Harry Twyford Peters (1881-1948)

He was born at Greenwich, Connecticut, and graduated from Columbia College (1903). He joined his father's wholesale coal firm, Williams & Peters, of which he became the longtime president and during WWI he served as Chairman of the New York State Coal Conservation Committee. He was a lifelong student and collector of Americana, and became a self-taught expert on prints. He was enthusiast of the Currier & Ives lithographs, and was largely responsible for bringing them to the attention of the American public. In 1931, he published a two-volume book Currier & Ives: Printmakers to the American People followed by America on Stone: The Other Printmakers to the American People (1932). He was President of the Grolier Club (for bibliophiles) in New York and during his lifetime he donated a significant portion of his vast collection of 2,800 prints to the Smithsonian, now housed in the Museum of the City of New York. Much of his library was auctioned off at Sotheby’s in London in 1961. His bookplate (see images) was in the same style as another great collector of Americana, Mrs Natalie Blair.

He was an equally enthusiastic huntsman, authored Just Hunting, and riders between the ages of fourteen and twenty-one still compete for the Harry T. Peters Trophy given by the U.S. Equestrian Federation. He was Master of the Meadow Brook Hunt Club, long-time member of the Westminster Kennel Club, and an exhibitor and judge at the dog shows in Madison Square Garden. In 1905 he married Natalie, daughter of W. Storrs Wells. They lived between New York City and "Nearholme" Islip, L.I., where he raised cattle. They were the parents of a son and a daughter.