard, his French racing stable and a home at 73 Rue de Varenne in Paris. That year, Beatrice led all French owners in purses earned.

Daughter Gladys and son Ogden established Wheatley Stable in 1926; it would become one of the preeminent racing and breeding operations in American racing history. Gladys Mills married Henry Carnegie Phipps. Their daughter, Barbara Phipps Janney, and son, Ogden Phipps, plus grandson Ogden Mills Phipps and granddaughter Cynthia Phipps, would be major figures in the sport.

Death

Ruth Livingston Mills died at their residence in Paris, France on October 13, 1920. Ogden Mills died of pneumonia on January 29, 1929 at the family home in New York City. Ogden Mills was buried with his wife at the mausoleum in St. James's Cemetery in Hyde Park New York.

Philanthropy

Like his father, Ogden Mills was involved in a number of chartitable causes and the Ogden Mills & Ruth Livingston Mills State Park encompasses their mansion at Staatsburg, New York that is now Staatsburgh State Historic Site.