Cornelia Wadsworth Ritchie Adair (April 6, 1837 – September 22, 1921) was a Texas ranch landowner.
Early life
Born Cornelia Wadsworth on April 6, 1837, in
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, she was one of six children of James S. Wadsworth and Mary Craig (née Wharton) Wadsworth. Adair grew up in a wealthy family who owned over 50,000 acres of land near Geneseo, New York and built a 13,000 square-foot house there in 1835.
Her father was a
Union Army general in the American Civil War who was mortally wounded in battle during the Battle of the Wilderness of 1864. Her brother was U.S. Representative James Wolcott Wadsworth,
and her sister was Elizabeth S. Wadsworth, who married Arthur Smith-Barry, 1st Baron Barrymore.
Through her brother James, she was an aunt of U.S. Senator James Wolcott Wadsworth Jr., who married to Alice Evelyn Hay, daughter of former Secretary of State John Hay.
Life and ranch
She became an accomplished horserider which encouraged her interests in traveling across the
prairies of the western United States. In 1876,
her second husband, John George Adair, became a partner with Charles Goodnight to found the
JA Ranch. When her husband died, she became partner.
She enjoyed hunting and participated at roundups. She founded a hospital, and supported building the
Fann Street.
In addition to her life on the ranch, Adair "spent much of her time in her fashionable house" on Curzon Street in Mayfair district of London,
Personal life
In 1857, she was married to Montgomery Harrison Ritchie (1826–1864), the son of Andrew Ritchie and Sophia Harrison (née Otis) Ritchie (a daughter of U.S. Senator Harrison Gray Otis). Before his death in 1864 from complications after serving in the Civil War,
they became the parents of two children:
-
James Wadsworth Ritchie (1861–1924), who married Emily Montague Tooker, a daughter of Gabriel Mead Tooker, in 1895.
-
Arthur Montgomery Ritchie (1861–1909),
In 1869, she married John George "Jack" Adair (1823–1885), a Scottish-Irish businessman and landowner. Following the wedding, the couple moved to Geneseo, New York. The couple divided their time between Ireland, England, and New York until his death in Missouri in 1885.
Adair died at Corsham near Bath in England on September 22, 1921.
Descendants
Through her son James, she was a grandmother of Gabrielle (née Ritchie) Keiller (1908–1995), the golfer, art collector, archaeological photographer and heir to Keiller's marmalade through her marriage to archaeologist Alexander Keiller.
She
bequest a large collection of
Dada and
Surrealism art to the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art.
(1997). 090359868X, Trustees of the National Galleries of Scotland. 090359868X
She was also a grandmother of Montgomery Harrison Wadsworth "Montie" Ritchie (1910–1999), whose daughter, Cornelia's great-granddaughter, Cornelia Wadsworth Ritchie,
Works
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My diary, August 30 to November 5, 1874 introduction by Montagu K. Brown, illustrations by Malcolm Thurgood. Austin, Texas & London: Texas University Press, 1965.
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Letters of a cattle baroness, San Antonio, Tex., 1984.
Citations
Sources
External links
