Elisha Dyer III


Elisha Dyer III was an American socialite prominent in Newport and New York society during the Gilded Age.

Early life

Dyer was born on October 23, 1862 in Providence, Rhode Island. He was the son of Rhode Island Governor Elisha Dyer Jr. and Nancy Anthony Dyer, who was the daughter of William Viall and Mary Brayton Anthony. Together, they were the parents of his siblings included George Rathbone Dyer, who died young; another Brig. Gen. George Rathbone Dyer, who married Grace Gurnee Scott; and Hezekiah Anthony Dyer, who married Charlotte Osgood Tilden.
His paternal grandparents were Elisha Dyer, also a Rhode Island Governor, and Anna Jones Dyer. Dyer was a descendant of Roger Williams, founder of the Rhode Island Colony.

Career

Dyer was educated at private schools in Providence and graduated from Brown University in 1883. He later graduated from Columbia Law School in 1885, and was admitted to the bar in that year. He worked as a broker with Ulman & Co.

Society life

In 1892, Dyer and his wife were included in Ward McAllister's "Four Hundred", purported to be an index of New York's best families, published in The New York Times. Conveniently, 400 was the number of people that could fit into Mrs. Astor's ballroom. Dyer, a renowned dancer and cotillion leader, was known as "one of the most popular men in the Newport Summer colony" and was an undisputed leader of society. Dyer was known to have introduced Harry Lehr, McAllister's successor, to the Newport colony.
The Dyer's Newport home, known as Wayside, was located on Bellevue Avenue.
He was a member of the Society of Colonial Wars and the Society of the Cincinnati. He belonged to the Union Club of the City of New York, the Knickerbocker Club, the Manhattan Club, the New York Yacht Club, the Country Club of New York, the Automobile Club of New York, the Newport Casino, the Newport Reading Room, the Casino Club, the Clam Bake Club and the Newport Country Club.

Personal life

Dyer was married to Sidney Swan, the daughter of Sidney Turner and William Fauntleroy Turner. Sidney was the great-niece of Elizabeth Patterson Bonaparte, the daughter of a Baltimore merchant William Patterson, and the first wife of Jérôme Bonaparte, Napoleon's youngest brother. They did not have any children together, however, he was the stepfather of his wife's daughter from a previous marriage, Laura Patterson Swan, who married Andrew Robeson in 1913.
Upon his father's death in 1906, he and his siblings inherited $250 each with the remainder of the estate, valued at about $250,000, left to his mother. His father left $5,000 to Miss Francis E. Kinnicutt, his private secretary.
He died of pneumonia at his home in Newport on June 2, 1917. He was interred in Swan Point Cemetery in Providence. In November 1917, his widow sold their five-story residence at 37 West 56th Street in New York City. After his widows death in 1933, the estate was left to Sidney's granddaughter, Lauretta Patterson Robeson.