William Brattle Gannett died in New York City on December 26, 2025 of complications from lung cancer. He was 73.
Prior to his diagnosis this past August, Bill enjoyed a characteristically active July in Vermont. He hiked with cousins and worked on the stone walls and fields of "Pounce," the farm his grandparents bought as a summer home in 1939.
Born on September 29, 1952, Bill grew up further south in Brattleboro, where his parents moved after World War II. He was a son of Robert Tileston Gannett and Sarah Alden Derby Gannett. He attended Brattleboro schools and spent parts of summers at Pounce with his grandparents, rising early to assist neighbors on their dairy farm. He thought of his grandmother, Ethel Roosevelt Derby, as one of his earliest friends. Bill enjoyed her prodigious memory for poetry and relished their drives on local roads to call on new neighbors, with stops for him to collect discarded bottles marring the roadside.
Bill left Brattleboro for boarding school at Groton. He summarized the ensuing years for his and Anna's fiftieth college reunion book:
"In 1970, I postponed acceptance to Yale and worked for a year in two different childhood development projects in multiracial neighborhoods in Birmingham, England. Congress ended college deferments while I was in England and I started Yale with a low draft-lottery number and an untested resolve to refuse induction to fight in a proxy/colonial war. In the middle of the semester, Yale agreed to certify my year in England as the first year of a four-year college experience if I committed to finish Yale in three years. I did and graduated in 1974 as part of a class made up almost completely of strangers - but shifted my affiliation back to 1975 before our fifth reunion.
After commencement, I lived for a year off-grid in northern Vermont while working in a high school education program and then went to graduate school in history at Cornell. My focus was on Western American History (thanks to Howard Lamar) and my thesis - which included a year of research in Texas - was Patterns of Conflict: the First Generation of Anglo-American Settlement in Texas, 1821-1845.
Rather than pursue an academic career, I went to Harvard Law School and clerked in Federal District Court in Vermont - followed by what I thought would be a few years of law practice in New York. Instead, I spent the next 30 years at Cahill Gordon - most of it in leveraged finance, a practice area which barely existed when I started. To my astonishment, New York became home - especially after marrying Anna Carlson and bringing up our children there - but Vermont has remained very much a part of all of our lives."
His law firm summarizes his legal practice as follows:
"William B. Gannett was a member of Cahill Gordon & Reindel LLP's bankruptcy & restructuring and corporate practice groups. Bill principally represented commercial and investment banks in leveraged financings related to acquisitions, recapitalizations, refinancings and restructurings. He participated in transactions in a wide variety of industries, including chemicals, gaming, and communications."
Bill met Anna Carlson at their fifteenth college reunion, and they wed at Pounce in 1991. Ted and Sarah followed. Bill marveled at raising his children as New Yorkers. Together, they spent many weekends in Hastings-on-Hudson, where Anna grew up, or in Vermont.
In the city, Bill delighted in taking visitors on intrepid multi-borough walks that included stops at restaurants and often-obscure historical sites. One friend from work writes that he will always remember Bill "without jacket and with shirt sleeves rolled, strolling, casually yet purposefully, down Pine Street, in mid-winter as well."
Bill was a voracious reader, inveterate crossword puzzler, and an adventurous home cook. He was also a lifelong baseball and New England sports fan. One friend recounted how Bill once dialed up legendary baseball owner Bill Veeck—with no prior relationship—to discuss a 1978 playoff game: "I remember you telling me, as we settled into our Fenway seats, how you'd called Bill Veeck the night before to reflect on Boston's last winner-take-all playoff game, against his Indians in 1948. It was yet another one of your go-for-it things that I tucked into my memory bank. Would that I could ever summon the gumption to call up baseball royalty like that."
Bill treated the interests of his friends and family, especially his kids, with the same enthusiasm. He chased down out-of-print children's books and hunted for depictions of cats with Sarah in far-flung art museums. When Ted was in college, Bill tackled academic chemistry articles and revived his interest in English Premier League soccer.
Bill loved being outside. After retiring in 2014, he hiked the final sections of Vermont's Long Trail—with his brother accompanying him for the last stretch—to become an End-to-Ender. He also enjoyed exploring the Wind River Range and climbing Gannett Peak with Sarah. He read botany and geology textbooks for fun. He loved birding with Anna, on walks as near as Central Park and Hastings-on-Hudson and as far as nature preserves in India after Ted's 2024 wedding in Jaipur. He enjoyed rounds of golf on courses of all types, in many beautiful and geologically interesting locations.
During his intense last months Bill cited his deep appreciation for his many wonderful and devoted friends and family members, and his sorrow in not being able to communicate his feelings for each of them. In notes over the course of his illness and after his death, Bill's friends have captured his personality from many angles. They have highlighted his gentleness and thoughtful advice, cited his "humility and keenness to hear your point of view," and built a picture of a "wild, funny, yet deeply rational individual...unique, so very magnetic, and a loyal friend." Many remarked on Bill's playfulness and wit, with one classmate writing that "Bill's generous spirit made law school bearable, funny, enjoyable and full of wondrous surprises."
In recent years, Bill took great pride in helping with fundraising efforts for the Coalition to Save our Mental Health Centers, an initiative coordinated by his brother's organization, the Institute for Community Empowerment in Chicago. Other projects that captured his interest and commitment included the VTDigger nonprofit newsroom; Untermyer Gardens in Yonkers; trail maintenance along the Old Croton Aqueduct State Historic Park; and the revitalization of Create Together at Fletcher Farm Center in Ludlow. He also remained dedicated to the Winston Prouty Center in Brattleboro and served on the board of the New York-New Jersey Trail Conference.
Bill is survived by his wife, Anna Bryan Carlson; his children Theodore Reid Gannett and his wife Karna Nangia, and Sarah Bryan Gannett and her fiancé Bradford Case; his sister Alden G. Taylor (Gustavus Taylor); his brother Robert T. Gannett (Joanne R. Gannett); Anna's extended family; 15 amazing nieces and nephews; wonderful cousins; and friends both lifelong and new.
The family will plan a memorial celebration for a future date.
Prior to his diagnosis this past August, Bill enjoyed a characteristically active July in Vermont. He hiked with cousins and worked on the stone walls and fields of "Pounce," the farm his grandparents bought as a summer home in 1939.
Born on September 29, 1952, Bill grew up further south in Brattleboro, where his parents moved after World War II. He was a son of Robert Tileston Gannett and Sarah Alden Derby Gannett. He attended Brattleboro schools and spent parts of summers at Pounce with his grandparents, rising early to assist neighbors on their dairy farm. He thought of his grandmother, Ethel Roosevelt Derby, as one of his earliest friends. Bill enjoyed her prodigious memory for poetry and relished their drives on local roads to call on new neighbors, with stops for him to collect discarded bottles marring the roadside.
Bill left Brattleboro for boarding school at Groton. He summarized the ensuing years for his and Anna's fiftieth college reunion book:
"In 1970, I postponed acceptance to Yale and worked for a year in two different childhood development projects in multiracial neighborhoods in Birmingham, England. Congress ended college deferments while I was in England and I started Yale with a low draft-lottery number and an untested resolve to refuse induction to fight in a proxy/colonial war. In the middle of the semester, Yale agreed to certify my year in England as the first year of a four-year college experience if I committed to finish Yale in three years. I did and graduated in 1974 as part of a class made up almost completely of strangers - but shifted my affiliation back to 1975 before our fifth reunion.
After commencement, I lived for a year off-grid in northern Vermont while working in a high school education program and then went to graduate school in history at Cornell. My focus was on Western American History (thanks to Howard Lamar) and my thesis - which included a year of research in Texas - was Patterns of Conflict: the First Generation of Anglo-American Settlement in Texas, 1821-1845.
Rather than pursue an academic career, I went to Harvard Law School and clerked in Federal District Court in Vermont - followed by what I thought would be a few years of law practice in New York. Instead, I spent the next 30 years at Cahill Gordon - most of it in leveraged finance, a practice area which barely existed when I started. To my astonishment, New York became home - especially after marrying Anna Carlson and bringing up our children there - but Vermont has remained very much a part of all of our lives."
His law firm summarizes his legal practice as follows:
"William B. Gannett was a member of Cahill Gordon & Reindel LLP's bankruptcy & restructuring and corporate practice groups. Bill principally represented commercial and investment banks in leveraged financings related to acquisitions, recapitalizations, refinancings and restructurings. He participated in transactions in a wide variety of industries, including chemicals, gaming, and communications."
Bill met Anna Carlson at their fifteenth college reunion, and they wed at Pounce in 1991. Ted and Sarah followed. Bill marveled at raising his children as New Yorkers. Together, they spent many weekends in Hastings-on-Hudson, where Anna grew up, or in Vermont.
In the city, Bill delighted in taking visitors on intrepid multi-borough walks that included stops at restaurants and often-obscure historical sites. One friend from work writes that he will always remember Bill "without jacket and with shirt sleeves rolled, strolling, casually yet purposefully, down Pine Street, in mid-winter as well."
Bill was a voracious reader, inveterate crossword puzzler, and an adventurous home cook. He was also a lifelong baseball and New England sports fan. One friend recounted how Bill once dialed up legendary baseball owner Bill Veeck—with no prior relationship—to discuss a 1978 playoff game: "I remember you telling me, as we settled into our Fenway seats, how you'd called Bill Veeck the night before to reflect on Boston's last winner-take-all playoff game, against his Indians in 1948. It was yet another one of your go-for-it things that I tucked into my memory bank. Would that I could ever summon the gumption to call up baseball royalty like that."
Bill treated the interests of his friends and family, especially his kids, with the same enthusiasm. He chased down out-of-print children's books and hunted for depictions of cats with Sarah in far-flung art museums. When Ted was in college, Bill tackled academic chemistry articles and revived his interest in English Premier League soccer.
Bill loved being outside. After retiring in 2014, he hiked the final sections of Vermont's Long Trail—with his brother accompanying him for the last stretch—to become an End-to-Ender. He also enjoyed exploring the Wind River Range and climbing Gannett Peak with Sarah. He read botany and geology textbooks for fun. He loved birding with Anna, on walks as near as Central Park and Hastings-on-Hudson and as far as nature preserves in India after Ted's 2024 wedding in Jaipur. He enjoyed rounds of golf on courses of all types, in many beautiful and geologically interesting locations.
During his intense last months Bill cited his deep appreciation for his many wonderful and devoted friends and family members, and his sorrow in not being able to communicate his feelings for each of them. In notes over the course of his illness and after his death, Bill's friends have captured his personality from many angles. They have highlighted his gentleness and thoughtful advice, cited his "humility and keenness to hear your point of view," and built a picture of a "wild, funny, yet deeply rational individual...unique, so very magnetic, and a loyal friend." Many remarked on Bill's playfulness and wit, with one classmate writing that "Bill's generous spirit made law school bearable, funny, enjoyable and full of wondrous surprises."
In recent years, Bill took great pride in helping with fundraising efforts for the Coalition to Save our Mental Health Centers, an initiative coordinated by his brother's organization, the Institute for Community Empowerment in Chicago. Other projects that captured his interest and commitment included the VTDigger nonprofit newsroom; Untermyer Gardens in Yonkers; trail maintenance along the Old Croton Aqueduct State Historic Park; and the revitalization of Create Together at Fletcher Farm Center in Ludlow. He also remained dedicated to the Winston Prouty Center in Brattleboro and served on the board of the New York-New Jersey Trail Conference.
Bill is survived by his wife, Anna Bryan Carlson; his children Theodore Reid Gannett and his wife Karna Nangia, and Sarah Bryan Gannett and her fiancé Bradford Case; his sister Alden G. Taylor (Gustavus Taylor); his brother Robert T. Gannett (Joanne R. Gannett); Anna's extended family; 15 amazing nieces and nephews; wonderful cousins; and friends both lifelong and new.
The family will plan a memorial celebration for a future date.
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