Catharine Lorillard Wolfe letters to Sarah Griswold Spencer (PSNCA.H.014)

Biographical and Historical Information

Catharine Lorillard Wolfe (1828-1887) was an art collector and philanthropist, a chief benefactor of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. After inheriting a large fortune from her father, merchant John David Wolfe, she participated heavily in charitable giving both in secular and religious organizations. Her mother was Dorothea Ann Lorillard (1798-1866), daughter of Peter Lorillard II (1764-1943), a wealthy magnate with interests in tobacco, real estate, and other industries. At Catharine Wolfe’s death, obituaries claimed she was the richest unmarried woman in the United States, or even in the world. She maintained an extensive collection of art and rare books. She resided in New York and summered in Newport, Rhode Island, building the mansion “Vinland” on Ochre Point Avenue.

Wolfe’s first cousin Lorillard Spencer was the father of another Lorillard Spencer (1827-1888), the husband of Sarah Johnson Griswold (1827-1905). Spencer and Griswold married in 1847 and had at least five children: Eleanore Spencer (1851-1915), Sarah Griswold Spencer (1853-1854), William Augustus Spencer (1855-1912), Charles G. Spencer (1856-1906), and Lorillard Spencer, Jr. (1859-1912). The family lived in Paris for many years, first moving overseas in 1858.