Frederic Courtland Penfield (April 23, 1855 – June 19, 1922) was an American diplomat who served in London, Cairo, and as U.S. Ambassador to Austria-Hungary.

Biography

Frederic Penfield was born in Haddam, Connecticut, on April 23, 1855 to Daniel Penfield and Sophia Young. He received his early education at Russell's military school in New Haven, and later studied in England and Germany. After several years with the

Hartford Courant The ''Hartford Courant'' is the largest daily newspaper in the U.S. state of Connecticut, and is advertised as the oldest continuously published newspaper in the United States. A morning newspaper serving most of the state north of New Haven and ...

he became the United States

vice consul A consul is an official representative of a government who resides in a foreign country to assist and protect citizens of the consul's country, and to promote and facilitate commercial and diplomatic relations between the two countries. A consu ...

in London in 1885. He married Katharine Albert McMurdo Welles (c1855-1905) in 1892. He became the United States diplomatic agent to Egypt from 1893 to 1897. His wife died in 1905, and in 1907 he published the travelogue ''East of

Suez Suez (, , , ) is a Port#Seaport, seaport city with a population of about 800,000 in north-eastern Egypt, located on the north coast of the Gulf of Suez on the Red Sea, near the southern terminus of the Suez Canal. It is the capital and largest c ...

Ceylon Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, also known historically as Ceylon, is an island country in South Asia. It lies in the Indian Ocean, southwest of the Bay of Bengal, separated from the Indian subcontinent, ...

, India, China and Japan'' describing his journeys through those countries. In 1908 he married Anne Weightman Walker, said to be one of the wealthiest women in the world. He became the United States

Ambassador An ambassador is an official envoy, especially a high-ranking diplomat who represents a state and is usually accredited to another sovereign state or to an international organization as the resident representative of their own government or so ...

Austria-Hungary Austria-Hungary, also referred to as the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Dual Monarchy or the Habsburg Monarchy, was a multi-national constitutional monarchy in Central Europe#Before World War I, Central Europe between 1867 and 1918. A military ...

from 1913 to 1917. During the period of United States neutrality (1914-1917) in

World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

, he took care of the interests in Austria-Hungary of several of the belligerents. Penfield died on June 19, 1922, at his home on

Fifth Avenue Fifth Avenue is a major thoroughfare in the borough (New York City), borough of Manhattan in New York City. The avenue runs south from 143rd Street (Manhattan), West 143rd Street in Harlem to Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village. The se ...

Manhattan Manhattan ( ) is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the Boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City. Coextensive with New York County, Manhattan is the County statistics of the United States#Smallest, larg ...

of "

congestion of the brain "Congestion of the brain" and "cerebral congestion" were medical terms used before hypertension was understood. The term was first proposed by Dr. von Basch in the nineteenth century and was widely used for the next 150 years, and had a major inf ...

". He was buried at

Kensico Cemetery Kensico Cemetery, located in Valhalla, New York, Valhalla, Westchester County, New York was founded in 1889, when many New York City cemeteries were becoming full, and rural cemeteries were being created near the railroads that served the city ...

Valhalla, New York Valhalla ( ) is a hamlet and census-designated place (CDP) within the town of Mount Pleasant, in Westchester County, New York, United States, in the New York City metropolitan area. Its population was 3,162 at the 2010 U.S. Census. The name wa ...

Bibliography

* Present-Day Egypt. Revised and Enlarged Edition. New York: The Century Co. 1903. *
Online version
at

Project Gutenberg Project Gutenberg (PG) is a volunteer effort to digitize and archive cultural works, as well as to "encourage the creation and distribution of eBooks." It was founded in 1971 by American writer Michael S. Hart and is the oldest digital li ...

References

External links

* * *
Frederic Courtland Penfield
at

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Penfield, Frederic Courtland 1855 births 1922 deaths Burials at Kensico Cemetery People from Connecticut Ambassadors of the United States to Egypt Nobles of the Holy See