Franklyn Laws Hutton

Franklyn Laws Hutton Yale Graduation Photo

Franklyn Laws Hutton was born on December 1, 1876, in Manhattan, New York, the youngest son of James Laws Hutton and Frances Eloise Hulse Hutton. He and his older brother, Edward Francis Hutton, were born into a New York family whose home stood at 10 East Forty-second Street, at a time when that area was still residential. Their father, James Laws Hutton, had come to New York from Ohio as a young man, leaving the farm at the age of sixteen. After his early death, the family faced changed circumstances, and the Hutton brothers’ later success in finance reflected a determined rise from those difficulties.

Franklyn was educated in New York and attended Yale University, graduating in 1900. While he was still at Yale, his brother Edward became one of the founders of Harris, Hutton & Company, a New York Stock Exchange brokerage firm with offices at 35 New Street. After Franklyn’s graduation, he joined the firm and began the Wall Street career that would define much of his adult life.

In 1904, after the withdrawal of the Harris interests, the firm became E. F. Hutton & Company. Franklyn became a partner and was elected to membership on the New York Stock Exchange, where he represented the firm on the floor. His role placed him at the center of the firm’s daily market operations, while Edward Francis Hutton became its better-known public figure. The firm was among the early brokerage houses to develop a national reach, and it was the first to operate a leased wire to California. Franklyn later opened the company’s branches in San Francisco and Los Angeles, helping extend E. F. Hutton & Company’s presence to the Pacific Coast.

Franklyn Laws Hutton C.1916

As a young man, Franklyn was known for his interest in outdoor pursuits, including fishing, shooting, riding, golf, and tennis. On June 27, 1907, he married Edna Woolworth, daughter of Frank Winfield Woolworth, founder of the Woolworth five-and-ten-cent chain-store empire.

Their marriage connected the Hutton family with one of the best-known fortunes in American business. Franklyn and Edna lived within New York’s wealthy social world, and their only child, Barbara Woolworth Hutton, was born in 1912.

Edna Woolworth Hutton & Little Barbara

Tragedy entered the family in 1917, when Edna Woolworth Hutton died at the age of thirty-three from a rare ear infection at the Plaza Hotel in New York, where the family was then residing. After her death, Franklyn took Barbara to California. For several years they lived in Los Angeles and Burlingame, the latter with his sister, Mrs. Thomas A. Middleton.

Following the deaths of her mother and maternal grandparents, Barbara inherited a fortune of about eighteen million dollars. Franklyn served as her guardian and managed her estate during her minority. His final accounting, filed after she came of age in 1933, showed that her fortune had increased to more than forty-two million dollars. Though Barbara later became one of the most publicized heiresses in the world, Franklyn’s stewardship of her fortune was a major part of her early financial history.

Irene Olive Curley, 2nd wife of Franklyn Hutton

In 1926, Franklyn married Irene Olive Curley Bodde of Detroit. He continued with E. F. Hutton & Company until 1931, when he retired from the firm. After leaving active business, he maintained an office at 745 Fifth Avenue in New York for his personal affairs.

Franklyn and Irene Hutton were noted hosts, entertaining frequently when they maintained homes at 1020 Fifth Avenue in New York and at Islip, Long Island. In addition to his New York apartment, Franklyn had estates at Palm Beach and in California. He also leased shooting lodges and preserves in several countries, including Germany, France, Austria, and Czechoslovakia, reflecting the sporting interests that remained important throughout his life.

About ten years before his death, Franklyn merged seven plantations along the Edisto River at Willtown Bluff, about thirty miles from Charleston, South Carolina, into a 5,500-acre estate known as Prospect Hill Plantation.

Franklyn, Barbra, Court and baby Lance.

He spent most of his winters there, making occasional trips to Palm Beach. Prospect Hill became the center of his later life as a country sportsman. He raised horses and also bred chukkas, a variety of East Indian quail larger than the domestic variety. The plantation manager experimented with reviving rice culture on land once associated with that crop, and Franklyn maintained an elaborate skeet shoot with an eighty-foot tower from which clay pigeons were launched.

Franklyn Laws Hutton died at noon on December 5, 1940, at Prospect Hill Plantation near Adams Run, South Carolina. At his bedside were his daughter, Barbara, then Countess Haugwitz-Reventlow; his wife, Irene; his sister, Mrs. Thomas Middleton; his brother and sister-in-law, Edward F. and Marjorie Merriweather Post Hutton; his nephew Prentiss Hutton; and his first wife’s sister, Mrs. Woolworth Donahue. A private funeral service was held at Prospect Hill, conducted by the Right Rev. Albert Thomas, Bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina, and the Rev. Sumner Guerry, rector of Christ Church, Adams Run. He was entombed at Ferncliff Cemetery and Mausoleum in Hartsdale, New York.