Cornelius Vanderbilt Crane (June 29, 1905 - July 9, 1962) was an American explorer and philanthropist.
Crane was the son of Richard Teller Crane, Jr., and Florence ( née Higinbotham) Crane, and grandson of Richard T. Crane, founder of Crane Co. His maternal grandfather was Harlow Niles Higinbotham. [1]
He is best known for the Crane Pacific Expedition of 1928-1929, which he funded, and which took place aboard his yacht Illyria. [2] The expedition was sponsored by the Chicago Museum of Natural History and staffed by a number of scientists and specialists. It left Boston Harbor on November 16, 1928, stopped at Port-au-Prince, Haiti, and then at the Panama Canal. It departed the canal on December 30, 1928, for stops at the Cocos Islands and Galapagos Islands, where it made extensive collections of local fish and birds. It then continued to the Marquesas group, the Tuamotu Archipelago, Tahiti, Bora Bora, Fiji, New Hebrides, Solomon Islands, New Guinea, Borneo, and onwards, in what was ultimately a circumnavigation of the globe. [3]
On the expedition, Crane met Cathalene Isabella Parker Browning (1904-1987), step-daughter of the marine superintendent of the Panama Canal. They married in 1929, [4] at which time he adopted his wife's daughter, Cathalene Parker Browning (1923-2005), from her previous marriage. After the couple divorced in 1940, he disinherited his daughter (she later gave birth to American actor and comedian Chevy Chase), [5] and his ex-wife subsequently married the Austrian painter Rudolf Anton Bernatschke. [6]
Crane remarried in 1955 to Minescule "Miné" Sawahara in a Shinto ceremony in Japan; she later established the Mrs. Cornelius Crane Scholarship at the Juilliard School.
Crane died in July 1962. [7]
Cornelius Crane is commemorated in the scientific name of a species of lizard, Sphenomorphus cranei . [8]
Cornelius Crane "Chevy" Chase is an American comedian, actor, and writer. He became the breakout cast member in the first season of Saturday Night Live (1975–1976), where his recurring Weekend Update segment became a staple of the show. As both a performer and a writer on the series, he earned two Primetime Emmy Awards out of four nominations.
Edward Henry Harriman was an American financier and railroad executive.
William Henry Vanderbilt III was an American politician who served as Governor of Rhode Island from 1939 to 1941, and a member of the wealthy and socially prominent Vanderbilt family.
George Washington Vanderbilt III was an American yachtsman and scientific explorer who was a member of the prominent Vanderbilt family.
Cornelius Vanderbilt IV was a newspaper publisher, journalist, author, and military officer. He was an outcast of high society, and was disinherited by his parents when he became a newspaper publisher. He desired to live a "normal" life but was burdened by large debt and could not maintain the lifestyle associated with his family's social position to which he had become accustomed.
Cornelius "Sonny" Vanderbilt Whitney was an American businessman, film producer, government official, writer and philanthropist. He was also a polo player and the owner of a significant stable of Thoroughbred racehorses.
Te Vega is a two-masted, gaff-rigged auxiliary schooner. Originally launched as the Etak, she was designed by New York naval architects Cox & Stevens in 1929 for American businessman Walter Graeme Ladd and his wife, Catherine ("Kate") Everit Macy Ladd. Etak was built at the Friedrich Krupp Germaniawerft shipyard in Kiel, Germany, and launched in 1930. During World War II she served the US Navy as Juniata (IX-77). She is among the largest steel-hulled schooners afloat.
Ruth Sears Pratt, was an American politician and the first female representative to be elected from New York.
John Josiah Emery Jr. was an American real estate developer including of the Carew Tower (1931) in Cincinnati, Ohio, at the time the tallest building west of the Alleghenies, and the Netherland Plaza Hotel, opened at the same time. He was a major figure in the city's cultural life for more than four decades.
Winthrop Williams Aldrich was an American banker and financier, scion of a prominent and powerful political family, and U.S. Ambassador to the United Kingdom.
Reginald Claypoole Vanderbilt was a member of the Vanderbilt family. He was the father of Gloria Vanderbilt and maternal grandfather of Anderson Cooper. An avid equestrian, Vanderbilt was the founder and president of many equestrian organizations. He gambled away most of his inheritance.
Allene Tew Hostetter Nichols Burchard Reuß zu Köstritz de Kotzebue was an American socialite during the Gilded Age who became a European aristocrat by marriage.
The Pinchot South Sea Expedition was a 1929 zoological expedition to the Caribbean and South Pacific led and financed by Gifford Pinchot.
Henry Payne Bingham was an American financier, sportsman, art patron and philanthropist. He funded a series of expeditions to study marine life.
Ogden Goelet was an American heir, businessman and yachtsman from New York City during the Gilded Age. With his wife, he built Ochre Court in Newport, Rhode Island, his son built Glenmere mansion, and his daughter, Mary Goelet, married Henry Innes-Ker, 8th Duke of Roxburghe.
Edwin Sheldon Whitehouse was an American diplomat who served as the U.S. Minister to Guatemala and U.S. Minister to Colombia.
Amos Tuck French was an American banker who was prominent in society.
George Lovett Kingsland was an American merchant and railroad executive.
William Douglas Burden, was an American naturalist, filmmaker, and author who co-founded Marineland in Florida.
Theodore Perry Shonts was an American lawyer and industrialist who served as chairman of the Panama Canal Commission and president of a number of important railways, including the Interborough Rapid Transit Company of New York City and the Toledo, St. Louis and Western Railroad.