Harriet Wadsworth Harper

Harriet Travers Wadsworth Harper (October 21, 1881 – November 2, 1975) was an American equestrian and foxhunter.

Harriet Wadsworth Harper
BornOctober 21, 1881 Edit this on Wikidata
Newport Edit this on Wikidata
DiedNovember 2, 1975 Edit this on Wikidata (aged 94)
Warrenton Edit this on Wikidata
Parent(s)
FamilyJames W. Wadsworth Jr. Edit this on Wikidata

Harriet Travers Wadsworth was born on October 21, 1881 in Newport, Rhode Island.[1] She was the daughter of US Representative James Wolcott Wadsworth and Maria Louisa Travers, daughter of businessman William R. Travers.[1][2]

She came from a family with a strong background in horse riding and fox hunting; her uncle W. Austin Wadsworth was Master of the Genesee Valley Hunt.[3] She began riding sidesaddle at age five. She was later diagnosed with scoliosis and the doctor suggested ridding sidesaddle facing the offside (right) of the horse, opposite of the customary position. She rode in this fashion the rest of her life.[4][5]

Growing up, she made frequent visits to her aunt Elizabeth Wadsworth Post in the United Kingdom. On one of those visits, she met a young Eleanor Roosevelt, a friend and classmate of her cousin Nelly Post, and recalled her as “the little American girl who was so homesick."[6]

In 1913, Wadsworth married Fletcher Harper (1874-1963), a polo player who was the grandson of Fletcher Harper. They were engaged while Harper was in the hospital with a broken leg following "a tussle with a fractious horse". They eventually settled in Friendship Farm near The Plains, Virginia. Fletcher Harper was master of the Orange County Hunt from 1920 to 1953. The couple are credited with promoting the sport of foxhunting in the area, working with local landowners to open the land to the sport and popularizing it there among American elites.[7][8][9][10]

In 1930 Harper and her husband were painted by the portrait painter Ellen Emmet Rand. Both portraits were included in Rand's 1936 New York exhibition Sporting Portraits.[11]

In 1966, she published an autobiography, Around the World in Eighty Years on a Sidesaddle.[5]

Harriet Travers Wadsworth Harper died on November 2, 1975, in Warrenton, Virginia.[12]

References
  1. Carpenter, Edward; Carpenter, Louis Henry (1912). Samuel Carpenter and His Descendants: Comp. private circulation. p. 243.
  2. "Wadsworth Family: A Subject Finding Aid". Livingston County Historian’s Office.
  3. "History | Genesee Valley Hunt". geneseevalleyhunt.org. Retrieved February 13, 2022.
  4. Symington, James W. (2015). Heard and overheard : words wise (and otherwise) with politicians, statesmen, and real people. Internet Archive. Washington, DC : New Academia Pub./Vellum Books. p. 103. ISBN 978-0-9864353-3-1.
  5. Biscotti, M. L. (June 23, 2017). Six Centuries of Foxhunting: An Annotated Bibliography. Rowman & Littlefield. p. 174. ISBN 978-1-4422-4190-9.
  6. Michaelis, David (2020). Eleanor (First Simon & Schuster hardcover ed.). New York, NY. pp. 69–70. ISBN 978-1-4391-9201-6. OCLC 1139765459.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  7. Connolly, John (August 26, 2015). "Mr. and Mrs. Fletcher Harper". Drawing Covert. National Sporting Library & Museum. Retrieved February 13, 2022.
  8. "Fletcher Harper, Authority On Fox Hunting, Dies at 89" (PDF). The New York Times. November 5, 1963. Retrieved May 10, 2017.
  9. "The Spur, Vol. XII Number 1". Angus Company. January 1, 1913. Retrieved May 10, 2017. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  10. Winants, Peter (August 12, 2002). Foxhunting with Melvin Poe. Derrydale Press. pp. 38–39. ISBN 9781461734673. Retrieved May 10, 2017.
  11. Pfeiffer, Claudia (January 17, 2017). "Ellen Emmet Rand Slept Here". Drawing Covert. National Sporting Library & Museum. Retrieved February 13, 2022.
  12. UPI (November 6, 1975). "Harriet Harper rites held". Democrat and Chronicle. pp. 2B.
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