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At 15 he worked his way on a freight train to Phillips-Andover Academy. There he convinced the faculty of his right to enter, slept on a self-made straw mattress. He was soon leading his classes, playing in school sports, tutoring faculty children, organizing religious meetings, preaching in the pulpits of nearby towns.
Like most Andover boys, he went to Yale. A suit-pressing business which he organized paid all his expenses, infuriated old-established rivals, left him a large surplus after his graduation (1913). One of his employes in the pressing business, a bright Italo-Amcrican boy of eight or nine, so delighted Undergraduate Hamilton (then about 18) that he legally adopted him, later sent him through Andover and Yale. This adopted son now has a son of his own, making Bachelor Hamilton a legal grandfather.
Collector Hamilton Was an outstanding member of his Yale class, although an injury to his back, and the consequent wearing of a steel jacket, prohibited any athletics. He was potent in campus religious interests. Singlehanded, he removed a heavy mortgage from his fraternity house by personally visiting graduate brethren. Allowed six months, he required only six weeks.
After college he went to the Philippines, where he organized anil financed cocoanut oil mills (Philippine Refining Corp.). During the War, Hamilton products sold well, the Hamilton fortune mightily increased. Returning to the U. S., he lived quietly in Great Neck, L. I. Sir Joseph Duveen and others were commissioned to start an Italian collection for the Hamilton home. They bought paintings by Veneziano, dei-Conti, Francia, Perugino, Melzi, Desiderio, Botticelli. Titian. The Hamilton home became a Renaissance rarity, authentic in painting, sculpture, tapestry, velvet, bric-a-brac. When it proved too small to hold the collections, Collector Hamilton moved to a 14-room apartment on Park Avenue, Manhattan.
He is still on Park Avenue. His galleries have never been open to the public, though once he took his collections en a nationwide, personally-conducted exhibition-tour. Post-War conditions injured the Hamilton Philippine interests. From time to time lately some painting has been sold. But the Hamilton collection remains among the nation's best.
Collector Hamilton has aided in the education of perhaps 100 school and college boys. They never know the identity of their benefactor, all transactions take place through a third party. Once a month they write letters describing their progress to Collector Hamilton, addressing him as "Dear Friend."
Prix de Rome
Two visionary young men went to Manhattan, last week, where they joyously, officially learned they had won the annual Prix de Rome, one in painting, the other in sculpture. This most-coveted of U. S. art-student awards entitles each of them to $1,600 a year, residence and studio, for a three-year period at the American Academy in Rome.