Henry M. Hoyt (Solicitor General)

Henry Martyn Hoyt, Jr.
Henry Martyn Hoyt, Jr. portrait
Born	December 5, 1856 Wilkes-Barre
Died	November 20, 1910
Alma mater	University of Pennsylvania Law School, Yale University
Occupation	Solicitor General of the United States
Term	1903–1909
Predecessor	John K. Richards
Successor	Lloyd Wheaton Bowers
Spouse	Anne McMichael
Children	5

Henry Martyn Hoyt, Jr. (December 5, 1856 – November 20, 1910) served as Solicitor General of the United States from 1903 to 1909. His father, also named Henry Martyn Hoyt, served as governor of Pennsylvania from 1879 to 1883.

Early life

Hoyt was born on December 5, 1856 in Wilkes-Barre, the son of Henry Martyn Hoyt, the governor of Pennsylvania from 1879 to 1883. He graduated from Yale University in 1878 and the law school of the University of Pennsylvania in 1881.

Career

After a career spent in private practice as a lawyer in Pennsylvania, starting in Pittsburgh and then in banking he became an Assistant Attorney General in 1897. In 1903, he was appointed Solicitor General by Theodore Roosevelt. After the end of Roosevelt's term in office he became a counselor to Secretary of State Philander C. Knox.

Personal life

Hoyt married Anne McMichael in 1883 and had five children, including:

• Elinor Wylie (September 7, 1885 – December 16, 1928), a poet who married three times
• Henry Martyn Hoyt (May 8, 1887 in Pennsylvania – 1920 in New York City) who married Alice Gordon Parker (January 27, 1885 in Newark, New Jersey – 1951)
• Constance A. Hoyt (May 20, 1889 in Pennsylvania – 1923 in Bavaria, Germany) who married Ferdinand von Stumm-Halberg on March 30, 1910 in Washington, D.C.
• Morton McMichael Hoyt (April 4, 1899 in Washington, D.C. – ?), three times married and divorced Eugenia Bankhead, known as "Sister" and sister of Tallulah Bankhead
• Nancy McMichael Hoyt (October 1, 1902 in Washington, D.C. – ?) romance novelist who wrote Elinor Wylie: The Portrait of an Unknown Woman (1935). She married Edward Davison Curtis; they divorced in 1932.

Hoyt died on November 20, 1910.

References

• Evelyn Helmick Hively, A Private Madness: The Genius of Elinor Wylie
• U.S. Office of the Solicitor General page for Henry M. Hoyt