Horace Dutton Taft

Horace Dutton Taft (December 28, 1861 – January 28, 1943) was an American educator, and the founder of The Taft School in Watertown, Connecticut, United States.

Horace Dutton Taft
Born(1861-12-28)December 28, 1861
Cincinnati, Ohio
DiedJanuary 28, 1943(1943-01-28) (aged 81)
Watertown, Connecticut
EducationCincinnati Law School
Alma materYale University
Spouse
Winifred Shepard Thompson
​
​
(m. 1892; died 1909)​
Parent(s)Alphonso Taft
Louise Torrey
RelativesWilliam Howard Taft (brother)
Henry Waters Taft (brother)

Early life

He was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, the younger brother of William Howard Taft of the powerful Taft family.[1] He graduated from Yale University in 1883, where he was a member of Skull and Bones and won the Townsend Prize.[2]: 14–15 

He went on to Cincinnati Law School, but passed the bar after his second year and practiced law briefly at a firm with his father Alphonso Taft. Knowing he preferred education, he returned to Yale to tutor Latin.[3]

Career

In 1890 he opened a college preparatory school for boys in Pelham Manor, New York. 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 castle known as HDT, after Horace Dutton Taft and designed by architect Bertram Goodhue, with landscape architecture by Frederick Law Olmsted Jr. The second major structure, completed in 1931, was designed by James Gamble Rogers and was named CPT after Horace Taft's brother Charles Phelps Taft, who was a major contributor to the Taft School.[4]

Taft retired as headmaster in 1936,[5][6] but continued to teach a course in Civics until his death.[4] In 1942, Taft's memoir was published, entitled Memories and Opinions.[7]

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.[1] She died of cancer in 1909. There were no children of the marriage.[8]

Taft died at his home in Watertown, Connecticut on January 28, 1943.[1]

References
  1. TIMES, Special to THE NEW YORK (29 January 1943). "HORACE TAFT DIES; SCHOOL'S FOUNDER; Brother of Late President of U. S. Was Headmaster for 46 Years Until 1936 ADE AN LL.D. BY YALE After Thinking Prohibition in Its Early Stage Was Good, He Came Out for Repeal". The New York Times. Retrieved 3 December 2021.
  2. "OBITUARY RECORD OF GRADUATES OF YALE UNIVERSITY DECEASED DURING THE YEAR 1942-1943" (PDF). Yale University. January 1, 1944. Retrieved March 25, 2011.
  3. Ishbel Ross, An American Family: The Tafts 1678 to 1964, World Publishing Co., Cleveland, 1964.
  4. Lovelace, Richard H., "Mr. Taft's School: the First Century, 1890-1990", Taft School, Watertown, 1989.
  5. "HEADMASTER WILL RETIRE.; H.D. Taft Tells Alumni He Will Await Naming of Successor". The New York Times. 7 December 1935. Retrieved 3 December 2021.
  6. "NEW HEAD CHOSEN FOR TAFT SCHOOL; Paul F. Cruikshank Will Succeed Horace D. Taft as Headmaster in June". The New York Times. 24 February 1936. Retrieved 3 December 2021.
  7. Allen, Edward Frank (24 May 1942). "Mr. Taft of Taft School; MEMORIES AND OPINIONS. By Horace Dutton Taft. Illustrated. 336 pp. New York: The Macmillan Company. $3". The New York Times. Retrieved 3 December 2021.
  8. Horace Dutton Taft, Memories and Opinions, Macmillan, New York, 1942.
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