Thomas Newbold

Thomas Newbold (May 19, 1849 – November 11, 1929) was an American lawyer, politician, and society leader during the Gilded Age. Early life Newbold was born on May 19, 1849. He was the son of Thomas Haines Newbold (1815–1869) and Mary Elizabeth (née Rhinelander) Newbold (1822–1897). Among his siblings was Catherine Augusta Newbold, Frederick Rhinelander Newbold (who served as president of the American Rose Society), and Edith Newbold. His paternal grandparents were Philadelphia born Thomas Newbold and Catherine (née LeRoy) Newbold, who died in Paris, France in 1835. His maternal grandparents were Frederick William Rhinelander and Mary Lucretia Ann (née Stevens) Rhinelander (daughter of Maj. Gen. Ebenezer Stevens). His uncle was Frederic W. Rhinelander, president of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and his maternal aunt was Lucretia Stevens Rhinelander, the mother of Frederic Rhinelander Jones and Edith Newbold Jones, his first cousin who was a novelist and designer better known as Edith Wharton. Career Newbold was educated at schools in Poughkeepsie (including the Fen Stanton Vicarage) and Trinity Hall, University of Cambridge, receiving a B.A. degree in 1871. He then became a lawyer, studying in the office of Sanford, Robinson & Woodruff, eventually graduating from Columbia Law School in 1874.