Stotesbury's career as a major American investment banker began with his employment as a clerk at the large Philadelphia banking house of Drexel & Co. at the age of 17. He moved up rapidly in the company and was made a partner in 1883, also gaining a stake in the New York affiliate Drexel, Morgan & Co. (later called J.P. Morgan & Co). This partnership with J. Pierpoint Morgan led both men to important investments in American railroads and the formation of the United States Steel Corporation. By 1904 Stotesbury had become senior partner of Drexel & Co., making him a leading financier and one of the wealthiest men in Philadelphia. His palatial Chestnut Hill mansion, called Whitemarsh Hall, was designed by Horace Trumbauer and completed in 1921. Under the direction of his wife Eva, Whitemarsh Hall soon became the site of lavish parties for wealthy American businessmen and international dignitaries. Whitemarsh Hall has since been demolished, but a glimpse of this lifestyle can be seen at Stotesbury's townhouse at 19th and Walnut Streets near Rittenhouse Square, which today serves as home to the Philopatrian Literary Institute of Philadelphia. Stotesbury also served as President of The Union League of Philadelphia from 1903-1905, and again from 1922-1923.

Stotesbury is buried in Section K, Lot #5 of The Woodlands.

Price was a lawyer, real estate law reformer, and prominent civic leader in Philadelphia. In 1822, he was admitted to the bar and began to specialize in real estate law. At the same time, he became involved in reform of the municipal government and was elected to the state senate in 1854. One of his first initiatives in Harrisburg was to secure the passage of the "Consolidation Act" which created the present city of Philadelphia by incorporating much of the city's surrounding territory under one government. Price was also the leading founder of the Woodlands Cemetery, with the intent of protecting the core of the Hamilton estate as open space by converting it to a rural cemetery. He continued his efforts for civic improvement with the establishment of Fairmount Park in 1867. His grandson, Eli Kirk Price, II (1860-1933) was also an important civic leader in Philadelphia. During his years as the president of the Philadelphia Museum of Art from 1926-1933, he supervised the museum's relocation from Memorial Hall to its present location along the Parkway. He also served on the boards of several institutions, including the University of Pennsylvania and The Woodlands Cemetery Company. Today, the Price family continues its long association with The Woodlands.

Price is buried in Section C, Lot #243-252 of The Woodlands.

Although Eakins is recognized today as one of America's foremost realist painters, his career was punctuated by controversy due to his interest in anatomy. As a child, he displayed a precocious artistic talent, which his parents encouraged him to pursue. In 1862, he enrolled in the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and began attending anatomy lectures at Philadelphia's Jefferson Medical College to further his study of the human figure. In 1866, Eakins moved to Paris to study at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. When he returned to Philadelphia, he began work as a portrait artist and taught at the Academy. In 1875, he painted The Gross Clinic, showing famed surgeon Dr. Samuel Gross (also interred at The Woodlands) presiding over surgery in a crowded amphitheater at Jefferson Medical College. Although Eakins intended the painting for a general exhibition at the 1876 Centennial Exposition, it was deemed too disturbing and was displayed instead in a less prominent location in the U.S. Army Post among surgical tools and weapons. In 1882, he became director of the Academy and introduced one of the most progressive courses of study in the country. His insistence that both male and female students study the nude human figure tested the bounds of propriety and eventually led to his forced resignation in 1886. Eakins continued painting until his death in 1916.

Susan MacDowell, Eakins' wife, was a talented artist in her own right. From 1876 to 1882, she attended the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, where she began studying with Eakins. Although she continued to paint after their marriage in 1884, she devoted much of her time to facilitating her husband's career. After Eakins' death, she encouraged exhibitions of his work, striving to ensure his artistic legacy. At the same time, her own creativity was revitalized and she painted avidly during the last twenty years of her life.

Both are buried in Section C, Lot #513 of The Woodlands.

Hamilton was born in Philadelphia to a wealthy family of colonial lawyers and politicians. In 1766, at the age of 21, he inherited over 300 acres of land on the west side of the Schuylkill River. There he built a classical villa with a two-story columned portico overlooking the waterway. After the Revolution, Hamilton traveled to England and visited grand country estates.

By his return in 1786 he had determined to rebuild his house in the adventurously modern classical taste pioneered by British architects Robert and James Adam. He more than doubled the villa’s size, devising major additions to the east and west. The reworked first floor greeted the visitor with three social spaces of contrasting shapes leading from a domed vestibule. Full kitchen and service facilities were incorporated in a windowed cellar. At The Woodlands one finds the earliest full realization in this country of many of the characteristics of the Federal style, which would reign over American architecture for the next few decades.

Hamilton is interred at Christ Church in Philadelphia.

Image above: Portrait of William Hamilton and Ann Hamilton Lyle (1745-1813) by Benjamin West. Oil on canvas. Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia.