Clarence Hungerford Mackay
| Clarence Mackay | |
|---|---|
Mackay circa 1915
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| Born |
Clarence Hungerford Mackay April 17, 1874 |
| Died | November 12, 1938 (aged 64) Manhattan, New York City, U.S. |
| Nationality | American |
| Spouse(s) |
Katherine Duer (m. 1898; div. 1914) Anna Case (m. 1931; his death 1938) |
| Parent(s) | John William Mackay |
| Relatives | Mary Barrett (granddaughter) |
Clarence Hungerford Mackay (/ˈmæki/; April 17, 1874 – November 12, 1938) was an American financier. He was chairman of the board of the Postal Telegraph and Cable Corporation and president of the Mackay Radio and Telegraph Company.
He was born on April 17, 1874 to John William Mackay (pronounced MACK-ee). His father was a silver miner and telegraph mogul who had been born in Dublin and emigrated to America with his parents; his father dying soon after. John sold newspapers then got a shipyard job to support his mother and sister, then went west, and struck lucky; with three other Irishmen (James Graham Fair, James C Flood, and William S O’Brien) he formed a mining corporation, which in 1873 discovered the single largest lode of silver ore in the world, to be known as the Comstock Lode in Virginia City, Nevada, earning them the title The Silver Kings. It made all of them unimaginably wealthy. John married Louise Antoinette Hungerford Bryant and adopted her daughter by an earlier marriage. They lived between Paris and New York, where they brought up this daughter and their two sons, John and Clarence.
Clarence and his first wife, Katherine (née Duer) Mackay had a home in New York City, as well as the celebrated Harbor Hill in Roslyn, Long Island built for them by his father, designed by Stanford White of McKim, Mead, and White. This was the largest home White ever designed.
Katherine Duer Mackay (1880–1930) was a beautiful debutante from an old, high society, New York family. Clarence met her on a steamship crossing between New York and England in about 1897. They fell in love and were married on May 17, 1898. Harbor Hill, the site of their future estate with the striking view of Hempstead Harbor, was Katherine's and Clarie's wedding present from the senior Mackays. Katherine oversaw much of the design and building of their mansion at Harbor Hill. Katherine was a suffragette and a champion of women's rights and became the first woman member of the Roslyn school board in 1905. Katherine left Clarence and her three children to run away with the doctor who had cured Clarence's throat cancer, Dr. Joseph Blake, in 1910. Blake then cured her eye cancer, and he in turn ran away with her nurse. The marriage officially ended in divorce in Paris in 1914. Katherine returned to New York in 1930, the same year she died from cancer.
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