William Oothout (1856-1927)

He was born in New York City where his family lived at 3 Fifth Avenue and then 218 Madison Avenue. He was a cousin on his father's side of Herbert Livingston Satterlee, son-in-law of J.P. Morgan. He was educated at the Sorbonne in Paris, the University of Berlin and the Bellevue Hospital Medical School in New York, receiving degrees in physics and chemistry. He was listed as a chemist, metallurgist and mining engineer, but he was also an amateur artist and collector who on at least one occasion exhibited in a Paris salon. He later moved back to New York where he was one of the "Patriarchs" but in 1912 moved permanently to San Francisco. There, he became a close friend of the artist Charles Rollo Peters, their grandfathers having been bankers together in New York City, and they were both members of the Bohemian Club. He was married in 1892 to Helen Sturgis Read but they died without children.