Louis Gordon Hamersley

Louis Gordon Hamersley (July 20, 1892 – June 2, 1942) was an American sportsman, piloting and racing boats, and real estate investor. Early life Hamersley was born on July 20, 1892, in Newport, Rhode Island. He was the youngest child and only son of James Hooker Hamersley (1844–1901) and Margaret Willing (née Chisolm) Hamersley (1863–1904). His only surviving sibling, Catherine Livingston Hamersley, married Samuel Neilson Hinckley, and, after their 1921 divorce, Henry Coleman Drayton, a grandson of Caroline and William Backhouse Astor Jr. His paternal grandparents were Col. John William Hamersley and the former Catherine Livingston Hooker. Among his extended family were aunts Helen (wife of New York State Assemblyman Charles D. Stickney); Virginia (wife of Cortlandt de Peyster Field, son of Benjamin Hazard Field), and Catherine (wife of John H. Livingston). Through his father, he was a direct descendant of Sir Hugh Hamersley, a 17th-century merchant who was Lord Mayor of London, and Robert Livingston the Elder, the Scottish immigrant who was granted the Livingston Manor by royal charter. His maternal grandparents were William Edings Chisolm and the former Mary Ann Rogers, a niece of William Augustus Muhlenberg. Hamersley attended St. Mark's School in Southborough, Massachusetts, and graduated from Harvard University in 1916 where he was one of the editors of the Lampoon. Career