A whole new meaning to the term "elite class".

The following research is for a short presentation to be delivered at the JFK ASSASSINATION CONFERENCE NOV 22-23-24 Dallas/Arlington. Although that final talk will be much shorter than the full story allows, I will present the research here first and then winnow it down in a condensed version that can be more easily followed by listeners.

Linda Minor

(Read Part I)
PART II
LEE H. OSWALD AND RUTH HYDE PAINE:
The Big Picture

By Linda Minor

My project to tear down the veil that separates Ruth Hyde Paine from the mysterious array of skeletons in her past began in Part I with a trail that took us back to a group of America's first settlers. Surprisingly, both of Ruth's parents were discovered to have stemmed from Christopher Hyde, who stepped foot on American soil in 1630. We tracked the life of William Penn Hyde, a minister in the Methodist Episcopal Church during the civil war years until he left his Rhode Island pastorate to move to California in 1881. They initially settled near the University of the Pacific in Santa Clara.

William Penn Hyde move to California in 1881

At first I thought William Fletcher Hyde could not possibly have received a college education given these circumstances. Why, I wondered, did Martha Constance Smith, with all her degrees from Berlin, Paris, Chicago and Stanford marry him. Upon further research, it was discovered that in 1891, ten years after relocating to Santa Clara, California, not only did W.F. Hyde attend the University of the Pacific, but that he operated its bookstore as well.

Mrs. Leland Stanford's Hyde ancestry

Then I realized that Leland Stanford, who owned thousands of acres of land in Santa Clara County in 1881, had studied law at Cazenovia Methodist seminary, where Martha's grandfather had taught mathematics before he left there in 1831 to help establish the Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut. Was there a connection? After a year in Cazenovia Seminary, Leland Stanford served a legal apprenticeship in Albany, where he met and married Jane Lathrop.

Incredibly enough, Jane Lathop Stanford's heritage takes us back to Norwich, Connecticut. What a small world indeed!

So far it seems that everyone connected to Ruth Hyde Paine is a member of the Hyde extended family The list below, modified from an Ancestry.com family tree gives a whole new meaning to the term "elite class"!

Four Branches of Samuel Hyde Family

So what does all this mean in terms of the murder of John F. Kennedy, an upstart Irishman born into an immigrant Catholic family in Boston? Who REALLY wanted him dead in 1963?

How do we proceed at this point? I always remember the first rule of research, taught to me from repeatedly watching the movie "All the President's Men." Remember how Hal Holbrook's character "Deep Throat" whispered to Robert Redford through a haze of cigarette smoke: "Follow the money!"

Thus, I backed up the research to discover how Leland Stanford became such a wealthy man in only twenty years. One website succinctly summarized:

Stanford had joined with Huntington, Hopkins and Crocker to found the Central Pacific Railroad Company on June 28, 1861. Stanford was elected president of the company and used his position as Governor of California to further the railroad's interests. President Lincoln supported the concept of a transcontinental railroad as being another important link between the Union and California and important Federal assistance was made available. Construction of the line commenced in Sacramento on January 8, 1863. Charles Crocker directed the actual construction, C.P. Huntington handled relations with the Federal Government in Washington D.C. and with the Eastern financial community, and Mark Hopkins kept an eye on the company's finances. As president, Stanford was the public face of the company in California and usually took the lead in dealing with state politics.

C.P Huntington on railroad bonds

Who was this C.P. Huntington, who handled the land grants from the federal government, leveraged with investments from the "Eastern financial community?" I wondered. I learned that Collis Potter Huntington had been born to Henry Edward Huntington, whose ancestry tracks back to where else but Norwich, Connecticut, where Samuel Huntington had been born in 1665 to the first American in the tree, Deacon Simon Huntington who arrived from England in 1629. On a whim, based on years of research on Skull and Bones, I decided to check further back to determine whether William Huntington Russell had any connection to Deacon Simon.

William H. Russell was born in 1809 in Middletown, Connecticut to Matthew Talcott Russell and Mary Huntington, daughter of Rev. Enoch Huntington. Enoch was the son of Nathaniel (born 1691), grandson of Joseph Huntington (born in Norwich in 1661), who was son of this same Deacon Simon Huntington! The world is absolutely microscopic.

So let's return to Stanford.  The same website quoted above brings us up to date:

Stanford and his Central Pacific Railroad partners completed the construction of the Southern Pacific Railroad to Los Angeles in 1876 and linked it to New Orleans in 1883. Stanford was elected Senator in 1885 on the Republican ticket and he moved to Washington D.C. In 1885 the Central Pacific Railroad was leased to the Southern Pacific Railroad and the partners controlled a total of 4,711 miles of track from California through Arizona, New Mexico, Texas to Louisiana. During the 1870s and 1880s Stanford assembled a large estate south of San Francisco and began breeding horses. By the end of the 1880s the Palo Alto stock Farm amounted to more than 8,000 acres and was producing some of the very finest trotting horses in the nation. ... During this period Stanford also owned 55,000 acres of land in Vina, California where he unsuccessfully experimented in grape growing and champagne production.

The Stanfords' only son, Leland, Junior, died in Florence, Italy, on March 13, 1884, while the family was vacationing in Europe. The parents were heartbroken and decided to use their wealth to establish a university as a memorial to their son. On November 11, 1885, Mr. and Mrs. Stanford, established a board of trustees to govern the new university. Land from their Palo Alto Stock Farm and the Vina vineyard were deeded to the university and construction on the first buildings were begun in 1887. Stanford University opened in 1891 with David Starr Jordan serving as its first president. That same year Stanford was reelected to the Senate. Stanford's partner, C.P. Huntington, did not approve of Stanford's second candidacy having committed himself to support Aaron A. Sargent for the position. Relations between Huntington and Stanford deteriorated dramatically and resulted in a long bitter and very public fight between the two men.

Leland Stanford died in his sleep at home on June 20, 1893.

At this point we will resume with Part III.