Horace Dutton Taft

Horace Dutton Taft was born on December 28, 1861, in Cincinnati, Ohio. He was a member of the Taft family, with William Howard Taft being his elder brother. Taft completed his undergraduate education at Yale University in 1883, where he was a member of the secret society Skull and Bones and was awarded the Townsend Prize. After graduating from Yale, he attended Cincinnati Law School, passing the bar exam after his second year. He practiced law briefly at a firm with his father, Alphonso Taft.

Later, Taft decided to pursue a career in education, returning to Yale University to serve as a Latin tutor. In 1890, he founded a college preparatory school for boys in Pelham Manor, New York. Three years later, in 1893, he relocated the school to Watertown, Connecticut. There, he purchased the Warren House, a hotel from the Civil War era, and renamed the institution The Taft School in 1898.

By 1913, the school had expanded beyond the original building, prompting Taft to commission the construction of a permanent campus. The first of these structures was a collegiate Gothic castle known as HDT, named after Horace Dutton Taft, designed by architect Bertram Goodhue, with landscape architecture by Frederick Law Olmsted Jr. An additional major building was completed in 1931, designed by James Gamble Rogers; this structure was named CPT in honor of Horace Taft’s brother Charles Phelps Taft, a significant benefactor of the school.

Taft served as headmaster of The Taft School until his retirement in 1936. Despite stepping down from his administrative role, he continued to teach a civics course until his death. In 1942, he published a memoir titled "Memories and Opinions."

Regarding his personal life, Horace Taft married Winifred Shepard Thompson on June 29, 1892. She was an art teacher at a high school in New Haven and originated from Buffalo, New York. The couple did not have children. Winifred Taft died of cancer in 1909.

Horace Dutton Taft died in Watertown, Connecticut, on January 28, 1943, at his residence.