William West Durant

[1] A review of his collection of letters housed at the Library of Congress does not reveal any indication that he undertook a formal education while living abroad.

By 1871, tracks had been laid from Saratoga to North Creek, New York, at which point, financial problems and the 1873 Depression caused the project to stall.

In 1876, Durant built a rustic compound on Long Point in Raquette Lake in the center of the Adirondacks to entertain potential investors in the railroad and in his land development schemes.

William had a hand in its development from the start, but especially after 1879, when tourism to the area exploded following the publication of WHH Murray's Adventures in the Wilderness.

He also arranged for the construction of the Church of the Good Shepherd on St. Hubert's Isle, and created a telegraph company to provide service through to Raquette Lake.

William promptly set out to raise capital by selling land and timber, and sought a buyer for the Adirondack Railway, finally succeeding in 1899 with a sale to the Delaware and Hudson Canal Company.

It was to be the largest and most expensive of Durant's camps, centered on a three-story, 27-by-62-foot (8.2 by 18.9 m) main lodge, with a raised stone cellar adding to the height, and verandahs on three levels.

She had doubts about whether she was receiving her fair share of their father's estate, especially when, in 1890, William bought a $200,000, 191-foot (58 m) ocean-going luxury yacht, Utowana.

In 1893, Ella brought suit to attempt to force her brother to render a public accounting of the estate; William's legal stratagems would delay the trial for six years.

William West Durant died at Mount Sinai Hospital on June 1, 1934, age 83, and was interred in the family's mausoleum, built in Brooklyn's fashionable Greenwood Cemetery in 1873 for $60,000.