morning she had been pushing the terror down low and deep, swallowing the rising fears. She closed her eyes tightly and clung to the granite rock, willing her strength not to fail her in this her greatest trial. She breathed in the cool sea air and listened to the screeching gulls, their cries muffled by the rising wind.
She looked up and Owen was beside her. His face was pale and there was worry in his eyes. ‘Owen!’ She suddenly awakened from her reverie. ‘Run down to Pat Coll and ask him to help us.’ Owen nodded, and ran towards the thin scattering of houses. Lucy hurried back to the cottage to get the waterproofs. When Owen and Pat returned they donned the jackets and the three of them set out to search the entire island. The rain had softened the earth now and Lucy half-ran, half-stumbled over tufts of grass and clambered over large, slippery boulders.
4. Arthur Kingsley Porter in a canoe, Lake George, New York, 1912.
Harvard University Archives, HU6 1706.125(2).
‘Kingsley! Can you hear me, Kingsley?’
‘Mr Porter! Mr Porter!’
The thunderstorm raged unabated. The search continued along the Glenveagh Bay side. Then back to Meenlara while Pat searched the Tory Island side. Lucy began to run blindly back towards the cliffs, tripping, half-falling, seized by a mounting dread as the hours ticked by and there was still no trace of her beloved Kingsley.
At 5.30 p.m. the storm began to subside.The threesome searched on while the islanders also streamed out to join in the search. The Porters had been good to the locals and they were genuinely well liked. It would be a catastrophe if anything happened to the wealthy American, the owner of Glenveagh Castle. It would even be worse if any aspersions were ever cast on the locals, that in some way they had been involved. No islander would want that kind of infamy.
It was now evening but the search continued. There was no sign whatever of the husband she had loved, assisted, protected and adored. By 8 p.m. Lucy, Owen and Pat were exhausted. The whole island had been thoroughly searched.
The wind and sea were much calmer now. Lucy knew she couldn’t bear to spend another night on the island. Owen offered to row her back to Magheraroarty. The islanders still had hope that he would be found. But Lucy’s hope had long since been extinguished during her nightmarish, eight-hour ordeal.
When Lucy reached the pier at Magheraroarty, her dear friend Æ took her hand and helped her ashore. Having faced the worst in the midst of the search on Inishbofin, her demeanour was now stiff and composed. On the drive back to Glenveagh Lucy broke the silence as she turned to Æ.4
‘Kingsley will not return tonight,’ she said. ‘Kingsley will never return.’
Chapter two
Early Life: The Scandal That Shook Darien
Arthur Kingsley Porter was born on 6 February 1883 in Darien (pronounced Dari-ann), a small community on Connecticut’s ‘Gold Coast’, situated between Norwalk and Stamford.1 Even in the Porters’ time it was considered an affluent town where wealthy businessmen chose to set up home, while commuting to work in New York City. The early Puritans, known as the New Haven Colony, had travelled from England during the 1630s to 1660s and had settled in the area.2They bought land from the Siwanoy, a peaceful Indian tribe. These early settlers applied their staunch Protestant beliefs, conservative values and strict work ethic to gradually establish prosperous communities throughout Connecticut. In 1848 the New Haven railroad’s first scheduled line was built through Darien, and this created even greater wealth and affluence for the town.
Published accounts of the early life of Arthur Kingsley Porter have been, until now, extremely scant and brief. One typical report stated that ‘fortune seemed to favour him from the beginning’.3 In fact, all the literature consulted converged on one main point: the Porters of Connecticut combined economic privilege with the finest pedigrees in education. This, however, is merely the surface veneer: the true story of the formative years of Arthur Kingsley Porter reads more like a modern-day soap opera, involving a series of tragedies and sensational public scandals that were played out in the full glare of the national press.
Timothy Hopkins Porter was almost 57 years old, and on the verge of retirement from a successful banking career, when his youngest son, Arthur Kingsley, was born.4 Timothy H, as he was known, was the son of Deacon Timothy and Annie (Todd) Porter. He was born on 16 February 1826, at Waterbury, Connecticut. Both Timothy H and his brother, David Gustavus, studied at Yale University in New Haven. Both brothers were studious and applied themselves diligently to their work. David G went on to become a Professor of Latin at Rochester University and a renowned scholar of theology.
In 1852 Timothy H entered Yale Theological Seminary, but remained only a short time before completing his studies at the Union Theological Seminary.5 The newly ordained Reverend Porter then spent three years studying in Germany and France before returning home to Waterbury in 1859. He continued to preach occasionally at the Baptist Church in Stamford but his travels in Europe had brought about a change of heart, and his earlier plans to settle for a religious career were abruptly overturned. Timothy H suddenly turned his attention to more worldly matters and set about carving out a lucrative career in finance. Opportunities materialized when he was offered a position with the banking house of Soutter & Company in New York. By all accounts he made rapid progress and his ambitions for a comfortable lifestyle quickly came to fruition. In 1859 he married Agnes K. Soutter, daughter of his business partner, James. T. Soutter. The marriage did not last long, however, as his wife died two years later, on 27 December 1861, at the age of 27.6
Timothy H continued to work at Soutter’s and in 1866 he was promoted to senior partner with the firm.7 He then began to court the affections of another young socialite, Miss Maria Louisa Hoyt, the eldest daughter of the Stamford multimillionaire Joseph B. Hoyt. The Hoyt clan held a family gathering in June 1866 at Stamford that was attended by affluent members from all over the US.8 At this prestigious event, Louisa’s father was selected to represent the prosperous Connecticut branch of the family.
The Hoyts of Connecticut had long established their position at the top of the social pecking order over centuries of diligent work and astute investment. In the late nineteenth century, the United States was admitting large numbers of Europeans who sought to make their fortune in the land of opportunity. It was therefore paramount to the survival of the oldest families that wealth was not the only requirement for admittance to the highest social strata. The Hoyts fulfilled all the criteria for being one of the most influential families in Connecticut, by possessing great wealth but also having an old family tradition that no amount of money could buy.
5. Clockwise (left to right): Blachley Lodge, Noroton, Darien, CT;
Timothy H. Porter; Schuyler Merritt; Interior of Blachley Lodge.
Stamford Historical Society, from ‘Gracious Living in Stamford, Late 19th and 20th Early Centuries’, c. 1892.
Louisa was not only wealthy but was also highly educated, being one of the first women to study at Vassar College in New York.9 Louisa possessed every social grace and economic advantage that Timothy H could ever have dreamed of and, by wielding his considerable charm, he somehow secured the affections of both Louisa and her esteemed family. On 3 November 1870, Timothy H married Maria Louisa Hoyt at her parents’ residence.10 At the time of the wedding Louisa was aged 23 while her husband was 44, over twenty
