PASSION AND OTHER SINS - PART THREE

 

“Love is often gentle, desire always a rage.”

Mignon McLaughlin

I suppose, if Leland Stanford (above) had his way, the little village of Lathrop would have been one of the biggest cities in California.  Stanford was one of the Big Four who built the California half of the first trans-continental railroad, supposedly completed in the summer of 1869. 

Except the rails did not reach unbroken to the western sea until November, when Leland’s own California Pacific Railroad finished this bridge over the San Joaquin River, just south of Lathrop.  Only then could you travel by rail all the way from sea to shinning sea. That bridge (above) is still in use. 

But despite Stanford's best efforts, Lathrop (above) never grew beyond a village. And the hamlet’s only historical claim to fame, other than the bridge, is that Lathrop is where the insanity of Althea Hill Terry and her husband David Terry played out its dénouement.

“Revenge is an act of passion; vengeance of justice. Injuries are revenged; crimes are avenged.”
Samuel Johnson

After their arrest and conviction for the courtroom outbursts of 1888, Althea and David Terry (above) were not shy about expressing their hatred of Supreme Court Judge Stephen Joseph Field.  During transport to Alameda county jail, Althea repeatedly said she intended to kill the judge. And David went so far as to invite a newspaper man, Thomas Williams, to conduct an interview from his jail cell, in which he announcing his intention of slapping the judge, and “…if Judge Field resists, I will kill him.” That interview, published in the San Francisco papers, and subsequent letters David Terry wrote other newspapers, made the couple’s rage unambiguous.

That is why, when Justice Field (above) came back to California in the spring of 1889 to hear cases,  he did his work in Los Angeles, far away from Terry’s old haunts in San Francisco, and he was given a body guard.

 The man chosen by Field’s friends was William Neagle (above), an ex-Marshall of Tombstone, Arizona, and the very same U.S. Marshall who had disarmed David Terry in the courtroom confrontation. But after an uneventful summer, on Tuesday, 13 August, 1889, Justice Field left Los Angeles on the afternoon train bound for Sacramento, where he was to connect with the transcontinental train at Lathrop. And Marshal Neagle was still traveling with him.

As the train headed north, at each station, Marshal Neagle would step off to observe who was boarding the train. At about 3:00 a.m., when the train paused in Fresno, California, Neagle saw Althea and David Terry boarding.  The Marshal immediately woke the sleeping Judge Field, in his compartment. The cantankerous old judge grunted, “Very well”, before adding, “I hope they have a good night.” With that Judge Field went back to sleep, and Neagle sent a telegram ahead to Lathop, to notify the railroad agent there, that there might be trouble in the morning.

“It is foolish to pretend that one is fully recovered from a disappointed passion. Such wounds always leave a scar.”
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Lathrop was where the rail line from Los Angles and the Central Valley of California, joined the line from Oakland, on San Francisco Bay. Here in Lathrop, in 1871, Stanford's California Pacific Railroad had opened the largest hotel in California, built for the astronomical sum of $50,000, with an enormous dinning room, to handle the 12 passenger trains a day that paused in tiny Lathrop to switch engines and crews.

In 1886 the original hotel had burned down but it was quickly replaced by dozens of independent hotels and restaurants which sprang up to compete for the new tourist business. And that was why it was in Lathrop that Althea and David Terry made their final stand.

“The only sin passion can commit is to be joyless.”
Dorothy Sayers

In the morning of Wednesday, 14 August, 1889, the Los Angeles train pulled into Lathrop station (above). Judge Field was determined to have breakfast.

Judge Field and Marshal Neagle were the first two admitted into the dinning room, escorted to their seats by the restaurant manager, Mr. Stackpole.  A few moments later, Stackpole guided Althea and David Terry to seats at a table at the other side of the dining room.  Under Stackpole’s nervous eye, there was a moment of tension, before Althea whispered something to David. She then proceeded to quickly leave the restaurant and return to the train.

As she did this, Mr. Stackpole, who had been warned by the earlier telegram, stepped forward to David and asked if the lady was about to do something “indiscrete”. David asked, “Why? Who is here?” Stackpole answered “Judge Field”. The big man stared at the judge for a moment and then urged Stackpole, “Go and watch her! Go and watch her.” Stackpole rushed out of the room after Athea. Judge Terry's s way was now clear. The 66 year old strode forward until he stood behind Judge Field.

“Subdue your passion or it will subdue you.”
Horace.

Judge Terry slapped the seated Judge Field across both cheeks, as if intending to precipitate a duel. But Marshal Neagle had no intention of observing social conventions. As he stood,  he shouted, identifying himself as a police officer, and ordered Terry to stop.  Instead, Terry reached inside his jacket, where Neagle knew from personal experience, the big man carried his bowie knife. Without waiting to see the knife,  Marshal Neagle drew his pistol and shot David Terry directly in the heart. 

The old fool dropped dead so fast that Neagle’s second shot, fired immediately after the first, only clipped Terry’s ear as he went to to the floor.

Right on cue, while the smoke still hung in the air, and the witnesses’ ears were still ringing, Althea reentered the dinning room. She shrieked and Stackpole, who was following her closely, grabbed her handbag.  In the bag the manager found a loaded pistol. Althea began to scream for vengeance, and fell upon her husband’s body. Marshal Neagle was convinced she used her body to shield her removal of David’s bowie knife.  But whether she did or not, when Terry's body was examined later by local police, no weapons was found.  It appeared the Marshal had shot an unarmed man.

“Anger is the most impotent of passions. It effects nothing it goes about, and hurts the one who is possessed by it more than the one against whom it is directed.”
Carl Sandburg

The dead man had lived most of his life in Stockton, the next stop north on the rail line. And when the train reached that town, local officials, dragged Judge Field and Marshal Neable off the train and  arrested them both for murder. The governor immediately ordered Justice Field released without bail, before his arrest became a “burning disgrace” to California. The marshal however was transported to jail in Stockton.

Judge Fields telegraphed the Marshals’ office in Stockton, which immediately notified the U.S. Attorney General,  Fields missive read, “David A. Terry grossly accosted Justice Field at Lathop station this morning and was shot dead by my deputy.” Shortly there after, Sheriff Thomas Cunningham of San Joaquin County was served with a writ of habeus corpus, to deliver Marshal Neagle to the Federal Court in San Francisco, where his life could be protected.

The California Attorney General appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court for a ruling, which was required because Marshal Neagle had not been officially assigned to protect Judge Field. And the court, sitting with Justice Field abstaining, decided “…any duty of the marshal to be derived from the general scope of his duties under the laws of the United States, is ‘a law’ within the meaning of this phrase.” In short, defending judges is the duty of officers of the court, and does not require a specific statute. Althea would get nothing for her efforts except the life’s blood of the man who had defended her.

"In her first passion, a woman loves her lover. In all the others, all she loves is love.”
Lord Byron

Justice Field hung onto his position after his colleges were aware he had become senile, merely because he wanted to set the precedent as the longest serving justice on the court. Evidently, being known as the best did not interest him. Having achieved his limited goal, he finally stepped down in 1897, and died in 1899.

In 1892, four years after David Terry’s death, Sarah Althea Hill (Sharon) Terry was committed to the Stockton State Hospital for the Insane. She was 33 years old, just about the right age for the full onset of schizophrenia. Althea lived within that institution’s walls for the next forty-five years. She died at the age of 80, appropriately enough on Valentine’s Day, 14 February, 1937.  And then they got her name wrong on the tombstone. If I was the guy who carved  that, I would keep looking over my shoulder.

“Man is to be found in reason, God in the passions.”

George Lichtenberg

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PASSION AND OTHER SINS. PART ONE

 

“Love without passion is dreary; passion without love is horrific.”

Lord Byron

I begin by reminding you of one of the lesser known legends of the goddess Psyche. I say lesser known legend because, there were so many myths and legends about Psyche, and really, few people who survive high school would feel any empathy for a cut-throat cold-blooded narcissistic "pretty girl" like Psyche.  

Which brings me to the perfect living example of the lady, a walking earthquake of passion and self-centered delusion named Sarah Althea Hill.

Miss Hill was known to friends and enemies as Althea. To describe her as normal, even for Gold Rush San Francisco, would be an insult to the abnormal. In the summer of 1880, when she was in her late twenties, she was a “rosy-cheeked, blue-eyed beauty of the Golden West,” and as loony as a bat in radar factory.  And yet she was about to come within a hair's breath of controlling one of the biggest fortunes in America, and was about to entertain, frighten and divert an entire nation for a decade. 

There had been men in Althea's life before our story beings, in particular Lawyer Reuben H. Lloyd.

Quickly Reuben discovered the lady had attached herself to him like a barnacle, and attempted to break up with her. Althea responded on 10 May, 1880, by showing up at his office to dramatically drink poison.  The police rushed the heroine to a hospital where they pumped her stomach.  So, the lady was thus  unencumbered when she met by happenstance or connivance the sixty year old United States Senator William Tang Sharon.

Sharon (above) was a dirty old man, one of the richest dirty old men in California, and the taxes he actually paid made up 2% of the entire budget of the city of San Francisco. William Sharon was also a widower with three grown children. He was also a Senator representing Nevada, with one of the worst legislative records in history. Says an historian, "He was seated at only five sessions and recorded on less than 1% of all roll calls".  But above all else he was greedy and cruel. Besides which, he actually lived in San Francisco's Palace Hotel (which he owned), and traveled to either Washington or Nevada only occasionally.

It is  also important to note that what drew the Senator and Althea together was clearly not love. It was passion. He had a passion for young women. She had a passion for money. At his suggestion they signed a pair of contracts. Or so she said.

“Passion…is violence to which you get hooked by pleasure.”
Isabelle Adjani

“In the city and county of San Francisco…on the twenty-fifth day of August, A.D.1880, I, Sarah Althea Hill….do here, in the presence of Almighty God, take Senator William Sharon, of the state of Nevada, to be my lawful and wedded husband…I agree not to make known the contents of this paper or its existence for two years…” And “…I, Senator William Sharon, of the state of Nevada…take Sarah Althea Hill…. to be my lawful and wedded wife…”  Of course, no ceremony took place, and no license was ever issued. However money did change hands. And in capitalistic nations that fits the definition of a contract. It was, in effect, a pre-nup without the nup.

The closest Sharon got to writing his own vows was the note he wrote to Mr. Thorn, who was the manager of the Grand Hotel (above left), just across the street from his own residence in his own hotel, the Palace, (above right).  It read, "Miss Hill (is) a particular friend of mine, and a lady of unblemished character and of good family. Give her the best, and as cheap as you can.” It seems the Senator had agreed to provide Althea with a suite at the Grand Hotel, which was connected via a convenient second story 72 foot long bridge to the more opulent Palace Hotel. This provided a covered approach for a late night "booty call". 

He also agreed to provide to her a monthly payment of $500,  from which she furnished the rooms. In other words, if it was a real marriage, it was a marriage of convenience. And it was convenient for the Senator for just about a year.

“Purity engenders Wisdom, Passion, avarice…”
Cyril Connolly

As late as 3 October 1881, Senator Sharon was still referring in his notes to Althea as “My Dear Wife”. However, shortly thereafter Senator Sharon offered her $7,500 in cash if she would sign a paper using the name “Miss Hill”.  In early December she did so and the very next day Mr. Thorn was informed by the Senator that the lady would be checking out.

What followed were desperate letters from Althea. “"My Dear Mr. Sharon… I cannot see how you can have any one treat me so—I, who have always been so good and kind to you—the carpet is all taken up in my hall —the door (the front door to her rooms) is taken off and away…"  And still she refused to take the hint. "Ah, Senator, dear Senator, do not treat me so —whilst every one else is so happy for Christmas, don't try to make mine miserable…" And then there entered a note of anger. "Now, Mr. Sharon, you are wronging me; so help me God, you are wronging me…”

“Nothing great in the world has ever been accomplished without passion.”
George Hegel

By the end of December, Althea was gone from the Grand and the Senator had moved on to other young women, although he occasionally still spent “time” with her.  But Althea was not finished with Senator Sharon either. 

She engaged the services of a big (6') blustery, bowie knife-wielding lawyer, a hot headed ex-justice of the California Supreme Court named David Smith Terry (above).  Like Sharon, this would be cupid was sixty when he met Althea, but unlike Sharon, Terry was just as prone to passionate outbursts as the lady.  And in September of 1883, under his guidance, Althea had a public outburst, in the local press, and then had the Senator arrested for adultery.  Sharon sued, charging Althea with attempted blackmail, and alleging that the marriage contract was a fraud. Althea counter sued the Senator in state court, as for a divorce, and, of course, for alimony.

The divorce trial entertained the citizens of San Francisco over the summer of 1884, with salacious details of how “the other half” lived, including tales of Althea watching Sharon in bed another woman. 

In September Judge Jeremiah Sullivan ruled that what Althea and Senator Sharon shared was a common law marriage, and awarded Althea half of the Senator's vast estate, as well as alimony of $2,500 a month. Althea simply purred at the decision. “I feel just like a young kitten that has been brought into the house and set before the fire.” The Senator immediately appealed 

And then on Friday, 13 November, 1885, Senator Sharon appealed to an even higher court; he died (above, his grave).  

And not very long after his death, Althea miraculously found a new will, in which the late Senator left every thing he owned to her.  However it left nothing to his three children.  And thus the curtain fell on Act One of our romantic comedy.

“We all need to look into the dark side of our nature – that’s where the energy is, the passion. People are afraid of that because it holds pieces of us we’re busy denying.”
Sue Grafton

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