Ansley Wilcox - Life and Rise To Prominence

Life and Rise To Prominence

Ansley Wilcox was born near Augusta, Georgia on January 27, 1856. Like Theodore Roosevelt's mother Martha Bulloch Roosevelt, his mother was from the South and his father from the North. During the Civil War his family moved to Connecticut. Wilcox prepared at Hopkins School before attending Yale where he ultimately studied law. Wilcox also attended Oxford University and while in England met Cornelia Rumsey, a young woman from Buffalo on holiday with her family. After leaving Oxford, Wilcox moved to Buffalo, New York where he joined a law firm and married Cornelia in 1878. Cornelia's father, Dexter Rumsey, gave them a house at 675 Delaware Avenue as a wedding present. His wife died in childbirth in 1880, leaving a daughter, Nina. In 1883, Ansley Wilcox married Cornelia’s younger sister, Mary Grace Rumsey. Once again, Dexter Rumsey gave his daughter and son-in-law a house as a wedding present, this one at 641 Delaware Avenue. Their only child, a daughter Frances, was born there in 1884.

Buffalo was a fast growing industrial city when Ansley Wilcox arrived. Although a young man, he soon became known for his legal expertise, charitable works and his love of golf. Corporate law was his specialty but he also taught a course in medical jurisprudence at the University of Buffalo. Like Roosevelt, he was a reformer and a conservationist. The two men met in the early 1880s when they were appointed by Governor Grover Cleveland to a special commission on civil service reform. Both men also served on the commission to create the Niagara Reservation, a protected park area around Niagara Falls. Though he never ran for public office, Wilcox was very interested in politics. He was a friend of at least three presidents, Cleveland, Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft). It was Wilcox who first proposed the idea of holding local elections during odd numbered years to avoid conflict with state and federal elections during even numbered years. He was an independent Republican who broke ranks and voted for Democrat Grover Cleveland in the presidential election of 1884. He supported Theodore Roosevelt in 1904 but in the election of 1912 he threw his support to Republican incumbent Taft, rather than to Progressive Party candidate Roosevelt, whose presidency had begun in his Library.

Wilcox is also remembered as a founder of the Charity Organization Society and the Fitch Creche, the first day center for working mothers in the United States. Many of these groups met informally the Wilcox home to make decisions and plan events. He was also a founding member of the Wanakah Country Club and enjoyed riding his horses and polo ponies in Delaware Park. The garden at 641 Delaware was also one of his passions. Although a professional gardener was on staff, Wilcox often tended the flowers himself.

In 1917, Ansley Wilcox retired from his law firm. He spent his time in charity work, golfing, riding and gardening. He also took a particular interest in the politics behind the development of the hydro-electric power plants in Niagara Falls in the 1920s.

Ansely Wilcox died of throat cancer on January 26, 1930, one day before his 74th birthday. He is buried in the Rumsey plot in Forest Lawn Cemetery (Buffalo).

Today, the Wilcox house is the oldest part of a National Historic Site including the lone surviving structure from the Buffalo Barracks compound. Due to tensions between the U.S. and Anglo-Canada, a military post was constructed to ensure border security. Built in 1839, the post encompassed all the land from Allen Street to North Street and Delaware Ave to Main Street. The structure that would later be incorporated into the Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural National Historic Site started life in 1840 as the Barrack's officer's quarters.