Winston Churchill

Hailed by Publisher’s Weekly as “the most popular author of fiction in America between 1900 and 1925,” Winston Churchill’s first novel, Celebrity, was written in 1898. The second, Richard Carvel (1899), sold over one million copies and made him independently wealthy. His fame grew to the point that on September 23, 1899, the British Winston Churchill wrote to the American version, praising the novel and promising to always use “Spencer” as his middle name to help prevent confusion going forward. Ultimately, Winston published 10 novels in 20 years, eight of them bestsellers.

Although Winston Churchill was born in St. Louis, he had deep ancestral roots in New England. The earliest to travel to the New World, John Churchill, settled in Plymouth in 1644, and Winston’s great-grandfather founded a successful shipping company in Newmarket, New Hampshire in 1787. 

Shortly after his birth, Churchill’s mother died and he was adopted by his aunt and her husband. Unable to afford college, he was able to get an appointment to the U.S. Naval Academy, doing well academically and beginning to write fiction in his last year. After a brief stint at sea in 1894, he decided Navy life was not for him and took advantage of his writing skills to become the editor of the Army-Navy Journal and subsequently, Cosmopolitan magazine. In 1895, he married Mabel Harlakenden Hall, a St. Louis heiress, and left the magazine to write full-time. They had three children.

In 1902, Winston and Mabel became influential members of the Cornish Art Colony when they purchased 95 acres of what was known as Spaulding Farm in Cornish, New Hampshire. They commissioned Charles A. Platt, another Colony member, to design what became the most elaborate of the Cornish Colony houses. Churchill helped design the gardens and surrounding park. Dubbed “Harlakenden House,” after Mabel’s middle name, it was a red brick mansion with 30 rooms, frequently used for entertaining. From 1913 – 1915, President Woodrow Wilson and his wife, Ellen, frequent visitors to Cornish, chose Harlakenden House as the summer White House. Eventually, the Churchills acquired nearly 500 acres in Cornish and the surrounding area, with plenty of room for their beautiful horses and cars. Sadly, a fire struck the house in 1923, burning it to the ground. When building their new home, Winston installed the wood paneling himself.

Both Winston and Mabel had long-standing interests in politics and were ardent supporters of women’s suffrage, among other causes. When the Mothers and Daughters Club was formed in Cornish in 1897, Winston donated the oak flooring for the clubhouse (valued at $78). In 1902, following a shooting party in nearby-Corbin’s Park, the Churchills drove President Theodore Roosevelt to a reception in their horse-drawn coach, taking him over the Cornish-Windsor covered bridge. (It is not known whether they paid the $2 fee.) That same year, Winston was elected New Hampshire state representative, serving two terms and embracing many of Roosevelt’s progressive principles, including measures to improve the state’s forests and well-constructed roads. A campaign for governor was unsuccessful. 

Churchill’s 1906 novel, Coniston, used Cornish and Croyden-like settings and characters. Cornish Colony member Florence Scovel Shinn’s illustrations provided keen observations of a political boss who rises rapidly in New Hampshire politics. 

The Churchills participated in many “Old Home Day” celebrations in Cornish and Plainfield, with “Col.” Churchill frequently being asked to speak. At the sesquicentennial of the settling of Cornish in 1915, he mentioned many of the artists, sculptors, and writers who were part of the Cornish Colony, particularly singling out Charles Beaman for encouraging Augustus Saint-Gaudens to come to Cornish, and to Augusta Homer Saint-Gaudens for creating the museum to celebrate her husband’s works. 

A talk given late in life, entitled “Something Hard is Dissolving,” evinced Winston’s love for New Hampshire, which he felt had a “character all its own.” He said, “A small state, perhaps, but with infinite variety, with plenty of room still for those who wish to rest or think, or farm, or merely to be inspired.”