A. Lanfear Norrie Socialites Information

Ambrose Lanfear Norrie (July 27, 1857 – December 22, 1910) was an American businessman and social leader during the Gilded Age.

Norrie was born on July 27, 1857 in New York City. He was the eldest son of Gordon Norrie (1830–1909) and Emily Frances (née Lanfear) Norrie (1836–1917). Among his siblings was Mary Lanfear Norrie, Dr. Van Horne Norrie, Sara Goodhue Norrie, Adam Gordon Norrie (who married Margaret Lewis Morgan, sister of Geraldine Livingston Morgan), Emily Lanfear Norrie, who died unmarried in 1936.

His paternal grandparents were Mary Johanna (née van Horne) Norrie and Adam Norrie, a native of Aberdeen, Scotland who was an iron merchant and a founder of St. Luke's Hospital. His maternal grandparents were Ambrose Lanfear and Mary (née Hill) Lanfear. His aunt, Louisa Sarah Lanfear, was married to Ogilvie Blair Graham and David A. Ogden Jr. (son of David A. Ogden). Among his cousins was Norrie Sellar, a prominent cotton broker who married Sybil Katherine Sherman (the daughter of William Watts Sherman).

Norrie, a broker, discovered the iron ore of the Gogebic Range of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan (which became known as the Lorrie Mine) in September 1882. He was important in the founding of the town of Ironwood, Michigan. He was also a director of the Ohio Mining and Manufacturing Company and the Buffalo, Rochester and Pittsburgh Railroad.

Norrie was prominent in New York society. He was a close friend of Lispenard Stewart, with whom he threw a 100-person dinner and evening of vaudeville before the two traveled to Mexico on vacation in 1893. Another close friend, John Rhea Barton Willing (who was Vincent Astor's uncle), left Norrie a Stradivarius violin in his will. He was also a member of the Union Club, the Calumet Club, the Racquet Club, the Metropolitan Club, the Downtown Club, the Riding Club, and the Tuxedo Club.

In 1890, Norrie's engagement to heiress Frances Evelyn "Fannie" Bostwick was announced. She was the daughter of Jabez A. Bostwick, a founding partner of Standard Oil. However, a month later, Bostwick it was declared that by "mutual consent" the engagement was off. Fannie eventually married Capt. Albert J. Carstairs of the Royal Irish Rifles, and became the mother of Joe Carstairs before that marriage ended and she remarried three more times, including her last to Serge Voronoff.

On April 23, 1893, Norrie's family again announced his engagement to Amy Bend at a grand ball, Amy, a close friend of Emily Vanderbilt Sloane, was the daughter of banker George H. Bend and was called "the New York society beauty par excellence." However, Again, less than a month later, Amy called the engagement off and, shortly thereafter, was courted by William Kissam Vanderbilt. After rumors that she was to marry John Jacob Astor III proved false, Amy later married Cortlandt F. Bishop in 1899. Norrie was also reportedly engaged to Emily Montague Tooker, daughter of Gabriel Mead Tooker. The purported impending marriage never took place and, instead, Emily married J. Wadsworth Ritchie in 1895.

In 1895, Norrie was married to Ethel Lynde Barbey (1873–1959). Ethel was the daughter of Henry Isaac Barbey and Mary Lorillard Barbey, and granddaughter of tobacco magnate Pierre Lorillard III. Among her many siblings was Hélène Barbey, the wife of Count von Pourtalès; Eva Barbey, who married Baron de Neuflize; and Pierre Lorillard Barbey, who married Florence Flower. Together, they were the parents of:

Norrie died after an attack of pneumonia at his home, 15 East 84th Street in New York City,[a] on December 22, 1910. He was buried at Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn. After his death, she married Count Armand de Jumilhac (1886–1966), a relative of the Duke of Richelieu, in 1914.

Through his son, he was the posthumous grandfather of Christopher Lorillard Norrie (b. 1946), a farmer living in New York.

Norrie was the namesake of Norrie Park, Norrie School, Norrie mine, Norrie location and Norrie Street in Ironwood, Michigan.

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