William Astor Drayton (1888-1973)
Gold Mining Expert, of 116 East 78th Street, New York City & "Boxcroft" Newport, R.I.
He was educated at Harvard and in WWI served as an artillery officer in the Royal Serbian Army, receiving the Order of St. Sava. After the war, he was a member of the Serbian Delegation at the Paris Peace Conference and then served on the Bulgarian Atrocities Commission. Returning to the States, he lived between 116 East 78th Street in New York City and his father's old home Boxcroft on Red Cross Avenue in Newport - his brother lived at "Fair Oak" and was described as "the darling of the Newport set". From the 1930s, he organized and managed extensive gold and mining explorations, principally in British Columbia where he built a third (summer) home, Wild Horse House (pictured) at Fort Steele. He was married three times: (1) In 1912, to Helen Fargo Squiers, and they had two children before divorcing. (2) In 1931, at his sister's townhouse in Boston - 11 Commonwealth Avenue - he married Joan, daughter of William Bergère, of Melbourne, Australia. They had one son before divorcing. (3) In 1952, he married Mrs. Alberta (Averill) Eno. They lived and died in Litchfield, Connecticut.
