The Wadsworths persist

Catching up on back issues of In and Around Horse Country, I noticed that Marion Thorne is "huntsman" for the Genessee Valley Hunt. A huntsman acts as c-in-c of the dogs, around whom the hunt is organized, and Ms. Thorne is the stepdaughter of the grandson of Major W. Austin Wadsworth, founder of the Genessee Valley Hunt and a very big name in the history of American foxhunting.

I am unclear on the relation of W. Austin and our good friend MG James Wadsworth, the great patroon and leader of the NY Republicans in opposition to Seward-Weed (one supposes WA's majority originated in the ACW). This 1943 article makes clear that there are just too many Wadsworths to keep track of, even for local historians, and it suggests the immense properties of the W. Austins (over 60,000 acres) are separate from the endless estates of the James Wadsworths. The same article is more than a little defensive about the status of the serfs who (as late as 1943) worked the lands of their Genessee patroons.

So, the Wadsworths are still with us as surely as the ACW is still with us.

p.s., W. Austin, center above, is depicted sometime after 1878, I think, because that is the point at which he tried to establish his own pack. Of course, he could be posing with borrowed hounds at an earlier date.The eclectic hunting dress is charming. Perhaps it is ratcatcher. By 1912, he had succumbed to conformity.