---
aliases:
- Payne Whitney
- William Payne Whitney
- W. Payne Whitney
born: 1876-03-20
category: Business & Finance
created: 2026-10-26
died: 1927-05-25
location: New York City; Manhasset, New York
relations:
- fn: 3
  role: member, per the Yale Obituary Record for 1927
  start: 1898
  type: member_of
  with: '[[Skull and Bones]]'
- fn: 16
  role: member and steward
  type: member_of
  with: '[[Jockey Club]]'
- fn: 24
  role: formed in June 1916
  start: 1916
  type: founded
  with: '[[Yale Aviation Corps]]'
- end: 1927
  fn: 14
  role: director and member of the executive board
  start: 1903
  type: director_of
  with: '[[Great Northern Paper Company]]'
- end: 1927
  fn: 14
  role: director and vice president
  start: 1911
  type: director_of
  with: '[[Northern Finance Corporation]]'
- end: 1927
  fn: 14
  start: 1910
  type: director_of
  with: '[[Whitney Realty Company]]'
- fn: 12
  role: director in 1907 per a company advertisement
  start: 1907
  type: director_of
  with: '[[Knickerbocker Trust Company]]'
- fn: 16
  role: trustee
  start: 1905
  type: director_of
  with: '[[United States Trust Company]]'
- fn: 16
  start: 1924
  type: director_of
  with: '[[First National Bank of New York]]'
- fn: 16
  start: 1925
  type: director_of
  with: '[[Westchester Racing Association]]'
- fn: 16
  role: chairman of the executive committee and director
  start: 1923
  type: director_of
  with: '[[Vanadium Corporation of America]]'
- end: 1927
  fn: 16
  role: trustee
  start: 1922
  type: director_of
  with: '[[Metropolitan Museum of Art]]'
- end: 1927
  fn: 16
  role: trustee
  start: 1915
  type: director_of
  with: '[[New York Public Library]]'
- end: 1927
  fn: 16
  role: board of governors; vice president from 1919
  start: 1912
  type: director_of
  with: '[[New York Hospital]]'
- end: 1927
  fn: 30
  role: half interest, 50,000 shares, appraised at $125,521,612
  type: owned
  with: '[[Northern Finance Corporation]]'
- end: 1927
  fn: 35
  role: 160,032 shares appraised at $10,242,048 at death
  type: owned
  with: '[[Great Northern Paper Company]]'
- fn: 16
  role: gift of $2,000,000
  start: 1923
  type: funded
  with: '[[New York Public Library]]'
- fn: 40
  role: bequest of thirty-three parts of the residue, $18,632,176 as appraised
  start: 1927
  type: funded
  with: '[[New York Hospital]]'
- fn: 39
  role: bequest by will, per the Weill Cornell history
  start: 1927
  type: funded
  with: '[[Payne Whitney Psychiatric Clinic]]'
- fn: 39
  role: bequest by will, per the Weill Cornell history
  start: 1927
  type: funded
  with: '[[Cornell University Medical College]]'
- end: 1927
  fn: 20
  role: married February 6, 1902, in Washington
  start: 1902
  type: spouse_of
  with: '[[Helen Hay Whitney]]'
- fn: 1
  role: son
  type: relative_of
  with: '[[William Collins Whitney]]'
- fn: 1
  role: son
  type: relative_of
  with: '[[Flora Payne]]'
- fn: 4
  role: nephew
  type: relative_of
  with: '[[Oliver Hazard Payne]]'
- fn: 49
  role: brother
  type: relative_of
  with: '[[Harry Payne Whitney]]'
- fn: 63
  role: brother
  type: relative_of
  with: '[[Dorothy Payne Whitney]]'
- fn: 63
  role: brother
  type: relative_of
  with: '[[Pauline Whitney Paget]]'
- fn: 20
  role: father
  type: relative_of
  with: '[[John Hay Whitney]]'
- fn: 20
  role: father
  type: relative_of
  with: '[[Joan Whitney Payson]]'
summary: Yale 1898 and Skull and Bones member, financier, and nephew and heir of Oliver
  Hazard Payne, whose estate, appraised in 1928 at $178,893,655 net, was the largest
  reported in the United States.
tags:
- Person
- Whitney
- Payne
- Yale
- SkullAndBones
- StandardOil
- Philanthropy
- NewYorkHospital
- CornellMedical
- Thoroughbred
- Greentree
- GreatNorthernPaper
- NorthernFinance
- NewYorkHeraldTribune
updated: 2026-10-26
---

William Payne Whitney (March 20, 1876 to May 25, 1927) was a New York financier and sportsman, son of William Collins Whitney and Flora Payne of the [Whitney family](/people/whitney-family/), a member of the [Yale University](/organizations/yale-university/) class of 1898 and of [Skull and Bones](/organizations/skull-and-bones/), and, with his sister Pauline Whitney Paget and four other nephews and nieces, a beneficiary of the holding company that his uncle [Oliver Hazard Payne](/people/oliver-hazard-payne/) of [Standard Oil](/organizations/standard-oil/) set aside for the family. His brother was Harry Payne Whitney.[^1] His estate, appraised in November 1928 at $194,328,514 gross and $178,893,655 net, was described as the largest ever appraised in the United States.[^2]

### Family and Yale

Whitney was born in New York City, the second son of William C. Whitney, and attended Harrington's School at Westminster, Massachusetts, and Groton School before Yale. At Yale he rowed on the Freshman, Sophomore and Junior crews, substituted for the University Crew in his Sophomore year and captained the Senior crew at the bow. The Yale record lists him as a member of "Hé Boulé, Delta Kappa Epsilon, and Skull and Bones." Its list of Yale relatives names Henry F. Dimock (1863), Oliver Hazard Payne (1863), Henry W. Payne (1867) and Charles W. Bingham (1868) as uncles, Cornelius Vanderbilt Whitney (1922) as a nephew and Harry Payne Bingham (1910) as a cousin.[^3] Oliver Payne's own record gives Henry W. Payne's death as 1878 and names the three nephews who attended Yale: Harry Payne Whitney (1894), Payne Whitney (1898) and Harry Payne Bingham (1910).[^4]

He served about fifteen years on the Yale Graduate Crew Committee, retiring in 1923, and sat on the committee for the Bob Cook Memorial Boat House.[^5] A New Haven dispatch of May 25, 1927 recorded that he rowed in the Yale crews of 1897 and 1898 against Harvard and Cornell, in the first year at Poughkeepsie and in the second on the Thames, went to the Henley regatta in 1896 as a substitute with the crew that Robert J. Cook took to England, and presented to Yale the dormitory for the varsity oarsmen at the rowing camp at Gales Ferry. His yacht was at the oarsmen's service each year during their stay there, and the Yale crew coach Ed Leader, the dispatch said, had come east from the West largely through Whitney's influence.[^6] The same newspaper's obituary said that he was known to have made many gifts to Yale, always anonymously, and to have aided classmates in finishing their courses.[^7]

### Skull and Bones and Sutton's account

[Antony C. Sutton](/people/antony-c-sutton/) wrote that the two sons of William Collins Whitney, "Harry Payne ('94) and Payne Whitney ('98)," "went to Yale and became members of The Order."[^8] Sutton's index of members by class year prints "1894 Payne Whitney, Finance: Knickerbocker Trust Co." and "1898 Harry Payne Whitney, Finance: Guaranty Trust and Guggenheim Exploration Co.," reversing the class years that his own text gives; the Yale record gives Payne Whitney's class as 1898.[^9] Sutton's chart "Hypothesis Number One" places the Whitney family, dated to 1635 at Watertown, Massachusetts, among the old-line families and the Payne family under Standard Oil among the new-wealth families.[^10] He wrote that Harry Payne Whitney "inherited two Standard Oil fortunes from the Payne and the Whitney families," and that the original capital of the [Guaranty Trust Company](/organizations/morgan-guaranty-trust/) "came from the Whitney, Rockefeller, Harriman and Vanderbilt families, all represented in The Order."[^11]

A 1907 advertisement of the Knickerbocker Trust Company lists among its directors Charles T. Barney, A. H. Barney, Henry F. Dimock and Payne Whitney.[^12] Charles Tracy Barney, the company's deposed president, shot himself at his home on November 14, 1907, in the panic of that year. He had married Lilly Whitney, a sister of William C. Whitney, and the Yale record lists Dimock as Payne Whitney's uncle.[^3][^13]

### Harvard Law and the business appointments

Whitney took an LL.B. at Harvard Law School in 1901. The Yale record says he was admitted to the New York bar and shortly afterwards became engaged in business. From 1903 to 1927 he was a director and member of the executive board of the Great Northern Paper Company; he was director and vice president of the Northern Finance Corporation from 1911 and a director of the Whitney Realty Company from 1910.[^14] A New York directory of 1916 lists the Great Northern Paper directors as Garret Schenck (president), Frank S. Rollins, William A. Whitcomb, Edward H. Haskell, Lewis C. Ledyard Jr., William C. Powers, Lewis Cass Ledyard, Payne Whitney and Eugene Hale Jr., and lists the Northern Finance Corporation with Lewis Cass Ledyard as president and Payne Whitney as vice president.[^15]

The Yale record further lists a trusteeship of the United States Trust Company from June 6, 1905, a directorship of the First National Bank of New York from January 8, 1924, a directorship of the Westchester Racing Association from January 8, 1925, and the chairmanship of the executive committee and a directorship of the Vanadium Corporation of America from September 1923. He was a former director of the Northern Pacific Railroad and a member of the Board of Stewards of the Jockey Club.[^16] A biographical directory of 1926 gives the same boards in short form: director of Great Northern Paper and of the First National Bank, vice president of the Whitney Realty Company and of the Northern Finance Corporation, trustee of the United States Trust Company, vice president of the Society of the New York Hospital, and trustee of the New York Public Library and of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, with an office at 14 Wall Street.[^17] The June 1907 list of trustees of the United States Trust Company, which had Edward W. Sheldon as president, includes Lewis Cass Ledyard, D. O. Mills, William Rockefeller, John S. Kennedy and Payne Whitney.[^18]

The New York Times named the Great Northern Paper Company, the First National Bank of New York, the Whitney Realty Company and the Northern Finance Company as the larger businesses with which he was prominently identified. It reported that Wall Street put his wealth at more than $100,000,000 on the basis of his income tax: in 1924 he paid $2,041,951, the third largest individual payment in the country behind Henry Ford and John D. Rockefeller Jr., and in 1925 he paid $1,676,626, the fifth largest, behind Rockefeller, Ford, Edsel Ford and Secretary of the Treasury Andrew W. Mellon.[^19]

### Marriage to Helen Hay

On February 6, 1902, in [Washington, D.C.](/places/washington-dc/), Whitney married Helen Hay Whitney, daughter of John Hay, then Secretary of State, and of Clara Louise Stone Hay, sister of his Yale classmate Adelbert S. Hay.[^20] The Chicago Daily Tribune reported on November 29, 1901 that Whitney, "whose engagement to the daughter of Secretary Hay has just been announced," had attended Mr. Clews as best man at a wedding.[^21] The Times recorded that President and Mrs. Roosevelt attended the Washington wedding and that a house at 972 Fifth Avenue was among the wedding gifts.[^22]

The Yale record names their children as Joan, the wife of Charles S. Payson of the Yale class of 1921, and [John Hay Whitney](/people/john-hay-whitney/), of the class of 1926, then a student at the [University of Oxford](/organizations/university-of-oxford/).[^20] The Times placed him in May 1927 at Cambridge University, in Spain playing polo when his father died.[^23]

### The Yale Aviation Corps

In June 1916 Whitney formed the Yale Aviation Corps. The Yale Obituary Record entry for Albert Dillon Sturtevant, Ph.B. 1916, says that Sturtevant enrolled in the corps "formed by Payne Whitney, '98, in June, 1916," trained on Long Island and later on government machines at Governors Island, and in the fall of 1916 enrolled in Aerial Coast Patrol Unit No. 1, organized by [F. Trubee Davison](/people/f-trubee-davison/) of the class of 1918 and afterward known as the Huntington Unit. He was commissioned an ensign in the Naval Reserve Flying Corps on March 26, 1917.[^24]

### The inheritance from Oliver Hazard Payne

The Yale record gives Oliver Hazard Payne's career as follows: he entered the Cleveland oil refining business with James B. Clark, John Huntington later became a partner, the business was absorbed by Standard Oil, and Payne was its treasurer until 1884, when he moved to New York City and thereafter sat on its board. He died at his New York home on June 27, 1917, after an illness of eight months, and was buried in Cleveland.[^25]

His will, reported in July 1917, left cash bequests of more than $7,000,000 to charitable and educational institutions, with $1,000,000 each to Lakeside Hospital in Cleveland, Yale and the New York Public Library and a permanent endowment of $500,000 for Cornell University Medical College. Payne Whitney received most of the household and personal effects, the yacht Aphrodite, then in commission for the federal government, the Greenwood Plantation at Thomasville, Georgia, and all real estate except a country place in Ulster County, New York, which went with a legacy of $2,000,000 to another nephew, Harry Payne Bingham. Harry Payne Whitney received a painting of Mr. Payne.[^26] The Evening World's headline was "Payne Whitney and Harry Payne Bingham Favored Over Other Direct Heirs"; the residue went in equal shares to the nephews and nieces, Payne Whitney, Pauline Whitney Paget, Harry Payne Bingham, William Bingham 2d, Elizabeth R. Blossom and Frances Payne Bolton.[^27]

Payne Whitney's share of his father's estate had come earlier. Henry H. Klein gave William C. Whitney's estate as $23,000,000 at his death in 1904, with $2,049,743 to Payne Whitney, $10,248,717 to Harry Payne Whitney and $6,149,230 to [Dorothy Payne Whitney](/people/dorothy-payne-whitney/), and Standard Oil stocks among the holdings valued at $7,078,400.[^28] The Times wrote in 1927 that about one fifth of the elder Whitney's fortune went to Payne, who then inherited several millions from his uncle Colonel Payne, a founder of Standard Oil and a heavy stockholder in the Singer Sewing Machine Company and the American Tobacco Company.[^29]

### Northern Finance Corporation

The Northern Finance Corporation was a holding company for securities. The New York Times reported on November 23, 1928 that it grew from a fund of many millions set aside some years earlier for Payne Whitney and others by his uncle Colonel Oliver H. Payne, "long a director of the Standard Oil Company of New Jersey," when he wished to be relieved of the care of Standard Oil subsidiaries and other stocks, with the stock of the holding company going to Payne Whitney and, in trusteeship, to five other nephews and nieces. The stock, of a par value of only $5,000,000, had risen continually in value. Whitney's half interest, 50,000 shares, was appraised at $125,521,612; the corporation's total assets were $266,536,458, reduced to a net of $251,043,224 by a bond issue of $15,000,000 and an allowance for the New York franchise tax.[^30]

The corporation's holdings, as the appraisal listed them, included British-American Tobacco ($23,961,575), Liggett and Myers ($14,889,056), R. J. Reynolds ($13,734,000) and Imperial Tobacco ($8,211,346); among oils, Standard Oil of New Jersey ($34,533,358), Standard Oil of New York ($13,956,037) and Vacuum Oil ($11,590,000), together with 333,924 shares of Great Northern Paper valued at $21,371,136.[^31][^32] The Paper Trade Journal described the company as "created by the late Col. Oliver H. Payne, as an incorporated trust fund."[^32] Financial World wrote in December 1928 that the holding company was "devised by the late Colonel Oliver H. Payne, Whitney's uncle, and left to him and five other nephews and nieces," and put the market value of the estate at $217,700,000.[^33] The Washington Daily News printed the United Press account, which said that the larger part of the estate was the half interest in the Northern Finance Corporation, a fund set aside by "his uncle, Col. Oliver H. Payne."[^34]

Whitney's individual holdings, as appraised, included 160,032 shares of Great Northern Paper ($10,242,048), 141,600 shares of the Vanadium Corporation ($6,513,600), 25,000 shares of Corn Products Refining ($1,450,000), R. J. Reynolds Class B stock ($5,109,574) and 832 shares of the Westchester Racing Association ($83,200).[^35]

### The Metropolitan Museum, the Munsey estate and the Herald Tribune

Whitney was a trustee of the Metropolitan Museum of Art from January 16, 1922 until his death.[^16] Ferdinand Lundberg wrote in 1937 that the trustees of the museum at the time Frank A. Munsey willed his newspapers to it "included Payne Whitney, Elihu Root, Edward S. Harkness, Arthur Curtiss James, Charles W. Gould, George F. Baker, George D. Pratt, George Blumenthal (Lazard Frères)," and that Munsey in 1924 sold the Herald to the Reid-Mills family for $5,000,000, part cash.[^36] Lundberg added that the Reids gave Munsey their personal note for an undisclosed large sum, which on his death came into the possession of the Metropolitan Museum and was still outstanding in 1937, and that on coming due in 1933 it placed the Herald Tribune under direct obligation to the museum's financial guardian, J. P. Morgan and Company.[^37]

The Editor and Publisher gave the paper's history in 1966: the Herald was founded in 1835 by James Gordon Bennett and the Tribune in 1841 by Horace Greeley, and the two "were merged in 1924 under the direction of Mr. and Mrs. Ogden M. Reid." The New York Herald Tribune, "then in failing financial health, was taken over by John Hay Whitney in 1958," and "His ancestor, John Hay, was once the editor of the Tribune."[^38]

### Medical benefactions

Whitney was on the board of governors of the Society of the New York Hospital from 1912 and its vice president from 1919, and made large gifts to the New York Hospital and to Bloomingdale Asylum.[^16] The Weill Cornell Medicine history records that he was a member of Subcommittee C of the Development Committee of the Board of Governors, formed on March 26, 1920 to outline a plan for a medical center, whose members included Edward Sheldon, and that by 1924 he "had begun secretly to purchase property in the area of East 68th-70th Streets and Avenue A (York Avenue) for $2,750,000." Before his death he had made provisions in his will for $12,400,000 for the hospital, $6,200,000 for the Payne Whitney Psychiatric Clinic, which the will specified as either a neurological or a psychiatric clinic, and $2,800,000 for the medical college. The same history credits Oliver Payne with a $4,000,000 gift to the college. The New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center opened in September 1932, and the clinic had its own building.[^39]

The residue of the estate was divided into 300 parts. The appraisal report gave the hospital thirty-three parts ($18,632,176) and noted gifts to it of $1,367,056 in the last two years of Whitney's life. Forty-six parts ($25,972,124) went to trustees, the elder and younger Ledyard and Edward W. Sheldon, president of the United States Trust Company, to apply to charitable, hospital, educational, literary, library or research purposes in their absolute discretion; the will suggested that it "would be agreeable" to him if they favored purposes that had interested him. The trustees later decided to distribute the capital among the New York Hospital, Cornell University for the support of the medical college, the New York Public Library (the Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations), Groton School, Yale University and Nassau Hospital. The Times put the public bequests at nearly $60,000,000.[^40] In 1923 he had given $2,000,000 to the New York Public Library, of which he was a trustee from 1915.[^16] Lundberg wrote that in 1933 the New York Hospital-Cornell center reported three Payne Whitney endowment funds of slightly more than $17,000,000.[^41]

The medical college's psychiatry and neurology staff included [Harold Wolff](/people/harold-wolff/) and [Lawrence Hinkle](/people/lawrence-hinkle/), who carried out the government study of communist brainwashing techniques for the [CIA](/organizations/central-intelligence-agency/).[^42]

### Greentree and the turf

The Manhasset estate, Greentree, gave the racing stable its name. The Times reported in 1927 that the stable was managed by Mrs. Whitney, that Payne Whitney had "not an active racing stable" of his own and had recently taken up the breeding of thoroughbreds, and that he had bought the English horse St. Germaine from Lord Astor a little over a year earlier and, at the Newmarket sales the previous autumn, several mares, including Crispina at about $40,000. He had been a member of the Jockey Club for many years and had consented only recently to election to its Board of Stewards. He owned the Greenwood Plantation at Thomasville, Georgia, and large acreage in Kentucky, where with Joseph E. Widener he had acquired the old Colonel John T. Hughes estate the year before.[^43] The Greentree Stable was already racing steeplechasers in December 1913, when the Daily Racing Form reported that its trainer James Owens had seven at Belmont Park and that one horse had been turned out at "Mrs. Payne Whitney's Manhasset estate."[^44]

The Times reported a conversation a few days before his death in which Whitney said "that if anything should happen to me the horses will continue to run under the stable name and under our colors," and the Greentree horses ran under their colors after his death.[^45] The Blood-Horse of June 3, 1933 still listed the stable as "the Greentree Stable by Mrs. Payne Whitney," and reported that the nine-year-old Bangle, "owned by Mrs. Payne Whitney's Greentree Stable," had taken the lead late in the International Steeplechase Handicap at Belmont Park on May 27.[^46] The 1928 appraisal valued the Manhasset property at 587 acres with buildings, appraised at $2,185,756, and the Fifth Avenue residence at $625,000.[^47]

### Political contributions

Lundberg listed Payne Whitney among the donors who each gave $15,000 to the Republican campaign collections of 1924, which he said J. P. Morgan and Company took the lead in raising.[^48]

### Death and funeral

Whitney died near the indoor tennis court at his Manhasset home at 1:10 p.m. on Wednesday, May 25, 1927. The Times gave the cause as acute indigestion and reported that the physician who responded found the heart badly dilated and that death came within twenty-five minutes. Mrs. Whitney, at a luncheon at the Colony Club in New York, drove to Manhasset in a little over thirty minutes with a police escort and arrived after he died. The flags at Belmont Park were lowered to half staff and the Whitney entries were scratched, including Whiskery, the winner of the Derby.[^19] The Yale record gives the cause as acute indigestion and says he was buried in the cemetery of Christ Church, Manhasset; it lists as survivors his wife, a daughter, a son, two grandchildren, his brother Harry Payne Whitney and a sister, Mrs. Leonard K. Elmhirst of Yorkshire, England.[^49] The Weill Cornell history says that he "died suddenly of a heart attack in May 1927."[^39]

The funeral was held at Christ Church on May 27, with the rector, Charles H. Ricker, assisted by Endicott Peabody, headmaster of Groton School. Mrs. Whitney came with her brother Clarence Hay, and the rear of the church was filled with employees of Greentree and the Greentree Stable. The Jockey Club adopted a resolution on his "noble, useful career."[^50] The reading of the will awaited John Hay Whitney's return from England, and the Vanadium Corporation closed its Bridgeville and Niagara Falls plants for half an hour during the funeral.[^45]

A Reuters item in the Hong Kong Telegraph of May 27, 1927, printed under the heading "Harry Payne Whitney," reported the sudden death of "the well known American banker Mr. Harry Payne Whitney" while playing tennis at his country home on Long Island and put his fortune at between thirty and forty million dollars; the birth in April 1872 and the marriage in 1896 that it gave are those of his brother.[^51] Harry Payne Whitney had died by the time of the 1931 accounting.[^52]

### The 1928 appraisal

The appraisal was made public on November 22, 1928 by Deputy Tax Commissioner Maurice Stephenson. The Times reported a gross estate of $194,328,514 and a net of $178,893,655, nearly twice the highest previous record and well above that of Mrs. Stephen V. Harkness. Stocks were appraised at $158,773,997, bonds at $23,254,282, New York real estate at $3,149,361 and cash at $1,773,551. The estate would pay the largest death tax ever collected, $20,000,000, of which $15,600,000 would go to New York State, $400,000 to other states and $4,000,000 to the federal government.[^2] The United Press dispatch used the words "the largest estate ever appraised in this country."[^53] The following day the Times reported that the rise in stock prices since his death had added about $35,700,000 to the value of the holdings and that the executors' and trustees' commissions would total $17,697,643.[^54] Lundberg wrote that Payne Whitney "died in 1927 worth $186,000,000," the largest individual estate appraised in New York, and put his share of a joint fortune of four Whitneys at about $220,000,000, computed from a tax payment of $1,676,626.[^55]

The family bequests, as the appraisal reported them, gave Helen Hay Whitney personal effects of $669,747, New York real estate of $750,000, Nassau County real estate of $2,273,961 and a life interest in ninety-six parts of the residue worth $54,202,694, to pass to her children on her death. John Hay Whitney received a life interest in forty-eight parts, $27,191,347, until he was forty years old, and Joan Whitney Payson the same interest. The Times also listed legacies to relatives and employees.[^56]

### The 1931 accounting

An accounting filed in the Surrogate's Court in August 1931 was reported in the Chicago Daily Tribune on September 1, 1931. The executors were Lewis Cass Ledyard, the United States Trust Company and Lewis Cass Ledyard Jr. The accounting gives a net estate of $200,973,154.41 and a total distributed by the executors of $239,301,017.04. Helen Hay Whitney received tangible personal property valued at $811,282.16 and, from the residuary estate of $197,681,235.19, $63,102,816; Joan Whitney Payson and John Hay Whitney received equal shares. Harry Payne Whitney, "a brother. Who since has died," was left racehorses valued at $41,000. Principal securities held at death included 5,500 shares of Standard Oil Company (Indiana) at $365,062.50, 25,000 shares of Corn Products Refining common at $1,450,000 and 141,600 shares of the Vanadium Corporation at $6,513,600.[^57]

### The Payne Whitney Gymnasium

The Athletic Journal reported in June 1931 that the Payne Whitney Gymnasium "has been given to Yale University in memory of Payne Whitney by Mrs. Whitney and the children" and was being built at a cost of at least $5,000,000.[^58] The Scholastic Coach of November 1931 called it Yale's "new Payne Whitney Memorial Gymnasium," with twenty squash courts.[^59] The Architectural Record of February 1933 published the Payne Whitney Gymnasium on Tower Parkway in New Haven, Connecticut as designed by John Russell Pope, with a front of 310 feet on Tower Parkway and a tower 200 feet high, and beside it the Ray Tompkins House.[^60] Lundberg wrote that the contributors to the new Yale buildings included "the heirs of the late Payne Whitney."[^61]

### The New Republic and the Straight line

Sutton wrote that the "left" press, including The Nation and The New Republic, "were financed by Willard Straight, using Payne Whitney (The Order) funds."[^62] Payne Whitney's sister Dorothy had been the wife of Willard Straight, and the Times named her in 1927 as "Mrs. Leonard K. Elmhirst, nee Dorothy Whitney, whose first husband was the late Willard Straight," beside his other sister, Mrs. Almeric H. Paget.[^63] A summary memorandum of September 10, 1969 in the FBI file on the Straights' son [Michael Whitney Straight](/people/michael-whitney-straight/) records a New Republic executive as stating that the parents "set up a fund that founded the 'New Republic' in 1914, and this fund was utilized for its operation until 1954," when Gilbert A. Harrison bought a controlling interest.[^64] Klein's figures give Dorothy Payne Whitney's share of her father's estate as $6,149,230.[^65]

### Children

John Hay Whitney, called Jock, of the Yale class of 1926, was appointed ambassador to the United Kingdom on February 11, 1957 and left the post on January 14, 1961.[^66]

Joan Whitney Payson, the daughter, is described in a Metropolitan Museum of Art guide as "a longtime patron of the arts and a frequent and generous lender to special exhibitions at the Metropolitan," and as co-owner of Greentree, "an important racing stable." The guide says that "as an enthusiastic baseball fan, she acquired the New York Mets in 1961."[^67] She married Charles S. Payson of the Yale class of 1921, and the Times placed her in 1927 as living on Long Island.[^20][^23]

[^1]: Yale University, *Obituary Record of the Graduates of the Undergraduate Schools, Deceased During the Year Ending July 1, 1927*, entry for Payne Whitney, B.A. 1898, pp. 171 to 172 (born March 20, 1876, New York City; died May 25, 1927, Manhasset; parents William Collins Whitney and Flora (Payne) Whitney). https://archive.org/details/obituaryrecordof00yale_4.
[^2]: "$178,893,655 Estate, Record for America," *The New York Times*, November 23, 1928, p. 1 (gross $194,328,514; net $178,893,655; "the largest estate ever appraised in this country, the appraisal being nearly twice that of the highest previously recorded"). https://archive.org/details/sim_new-york-times_1928-11-23_78_25871.
[^3]: Yale University, *Obituary Record of the Graduates of the Undergraduate Schools, Deceased During the Year Ending July 1, 1927*, entry for Payne Whitney, B.A. 1898, p. 171 (Harrington's School and Groton School; crews; "member Hé Boulé, Delta Kappa Epsilon, and Skull and Bones"; Yale relatives: Henry F. Dimock '63, Oliver H. Payne '63, Henry W. Payne '67 and Charles W. Bingham '68 (uncles), Cornelius V. Whitney '22 (nephew), Harry Payne Bingham '10 (cousin)). https://archive.org/details/obituaryrecordof00yale_4.
[^4]: Yale University, *Obituary Record of the Graduates of the Undergraduate Schools, Deceased 1915 to 1920*, entry for Oliver Hazard Payne, B.A. 1863 (brother Henry W. Payne, class of 1867, died 1878; nephews Harry Payne Whitney, Payne Whitney and Harry Payne Bingham, classes of 1894, 1898 and 1910; a niece the wife of Dudley S. Blossom). https://archive.org/details/1915t20obituary00yaleuoft.
[^5]: Yale University, *Obituary Record of the Graduates of the Undergraduate Schools, Deceased During the Year Ending July 1, 1927*, entry for Payne Whitney, B.A. 1898, p. 172 (Yale Graduate Crew Committee for about fifteen years, retiring in 1923; committee in charge of the Bob Cook Memorial Boat House; "a generous benefactor of the University"). https://archive.org/details/obituaryrecordof00yale_4.
[^6]: "Noted in Rowing at Yale," special dispatch from New Haven, May 25, in *The New York Times*, May 26, 1927, p. 25 (varsity oarsman 1897 and 1898; captain 1898; substitute with the Yale crew taken to Henley in 1896 by Robert J. Cook; presented the dormitory for varsity oarsmen at Gales Ferry; Graduate Rowing Committee; yacht; crew coach Ed Leader). https://archive.org/details/sim_new-york-times_the-new-york-times_1927-05-26_76_25324.
[^7]: "Payne Whitney Dies Suddenly at Home," *The New York Times*, May 26, 1927, p. 1, continued p. 25 ("Yale, his alma mater, loses a great benefactor in Mr. Whitney, for he is known to have made many substantial gifts to the university, always, however, anonymously"; aid to classmates). https://archive.org/details/sim_new-york-times_the-new-york-times_1927-05-26_76_25324.
[^8]: Antony C. Sutton, *America's Secret Establishment: An Introduction to the Order of Skull & Bones* (1983), Whitney family section ("Their two sons, Harry Payne ('94) and Payne Whitney ('98), went to Yale and became members of The Order"). https://archive.org/details/americas_secret_establishment-skull_and_bones.
[^9]: Sutton (1983), index of members by class year, entries "1894 Payne Whitney, Finance: Knickerbocker Trust Co. (son of W.C. Whitney)" and "1898 Harry Payne Whitney, Finance: Guaranty Trust and Guggenheim Exploration Co. (son of W.C. Whitney)"; the Yale class year of Payne Whitney, 1898, from the Yale record, p. 171. https://archive.org/details/americas_secret_establishment-skull_and_bones.
[^10]: Sutton (1983), chart "Hypothesis Number One: A Secret Society Dominated By Old Line American Families And New Wealth Has Existed From 1833 To The Present Day," spokes WHITNEY FAMILY (1635, Watertown, Mass.) and PAYNE FAMILY (Standard Oil). https://archive.org/details/americas_secret_establishment-skull_and_bones.
[^11]: Sutton (1983), section on Guaranty Trust ("Harry Payne Whitney (The Order'94) inherited two Standard Oil fortunes from the Payne and the Whitney families"; "The original capital for Guaranty Trust came from the Whitney, Rockefeller, Harriman and Vanderbilt families, all represented in The Order"). https://archive.org/details/americas_secret_establishment-skull_and_bones.
[^12]: Advertisement of the Knickerbocker Trust Co., *Trusts and Estates*, vol. 4, no. 6 (June 1907) (directors including Charles T. Barney, A. H. Barney, Henry F. Dimock and Payne Whitney). https://archive.org/details/sim_trusts-estates_1907-06_4_6.
[^13]: "Charles Tracy Barney, Deposed President of Knickerbocker Trust Co., Unbalanced by His Misfortunes," *The Morning Star* (New York), November 15, 1907, p. 1 (shot himself at his home November 14; "married Miss Lilly Whitney sister of William C. Whitney"). https://archive.org/details/per_star-news_the-morning-star_1907-11-15_81_46.
[^14]: Yale University, *Obituary Record of the Graduates of the Undergraduate Schools, Deceased During the Year Ending July 1, 1927*, entry for Payne Whitney, B.A. 1898, pp. 171 to 172 (LL.B. Harvard 1901; "admitted to New York Bar, but shortly afterwards became engaged in business"; director and member of the executive board of Great Northern Paper Company 1903 to 1927; director and vice-president of Northern Finance Corporation 1911 to 1927 and of Whitney Realty Company 1910 to 1927). https://archive.org/details/obituaryrecordof00yale_4.
[^15]: R. L. Polk & Co.'s 1916 *Trow New York Copartnership and Corporation Directory*, entries for Great Northern Paper Co. (Me.) (president Garret Schenck; capital $6,000,000; directors) and Northern Finance Corporation (N.Y.) (Lewis Cass Ledyard, president; Payne Whitney, vice president). https://archive.org/details/bwb_T3-CBT-962_64.
[^16]: Yale University, *Obituary Record of the Graduates of the Undergraduate Schools, Deceased During the Year Ending July 1, 1927*, entry for Payne Whitney, B.A. 1898, p. 172 (trustee of United States Trust Company since June 6, 1905, and of Metropolitan Museum of Art since January 16, 1922; director of First National Bank of New York from January 8, 1924 and of Westchester Racing Association from January 8, 1925; chairman of executive committee and director of Vanadium Corporation of America since September 1923; former director of Northern Pacific Railroad; board of governors of the Society of New York Hospitals since 1912 and vice-president since 1919; gifts to the New York Hospital and Bloomingdale Asylum; $2,000,000 to the New York Public Library in 1923 and trustee from 1915; Board of Stewards of the Jockey Club). https://archive.org/details/obituaryrecordof00yale_4.
[^17]: *Who's Who in America*, vol. 14 (1926 to 1927), entry for "Whitney, Payne, capitalist" ("Dir. Gt. Northern Paper Co., First Nat. Bank (New York); v.p. Whitney Realty Co., Northern Finance Corpn.; trustee U.S. Trust Co. V.p. Society of N.Y. Hosp.; trustee New York Pub. Library, Met. Mus. of Art"; office 14 Wall St.). https://archive.org/details/whoswho141926.
[^18]: Advertisement of the United States Trust Company of New York, *Trusts and Estates*, vol. 4, no. 6 (June 1907) (president Edward W. Sheldon; trustees including Lewis Cass Ledyard, D. O. Mills, John S. Kennedy, William Rockefeller and Payne Whitney). https://archive.org/details/sim_trusts-estates_1907-06_4_6.
[^19]: "Payne Whitney Dies Suddenly at Home," *The New York Times*, May 26, 1927, p. 1, continued p. 25 (died 1:10 p.m. near the tennis court at Manhasset of acute indigestion; heart badly dilated; Mrs. Whitney at the Colony Club; flags at Belmont Park; larger businesses; income tax of $2,041,951 in 1924 and $1,676,626 in 1925). https://archive.org/details/sim_new-york-times_the-new-york-times_1927-05-26_76_25324.
[^20]: Yale University, *Obituary Record of the Graduates of the Undergraduate Schools, Deceased During the Year Ending July 1, 1927*, entry for Payne Whitney, B.A. 1898, p. 172 ("Married February 6, 1902, in Washington, D. C., Helen, daughter of John Hay ... then Secretary of State, and Clara Louise (Stone) Hay, sister of his classmate, Adelbert S. Hay"; "Children: Joan, the wife of Charles S. Payson, '21, and John Hay, '26, now a student at Oxford University"). https://archive.org/details/obituaryrecordof00yale_4.
[^21]: "Payne Whitney Is Best Man," *Chicago Daily Tribune*, November 29, 1901 ("Payne Whitney, whose engagement to the daughter of Secretary Hay has just been announced, attended Mr. Clews as best man"). https://archive.org/details/per_chicago-daily-tribune_1901-11-29_60_332.
[^22]: "Payne Whitney Dies Suddenly at Home," *The New York Times*, May 26, 1927, p. 1 (wedding in Washington "attended by President and Mrs. Roosevelt"; "Among the wedding gifts was the house at 972 Fifth Avenue"). https://archive.org/details/sim_new-york-times_the-new-york-times_1927-05-26_76_25324.
[^23]: "Payne Whitney Dies Suddenly at Home," *The New York Times*, May 26, 1927, p. 25 (John Hay Whitney "now in Spain playing polo" and "a student at Cambridge University, England"; daughter Joan, Mrs. Charles Shipman Payson, understood to be living on Long Island). https://archive.org/details/sim_new-york-times_the-new-york-times_1927-05-26_76_25324.
[^24]: Yale University, *Obituary Record ... Deceased 1915 to 1920*, entry for Albert Dillon Sturtevant, Ph.B. 1916 ("the Yale Aviation Corps formed by Payne Whitney, '98, in June, 1916"; training on Long Island and at Governor's Island; Aerial Coast Patrol Unit No. 1, organized by F. Trubee Davison, afterwards the Huntington Unit; ensign, Naval Reserve Flying Corps, March 26, 1917). https://archive.org/details/1915t20obituary00yaleuoft.
[^25]: Yale University, *Obituary Record ... Deceased 1915 to 1920*, entry for Oliver Hazard Payne, B.A. 1863, pp. 295 to 296 (Cleveland refining business with James B. Clark; John Huntington a partner; treasurer of Standard Oil until 1884; death at his New York home June 27, 1917, after an illness of eight months; interment in Cleveland). https://archive.org/details/1915t20obituary00yaleuoft.
[^26]: "Col. Payne Left $7,000,000 in Gifts," *Brattleboro Daily Reformer* (Brattleboro, Vt.), July 7, 1917, p. 1 (cash bequests of more than $7,000,000; $1,000,000 each to Lakeside Hospital, Yale and the New York Public Library; $500,000 permanent endowment for Cornell University Medical College; household effects; yacht Aphrodite "now in commission for the federal government"; Greenwood plantation at Thomasville, Ga.; Ulster County place to Harry Payne Bingham with $2,000,000; painting of Mr. Payne to Harry Payne Whitney). https://www.loc.gov/resource/sn86071593/1917-07-07/ed-1/?sp=1.
[^27]: "Col. Payne Left Public Bequests," *The Evening World* (New York), July 7, 1917, p. 2 ("Payne Whitney and Harry Payne Bingham Favored Over Other Direct Heirs"; residue "equally to nephew and nieces," naming the six). https://www.loc.gov/resource/sn83030193/1917-07-07/ed-1/?sp=2.
[^28]: Henry H. Klein, *Dynastic America and Those Who Own It* (New York, 1921), section on the Whitney estate (William C. Whitney's estate of $23,000,000 at his death in 1904; Payne Whitney $2,049,743; Harry Payne Whitney $10,248,717; Dorothy Payne Whitney $6,149,230; Standard Oil stocks valued at $7,078,400). https://archive.org/details/dynasticamericaa00kleirich.
[^29]: "Payne Whitney Dies Suddenly at Home," *The New York Times*, May 26, 1927, p. 1 ("When William C. Whitney died he left the bulk of his fortune to his eldest son, Harry Payne Whitney, about one-fifth going to Payne Whitney. The latter, however, inherited several millions from his uncle, Colonel Oliver Payne, a founder of the Standard Oil Company, who when he died was also a heavy stockholder in the Singer Sewing Machine Company and the American Tobacco Company"). https://archive.org/details/sim_new-york-times_the-new-york-times_1927-05-26_76_25324.
[^30]: "$178,893,655 Estate, Record for America," *The New York Times*, November 23, 1928, p. 1, continued p. 12, section "Interest in Holding Company" (half interest, 50,000 shares, in the Northern Finance Corporation appraised at $125,521,612; total assets $266,536,458; net $251,043,224 after a $15,000,000 bond issue; fund set aside by Colonel Oliver H. Payne "when he desired to be relieved of the care of" Standard Oil subsidiaries and other stocks; par value of $5,000,000). https://archive.org/details/sim_new-york-times_1928-11-23_78_25871.
[^31]: "$178,893,655 Estate, Record for America," *The New York Times*, November 23, 1928, section on Northern Finance Corporation holdings (British-American Tobacco $23,961,575; Liggett & Myers $14,889,056; R. J. Reynolds; Imperial Tobacco $8,211,346; Standard Oil of New Jersey $34,533,358; Standard Oil of New York $13,956,037; Vacuum Oil $11,590,000). https://archive.org/details/sim_new-york-times_1928-11-23_78_25871.
[^32]: "Payne Whitney Estate Appraised," *Paper Trade Journal*, vol. 87, no. 22 (November 29, 1928), Weekly Business Review (gross $194,328,514 and net $178,893,655; Northern Finance Corporation "created by the late Col. Oliver H. Payne, as an incorporated trust fund"; 333,924 shares of Great Northern Paper Company appraised at $21,371,136 among the holdings). https://archive.org/details/sim_paper-trade-journal_1928-11-29_87_22.
[^33]: *Financial World*, vol. 50, no. 24 (December 12, 1928), editorial on the securities of the Payne Whitney estate (market value $217,700,000; Northern Finance Corporation "devised by the late Colonel Oliver H. Payne, Whitney's uncle, and left to him and five other nephews and nieces"). https://archive.org/details/sim_financial-world_1928-12-12_50_24.
[^34]: "Payne Whitney Left Biggest Estate Ever Appraised in U.S.," United Press, *Washington Daily News*, November 23, 1928, p. 6 (larger portion of the estate a half interest in the Northern Finance Corporation; the fund set aside by "his uncle, Col. Oliver H. Payne"; death tax of about $20,000,000, of which $15,600,000 to New York State). https://www.loc.gov/resource/sn82016181/1928-11-23/ed-1/?sp=6.
[^35]: "$178,893,655 Estate, Record for America," *The New York Times*, November 23, 1928, list of Mr. Whitney's individual stock holdings (160,032 shares Great Northern Paper Company, $10,242,048; 141,600 Vanadium Corporation, $6,513,600; 25,000 Corn Products common, $1,450,000; Reynolds Tobacco Class B $5,109,574; 832 Westchester Racing Association, $83,200). https://archive.org/details/sim_new-york-times_1928-11-23_78_25871.
[^36]: Ferdinand Lundberg, *America's 60 Families* (New York: Vanguard Press, 1937), p. 254 (Metropolitan Museum trustees at the time of Munsey's will; Munsey's 1924 sale of the Herald to "the Reid-Mills family for $5,000,000, part cash"). https://archive.org/details/lundberg-ferdinand-americas-60-families-1937.
[^37]: Lundberg, *America's 60 Families* (1937), pp. 269 to 270, section "Mills-Reids" ("the Reids gave Munsey their personal note for an undisclosed large sum, and upon Munsey's death this note came into the possession of the Metropolitan Museum of Art"; the note due in 1933; "J. P. Morgan and Company"). https://archive.org/details/lundberg-ferdinand-americas-60-families-1937.
[^38]: Editor and Publisher, vol. 99, no. 34 (August 20, 1966), historical note on the *New York Herald Tribune* (Herald founded 1835 by James Gordon Bennett; Tribune founded 1841 by Horace Greeley; the two "were merged in 1924 under the direction of Mr. and Mrs. Ogden M. Reid"; "then in failing financial health, was taken over by John Hay Whitney in 1958"; "His ancestor, John Hay, was once the editor of the Tribune"). https://archive.org/details/sim_editor-publisher_1966-08-20_99_34.
[^39]: Weill Cornell Medicine Library, "History of the Medical Center" (undated PDF) (Subcommittee C of March 26, 1920 including Edward Sheldon; the property purchase "for $2,750,000"; "Payne Whitney died suddenly of a heart attack in May 1927"; will provisions of $12,400,000 for the hospital, $6,200,000 for the Payne Whitney Psychiatric Clinic, "either a neurological or psychiatric clinic," and $2,800,000 for the medical college; the $4,000,000 gift of Oliver Hazard Payne; opening in September 1932). https://library.weill.cornell.edu/sites/default/files/history_of_the_medical_center.pdf.
[^40]: "$178,893,655 Estate, Record for America," *The New York Times*, November 23, 1928, section "Public Beneficiaries" (nearly $60,000,000 to charities; New York Hospital thirty-three parts of 300, $18,632,176, and gifts of $1,367,056 in his last two years; forty-six parts, $25,972,124, to the Ledyards and Edward W. Sheldon; trustees' decision to distribute among the New York Hospital, Cornell University, the Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations, Groton School, Yale University and Nassau Hospital). https://archive.org/details/sim_new-york-times_1928-11-23_78_25871.
[^41]: Lundberg, *America's 60 Families* (1937), pp. 342 to 343 (1933 report of the New York Hospital-Cornell Medical College center: "Three Payne Whitney endowment funds aggregated slightly more than $17,000,000"). https://archive.org/details/lundberg-ferdinand-americas-60-families-1937.
[^42]: John D. Marks, *The Search for the Manchurian Candidate* (1979), chapters 8 and 9, as cited on the Lawrence Hinkle page of this vault.
[^43]: "Payne Whitney Dies Suddenly at Home," *The New York Times*, May 26, 1927, p. 25 (Greentree stables managed by Mrs. Whitney; "he had not an active racing stable"; purchase of St. Germaine from Lord Astor and of mares at Newmarket; Jockey Club and Board of Stewards; Greenwood Plantation; Kentucky acreage with Joseph E. Widener; the Manhasset estate valued at about $3,000,000). https://archive.org/details/sim_new-york-times_the-new-york-times_1927-05-26_76_25324.
[^44]: "Greentree Stable's Promising Material," *Daily Racing Form*, December 16, 1913 (trainer James Owens; seven at Belmont Park; a horse "turned out at Mrs. Payne Whitney's Manhasset estate"). https://archive.org/details/drf1913121601.
[^45]: "Many Mourn Whitney; Funeral to Be Held Today," *The New York Times*, May 27, 1927 ("It is my wish ... that if anything should happen to me the horses will continue to run under the stable name and under our colors"; reading of the will to await his son; Vanadium Corporation plants closed during the funeral). https://archive.org/details/sim_new-york-times_the-new-york-times_1927-05-27_76_25325.
[^46]: Race report, *The Blood-Horse*, vol. 19, no. 22 (June 3, 1933) ("the Greentree Stable by Mrs. Payne Whitney"; Bangle, "owned by Mrs. Payne Whitney's Greentree Stable," in the International Steeplechase Handicap at Belmont Park, May 27). https://archive.org/details/sim_blood-horse_1933-06-03_19_22.
[^47]: "$178,893,655 Estate, Record for America," *The New York Times*, November 23, 1928, section "Realty and Personalty" (587 acres with buildings at Manhasset, assessed at $767,000 and appraised at $2,185,756; 972 Fifth Avenue, $625,000). https://archive.org/details/sim_new-york-times_1928-11-23_78_25871.
[^48]: Lundberg, *America's 60 Families* (1937), p. 172 (J. P. Morgan and Company "took the lead in scaring up Republican contributions" in 1924; "Payne Whitney each gave $15,000"). https://archive.org/details/lundberg-ferdinand-americas-60-families-1937.
[^49]: Yale University, *Obituary Record of the Graduates of the Undergraduate Schools, Deceased During the Year Ending July 1, 1927*, entry for Payne Whitney, B.A. 1898, p. 172 ("Death due to acute indigestion. Buried in the cemetery of Christ Church, Manhasset. Survived by wife, daughter, son, two grandchildren, a brother, Harry Payne Whitney, '94, and a sister, Mrs. Leonard K. Elmhirst, of Yorkshire, England"). https://archive.org/details/obituaryrecordof00yale_4.
[^50]: "Simple Rites Held for Payne Whitney," *The New York Times*, May 28, 1927 (funeral at Christ Church, Manhasset, May 27; the Rev. Charles H. Ricker assisted by the Rev. Endicott Peabody; Clarence Hay; employees of Greentree and the Greentree Stable; Jockey Club resolution on "a noble, useful career"). https://archive.org/details/sim_new-york-times_the-new-york-times_1927-05-28_76_25326.
[^51]: Reuters item headed "Harry Payne Whitney," *Hong Kong Telegraph*, May 27, 1927, p. 1 ("the well known American banker Mr. Harry Payne Whitney"; death "while playing tennis at his country home in Long Island"; fortune "between thirty and forty million dollars"; born April 1872, married 1896). https://archive.org/details/NPTG19270527.
[^52]: "200 Millions to Legatees of Payne Whitney," *Chicago Daily Tribune*, September 1, 1931 ("Harry Payne Whitney, a brother. Who since has died"). https://archive.org/details/per_chicago-daily-tribune_1931-09-01_90_209.
[^53]: "Payne Whitney Left Biggest Estate Ever Appraised in U.S.," United Press, *Brainerd Daily Dispatch* (Brainerd, Minn.), November 23, 1928, p. 1 (net value $178,893,655; "the largest estate ever appraised in this country"). https://archive.org/details/brainerd-daily-dispatch-1928-11-23.
[^54]: *The New York Times*, November 24, 1928, report on the market value of the Payne Whitney estate (increase of about $35,700,000 since his death; executors' and trustees' commissions of $17,697,643). https://archive.org/details/sim_new-york-times_1928-11-24_78_25872.
[^55]: Lundberg, *America's 60 Families* (1937), pp. 29 to 30 ("The largest individual estate ever appraised in New York was that of Payne Whitney, who died in 1927 worth $186,000,000"; "Payne Whitney's share in the group of four, on the basis of a tax payment of $1,676,626, is computed at approximately $220,000,000"). https://archive.org/details/lundberg-ferdinand-americas-60-families-1937.
[^56]: "$178,893,655 Estate, Record for America," *The New York Times*, November 23, 1928, section "Bequests to His Family" (Helen Hay Whitney: personal effects $669,747, New York realty $750,000, Nassau County realty $2,273,961, life interest in ninety-six parts of the residue worth $54,202,694; John Hay Whitney: life interest in forty-eight parts, $27,191,347, until he is forty; Joan Whitney Payson the same interest). https://archive.org/details/sim_new-york-times_1928-11-23_78_25871.
[^57]: "200 Millions to Legatees of Payne Whitney," *Chicago Daily Tribune*, September 1, 1931 (accounting filed in the Surrogate's Court; executors Lewis Cass Ledyard, the United States Trust Company and Lewis Cass Ledyard Jr.; total distributed $239,301,017.04; net estate $200,973,154.41; Helen Hay Whitney, widow, tangible personal property $811,282.16; residuary estate $197,681,235.19; $63,102,816 to Mrs. Whitney from the residue; equal shares to Joan Whitney Payson and John Hay Whitney; racehorses valued at $41,000; 5,500 shares of Standard Oil Company (Ind.) at $365,062.50; 25,000 shares of Corn Products Refining Company common at $1,450,000; 141,600 shares of Vanadium Corporation at $6,513,600). https://archive.org/details/per_chicago-daily-tribune_1931-09-01_90_209.
[^58]: John L. Griffith, "Review of the Year in Athletics," *Athletic Journal*, vol. 11, no. 10 (June 1931) ("The Payne Whitney Gymnasium, which has been given to Yale University in memory of Payne Whitney by Mrs. Whitney and the children, is being built at a cost of at least five million dollars"). https://archive.org/details/sim_athletic-journal_1931-06_11_10.
[^59]: *Scholastic Coach*, vol. 1, no. 3 (November 1931), article on squash racquets ("Yale's new Payne Whitney Memorial Gymnasium will house twenty courts"). https://archive.org/details/sim_scholastic-coach_1931-11_1_3.
[^60]: "The Payne Whitney Gymnasium and Ray Tompkins House at Yale University," *The Architectural Record*, vol. 73, no. 2 (February 1933) (John Russell Pope, architect; front of 310 feet on Tower Parkway; tower 200 feet high). https://archive.org/details/sim_architectural-record_1933-02_73_2.
[^61]: Lundberg, *America's 60 Families* (1937), pp. 402 to 403 ("The contributors included Edward S. Harkness, the heirs of the late Payne Whitney, and John W. Sterling"; the new Payne Whitney Gymnasium). https://archive.org/details/lundberg-ferdinand-americas-60-families-1937.
[^62]: Sutton (1983), section on the press ("both Nation and New Republic on the 'left' were financed by Willard Straight, using Payne Whitney (The Order) funds"). https://archive.org/details/americas_secret_establishment-skull_and_bones.
[^63]: "Payne Whitney Dies Suddenly at Home," *The New York Times*, May 26, 1927, p. 25 ("Mr. Whitney's sisters are Mrs. Leonard K. Elmhirst, nee Dorothy Whitney, whose first husband was the late Willard Straight, and Mrs. Almeric H. Paget"). https://archive.org/details/sim_new-york-times_the-new-york-times_1927-05-26_76_25324.
[^64]: FBI, summary memorandum of September 10, 1969 and teletypes of September 1969 in "Straight, Michael W., HQ-1" (interview of the publisher of The New Republic: "His parents set up a fund that founded the 'New Republic' in 1914, and this fund was utilized for its operation until 1954"; Gilbert A. Harrison bought a controlling interest in 1954). https://archive.org/details/StraightMichaelW.HQ1.
[^65]: Klein, *Dynastic America* (1921), section on the Whitney estate ($6,149,230 to Dorothy Payne Whitney). https://archive.org/details/dynasticamericaa00kleirich.
[^66]: U.S. Department of State, Office of the Historian, "John Hay Whitney (1904-1982)," Principal Officers and Chiefs of Mission (Ambassador to the United Kingdom; appointed February 11, 1957; left post January 14, 1961). https://history.state.gov/departmenthistory/people/whitney-john-hay.
[^67]: Gary Tinterow, *The New Nineteenth-Century European Paintings and Sculpture Galleries* (Metropolitan Museum of Art guide), entry on Joan Whitney Payson ("a longtime patron of the arts and a frequent and generous lender to special exhibitions at the Metropolitan"; "She was co-owner of Greentree, an important racing stable, and as an enthusiastic baseball fan, she acquired the New York Mets in 1961"). https://archive.org/details/TheNewNineteenthCenturyEuropeanPaintingsandSculptureGalleries.


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