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The Lotos Club
John Hay, the actors Edwin Booth and Joseph Je erson and editor Henry Watterson. Whitelaw Reid, editor of the New York Tribune, became the Club’s president in 1872, serving to 1875 and from 1878 to 1888. Among the Club’s guests were the English novelist Wilkie Collins, the astronomer Richard A. Proctor (introduced by President Frederick Barnard of Columbia College), novelist Canon Charles Kingsley, and His Majesty Kalakaua I, King of the Hawaiian Islands. Guests also included writer Bret Harte, poet and businessman Edmund C. Stedman, nancier Cyrus W. Field, Chief Justice Charles P. Daly, Bishop Henry C. Potter, and General George Armstrong Custer.
In 1876, the Club began a tradition of giving dinners for incoming and outgoing mayors of New York City. In half a dozen years, the mayors’ dinners at The Lotos Club were regarded as part of the ceremonial of assuming o ce.
On May 1, 1877, The Lotos Club moved to the Bradish Johnson mansion at 149 Fifth Avenue at the corner of Twenty- rst Street. The building was more spacious and suitable for the Club’s growing membership and its receptions and dinners. In 1879, W. S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan were entertained at the Club, and the following year Count Ferdinand DeLesseps was honored
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