Varia

1900 · 009646 — The <i>Virginia's</i> guest register is a bound leather book measuring approximately 8.5" x 10.5" with approximately 250 gilt-edged pages. About 75 of those pages are filled with notes signatures and drawings by visitors and passengers. The cover is adorned with enameled metal ornaments in the shape of New York and Manhattan Yacht Club burgees. The frontispiece appears to be hand-painted and shows the same two burgees with text reading "Steam Yacht Virginia". All of the entries are in ink. In nice shape.<br /><br /> The <i>Virginia </i>was an incredibly luxurious 441-ton steam yacht built in 1899 at Bath Maine for the New York department store magnate Isaac Stern. <br /><br /> Entries in its guest book begin in February of 1900 and contain messages from about 400 people from around the world. I noticed notations from Belgium Cyprus Egypt England including the Isle of Wight Germany Greece India Turkey and the U.S. East Coast in a variety of languages including Arabic English French German Greek and Japanese. <br /><br />Some signatures are from diplomats consuls foreign ministers military officers and no doubt quite a number of wealthy businessmen financiers and socialites. <br /><br />Many of the entries refer to attendance at specific events like the Hudson-Fulton Celebration including its Naval Parade the International Yacht Race of 1903 and Yale-Harvard Races. The last entry in the guest book is dated September 25 1910 just before Stern's death. <br /><br /> The accompanying first edition book <i>Ten Thousand Miles in a Yacht</i> chronicles a trip on the <i>Virginia</i> organized by "Commodore" E. C. Benedict a New York financier who chartered the vessel from Stern to make the cruise with ten friends and a crew of 33 officers and men between November 1904 and January 1905. Benedict felt his own yacht was not up to the voyage. Apparently Stern retained the guest book during the voyage as no entries were made during that time. <br /><br />Contemporary newspaper articles suggest that following Stern's death Benedict purchased the vessel after first chartering it once more from Stern's estate to undertake a second Amazon River voyage. He in turn sold the vessel to F. K. Vanderbilt the grandson of Cornelius. During World War One it was acquired by the U.S. Navy on a free-lease renamed the <i>U.S.S. Vedette</i> and deployed on patrol duty escorting convoys in the Atlantic where it rescued survivors from a torpedoed Greek ship as well as a disabled French seaplane and its crew. Following the war the yacht was returned to Vanderbilt.<br /><br /> Isaac Stern and his brothers sons of German-Jewish immigrants opened a one-room dry goods store in Buffalo New York in 1867 and moved their operation to New York City not far from Washington Square Park the following year. They relocated to 22nd Street near Madison Square Park and continually enlarged their business until it became an enormous and elegant six-story department store known for selling a wide range of goods from working-class merchandise to elegant Parisian fashions coveted by New York's wealthiest women. After the business was purchased by the Allied Stores Corporation Stern's acquired a number of defunct Gimbles and Gertz stores throughout the region. Allied Stores was in turn acquired by Federated Department Stores which in 2001 converted most Stern's stores into Macy's or Bloomingdale's and closed the rest. <br /><br /> A unique first-hand testament to the life of the ultra-rich in the early pre-World War One years in New York City. hardcover books