Biography
Belmont was born in New York City, New York. Oliver's father was August Belmont, a Hessian Jew who came to the United States in 1837 as an agent for the Rothschilds, and accumulated enormous personal wealth. (The oldest race in the Triple Crown, the Belmont Stakes, is named for August Belmont). His mother, Caroline Slidell (née Perry), was the daughter of Commodore Matthew Calbraith Perry, who was renowned for commanding the naval expedition that opened Japan in 1853-54. His maternal great-uncle and namesake was Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry, the victor of the Battle of Lake Erie in 1813.
Belmont attended St. Paul's School, Concord, New Hampshire, and graduated from the United States Naval Academy on June 10, 1880. He was commissioned as a midshipman and served until June 1, 1881, when he resigned. In 1882, Oliver married Sara Swan Whiting, who was pregnant with his child, in Newport, but they divorced the same year. Natica was adopted by her stepfather, George Lockhart Rives and took his last name. She became a prominent New York socialite who was close friends with Alva Belmont. In 1907, she married Williams Proudfoot Burden, brother of James Abercrombie Burden, Jr. She died accidentally from gas lamp asphyxiation in 1908.
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