William Earl Dodge Stokes (1852 - 1926)

Born 22 May 1852 in New York City, New York County, New York, United States

Ancestors

Husband of Rita de Hernandez de Alba (Acosta) Stokes — married 3 Jan 1895 (to 1900) in New York City, New York, United States

Died 18 May 1926 at age 73 in New York City, New York, United States

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Noted Real Estate Developer.

Biography

William Stokes is Notable.

William Earl Dodge Stokes was born in 1852.

W. E. D. Stokes was graduated from Yale in 1874. He became associated with his father in business and inherited his father’s estate, valued at $11,000,000. He made money in real estate and other operations, but spent it rapidly. He imported race horses, conducted a large stable and lived expensively. In the last ten or fifteen years the estate which he inherited from his father was reduced by large fees to lawyers who defended him in the many suits brought against him or represented him in the numerous actions which he himself started.

In 1922 Mr. Stokes appeared as his own attorney in his suit against his wife and filed a document drawn up by himself in which he described “a group of lawyer who have attached themselves to my own and my son’s properties like so many leeches without cause or excuse.”

The first marriage of Mr. Stokes was in 1895 to Rita Hernandez de Alba Acosta. He fell in love with this noted beauty when he saw her picture in the window of a Fifth Avenue photographer. At about that time Paul Helleu [a portrait painter] pronounced her “the most nearly perfectly beautiful woman in the world.” Stokes gave to her the Patchen Wilkes farm in Kentucky. One of his birthday gifts to her was Beuzetta, a famous horse in its day, for which he paid $15,000.

In 1900 Mrs. Stokes divorced him. She afterward married Captain Philip Lydig. Some years after their divorce Mrs. Lydig became engaged to marry the Rev. Dr. Percy Stickney Grant, but they reconsidered when Bishop Manning forbade their marriage on the ground that she was divorced.

Married Again in 1911 In 1907, shortly after he built the Hotel Ansonia, Mr. Stokes was the defendant in a misdemeanor proceeding instituted by the Health Department, which charged that he had violated the Sanitary Code by harboring pigs and game on the roof of the hotel. Mr. Stokes settled the case by giving the pigs and geese, which were said to be of rare pedigreed stock, to the Central Park menagerie.

On Feb. 11, 1911, he married Miss Helen Ellwood of Denver, who was then 24 years old.

On June 7, 1911, Lillian Graham and Ethel Conrad, chorus girls, had a dispute with Mr. Stokes in their apartment at Broadway and Eightieth Street. Both opened fire on him with pistols, and three Japanese ran in and attacked him by jiu-jitsu methods. Mr. Stokes was wounded three times in the legs. He was so badly hurt by the Japanese assailants that an operation was necessary. The two women were prosecuted, but were acquitted.

In 1919 Mr. Stokes started a suit for divorce and was beaten. Through a technicality, however, the verdict did not become binding. He tried again, and again was beaten. Mrs. Stokes then sued for a legal separation and obtained it. In another suit Mr. Stokes tried to prove than an ante-nuptial agreement was in existence by which his wife had waived, for herself and children, all claims on his estate. Mr. Stokes was defeated in this action. He was charged with entering into a conspiracy to suborn perjury against his wife, was brought to trial on that charge in Chicago in 1925 and acquitted.

Mr. Stokes wrote one book. It was a tract on eugenics entitled, “The Right to Be Well Born.” In it he discussed his experiences as a horse breeder in Kentucky and touched on his own lineage as a descendant of the Montespans. He argued in favor of careful selection and breeding of human stock, for the improvement of the race, and suggested to legislators the experiment of registering members of the laboring classes so that they might reproduce “their actual value,” and so that employers, by looking up the genealogical records of prospective employees, could estimate the amount and quality of the work of which they were capable. The publishers sued Mr. Stokes to recover $5,000 which they had spent on the publication of this book.

Census

1880 New York City: ^[1]

Household Role Sex Age Birthplace

• James Stokes Self Male 76 New York, United States
• Caroline P Stokes Wife Female 66 Connecticut, United States
• James Stokes Son Male 35 New York, United States
• Olivia P Stokes Daughter Female 26 New York, United States
• William D Stokes Son Male 26 New York, United States
• Caroline P Stokes Daughter Female 22 New York, United States
• Sarah Blackwell Other Female 50 Ireland
• Rose Claire Other Female 25 Portugal
• Agnes Bailey Other Female 40 Scotland
• Jane Whitford Other Female 36 Ireland
• William Scott Other Male 36 Ireland
• Jane Scott Other Female 34 Ireland
• Ann Scott Other Female 6 New York, United States

He passed away in 1926.^[2]

Sources

1. ↑ "United States Census, 1880," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MZ6Z-JST : 19 February 2021), William D Stokes in household of James Stokes, New York, New York, New York, United States; citing enumeration district ED 278, sheet 86B, NARA microfilm publication T9 (Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, n.d.), FHL microfilm 1,254,880.
2. ↑ "New York, New York City Municipal Deaths, 1795-1949", database, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:2W17-7HX : 3 June 2020), William Earl Dodge Stokes, 1926.

See Also:

• Wikidata: Item Q8008344
• https://major-smolinski.com/STOKES/WEDOBIT.html
• https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Earl_Dodge_Stokes