(c) 2017 Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston

Grace S. Tytus

Ossining, New York, 1875 - 1928, Tyringham, Massachusetts

BiographyGRACE SEELEY HENOP TYTUS McLENNAN (1875-1928)
Grace Seeley Henop was born on September 9, 1875 in Ossining, NY to Louis Philip Henop (1833-
1918) and Alice Seeley Henop. She and her sister, Sydney Stuart Henop (who married Sir Talbot
Ewart), were educated in New York and traveled extensively abroad with the family.

On May 19, 1903, Grace married Robb de Peyster Tytus (1876-1913) in Grace Church, New York, in
a ceremony performed by Rev. William R. Huntington. Tytus, who was born on February 2, 1876 in
Asheville, NC to businessman Edward Jefferson Tytus (1845-1881) and Charlotte Mathilde Davies
Tytus (1850-1936), had graduated from Yale College in 1897 and had received a master’s degree
from Yale in 1903. Tytus had conducted excavations with Howard Carter and Percy Newberry on
the tomb of King Amenhotep III in Thebes, Egypt and had published A Preliminary Report on the ReExcavation
of the Palace of Amenhetep III in 1903. Later, he published various poems, stories, articles,
and drawings, some in collaboration with Grace. He was also elected twice to the Massachusetts
House of Representatives.

On their honeymoon, Robb and Grace visited the Berkshires and decided to buy property there.
Over time, they assembled several farms to create Ashintully, an estate in Tyringham, Massachusetts.
The name Ashintully derives from Gaelic and means “on the brow of the hill.”
The Tytuses traveled at length after their wedding, and their first daughter, Mildred Mordaunt Tytus
(1904-1933) was born in Cairo, Egypt on April 7, 1904. Their second daughter, Victoria Stuart Tytus,
was born five years later in Tyringham, on October 23, 1909. Three years later, the Tytuses
completed at Ashintully a Georgian-style mansion, which became known as the “Marble Palace.”
Tytus’s health deteriorated, and he died of tuberculosis on August 13, 1913 in Saranac Lake, NY. As
a memorial to Tytus, his mother donated money to the Metropolitan Museum of Art to fund the
publication of a series of five volumes, the Robb de Peyster Memorial Series, regarding excavation
work in Thebes.

On January 7, 1915, Grace Tytus married Canadian industrialist, newspaper owner, and politician
John Stewart McLennan (1853-1939) in the Grace Church Chantry in New York. Their son, John
Stewart McLennan, Jr. (1915-1996) was born on November 26, 1915 at Ashintully. They divided
their time between Sydney (Nova Scotia) and Ashintully, and they also spent time in Washington, DC
through McLennan’s position as Canadian senator, as well as continuing to travel abroad.
The McLennans separated in 1921, and Grace filed for divorce in 1926; the divorce was finalized in
1927. Grace continued traveling, entertaining international and prominent guests at Ashintully, and
giving talks and writing about world politics.

On October 14, 1928, Grace slipped and fell while playing tennis at Ashintully. She was hospitalized
in Pittsfield with a broken hip and returned to Ashintully to recuperate, but she died on October 29th.
http://www.thetrustees.org/assets/documents/finding-aids/Grace_Seeley_Henop_Tytus_McLennan_Papers_finding_aid.pdf I.S. 1/9/2018

Person TypeIndividual

Last Updated8/7/24

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