elically painted Greyhound bus, driven by a group of hippies, led by Ken Kesey, who had been a student in my psychology class at Stanford.”
Margaret “Peggy” Mellon Hitchcock: The Heiress Who Funded LSD-Fueled Adventures
Attention all hipsters and psychedelic enthusiasts! The world has lost a true patroness of the arts and confidante of the coolest cats in town. Margaret “Peggy” Mellon Hitchcock, the ultra-wealthy heiress who grew up in the lavish Andrew Mellon estate, has passed away on April 9. But don’t worry, her legacy lives on through an elaborate obituary written by Penelope Green for the New York Times on May 3.
“Pretty Peggy Hitchcock” was not your average heiress. She was an international jet-setter, known for her impeccable style and wry sense of humor. But what truly set her apart was her passion for the psychedelic world. In fact, she was considered the most innovative and artistic member of the Andrew Mellon family, according to none other than Dr. Timothy Leary himself.
In his 1983 autobiography, Flashbacks, Leary wrote, “Stylish, and with a wry sense of humor, Peggy was considered the most innovative and artistic of the Andrew Mellon family.” And that’s not all, the debut issue of High Times in 1974 and the April 1978 issue both featured excerpts from Leary’s writings, proving just how influential Hitchcock was in the psychedelic scene.
The Harvard Psychedelic Project and Hitchcock’s Generosity
But let’s not forget about Dr. Richard “Ram Dass” Alpert, another psychedelic guru who was also kicked out of Harvard. Leary was allegedly dismissed for missing teaching responsibilities, but we all know it was really because of his advocacy for LSD. And Alpert? He was expelled for giving psilocybin to an undergraduate student. Talk about a wild ride.
But thanks to Hitchcock’s money and willingness to host psychedelic activities, these two were able to continue their experiments for about five years. And boy, were they wild. Graduate students from Harvard and other schools in Boston were given psilocybin and asked to write reports about their trips. And in another experiment, they even offered psilocybin to prison inmates in the hopes of reducing recidivism. And get this, both LSD and psilocybin were legal at the time. Can you imagine?
A Force of Nature in the Psychedelic World
But let’s not forget about Hitchcock’s own contributions to the psychedelic world. She was remembered for being nurturing, but also a force to be reckoned with. As her brother Billy Hitchcock told the New York Times, “She was a vibrant person, very enthusiastic. She had a completely open mind. Generous hearted to the point where people could take advantage of her. She had a lot of pain in her life, she was unlucky in love, but you would never know it. She was a real force. Whatever she did, she threw herself into.”
And if you want to hear it straight from the source, check out the documentary Dying to Know on Netflix, where Hitchcock herself discusses her involvement with LSD. She was one of the lucky ones who got to try acid when it was still a legal experimental drug. “It really confirmed a lot of things that I had hoped were true, that I had sort of glimpsed at various times in my life, that there was a larger reality than what my everyday, humdrum experiences were,” she said.
The Hitchcock Estate: A Psychedelic Haven
But where did all these wild adventures take place, you may ask? None other than the Hitchcock family estate, also known as Daheim (German for “at home”), Millbrook, or the Hitchcock estate. Designed by the renowned resort architect Addison Mizner, this lavish estate was the perfect setting for psychedelic exploration.
For five years, the estate was a hub for all things psychedelic, attracting the likes of Allen Ginsberg, Charles Mingus, and R. D. Laing. And according to the New York Times, Hitchcock was even there when Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters rolled up in their psychedelic school bus, Furthur. Leary described it as “a psychedelically painted Greyhound bus, driven by a group of hippies, led by Ken Kesey, who had been a student in my psychology class at Stanford.”
