January 14, 1837 Jekyll Island Club member George Frederick Shrady was born in New York City.
Dr. George Frederick Shrady, a surgeon and editor, was educated at City College of New York and graduated in 1858 from the College of Physicians & Surgeons of Columbia University, New York. In 1869 he received an honorary AM from Yale University. Shrady was the author of many medical articles and Editor of the Medical Record, NY and the American Medical Times. He was Resident Surgeon at NY Hospital and St. Francis Hospital, NY. Shrady served as Consulting Surgeon at Columbus Hospital, General Memorial, Health Department, NY Cancer Hospital and the Red Cross Hospital, (all in NY), the Home for Incurables, Vassar Hospital and Hudson River State Hospital for the Insane. He was a member of innumerable medical societies. Shrady attended ex-President U.S. Grant as consulting surgeon in Grant’s last illness. He was also consulting physician at President James Garfield’s assassination inquest; took part in the autopsy of Charles Guiteau, Garfield’s assassin; and consulted with the doctor for Emperor Frederick III of Germany who was suffering a similar illness to President Grant. Dr. Shrady was selected as one of the chief medical experts to attend the first electrocution execution in the U.S.
In 1860 he married Mary Lewis, who died in 1883. They had 4 children: George Jr., Henry Merwyn, Charles Douglas and Minnie. Shrady wed a second time to the widow Hester Ellen Cantine in 1888 and adopted her daughter from a previous marriage, Sarah “Sally”. Sally married Edwin Gould and had sons Edwin Jr. and Frank who both became members of Jekyll Island Club (see Gould biographies). The Shradys occupied “Shrady Cottage”, built for them by son-in-law Edwin Gould, from 1904 to 1907. Hester Ellen Cantine Shrady joined the Jekyll Island Club after her husband’s death in 1907.
And a Special Bonus……
On This Day in Jekyll History…
January 14, 1891, the Frederick Baker family arrives for their first visit to their newly completed cottage, Solterra.
Solterra Cottage was known for lavish entertaining. Important guests such as Andrew Carnegie, Joseph Pulitzer, Cornelius Vanderbilt, J.P. Morgan and others would have dined at the Baker’s island residence. Perhaps their most prestigious guests, however, stayed at Solterra in 1899, when the Bakers offered the cottage to President William McKinley, Vice President Garrett Hobart, and their wives.
This island landmark was destroyed, however, on the morning of March 9, 1914, when Solterra caught fire from a faulty fireplace flue. The fire started in the attic of the frame building and quickly spread. Efforts were made to save the building, but it continued to burn until only its chimneys remained standing. Island employees managed to save some of the “valuable furnishings, bric-a-brac and pictures” before the house was incinerated.
Leave behind the mainland and sneak away to these heavenly hideaways.
Jekyll Island Club Hotel, Jekyll Island, Georgia You probably don’t vacation with an entourage that requires a 25-room mansion, but a century ago you might have―if you were a Rockefeller. In the late 1800s, America’s business elite began gathering at Jekyll Island each year for winter vacation. Some stayed in the extravagant clubhouse; others built grand holiday homes nearby. The Jekyll Island Club Hotel now occupies the clubhouse and several other historic buildings, including a couple of the cottages, keeping up the standards splendidly. You can wander the 240-acre Millionaire’s Village and envision yourself in the Gilded Age. And you can play golf and tennis, cruise around the island by bicycle, inhale the fresh salt air on the beach, and ride in a horse-drawn carriage. Rooms from $149; 800/535-9547 or jekyllclub.com.
