The House of Habs-Burg, or House of Austria, was one of the most influential Royal Houses of Europe. The progenitor of the House was Gunt-Ram the Rich. He was a Count in Breis-Gau, who lived in the 10th century, and was a member of the noble family of the Eticho-Nids. His grandson Radbot, Count of Habs-Burg founded the Habs-Burg Castle, after which the Habs-Burgs are named.
The origins of the castle's name located in what is now the Swiss canton of Aar-Gau, are uncertain. The Habs-Burg Castle was the family seat in the 11th, 12th, and 13th centuries.
The Eti-Chonids were an important noble family of Frankish, Burgundian or Visigothic origin, who rose to dominate the Region of Alsace, located on France's Eastern border and on the West bank of the Upper Rhine adjacent to Germany and Switzerland.
By 1500 BC, Celts began to settle in Alsace, clearing and cultivating the land. It should be noted that Alsace is a Plain surrounded by the Vosges Mountains (West) and the Black Forest Mountains (East). It creates Foehn Winds, along with natural irrigation, participates to the fertility of the soil. In a world of agriculture, Alsace has always bee a rich Region which explain why it suffered so many invasions and annexions in its history.
The earliest account records of the family's beginnings is around Dijon, a city in Eastern France in Northern Burgundy. In the mid-7th century a Duke of the Region named Amalgar and his wife Aquilina were noticed as major founders and patrons of monasteries. King Dagobert I and his father made donations to them to recover their loyalty and compensate them for the losses that they had sustained as supporters of Queen Brunhild and her grandson, Sig-Ebert II. Almagar and his wife founded a convent at Bregille and a abbey at Beze, Eastern France, installing a son and a daughter in the abbacies. They were succeeded by their 3rd child, Adal-Rich, who was the father of Adal-Rich, Duke of Alsace. This 2nd Adal-Rich was the true founder of the family greatness in Alsace, where he secured the Ducal Title. His name, Eticho, a varation od Adal-Rich, is used in modern language.
Under the Eticho-Nids, Alsace was divided into a Nord-Gau and a Sund-Gau. These counties, as well as the monasteries of the Duchy, were brought under tighter control of the dukes with the rise of the Eticho-Nids. There exist concerns whether they were in conflict or alliance with the Carolingians, but it is possible that they were both: opponents of the extension of Charles Martel's authority in the 720s when he first made war on Alemannia, but allies when the Alemanni , under Duke Theu-De-Bald invaded Alsace (which had a large Alemannic element in its population) in the early 740s. The last Eticho-Nid Duke, Liut-Frid, died fighting Theu-De-Bald on behalf of Pepin the Short.
Among the descendants of the Eticho-Nids, in the female line were Hugh of tours and his family, including his daughter Ermen-Gard, who was the wife of Lothair I (eldest son of the Carolingian emperor Louis the Pious) and thus mother of 3 Carolingian kings.
In the 10th century the Eticho-Nids remained powerful in Alsace as Counts, but their power was circumscribed significantly by the Ottonian Dynasty (Saxon Dynasty , successors of the Carolingians in East Francia), and by the 11th century, Pope Leo IX seemed unaware that his ancestors, the lords (or Counts) of Dabo (Northe-Eastern France) and Eguis-Heim (North-Eastern France and Birthplace of the Pope) for the previous half century were direct descendants of the last Eticho-Nides. Many notable European families trace their lineage to the Etchonides.
The Habs-Burgs expanded their influence through arranged marriages and by gaining political privileges, especially Count-ships rights in Zurich-Gau, Aar-Gau, and Thur-Gau. In the 13the centuty, the House aimed its marriage policy at families in Upper Alsace and Swabia. They were also able to gain positions in the Church Hierarchy for their members. Territorially they often profited from the extinction of other noble families such as the House of Ky-Burg (Zurich, Switzerland).
By the 2nd half of the 13th century, Count Rudolph IV (1218-1291) had become one of the most influential territorial lords in the area between the Vosges Mountains and Lake Constance. Due to these impressive pre-conditions, on 1 October 1273 Rudolph was chosen as the King of the Romans and received the name of Rudolph I of Germany. In 1282, the Habs-Burgs gained the rulership of the Duchy of Austria, which they held for over 600 years, until 1918.
The Habs-Burgs sought to consolidate their power by frequent use of consanguineous marriages. They were said to have a proverb that "the best spouse for a Habs-Burg is another Habs-Burg." this resulted in cumulatively deterioration effect on their gene pool. Marriages between first cousins, or between uncle and niece, were commonplace in the family. The inbreeding directly led to their extinction. The gene pool eventually became so small that the last of the Spanish line Charles II, who was severely disable from birth, possessed a genome comparable to taht of a child born to a brother and sister, as did his father, because of remote inbreeding custom of the family. The Austrian branch went extinct in the male line in 1740 with the death of Charles VI and in the female line in 1780 with the death of his daughter Maria Theresa; it was succeeded by the Vaude-Mont branch of the House of Lorraine in the person of her son Joseph II.
On 6 August 1806 the Holy Roman Empire was dissolved under the French Emperor Napoleon I's reorganization of Germany.
On 11 November 1918, with his empire collapsing around him, the last Habs-Burg ruler, Charles I (who also reigned as Charles IV of Hungary) issued a proclamation recognizing Austria's right to determine the future of the state and renouncing any role in state affairs. Two days later, he issued a separate proclamation for Hungary. Even though he did not officially abdicate, this is considered the end of the Habs-Burg Dynasty.
Wednesday, March 16, 2016
Monday, March 14, 2016
THOMAS EDWARD LAWRENCE.
Thomas Edward Lawrence (16August 1888-19May1935 was born in Tre-Mad-Og, Caer-Narfon-Shire (now Gwynedd), Wales.
Trema-Dog is a village in the community of Porth-Mad-Og, in Gwynedd, North West Wales. It was a planned settlement, founded by William Mad-Ock, who bought the land in 1798.
The Mad-Ocks family had long associations with Wales, traceable back to the time of King Henry II, and William's father inherited property at Llan-Gwyfan and near Wrex-Ham. As William rose to prominence in the legal profession, the family moved to a substantial Jacobean House with its own private theatre in North Cray, Kent, as the Welsh properties were too far away. In the late 18th century, various landowners around the edge of the estuary of the Afon Glas-Lyn(a dangerous place because of the quicksands) began to systematically reclaim land of between 50acres/20ha and 100acres/40ha. Between 1770 and 1800 this resulted in the creation of about 1,500acres/607ha of new land. Around 1798, William bought the Tan-Yr-Allt estate near Pen-Morfa Marsh. Soon afterward he reclaimed an area of sand from the sea and the River by building a 2mi/3.2km earthern bank from Prenteg to Clog-Y-Berth(now Porth-Mad-Og). The Township of Tre-Mad-Og was founded within the new area. The centre of Tre-Mad-Og was complete by 1811 and remains substantially unaltered. William Mad-Ock's main interest was the Village's appearance. He was less interested in the moral reform of the inhabitants. He felt that people had the right to work, educate their children, pray, drink, gamble, save or waste money as they saw fit; and the Town should give its residents opportunities to get own with their own lives, providing that they were congenial neighbors.
Thomas's house, in which he was born, was named Gor-Ph-Wys-Fa, now known as Snow-Don Lodge. His Anglo-Irish father Sir Thomas Chap-Man had left his wife Edith after he fell in love and had a son with Sarah Junner, a young Scotswoman who had been engaged as governess to his daughters.
Sarah was the daughter of Elizabeth Junner and John Lawrence. Lawrence worked as a ship's carpenter and was a son of the household in which Elizabeth had been a servant. She was dismissed 4 months before Sarah was born. (Elizabeth identified Sarah's father as "John Junner-Shipwright JourneyMan").
Sara and Thomas Chap-Man lived in Wales, Brittany, and England under the name "Lawrence." In 1914, he inherited the Chap-Man baronetcy based at Kil-Lua Castle, the ancestral family home in County WestMeath, Ireland; but he and Sarah continued to live in England. They had 5 boys and 1 girl.
Thomas Edward Lawrence and his school-friend Cyril Bee-Son, at the age of 15, bicycled around Berk-Shire, Buck-King-Ham-Shire, and Ox-Ford-Shire, visited almost every Village's parish church, studied their monuments and antiquities, and made rubbings of their monumental brasses. They also monitored building sites in Ox-Ford and presented their finds to the Ash-Molean Museum. Their records specifies that two teenage boys by incessant watchfulness secured everything of antiquarian value which has been found.
From 1907-10, Lawrence studied History at Jesus College, Ox-Ford. In the Summer of 1909, he set out alone on a 3-month walking tour of crusader castles in Ottoman Syria, during which he travelled 1,600km/1000mi on foot. Based on his field research with Beeson in france, notably in Chalus, and his solo research in the Middle East, he submitted a thesis entitled "The influence of the Crusaders on European Military Architecture - to the end of the 12th century. After completing his degree in 1910, he commenced postgraduate research in medieval pottery with a form of scholarship at Magdalen College, Ox-Ford, which he abandoned after he was offered the opportunity to become a practice archaeologist in the Middle East, at Carchemish, in the expedition that D. G. Hogarth was setting on behalf of the British Museum. Lawrence knew Ancient Greek, Arabic, and French. In late 1911, Lawrence was to work with Leonard Woolley and stayed at Carchemish again for 4 excavation seasons, residing in a spacious excavation house, newly built inside the site by himself and Woolley. On January 1914, Woolley and Lawrence were co-opted by the British military as an archaeological smokescreen for a British military survey on the Negev Desert. They were funded by the Palestine Exploration Fund to search for an area referred to in the Bible as the "Wilderness of Sin." The Negev was strategically important as, in the event of war, any Otto-Man army attacking Egypt would have to cross it. Lawrence also visited Aqaba and Petra.
Lawrence's major contribution to the Arab's Revolt was convincing the Arab leaders to coordinate their actions in support of British strategy. Lawrence developed a close relationship with Faisal, whose Arab Northern Army became the main beneficiary of British aid. Lawerence also became involved in the build-up to the capture of Damas-Cus in the final weeks of the war. Lawrence sought to convince his superiors in the British government that Arab independence was in their interests -with mixed success. The secret Sykes-Picot Agreement between france and Britain contradicted the promises of independence that he had made to the Arabs and frustrated his work.
On 17 May 1919, Lawrence survived a crash on a flight to Egypt at the airport of Roman-Centocelle. The pilot and co-pilot were killed.
Lawrence was a keen motorcyclist and had owned 8 Brough Superior motorcycles at different times. At the age of 46, two months after leaving military service, he was fatally injured in an accident on his Brough Superior SS100 in Dorset, South West, England, close to his cottage, Clouds Hill, near Ware-Ham. A dip in the road obstructed his view of 2 boys on their bicycles; he swerved to avoid them, lost control, and was thrown over the handlebars. He died 6 days later on 19 May 1935.
Trema-Dog is a village in the community of Porth-Mad-Og, in Gwynedd, North West Wales. It was a planned settlement, founded by William Mad-Ock, who bought the land in 1798.
The Mad-Ocks family had long associations with Wales, traceable back to the time of King Henry II, and William's father inherited property at Llan-Gwyfan and near Wrex-Ham. As William rose to prominence in the legal profession, the family moved to a substantial Jacobean House with its own private theatre in North Cray, Kent, as the Welsh properties were too far away. In the late 18th century, various landowners around the edge of the estuary of the Afon Glas-Lyn(a dangerous place because of the quicksands) began to systematically reclaim land of between 50acres/20ha and 100acres/40ha. Between 1770 and 1800 this resulted in the creation of about 1,500acres/607ha of new land. Around 1798, William bought the Tan-Yr-Allt estate near Pen-Morfa Marsh. Soon afterward he reclaimed an area of sand from the sea and the River by building a 2mi/3.2km earthern bank from Prenteg to Clog-Y-Berth(now Porth-Mad-Og). The Township of Tre-Mad-Og was founded within the new area. The centre of Tre-Mad-Og was complete by 1811 and remains substantially unaltered. William Mad-Ock's main interest was the Village's appearance. He was less interested in the moral reform of the inhabitants. He felt that people had the right to work, educate their children, pray, drink, gamble, save or waste money as they saw fit; and the Town should give its residents opportunities to get own with their own lives, providing that they were congenial neighbors.
Thomas's house, in which he was born, was named Gor-Ph-Wys-Fa, now known as Snow-Don Lodge. His Anglo-Irish father Sir Thomas Chap-Man had left his wife Edith after he fell in love and had a son with Sarah Junner, a young Scotswoman who had been engaged as governess to his daughters.
Sarah was the daughter of Elizabeth Junner and John Lawrence. Lawrence worked as a ship's carpenter and was a son of the household in which Elizabeth had been a servant. She was dismissed 4 months before Sarah was born. (Elizabeth identified Sarah's father as "John Junner-Shipwright JourneyMan").
Sara and Thomas Chap-Man lived in Wales, Brittany, and England under the name "Lawrence." In 1914, he inherited the Chap-Man baronetcy based at Kil-Lua Castle, the ancestral family home in County WestMeath, Ireland; but he and Sarah continued to live in England. They had 5 boys and 1 girl.
Thomas Edward Lawrence and his school-friend Cyril Bee-Son, at the age of 15, bicycled around Berk-Shire, Buck-King-Ham-Shire, and Ox-Ford-Shire, visited almost every Village's parish church, studied their monuments and antiquities, and made rubbings of their monumental brasses. They also monitored building sites in Ox-Ford and presented their finds to the Ash-Molean Museum. Their records specifies that two teenage boys by incessant watchfulness secured everything of antiquarian value which has been found.
From 1907-10, Lawrence studied History at Jesus College, Ox-Ford. In the Summer of 1909, he set out alone on a 3-month walking tour of crusader castles in Ottoman Syria, during which he travelled 1,600km/1000mi on foot. Based on his field research with Beeson in france, notably in Chalus, and his solo research in the Middle East, he submitted a thesis entitled "The influence of the Crusaders on European Military Architecture - to the end of the 12th century. After completing his degree in 1910, he commenced postgraduate research in medieval pottery with a form of scholarship at Magdalen College, Ox-Ford, which he abandoned after he was offered the opportunity to become a practice archaeologist in the Middle East, at Carchemish, in the expedition that D. G. Hogarth was setting on behalf of the British Museum. Lawrence knew Ancient Greek, Arabic, and French. In late 1911, Lawrence was to work with Leonard Woolley and stayed at Carchemish again for 4 excavation seasons, residing in a spacious excavation house, newly built inside the site by himself and Woolley. On January 1914, Woolley and Lawrence were co-opted by the British military as an archaeological smokescreen for a British military survey on the Negev Desert. They were funded by the Palestine Exploration Fund to search for an area referred to in the Bible as the "Wilderness of Sin." The Negev was strategically important as, in the event of war, any Otto-Man army attacking Egypt would have to cross it. Lawrence also visited Aqaba and Petra.
Lawrence's major contribution to the Arab's Revolt was convincing the Arab leaders to coordinate their actions in support of British strategy. Lawrence developed a close relationship with Faisal, whose Arab Northern Army became the main beneficiary of British aid. Lawerence also became involved in the build-up to the capture of Damas-Cus in the final weeks of the war. Lawrence sought to convince his superiors in the British government that Arab independence was in their interests -with mixed success. The secret Sykes-Picot Agreement between france and Britain contradicted the promises of independence that he had made to the Arabs and frustrated his work.
On 17 May 1919, Lawrence survived a crash on a flight to Egypt at the airport of Roman-Centocelle. The pilot and co-pilot were killed.
Lawrence was a keen motorcyclist and had owned 8 Brough Superior motorcycles at different times. At the age of 46, two months after leaving military service, he was fatally injured in an accident on his Brough Superior SS100 in Dorset, South West, England, close to his cottage, Clouds Hill, near Ware-Ham. A dip in the road obstructed his view of 2 boys on their bicycles; he swerved to avoid them, lost control, and was thrown over the handlebars. He died 6 days later on 19 May 1935.
Saturday, March 12, 2016
THE ENCHANTED CASTLE OF THE HEARST FAMILY.
The Hearst Castle is now a National and California Historical Mansion located on the Central Coast of California, United States.
It was designed (between 1919 and 1947) by Julia Morgan, an architect, for the newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst. She was the daughter of Charles Bill Morgan, a mining lover but not a successful man. Her family wealth relied on Albert O. Parmelee, a cotton trader and self-made millionaire, father of Eliza Morgan, her mother. She ran the household with a strong hand, providing young Julia with a role model of womanly competence and independence.
Julia designed more than 700 buildings in California for institutions serving women and girls (YWCA, Mills College) during a long and prolific carrier. She was the 1st woman to be admitted to the L'Ecole Nationale Superieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris, and the 1st woman to be licensed as an architect in Califonia State.
The Castle was built on Rancho Piedra Blanca that George Hearst, father of William, originally bought in 1865, at the age of 45. William grew fond of this site over many childhood family camping trips.
The Region in which the land is located is sparsely populated because of the Santa Lucia Range in coastal central California abuts the Pacific Ocean, providing dramatic seaside vistas but few opportunities for development and transportation.
William inherited the Ranch, which had grown to 1012 km2/250,000 acres and 23 km/14mi of coastline, from his mother Phoebe in 1919, at the age of 56. Although the large Ranch already had a Victorian mansion, the location selected for the "Enchanted Castle" was undeveloped, atop a steep hill whose ascent was a dirty path accessible only by foot or on horseback over 8 km/5mi of cutbacks. William particularly admired a church in Ronda, a city in Spanish Province of Malaga and asked Morgan to pattern the Main Building towers after it. Construction began in 1919 and continued through 1947.
The estate is a work of visual art of historic architectural styles that William admired in his travels around Europe, but its underlying structure is primarily steel reinforced concrete. A private power plant supplied electricity to the remote location. Most of the estate's chandeliers have bare light bulbs, because electrical technology was so new when the Enchanted Castle was built. Morgan devised a gravity-based water delivery system that transport water from artesian wells on the slopes of Pine Mountain, a 1100m/3500ft hugh peak 11km/7mi East of the Castle, to a reservoir on Rocky Butte, a 610m/2000ft knoll less than a mile SouthEast from the Castle.
William was a prolific buyer and built his home to get his bulging collection out of warehouses. This led to incongruous elements, such as the private cinema, whose walls were lined with shelves of rare books. The floor plan of the Main building is chaotic due to his habit of buying centuries-old ceilings, which dictated the proportions and decor of various rooms.
The Castle featured 56 bedrooms, 61 bathrooms, 19 sitting rooms, 0.5 km2/127 acres of gardens, indoor and outdoor swimming pools (The Neptune Pool features an ancient Roman temple front, transported wholesale from Europe and recosntructed at the site), tennis courts, a movie theater, an airfield, and the world's largest private zoo.
Invitations to the Great House were highly coveted during the 1920s and 1930s. The Hollywood and political elite often visited, usually flying into the estate's airfield or taking a private Hearst-owned train car from Los Angeles. Among Hearst's guests were Charlie Chaplin, Cary Grant, the Marx Brothers, Charles Lindbergh, Greta Garbo, Joan Crawford, Clark Gable, James Steward, Bod Hope, Calvin Coolidge, Franklin Roosevelt, Dolores del Rio, and Winston Churchil. While guests were expected to attend the formal dinners each evening, they were normally left to their own devices during the day while Hearst directed his business affairs. Since the Great House had so many facilities, guests were rarely at a loss for things to do. The estate's theater usually screened films from Hearst's own movie studio, Cosmopolitan Productions.
William R. Hearst (April 29, 1863-August 14,1951) responsible for the building of the "Enchanted Castle," was born in San Francisco, to George Hearst (September 3,1820-February 28, 1891) of Scots-Irish origin. George, his father, was the son of a farmer which operated 3 mortgaged lands and a local store with the help of slaves. His father supplemented the gaps of his formal education by observing how the local mines were exploited, and reading information about minerals and mining. Eventually this love for mining became his main goal in live and the source of income as a prospector during a time in which the gold rush was on. He enter as a partner of Tevis (banker and capitalist who served as president of Wells Fargo from 1872 to 1892), Hagging (American attorney, rancher, investor and major owner/breeder of Thoroughbred Horse Racing), Hearst (prospector using self mining education and experience) Corporation, a company that started in California in the 1850s. They had interests in the Comstock Lode and the Ophir mine in Nevada, the Ontario silver mine in Utah, the Pacific mine in Pinos, Altos, New Mexico, the Homestake gold mine in South Dakota (his pursuit of which is dramatized in the HBO (Home Box Office, the cable flagship division of Time Warner, in New York) television series "DeadWood' depicted as a ruthless and borderline sociopathic robber baron, in season 3), the Anaconda Copper mine in Montana, and the source of their immense fortune was Cerro de Pasco, silver mine in Peru. After the Cerro de Pasco continuing exploitation the Corporation grew to be the largest private mining firm in the United States.
In 1860, at the age of 40, he married a girl of 18, neighbor of his mother's home town in Missouri. They moved to San Francisco, and his wife, gave bird to their only son, William Randolph Hearst.
William's life story was the main inspiration for the development of the lead character in Orson Well's film "Citizen Kane."
When William's father died in Washington DC, his mother donated a great deal of his fortune to help found new libraries at several and now very prestige universities. The Hearst Mining Building on the Berkeley campus is dedicated to his memory. George Hearst character is portrayed in the 1964 episode "The Paper Dynasty" of the syndicated western television series "Death Valley Days," hosted by Stanley Andrews.
The "Enchanted Hill" as William used to call it, was built on a hill overlooking the Pacific Ocean near San Simeon, which is home to a large Northern Elephant Seal Rockery, known as White Stones Rookery in central California, halfway (400km/250mi from both) between Los Angeles and San Francisco. The estate itself is 8 km/5mi inland atop a hill of the Santa Lucia Range at an altitude of 490m/1600ft.
It was donated to the state of California in 1957, and is now a State Historical Monument and a National Historic Landmark, open for public tours. It has a considerable collection of art and antiques.
It was designed (between 1919 and 1947) by Julia Morgan, an architect, for the newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst. She was the daughter of Charles Bill Morgan, a mining lover but not a successful man. Her family wealth relied on Albert O. Parmelee, a cotton trader and self-made millionaire, father of Eliza Morgan, her mother. She ran the household with a strong hand, providing young Julia with a role model of womanly competence and independence.
Julia designed more than 700 buildings in California for institutions serving women and girls (YWCA, Mills College) during a long and prolific carrier. She was the 1st woman to be admitted to the L'Ecole Nationale Superieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris, and the 1st woman to be licensed as an architect in Califonia State.
The Castle was built on Rancho Piedra Blanca that George Hearst, father of William, originally bought in 1865, at the age of 45. William grew fond of this site over many childhood family camping trips.
The Region in which the land is located is sparsely populated because of the Santa Lucia Range in coastal central California abuts the Pacific Ocean, providing dramatic seaside vistas but few opportunities for development and transportation.
William inherited the Ranch, which had grown to 1012 km2/250,000 acres and 23 km/14mi of coastline, from his mother Phoebe in 1919, at the age of 56. Although the large Ranch already had a Victorian mansion, the location selected for the "Enchanted Castle" was undeveloped, atop a steep hill whose ascent was a dirty path accessible only by foot or on horseback over 8 km/5mi of cutbacks. William particularly admired a church in Ronda, a city in Spanish Province of Malaga and asked Morgan to pattern the Main Building towers after it. Construction began in 1919 and continued through 1947.
The estate is a work of visual art of historic architectural styles that William admired in his travels around Europe, but its underlying structure is primarily steel reinforced concrete. A private power plant supplied electricity to the remote location. Most of the estate's chandeliers have bare light bulbs, because electrical technology was so new when the Enchanted Castle was built. Morgan devised a gravity-based water delivery system that transport water from artesian wells on the slopes of Pine Mountain, a 1100m/3500ft hugh peak 11km/7mi East of the Castle, to a reservoir on Rocky Butte, a 610m/2000ft knoll less than a mile SouthEast from the Castle.
William was a prolific buyer and built his home to get his bulging collection out of warehouses. This led to incongruous elements, such as the private cinema, whose walls were lined with shelves of rare books. The floor plan of the Main building is chaotic due to his habit of buying centuries-old ceilings, which dictated the proportions and decor of various rooms.
The Castle featured 56 bedrooms, 61 bathrooms, 19 sitting rooms, 0.5 km2/127 acres of gardens, indoor and outdoor swimming pools (The Neptune Pool features an ancient Roman temple front, transported wholesale from Europe and recosntructed at the site), tennis courts, a movie theater, an airfield, and the world's largest private zoo.
Invitations to the Great House were highly coveted during the 1920s and 1930s. The Hollywood and political elite often visited, usually flying into the estate's airfield or taking a private Hearst-owned train car from Los Angeles. Among Hearst's guests were Charlie Chaplin, Cary Grant, the Marx Brothers, Charles Lindbergh, Greta Garbo, Joan Crawford, Clark Gable, James Steward, Bod Hope, Calvin Coolidge, Franklin Roosevelt, Dolores del Rio, and Winston Churchil. While guests were expected to attend the formal dinners each evening, they were normally left to their own devices during the day while Hearst directed his business affairs. Since the Great House had so many facilities, guests were rarely at a loss for things to do. The estate's theater usually screened films from Hearst's own movie studio, Cosmopolitan Productions.
William R. Hearst (April 29, 1863-August 14,1951) responsible for the building of the "Enchanted Castle," was born in San Francisco, to George Hearst (September 3,1820-February 28, 1891) of Scots-Irish origin. George, his father, was the son of a farmer which operated 3 mortgaged lands and a local store with the help of slaves. His father supplemented the gaps of his formal education by observing how the local mines were exploited, and reading information about minerals and mining. Eventually this love for mining became his main goal in live and the source of income as a prospector during a time in which the gold rush was on. He enter as a partner of Tevis (banker and capitalist who served as president of Wells Fargo from 1872 to 1892), Hagging (American attorney, rancher, investor and major owner/breeder of Thoroughbred Horse Racing), Hearst (prospector using self mining education and experience) Corporation, a company that started in California in the 1850s. They had interests in the Comstock Lode and the Ophir mine in Nevada, the Ontario silver mine in Utah, the Pacific mine in Pinos, Altos, New Mexico, the Homestake gold mine in South Dakota (his pursuit of which is dramatized in the HBO (Home Box Office, the cable flagship division of Time Warner, in New York) television series "DeadWood' depicted as a ruthless and borderline sociopathic robber baron, in season 3), the Anaconda Copper mine in Montana, and the source of their immense fortune was Cerro de Pasco, silver mine in Peru. After the Cerro de Pasco continuing exploitation the Corporation grew to be the largest private mining firm in the United States.
In 1860, at the age of 40, he married a girl of 18, neighbor of his mother's home town in Missouri. They moved to San Francisco, and his wife, gave bird to their only son, William Randolph Hearst.
William's life story was the main inspiration for the development of the lead character in Orson Well's film "Citizen Kane."
When William's father died in Washington DC, his mother donated a great deal of his fortune to help found new libraries at several and now very prestige universities. The Hearst Mining Building on the Berkeley campus is dedicated to his memory. George Hearst character is portrayed in the 1964 episode "The Paper Dynasty" of the syndicated western television series "Death Valley Days," hosted by Stanley Andrews.
The "Enchanted Hill" as William used to call it, was built on a hill overlooking the Pacific Ocean near San Simeon, which is home to a large Northern Elephant Seal Rockery, known as White Stones Rookery in central California, halfway (400km/250mi from both) between Los Angeles and San Francisco. The estate itself is 8 km/5mi inland atop a hill of the Santa Lucia Range at an altitude of 490m/1600ft.
It was donated to the state of California in 1957, and is now a State Historical Monument and a National Historic Landmark, open for public tours. It has a considerable collection of art and antiques.
Thursday, March 3, 2016
THE HONORABLE GEORGE HEARST.
George Hearst (September 3, 1820-February 28, 1891) was a wealthy business-man and United States Senator, and the father of news-paper-man William Randolph Hearst.
George, of Scots-Irish origin, was born near Sullivan, Missouri, to William Hearst and Elizabeth Collins. Sullivan is a city that straddles the border of Franklin County and Craw-Ford County.
Franklin County is named after one of the founder fathers of the United States, Benjamin Franklin. The area was a center of the Native American Mississippian culture, which built numerous temple and residential earthwork mounds on both sides of the Mississippi River.
George was raised in a log cabin on his family's farm in rural Franklin County. His father operated 3 small farms (all mortgaged) with the help of slaves. William, the father, sold his products in his own local general store. George grew up before public education was widely accessible in Missouri, and so his elementary education was inconsistent and fragmented. He supplemented the gaps in his formal education by observing the local mines, and reading information about minerals and mining in his free time.
When his father died in 1846, he took over the care of his mother, brother and sister, at the age of 26. In addition, he did some mining and continuing running his father general store. He first heard of the discovery of gold in California in 1849. Before departing, he continued to read further news on the subject. In 1850, at the age of 30, as a member of a party of 16, he left for California. Using his self- mining education and experience in Missouri, he switched to quartz mines. After almost 10 years, George was making a decent living as a mineral prospector (physical labour involving traversing on foot or horse, panning, sifting and outcrop investigation, looking for signs of mineralization), and otherwise engaged in running a general store, raising livestock and farming in Nevada County, Sierra Nevada, California.
In the summer of 1859, at the age of 39, he learned of wonderful silver assays and hurried over to the Wa-Shoe District of Western Utah territory. There he arranged to buy a one-sixth interest in the Ophir mine there (now Virginia City). George then knew Marcus Daly from the Com-Stock Lode (deposit of ore embedded in a fissure or crack in a rock formation) work. A lode of silver was found under the Eastern slope of Mount David-Son, a peak in the Virginia Range in Nevada, then Utah Territory. It was the 1st major discovery of silver in the United States. After the discovery was made public in 1859, it sparked a silver rush of prospectors to the area, scrambling to stake their claims. It brought considerable excitement in California and throughout the United States. The greatest since the California Gold Rush in 1849.
That Winter of 1859, George Hearst and his partners managed to mine 38 tons of high-grade silver ore, packed it across the Sierra on mule-back, had it smelted in San Francisco, and made $91,000 profit (or roughly $3'550,000 in 2016 dollars). As a partner in the company that started in California in the 1850s and headed by San Francisco lawyer James Ben Ali Haggin and Lloyd Tevis, it grew to be the largest private firm of mine-owners in the United States. George acquired the reputation of being one of the most expert prospector and judge of mining property on the Pacific Coast, and contributed to the development of the modern processes of quartz and other kinds of mining. One of his biggest investments was in the Cerro de Pasco Silver mine in the central Highland Region of Peru, that became the biggest source of his fortune.
George returned to Missouri in 1860 in order to take care for his ailing mother and some legal disputes. During this time, he became reacquainted with a younger neighbor, a girl of 18, whom the 40-year-old George married on June 15, 1862, and moved to San Francisco. She gave birth to their only child, William Randolph Hearst, April 29,1863. He became member of the California State Assembly that lasted only a year, but open the door to be involved in the special Committee on Mines and Mining Interests. He unsuccessfully ran for Governor of california in 1882. George maintained a strong political relationship with Central Pacific Railroad, an important tool for the movement of his precious minerals. As a hobby he owned a thoroughbred horse racing stable. One of his better known horses was Jerome Handicap winner, Tournament. In 1895 he acquired Rancho Piedra Blanca at San Simeon, California. He later bought parts of adjoining ranchos, and this land became the site of the famed Hearst Castle, located on the Central coast of California. Invitations to the Hearst Castle were highly coveted during the 1920s and 1930s. The Hollywood and political elite often visited, usually flying into the estate's airfield or taking a private Hearst-owned train car from Los Angeles. The estate's theater screened films from Hearst's own movie studio, Cosmopolitan Productions.
George Hearst died at the age of 70 in Washington DC on February 28, 1891. He wife inherited all her husband's fortune. She donated a great deal of it to help found new libraries at several universities. The Hearst Memorial Mining Building on the Berkeley campus is dedicated to his memory.
In Film and Television the actor Barry Kelley portrayed George Hearst in the 1964 episode "The Paper Dynasty" of the syndicated western television series "Death Valley Days," hosted by Stanley Andrews. James Hampton played William Randolph Hearst and James Lanphier (1920-1969), Ambrose Bierce.
Gerald McRaney portrayed Hearst on the HBO television series Deadwood. He is depicted in season 3 as a ruthless and borderline socio-pathic robber baron.
George, of Scots-Irish origin, was born near Sullivan, Missouri, to William Hearst and Elizabeth Collins. Sullivan is a city that straddles the border of Franklin County and Craw-Ford County.
Franklin County is named after one of the founder fathers of the United States, Benjamin Franklin. The area was a center of the Native American Mississippian culture, which built numerous temple and residential earthwork mounds on both sides of the Mississippi River.
George was raised in a log cabin on his family's farm in rural Franklin County. His father operated 3 small farms (all mortgaged) with the help of slaves. William, the father, sold his products in his own local general store. George grew up before public education was widely accessible in Missouri, and so his elementary education was inconsistent and fragmented. He supplemented the gaps in his formal education by observing the local mines, and reading information about minerals and mining in his free time.
When his father died in 1846, he took over the care of his mother, brother and sister, at the age of 26. In addition, he did some mining and continuing running his father general store. He first heard of the discovery of gold in California in 1849. Before departing, he continued to read further news on the subject. In 1850, at the age of 30, as a member of a party of 16, he left for California. Using his self- mining education and experience in Missouri, he switched to quartz mines. After almost 10 years, George was making a decent living as a mineral prospector (physical labour involving traversing on foot or horse, panning, sifting and outcrop investigation, looking for signs of mineralization), and otherwise engaged in running a general store, raising livestock and farming in Nevada County, Sierra Nevada, California.
In the summer of 1859, at the age of 39, he learned of wonderful silver assays and hurried over to the Wa-Shoe District of Western Utah territory. There he arranged to buy a one-sixth interest in the Ophir mine there (now Virginia City). George then knew Marcus Daly from the Com-Stock Lode (deposit of ore embedded in a fissure or crack in a rock formation) work. A lode of silver was found under the Eastern slope of Mount David-Son, a peak in the Virginia Range in Nevada, then Utah Territory. It was the 1st major discovery of silver in the United States. After the discovery was made public in 1859, it sparked a silver rush of prospectors to the area, scrambling to stake their claims. It brought considerable excitement in California and throughout the United States. The greatest since the California Gold Rush in 1849.
That Winter of 1859, George Hearst and his partners managed to mine 38 tons of high-grade silver ore, packed it across the Sierra on mule-back, had it smelted in San Francisco, and made $91,000 profit (or roughly $3'550,000 in 2016 dollars). As a partner in the company that started in California in the 1850s and headed by San Francisco lawyer James Ben Ali Haggin and Lloyd Tevis, it grew to be the largest private firm of mine-owners in the United States. George acquired the reputation of being one of the most expert prospector and judge of mining property on the Pacific Coast, and contributed to the development of the modern processes of quartz and other kinds of mining. One of his biggest investments was in the Cerro de Pasco Silver mine in the central Highland Region of Peru, that became the biggest source of his fortune.
George returned to Missouri in 1860 in order to take care for his ailing mother and some legal disputes. During this time, he became reacquainted with a younger neighbor, a girl of 18, whom the 40-year-old George married on June 15, 1862, and moved to San Francisco. She gave birth to their only child, William Randolph Hearst, April 29,1863. He became member of the California State Assembly that lasted only a year, but open the door to be involved in the special Committee on Mines and Mining Interests. He unsuccessfully ran for Governor of california in 1882. George maintained a strong political relationship with Central Pacific Railroad, an important tool for the movement of his precious minerals. As a hobby he owned a thoroughbred horse racing stable. One of his better known horses was Jerome Handicap winner, Tournament. In 1895 he acquired Rancho Piedra Blanca at San Simeon, California. He later bought parts of adjoining ranchos, and this land became the site of the famed Hearst Castle, located on the Central coast of California. Invitations to the Hearst Castle were highly coveted during the 1920s and 1930s. The Hollywood and political elite often visited, usually flying into the estate's airfield or taking a private Hearst-owned train car from Los Angeles. The estate's theater screened films from Hearst's own movie studio, Cosmopolitan Productions.
George Hearst died at the age of 70 in Washington DC on February 28, 1891. He wife inherited all her husband's fortune. She donated a great deal of it to help found new libraries at several universities. The Hearst Memorial Mining Building on the Berkeley campus is dedicated to his memory.
In Film and Television the actor Barry Kelley portrayed George Hearst in the 1964 episode "The Paper Dynasty" of the syndicated western television series "Death Valley Days," hosted by Stanley Andrews. James Hampton played William Randolph Hearst and James Lanphier (1920-1969), Ambrose Bierce.
Gerald McRaney portrayed Hearst on the HBO television series Deadwood. He is depicted in season 3 as a ruthless and borderline socio-pathic robber baron.
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