James Ben Ali Haggin
- Bobby Kelley
- 1 day ago
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(December 9, 1822 – September 12, 1914)
American attorney, rancher, investor, art collector, and a major owner and breeder in the sport of Thoroughbred horse racing. Haggin was born in Harrodsburg, Kentucky, a descendant of one of the state's pioneer families who had settled there in 1775 and a descendant of Ibrahim Ben Ali, who was an early American settler of Turkish origin. He graduated from Centre College at Danville, Kentucky, then entered the practice of law. On December 28, 1846,
James Ben Ali Haggin married Eliza Jane Sanders of Natchez, Mississippi with whom he had five children. in opening a law office in Sacramento. They moved to San Francisco in 1853. He built a large and impressive Nob Hill mansion on the east side of Taylor Street between Clay and Washington streets, which stood until the earthquake and fire of 1906. Haggin and Tevis married sisters, daughters of Colonel Lewis Sanders, a Kentuckian who had emigrated to California. Haggin and Tevis acquired the Rancho Del Paso land grant near Sacramento. The two invested in the mining business with George Hearst as one of their partners. Hearst, Haggin, Tevis and Co. became one of the largest mining companies in the United States; its operations included the Ontario silver mine in Park City, Utah, the Homestake Mine in South Dakota, and with Marcus Daly, the Anaconda Copper Company in Montana.
Haggin purchased the Rancho Del Paso horse farm near Sacramento, California in 1859. He made it one of the country's most important horse breeding and Thoroughbred racing operations whose horses competed from coast-to-coast. Haggin owned the colt Tyrant which in 1885 he sent to compete as a three-year-old on the U.S. East Coast where he won the prestigious Withers and Belmont Stakes, the latter becoming the third leg of the U.S. Triple Crown series. The following year his colt Ben Ali won the 1886 Kentucky Derby. Sadly his wife Eliza died in 1893 and on December 30, 1897, the seventy-five-year-old Haggin married twenty-eight-year-old Margaret Pearl Voorhies at her stepfather's residence in Versailles, Kentucky.
Miss Voorhies was a niece of his first wife. Haggin bought Elmendorf Farm in Lexington in 1897 and expanded the property by purchasing many of the farms surrounding it. Haggin transformed Elmendorf into a nationally renowned stud farm with horses sporting distinguished bloodlines. It also was a dairy operation noted for its progressive practices. During the 1890s and 1900s, the 500-acre farm expanded to 13,000 acres.
After Haggin purchased Elmendorf Farm, he built a grand mansion as a wedding gift to his new wife. In March 1900, the Haggins began planning and reviewing improvements to the farm, including the new main residence. The mansion was built on a hill overlooking North Elkhorn Creek to the north and the stallion barn and training track to the west. The house was more than 12,000 square feet and built of brick and white marble. It included three stories and a full basement.
A stone balustrade surrounded the roofline.
Mrs. Haggin named the mansion Green Hills because of the beautiful view of Bluegrass country. Green Hills had 40 rooms, and its estimated construction cost was $300,000, which would translate to approximately $10 million today. To outfit the home’s interior, Haggin hired New York’s Herter Brothers—Gustave and Christian Herter—famed interior designers who catered to the affluent. They previously had designed the interior of Haggin’s brownstone on Fifth Avenue in New York City.
Haggin died September 12, 1914, at his Newport, Rhode Island, residence Villa Rosa, brought by train to New York and after a private funeral Mr. Haggin's Mahogany casket was entombed in the Haggin Mausoleum, Lake View Plot, Section 74 of Woodlawn Cemetery in New York.
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