Person:Henry Lehr (2)

He was a social climber who duped his wife into marriage and refused to sleep with her on their wedding night. She stayed in a loveless, unconsummated marriage for 28 years, not wishing to upset her conservative, staunchly Catholic mother, née Lucy Wharton. Using his wife's fortune and his reputation as "The Funmaker" of New York and Newport society, Lehr attempted to establish himself as successor to Ward McAllister, arbiter elegantiorum of New York's Four Hundred, the collection of Knickerbocker and industrial families he created as a bulwark against the new wealth of the Gilded Age. Plagued by his own insecurities and haunted by his low-birth, Lehr was never accepted as an equal by the aristocrats for whom he clowned.

Renowned as "America's Court Jester", whose wit enlivened the drawing rooms of Society's "Four Hundred" of New York and Newport, at the turn of the century. Son of Robert Oliver Lehr (1832-1890), prosperous Baltimore businessman; American Consul of Portugal and Belgium, governor of the prestigious Maryland Club, and Mary Frances Moore Lehr (1834-1922), a reigning beauty of Baltimore Society. Without possessing wealth himself he obtained a place among the most wealthy, and the most refined, in the land. Harry Lehr made himself a career of being popular. He was heralded in newspapers as New York Society's "Beau Brummell", and set the fashion for the American man. Wherever he led, the whole of the smart set would be certain to follow. His early success in amateur theatricals at Baltimore's 'Paint and Powder Club' led to an invitation from wealthy Newport summer resident, Evelyn Moale Townsend Burden. It was in Newport that he met and charmed Caroline Schermerhorn Astor, "The" Mrs. Astor, and where, afterwards, became 'persona grata' in the most exclusive circle. Lehr's empire of laughter extended throughout America and spread to Europe, but it was at Newport that his throne was most firmly established ~ the perfect setting for his escapades. He was the most popular man in the social set in which he belonged, or rather, of which he became the pivot, in those days of luxury and magnificence. Posing as the Czar of Russia, to enliven a Newport entertainment, landed him the title, "King Lehr," the term clung to him ever after. Harry Lehr succumbed to complications from major surgery at Johns Hopkins Hospital, in his native city of Baltimore, after a long term of residence in his beloved Paris. Find a Grave