goldfields

Daily Alta California, 8 April 1884

Sarah Althea Hill tried potions and charms from an assortment of fortune-tellers – they were numerous in old San Francisco – but she had not secured Senator Sharon’s affections to her satisfaction. Another of the mystic league gave her a new charm. She should take some of Sharon’s clothing in a package and bury it in a newly-dug grave beneath the coffin.

So in the spring of 1883, Allie, along with her companion Nellie Brackett, went to the Masonic Cemetery and asked if there were any funerals scheduled. The women were honest, up to a point, about their reason for asking. They explained to the cemetery foreman about having their fortunes told and their desire to bury a package in a grave. This charm would get them rich husbands, they said. What was in the package? “Rose flowers and leaves,” said Miss Brackett, airily.

Daily Alta California, 8 April 1884 — Testimony of Mr. Gilliard

The two attractive young ladies persuaded the foreman, and he held the ladder while Nellie descended into the grave and deposited her package.

This escapade came out when the trial began, and Senator Sharon had the grave dug up and the package retrieved. The package contained, not flowers and rose leaves, but men’s socks, a collar, and the tail of a man’s shirt. In court the lawyers picked over the contents of the package and held up the moldy items with a pair of scissors.

Daily Alta California, 8 April 1884 — George Washington Tyler was the lead attorney for Sarah Althea Hill

It was all high entertainment and Tyler could not resist tweaking Sharon’s lawyer as they returned from lunch by exclaiming, “Avaunt! and quit me sight; let the grave bury thee, thou who desecrateth graves on Sunday, and bringeth forth socks!’

A vignette from the Wasp on the Sharon trial

Next: Pistol-packin’ mama on the stand

But wait — it gets better!

Daily Alta California, 16 April 1884

The counsel for the defense (William Sharon’s side) had a string of strange witnesses and bizarre testimony. Sarah, seemingly desperate to find and keep a sugar daddy, sought help from fortune tellers and charm workers. One of these, named Mrs.Massey, claimed she did not deal in any sort of witchcraft.

Daily Alta California, 15 April 1884

The rich suitor was Senator Sharon, the other was a handsome lawyer named Reuben Lloyd. According to Mrs. Massey, Allie’s scheme was to marry Sharon, then do away with him, and marry Lloyd, who was the one she was truly in love with.

Daily Alta California, 15 April 1884

When Mrs. Massey’s charms with socks, shirts, candles, and hair failed to work, Allie sought out another wonder worker. Mrs. Laura Scott, “a lady of color,” testified that Allie had come to her to have her horoscope cast. She then asked for a love potion — the one she had gotten from someone else made the senator’s hands twitch. Mys. Scott consulted her book and made up a perfectly harmless concoction.

Daily Alta California, 16 April 1884

Trying the sock trick again, Allie brought Mrs. Scott a pair of Sharon’s hose. Mrs. Scott dipped the toes in whiskey, said some magic words over them, and tied them around Allie’s left leg above the knee.

Since the tea and molasses potion hadn’t worked, Allie said she would have to use her first potion, one that Mrs. Scott said smelled like — but Allie’s lawyer objected to her saying what it smelled like. But it must have smelled dangerous because Mrs. Scott was afraid it would harm Sharon.

Daily Alta California, 16 April 1884

All this traipsing around to fortune-tellers must have been exhausting. But Allie was determined — she must have her Senator, her “old darling, beautiful Sen” as she called him.

Next: Voodoo in the Graveyard

While Sarah Althea Hill’s suit for adultery was still pending, ex-Senator Sharon filed his own civil suit in federal court against her for falsely alleging that they were married. He could sue in federal court because he claimed residency in Nevada, the state where he had made his pile of money and had been elected to the U.S. Senate, while Allie was a resident of California. Although this suit would disappear from public notice as the cases for adultery and divorce held the attention of the press and public, in the end it would have fatal consequences for Allie’s fortunes.

But before all this acrimony, Allie had been either William Sharon’s wife or his mistress for over a year. He had his rooms in the Palace Hotel, and she had hers in the Grand. The two hotels were owned by Sharon and connected by an enclosed bridge over Montgomery Street.

The Grand Hotel

The Palace Hotel, with the bridge to the Grand on the left

Allie testified that she often crossed over the bridge to spend the night with Sharon. They went out together on carriage rides, to champagne dinners, and she even visited Ralston Hall in Belmont, the mansion he had acquired after the death of his partner, William C. Ralston. Although not publicly acknowledged as his wife, she certainly filled that role for a time.

Discord arose between the two in the fall of 1881. Sharon attempted to pay Allie off and ordered her out of her rooms in the Grand Hotel. She refused to go; he had the carpet outside her rooms taken up. Next to go was her front door. When he ordered men to start ripping up the carpet inside her rooms she finally moved out.

Some weeks later, according to Allie, they reconciled for a time. In order to bolster her claim to be a wife, and not just a mistress, Allie alleged that pillow talk between Sharon and herself had been overheard by her friend, hidden behind a bureau in the bedroom.

The witness called to testify was a young woman named Nellie Brackett. Nellie was a teen-age hanger-on and confidante of Allie’s. She related how Allie had hidden her behind a bureau, thinking it would only be for a few minutes, but the senator came in and persuaded Allie to stay the night in his bed. Nellie was trapped for hours, but according to both Allie and her young friend, she had heard the senator call Allie his dear little wife.

Nellie gave her testimony in March 1884. By 1885 she had recanted. Allie put her up to it, she declared. True or false, it is quite the bedroom farce, and provoked much mirth among the reporters.

The Brackett Behind the Bureau, a vignette from the cover of the satirical magazine The Wasp,

Next: Love Potion #9 

The famous marriage contract, as reproduced in the Daily Alta California, 13 November 1883

The court dismissed the suit against William Sharon for adultery on a technicality, so Sarah Althea Hill promptly sued for divorce. Of course, in order to obtain a divorce, she first had to prove that they had been married.

Her claim was that in August 1880 the senator (whom she called her “dear Sen”) had persistently wooed her. When she resisted his advances, he proposed marriage, but he wanted to keep it secret. He was campaigning for re-election to his seat in the U.S. Senate, and did not want it known that he was married, since a former mistress had just given birth to a baby, and the announcement of his marriage would cause a scandal and hurt his chances for re-election. (Allie could not explain why he wanted the marriage kept secret for two years, when the outcome of the election would be known in a few months. At any rate, his reputation as a do-nothing senator killed his chances for re-election.)

Daily Alta California, 13 March 1884 (Flora was the senator’s daughter)

She claimed that she wrote out the marriage contract at his dictation and he signed it. The ex-senator maintained that the paper was a forgery, although the signature might possibly be genuine, signed on a piece of blank paper.

The entire case for Miss Hill, or Mrs. Sharon (depending on which side you took), depended on that scrap of paper. She was reluctant to produce it, and even more loath to allow the opposition to examine it. She must have feared that Mr. Sharon would rip it up in front of the court and that would be the end of the case. But she did at last produce it.

The newspapers enjoyed reporting every movement of the lady plaintiff, every objection of the lawyers, and every outburst from the defendant. The Daily Alta California took delight in referring to “Artless Althea,” “Althea’s Agony,” and “Althea’s Agitation.” It was better than a melodrama on the stage.

Daily Alta California, 9 November 1883

The court spent days examining the contract and taking the testimony of hand-writing experts. An elderly man who had served as Sharon’s clerk for many years testified that it certainly looked like his signature. Allie also had a handful of letters from Sharon, addressing her as “Dear Wife,” and these too were put through the wringer of examination.

No one seems to have asked about witnesses to the contract. There were none. It was simply her word against his. How it could be a valid marriage when there were no witnesses, no ceremony, and no filing of a marriage certificate, was never addressed. This conundrum would have its effect on subsequent California marriage law.

Next: Life in the Palace, and the Bosom Buddy Behind the Bureau

I learned of the story of William Sharon and Sarah Althea Hill from the book you see here.

I sort and price books for the Chico Friends of the Library’s weekly book sale, and that’s how I came across the book. Just another donation, coming in the back door. Judging by the cover (which is what you are never supposed to do), I thought the book was a novel.

It’s a typical ’60’s book cover: beautiful scheming woman in the foreground and a prosperous-looking gentleman eyeing her in the background. He looks more like Gov. Leland Stanford than ex-Senator William Sharon, who sported a mustache, but not a beard, but what the hey, you get the idea.

I set it on the shelf, thinking I might get around to it someday.

When I looked inside the book, I found that it is a detailed account of an actual historical event. The court cases generated by the scandal titillated the newspaper reading public of the day as it dragged on for years. Parts of it went all the way to the United States Supreme Court.

The author of the book, Robert H. Kroninger (1923-2015), was himself an attorney and a judge of the California Superior Court. His account is meticulous and comprehensive, but at the same time it is lively and full of interest. As the author says in his introduction, the case involved:

Civil suits ranging from divorce to libel to slander; criminal prosecutions ranging from adultery, perjury, and larceny, to murder; and all this accompanied by myriad contempt of court citations and habeas corpus writs. These actions plagued both state and federal courts for nearly ten years. They were responsible for at least 14 appeals to California’s highest court and nine proceedings in the federal circuit court. Three times they found their way to the Supreme Court of the United States.

I do not plan to recount the entire tangled tale, but I will give you an outline of the story and pick out some of the more sensational aspects (of which there were many).