Louise A. Benedict Harmon Papers

Louise Adele Benedict Harmon (1872-1944) was the daughter of Commodre Elias Corenlius (E.C.) Benedict, a Wall Street banker, broker, and noted yachtsman who counted among his friends Edwin Booth and Grover Cleveland. Louise spent her childhood growing up at Indian Harbor, the Benedict mansion in Greenwich, Connecticut. She had two sisters, Catherine (Tatine), who married Chalmers Benedict (Ben) Wood, and Helen Benedict Hastings, whose marriage to Thomas Hastings (of Carrere and Hastings) in 1900 was a celebrated social event.

In 1905, Louise married aviation pioneer Clifford B. Harmon (1866-1945), from Urbana, Illinois. Harmon was the first man to fly across Long Island and shared honors with Claude Graham-White for the first round-trip by air over the English Channel. Louise, not known to be adventuresome, evidently caught the flying fever and was the first woman to win a trophy for balloon racing, having captured the James Gordon Bennett trophy at Dayton, Ohio in 1912.

The Harmon's marriage was not a success, and they "separated" in 1916 when Clifford Harmon left home - ostensibly to join the war effort in Europe - and never returned. Louise filed for divorce in 1924, but the case was not settled until 1929 when Harmon agreed to repay some debts owed to his wife for development activities in Greenwich in which he was involved.

Louise was a charter member of the Colony Club, and was a close friend of presient Grover Cleveland and his wife Frances Folsun Cleveland, pianist Josef Hofmann, novelist John Cooper Powys, and actresses Maude Adams and Ethel Barrymore. She was also a noted dog fancier and cat breeder, and was the owner of Green Witch Kennels in Greenwich, where she bred primarily cats.

Louise Harmon died in New York City in March 1944 following a long illness. She was 72.