Baroness of Hobcaw: The Life of Belle W. Baruch

By Mary E. Miller

The riveting biography of an heiress, equestrienne, spy-hunter, and patron of ecology

Belle W. Baruch (1899-1964) could outride, outshoot, outhunt, and outsail most of the young men of her elite social circle—abilities that distanced her from other debutantes of 1917. Unapologetic for her athleticism and interests in traditionally masculine pursuits, Baruch towered above male and female counterparts in height and daring. While she is known today for the wildlife conservation and biological research center on the South Carolina coast that bears her family name, Belle's story is a rich narrative about one nonconformist's ties to the land. In Baroness of Hobcaw, Mary E. Miller provides a provocative portrait of this unorthodox woman who gave a gift of monumental importance to the scientific community.

Belle's father, Bernard M. Baruch, the so-called Wolf of Wall Street, held sway over the financial and diplomatic world of the early twentieth century and served as an adviser to seven U.S. presidents. In 1905 he bought Hobcaw Barony, a sprawling seaside retreat where he entertained the likes of Churchill and FDR. Belle's daily life at Hobcaw reflects the world of wealthy northerners, including the Vanderbilts and Luces, who bought tracts of southern acreage. Miller details Belle's exploits—fox hunting at Hobcaw, show jumping at Deauville, flying her own plane, traveling with Edith Bolling Wilson, and patrolling the South Carolina beach for spies during World War II. Belle's story also reveals her efforts to win her mother's approval and her father's attention, as well as her unraveling relationships with friends, family, employees, and lovers—both male and female. Miller describes Belle's final success in saving Hobcaw from development as the overarching triumph of a tempestuous life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: University of South Carolina Press
• Release date: Oct 15, 2012
• ISBN: 9781611172119

Mary E. Miller

After a twenty-five-year career in journalism, Mary E. Miller left the world of magazine and newspaper writing to enter Washington Theological Union in Washington, D.C., where she earned an M.A. in pastoral studies. Miller is now a spiritual director and retreat leader who lives in Surfside Beach, South Carolina.

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1

Paternal Pride

and Future Hope

Belle Baruch could outride, outshoot, outhunt, and outsail most of the young men of her acquaintance—not the most desirable attributes for a young lady in the polite society of 1918. For most of her growing years, Belle had been admonished to act like a lady and reminded that men did not like to be bested in competition by women. Belle, on the other hand, liked to win and to compete against the best, male or female.

Energetic and restless, she craved adventure and excitement. Not for Belle a sedate trot on a bridle path, but a thundering gallop through the moonlit woods in pursuit of a fox. Not for Belle stately dressage, but the thrill of jumping and the rigors of the steeplechase.

Today her slender height and athletic prowess would merit envy and admiration, but when Belle was introduced to society, her six-foot, two-inch height towered over most of her contemporaries. She moved with the elegance and grace of a perfectly disciplined body, but her solemn brown eyes acknowledged that society’s feminine ideal was petite, gentle, curly haired, and flatteringly in need of male assistance and guidance.

Nearly every aspect of heredity and environment created an insurmountable dichotomy in the life of Belle Wilcox Baruch. Her Jewish-Christian, North-South heritage dictated conflicting ethical and social values. Privileges of great wealth were tempered by strict admonitions of social responsibility. Even the era into which she was born in 1899 fostered a duality of spirit in its young women, who were expected to sublimate their independence and talents to the needs of men. For proud, independent Belle, society’s expectations were burdensome and frustrating.

Born out of her time, Belle would constantly challenge the strictures of a society that did not allow women to vote, to compete against male athletes, to govern their own destinies, or to live according to their own moral code. She would struggle with the duality of her nature, forging a place in society where she lived according to her own rules.

Independence and determination were the norm for her Baruch ancestors. Baruch is the Hebrew word for blessed, and certainly Belle’s father, Bernard Mannes Baruch, was blessed with more than his share of worldly goods, charm, and stunning good looks. Bernhard Baruch, Belle’s great-grandfather, claimed descent from Baruch the Scribe, secretary to the prophet Jeremiah, and author of the book of Baruch, one of the prophetic books of the Hebrew Bible.

The first Baruch to reach American shores was Belle’s grandfather, Simon, a Jewish immigrant who became one of the most respected physicians of his time. Simon Baruch was born in Schwersenz (present-day Swarzêdz) near Poland in East Prussia. Immigrating to the United States in 1855, fifteen-year-old Simon went to the only person he knew there, Mannes Baum, who was from Simon’s home village.

The Baum family welcomed Simon, employing him as a bookkeeper in their small general store in Camden, South Carolina. So impressed were the Baums with the personable, industrious young man that they sent him to the South Carolina Medical College in Charleston and thence to Richmond to the Medical College of Virginia. Young Baruch graduated from medical college just after the Civil War began. Though he abhorred slavery, he was loyal to his adopted state, where the first shots of the Civil War were fired. Simon was quickly accepted by the Confederacy as an assistant surgeon, and Mannes Baum presented the young officer with his Confederate uniform and sword.

Baruch was captured twice by the Union army, the first time at the battle of Antietam and again at Gettysburg. Treated with respect as an officer and physician, he was exchanged both times after brief periods of internment. His appreciation for the courtesies of his Union captors no doubt influenced his decision to move north years later. However, he would never lose his intense love and loyalty for the South. Ordinarily a quiet, reserved man, Simon Baruch would leap to his feet with a distinctive, piercing rebel yell whenever he heard the strains of Dixie. To the embarrassment of his wife, he was even known to do so on one occasion at New York’s staid Metropolitan Opera House.

As the circumstances of war permitted, Simon courted the lovely young Isabelle Wolfe, oldest daughter of Sarah Cohen and Saling Wolfe. The Wolfes were a respected Jewish family, well established in South Carolina society. A native of Prussia like Baruch, Saling Wolfe owned several plantations near Winnsboro in Fairfield County. Sarah Cohen’s ancestors had come to American shores generations earlier. One of them, Isaac Marks, served in the Continental army. Undaunted by Isabelle’s wealth and social position, young Baruch pressed his suit. By war’s end, of course, the fabulous wealth of Saling Wolfe had vanished in flames.

Known as Belle to family and friends, Isabelle admired the young doctor and had even painted his portrait. And it was his own image that nearly cost Simon Baruch his bride. When Yankees attacked her father’s plantation, Belle tried to hide Simon’s portrait, but a Union soldier tore it from her hands and ripped it with his bayonet. When Belle protested, he slapped the defiant southern girl. Belle was rescued by a dashing Yankee captain named Cantine who did not tolerate such behavior from his troops. Cantine captured young Belle’s romantic imagination, and after he left, they corresponded.

When Simon Baruch came home from the war, having lost nearly everything, he was determined that he would not lose his love. He quickly reestablished himself in Belle’s affections and swept her into marriage.

Now a full surgeon, Baruch returned to Camden and established his medical practice. Though raised in luxury, Belle worked at his side and bore him four sons: Hartwig (1868), Bernard (1870), Herman (1872), and Sailing (1874). She encouraged Simon to leave the Reconstruction South in 1880 and move the family to New York, where he established a medical reputation as a pioneer in hydrotherapy and as the surgeon who first diagnosed and successfully operated upon a case of appendicitis.¹ He was also intensely dedicated to the health needs of the poor, agitating successfully for the establishment of free public baths in large cities. Simon Baruch devoted much of his career to the poor and underprivileged of his adopted country. Late in his life, Baruch declared: If I did not stand ready to consecrate heart and soul and all that I possess to the defense of my adopted country, I would despise myself as a scoundrel and a perjurer and regard myself as an ingrate to the government which has, for 60 years, enhanced and protected my life, my honor and my happiness. Dr. Baruch bequeathed to his sons and his granddaughter Belle his qualities of intense patriotism and dedication to public service.

Not that Bernard Mannes Baruch, Simon’s second son and Belle’s father, was thinking of public service when Belle was born on August 16, 1899. One day he would be known as the Wolf of Wall Street and adviser to U.S. presidents from Woodrow Wilson to Dwight D. Eisenhower, but in 1899, one month after Belle’s birth, he bought a seat on the New York Stock Exchange for forty thousand dollars, intent on parlaying the million dollars he had already made as an investor into an even greater fortune.

Baruch had started on the Street as a runner at age nineteen. By twenty-five he was a partner in a Wall Street firm, but his personal fortune fluctuated wildly as he learned his trade. He had a reputation as a plunger, and no doubt some of that was due to his intense desire to earn a large enough fortune to wed Annie Griffen. Called Anne by family and friends, the tall, elegant daughter of Benjamin and Renee Wilcox Griffen did not expect such wealth from her handsome suitor, but Baruch had his own expectations.

Anne would wait seven long years to marry Bernard, who struggled in the meantime against two major impediments to the marriage, his fluctuating fortunes and Anne’s father. Benjamin Griffen, the grandson of an Episcopalian minister, was part owner of Van Horne, Griffen & Company, glass importers. While he thought highly of young Baruch, he opposed the courtship because Baruch was a Jew. He believed that their religious differences would present an insurmountable barrier to a successful marriage. Fortunately for Baruch, Anne’s mother was charmed by the tall, handsome young man, and she both encouraged and helped to conceal their long relationship.

Finally, Baruch made a sixty-thousand-dollar profit—a veritable fortune in the last decade of the nineteenth century—speculating in shares of American Sugar Refining. Gleefully, he telephoned Anne with the exciting news that now they could be married. Somewhat skeptically, Anne replied, You’ll lose it as quickly as you made it. Baruch insisted on speaking to her father that night. Politely but firmly, Benjamin Griffen refused Baruch’s suit, stating that the young couple’s religious differences were irreconcilable. But Anne was of age and, with her mother’s support, she married Bernard Baruch at a quiet ceremony at her family home on October 20, 1897. Her father did not attend.

It was Belle’s good fortune to be the first child born of Bernard and Anne’s union. Her father had only begun his journey to international renown and financial success. The intoxicating lure of power soon would draw him farther and farther from the family orbit, but when Belle was born, it was still a close-knit circle.

A few days after Belle’s birth, Baruch penned a sentimental, rather bad poem to his new daughter, officially christened Isabel:

Oh Isabel, Oh Isabel,

The day you first were visible,

Paternal pride and future hope

Were centered all in thee.

Oh Isabel, Oh Isabel

We’re one and indivisible.

We constitute a family now,

Where there was two, there’s three.

By the Poet of the Bourse²

Baby Isabel was showered with gifts, including sterling-silver cups, spoons, plates, comb and brush sets, and even gold-and-silver rattles inlaid with mother-of-pearl and ornamented with tiny silver bells. Pearl and diamond pins adorned her silk coats and lace dresses. Included in Belle’s baby book is a clipping from the New York Times stating that Bernard M. Baruch had been elected to membership in the stock exchange on September 7, 1899.

Although there were nurses and nannies in attendance, Anne Baruch nursed her infant daughter for the first few months, and the baby was the delight of the happy couple and indulgent grandparents. Even Grandfather Griffen mellowed somewhat with the birth of a new granddaughter. On November 1, 1900, at the age of one year, two months, and two weeks, tiny Isabel became the youngest person yet admitted as a member of the Children of the American Revolution.

That Christmas (her second), she was again showered with gifts of money, silver, jewelry, an ermine muff and trimmings for her coat, twenty dollars in gold from Grandfather Griffen, and all the toys and books a child could wish for. Her first word was papa, and she adored the tall, handsome man. Belle would tell friends how she and her sister and brother would descend upon papa in his big bed to roll and tumble and giggle as he arched his long legs into a bridge for them to crawl beneath.

Family was important to Bernard Baruch. He revered his parents and loved his brothers. What money he made he shared with them, contributing millions of dollars to universities and hospitals in honor of his father. He was a benevolent, loving, indulgent, and increasingly absent father. As power, prestige, and wealth increased, family time decreased. Days, sometimes weeks and months would pass when the children would not see their father. Knowing that when he thought about them, he did so with love, and he certainly provided abundantly for them, Baruch did not perceive nor really understand the ever-widening emotional gap between himself and his children.

When Belle was three, Bernard Jr. was born. Belle was confused and hurt and did not see what was so marvelous about the so-called heir to the Baruch name. After all, she was a Baruch. What was so wonderful about a boy? And they had even named him after papa! She determined that she could do anything a stupid boy could do, yet do it even better! A sibling rivalry was born that would never end.

Renee was born in 1905, but a new sister did not present much of a problem in Belle’s mind. The three Baruch children were not particularly close because each had his or her own nanny and the age gap between the two girls was six years. They had few interests in common until they were grown. They were raised with every luxury. Since they had both a French and German governess, they were trilingual. They had lessons in music, dance, horseback riding, sailing, and tennis. They were also inculcated with stringent rules of behavior. Courtesy and respect for elders were drilled into them. Hair, dress, and fingernails were inspected before dining or going out. Punctuality was expected and the child who was late for dinner did not dine.

With all his millions, however, Baruch could not protect his children from the virulent anti-Semitism of the times. Although Belle and Renee were raised as Episcopalians (Bernard Jr. was to be given his choice of religious faith as he matured), both were denied admission to the exclusive Chapin School that their mother attended. Jews were banned from some of the more exclusive hotels and resorts. They could not join the country clubs of the elite, nor could their children join the Greek fraternities and sororities at the universities. Jews were prohibited from purchasing homes or apartments in certain residential areas and often were ostracized by the wealthy leaders of society.

The Baruch children were blissfully unaware of such bigotry in their early years. Like most children of their social and economic status, the young Baruchs spent most of their time under the protective supervision of a governess and a nanny. Certainly there were large family gatherings, especially among the Baruch relatives, and exciting family vacations. But even on holiday, the Baruch children were attended by governesses and tutors. Their father believed passionately in a classical education, and even extended vacations were not to interfere with the schooling of his children.

Belle was confused, hurt, and bewildered by the gradual diminution of her parents’ attention. Anne Baruch, although a reserved and shy woman, was increasingly engaged in the social and charitable events befitting a woman of her elevated social position. Both parents traveled abroad frequently, leaving the children in the care of staff.

Anne Baruch was torn at times between wanting to be with her husband and at home with her children. She was away on Belle’s birthday and wrote to her daughter from the Hotel Colorado in Glenwood Springs:

My darling daughter,

You must not think that because I have not written you that I have not thought of you very often. We all mention your name every day, and grandpa is mailing you a book filled with little donkey pictures. . . . We are all very sorry not to be home on your second birthday but tell Auntie Leonora to have Kurrus make you a big cake with 3 candles on it, and the day of the 16th you must cut it yourself. Goodbye, my sweet baby. I hope you will in the future be as much comfort to me as you have been in the past.

With fondest love,

Your devoted mother³

Grandfather Baruch composed a special poem for his granddaughter:

ACROSTIC

Written for Belle’s birthday

by her Grandfather

Bright as the days you are spending now

E’er may your life with gladness glow.

Love true its woof may around you weave,

Love your dear heart may never leave.

Escape may you from sorrow’s sting,

Banish all cares that sadness bring.

And deep within your soul, dear Belle,

Replete with peace, content may dwell.

Until your pure life’s waning days,

Crowned are by golden sunset rays.

Heaven’s blessings be yours always.

Simon Baruch, M.D.⁴

Margaret Coit, in her biography Mr. Baruch, could just as well have been writing about Belle as Renee when she wrote: Baruch seemed a fabulous and faraway figure, at once the most lovable and the most awe-inspiring of parents. He was always sympathetic toward her small problems . . . and yet somehow, he was a remote and godlike figure who could do no wrong. . . . As a little girl, she would have fleeting memories of her father and mother, fairylike figures sweeping in to say good night, tall and beautiful and glittering with jewels. She could remember the smell of perfume and the sense of excitement, scored by the echo of hasty footsteps, off for a concert or a first night.⁵

Anne Baruch was the disciplinarian and always the bearer of unpopular tidings for the children. If Bernard decided to withdraw some special privilege or refuse a request, mother informed the children. When the children would then plead their case before father, he often would restore the privilege or grant their wishes. It was a game he played well, Renee recalled, which reflected his almost obsessive need to be universally loved and admired, even by his offspring.

As Belle became aware of her father’s wealth and power, she grew intensely private about him, almost secretive, friends would say. She refused to discuss him and abhorred being sought out because she was Bernard Baruch’s daughter. To the young Belle, her parents were now simply father and mother. As her sister, Renee, expressed it: They [Bernard and Annie Baruch] were not the kind of people you called mom and dad.

Belle was a busy, inquisitive child, forever exploring and looking for something to do. Energetic, with that fearlessness of physical danger often possessed by young children, she often tried the patience of her nannies and family. There were times of loneliness when she longed for her parents, but her situation was not much different from that of her peers who depended on servants for comfort and affection. Full of curiosity and a zest for living life to its fullest, Belle was generally a happy child. She loved animals and childish adventures, but even her vivid imagination could not have dreamed of the sheer joy and ecstasy that her father’s purchase of Hobcaw Barony in 1905 would bring to Belle’s life.

2

The Only Real Place on Earth

Though only in his midthirties, Bernard Baruch was a multimillionaire who had always believed that a man needed periods of quiet contemplation. After a major endeavor, he liked to isolate himself and reflect on events to determine what led to their success or failure. He searched for a getaway.

Baruch had always maintained his southern ties, and in 1904, the year his daughter Renee was born, he was invited to visit Sidney and Harold Donaldson at Friendfield Plantation on the Waccamaw Neck in Georgetown County, South Carolina. Baruch was an avid hunter, and the shooting at Friendfield was unparalleled in his experience. He was fascinated with the stories of the original barony and dreamed of recreating the original land grant.

Hobcaw, as the Indians called the area, means between the waters. The barony was bounded on the east by the Atlantic Ocean, on the west by the Waccamaw River, and on the south by Winyah Bay, wherein empty the waters of the Sampit, Black, Waccamaw, and Great and Little Pee Dee Rivers. The Indians used it as their hunting and fishing grounds. Some historians believe that Hobcaw may be the site of the first ill-fated Spanish settlement in 1526. Until the eighteenth century, the Indians maintained dominion. Then came the English.

John Locke’s famous Grand Model divided the Carolina colony among the eight lords proprietors in deference to their service to the crown.¹ In 1718 King George I of England granted a barony to John, Lord Carteret, later Earl of Granville. The original property of over twelve thousand acres consisted of maritime and upland forests, cypress swamps, freshwater ponds, oceanfront, and five thousand acres of salt marsh.

Looking at a map of his holdings, Lord Carteret was not impressed, thinking that too much of the land was under water and not tillable. Unaware of the possibilities of rice culture, he sold the barony to John Roberts in 1730. Subsequently, the property was divided, subdivided, sold, and resold several times until eventually rice plantations were established under fourteen different names: Clifton, Forlorn Hope, Rose Hill, Alderly, Annandale, Youngville, Bellefield, Marietta, Friendfield, Strawberry Hill (or Belle Voir), Calais, and Michau. (At one point, William Algernon Alston [1782–1860] split off the seashore tracts of Annandale and Youngville and renamed them Crab Hall. The balance of Annandale became Oryzantia.)

Between 1785 and 1900 the plantations of Hobcaw Barony shared in the era of the great Rice Princes, when the rice produced in Georgetown County supplied much of Europe and the new colonies of America. William Algernon Alston owned and cultivated several of the plantations that made up the original barony and at one point produced 1.8 million pounds of rice. For over one hundred years the rice plantations flourished, and Georgetown County was one of the wealthiest regions in America.

Then came the Civil War and Reconstruction, plus competition from other newly settled states where rice could be grown without the expensive and laborintensive system of floodgates and canals required in South Carolina’s low-country. Hard times fell on the people of the Waccamaw Neck, and by the beginning of the twentieth century, little but memories remained of the days when the rice culture reigned in the low-country.

Enter Bernard Baruch, who shocked his hosts with an offer to buy Friendfield. The property of Friendfield Plantation that the Donaldsons owned incorporated the former plantations of Marietta, the original Friendfield, Strawberry Hill, Calais, Michau, and Cogdell. All of it had been renamed Friendfield Plantation.

Friendfield House, the primary residence, was near the southern tip of the barony on a bluff overlooking Winyah Bay. It was sited on the only piece of property that appears not to have been part of the original barony. In 1711 Alexander Widdicom purchased two hundred acres in what was then Craven County from William Rhett, receiver general of the lords proprietors. Because of its location, it logically would have been part of the barony awarded to Lord Carteret in 1718 had it not already been sold.²

What eventually became Cogdell Plantation was near the tip of Waccamaw Neck where an old Indian path reached Winyah Bay. Historians and researchers speculate that Widdicom and/or Rhett chose the isolated tract to trade with either the Indians or the pirates who plied the nearby waters.³

After some consideration, the Donaldsons agreed to accept Baruch’s offer. Between 1905 and 1907 Baruch bought all but three of the tracts comprising the original grant. Rose Hill, Clifton, and Forlorn Hope had already been purchased by Dr. Isaac Emerson, a pharmacist from Baltimore who developed Bromo-Seltzer, a well-known remedy. He incorporated them into the seven plantations comprising Arcadia Plantation. Baruch named his 17,500-acre retreat Hobcaw Barony.

Baruch was part of what southerners referred to as the second northern invasion. He and other wealthy Yankees bought extensive properties, mostly for winter hunting and fishing lodges. The advent of the northerners was greeted with ambivalence by native Carolinians. The Yankees provided much-needed jobs and a stronger tax base, but it was difficult to see old and historic properties fall into northern hands. In time, however, Yankee money and civic generosity ensured that many of the vast properties were preserved as private estates or set aside as nature preserves, state parks, recreational areas, and so forth.

Brookgreen Plantation, purchased by Archer M. and Anna Hyatt Huntington, became Huntington Beach State Park and the renowned Brookgreen Gardens. W. H. Yawkey, owner of the Boston Red Sox, purchased White Marsh, South Island, and part of Cat Island. Thomas A. Yawkey, his son, donated most of the property to the South Carolina Heritage Trust to establish the Tom Yawkey Wildlife Center.

Although parts of Arcadia Plantation, especially the beachfront property, have been developed, some of the land remains intact. The plantation house, Prospect Hill, is currently occupied by Lucille Vanderbilt Pate, great-granddaughter of the Dr. Isaac Emerson mentioned above.

Baruch used Hobcaw Barony primarily as a winter hunting retreat, although some farming was done for his personal use and that of resident staff. He also experimented with rice culture in the 1920s, putting two thousand acres under cultivation. No records remain as to how long he attempted to grow rice or how successful he was. The rice was intended to attract migrating birds. It was never his intent to farm commercially, and most of his crops were either experimental or for personal use.

Friendfield House, affectionately dubbed the Old Relick, was opened in November around Thanksgiving and usually closed in late April. It was a simple Victorian wood house with a big fireplace in the living room and another in the sunroom that burned logs up to eight feet in length, rag rugs on the floors, red wicker furniture with cushions and pillows gaily printed with flowers and birds, and organdy curtains at the windows. There were Ping-Pong and card tables for after-dinner entertainment. The upstairs bedrooms were spacious and bright with papered walls, ruffled

Reviews for Baroness of Hobcaw

[bereanna · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Excellent portrayal of Belle with glimpses of her famous father. From the time her father bought Hobcaw until her death, Belle loved the flora and fauna there. She was a generous hostess at the home she built on site, a world famous horseback rider with an excellent stable, and a philanthropist. She preserved the wildlife and protected it from poachers. She was active in Navy intelligence during WWII observing the coast for enemy U-boats and landings. She established a foundation to preserve Hobcaw for research by South Carolina universities.