Family Timeline

1849 - 1900

1849	December 19, Henry Clay Frick is born.
1859	December 16, Adelaide Howard Childs is born.
1880	Henry Clay Frick takes his first trip to Europe.
1881	December 15, Henry Clay Frick marries Adelaide Howard Childs.
1881	Henry Clay Frick makes his first art acquisitions: Woodland Stream by George Hetzel (1826–1889) and At the Louvre (Une Révélation) by Luis Jiménez Y Aranda (1845–1928).
1882	August, Henry Clay Frick purchases “Homewood,” an Italianate-style home, east of Pittsburgh, built in the late 1860s and renames it “Clayton.” Interior and exterior changes are made through 1883 under the direction of Pittsburgh architect Andrew Peebles.
1883	January 29, family moves into Clayton. The property includes a stable and a greenhouse.
1883	March 12, Childs Frick is born.
1885	August 9, Martha Howard Frick is born.
1885	Henry Clay Frick begins art collecting in earnest. Much of his earlier collecting focuses on French landscape painters of the Barbizon school, including Dessous de Bois (The Forest Floor) by Théodore Rousseau (1812–1867), which hangs in the parlor in Clayton.
1888	September 3, Helen Clay Frick is born.
1891-92	Extensive interior and exterior changes are made to Clayton to expand the house, under the direction of Pittsburgh architect Frederick J. Osterling. Two floors are added and the original home is enclosed with an enlarged floor plan after the style of a Loire Valley château. As it stands today, Clayton is the result of this expansion, with the exception of the enclosed porch, completed in 1899.
1891	July 25, Martha Howard Frick dies at Cresson, Pennsylvania, after a long illness.
1892	July 1, the Homestead Steel Strike begins.
1892	July 8, Henry Clay Frick, Jr. is born.
1892	July 23, anarchist Alexander Berkman attempts to assassinate Henry Clay Frick at his office in the Frick Building.
1892	August 3, Henry Clay Frick, Jr. dies suddenly at Clayton.
1897	Old greenhouse is razed and a new one is built in its place by Pittsburgh architects Alden & Harlow, who also build a Playhouse, which today serves as the Frick Art & Historical Center Visitors’ Center.