Jonathan Mayhew Wainwright, an attorney and a founder and the current president of the Friends of Georgica Pond Foundation, died of esophageal cancer at home on Park Avenue in Manhattan last Thursday. His wife, Candace Drake Wainwright, sons, Jay and Shep Wainwright, and stepdaughters, Kate Olmsted Grossman and Lexi Olmsted Tran, were with him.
Mr. Wainwright, who was 80, had been ill for five years.
The family held a small burial service at the Wainscott Cemetery on Saturday. A celebration of his life will be held in New York City in the spring.
Mr. Wainwright lived between the city and Wainscott for most of his life. He attended St. Bernard’s School in Manhattan, the Landon School in the Washington, D.C., area, and St. Paul’s School in Concord, N.H., going on to earn an undergraduate degree from Yale University and a law degree from New York University, “but he was most proud of his time in the Wainscott one-room schoolhouse with Mrs. Mansir as his teacher,” his family wrote.
His favorite places were his house on Georgica Pond, called Home Again, and his cottage at the Long Point Company, a duck hunting club in Canada.
Described as “a skilled squash player in his younger years,” Mr. Wainwright was a lifelong upland and duck hunter, conservationist, gardener, and New York Times puzzle whiz. He was a member of the Maidstone Club.
Mr. Wainwright served on the board of directors of the Nature Conservancy on Long Island from 2013 to 2020. Troubled by the severe blue-green algal blooms in Georgica Pond, he helped found the Friends of Georgica Pond Foundation in 2015, hoping to find “practical, science-based approaches to remediating the water quality” in the pond, according to his family. He served as the nonprofit’s treasurer from 2015 to 2023 and as its president starting in 2023.
“Under his leadership, the organization hired Dr. Christopher Gobler as its science adviser to develop an action plan which included working collaboratively with the many levels of local government, utilizing an aquatic weed harvester to remove excessive algal growth, and the first telemetry buoy to monitor water quality 24/7 on Long Island.”
Mr. Wainwright spent his entire legal career at the firm of Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft, from the time he graduated from N.Y.U.’s law school in 1968 until the time of his death. He was “one of the legal profession’s foremost experts in investment management, alternative investment products, and family office matters, providing corporate governance and transactional advice to a who’s who of U.S. and international clients,” the firm wrote.
He was a leader and mentor to “countless people” at the firm, including its partners. “He offered friendship and provided sage advice,” the firm said, and “many of those who benefited from his wisdom have gone on to lucrative careers at some of the biggest hedge funds and institutions in the country.”
He served with the Federal Bar Council and was on the board of directors of a national trust company, several investment management firms and family offices, and “numerous closely held U.S. companies and foreign corporations.”
Since 2012 Mr. Wainwright had been the secretary and treasurer of the B. Robert Williamson Jr. Foundation, which supports nonprofits that focus on education and empowerment of young people. He was a director of Lighthouse Guild International, which supports people with visual impairments, from 2005 to 2018, serving as its vice chairman from 2010 to 2018.
“He was known to those around him as an incredibly hard worker and a role model to many,” his family wrote.
“Jon was very smart but more importantly he was thoughtful, compassionate, and a great listener. If I came to Jon with a problem, the result was always a positive outcome. Above all, Jon was such a fine man,” James Sykes, a lifelong friend from East Hampton, said.
Mr. Wainwright was born in Baltimore on April 4, 1944, to Stuyvesant Wainwright II, who was a congressman, and the former Janet Parsons. He grew up primarily in Wainscott.
His first marriage was to Patricia Gilchrest, with whom he had his two sons.
He and Candace Drake were married on Jan. 29, 1993. His son Jay Wainwright lives in East Hampton and New York City, and his son Shep lives in Newport Beach, Calif. His stepdaughters both live in Newton, Mass. He is also survived by 11 grandchildren, Jack, Lucy, Sally, Alex, Reed, and Chloe Wainwright, Eliza, Charlotte, and Xander Grossman, and Will and Katie Tran, and by two siblings, Stuyvesant Wainwright III of East Hampton and Laura Wainwright of Martha’s Vineyard.
His family has suggested donations to the Friends of Georgica Pond Foundation, online at bit.ly/413qnv7 or at P.O. Box 1393, Wainscott 11975.
