Kings of the Dudes Part II - Heirs to the Dude Throne - Onativia and Teall

 

Kings of the Dudes - Introduction

Kings of the Dudes - Part I - Evander Berry Wall

Kings of the Dudes Part III - Western Dudes - J. Waldere Kirk

 

 

With Berry Wall losing his grip on the dubious title, the question arose, “After Berry, whom?”

. . . A Mr. Onativia, a fat young person, who wore a different parti-colored belly-band every day last Summer has made a palpable bid to slip into the monarchical shoes when Berry should abdicate . . . .

Clothier and Furnisher, Volume 18, Number 5, December 1888, page 29.

 

“T. Louis Onativia,” The New York World, October 16, 1893, page 9.

Tomas Luis Oñativia

Like E. Berry Wall, Tomas Luis Oñativia ( “T. L.,” “Tomasito” or “Cito”) was a proto-typical “Dude,” he inherited a fortune at a young age and lived a life of ease and pleasure. He was born in New York, grew up in Connecticut with a live-in nanny, servant and cook, and spent a lot of money on clothing, horses, carriages and marriages. He spent much of his later life traveling with a manservant and maid, splitting time between homes located a hop-skip-and-a-jump from Central Park on East 64^th Street, a stone’s throw from the Champs d’Elysse on Avenue du Bois de Bologne (now Avenue Foch), within spittin’ distance of the Royal Albert Hall in the Albert Hall Mansions, London, and far from the madding crowd on a country estate, Crackley Hall, in Kenilworth, near Coventry, England, now home to a private grade school.

Like Wall, Onativia came into his money at a young age and without paternal guidance, following the death of a successful, hardworking father who died young. A psychologist might have something to say about that. But psychological excuse or not, the earliest rumblings of “Cito” Onativia’s ascent to the dude-throne appeared in August 1888 – at the same time as the earliest rumblings of his weight gain.

Upon Mr. Victorⁱ Onativia the monocle eye of ultra-swelldom rests in marvel and admiration because of his recent exhibition of eccentric extravagance. Since coming into a splendid fortune some four years ago Onativia has been looked upon as one of the most dashing blades in the McAllister set. In dignity of manner and physique he was well fitted to pose as the ideal of the gentleman masher. But a few months since his friends remarked that he was growing stout at a rate beyond all reason. His whilom form of grace assumed proportions corpulent and absolutely pudgy. Tennis, polo, even Turkish baths, failed to melt the solid flesh, and Onativia’s doctor informed him that he must submit to a course of Banting. Thereupon he cabled a friend in Vienna to find some young physician who thoroughly understood the system, and to induce him to come to this country for a season. A fortnight ago the doctor arrived. He is now with Onativia on a tour through the summer resorts, and carefully superintends the diet of his wealthy patron. All this costs a pretty penny, but “form” must be preserved at all hazards.

Public Ledger (Memphis, Tennessee), August 17, 1888, page 5.

There is a young man around town named Onativia who is quite a swell in his way and who, it is said, is a cousin of the emperor of Brazil. Mr. Onativia, who dresses in the latest style, affects a red and white silk sash. He was standing on the platform of a Broadway car yesterday, when a little newsboy suddenly called out: “Say, mister, did yer win dat belt at the walking match?” The handsome Brazilian got off the car and asked the nearest policeman to club him.

Pittsburgh Press, August 29, 1888, page 6.

He was soon proclaimed “King of the Dudes.” As with Berry Wall, the “honor” came complete with lengthy, detailed discourses about his various eccentricities and excesses.

 

Mr. Onativia’s collection of vari-colored waistcoats and striped trowsers is the envy of the jeunesse dore of Gotham, while his stable of imported thoroughbreds and crack hunters [(hunting dogs)] is the talk of the town. This modern Beau Brummel has only turned twenty-one, and yet he is as blasé in appearance as a man of forty-five.

Whenever this jeune gallant drops his single-barreled glass he doesn’t bother to pick it up, but immediately replaces it by another. It is, no doubt, owing to this fad that he is reported to constantly have a dozen or more glasses about his person in case of emergency, although it is said that they have no magnifying qualities, being cut by the gross from plain window panes.

Young Onativia’s top hats are as bright as a new trade dollar, while his patent leather boots reflect the brilliancy of his sunny smile. His mackintosh, with wide flowing sleeves, is indeed a thing of beauty, and his white melton top coat is simply superb.

It is said that the dashing Brazilian has over fifty pairs of trowsers and fully as many waistcoats, and his valet is responsible for the statement that he has five trunks of new clothes on the way over from London.

Evening Star (Washington DC), November 20, 1888, page 7.

Tomas Onativia was born in New York in about 1867.ⁱⁱ His father and mother were born in France and Massachusetts, respectively. ⁱⁱⁱ Nevertheless, he was variously described as a Cuban, Spaniard, or a close relative of the Emperor of Brazil. Since those descriptions are not mutually exclusive, any one or all of them may be accurate.

If he were related to the Emperor, it’s not known which side of the family tree he would have stemmed from. Dom Pedro’s father came from the Brigantine Dynasty of Portugal, his mother was from the House of Habsburg in Austria, and his mother’s sister, his aunt Marie Louise, was Napoleon Bonaparte’s second wife.

A published genealogy of the extended family of one of Tomas Onativia’s several wives identifies his father simply as Jose Victor Onativia “of Spain and New York.”^iv But regardless of his family’s place of origin, their fortune appears to have been built largely on imports from Puerto Rico.

His father’s name, “Jose,” and his own middle name, “Luis,” suggest that he may have been related to one or both of Don Jose Onativia and Don Luis Onativia, Spanish colonial military officers who served in the Caribbean during the early-to-mid-1800s. Don Jose was reportedly a “cadet” from the Murcia region of Spain in 1812, and later served as a Colonel in the Spanish Corps of Engineers in Puerto Rico during the 1830s and ‘40s. “Mayor Comondante D. Luis Onativia” served with an infantry regiment in Cuba in the 1850s.

But regardless of his precise place of origin, Tomas’ father, Jose Victor Onativia, was in New York City as early as 1850. His company, “J. V. Onativia & Co.” had offices located at 47 South Street, along the East River waterfront of Manhattan. The earliest reference to his business is as a signatory to a petition to the Legislature of the State of New York in opposition to the “Pro Rata Freight Bill.” A Spanish-language guide to New York City published in 1863 describes his business as “commission merchant” (broker) and “importer.”^v

Jose Victor Onativia continued to do business at that address with a partner named Henry Beste until his death at the age of 54 in 1876. Onativia and Beste’s names appeared in print most frequently in association with sugar, molasses and other imports from Puerto Rico. Jose Onativia was also a partner in a maritime insurance company, and apparently made a big chunk of money speculating in cheap gold during the week following Black Friday crash in 1869.

J. V. Onativia was elected to membership in the National Geographic Society in 1874 and to the New York Chamber of Commerce in 1875. The Chamber appointed him to a committee to study the effects of unrest in Cuba on New York and US trade. As one indication of his prominence in New York City financial and business affairs, William H. Macy, a former Vice President of the New York City Chamber of Commerce, Trustee of the Seaman’s Bank, director of the Leather Manufacturers’ Bank, and Vice President of the United States Trust Company, served as a pall-bearer at his funeral (Macy was also a distant cousin of Rowland H. Macy who founded Macy’s).

Jose died in 1876 and his wife died the following year. Following the death of his parents, Tomas and his two sisters were placed under the care of his former business partner, Henry Beste, and his wife, as guardians. At the time of the 1880 census, “Sito,” Pauline and “Nina” (Georgiana) Onativia lived in Stamford, Connecticut, with an English Governess, an Irish servant and Irish cook. A fourth Onativia, likely a brother, does not appear in the census. Harvard College Class of 1885 Secretary’s Report No. 1, however, lists a contact address for “Onativia, J. V.” as “Care Henry Beste,” at their father’s old business address on South Street, where Henry Beste apparently still maintained an import business. Jose Victor Onativia, Jr. later shared a home with the other Onativia siblings on the Upper East Side, just off the Park, at 13 E. 64^th Street.

 

Mrs. Henry Beste (Onativia guardian). Metropolitan Magazine, Volume 7, Number 5, May 1898, page 515.

The Bestes introduced Tomas’ sisters into society through the debutante system in New York City. His sister Pauline was the “Belle” of the dance floor at the Richfield Springs, New York summer resort for a couple seasons, before marrying a “New York clubman” named John R. Townsend. She was also said to be one of the “most accomplished horsewomen in New York.”

 

Mrs. John R. Townsend, formerly Miss Pauline Onativia, is one of the most accomplished horsewomen in New York.

The Vicksburg American (Mississippi), July 25, 1902, page 6.

Georgiana Onativia remained single, moved to California, and died in 1899.

Like E. Berry Wall, Tomas never entered any sort of business or career, although his older brother, Jose Victor Jr., pursued a real career in business and finance. Jose’s son also attended Harvard (Class of 1908) and later became the champion squash player of New Jersey, and made it to the finals of the National Squash Championship in 1917.

But Tomas was ever the “Dude.” He married three times. His first two marriages were tempestuous affairs, to high society women, one from New York, the other from San Francisco. His third marriage, to an artsy type from Texas, appears to have been happier. But for several years before his first marriage, he reigned as the undisputed “King of the Dudes.”

Soon after the New York papers gave him the crown, the newspaper that had elevated (reduced) the Wall-Hilliard feud to its most ridiculous level, the St. Paul Globe, weighed in on the new “King of the Dudes” in similarly ludicrous fashion.

 

 

M. Tomasso Luis Onativia, the fragrant Brazilian, who owns more trousers and horses than any other young man in town, is virtually conceded to be the king of the dudes. He is young, too – only twenty-one – and yet he can stare as stolidly as the petrified giant exhumed from the Mamouth cave and supposed to be several thousand years old. He is tall and slender, as ideal dudes should be, and never appears in the same suit twice – not even in a law suit – for Onativia is reported to have an income of $90,000 a year, and pays his bills on presentation. He is a pretty poem in hexameters. . . .

M. Onativia does not comb his hair. His bangs, which he has cut in the latest fashion, he fixes in fantastic shapes about his temples, while the rest of his head is a shock. It is a combination picture as it were of the primitive and the present surmounting a pedestal of a future idea. He has outstripped his mortality. You look at him, and it never occurs to you that he is a man like other men. You would no more touch him in passing than you would brush against a beautiful flower that would be placed on the street.

It is impossible to tell what he wears. He breakfasts in one suit, smokes his morning cigar in another, puts on a third for his stroll outside; comes back and bedecks himself anew for his lunch; changes again for the post prandial lounge in some corridor; then gets himself into his coaching or riding suit; selects still another for his dinner, and thus the merry war goes on.

Three valets assist him to don his clothing, of which he has forty-seven trunks full. At the theater he never disturbs anybody with his applause. He sits perfectly upright, while a gem of priceless value, a gift of his uncle, the Emperor of Brazil, flashes its brilliancy upon the stage. . . .

M. Onativia never smokes himself. His valet, who accompanies him on his walks, however, smokes the cigarette for him out of deference to the customs of the genuine Americans. . . .

The St. Paul Globe, January 7, 1889, page 4.

The Brooklyn Eagle painted a more plausible picture. It attributed two pithy fashion pronouncements to him; “No man can expect to rate as a gentleman who has less than forty suits of clothes,” and “A pair of baggy kneed trousers is as ugly as a hump backed mule.” It also provided a description of his features and personality, not all of it flattering of him or of the city that placed him on a fashion pedestal.

The outline of the new disciple of dress is clear cut but not angular. He is smooth shaven, with ruddy cheeks, a receding chin and a sloping forehead. He has not the shoulders of Berry Wall, but he wears clothes that have made him a model for a great number of the younger men about town. He has, within two weeks, become one of the best known figures around the cafes and restaurants in the neighborhood of Madison square, and he has achieved the distinction of being caricatured and guyed by the society papers. He was born near Troy, and affects an odd combination between a Brazilian and an English accent. Mr. Onativia’s income is $60,000 a year, and herein he possesses a seething advantage over the men who have formerly posed as leaders of fashion in New York. His ideas apparently do not rise beyond dress. It cannot be said that he possesses cleverness, wit or substantial knowledge, yet, because he wears expensive clothes he has attained a degree of fame which proves nothing if it does not prove the provinciality of New York city.

The Brooklyn Eagle, October 19, 1890, page 9.

Although he wore his clothes and his crown well, the verdict was not unanimous. The New York World referred to him as merely a “sort of Comte de Paris pretender to the throne,” even while complimenting his style.

Mr. Luis Onativia, who should most accurately be spoken of as a sort of Comte de Paris pretender to the throne of metropolitan Dudedom, sailed for the other side yesterday, to take possession of his apartments in the Albert Hall Gardens, London, where his New York friends expect him to astonish the chappies and lay in a stock of trousers and waistcoats which will astonish the New York natives when he gets back. Mr. Onativia is said to have made a better show around “Dels” with a capital of $100,000 than any swell seen hereabout in recent years.

New York World, November 14, 1890, page 3.

Despite his great wealth and untouchable image, Tomascito Onativia appears to have been level-headed, as illustrated in one of the few anecdotes about his personality in print (unlike Berry Wall, he does not seem to have had friends in the press or have sought notoriety).

 

A Dude’s Defense.

A Couple of Stories Told to Show That the Chappies are All Right.

From the New York Continent. . . .

“I was sitting late one evening in a café on Broadway, when I saw the one and only Louis Onativia walk in and take his seat at a table next to two men whose general appearance showed that they were of a decidedly sportive bent. They were also what, in the vernacular of the day, would be termed “sprung.” As the kind of the dudes took his seat, one of the men turned to his companion and remarked aloud: “Look at that d—dude!”

Onativia quietly laid down his knife and fork, and, looking over at his inebriated neighbor, said:

“You have been guilty, sir, of a very ill-bred act. When one gentleman wishes to impart an opinion, such as you have just expressed, to another, the proper thing for him to do is to take him to one side and quietly tell him; but here you have spoiled the appetites of these people around us, and have generally acted in a very ungentlemanly manner,” with which he quietly resumed his supper.

The companion of the man who had made the remark arose from his seat, and, walking over to where Onativia sat, said:

“Sir, I don’t know who you are, but when you entered this room I was of the same opinion as my friend. Now, I see my mistake; I see that you are a gentleman, and I should like to shake hands with you!” Extending his hand, the sovereign dude replied:

“I am very pleased to shake your hand, sir, as you are the only person in the room for whose opinion I care a picayune!”

The Macon Telegraph (Georgia), March 12, 1891, page 4.

His reign was brief, coming to an end with his first marriage, on Valentine’s Day 1893, “one of the social events of that season.^vi Onativia’s first wife, Louise Cooley, was from the Cooley family, of the Westchester, New York horsey-set. She was said to be “an ardent huntress and a fearless rider.”^vii

Picturesque West Chester led off the St. Valentine nuptials in the forenoon. In the church of St. Peter there, Louise Dean Cooley, eldest daughter f Colonel and Mrs. James C. Cooley, was united to Tomasito Luis de Onativia, of New York. . . . The cream of West Chester society and a train load of guests from town assisted at the wedding breakfast, at Colonel Cooley’s residence, “The Bungalow.” De Onativia will sail with his bride for Europe on Saturday, and leave the exclusive set of metropolitan young bachelors in mourning over his loss.

New Orleans Times-Picayune, February 19, 1893, page 16.

It was a nice start, but it didn’t last. Rumors of a disagreement surfaced in 1895, and in the spring of 1896, shortly after being seen dining together at the Waldorf, she sailed to Europe with her father and he went west where the buffalo had once roamed, to get a divorce where the divorce laws were less cloudy all day. 

 

LOUIS, KING OF THE DUDES

A Former Sioux Fallsite Dubbed King of Dudes by the New York World.

It was only a short time ago that “Count” T. Louis de Onativia was a familiar and striking figure on our streets. He made Sioux Falls his nominal home for a year and a half, for the purpose of securing a divorce. By his peculiar style of dress he was called a dude, but judging from the pictures in last Saturday’s New York World, Louis did not favor the Sioux Falls people with any of his striking dudish costumes.

Argus-Leader (SiouxFalls, South Dakota), October 21, 1897, page 5.

 

Mr. Onativia was well known, not only by the startling trousers and waistcoat which he was famous for wearing, but as a good whip [(horseman)]. He was always conspicuous at first nights at the theatres. He visited last autumn the family of Claus Spreckels at their country place near San Francisco. Last summer he made quite a sensation in Paris and at the different French watering places by his very beyond-date attire.

New York World, October 16, 1897, page 9.

Rumors of a second engagement circulated simultaneously with reports of his first divorce.

Mr. Onativia has stated that no engagement will be announced for the present, but he has led his friends to expect it in the near future. He was Mrs. Jerome’s constant attendant last summer [(1897)] at the French watering places and afterward in Paris.

New York World, October 16, 1897, page 9.

Mrs. Jerome’s first husband was “a cousin of Mrs. George Cornwallis West, better known to Americans as Lady Randolph Churchill.”^viii She also came from a prominent family, even before marrying Winston Churchill’s mother’s cousin. Lillie Hastings Jerome was a daughter of Judge S. C. Hastings, the founder of his namesake school of law, Hastings College of Law at the University of California Berkeley.^ix

The pair were married in Cairo, Egypt in early-1898 – again on Valentines Day. They first met somewhere in Europe while she was on a husband-hunting trip, at least that’s how her friend and traveling companion characterized the trip in depositions during litigation over who should pay for the trip.

 

The San Francisco Examiner, October 31, 1900, page 1.

Lillie and her friend, Marie Zane, had planned to trip to Europe using Zane’s last $3,500. Although Lillie had once inherited her own fortune and married well, she found herself without funds of her own at the time. Lillie testified:

“Miss Zane said the amount was so small that she couldn’t live on the interest, so she gave it to me as an investment. She thought it would last from one and a half to two years in Europe, at the end of which time she expected to be married.

“’But supposing you are not,’ I said,” continues Mrs. de Onativia in the deposition.

“’In any case,’ she replied, ‘I cannot live upon the interest of this money. I am tired of San Francisco. I want to go to Europe with you, and I want to put this in your hands as an investment.’”

The San Francisco Examiner, October 31, 1900, page 7.

The investment paid off for Ms. Hastings Jerome, she was now Mrs. Onativia. Ms. Zane, on the other hand, was alone and penniless in Paris. In the end, however, she won her suit and got her money back. The court awarded her nearly the entire $3,500, essentially giving a year-plus vacation in Europe and North Africa, with stops in Paris, Oslo, Vienna, Berlin Budapest, Venice, Boulogne, Florence, Rome, Naples, Athens, Constantinople, Alexandria, Cairo, Malta, Tunis, Constantinople, Algiers, Marseilles, and London - for free.

 

The San Francisco Examiner, December 21, 1900, page 3.

T. Luis Onativia and his new bride crossed paths with Berry Wall at the Westchester Fair.

One of the sights on Tuesday at the Westchester Fair was the presence of two ex-kings of the dudes, Berry Wall and “Cito” Onativia. “Cito” has grown stout since he went abroad, ad he exhibited some wonderful creations of the London and Paris tailors, but somehow they did not seem to excite the old-time enthusiasm. “Cito” has been divorced and has been married again since he was last in Westchester, and his former wife has also, I hear, taken to herself another husband. The second Mrs. Onativiva is a very handsome woman from California, where she was a great beauty. She was a widow, has a very snug bank account, and is quite famous for her gowns. Mr. and Mrs. Onativia went out on their coach on Monday on the initial trip of that vehicle, the Good Times.

The New York Journal and Advertiser, September 28, 1898, Editorial Page.

“Cito’s” reign as “King of the Dudes” was brief, his marriages were brief, and his life was brief. He died one more marriage later, in 1909, at the age of about 42. A brief obituary traces the course of his and his wives’ various relationships, like a recap of a long-running soap opera or telenovella.

 

OBITUARY.

TOMASITO LUIS DE ONATIVIA.

Tomasito Luis de Onativia, whose death in Paris has been announced, was graduated from Harvard and was well known in New York under the title of “The King of the Dudes.” He was equally well known for his marriages, having been married three times and twice divorced.

In 1893 he married Miss Louise Dean Cooley, a cousin of Mrs. Theodore Roosevelt. The couple had one son before Onativia obtained a divorce in South Dakota. Onativia then married Mrs. Hastings Jerome, who had been divorced from her husband, a cousin of Mrs. George Cornwallis West, better known to Americans as Lady Randolph Churchill.

His third wife was Mrs. Grace Knight Underhill, of Texas. She divorced her first husband, who had been divorced when she married him. Her first petition was for a separation only, so that it might be impossible for her to marry again. After she met Onativia in Venice she amended her petition, secured an absolute divorce, and married him in London. He had a fine preserve near Warwickshire, England. He was a member of a wealthy Cuban family.

New York Tribune, October 9, 1909, page 7.

Although “Cito” was a dude, his son, Thomas Luis Onativia II, was no “Dude.” He served in a New Mexico regiment during a period of Mexican border skirmishes in about 1914, and went to Europe as part of the Norton-Hayes Ambulance Unit in May 1917, remaining with the unit until it was taken over by the U. S. Army. He served with the American Air Service from 1917-1919, and was a “tester” with the 37^th Aero Squadron (a first class pilot who checked out student pilots). After the war, he moved to Indian Rocks, Florida and went into the orange-growing business. Later, he sold his orange groves and worked as a horse trainer, before rejoining the army at the age of 48 during World War II. After the war he moved to Tennessee, where he worked as a carpenter for the Great Smokey Mountains National Park.

Perhaps the young Onativia took after his maternal grandfather and not his father. His mother’s father, Major James Calvin Cooley, was a retired army officer who had served in the 7^th Regiment, 133^rd New York and the 5^th United States Cavalry, and was brevetted at the recommendations of General Phil Sheridan and General Paine.

If Onativia and his wives were frequent marriers, they were not alone. His name was included in a brief item that poked fun at the relationship merry-go-round of the rich and famous.

The Mr. Maude, who was recently married to Mrs. Ernest in California, was a cousin of an Englishman, a Col. Maude, who was the first husband of the present Mrs. Mark Hanna, Jr., of Cleveland, Ohio. Mrs. Hanna was Miss Gordon, the niece of Mrs. William Jaffray. She was divorced from her first husband, Col. Maude, after a very short matrimonial experience. Mrs. Maude was a Miss Catherwood, and was divorced from her first husband. Her mother was a Miss Hastings, and is not Mrs. Darling. Her aunt, who was Miss Lillie Hastings of California, became Mrs. Jerome, of San Francisco. She was divorced from Mr. Jerome to marry Luisito Onativia, who was divorced from his first wife, a Miss Cooley, of Westchester. This, in these modern days, is a sample history of some American and English families, and is rather puzzling; but it is a good case in point for the study of the clergy who are insisting upon some reform in the divorce question. All the men are well known in the New York clubs.

The Successful American, Volume 9, Number 4, April 1904, page 186.

In 1903, Luis Onativia obtained his second divorce, from Lillie Hastings, this time by default after she offered no defense to his suit. In 1904, he married Grace Knight Underhill of Austin, Texas. She was the daughter of the Dallas agent for AT&T. She was artistic and ambitious, leaving home for New York City as early as 1895, where she studied as a singer, sometimes worked on stage, and sold stories and poetry for publication.

The New York Evening World, July 5, 1904, page 3.

One of her published stories may be an autobiographical account of her experience on stage. It paints a rare and vivid picture of the inside of a low-rent New York music hall at the turn of the century, from the perspective of the performer.

 

The Music Hall Singer

By Miss Grace Knight.

“There goes my music. I’ll bid ye good luck.”

The girl who spoke had black eyes. As she rose to her feet she smoothed out her short skirt with a hurried movement, and, drawing the flimsy shawl from about her shoulders, she picked up her glass from the table. In the glare of the little bright-lit music hall the colors of her dress seemed faded to a worn-out dullness, and her face had an exaggerated brilliancy by the artifice of pencil and rouge. She threw back her head as she laughed.

“Here’s luck,” she said. She passed up the few steps at the left of the stage and appeared the next moment before the footlights. To the scattered applause which greeted her appearance she responded with a mocking courtesy of bashfulness, and a young man at the far end of the hall, woke up, bewildered, and promptly again fell asleep.

“Come on, Mary Ann,” called the violin player. “Get into, will ye? We can’t play this introduction all night, you know.”

“Oh, gimini, pals,” she answered. “You’re Irish yourself.”

She smiled at her friends who sat at the near table – the other performers, women for the most part, in short dresses, like herself. Then the laughter vanished from her face. With her full, pale lips half pouted, she assumed the forced expression of sweetness and sentiment, and, raising her hand gracefully, began in confidence to sing. . . .

In the softer passages of the music the snoring of the sleeping man asserted itself above the song, which some of the audience thought funny, and the pale-eyed waiter smiled indulgently. The smoke from the many cigars rose upward, wavering, and hung near the ceiling in a thick, blue cloud, through which the gas jets shone dim and blurred.

The violin player, the battered piano, the young girl singing from the stage, the audience with their hats on and smoking, the small, round tables with the circles of wet on the surface where the glasses had been, all appeared as objects when seen in the early dawn, colorless and drawn and distorted, the men with red-rimmed eyes for want of sleep; their faces, moist with sweat, appeared like the faces of consumptives in the sickly light. . . .

Finally she came to the last chorus, and then the end of the chorus, where it spoke again of the trees and the sunlight that had nothing to do with the song. Her arms were hanging straight at her side. Her voice could be barely heard by the audience as it sank slowly to the minor note.

Then suddenly she stopped, as if tired of what she sang, and stood there for a moment half resting on one hip ungracefully. She turned her head by instinct to see that the man by the piano was leering at her over the rim of his glass. Quickly she looked away with a half grown sneer on her lips. But the burst of applause came immediately, and she laughingly bowed her thanks, and threw impartial kisses to everyone, her foot raised daintily behind her.

The man at the far end of the hall awoke as before, bewildered, and fell asleep again. The violin player picked up his cigar from the music rack. He seemed pleased to find it still lighted.

As the girl sat down among her friends at the table, a stout woman clapped her hands.

“Say, dear, you’re all right,” she said.

“Oh, rot,” the girl answered. “I guess I’m off my feet tonight. Give us somethin’ to drink, will ye? I’m thirsty.”

The Austin American-Statesman, June 25, 1899, page 2 (reprinted from the Commercial Advertiser).

Grace met Onativia in Venice when she was still technically married to her first husband. When she met her first husband, he was apparently actually married to his first wife – they were married the day after his divorce was final. But four months into that marriage, “by the finding of certain letters in her husband’s possession,” she discovered that her husband was still in love with his first wife, with whom he had been married for ten years.^x

She sued for separation instead of full divorce. At the time she was quoted as saying, “I am seeking a separation, not a divorce, for a divorce would leave me free to marry again, and I wish to be free from the temptation to make another matrimonial experiment.” ^xi

But, as one reporter observed, the “love songs of the gondoliers gliding up and down the canals of Venice” (and perhaps Onativia’s massive fortune) “caused a change of mind on the part of Mrs. Underhill.” She asked for an absolute divorce and it was granted. A few days later, she was Mrs. Onativia. ^xii

 

Austin American-Statesman, September 11, 1904, page 10.

As a result of all of the shenanigans, John Underhill “enjoy[ed] the reputation among his friends of being the only one who was sued twice in one year for divorce and in both instances was the loser.” He claimed that he was willing to remarry Number One, although it’s not clear whether he ever did.

With T. Luis Onativia “married and out of it”^xiii in 1893, who would be the new “King of the Dudes?” Three years before his first marriage and long before that question would even be asked, its answer was foreshadowed on the east side of Fifth Avenue in New York City.

A diverting spectacle, says the New York Sun, was afforded to the public on Fifth avenue on Saturday by a slow but majestic and dignified procession consisting of two persons, Mr. Onativia and Mr. Oliver Sumner Teall. One was 50 paces in advance of the other, and both were on the east side of the famous thoroughfare and proceeding gently up town. The crowd was on the other sidewalk.

The first of the notables was Mr. Onativia, the latest aspirant to the throne of dudedom. He wore a frock coat, trousers that had been elaborately ironed, a beaver hat set well back on his head, and he carried a cane with his arm well akimbo. His boots were brilliantly varnished and their luster was intensified by the whiteness of Mr. Onativia’s duck gaiters. His coat was drawn in very tight at the waist and a single eyeglass dangled rakishly over the breast. His face had an expression of vacuity slightly disturbed by a look of personal importance. There was a clear and ruddy bloom in his cheeks.

Mr. Teall kept step with the new king of the dudes. His eye was thoughtful, but it had a pleasant beam, and he, too, carried his arms akimbo. His tread was slow and measured like that of the bland student of manners who was preceding him, and he had the general air of a man whose balance cannot be disturbed by any event of average importance. The curl in his moustache was elegantly managed and his hat was at an angle that was in exact harmony with the polished tile of Onativia; but Mr. Teall wore a beautiful boutonniere in the lapel of his coat and Onativia didn’t.

St. Joseph Gazette (St. Joseph, Missouri), November 4, 1890, page 2.

 

 

Oliver “Ollie” Sumner Teall

 

 

Topeka Daily Press, June 24, 1893, page 3.

Oliver Sumner Teall was different from other “Kings of the Dudes.” He was older (nearly forty years old when crowned), an active businessman, and was more or less a self-made man. He may have been born with a silver spoon in his mouth, but did not inherit a massive fortune. He made his own reputation instead of relying on the reputation of his father. He disliked anglophiles. Instead of being drawn to England and Europe, he followed Horace Greeley’s advice, went West and became a cowboy before getting rich and transforming into a “Dude.”

He must have dressed well, as attested by the impression he made walking up Fifth Avenue behind “Cito” Onativia, but he did not affect the avant garde fashions of some of the other “Dudes.” A “western visitor in the lobby of the Imperial” hotel in New York City was disappointed upon seeing him, because he had been hoping to see more traditional, monocled “Dudes.”

“I asked the porter to point me out a swell, and, by George, he turned right around and told me that the biggest swell in New York was right behind me. The man was simply a well-dressed fellow with a blond moustache and blue eyes and a voice that would melt bananas. They said his name was Ollie Teall and that he was the leading dude in town, but he was a disappointment to me. I had expected to see something quite different from other people. Well, excuse me, I’m going over to Fifth avenue and walk up to Central park and see if I can find that man who wears a single eyeglass before I go home.” – New York Herald.

The Arcadian Weekly Gazette (Newark, New York), April 18, 1894, page 9.

Teall may also be the only “King” who earned his title. Unlike Wall and Onativia, Teall was not merely a fashion plate and socialite. He was a political and civic leader, and reformer and social leader of “Dudes.”

Teall was rich and popular. He had graduated from Yale and then gone west and roughed it. At one time he was a porter in a San Francisco store. He went to New Mexico, became a cowboy, organized a cattle and mining company, sold the bonds in New York and became wealthy. He was a lawyer by profession, but did not have to practice.

Deseret News (Salt Lake City, Utah), December 1, 1906, page 22.

Society opened its doors to him. The newspapers took him up and illustrated him as Ward McAllister’s successor. His poses became the talk of the town. He organized the Vaudeville Club, had a monster Christmas tree for children at Madison Square Garden, had a camp fire in Westchester county which was half society and half a real estate boom. Everything that he did attracted attention and became a topic for the people of New York.

Baltimore Sun, June 8, 1906, page 11.

Oliver Walker Teall was born in Syracuse, New York in January of 1853. His father, William Walker Teall, was a Yale Law grad, banker, postmaster, and builder and superintendent of the Erie Canal. Later in life, Oliver replaced his given middle name with his mother’s maiden name, Sumner, becoming known as Oliver Sumner Teall.

Ollie’s maternal grandfather was Major General Edwin Vose Sumner, who commanded the II Corps of the Army of the Potomac during the Civil War; Teall’s father had served on his staff as a Lieutenant Colonel of Commissaries and Subsistence, purchasing and distributing food to the troops.

Oliver Sumner Teall enrolled at Yale University as a freshman in 1870. His record in school was remarkable only in how many times he was suspended, expelled or dropped out. He was “rusticated four times, dropped once and expelled once in a college career that lasted eighteen months. Then he went to the Albany Law School, graduating in 1874.”ⁱ

Although admittedly “born with a silver spoon in his mouth,” Teall possessed something Berry Wall and Luis Onativia lacked; a sense of purpose and a desire to rise above the easy lifestyle promised by his family’s wealth and status.

“Belonging to one of the oldest and most influential families of Syracuse, runs the autobiography, “things were made easy for me. No matter what scrapes I got into, and they were many, they were overlooked on account of my family’s position. Fortunately I had sense enough to look into the future and to know that much of that sort of thing would be my ruin, and I determined to leave Syracuse and make a start for myself in the West. As I expressed it at that time, I wanted to go to some place where I would be Mr. Teall and not Mr. Teall’s son, some place where I would have to make my own position and my own name, and not live on the reputation of others.”

San Francisco Chronicle, February 20, 1893, page 3.

Despite the protestations of his family, he left home for San Francisco in 1875. He took a job as a clerk in a law firm with a small salary, while hosting society parties and living above his means.

“There very soon arose a difference of opinion between the gentleman in whose office I was and myself in regard to which one was the head of the office, which resulted in my seeking another position. My salary as a law clerk had not been very heavy, but my expenses in society were great. I had had a good time and kept on writing home that I was doing splendidly, but little by little I was obliged to sell my watch, rings and jewelry, and finally all but one suit of clothes, so that when I left the lawyer’s office I practically had nothing but the clothes on my back and still the determination to ‘do something.’”

San Francisco Chronicle, February 20, 1893, page 3.

He took a job as a porter in a store that sold stoves, ranges and kitchen utensils. After getting back on his feet, he “roamed New Mexico and Arizona, bonding mines and cattle ranches.” ⁱⁱ

Teall did not spend all of his time out West. He found time to go back east to get married before returning to Arizona with his new bride.

The cards are out for the wedding on November 28, so often spoken of, of Miss Florence Sanford Wolcott Bissell to Mr. Oliver Sumner Teall, who is a son of Major W. William Teall, and a grandson of Major-General E. V. Sumner, U. S. A. The bridesmaids are to be Miss Waite, daughter of the Chief Justice [of the United States Supreme Court], Miss Annie Teall and Miss Sarah Lawrence. . . . The young couple go to Prescott, Arizona, to begin life on a ranch.

New York Tribune, November 19, 1882, page 7.

The new Mrs. Teall did not last long in Arizona. She was back in New York City within the year, where she resumed her hobby as an amateur actress, coincidentally crossing paths with other people associated with the early history of the word “Dude.” As an actress in Mrs. Cora Urquhart Brown-Potter’s acting company, she was likely familiar with Mrs. Potter’s personal secretary who figured prominently in one of the Wall-Hilliard dude-stories related above, and she shared the stage with Robert Sale Hill, who had coined the word “Dude” earlier that same year.

 

The cast of “Romance of a Poor Young Man,” New York Tribune, December 16, 1883, page 7.

 

The entertainment will be a performance of Feuillet’s play, “The Romance of a Poor Young Man,” by a number of well-known ladies and gentlemen. . . . Among these persons are Mrs. James Brown Potter, Mrs. Oliver Sumner Teall, Mr. Robert Sale Hill, and Mr. John Bird . . . .

New York Times, January 7, 1884, page 4.

 

Teal as a cowboy and as a Dude. “Mr. Teall as he was and as he is,” The New York World, May 21, 1893, page 23.

Oliver Sumner Teall apparently owned and operated a ranch in Arizona, with backing from a Tucson bank.

Stock Cattle Wanted.

Will take small bands. Apply to Oliver S. Teall, care of Hudson & Co.; bankers, Tucson, Arizona.

Tucson Citizen, February 18, 1883, page 3.

He later expanded his holdings, acquiring a significant ownership position in the Lyons & Campbell Ranch in New Mexico, which controlled more than 2 million acres of grazing land and owned more than 200,000 head of cattle. He leveraged his interest in that ranch in what may have been his first foray into high finance, selling stock in the ranch to wealthy investors in New York City.ⁱⁱⁱ

One of the directors of his new company was General George B. McClellan, who lived in his wife’s hometown of Orange, New Jersey and would have known his father and grandfather during from their service under his command with the Army of the Potomac. When the ranch filed articles of incorporation in New Jersey a year later, Teall owned nearly a third of the shares, valued at $500,000; Thomas Lyons owned nearly two-thirds of the shares, with several small shareholders owning the balance.

Oliver Sumner Teall never served in the military like his father and grandfather, but he did have the ear of the President and Secretary of War at one point. In 1885, Teall’s meeting with President Cleveland and Secretary Endicott prompted military action to quell an Apache “breakout” raid after Geronimo and his followers went off the reservation.

A telegram in regard to the recent Indian outbreak, of which the following is a copy, was today sent to the commanding generals of the divisions of the Pacific and Missouri:

“Use every exertion possible and call for all assistance of federal troops you may require to suppress the Indian outbreak in Arizona and New Mexico. These outrages must be stopped in the shortest time possible and every precaution taken to prevent their recurrence in the future.”

This order is the result of a conference between the president, secretary of war and Oliver S. Teall, of New York.

Kansas City Star, May 25, 1885, page 1.

Teall shared his thoughts on the raids, the failures of US Indian policy and the sensationalized newspaper coverage of the outbreaks. His comments provide one insider’s first-hand perspective on a controversial period of American history.

“The reports,” he said, “are always to a great degree sensational hearsay. The troubles arise either from the dissatisfaction of the Indians with their treatment on the reservation or, as in this instance, from a fear of punishment for some breach of regulations. The result is an outbreak, the news of which is usually first communicated by the report of the massacre of some poor fellow. Then the whole country becomes alarmed, and the most sensational stories are sent to the papers. In comparison with those endangered, few lives are actually lost, because of the Indian’s method of warfare.

He never takes any risks. At daybreak a man is killed. He is shot by ambushed savages as he comes from his cabin door. He could not even see his treacherous foe. As the day wears on a white settler is found here and there, and at night the Indians wind up their work seventy-five miles away from the starting of their raid.

This stealthy, secret, but diabolical work goes on day after day, till at last, through the arousing of public concern, enough troops have gathered to surround the marauding braves, and drive them back on their reservation or across the line into Mexico.

“In no other part of the United States, however, could an outbreak occur and so little real damage be done. The country is rolling and mountainous, covered with gramma and buffalo grasses, and habitable only here and there in spots that resemble desert oases. The country is not agricultural. Mining and cattle-raising are the chief pursuits of the settlers. The government is responsible and must pay for all losses to property.

But many settlers are killed during an outbreak, and frightful outrages are committed. The suffering is fearful, and yet by our peculiar military and civil methods the Indians escape. Their loss is usually only three or four, and when they find themselves surrounded they surrender. To prevent the continuation of the raid they are promised immunity from punishment. They return to their reservation. They are most considerately treated by the Indian agent, who feeds them well, gives them new blankets, new ponies, new guns, plenty of ammunition, and then at the slightest provocation they break out again.”

“Why don’t the cavalry catch the Indians?”

“That is just the question all eastern people ask,” answered Mr. Teall, “and we rejoin, ‘why don’t the government send more troops?’ The question for the people of both sections to ask and the one most important to determine, one which has gone unsettled since our birth as a nation, is this: What is the best methods of Indian management? We need more business principle and less sentiment. The Indians have for years been subject to a dual authority. While on the reservation they are under the control of civil officers; as soon as they break out the army is called into action. They recognize the fact that they can indulge all their vicious propensities, and by the time there are troops enough around they can play penitent, surrender, and receive pardon.

“This is the history of raid after raid. Our cavalry can not stop it for weeks, and often months. The Indian’s equipment is of the simplest kind. He wears only leggings and moccasins, and carries nothing but a gun and ammunition. Each brave will have from one to three or four horses, and if he is without other food he can kill and eat the poor horse he has ridden nearly to death. In times of peace a cavalry company is reduced in fighting force to only about twenty or twenty-five men. The horses have to carry besides their riders a heavy saddle, a gun, revolver, ammunition, blankets, and often two or three days’ rations. No new mounts are provided. Their guides are friendly Indians on foot, who can easily walk down the horses. How, under these circumstances, can you ‘catch the Indians’ over rough mountains and through a strange desert country?

“The reservation is miserably located for Indian government. It is in southeastern Arizona, about fifteen miles west of New Mexico, and 180 miles north of Mexico. It contains about 3,000,000 acres, and is the home of about five thousand Indians. All the Indians on a raid need do is to scoot across the country killing and burning, into Mexico, and they are perfectly safe. Our troops can not follow them there. And all this fearful scourge will continue so long as the reservation remains so near the border and our policy is so weak. – New York Tribune.

The Head-Light (Thayer, Kansas), June 19, 1885, page 6.

Teall was not content with simply raising beef cattle. He spent the mid-1880s developing a coordinated system of raising, slaughtering, packing, shipping and selling beef in retail outlets in eastern cities. His father’s experience acquiring and distributing food supplies during the war may have rubbed off on Oliver.

A Monopoly in Meat.

De Mores and Other Dressed Beef Men Combine to Control the Trade.

New York, Feb. 25. – The Marquis de Mores and the Northern Pacific Refrigerator-Car Company have sold all their large plant on the line of the Northern Pacific Railroad to the Northwest Dressed-Beef Company of New York, the capital of which is $2,000,000. The Marquis de Mores will remain in the West as vice-president and general manager. The company . . . will open in New York one hundred retail butcher-shops. Oliver Sumner Teall, the president of the company, is also president of the National Consumers’ Meat Company, the Western Dressed-Beef Company, the Southwest Dressed-Beef Company, and vice-president of the Lyons & Campbell Ranch and Cattle Company, which owns a ranch of over two million acres and very large herds of cattle. The National Consumers Meat Company owns and is operating twelve retail shops in Baltimore. The Western Dressed-Beef Company is shipping dressed beef from Kansas City and building there a large plant, capable of killing six hundred beeves a day. The Southwest Dressed-Beef Company is duplicating the Kansas City plant in Silver City, N. M. These companies represent over $5,000,000 capital and will be run in harmony. They own the slaughtering and refrigerating establishments in the West, the cars used in transportation, and the retail shops in the East, thus combining in one direct, responsible management all the details of the business.

The Daily Republican, February 25, 1886, page 1.

The plan ultimately failed for reasons other than the Apache uprisings in the Southwest. The main problem seems to have been the strength of the beef interests in Chicago, who pressured the railroads not to give the further-west upstarts the same, preferred shipping rates they enjoyed.

With his dreams of a beef monopoly dashed, he moved back to his wife’s hometown of Orange, New Jersey. It’s not clear what business he attended to in New Jersey, but he made headlines for his recreational pursuits. It was the early days of the toboggan-craze and Oliver Sumner Teall was toboggan crazy.

Unquestionably the most popular sport of the winter is tobogganing. During the holidays every country house within a radius of four miles of the Country club at Pelham was open, and filled with guests, and the principal attraction was the chute of the club, which was crowded with a merry party every available night.

At Orange, N. J., is a famous slide; at Morristown is another. Probably the best known tobogganer is Oliver Sumner Teall – familiarly known as the Wild Duck – a bluff, hearty Englishman who has lived in Canada. He organized the Orange toboggan club, which is the prototype of all the clubs in this vicinity. Mr. Teall was the partner of the Marquis de Mores in the famous cattle fiasco. He married Miss Bissell, who is a talented amateur actress and used to appear with Mrs. James Brown Potter when that star was yet in nebulous form.

The Pittsburgh Press, January 7, 1888, page 1.

Teall moved to New York City in 1888. Aside from his walk up Fifth Avenue behind Luis Onativia that found its way into print in 1890, the earliest inkling that Oliver Sumner Teall would be the new “King of the Dudes” appeared in a newspaper in Eddy (now Carlsbad), New Mexico in 1892. But the editors were skeptical, since even Eddy had several better candidates.

The Silver City Enterprise claims that Oliver Sumner Teall, formerly of that burg, is now king of the dudes in New York, having succeeded Berry Wall. Eddy has two or three young men who are qualified to wing and defeather this duck of a Teall, but they had rather live in Eddy than New York.

The Pecos Valley Argus (Carlsbad, New Mexico), October 28, 1892, page 7.

Teall established himself in New York not so much as a “Dude” in his own right, but as an organizer of “Dudes.” His first big projects in New York were efforts to establish Republican political organizations as a counterpoint to the long-dominant, corrupt Democratic political machine called Tammany Hall. His “Republican Volunteer Association” and “People’s Municipal League” targeted wealthy young men of the “silk stocking set” – in other words, “Dudes.”

An organization calling itself the “Republican Volunteer Association” is trying to get the swells into politics. They have flooded the various clubs of the city with circulars urging the clubmen to join in the great work of converting Tammany Hall to Republicanism. The association numbers 700 and they all wear stovepipe hats and patent leather shoes. The dude in politics will doubtless be interesting. The object of the association is to get as many recruits for the Republican party as possible – it needs recruits very badly in this town.

“New York Letter,” Statesville Record and Landmark (Statesville, North Carolina), February 27, 1890, page 2.

Teall, it will be remembered, first came into prominence in “politics” with a big dog and the Republican Volunteer Association. The dog is dead long since, and since its demise the Republican Volunteer Association has been continually on the verge of following his example. Every year, however, Partner Teall injects a little life into it by sending out “Will-you-help?” circulars to the members, who are mostly clubmen, some of them being clubmen of the dude type.

To the dudes Oliver Sumner is the great political boss of the town – and nearly six of these dudes are old enough to vote – but there are also many in the old Volunteer Association who are not dudes, though a curious fact in connection with them is that they have ceased to be Republicans and gone over to the Democracy. Mr. Teall does not enjoy this state of things at all.

The New York Times, October 25, 1891, page 5.

His efforts failed to make much of a dent in the Tammany machine, but it was credited with at least generating more active political interest among the silk-stocking “Dudes,” even inspiring the then-reigning “King of the Dudes,” Luis Onativia, to consider (however briefly) a run for congress.

 

 

New York, June 13. The man of fashion as a voter might seem a paradox but for Oliver Sumner Teall, the whilom secretary of the People’s Municipal League, and the boomer of political reforms among the so-called “Silk-Stockings,” of New York. Those who remember him in the zenith of his glory, surrounded by a bevy of pretty typewriters, and ordering his fashionable ward-workers to various political duties, will not be surprised to learn that the campaign in which he was effective, or rather ineffective, saw the dawn of political ambition in the heart and head of many a New York swell. It was then that Louis Onativia breathed forth his desire to shine in congress, that Robert Cutting thought of a possible political advancement, that Cyrus Field, jr., received his first impulse to go into the diplomatic service.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer, June 19, 1892, page 7.

One difficulty Teall faced in getting “Dudes” interested in American politics was their love of British and European aristocratic airs which they had adopted as their own. Unlike the classic “Dudes,” Teall was no Anglophile – he was an American patriot.

“You are nothing if not American; what is your idea of the Anglomaniac?”

“In America he’s an ass, and in England an Astor. I have the utmost contempt for a celluloid cockney. The Anglomaniac is the modern ass in the British lion’s clothing, and the greatest pretender known in English history. He is also the social rat, for, while Adam went back on a woman and Judas Iscariot denied the Lord, it remained for the Anglomaniac to disown a whole country. The day is coming when American society will be the best society of the world, embracing among its members all that is best of all nations. American society will then be truly American. The young man of the present day is growing up to hate sham. On the frontier I have seen men of every nationality, and I have never yet had occasion to be ashamed of an American. The frontier is made up of splendid men, and you will find better Englishmen there than you do in New York; but the Americans are always superior. Talk about English lords, would they ever have built a Chicago? Why, they couldn’t have set it on fire!”

The New York World, May 21, 1893, page 23.

His next public campaign was not political and did not affect “Dudes” directly, but would have involved organizing or motivating “Dudes,” or at least their wealthy family and friends, who were the types of people who funded and sat on the board Metropolitan Museum of Art.

 

OLLIE TEALL”S NEW ROLE.

His Petition to Open the Metropolitan Museum Sundays.

Oliver Sumner Teall – affectionately known as “Ollie” to thousands who first learned of his extraordinary energy and zeal in any cause in which he is interested during the famous P. M. L. campaign last November – is now coming forward in a new light as a public benefactor.

It is a work, too, which will be more popular than his attempt to reconstruct the government of the municipality, for the object is in accord with the sentiment of the great body of people.

In his petition Mr. Teall sets forth the fact that only good would result from the opening of the Museum on Sunday; that the Museum, being for the benefit of the public, should be open when the great masses of people have the most leisure time and that the added expense would be very light indeed.

The Evening World (New York), March 20, 1891, page 3.

Teall also tackled the vexing problem of providing a wholesome environment for late-night variety entertainment where alcohol could be served. In 1892, he helped organize the “Vaudeville Club,” which, as a private club, evaded the law that otherwise required any place serving alcohol to close at 10:00 p. m. The club was initially a success, selling memberships to many of the wealthiest families in town. Even the reigning “King of the Dudes,” T. Luis Onativia, joined the club.^iv

The Vaudeville differed from many other exclusive clubs, in that it was open to men and women. The organizers wanted a place where people could go with spouse or respectable date and catch a show and have a drink after ten o’clock. Some members accustomed to behaving badly at their private clubs, however, were disappointed.

 

The Vaudeville Club and Mr. Teall.

The Vaudeville Club, which began its existence Tuesday night, was a woeful disappointment to many of the ‘chappies” who had put up their money for it. That it would be a sassiety function they knew from the start, but they had an idea that it would belong exclusively to the men of sassiety, and that it would therefore offer opportunities for a sort of exclusive devilishness, which should be doubly devilish because it was exclusive. Instead of that they find that its projectors propose to keep it on a plane which will allow the women of society to visit it, and that, while its character will seem delightfully reckless to these fair patrons, it will in reality be very mild indeed. To the jaded appetites of certain young New York society men the Vaudeville Club will taste very like caviarre and beer. Hence they are downhearted.

The Los Angeles Times, January 21, 1893, page 10.

In 1891, Teall embarked on another project that would have organizing and motivating wealthy families to donate money to help poor children. He organized a “Christmas Society,” a Victorian “Toys for Tots,” that included a toy giveaway at Madison Square Garden. But just to prove that no good "Dude" goes unpunished, he faced criticism even before they handed out the first gifts. The scheme, as originally envisioned, included the sale of tickets, so that donors and other more-fortunate families could buy tickets to enjoy the spectacle of less-fortunate families and children receiving and enjoying the benefits bestowed on them by the spectators looking down on them from above.

It would be very bad taste, [Rev. Dr. William S. Rainsford, rector of St. George’s Episcopal Church] said, to make such an exhibition of the children of poor people.

Oliver Teal responded that doing something was better than doing nothing.

A circular issued by Mr. Teall yesterday said:

“Mr. Teall still continues to receive encouraging letters from well-wishers of the work. There are, of course, a few people who wish to reform social conditions entirely, and any effort to make things pleasant before the time comes for the complete reformation, does not meet with their approval; but it is easy to see, however, that the great majority of New Yorkers believe that there cannot be too many occasions on which to make poor little children happy and contented.”

The New York Sun, December 14, 1891, page 5.

In the end, they didn’t sell the tickets, but that decision reduced revenue that would have covered the costs of holding the event. But it didn’t deter him. He organized another toy-drive at Madison Square Garden the following year, with circus-like entertainment thrown in, even if the donors didn’t keep up with the costs.

Merry Christmas for Poor Children.

The Christmas Society, the aim and endeavor of which are to make as many children as possible have a merry Christmas, needs money to carry out its programme. The society expects to have the money, but it finds that its friends have been very dilatory in making their contributions, and Oliver Sumner Teall, its President, makes an earnest appeal for money at once. He says that 25 cents will make a child happy, and that $25 will make 100 children have a Christmas Day full of enjoyment.

The entertainment will be held at the Madison Square Garden Monday, Dec. 26. In addition to the gifts that will be given to the young ones, there will be a musical entertainment by Cappa’s Seventh Regiment Band and tumbling by athletes, a performance by trained dogs, and several other amusements, which are expected to give the guests of the society great pleasure.

The New York Times, December 20, 1892, page 9.

Shortly after New Years, he incorporated the Christmas Society, likely to shield himself from personal liability for the shortfall (Teall assumed personal responsibility for the debt), or at least to do so moving forward. And then, in order to raise money to pay off their outstanding debts and raise money for the following year’s toy-drive, Oliver Sumner Teall organized a charity ball to be held in Madison Square Garden. The ball was attended by some of the so-called “400,” the most socially prominent people in New York, and even E. Berry Wall paid for a box in the Garden.^v

It was during the planning of the Christmas Society Ball that Teall was given his first title, even before he was known as the “King of the Dudes” – the “King of the 400.”

The expression, “the 400,” referred to the number of socially prominent people in New York City who attended large, society cotillions, balls or “germans” (dance parties). It was attributed to a man named Ward McAllister, who had worked himself into the position of social organizer for the elite of New York City.

“Why, there are only about 400 people in fashionable New-York society. If you go outside that number you strike people who are either not at ease in a ball-room or else make other people not at ease. See the point?”

Ward McAllister, as quoted in the New York Tribune, March 25, 1888, page 11 (this early example was identified by Barry Popik, and is listed as an entry in his Big Apple On-line Etymological Dictionary. https://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/new_york_city/entry/the_four_hundred/).

Reports of Oliver Sumner Teall organizing a grand charity ball to benefit the Christmas Society in 1893 prompted some observers to speculate that it was all part of a plan to replace McAllister as the door-keeper and social director of fashionable society. It wasn’t enough that a good man was doing a good deed – there must be an ulterior motive.

 

VYING FOR M’ALLISTER’s LAURELS.

“Ollie” Teall Preparing to Manage a Great Charity Ball.

Ward McAllister’s prestige is seriously threatened. Oliver Sumner Teall today announced that he, or rather the “Christmas Society,” of which he is President, would give a great charity ball in Madison Square Garden on the evening of Friday, Feb. 3, to make up a snug little sum of funds and eclipse any previous one. Ward McAllister’s name does not figure on the list of members of the Christmas Society. In some quarters it is though that after making arrangements for a ball more pretentious than the Charity ball Mr. Teall intends a grand coup, by which he will supplant Ward McAllister as a society leader and mentor. Mr. Teall is young, energetic, and ambitious to shine in society. Mr. McAllister’s activity has been somewhat impaired by years of active duty on the ballroom floor, and he does not possess the powers of endurance for which his young rival is noted.

Chicago Tribune, January 19, 1893, page 5.

Like the supposed rivalry between Berry Wall and Bob Hilliard, the “rivalry” between Teall and McAllister appears to have been a fabrication on the part of the sensationalist press, and not an actual feud. When asked about the other, each man dismissed the other for different reasons. McAllister scoffed at the idea that Teall could be a social leader because, “he is not a social man. Society does not know him.” Teall laughed at the idea that McAllister was of any importance because “he is not a business man, a professional man or a politician. Nevertheless he is notorious. What has he done?” For his part, Teall denied any aspirations to the role of social leader.

“This is the first time I have had a chance without being misunderstood to express publicly my sentiments in regard to the impression that seems to prevail that I am an aspirant for social honors and leadership. I desire nothing of the kind, as there are other and more serious interests in life, and my participation in social affairs has been simply in the way of a recreation and not an occupation.”

The Roanoke Times, June 22, 1893, page 6.

Other outlets expanded on the notion, dubbing Teall the “King of the 400.” One of those reports noted that Teall had given work to “a half dozen scions of ‘the very oldest families in New York” – in other words, men who might otherwise have become “Dudes.”

Oliver Sumner Teall, who has succeeded Ward McAllister as the king of the 400, and who is the leading spirit in the Vaudeville Club, is, notwithstanding this fact, a thorough business man. He is president of the Real Estate Union, the biggest concern of its sort in New York. . . .

Among Mr. Teall’s clerks are half a dozen scions of “the very oldest families in New York.” How he gets time to manage fairs, plan balls, and look after half a dozen other society events every week is a mystery.

The Los Angeles Times, January 21, 1893, page 10.

He took the idea of helping fallen young men seriously, even going so far as to propose establishing a society to help fallen “Dudes.”

My idea is to found a society – and my plans are all definite and complete – that will take young men who were once prosperous, who are perhaps the sons of rich men who have lost their money – young fellows who have the ability and the ambition to make something of themselves, but have lost their grip; that will take them, I say, and brace them up, imbue them with faith and hope and courage, put new heart into them and give them a fresh start in the world. It is a terrible thing for a young man who has once been in a position of affluence to find himself, perhaps through no fault of his own, face to face with hunger and want.

The New York World, May 21, 1893, page 23.

He does not appear to have followed through on that idea, but he did organize a reform movement targeting the same types of people, to protect them from excess drinking. He asked people to sign a pledge to refrain from buying or accepting free drinks.

It was the first of what he hoped would be a series of plans to “rescue, morally,” the young men around him.

 

“DUTCH TREATS” ONLY.

“Ollie” Teall Announces the Birth of a Great Moral Social Reform.

“Ollie” Teall has started a movement for the rescue of the dudes and chappies about town who drink too much, says the New York Recorder, and within a year from today he expects to have 5,000 society men sign a pledge – not of total abstinence, but of temperance and moderation. His idea is to do away with the American system of treating, which, he says, is the curse of the country and has made thousands upon thousands of drunkards.

“My idea is starting this movement,” said Ollie, “is to do what I can to make the lives of the young men around me happier. I have several plans for their rescue, morally, and this is only the first stepping stone in the movement.

“All day long men drink just because they are asked to and because they think social courtesy demands it. The greatest harm is done at night. A party of young men who have been spending the early part of the evening in any of the usual social pleasures may start to walk home together. One of them suggests that they take a drink. Each of the party, say of five wants a drink, and there is no reason why he should not have it. It would be all right if it stopped there, but one man has treated the party, and another thinks it incumbent upon him to do the same, and soon each man, who only wanted one drink, has had five, and then each of the five is certain that he needs many more. The result is an enforced expenditure of money, which can be little afforded, and a night spent in dissipation, followed by a day of necessary stimulation.”

Evening Star (Washington DC), June 3, 1893, page 15.

He even called out the “Dudes” by name as the biggest offenders.

Oliver Sumner Teall, a New York society man, who divides with Ward McAllister the leadership of New York’s famous “Four Hundred,” has begun the agitation of a reform that promises great things in the interest of temperance.

“Few young men of strong character and great moral force are blessed with wealth,” says Mr. Teall, “and as a rule it is the young dudes with more money than brains who set the pace in drinking. They do not know anything else than to fill themselves with liquor, and the only way that they can impress the fact of their existence upon others is to constantly fill them up in a like manner. As the result, there is a great deal more drunkenness than there should be. Now I propose to establish an anti-treating society, to become operative after five thousand young men have signed a pledge to cease treating in public bars. My idea is to arrange it so that every individual must pay for his own drinks, and then no one is likely to take more than he needs, or at least more than he can hold. If five thousand young men sign the pledge, anti-treating will soon become the fashion, and next a custom. The result will be to make sober men out of thousands of young dudes who are now rapidly becoming drunkards.”

Yorkville Enquirer (Yorkville, South Carolina), June 7, 1893, page 2.

Teall’s anti-treating campaign was a far cry from Evander Berry Wall using his celebrity to sell sparkling wine, and warning visitors away from Jerusalem based on its lack of good cocktails. At about the same time, despite the differences, he was elevated to “King of the Dudes,” on par with his predecessors, Wall and Onativia.

If Ollie Teall, known as the king of New York dudes, succeeds in organizing his anti-treating league he will do much for his country. A large share of drunkenness is caused by the foolish American custom of drinking with everybody who offers to treat.

The Fitchburg Sentinel (Fitchburg, Massachusetts), June 6, 1893, page 4.

 

 

“Kings of the Dudes – Onativia, Ollie Teall, E. Berry Wall” (Teall detail) New York World, July 16, 1893, page 27.

 

A DAY WITH OLLIE TEALL.

The Real Life of This Much-Talked-About and Many-Sided Gentleman.

Philanthropist, Philosopher, Optomist, Social Lion, Keen Business Man.

“I Had Rather Build a Man Than Build a Palace,” Says Mr. Teall, Who Wishes His Epitaph to Be “They Laughed at Him While He Lived, They Cried for Him When He Died.”

What kind of man really is Oliver Sumner Teall? He has been ridiculed and caricatured until it is difficult to regard him seriously, but, when all is said, is he not something more than a picturesque poseur? Laughing at him, the public has never stopped to note that he was, in the shrewdest and most far-seeing manner, making capital of his notoriety.

Ollie Teall is a man worthy of study. Five years ago he was absolutely unknown, a stranger in New York, just from the cattle ranges of the far West, where he dressed in the conventional buckskin and sombrero of the cowboy; now he is the best-known young man in the metropolis, the president of any number of financial and social organizations, and the individual most likely to step into the shoes of Ward McAllister as the ringmaster of society.

How has he won his position and accomplished so much? Could a mere clown or a brainless dude do what he has done? Has the public been playing Ollie Teall, or has Ollie Teall been playing the public? Perhaps the tail has wagged the dog in this instance. He has a swivel chair which is the throne of the “King Dude.”

The New York World, May 21, 1893, page 23.

 

“I should like to have it said that the world was better for my having been in it.” – Oliver Sumner Teall (in his “swivel chair which is the throne of the ‘King Dude.”).

Teall also worked on more serious problems. In 1894, he organized a “Provisional Committee for the Aid of the Hungry,” which he envisioned as a clearinghouse of information for charitable donors and recipients of charity to find one another. They helped provide free meals and job opportunities for the unemployed and free milk for needy, young mothers.

One of his suggestions along those lines elicited criticism. He proposed that children who could afford it should bring a potato and piece of bread to school, to be collected and distributed to the poor. Not everyone agreed.

 

 

 Imagine Mr. Oliver Sumner Teall, wearing his Tuxedo, standing with roseate face, bright eyes, delicately twisted mustache and beatific smile, in the middle of his committee room, his chest heaving under his immaculate dress shirt and his fine Italian hands clasping a large pink-eyed potato tuber and hunk of bread while he discourses with encyclopaedical exactness of knowledge on the nourishing and succulent qualities of the staff of life! . . .

But just the same an irreverent public is laughing to-day – laughing in a hilarious way at the latest idea of the multiple chairman.

The Evening World, January 6, 1894, page 2.

Teall campaigned to be appointed Commissioner of Street Cleaning.

 

Who will keep the city clean?

  Thomas Brennan, Ollie Teall,

  Or our Alderman so leal—

 

Bosses, chappies, or machine?

Some one ought to, and to us it

‘S all the same, so some one does it.

New York Evening World, April 5, 1893, page 1.

He didn’t get the job, but one of his proposals was famously adopted by the man who did get the job, and contributed to making New York City a cleaner, healthier place to live.

 

Mr. Teall Applies for a Job. Asks to be Made Commissioner of Street Cleaning. He promises Mr. Strong to Earn His Salary and Suggests a Kind of Military Organization.

Oliver Sumner Teall yesterday made a formal application to Mayor-elect Strong for the position of Commissioner of Street Cleaning. This application is made on the condition that “there be a vacancy” in this position.

Mr. Teall promises, if he gets the job, to do his work well and to earn his money. In his letter to Mr. Strong Mr. Teall said:

“If you do, [appoint me,] I will not only clean the streets, but clean them to the satisfaction of the public. I will earn my own salary, and make every other man in the department earn his. I will employ only able-bodied men, and see that every dollar produces a dollar of value. No sweepings will be piled up for the wind to scatter, and no citizen will be obliged to pay for the private removal of garbage.”

. . . Mr. Teall in his street-cleaning theories would . . . bring in military elements.

He would have the city divided into four divisions, each to be in charge of a retired army officer.

New York Times, December 6, 1894, page 16.

Teall’s proposal to hire retired army officers and organize the street cleaners as a professional, military-style organization was adopted by the man who got the job, a retired Army officer named George Waring. He organized the department into an army of white-clad street sweepers, known as the “White Wings.”

 

“White Wings on Review,” Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/00694399/

Despite all of Teall’s good works and good intentions, his public image was generally held up for ridicule. But Teall didn’t mind. He believed that any publicity was good publicity.

“How do you regard the satire indulged in by newspaper men when they write about you?” This was as delicate a way as I could think of saying, “How do you like to be made a fool of?”

“Don’t mind it a bit!” answered he emphatically. “Fact is, I like it. It puzzled me a little at first, but I learned long ago that mention in the newspapers helps a man. They can poke all the fun at me they please as long as they talk about me. There’s just one place where I would draw the line. If any reporter ever conveyed the slightest hint against my character I’d make trouble in seven languages. I do not care for newspaper mention on account of vanity. If I had that quality it wouldn’t last long before the attacks of the reporters. They would have knocked it out of me years ago. Business is what I think of, and the more a man’s name gets printed the better his business is likely to be.”

The Cincinnati Enquirer, November 25, 1894, page 19.

Although married when he became “King of the Dudes,” Teall’s personal reputation took a hit several years later in a divorce action in which a well-known actress named Georgia Cayvan was named as his correspondent. Fallout from the accusations ruined her career and was blamed, in part, for her death at a young age nearly a decade later.

But Teall does not appear to have been to blame. Teall was willing to give his wife an uncontested divorce, but his wife’s attorney nevertheless named Georgia as the correspondent in a divorce action. Ms. Cayvan was, in fact, an acquaintance of Teall’s, but there was never any suggestion of a romantic attachment. It later came out that she had been in Europe at the supposed time of the affair.

 

The Late Georgia Cayvan, Deseret News (Salt Lake City), December 1, 1906, page 22.

When Georgia Cayvan died in 1906, a report on her death noted that the “man in the case is still alive, a prosperous factor in New York business life. The divorced wife has gone her way. What they think about this tragedy may not be known.”

But what the reporter who wrote the obituary did not know (and could not have easily known in a day before internet search engines put such information at everyone’s fingertips) is that Oliver Sumner Teall was already dead, having died in Allentown, Pennsylvania, six months earlier. At the time of his death, the man with a “voice that could melt bananas” had been raising bananas in Central America.

Oliver Sumner Teall, college graduate, cowboy, broker and social lion of New York’s Four Hundred, passed away yesterday morning at 4 o’clock, at the Allentown Hospital, to which institution he had been taken from the Hotel Allen on Friday of last week, suffering from a chronic valvular affection of the heart, aged 54 years. . . .

He came to this city on Friday of last week, in company with William C. Hartman, from Philadelphia, where he had been located for some time past, in the interests of a firm developing banana lands in Honduras.

The Morning Call (Allentown, Pennsylvania), June 8, 1906, page 1.

 

A Common Thread

A common thread linking the first three “Kings of the Dudes” was their participation in the “peculiar” “masculine fad” of wearing bracelets.

 

Oliver Sumner Teall, despite his brunette wife’s wish, wears an armlet of gold. He seldom takes the pains to hide it, and often it can be seen slipped down over his hand. It is of gold, narrow, and made of links, fastened by a tiny gold padlock. Who carries the key to this padlock remains a secret. “Ollie” cannot take the bracelet off.

Louis Onativia, who rather took possession of the throne vacated by Berry Wall, was one of the first men to wear a bracelet. He had one made himself according to his own design. Where it is fastened, in the place of a padlock he had a small locket attached.

Berry Wall is very proud of his wife’s hair. At the time of their marriage her tresses were extremely long, but shortly afterward a fever from which she suffered necessitated cutting it. From the hair thus cut off “Berry” had a chain bracelet made, fastened with a small golden heart which locked, and the key, as a delicate compliment, he gave to his wife. Wall is never without this bracelet, which he wears well pushed up on his arm. To his intimates he at times shows it with much gusto, informing them that by his wishes it will be buried with him.

The Pittsburgh Press, August 27, 1893, page 14.

 

Kings of the Dudes - Introduction

Kings of the Dudes - Part I - Evander Berry Wall

Kings of the Dudes Part III - Western Dudes - J. Waldere Kirk

 

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ⁱ  This article apparently misidentifies Tomas Onativia as his brother, Jose Victor Onativia, Jr.

ⁱⁱ  Some accounts suggest he was born “near Troy” New York. Today there is an Onativia Road and an Onativia Methodist Church south of Syracuse in Lafayette, New York, and the Onativia family is known to have vacationed at Richfield Springs, half-way between Lafayette and Troy, so the suggestion is not impossible. But his father had a business office on Manhattan as early as 1850, so the extent of their connection to Upstate New York is not certain.

ⁱⁱⁱ   The United States Census of 1880 lists his sisters living together at a boarding school in Connecticut. Their entry lists his father as having been born in France (nationality not given) and his mother in Massachusetts.

^iv  Mortimer Elwyn Cooley, The Cooley Genealogy, The Descendants of Ensign Benjamin Cooley (Rutland, Vermont), The Tuttle Publishing Company, Rutland, Vermont, 1941, page 337.

^v  Raphael Alvarez, Guia de Nueva York, para uso de los Espanoles e HIspanoamericanos (New York), J. A. Gray, 1863, page 154 (“Comisionistas e Importadores.”).

^vi  The Washington Post, May 15, 1907, page 2.

^vii  Argus-Leader (Sioux Falls, South Dakota), October 21, 1897, page 5.

^viii  New York Tribune, October 9, 1909, page 7.

^ix  New York Tribune, October 9, 1909, page 7.

^x  The New York Evening World, July 5, 1904, page 3.

^xi  The New York Evening World, July 5, 1904, page 3.

^xii  The New York Evening World, July 5, 1904, page 3.

^xiii  “Who Shall Reign? The Crown is Awaiting a New King of Fashion,” The Buffalo Sunday Morning News, February 25, 1894, page 8.

^xiv  “Ollie Teall’s Career, Autobiography of a Gilded Youth,” San Francisco Chronicle, February 20, 1893, page 3.

^xv  “Ollie Teall’s Career, Autobiography of a Gilded Youth,” San Francisco Chronicle, February 20, 1893, page 3.

^xvi  The New York Sun, July 8, 1884, page 3 (“8 per cent investment security. The preferred stock of the Lyons & Campbell Ranch and Cattle Company is offered for sale . . . Officers: . . . Vice President, Oliver Sumner Teall; . . . Directors: . . . George B. McClellan, Orange, New Jersey; . . . Oliver Sumner Teall, Orange, New Jersey.”).

^xvii  Club Men of New York, New York, Republic Press, 1892, page 345.

^xviii  “Danced for Ollie Teall. Society Patches Up the Shortage in the Christmas Society’s Accounts. Ollie All Smiles, for Some of the Four Hundred were there,” The World, February 11, 1893, page 1.