Background

Richard A. Canfield was born on June 17, 1855 in New Bedford, Massachussets, United States, where his ashes now lie interred. He was the son of William and Julia (Aiken) Canfield, was of Scotch Presbyterian stock.

Career

Canfied's passion for gambling, acquired during the days of his young manhood when he clerked in summer resort hotels, led to the opening of a gambling house in Providence, Rhode Island, which was successful for five or six years before the authorities came down on him. He served a brief sentence in Cranston jail before entering upon his spectacular career in New York in the middle eighties. After success at a house on Twenty-sixth St. , he acquired the famous place at 5 Eas Forty-fourth St. , next door to the then new Delmonico's. This brown stone house, entered by the elect through great bronze doors put in by Canfield, extravagantly furnished, and fitted out with valuable and beautiful ancient potteries and paintings, became the center of New York gambling gentry. In the early nineties Canfield bought the old Saratoga Club which became the Monte Carlo of America. For a while he operated a house in Newport. In 1902 District Attorney William Travers Jerome with a squad of policemen literally smashed their way into the palatial home next to Delmonico's. Canfield contested the case for two years, and it was not until Jerome obtained the passage of special legislation to compel witnesses to testify, that he yielded, prompted by a desire to lessen the difficulties of his patrons, paid the ridiculous fine of $1, 000, and closed his house. He devoted his time for the next five years to the Saratoga Club adding a great park that cost in the neighborhood of $25, 000 a year to maintain; but public disapproval grew, and in 1907 this place, too, was closed.

The business interests of the latter years of Canfield's life were glassware and bottle-manufacturing plants at Brooklyn, New York, and Morgantown, West Virginia. For years he was active on Wall Street, working alone, and acquiring the reputation of being one of the biggest operators on the Street.

His Whistler collection he sold to the Knoedler Galleries in 1914 for $300, 000. His estate at the time of his death was estimated at more than $1, 000, 000.

He was cremated and his ashes brought back to New Bedford, Massachusetts, where his remains are buried in the Canfield family plot in the Old Section of Oak Grove Cemetery.

Achievements

• Called "America’s Greatest Gambler", he started running a small faro parlor in Pawtucket, Rhode Island thay landed him in jail. His collection of Whistler oils, water-colors, pastels, and drawings, was regarded as one of the largest and best in America.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Existing blackjack systems: Special report

    (The purpose of this Special Report is to summarize and an...)

  • Blackjack your way to riches

Interests

• He was also an art connoisseur whose collections attracted admiring attention wherever exhibited. A man of culture and refinement, he cultivated well an innate good taste. He had a collection of ancient vases, bas-reliefs, and pottery; of rare Sheraton and Hepplewhite furniture.

Connections

Canfield was married, on August 31, 1882, to Genevieve Wren Martin of Pawtucket, R. I.

Father:

William Canfield

Mother:

Julia (Aiken) Canfield

Wife:

Genevieve Wren Martin

References

• Canfield: the true story of the greatest gambler,