Edith Van Buren

Edith Van Buren (also known as the Countess de Castelmenardo; 1858-1914) was an American socialite and world traveler. She is remembered for her tourism in the Yukon, her contentious divorce from a man styling himself as the Count di Castelmenardo, and her family connection to Teaneck, New Jersey.

Edith Van Buren's father was General Thomas Brodhead Van Buren, a Union officer and U.S. diplomat who later became the U.S. Consul-General in Yokohama. Through her father, Edith Van Buren was related to the U.S. president Martin Van Buren. Her mother was Harriet Sheffield, daughter of the railroad magnate Joseph Earl Sheffield. Harriet Sheffield's brother-in-law, William Walter Phelps, encouraged the family to take up residence in Teaneck, New Jersey.

A marble portrait bust of Edith Van Buren by the American sculptor Luella Varney was exhibited at the 1893 Chicago World's Columbian Exhibition. One list of Varney's work described Van Buren as "the beauty." The bust is now on display at the Teaneck public library.

In 1898, Van Buren went to Klondike with her friend Mary Evelyn Hitchcock, embarking from San Francisco on a steamer. Their luggage included multiple pets and an early motion picture device called an animatoscope. Hitchcock later described their visit in a book, Two Women in the Klondike.

Edith Van Buren met Gennaro Vesicchio, also known as Gennaro di Castelmenardo, in Nice, France, where her brother Harold Sheffield Van Buren was a U.S. consul. Vesicchio represented himself as the count of Castelmenardo. The couple married in London. However, Vesicchio became indebted, losing money in Monte Carlo, and Van Buren learned that he was not actually a count. She paid for a title of nobility for him, then learned that he was committing adultery. She had him jailed for adultery, then sued for separation and later divorce. Van Buren retained the title of Countess de Castelmenardo.

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