Who Is W. Dayton Wegefarth?
July 17, 2021
William Dayton Wegefarth was born 1885 September 10th in New York, to Gustavus Wegefarth and Rebecca Janet Cox. In 1919, he married Estelle Buxbaum (1882–1950) in Philadelphia.
Mr Wegefarth wrote for newspapers and magazines and was quite successful as a writer of verses for greeting cards. He also worked in the theatrical field, at theatres in Philadelphia and New York. He wrote lyrics and music as well as managing bookings.
His three published books are: Smiles and Sighs — 1910, poems; The True Story of “Bum” — 1915, short story about a stray dog he adopted; and Rainbow Verse — 1919, inspirational poetry. As with many writers of the day, the verses in his books were mostly reprinted items from periodicals, such as Lippincott’s Magazine.
He published under his real name as well as a pseudonym, Hugh Barrington. He was also known as W. D. Wegefarth and William D. Wegefarth. His surname has sometimes been misspelled as Wedgefarth, Wedgeforth, and Wegeforth.
He passed away 1973, in New York.
I’ve got a few dozen excerpts from this cheerful author’s public domain works posted to various pages of
