| Notes |
- From FindaGrave:
Author, Artist, Politician.
One of the most popular novelists of the early 20th century, he is sometimes referred to as "the other Winston Churchill" or "the American Winston Churchill."
He was born in St. Louis, Missouri on November 10, 1871, the son of Emma Bell Blaine and Edward Spalding Churchill. He attended Smith Academy in Missouri and graduated from the United States Naval Academy in 1894. After a brief stint as the editor of the Army and Navy Journal, he left the Navy to become editor of Cosmopolitan Magazine in 1895, but toward the end of that year he married a wealthy woman, Mabel Harlakenden Hall, and left the magazine to devote himself to his writing.
His first novel was "Mr. Keegan's Elopement," first published as a magazine serial in 1896, followed by "The Celebrity" in 1898. His next novel, "Richard Carvel," was a phenomenonal best seller, selling millions of copies and making him a famous writer.
The British Winston Churchill would thereafter sign his name as "Winston Spencer Churchill" or "Winston S. Churchill," and later "Sir Winston Churchill," to distinguish himself from the American writer, whose novel "Richard Carvel" had also sold well in Great Britain.
"The Crisis" (1901) and "The Crossing" (1904), were also very successful novels. He also wrote dramatizations of his novels for the stage. In 1899 he moved into a mansion he had built, "Harlakenden House," near Cornish, New Hampshire, and became involved with the Cornish Art Colony, where his friends included Maxfield Parrish. His watercolor landscape paintings are well-regarded and can be found in a number of museum collections. His novels often reflected his political views and he became involved in politics and was elected to two terms in the New Hampshire state legislature, but was unsuccessful when he sought the Republican nomination for Governor in 1906. In 1912 he was nominated a candidate for Governor by Theodore Roosevelt's Progressive Party, but did not win the election and never sought public office again. In 1918 he published a non-fiction book about his tours of World War I battlefields.
Thereafter he had a crisis of faith, stopped writing and removed himself from public life, re-emerging twenty years later to quietly publish his views on religion in "The Uncharted Way" (1940). "Harlakenden House" had been destroyed by fire in 1923. It is notable because it had been leased to Woodrow Wilson for several years prior to World War I, and had served as the Summer White House from 1913 to 1915. The Churchills purchased "Windfield House" on nearby Freeman Road, furnishing it with items saved from the fire.
Mabel Churchill died in 1945 and Winston died two years later, while on vacation in Winter Park, Florida. They are buried in the Churchill Cemetery on the Windfield House grounds. One of their three children, Creighton Churchill, was a noted writer and consultant on wine.
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1871 - 1947 (75 years)
