To Know a Vail, Part 2

Today we’ll delve a bit more into George’s personal life. George had three different marriages, all to women named Mary; so pay attention, this may get confusing.

George’s first wife was Mary Ann Wilson. They had four children together; the first two died in infancy but their daughters Frances Georgiana and Mary Louise survived to adulthood. This first marriage lasted 25 years until Mary Ann died.

A year later George married his second wife, Mary Lewis Lightfoot. The couple had no children together and the marriage ended in divorce a year later. According to George’s father, George believed Mary Lewis was insane.

George’s married his third wife, Mary Tichenor Lyman, five years after the divorce to Mary Lewis. Mary Lewis outlived George but left Willow Hall after his death because the manor was left to George’s daughter Frances Georgiana.

More on the Vail family tree later this week.

To Know a Vail, Part 1

The original owner of Willow Hall was a self-described “blacksmith, engineer, and manufacturer”, but George Vail was also a businessman, politician, diplomat and judge. George seems to have inherited these traits from his industrious father Stephen Vail, founder of the Speedwell Iron Works. Stephen passed on the Iron Works business to George in 1844 who continued his father’s tradition of hardworking and innovative industrialism.

George’s life extended far beyond his home in Speedwell as he became a member of the New Jersey Legislature in 1843 and a U.S. Congressman in 1852. He was also a New Jersey Delegate to the World’s Fair in London, a member of the U.S. Consulate in 1858, a Judge in the Court of Errors and Appeals and a founder of the Greystone Park Psychiatric Hospital.

To give credit where credit is due, this clever title was borrowed from an article run in the Star Ledger several years ago.