54
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spring
CLARENCE
C
larence Alexander Black was born in 1851 in McConnelsville,
Ohio, where his father had gone into business as a wholesale dry-
goods merchant. Clarence left school at age 15 to start clerking for his
father while his two younger brothers, Frank DeWitt Black and Charles
H. Black, remained in school.
In 1875, the entire family moved to Detroit, where Joseph and
Clarence partnered with B.H. Bratshaw to found a banking firm. Joseph
then proceeded to build an imposing, ornate Victorian mansion at 665
Woodward Avenue and retired. In 1882, Clarence entered the wholesale
hardware business and eventually founded the Black Hardware
Company.
In 1889, the three brothers moved to Seattle. There, the Seattle
Hardware Company had just burned to the ground in an epic and
disastrous fire that devoured 100 acres of Seattle’s business and
waterfront district. Clarence merged the interests of the Black
Hardware Company of Detroit into the Seattle
Hardware Company.
In post-fire Seattle, business was booming.
The brothers of the Black family expanded
their investments, and Clarence, though
he maintained his other business interests
in Detroit, became a major stockholder
in the Alaska Steamship Line. In 1894,
MOGULS
&
MANSIONS
secured the U.S. rights to the Bessemer patents in order
to start steel production in 1865.
In 1867, John Flack Winslow purchased
Woodcliffe,
which he turned into a showplace with sweeping lawns, sylvan
woodlands, and crushed limestone drives. Meandering trails and
creeks traversed by bridges led to a pool whose central island was
shaped like the
Monitor
. Ornate greenhouses rivaled those of Kew
Gardens, and his stables were second to none. In winter, horse-drawn
sleighs trotted along snow-covered carriage roads, sleigh bells jingling
while the occupants were kept warm with bearskin robes. It was a
privileged existence.
(top) Mary Corning Winslow Black (right) with her
mother, Harriet Wickes Winslow at Woodcliffe, on
the banks of the Hudson River in New York
(oval) Clarence Alexander Black and Mary after
60 days of married life, February 10, 1896
rather tardily in the grand scheme of
things, Clarence put his business enterprises
on hold and took a “Grand Tour” of Europe.
MARY
M
ary Corning Winslow was born into a prominent family in
Poughkeepsie, New York, in 1873. Her mother was the former
Harriet Wickes and her father was John Flack Winslow, a direct
descendent of Governor Winslow of Plymouth Colony. John’s father was
owner and master of Hudson River boats and proprietor of flourmills
and iron works. John augmented the family fortune by expanding the
iron works, and, together with his maternal uncle, Erastus Corning,
