Military service took couple around the world. Fund at The Trust supports scholarships.
Henry Bayard McCoy (1866-1923)
May Dorland McCoy (1870-1955)
Henry B. McCoy and his wife, May, an adventuresome and innovative couple whose influence was felt in politics and culture, lived most of their lives on the opposite side of the world from the country of their birth. Yet, both were deeply committed to the ideals and to the service of their native land.
Henry Bayard McCoy was born in Carlinville, Illinois, on August 5, 1866, the son of Asa and Lydia Chamberlin McCoy. Henry grew up in Illinois and for a time pursued studies at Illinois Wesleyan University in Bloomington. However, from early youth he was attracted to military, rather than academic, life. His first duty was as a noncommissioned officer in the Illinois National Guard.
At age 23, Henry moved to Pueblo, Colorado, where he joined the Colorado National Guard. A natural leader, he rose rapidly through the ranks. His first commission was as an adjutant. Two years later, he was made a major, and the next year, while only 26, he was promoted to lieutenant colonel. Among his arduous assignments was a period during which the entire Colorado National Guard was called to handle a civil insurrection in Leadville in 1896.
During his days in Pueblo, the young military man, who in civilian life also served as clerk of the district court, met and married May Ludlow Dorland.
May, too, had moved west to Colorado. She had been born in Cincinnati, Ohio, the daughter of a young couple who had run away and married against the wishes of their families. While May was still quite young, her mother died in childbirth. A family by the name of Dorland took in the motherless child and later adopted her. When she was 2 or 3, the Dorlands left Cincinnati for Pueblo, where May grew to young womanhood and met the dashing National Guardsman.
The outbreak of the Spanish-American War brought a dramatic change to the young McCoys’ lives. Less than two weeks after war was declared, Henry McCoy signed up for active duty in a special service regiment of Colorado Volunteers. It was May 1, 1898—the day the U.S. Navy, under the command of Adm. George Dewey, sailed into Manila harbor and defeated the Spanish fleet in the Philippines. Soon afterward, Col. McCoy led the troops of the 1st Colorado Infantry in an attack on Manila and raised the first American flag to fly in the Philippine Islands. The armistice was signed, and peace returned to the beautiful South Pacific islands on August 13, 1898. For his outstanding leadership, Henry McCoy was promoted to full colonel. The 32-year-old officer liked what he saw in the islands so much that he sent for his wife to join him.
Courageously undertaking the long ocean voyage halfway around the world, May McCoy became the first wife of a U.S. Army officer to reach the Philippines. She found the islands as enchanting as her husband did. Later, when the colonel’s regiment was mustered out, the McCoys decided to stay.
Although the Spanish had dominated the Philippines for 300 years, the arrival of the Americans at the end of the war was not popular. Gradually, however, the American government overcame the opposition of such Philippine leaders as then-President Emilio Aguinaldo, introduced many improvements, and helped the islands prosper.
Henry and May McCoy prospered, too. With an older brother, James, Henry developed a gold mine on Masbate, one of the small islands of the archipelago. In 1901, he was appointed deputy collector of customs. In 1909, the assignment was upgraded to collector of customs, a position he held until 1913, when, with a change of administrations in Washington, many U.S. government officials were replaced by Filipinos. However, under Gov. Francis B. Harrison, who was appointed that year, the United States took on an increasingly larger role in the development of business ventures. One of these ventures was the Manila Railroad. When the Harding administration took office in 1921, Gen. Leonard Wood was appointed governor of the Islands, and he, in turn, made Henry McCoy manager of the railroad.
It was a good life for the McCoys. They built a beautiful home in Pasay, on the south side of Manila Bay. It was a wide-open, tropical-style house with teak floors and a magnificent view of the bay and the city of Manila to the north. An accomplished pianist, May McCoy enjoyed having a grand piano in her home, and she was a founder of the Manila Symphony. She even persuaded a number of well-known musicians to come from other parts of the world and give concerts there.
May McCoy continued to be an adventurous traveler. During the 1920s, she and her husband invited one of Henry’s nephews to visit them in their tropical home. The young man, who planned to be a painter, stayed for three months, and then accompanied his aunt on a westward journey through Southeast Asia, visiting places few travelers had ventured. Their destination was Paris, where May McCoy financed a year of study for the talented boy. When her nephew was settled, she returned to the Philippines.
May devoted herself to culture and travel, but Henry’s interest was politics. He served as a member of the Republican National Committee from 1904 to 1912. He returned to the United States to attend the conventions, where he wielded considerable power as chairman of the Credentials Committee.
Polo was another of his hobbies. He was one of the founders of the Manila Polo Club in 1909 and served as president of the club from 1915 until his death, after which his widow was elected an honorary member, the first woman to be granted this honor.
Contrary to expectations, May McCoy did not leave her home and return to the United States after Henry’s stroke and sudden death on September 30, 1923, at age 57. They had built a wonderful and rewarding life together in the islands, and May, who had never been afraid to do things alone, chose to stay.
Then, on December 8, 1941, the Japanese attacked the Philippines without warning. By the beginning of the new year, Manila was occupied. The Japanese army set up headquarters in the McCoy home. Now in her 70s, May McCoy was interned in a concentration camp with other survivors of the invasion. Like the other prisoners, she was treated cruelly. Malnutrition resulted in failure of her eyesight, and she became almost totally blind.
But in October 1944, Gen. Douglas MacArthur made good on his promise and returned with the Sixth Army. Several months later, Manila was retaken, and by the summer of 1945, MacArthur announced that all the Philippines had been liberated. The arrival of U.S. troops was just in the nick of time for May McCoy, whose execution at the hands of her captors had been scheduled for only one day after the arrival of the American soldiers.
May McCoy’s home had been burned to the ground, but the indomitable lady got together a few sheets of tin and put up a crude hut among the ashes. It was here that one of her nephews, an Army chaplain on his way to Japan with his troops, found her living. Though she was so intimidated by her experience at the hands of the Japanese that she would talk to him only through the locked door of her hut, she announced her determination to stay. She was encouraged by the fact that her beloved piano had been saved by her Swiss neighbors.
By 1950, at age 80, May McCoy decided to return permanently to the United States. The piano was shipped back, too. She divided her time between Boston and New York, where she lived at a hotel or stayed with her husband’s sister, Clara McCoy Dixon. Despite her blindness, she traveled fearlessly about the city. A niece recalls that she had complete, almost childlike faith in everyone around her. Rather than taking taxis, which she could afford and which would have been much easier, she chose to make her way by subway, trusting that someone would offer help when she needed it. Nor did blindness hinder her from making a trip to Scandinavia.
Her one concession to her blindness was her willingness to hire people to read to her, so she could study academic courses that interested her. Whether in Boston or New York, she continued to study history.
May McCoy was 84 when, on January 27, 1955, her full life came to an end in Boston.
The McCoys had been childless, but May McCoy was pleased to be able to provide college scholarships to help young men get ahead.
