The Biographical Dictionary of America/Astor, William Waldorf

ASTOR, William Waldorf, diplomatist, was born in New York. March 31, 1848, son of John Jacob, 3d. and Charlotte Augusta (Gibbs) Astor. and grandson of William B. Astor. He was educated by private tutors in the United States and Europe, and was graduated at the law school of Columbia college in 1875. He was elected a member of the state assembly in 1877 as a Republican, and of the state senate in 1879, serving on the committees on militia, cities, judiciary commerce and navigation, and public expenditures. He was a defeated candidate for Congress in 1880, was appointed United States minister to Italy by President Arthur in 1882, to succeed G. P. Marsh, residing in Rome until 1885, when he was succeeded by John B. Stallo. In 1878 he married Mary, daughter of James W. Paul of Philadelphia, and a niece of Admiral Dahlgren and of Abbott Lawrence of Boston. During her husband's ministry to Italy, she became famous in Rome for her charming hospitality and her great beauty, Queen Margherita declaring her to be the most beautiful woman in all Italy. While in England she won the friendship of the Princess Louise, Marchioness of Lorne. Mrs. Astor died near London, Eng., Dec. 23, 1894, and was buried in Trinity churchyard. New York city. Mr. Astor published two Italian romances, "Valentino" (1886), and "Sforza, a Story of Milan" (1889). By the death of his father in 1890 he became the head of his family and inherited an estate estimated to be worth $200,000,000. On his property on Fifth avenue, New York, in 1893, he built the Waldorf hotel, at the time the finest and best equipped hostelry in America. He took up his residence in London in 1891; in 1893 purchased the Pall-Mall gazette and budget, and in the same year bought the historic estate of Cliveden-on-the-Thames, then in the possession of the Duke of Westminster.