Hamilton McKown Twombly

Hamilton McKown Twombly Sr. was born on August 11, 1849, in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, and grew up in Boston. His parents were Alexander Hamilton Twombly (1804–1870) and Caroline (née McKown) Twombly (1821–1881). Twombly's siblings included Alexander Stevenson Twombly (1832–1907), Alice W. Twombly Jones (1848–1906), and Almina E. Twombly Sheldon (1851–1875).^[2] He attended and graduated from Harvard University in 1871.^[1]

Twombly worked as a financial advisor to William Henry Vanderbilt (1821–1885), President of the New York Central Railroad. He sat on the Boards of Directors of the Chicago and North Western Railway, the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad, the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway, and the New Jersey Shore Line Railroad. He also sat on the Boards of Trustees of the Guarantee Trust Company and the Mutual Life Insurance Company.^[1]

In 1890, Abram Hewitt partnered with Edward Cooper and Hamilton M. Twombly in forming the American Sulphur Company. That company then entered into a 50/50 agreement with Herman Frasch and his partners to form the Union Sulphur Company^[3]

In 1892, Twombly and his wife were both included in Ward McAllister's "Four Hundred", purported to be an index of New York's best families led by Mrs. Astor, as published in The New York Times.^[4] Conveniently, 400 was the number of people that could fit into Mrs. Astor's ballroom.^[5]

In spring and fall, Twombly and his wife resided at Florham (a combination of "Florence" and "Hamilton") in Florham Park, New Jersey; it is now "Florham Campus" a building of Fairleigh Dickinson University.^[6][7][8] They summered at Vinland Estate in Newport, Rhode Island, and they wintered at 684 Fifth Avenue in Manhattan

He was a member of the Metropolitan Club, the Tuxedo Club, the Union Club of the City of New York, the City Club, the New York Yacht Club, the Transportation Club, Turf and Field and the Somerset Club of Boston.^[1]