Ada Bampton Tremaine

Ada Byron Bampton Tremaine (21 June 1849[lower-alpha 1] – 6 August 1928) was an American philanthropist best known for the bequest that established the Bampton Lectures in America as well as an endowed chair (the Ada Byron Bampton Tremaine Professor of Religion) within the Department of Religion at Columbia University. That chair is currently held by Courtney Bender.[5] Her predecessor, Robert Somerville, upon his retirement on 1 July 2020 was given the honorary title of Tremaine Professor Emeritus of Religion.[6]

Ada Bampton Tremaine
Born
Ada Byron Bampton

(1849-06-21)21 June 1849
Poughkeepsie, New York
Died6 August 1928(1928-08-06) (aged 79)
Rockland, Maine
NationalityAmerican
OccupationPhilanthropist
Known forBampton Lectures in America
Signature

Biography

Ada Byron Bampton was born in Poughkeepsie, New York, on either 21 or 24 June 1849 to Elizabeth Shepherd Bampton,[lower-alpha 2] who spent the last few months of her pregnancy and first few months as a new mother residing with a friend, Hannah North.[1]

Ada's father Richard Lane Bampton, a spermaceti chandler[4][8] originally from Little Sutton, Warwickshire,[9] had left for the California Gold Rush on 25 January 1849 on one of the first schooners to depart New York City for San Francisco, the Roe,[2] which made the journey in 154 days.[10] He arrived in San Francisco on 28 June 1849, only a few days after Ada was born. Richard remained in California until his death on 23 June 1889 in what then was known as Washington in Yolo County, California.[9][11] Ada never met her father, and it is unclear whether he ever knew of her existence.[1][12] Instead, Ada grew up in Manhattan and Brooklyn, living with her mother and her cousin Frederick Bampton,[1][4][13][14][15][16] with whom she was particularly close, calling him her uncle even to her husband.[1][12][17]

In the late 1870s and early 1880s Ada studied engraving at Cooper Union under the direction of J. P. Davis.[18] After the death of her mother on 4 May 1881,[19] Ada went to live with Frederick and his new wife, Martha.[12][17] On 3 October 1888 in Manhattan she married Dr. William Allen Tremaine,[20] the son of a Connecticut hotelier,[21] a physician practicing in Providence, Rhode Island.[22] Their only child, Frederick Bampton Tremaine, was born in Providence on 6 February 1890;[23] he died eleven months later, on 12 January 1891, of unspecified causes.[24] In the early 1900s William and Ada Tremaine moved from Providence to Rockport, Maine,[25][26] where they bought a farm in Rockland called Alderbrook;[25] Ada would live here for the rest of her life.[25] On 5 October 1913 Dr. Tremaine died of throat cancer in Boston, where he had gone for treatment.[27][28]

Ada Bampton Tremaine died in Rockland on 6 August 1928, at the age of 79.[29] She is buried in Woodlawn Cemetery.[30]

Court Challenge to Frederick Bampton's Will
First page of the last will and testament of Frederick W. Bampton

Most of what is known about Ada Bampton Tremaine's life comes from the records of a court case that arose from a dispute over the terms of her cousin Frederick Bampton's will, in which upon his death on 10 October 1900[24] he left his entire estate to her, as well as naming her sole executrix.[31] Frederick, who had begun suffering from bouts of dementia,[1][12][31][32] had been living with Ada and William Tremaine for over a year.[1][33] His marriage of nearly 20 years to Martha Scott North[lower-alpha 3] had long been an unhappy one.[1][12][17][31] When Frederick drew up his will on 22 May 1900 he deliberately wrote his wife out of the will, stipulating, "I have not made any bequest to my wife Martha N. Bampton because I have made provision for her by a trust fund of $50,000 [approximately $1.7 million in 2021] in the par or face value of securities."[31][35] He also did not leave any bequest to any other relatives other than Ada, "not ... because of any prejudice or want of consideration for them ... but because of the claim upon my affections of Ada B. Tremaine, my cousin's child,[lower-alpha 4] who for many years resided with me before her mother's death, and with whom I am now residing."[35] The children of Frederick's nephew John Henry Bampton, Jr.,[lower-alpha 5] who had died in Providence only nine days after Frederick,[24] joined Frederick's widow in contesting the will.[38]

Throughout the course of the court hearing, both attorneys for the contestants and the widow Mattie Bampton herself questioned Ada's parentage,[1][12] the nature of her relationship with Frederick and whether she had undue influence over him,[1][12][38][39] and Frederick's lucidity at the time he drew up his will.[1][3][17][31][32][38] The many days of testimony across several months in 1901 and compelling depositions by witnesses to Ada's birth and by friends of Frederick's who knew Richard Lane Bampton and Elizabeth Bampton[35] convinced the judge that Frederick was of sound mind when he made his will and that Ada should in fact be the sole inheritor of Frederick's estate,[36] which had been appraised at $150,000 (approximately $4.9 million dollars in 2021).[36]

Philanthropy
Letter to the Trustees of the Camden Public Library

In the 15 years after her husband William's death in 1913 until her own in 1928, Ada Bampton Tremaine supported a number of organizations, in particular giving generously to the Rhode Island Hospital, where she established a deficiency fund in the name of her late husband[40] and endowed four permanent "free beds" at $4000 each (roughly $55,000 each in 2021 dollars) in memory of her mother, her husband, her cousin Frederick, and her son, making the final payment on those in 1924.[41] (Free bed funds are specific donations that a hospital receives to provide free care to patients who cannot pay for all or part of their hospital stay.) She was also seemingly an annual contributor to the Camden Public Library,[25] which also received a bequest in her will.

Ada's will, drawn up in Rockport on 26 January 1916 and witnessed by three local businessmen, spelled out a number of public bequests in addition to private gifts and trust funds provided to her friends, family, and long-time employees:[42][43]

  • Rockport received $5000 to be used for the construction of a library.
  • Camden, Maine, likewise received $5000 for the same purpose, although by the time her will was probated, the newly built Camden Public Library had already been open for two months.[44]
  • The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals received $1000.
  • The Camden Home for Aged Women likewise received $1000.
  • A miniature of George III by Sarah Biffin Wright and a manuscript on her life were to be offered to the Metropolitan Museum of Art "if said Museum of Art will accept the same."
  • She provided $20,000 for the upkeep of Alderbrook Farm until the death of her husband William's cousin Grace Rockwell[lower-alpha 6] and Ada's sister-in-law Elizabeth Tremaine Field,[lower-alpha 7] when the farm was to revert to the Knox County General Hospital.

The Bampton Lectures in America
Page 5 of Ada Bampton Tremaine's will, in which she establishes the Bampton Lectures in America.

Once the other trust funds had been fulfilled, which happened in 1941 upon the death of Ada's sister-in-law Elizabeth Tremaine Field, as specified in Ada Bampton Tremaine's will,[42] the balance of the trust was to go to Columbia College, where Ada's husband William Tremaine had studied.[47] The trust funds were to be used for the establishment of a lecture series entitled the Bampton Lectures in America[lower-alpha 8] and for an endowed chair in theology — "an endowment large enough to guarantee the holding of the Bampton lectures in perpetuity," it was noted when the first lecturer, Arnold J. Toynbee, was invited to speak.[49]

Ada Bampton Tremaine's estate was one of the largest probated in Knox County up to that time, being assessed at $725,000 (almost $11 million in 2021), of which $610,000 (approximately $9.5 million in 2021 dollars) was earmarked for the Bampton Lectures at Columbia University.[50] Columbia, however, needed to wait for more than a decade to receive these funds, which could not be paid out until the final trust fund was fulfilled.[47] That final bequest seems to have been handled posthaste by the Rhode Island Hospital Trust Company, the executors of Ada's estate, as in the 1942 annual report to the Columbia trustees, President Nicholas Murray Butler announced that the university had finally received their funds from the estate of Ada B. B. Tremaine, totaling $649,781.31 ($11,025,911.83 in 2021 dollars).[51] Six years later Toynbee gave the first set of Bampton Lectures, three talks grouped under the theme of "The Prospect of the Western Civilization," presented at Columbia's McMillin Theater on 14 April 1948 ("The Problem of War"), 19 April 1948 ("The Problem of Class"), and 21 April 1948 ("The Conflict Between Heart and Head").[52]

See also

Notes
  1. There is a lack of clarity as to Ada Bampton Tremaine's birth date and birth year. During the hearing in which her cousin Frederick Bampton's will was contested (see above), Tremaine herself claimed to be born on 21 June 1850, but depositions by those who were in attendance at her birth give her birthdate as 24 June 1849.[1] Whether 21 or 24 June, the year of her birth is indisputably 1849, despite confusion some 50 years later by Frederick's friends as to whether her birth had been in 1849 or 1850:[1] Ada's father Richard Lane Bampton left for the California Gold Rush in January 1849;[2] witnesses to her birth place that event in the summer of 1849, a few weeks after the sinking of the SS Empire on 17 May 1849;[1][3] and Ada is listed in the 1850 census taken on 13 August as being a year old.[4]
  2. As is so often the case with the details of Ada Bampton Tremaine's life, her mother's maiden name is reported in the newspaper accounts of the court tussle over Frederick Bampton's will as "Sheffield",[1] but Elizabeth and Richard Lane Bampton's marriage record on 11 February 1830 in Birmingham, England, lists her last name as "Shepherd".[7]
  3. Frederick Bampton and Martha Scott North met when they were living in the same apartment building in Manhattan.[16] When they married on 23 February 1881 in Mattie's hometown of Macon, Georgia,[12][34] Frederick was 57; Mattie, 22.
  4. It is unclear exactly how Richard Lane Bampton and Frederick W. Bampton are related, but there is no reason to doubt Frederick's assertion that they were cousins, as was backed up by his friends' depositions,[1] despite Frederick's widow's insistence otherwise.[17][36] They were both born in Warwickshire, Richard in Little Sutton[9] and Frederick in Solihull.[37] According to the depositions of Eliza Bradbrook and her daughter Georgiana given in support of Ada's claim to Frederick's estate, Frederick, Richard, and Elizabeth were on very friendly terms during the 1840s when they all lived in Manhattan and both Frederick and Richard had insisted at that time that they were cousins.[35]
  5. Jack Bampton's father (John Henry Bampton, Sr.) and Frederick were brothers. At the time of his death on 19 October 1900[24] Jack was, like Frederick, living in Providence. It is perhaps Jack and his family that Frederick had in mind when he observed in his will that they might think they had a claim on his estate, but that affection was more important than close blood ties.[35]
  6. The unmarried Grace Rockwell, who had long struggled with depression, committed suicide in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on 10 May 1926.[45] Ada did not update her will, however, so her trust bequest to Grace for $10,000 was reported in the local Camden paper as if Grace were still alive.[43]
  7. Elizabeth Rockwell Tremaine Field, also known as Mrs. Charles H. Field, was one of two older sisters of William Tremaine and was a long-time friend of Ada's. Born 22 July 1851 in Valatie, New York,[46] Lizzie, as she was known by family and friends, lived to be 89, dying at her home in Hartford, Connecticut on 28 May 1941.[46]
  8. Despite the occasional reporting as fact the fanciful notion that Ada Bampton Tremaine was descended from the John Bampton who founded the original Bampton Lectures at Oxford University, including that claim being made in the Columbia University Libraries' finding aid record for the Lectures,[48] there is no evidence that these two Bampton families were related. Ada herself makes no such claim, merely observing that she wishes "that at least once in four years the subject of the [Bampton Lectures in America] course shall be of a theologic nature, similar to the 'Bampton Lectures' in the University of Oxford, England, founded by John Bampton, Canon of Salisbury."[42]

References
  1. "Bampton Will. Mrs. Ada B. Tremaine, the Beneficiary, Principal Witness Yesterday, Replies to Testimony Concerning Her Identity". Providence Journal. 6 February 1901. p. 10.
  2. "The Rush to the Gold Regions". New York Daily Herald. 26 January 1849. p. 1.
  3. "For Proponents. Four Witnesses Appeared in the Bampton Will Hearing Yesterday". Providence Journal. 21 February 1901. p. 10.
  4. Seventh Census of the United States (Census Place: New York Ward 7, District 2), Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 1850, p. 275A
  5. "Courtney Bender". Columbia University in the City of New York Department of Religion. 1 July 2020. Retrieved 6 December 2021.
  6. "Faculty Retirements and Promotion". Columbia University in the City of New York Department of Religion. 16 June 2020. Retrieved 2 December 2021.
  7. Anglican Parish Records. Birmingham, England: Library of Birmingham. Reference Number: DRO 25/17; Archive Roll: M48.
  8. Longworth's American Almanac, New-York Register, and City Directory. New York: Thomas Longworth. 1835. p. 75.
  9. "Died". Birmingham Daily Post. 30 July 1889. p. 8.
  10. Schultz, Charles R. (1999). Forty-Niners 'Round the Horn. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press. p. 47. ISBN 9781570033292.
  11. "Death of a Pioneer". The Sacramento Bee. 24 June 1889. p. 3.
  12. "Cross-Examined. Mrs. Ada B. Tremaine Further Testifies in the Bampton Will Case". Providence Journal. 13 February 1901. p. 10. Mrs. Tremaine said she received a communication from her father in the early [18]60s. A man came to see Frederick W. Bampton from California, and Mr. Bampton was away travelling during the summer vacation. Witness was sent by her mother to the office of Mr. Bampton, and the clerk said the man was an intimate friend of her father and her father had asked him to see her mother and say that he had done wrong in staying away so long and to ask if she would allow him to come back. Her mother said if he was in need of money she would assist him, but she would not allow him to come back, because he had been away too long.
  13. Census of the State of New York (Brooklyn Ward 13, District 1), Kings County, New York, 1855, p. 42{{citation}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  14. Eighth Census of the United States (Census Place: Brooklyn Ward 13, District 1), Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 1860, p. 785
  15. Ninth Census of the United States (Census Place: Brooklyn Ward 19), Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 1870, p. 568A
  16. Tenth Census of the United States (Census Place: New York City, Enumeration District 073), Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 1880, p. 84A
  17. "The Bampton Will. Interesting Testimony Submitted at the Municipal Court Hearing. Widow of the Testator Came on from New York and Told the Court That Mrs. Tremaine Was Not the Niece of Her Husband". Providence Journal. 19 January 1901. p. 12. [The widow Mattie Bampton] charged ... duplicity on the part of both Mrs. Tremaine and her husband [Frederick Bampton] in regard to the relationship existing between them. Mrs. Bampton said that she had always been given to understand by her husband that Mrs. Tremaine was his niece, but in a conversation which she overheard between Dr. Tremaine and his wife at their home in this city [Providence] she learned that the statement was not correct, and later the will itself, showed by Mr. Bampton's own declaration, that she was not his niece.
  18. Van Rensselaer, Mariana Griswold (1 June 1882). "Wood-Engraving and the Century Prizes". The Century Magazine. New York: The Century Company. p. 238.
  19. "Died. Bampton". The New York Times. 4 May 1881. p. 5.
  20. Index to New York City Marriages, 1866-1937. New York: New York City Department of Records. Certificate: 11321.
  21. "Charles I. Tremaine. Death of a Former Hartford Hotel Proprietor". Hartford Courant. 11 November 1891. p. 1.
  22. Rhode Island State Census (Census of Ward 10, City of Providence), Boston: New England Historic Genealogical Society, 1885, p. 3581
  23. Rhode Island Birth Index, 1636-1930, Providence: Division of Vital Records.
  24. Rhode Island Death Index, 1636-1930, Providence: Division of Vital Records.
  25. "Archive Record". Camden Public Library History Collection. Camden Public Library. Retrieved 3 December 2021. The letter [Catalog Number WHC 2017.18.14] is undated and the postmark is illegible, but [Ada] Tremaine had a cottage in Rockport from about 1906 or 1907, and her post office box in Rockland is listed in directories during the 1920's. She died in Rockport in 1928.
  26. Thirteenth Census of the United States (Census Place: Rockport, Knox, Maine, Enumeration District: 0153), Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 1910, p. 8B
  27. Massachusetts Vital Records, 1840–1911. Boston: New England Historic Genealogical Society. Death certificate: 9093.
  28. "William A. Tremaine". Hartford Courant. 24 December 1913. p. 9.
  29. "Died". The Courier-Gazette. Camden, Maine. 7 August 1928. p. 3. Retrieved 3 December 2021.
  30. "Deaths". The Camden Herald. Camden, Maine. 9 August 1928. p. 8. Retrieved 3 June 2022.
  31. "Will Contest Expected. Widow Not Provided for in Will of Frederick W. Bampton". Providence Journal. 8 December 1900. p. 4. Before coming to this city [Providence] Mr. Bampton and his wife had not lived happily together [in New York], and he made an allowance for her of $200 a month [approximately $6500 in 2021]. When his will was filed, it was found that the estate had been given to Ada B. Tremaine, the wife of Dr. Tremaine, on Academy Ave.
  32. "The Bampton Will. Hearing in the Case Continued in the Municipal Court Yesterday. Testimony Developed Little Out of the Ordinary". Providence Journal. 30 January 1901. p. 2.
  33. Twelfth Census of the United States (Census Place: Providence Ward 10, Enumeration District 0096), Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 1900, p. 11
  34. "Married. Bampton–North". The New York Times. 1 March 1881. p. 5.
  35. Last Will and Testament of Frederick W. Bampton. Docket 6203. Volume 72, pages 105-106. Providence: Municipal Court of the City of Providence.
  36. "Admitted to Probate. A Decision in the Bampton Will Case Was Finally Reached Yesterday". Providence Journal. 20 April 1901. p. 12. After a somewhat lengthy hearing in the Municipal Court the will of Frederick W. Bampton was admitted to probate by Judge [Joseph E.] Spink yesterday afternoon. The estate of the testator at the time of his death was valued at about $150,000 and Mrs. Ada B. Tremaine, wife of Dr. Tremaine of Mount Pleasant, was the sole legatee.... The evidence adduced at the trial was discussed by counsel on both sides yesterday afternoon and Judge Spink at the close decided that the testator was of sound dispensing mind and memory at the time of the execution of the will.
  37. Warwickshire Anglican Registers, 1813–1824. Vol. 9, p. 117. Warwick, England: Warwickshire County Record Office. Roll: PG 3314; Record No. 936.
  38. "The Bampton Will. Further Hearing in the Contest in the Municipal Court". Providence Journal. 22 December 1900. p. 10. Frederick W. Bampton spent the greater part of his life in New York, where for many years he was engaged in business. He accumulated an estate variously estimated from $150,000 to $200,000, and, having no children according to his own declaration in the will, the children of a nephew in Providence expected that they would be remembered in his last will and testament. But the testator, while mindful of the existence of these relatives, as stated, made no provision for them in any way, but gave to Ada Tremaine, who is mentioned in the will as a child of the cousin of the testator, all his property after the payment of just debts and charges.
  39. "Bampton Will Case. Widow of Testator Did Not Come on from New York". Providence Journal. 12 January 1901. p. 12.
  40. Report of the Trustees of the Rhode Island Hospital Presented to the Corporation at Its Sixty-First Annual Meeting. 12 November 1924. p. 78.
  41. Report of the Trustees of the Rhode Island Hospital Presented to the Corporation at Its Sixty-First Annual Meeting. 12 November 1924. p. 29.
  42. Last Will and Testament of Ada Byron Bampton Tremaine. Docket 10823. Proved 18 September 1928; probated 21 September 1928. Volume 161, pages 55-59. Rockland: Knox County Probate Court.
  43. "Many Public Bequests. Will of the Late Ada Tremaine Remembers Several County Institutions — Was a Resident of Rockport". The Courier-Gazette. Camden, Maine. 23 August 1928. p. 1. Retrieved 3 December 2021.
  44. "History and Mission". Camden Public Library. 2014. Retrieved 4 December 2021.
  45. "Grace E. Rockwell Suicide in Cambridge. Former Resident, 62, Kills Herself While on Visit. Despondent Because of Relapse into Mental Trouble". The Boston Globe. 11 May 1926. p. 25.
  46. "Mrs. E. T. Field Dies, Age 89, at Asylum Ave. Home". Hartford Courant. 29 May 1941. p. 4.
  47. "College Benefits by Tremaine Will. Widow of Former Providence Physician Provides for Lectureship at Columbia". Providence Journal. 19 September 1928. p. 11. The estate is not to pass to Columbia until other provisions of the will have been fulfilled and until the death of Mrs. Charles H. Field of Hartford, Conn., sister of the late Dr. Tremaine. In the meantime the Rhode Island Hospital Trust Company is to act as executor and trustee, in order to make the estate as large as possible by the time it comes into the hands of the university trustees.... A chair of theology is to be founded at Columbia, if the principal of the fund becomes sufficient.
  48. "Bampton Lectures in America Collection, 1948". Columbia University Archives. Columbia University Libraries. 2 July 2021. Retrieved 4 December 2021. The Bampton Lectures in America at Columbia were established by the bequest of Ada Bampton Tremaine. Her ancestor, the Reverend John Bampton, established the Bampton Lectures at Oxford University.
  49. "Prof. Toynbee to Offer Lectures at Columbia". Barnard Bulletin. 20 November 1947. p. 3.
  50. "Final Account in the Tremaine Will Case". The Courier-Gazette. Camden, Maine. 20 February 1930. p. 1. Retrieved 3 December 2021.
  51. Annual Report of the President and Treasurer to the Trustees with Accompanying Documents for the Academic Year Ending June 30, 1942 (Report). Columbia University. 2 November 1942. p. 32. hdl:2027/nnc2.ark:/13960/t3vt2bn6z. Retrieved 3 December 2021.
  52. "Toynbee Seeks World Spheres, Peace by Force Alternative". Barnard Bulletin. 19 April 1948. p. 3.
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