Bethany Rutherford Wynn could trace her maternal ancestors to the Plymouth Bay Colony in 1631 and her paternal line was mentioned in chronicles as far back as 1591. But by the time she was born in 1911, the Hartford Wynns and the Bridgeport Rutherfords were in terminal decline; as the only child of only children, Bethany was quite literally the last gasp of her lineage.

She was raised mostly by her great-aunt, Ada Rutherford, as her parents were largely concerned with running the family’s remaining investments and attending to the proper social functions befitting an old Knickerbocker merchant family. Ada instilled the value of a Wynn pedigree in the young girl along with a puritanical adherence to a code of conduct that was already in decline.

As a result, Bethany never married and broke off an engagement after her suitor had reportedly visited a theatrical performance. Despite a reputation as one of New England’s great beauties stemming from her debut in 1929, she remained alone in the family home with only servants and family members.

In her later years, Bethany became obsessed with securing her family’s legacy and entertained a regular parade of genealogists and researchers she commissioned using her inheritance. Darker rumors spread that she had also hired private detectives to destroy public records that represented blemishes on the benighted history of her clan. Shortly before her death in 1981, she arranged for a monograph on the Wynn family history and genealogy to be privately printed and distributed to those members of the Social Register still residing in Connecticut.

The family home, which fell into disrepair near the end of Bethany’s life, still stands in what is now a rather run-down part of town, but local ordinances forbid its demolition. It is routinely broken into by treasure seekers acting on rumors of hidden millions or dark secrets, the thieves little realizing that nearly every cent the owner had was spent in her quest to catalog the history of her family as it fell down into darkness.