Horatio Hollis Hunnewell

Horatio Hollis Hunnewell (July 27, 1810 – May 20, 1902), was a railroad financier, philanthropist, amateur botanist, and one of the most prominent horticulturists in America in the nineteenth century. Mr. Hunnewell was a partner in the private banking firm of Welles & Co. Paris, France controlled by his in-laws which specialized in trade finance between the two countries. Practicing horticulture for nearly six decades on his estate in Wellesley, Massachusetts, he was perhaps the first person to cultivate and popularize rhododendrons in the United States.

He was born on July 27, 1810. Hunnewell was a director of the Illinois Central Railroad in 1862-1871, railroad entrepreneur in Kansas beginning in the 1860s, and president of the Kansas City, Fort Scott and Gulf Railroad and Kansas City, Lawrence and Southern Railroad around 1880. At the time of his death he was a Director of 12 railroads and numerous mining, real estate, and other ventures. He died at home in Wellesley on May 20, 1902, at age 91. Hunnewell was buried in Mount Auburn Cemetery, Cambridge, Massachusetts, among his family. He married Isabella Pratt Welles and together they had nine children. Starting in 1870, Mr. Hunnewell built country homes adjoining his own for seven of his nine children. These estates and adjacent farmland, with one exception still owned by his descendants, form the Hunnewell Estates Historic District, which was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1988.

Both the town of Wellesley (founded 1881) and Wellesley College (chartered 1870) are named for Hunnewell's estate, "Wellesley", which he named for the family of his wife. The H. H. Hunnewell estate includes a prominent 1851 house designed by Arthur Gilman with attached conservatory and gate lodges of 1865-1866 designed by Gridley J.F. Bryant, a pinetum of 325 specimen conifers, a complex of specialty greenhouses, and the first topiary garden - the 'Italian Garden' - in America, all of which are still standing.

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