William Marriott Minton Sr. was born in New York in 1852. The Minton family was fairly prominent in New York Society. They were stockbrokers, lawyers and newspaper editors.

William's father, Charles Armand Minton, took his family to live in France during the Eighteen Fifties. During the summer they vacationed at the seaside resort of Biarritz which was also a favorite destination of the Emperor Louis Napoleon (the nephew of the first Napoleon) and the Empress Eugenie. One day while playing on the beach William fell into a hole in the sand. He was rescued by none other than the Empress Eugenie who brushed him off and sent him on his way.

The idyllic life in France did not last for the Minton family. When William's father discovered that his finances in New York were being mismanaged the family was forced to return to America. William's father recovered financially and went on to become the financial editor of the New York Herald and the Secretary of the New York Yacht Club.

Unlike his nine siblings William did not remain in New York. He left the city under very unusual circumstances. In 1871 Grand Duke Alexei, the son of the Czar of Russia, began a tour of America that lasted several months. The tour began in New York. At that time William was a member of the 22nd New York Militia Regiment. He was one of a small group of men from the regiment assigned to accompany Grand Duke Alexei as bodyguards. William may have received this plum assignment because he spoke fluent French which was the language of the Imperial Russian Court.

In the course of this tour William arrived in New Orleans where he met Rebecca Bull Southmayd Holmes, a widow who had two children from her first marriage. William and Rebecca married and had two children of their own, Guy Morville Minton who was born in 1876 and Louise Marriot Minton who was born in 1877. In 1879 William had an extramarital affair with a young woman named Felice Levy. Ms. Levy was the mother of William's son William Marriott Minton Jr. who was born in Louisiana in 1880.

After the birth of William Jr. William Sr. and Rebecca separated but they continued to be legally married until 1888. At some point during the Eighteen Eighties William Sr., Felice Levy and William Jr. moved to San Francisco. In late 1887 or early 1888 William filed a lawsuit for divorce against Rebecca alleging that Rebecca had deserted him. Presumably Rebecca was still in New Orleans when William filed for divorce. Rebecca must have been served some form of legal notice of the divorce lawsuit.

Rebecca apparently did not respond to the divorce lawsuit and on March 2, 1888 the following item appeared in the San Francisco newspaper "Daily Alta California": "Judge Levy has ordered default of defendant to be entered in the case of William M. Minton vs. Rebecca B. Minton." (There is no evidence that Judge Levy was related to Felice Levy).

On October 26, 1888 another story appeared in the newspaper indicating that Judge Levy had granted William a divorce from Rebecca. Rebecca and/or her family apparently did not acknowledge the divorce because when Rebecca died in New Orleans in 1890 her newspaper obituary had a list of survivors including "her husband, W.M. Minton".

At some point during the Eighteen Eighties William Sr. and Felice had a second child, a daughter named Felice Minton. Sadly, the daughter died on October 30, 1888 and was buried at Mountain View Cemetery in Oakland on the next day. This tragic event occurred just a few days after her father William Sr. was granted a divorce from his first wife, Rebecca. The remains of the child Felice Minton were removed and interred in a new plot in the same cemetery on March 26, 1889. Three days before the second interment, on March 23, 1889, William M. Minton Sr. and Felice Levy were married in Santa Rosa, California.

{One of the photos on the photo page shows a group of people in Panama who are en route to California. The man at the right rear is William Marriott Minton Sr.. The lady in the white dress may be Felice Levy.)

William Sr. worked for many years as a ship's purser for the Pacific Mail Steamship Company. He probably started working in this occupation during the early Eighteen Eighties while living in the San Francisco area. He served aboard the ships SS City of Peking and SS China and made more than eighty voyages to China and Japan.

During the Eighteen Nineties William Sr. went into a mining venture with Mr. Converse J. Garland, a native of Maine who had been involved in mining in California since 1850. Their company, the Rainbow Mining Company, ran into financial difficulties and became insolvent. The company went into a form of bankruptcy. Papers filed in San Francisco Superior Court indicated that the company had debts totaling $10,000 and assets totally $2,200. (Converse J. Garland is buried in San Francisco National Cemetery. An interesting account of his life can be found on his findagrave.com memorial page.)

When the Spanish-American War broke out in 1898 the United States government chartered the ships of the Pacific Mail Steamship Line as troop transports. As a result of this the shipping line no longer had need of pursers and William lost his job. He began his permanent residency in Honolulu, Hawaii. It is not known if Felice Levy Minton settled in Honolulu permanently with her husband but a ship's passenger list shows her returning to San Francisco alone from Honolulu in 1899. Felice Levy Minton died in San Francisco on July 6, 1900. She is buried in Mountain View Cemetery next to her daughter Felice Minton and her son William Marriott Minton Jr. who died in 1955.

In 1901 William Sr. married Jennie "Mary Jane" McLain in Honolulu. She was one of the four daughters of Irish born parents John McLain and Mary Daley McLain. In the 1920 Census of Hawaii William Sr. stated that his occupation was real estate. He was an executive with a real estate development company in Honolulu. In 1920 Jennie's unmarried sister Sadie McLain was also living in the Minton household. The marriage of William and Jennie did not produce any children.

Not long before he died in 1928 William Sr. wrote an account of his life. This was probably written by hand and later put in typewritten form after his death by his third wife Jennie. Jennie added a final page with a glowing tribute to her late husband. In the introduction to his memoir William briefly mentions that his memoir may be of interest to his children. Nowhere does he refer to his children by name nor does he make any reference to his three wives. He gives the impression that he lived in New Orleans for a relatively brief period when in fact he arrived there in 1872 and finally left after 1880. (He may have been away from New Orleans for periods of time during those eight years). Whether Jennie altered portions of the memoir after his death is not known. When William died an obituary appeared in a Honolulu newspaper. The obituary mentions his wife Jennie as a survivor but there is no mention of William's children or of his previous marriages.

William Sr.'s three children who lived to adulthood all settled in California.

The manager of this memorial page would welcome any photos of or additional information about William Marriott Minton Sr. and his relatives.