Aiken's Winter Colony in the Gilded Age
by David M. Tavernier

Mrs. Hitchcock prepares to lead a hunt

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Their Own Stories Told by Them

Stories of the Rich and Famous cover

Stories of Rich and Famous, Aiken's Winter Colony in the Gilded Age brings to light historical incidents that are not generally known about some of Aiken's prominent "winter colonists." Stories from the tragic 1898 Aiken horseback accident that ultimately claimed the life of Edith Randolph Whitney, beloved second wife of millionaire, William C. Whitney, to Hope Diamond owner, Evalyn Walsh McLean's failed effort to recover the kidnapped son of Colonel Charles Lindbergh in 1932, are vividly brought to life.

The "Stories" open a window and provide a glimpse into the lives of high society millionaires such as Mrs. Thomas Hitchcock, Colonel Anthony Kuser, and William K. Vanderbilt who all came to Aiken every winter to play.

They came by private railcar to play polo and golf, race thoroughbreds, and hunt fox. They held high tea, musicales, balls, and dinners, and every spring the "Winter Colony" migrated north again, leaving behind mansions and traditions that still resonate in Aiken 100 years later.

More Stories of the Rich and Famous

More Stories of the Rich and Famous cover

In More Stories of the Rich and Famous: Aiken’s Winter Colony in the Gilded Age, the reader is placed in the action as witness to the high and low events that enmeshed the country’s rich and famous in their winter playground, Aiken, South Carolina. 

The activities of the Astors, Iselins, and Hitchcocks, among others, are restored to life offering the reader insight into their desires, joys, fears, and regrets. Each chapter delivers a riveting story about the lives and times of those who occupied the highest perches of America’s societal peaks. Beginning with the first chapter in Aiken Remembers the Titanic, Madeleine Astor graphically recalls her reoccurring nightmare of the Titanic tragedy during a visit to Aiken to attend a bridge dedication honoring one of Titanic’s important victims. In Titanic Bill, the story of a pitiable William Carter, a Titanic survivor bearing a coward’s shame, mulls a futile option designed to restore his damaged reputation.

In The Highland Park Hotel, the most luxurious hotel of its day where the Vanderbilts of New York, the Dolans of Philadelphia, and the Stackpoles of Boston and others, including international elites, passed the mild Aiken winters, the story of its construction, employees, and the gun violence during its destruction by fire in the early morning hours of February 6, 1898 is remembered. 

The specter of attempted murder is re-examined in Aiken’s Trial of the Century which reconstructs in as much detail as is known, the attempted murder of wealthy socialite Camilla Havemeyer Beach in the yard of her Aiken home on the night of February 26, 1912. 

The military exploits of America’s greatest polo player and hero are recounted in Tommy Hitchcock, Jr. – A Soldier’s Story. Hitchcock relives his daring escape from a German POW train, and his experiences defending France in the WW I Lafayette Flying Corps.

The Remarkable Iselins recounts C. Oliver Iselin’s 1893 America’s Cup victory hard earned against gale force winds, his marriage to Hope Goddard, and their involvement in bringing Aiken’s first hospital into reality in 1917. The little known story of a lesser known tryst involving U.S. Speaker of the House, Nicholas Longworth’s 1931 visit to Aiken is recounted in The Speaker’s Final Visit to Aiken,which ended in a tragic death, leaving the reader with a desire to pursue more about Longworth and his famous wife, Theodore Roosevelt’s daughter, Alice.

Taking up where its predecessor,Stories of the Rich and Famous: Aiken’s Winter Colony in the Gilded Age ended, this continuation of stories about a unique group of privileged people in their special playground at a time in America’s economic development when robber barons ruled, descriptively delivers more fascinating events in the lives of Aiken’s and America’s rich and famous.

The lovely thing about More Stores of the Rich and Famous is that it is absolutely factual. And fun. I say again, it is painstakingly researched, but not dry. In fact, many of the insights into the pursuits of these people are—to put it mildly—extraordinarily spicy

—W. Cothran (Cot) Campbell, President, Dogwood Stables, & Author of Memoirs of a Longshot... A Riproarious Life

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About the Author

David M. Tavernier

David M. Tavernier is an author and lecturer on Aiken’s Winter Colony. His first book, Stories of the Rich and Famous: Aiken’s Winter Colony in the Gilded Age was released in September 2012 and was selected as the Featured Book for "In Author’s Words."

His second book, More Stories of the Rich and Famous: Aiken’s Winter Colony in the Gilded Age, was released in September 2014 and nominated by his publisher for the 2015 EVVY Award in the category of historical fiction. The awards are sanctioned by the Colorado Independent Publishers Association.

He has been a featured speaker on the topic of Aiken’s winter colony at the Aiken County Historical Society; the Aiken County Historical Museum’s Winter Lecture Series; the University of South Carolina Aiken Academy for Lifelong Learning, and numerous clubs and organizations in Aiken and other parts of the state.

He is a graduate of Florida Atlantic University and has been married to third generation Aikenite, Patrice Durban Tavernier for 40 years.