Henry Huntington

Henry E. Huntington (1850-1927)

Henry Huntington was born in 1850 in State of New York. He was the nephew of Collis Huntington, one of the Central Pacific Railroad’s creators. He married Mary Alice Prentice in 1873. Henry became “First Assistant” to the president of the Southern Pacific in April 6, 1892. His career with the Central and Southern Pacific Railway systems culminated in 1893, when he was elected president of the Pacific Improvement Co. as well as president of the Central Pacific Railway. 

Henry made his first trip to California in April 1892, travelling by rail with Collis. Later, Henry remained in San Francisco. His wife, Mary Alice, and their children, resided for about a year at the Hotel Richelieu in San Francisco. In spring of 1893, Henry bought a residence in this city. 

In 1899, with another first vice president in San Francisco, Henry declared there would be no reason for him to stay in this town. Henry decided to move south to take up his interests in the Los Angeles area and bought the San Marino Ranch in 1903. He transformed this place into what we know now as The Huntington Library. However, Mary Alice remained in San Francisco and continued to reside at the Jackson Street house until her death in 1916 (the couple divorced before that, in 1906). 

At 60, Henry was getting more and more interested in books and art, that’s why he left his company to devote his time for this hobby. Henry Huntington’s inheritance from Collis contributed significantly to his increasing purchases of rare books and manuscripts. Henry had started collecting while he was living in San Francisco during the 1890s. By the early years of the twentieth century he turned to the international market for rare books and manuscripts to form his extraordinary library. In 1904, Henry Huntington bought the Charles A. Morrogh library of about a thousand titles, in several thousand volumes, from the dealer Isaac Mendoza of New York.

 In 1913, Henry remarried Arabella Duval, who was the second wife of Collis Huntington. Arabella was sharing his interest on books and art. Before being married to Henry, Arabella had a small collection of books and manuscripts, described by Archer, her son : “On this trip [to Paris] Mother has made some very interesting purchases and not a few books of French art and letters”.

Arabella Huntington (1850-1924)

Together, Henry and Arabella bought a collection of French and British art. Arabella was more concentrated on collecting art while Henry was focused on gathering books (his principal book dealer was George D. Smith) and on the construction of the Library building in San Marino started in 1919. 

Arabella died of a pneumonia in 1924, and Henry Huntington died in 1927. They are buried in their own Mausoleum, planned by the architect John Russell Pope and built between 1925 and 1929 in San Marino. Before their death, their collections of books and art were very important, and Henry and Arabella had decided to give their property and their collections to the public of their estate in 1919, and now, at The Huntington Library, you can see one of the Bible printed by Gutenberg in the 15^th century.

The Gutenberg Bible