and five gentlemen to, thereby establishing the invitees as fit for society. The first Patriarchs Ball was held at Delmonico's, with the Balls, which were difficult to obtain invitations to, receiving significant press coverage. The Patriarchs Ball inspired similar balls, including the Ihpetonga Ball, which was considered "the most important social event of the season in Brooklyn." The Society dissolved two years after McAllister's death in 1897 due to a lack of interest. Personal life On 15 March 1853, McAllister married a Georgia born heiress who was then living in Madison, New Jersey, Sarah Taintor Gibbons (1829–1909), the daughter of William Gibbons (1794–1852) and Abigail Louisa (née Taintor) Gibbons (1791–1844). Her grandfather was politician, lawyer, and steamboat owner Thomas Gibbons. Her father built the Gibbons Mansion in Madison, New Jersey, which her brother sold to Daniel Drew after their father's death, and which Drew donated to found Drew Theological Seminary (now known as Drew University). Together, Ward and Sarah were the parents of: Louise Ward McAllister (1854–1923), who in 1920 married A. Nelson Lewis, a linguist who owned the 600 acre "old Lewis estate" at Havre de Grace, Maryland that had been in the family since 1806. She was engaged to George Barclay Ward (1845–1906) at the time of his death in 1907. Ward McAllister Jr. (1855–1908), an 1880 Harvard Law School graduate, who became a San Francisco lawyer who served as the first Federal district judge of the Territory of Alaska, beginning in 1884 and was responsible for the arrest of Sheldon Jackson. Heyward Hall McAllister (1859–1925), who married Janie Champion Garmany (b. 1867) of Savannah in 1892. In what became a minor scandal when it was made public, the couple was secretly wed first in 1884, then in 1887, and lastly in 1892. They later divorced and he married Melanie Jeanne Renke (d. 1939), who was born in France and did not speak English, in 1908. Death Ward McAllister died while dining alone, and in social disgrace for his writings, at New York's Union Club, in January 1895. His funeral, held on February 5, 1895, was well attended by many society figures of the day, including Chauncey Depew and Cornelius Vanderbilt II. McAllister is interred at Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, New York. In 1907, Sarah was described as having been an invalid for 25 years. In popular culture Ward McAllister is portrayed by Nathan Lane in the American