Charles Baudouine

Charles Baudouine (June 1, 1808 – January 13, 1895[1]) was an American cabinetmaker and interior decorator, and was the patriarch of a major family in New York society in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

[4] Around 1840, Baudouine was hired by Cyrus West Field, a paper-industry magnate and father of the first transatlantic telegraph cable, to furnish his home in New York's Gramercy Park neighborhood.

[4] Due in no small part to their enormous wealth (all of which stemmed from Baudouine's success in business), his relatives and their various exploits were featured frequently in the New York press from the 1890s to the 1930s.

[10] In December 1918, a few days after the death of the younger Charles Baudouine, the court found for Mrs. Burke, and removed the grandsons as trustees.

[11] In April 1920 that judgment was reversed on appeal;[12] in the wake of this litigation, however, the frequency of the Baudouine family's appearances in the press declined significantly.