James Ben Ali Haggin
James B. A. Haggin | |
---|---|
![]() James Ben Ali Haggin | |
Born | |
Died | September 13, 1914 Newport, Rhode Island, United States | (aged 91)
Resting place | Woodlawn Cemetery Woodlawn, Bronx, New York |
Education | Centre College |
Occupation(s) | Lawyer, Rancher, Investor, Racehorse owner/breeder |
Known for | Rancho Del Paso, Elmendorf Farm |
Spouse(s) | 1) Eliza Jane Sanders (m. 1846) 2) Margaret Pearl Voorhies (m. 1897) |
Children | with Eliza Jane Sanders: 1) Louis Terah 2) James Ben Ali, Jr. 3) Margaret Sanders 4) Adeline Ben Ali 5) Edith Hunter |
Parent | Terah Temple Haggin & Adeline Ben Ali |
Honors | Mount Haggin, Montana |
James Ben Ali Haggin (December 9, 1822 – September 13, 1914) was an American attorney, rancher, investor, art collector, and a major owner and breeder in the sport of Thoroughbred horse racing.[1] Haggin made a fortune in the aftermath of the California Gold Rush and was a multi-millionaire by 1880.[2]
Life
Haggin was born in Harrodsburg, Mercer County, Kentucky, a descendant of one of the state's pioneer families who had settled there in 1775 and a descendant of Ibrahim Ben Ali, who was an early American settler of Turkish origin.[3][4][5] He graduated from Centre College at Danville, Kentucky, then entered the practice of law.
On December 28, 1846, James Ben Ali Haggin married Eliza Jane Sanders of Natchez, Mississippi with whom he had five children. She died in 1893 and on December 30, 1897 the seventy-five-year-old Haggin married twenty-eight-year-old Margaret Pearl Voorhies at her stepfather's residence in Versailles, Kentucky. Miss Voorhies was a niece of his first wife.[6]
In October 1850 he joined a Kentucky acquaintance, Lloyd Tevis, in opening a law office in Sacramento. They moved to San Francisco in 1853. He built a large and impressive Nob Hill mansion on the east side of Taylor Street between Clay and Washington streets, which stood until the earthquake and fire of 1906. It was to decorate the walls of the 61 rooms of this mansion that Haggin began the core of the family art collection that would eventually be housed in the Haggin Museum (named for his son Louis Terah Haggin) in Stockton, California.
Haggin and Tevis married sisters, daughters of Colonel Lewis Sanders, a Kentuckian who had emigrated to California. Haggin and Tevis acquired the Rancho Del Paso land grant near Sacramento. The two invested in the mining business with George Hearst as one of their partners. Hearst, Haggin, Tevis and Co. became one of the largest mining companies in the United States; its operations included the Anaconda Copper Mine in Montana, the Ontario silver mine in Park City, Utah, and the Homestake Mine in South Dakota.
The James Ben Ali Haggin Papers, 1887-1914, are kept at the Bancroft Library at the University of California at Berkeley.
Thoroughbred racing
Haggin purchased the Rancho Del Paso horse farm near Sacramento, California in 1859.[7]. He made it one of the country's most important horse breeding and Thoroughbred racing operations whose horses competed from coast-to-coast. In 1905, Haggin stopped using Rancho De Paso as a horse breeding farm and concentrated his breeding efforts at his Elmendorf Farm in Lexington, Kentucky.[8] Haggin had acquired Elmendorf in 1897 and until his death in 1914 worked to develop it into the largest horse breeding operation in the United States of its era.[9]
Major racing successes
Haggin owned the colt Tyrant which in 1885 he sent to compete as a three-year-old on the U.S. East Coast where he won the prestigious Withers and Belmont Stakes, the latter becoming the third leg of the U.S. Triple Crown series.[10] The following year his colt Ben Ali won the 1886 Kentucky Derby.[11]
At Rancho Del Paso Haggin bred Comanche and Africander, colts which won the 1893 and 1903 Belmont Stakes respectively.[12]
Honors
He is the namesake of the Ben Ali Stakes at Keeneland Race Course in Lexington.[13]
Mount Haggin (10,607 ft / 3,233 m), near the town of Anaconda in southwestern Montana, also is named for James Ben Ali Haggin.[14]
Personal life
Haggin was the eldest of eight children of Terah Temple and Adeline (Ben Ali) Haggin, the daughter of Ibrahim Ben Ali, a Turkish army officer.[15]
In 1846 Haggin married Eliza Jane Sanders; they had two sons and three daughters.[15]
In 1897 Haggin married Margaret ("Pearl") Voorhies of Versailles, Kentucky.[15]
Haggin died September 12, 1914, at his Newport, Rhode Island, residence and was buried in Woodlawn Cemetery in New York.[15]
His grandson, James Ben Ali Haggin III, was a portrait painter and stage designer.
References
- ^ New York Times - September 13, 1914 obituary for James B. A. Haggin
- ^ Kleber, John E. (1992). The Kentucky Encyclopedia. University Press of Kentucky. p. 397. ISBN 0-8131-1772-0.
- ^ J.S. Clarke. "History". Linda Haggin Peck. Archived from the original on 2011-07-26. Retrieved 2008-09-30.
- ^ Brackney, Peter Brackney (2014). Lost Lexington, Kentucky. The History Press. p. 106. ISBN 978-1625851284. Retrieved 11 September 2015.
- ^ Clarke, Adam; Jones, William (1834). Memoirs of the life, ministry, and writings of the Rev. Adam Clarke, LL.D. The British Library. p. 184. Retrieved 11 September 2015.
- ^ New York Times - December 31, 1897
- ^ "History of the Property at Haggin Oaks". Haggin Oaks. 2014-02-18. Retrieved 2019-09-14.
- ^ New York Times - October 8, 1905 article titled "The Passing of Rancho Del Paso"
- ^ "Elmendorf Stock Farm". Lexington (Kentucky) History Museum. 2019-09-14. Retrieved 2019-09-14.
- ^ "1885 Belmont" (PDF). Belmontstakes.com. 1885-06-06. Retrieved 2019-09-14.
- ^ "1886 - Ben Ali". Churchill Downs Incorporated. 2019-09-14. Retrieved 2019-09-14.
- ^ "History of Belmont Stakes Racing Festival". New York Racing Association (NYRA). 2019-09-14. Retrieved 2019-09-14.
- ^ "1886 - Ben Ali (G3)". Keeneland Association, Inc. 2019-09-14. Retrieved 2019-09-14.
- ^ "Mount Haggin". State of Montana Office of Tourism. 2019-09-14. Retrieved 2019-09-14.
- ^ a b c d Kleber, John E. (1992). The Kentucky Encyclopedia. University Press of Kentucky. pp. 397–398. ISBN 0-8131-1772-0.
External links
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/4/4a/Commons-logo.svg/30px-Commons-logo.svg.png)
- James Ben Ali Haggin biography sourced from the History of Kentucky (1928), J. S. Clarke Publishing Company, Louisville Kentucky
- Information on James Ben Ali Haggin at the Richard Lounsbery Foundation
- History of Rancho Del Paso at the Del Paso Country Club
Further reading
- Sergent, Amber Fogle (2012). "The Pastime of Millions": James B. Haggin's Elmendorf Farm and the Commercialization of Pedigree Animal Breeding, 1897-1920 (Ph.D. thesis). UKnowledge Theses and Dissertations - History. Vol. Paper 6. University of Kentucky.
- 1822 births
- 1914 deaths
- Centre College alumni
- California lawyers
- American mining businesspeople
- American racehorse owners and breeders
- Owners of Kentucky Derby winners
- People from Harrodsburg, Kentucky
- American people of Turkish descent
- Burials at Woodlawn Cemetery (Bronx)
- Agriculture in Kentucky
- Businesspeople from Kentucky