Horace Dutton Taft (December 28, 1861 – January 28, 1943) was an American educator, and the founder of

The Taft School The Taft School is a private, coeducational school located in Watertown, Connecticut, United States. It teaches students in 9th through 12th grades and post-graduates. About three-quarters of Taft's roughly 600 students live on the school's ...

Watertown, Connecticut Watertown is a town in Litchfield County, Connecticut, United States. The population was 22,105 at the 2020 census. The ZIP codes for Watertown are 06795 (for most of the town) and 06779 (for the Oakville section). It is a suburb of Waterbury. ...

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

Early life

He was born in

Cincinnati Cincinnati ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Hamilton County. Settled in 1788, the city is located at the northern side of the confluence of the Licking and Ohio rivers, the latter of which marks the state line w ...

Ohio Ohio () is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. Of the List of states and territories of the United States, fifty U.S. states, it is the List of U.S. states and territories by area, 34th-l ...

, the younger brother of

William Howard Taft William Howard Taft (September 15, 1857March 8, 1930) was the 27th president of the United States (1909–1913) and the tenth chief justice of the United States (1921–1930), the only person to have held both offices. Taft was elected pr ...

of the powerful

Taft family The Taft family of the United States has historic origins in Massachusetts; its members have served Ohio, Massachusetts, Vermont, Rhode Island, Utah, and the United States in various positions such as U.S. Representative (two), Governor of Ohio, ...

. He graduated from

Yale University Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the w ...

in 1883, where he was a member of

Skull and Bones Skull and Bones, also known as The Order, Order 322 or The Brotherhood of Death, is an undergraduate senior secret student society at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. The oldest senior class society at the university, Skull and Bone ...

and won the Townsend Prize. He went on to

Cincinnati Law School The University of Cincinnati College of Law was founded in 1833 as the Cincinnati Law School. It is the fourth oldest continuously running law school in the United States — after Harvard, the University of Virginia, and Yale — and the first in ...

, but passed the bar after his second year and practiced law briefly at a firm with his father

Alphonso Taft Alphonso Taft (November 5, 1810 – May 21, 1891) was an American jurist, diplomat, politician, Attorney General and Secretary of War under President Ulysses S. Grant. He was also the founder of the Taft political dynasty, and father of President ...

. Knowing he preferred education, he returned to Yale to tutor Latin.Ishbel Ross, ''An American Family: The Tafts 1678 to 1964'', World Publishing Co., Cleveland, 1964.

Career

In 1890 he opened a college preparatory school for boys in

Pelham Manor, New York Pelham Manor is an affluent village located in Westchester County, New York. As of the 2020 census, the village had a total population of 5,752. It is located in the town of Pelham. History The Bolton Priory, Edgewood House, and Pelhamdale ar ...

. In 1893 he moved his school to Watertown, Connecticut, purchasing the Warren House, a Civil War-era hotel, and adopting the name The Taft School in 1898. By 1913, the school had outgrown the hotel, and Mr. Taft commissioned the first permanent campus building, a

collegiate gothic Collegiate Gothic is an architectural style subgenre of Gothic Revival architecture, popular in the late-19th and early-20th centuries for college and high school buildings in the United States and Canada, and to a certain extent Europ ...

castle known as HDT, after Horace Dutton Taft and designed by architect

Bertram Goodhue Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue (April 28, 1869 – April 23, 1924) was an American architect celebrated for his work in Gothic Revival and Spanish Colonial Revival design. He also designed notable typefaces, including Cheltenham and Merrymount for ...

, with landscape architecture by

Frederick Law Olmsted Jr. Frederick Law Olmsted Jr. (July 24, 1870 – December 25, 1957) was an American landscape architect and city planner known for his wildlife conservation efforts. He had a lifetime commitment to national parks, and worked on projects in Acadia, th ...

The second major structure, completed in 1931, was designed by

James Gamble Rogers James Gamble Rogers (March 3, 1867 – October 1, 1947) was an American architect. A proponent of what came to be known as Collegiate Gothic architecture, he is best known for his academic commissions at Yale University, Columbia Univers ...

and was named CPT after Horace Taft's brother

Charles Phelps Taft Charles Phelps Taft (December 21, 1843 – December 31, 1929) was an American lawyer and politician who served as editor of the ''Cincinnati Times-Star'' and owned both the Philadelphia Phillies and Chicago Cubs baseball teams. From 1895 to 1897 ...

, who was a major contributor to the Taft School. Taft retired as headmaster in 1936, but continued to teach a course in Civics until his death.Lovelace, Richard H., "Mr. Taft's School: the First Century, 1890-1990", Taft School, Watertown, 1989. In 1942, Taft's memoir was published, entitled ''Memories and Opinions''.

Personal life

On June 29, 1892, he married Winifred Shepard Thompson, an art teacher at a New Haven high school who was originally from

Buffalo, New York Buffalo is the second-largest city in the U.S. state of New York (behind only New York City) and the seat of Erie County. It is at the eastern end of Lake Erie, at the head of the Niagara River, and is across the Canadian border from Sou ...

. She died of cancer in 1909. There were no children of the marriage.Horace Dutton Taft, ''Memories and Opinions'', Macmillan, New York, 1942. Taft died at his home in

on January 28, 1943.

References

External links

*
Memories and Opinions
' by Horace Dutton Taft, Macmillan (1942) {{DEFAULTSORT:Taft, Horace Dutton Yale University alumni Taft family 1861 births 1943 deaths American people of English descent Founders of schools in the United States People from Watertown, Connecticut