California, in 1923. May 1926: A Celebration of Hammond In May 1926, an organization called "The Company of Friends of John Hays Hammond" sponsored eleven dinners around the world (Manhattan, San Francisco, London, Paris, Tokyo, Manila, etc.) in honor of Hammond. Over 10,000 people wrote tributes to Hammond, including: Hearst whose father gave him his first job, Woolf Barnato whose father (Barney Barnato) took him to South Africa, Sir Lionel Phillips who was condemned to death with him, the Guggenheims who employed him at a fabulous salary, former President Taft who offered him an ambassador position, and President Calvin Coolidge who consulted with him on the coal situation. The event was so extraordinary that Time magazine put Hammond on the cover of the May 10, 1926 issue and ran a biographical sketch on him called "Unique". He died of coronary occlusion on June 8, 1936, in Gloucester, Massachusetts. Family He married Natalie Harris (1859 – 1931), of Harrisville, Mississippi (40 miles SSW south of the state capital, Jackson) on January 1, 1881, in Hancock, Maryland. Together they had four sons and one daughter: Harris Hays Hammond (1881 - 1969), a financier, became president of Dominguez Oil Fields Company, which earned him $2 million in 1936, and president of Laughlin Filter Corporation, a small New Jersey company which manufactures centrifuges. In 1928, he and Anthony "Tony" Joseph Drexel Biddle Jr. were among the directors of Acoustic Products Co., which later became Sonora Products Corp. of America. John Hays Hammond, Jr. (1888 - 1965) was born in San Francisco, California. In 1893 he moved with his family to South Africa, and five years later the family moved to England. The family returned to the United States in 1900, and Hammond attended Lawrenceville School, started inventing, and went on to study at the Sheffield School of Yale University, graduating in 1910. He established the Hammond Radio Research Corporation in 1911 and eventually developed a radio controlled torpedo system for the navy, which he successfully demonstrated in 1918. Between 1926 and 1929, he built a medieval-style castle in Gloucester, Massachusetts. Natalie Hays Hammond (1904 – 1985) was born in Lakewood, New Jersey. Her estate in North Salem, New York was converted into the Hammond Museum & Japanese Stroll Garden in 1957. Nathaniel Harris Hammond (1902 - 1907) and Richard Pindle Hammond (1896 – 1980), composer, were the two other children. John Hays Hammond died