Don’t be scared, but there may be strangers in your house.
Anyone lucky enough to inherit their family’s photo album must have wondered about some of the folks in there. Are there unlabeled Victorian-era portraits where people look as stiff as statues? Maybe there are snapshots from a century ago of relatives posing with seemingly close friends – but could they be distant relations you’d like to know about? There may also be missing persons. Why do none of the photos with great-aunt Tilda include her husband Cornelius?
This is a quick trip through a collection of pictures left by a Santa Rosa family from around the turn of the century. Or rather, it’s about forty images that were donated to the Sonoma County Library, which scanned them and placed them online. Not all of the set is interesting – about half are nameless, rigid-necked Victorians – but some are quite unusual and deserve attention. The final section of this article concerns the more serious question about what could be done to restore information missing from thousands of historical photos in our library’s archive and elsewhere.
The first puzzle is figuring out which family we’re looking at. The library’s descriptions usually mention “William H. Hudson” or “part of a collection of Hudson family photographs” but that’s a weak clue, as there were several unrelated Hudson clans in the North Bay at the time which included a William H. A few years ago the Sonoma County Historical Society wrote a piece on this and concluded a Santa Rosa businessman was the right guy.1
But in the library collection three different men are identified as William H. Are their photos mislabeled or were these really the trio who shared the same name? And which one is the businessman we seek? Fortunately, he was vain enough to buy an entry in one of the local history “mug books” so we have an accurate reference of what he looked like, at least in his senior years.2
RIGHT: William Hall Hudson (1855-1927)
That history book offers a detailed bio or you can read a condensed version at his entry on Find a Grave (although it presently uses photos of wrong Williams). Here I’m skipping most of the details except for those that apply to the photographs.
Overlooked was that William and his wife Percie had very private lives. Rarely were they mentioned in any of the local newspapers. Aside from a nice announcement in the paper where he once worked as a printer, their marriage was elsewhere a two-line notice in the Vital Statistic columns. There were no birth announcements for their children, even though she was part of a large and prominent Healdsburg family.
Their quiet profile extended to the family album. There’s no wedding photo, nor baby pictures, nor portraits of their son in Army uniform as he went off to fight in WWI, nor picture of the son with his wife or of their children. (Think about that for a moment: Grandparents without a single photograph of their grandkids?!) I want to assume such images did exist and at some point a family member raided the album, but the Hudson’s seeming desire to live behind closed doors does not lend great confidence.
“Portrait of an unidentified couple with their backs to the camera” (Courtesy Sonoma County Library)
The iconic picture in the library’s Hudson set portrays a man and woman with their backs turned. The Sonoma Historian newsletter printed it in 2010 as a “mystery photo” and it can also be spotted on social media, where it’s usually tagged as being funny. It may indeed be a gag photo; we have no information about it or if the couple is Percie and William.
We can date it to around the late 1880s because of the “Souvenir Studio” credit.3 Photographer Jim Piggott seemed to be a light-hearted fellow who might encourage goofiness; his advertising motto was “A man may have A BAD DISPOSITION Nevertheless he may conceal it by having his photos taken at the Souvenir Studio.”
Also in that period the Hudsons lost a child – the mug book biography stated one of their two kids died in infancy. We can guess that happened in 1886 or 1887 because an item in the May 1886 Democrat noted Percie had returned to Santa Rosa from a long visit in the Midwest with her “little daughter” Ethel. Per the Hudson’s pattern of reclusiveness, there was no death notice, as there had been no birth announcement.4
This photo is likely a “mourning portrait” taken to memorialize Ethel’s passing. Americans in the Victorian era were somewhat more restrained than their Brit cousins in taking creepy post-mortem photographs of their dead and poses similar to this were an alternative. The symbolic objective was to conceal faces of the mourners because they could not bear to be seen, as they were wracked with indescribable grief. (Some were quite artistic, with the eyes and upper face hidden in noir-like shadow or the head sharply turned away from the camera.)
“Portrait of Willam H. Hudson, about 1863” (Courtesy Sonoma County Library)
Seven portraits in the library’s Hudson family collection are supposedly William as a child, but like the adult portraits they appear to be two (or more?) boys; colors of the eyes and hair vary and the ears may jut out (or not). In one bizarre offering the boy’s hair is crudely drawn in along with his eyebrows, which were placed so high on his forehead he could pass for a Vulcan.
Live long and prosper, sketchy Earthboy
Another quirky example of Victoriana can be spotted in the portrait that’s assumed to be William at age six or seven. Notice the curtain is unusually draped behind his right arm and over the corner of the chair. That was a typical trick used to conceal a mother or other adult for what’s now called “hidden mother photography.”
As the Wikipedia page explains, it was difficult to keep small children completely still during the long exposure times required by early cameras, yet the Victorians didn’t want the distraction of including an adult in the picture. Their solution was to hide the mother under a blanket or behind something, such as the curtain seen here. Presumably the mother is clutching the boy’s hidden left hand and chanting, “holdstillholdstillholdstill…”. Hidden mothers were most commonly used while photographing infants, but perhaps William was an unusually squirmy child.
“William H. Hudson and daughter, Santa Rosa, California, about 1900” (Courtesy Sonoma County Library)
The library caption on this image is incorrect, as his only daughter died in infancy. We don’t know who she is, but comparing this man to the portrait in the history mug book shows this is indeed William, and is the only bonafide picture of him in the Hudson family collection.
Today we would call William an entrepreneur, as during most of his adult life he owned and operated different businesses at the same time. Trained as a printer he became the proprietor of hotels in Ukiah and Windsor. His main income came from plants that bottled soda pop and mineral water, which he ran in Mendocino and Southern California before buying the Santa Rosa Bottling Works in 1887.
The girl’s fan advertises “Sassafras Sour” which was probably among the brands of root beer he made under license. Other carbonated soft drinks included “Cresta Blanca” (not the wine), “Ly-nola” (described as a ‘fruit beverage’), “Oyster Cocktail” (stored at room temperature for how long?), “Whistle” (maybe the best name ever for a soda) and “Dr. Swett’s” (maybe the worst).
William upgraded his bottling plant on West Third and the Press Democrat ran little items about new state-of-the-art carbonation machines and such. He expanded his territory and opened a branch store in Occidental before selling the business and retiring in 1924.
“Gold Lion whiskey–perfection–the Old Crow whiskey” (Courtesy Sonoma County Library)
“Dear Dr. Freud; please take a look at this photograph. Seriously, WTF? Sincerely, William, Santa Rosa Ca.” [parody]
This advertisement cabinet card is the oddest artifact in the Hudson collection and, I’ll wager, the champion oddity in the library’s entire photo archive. Nothing is known about it except that the back reads, “‘Compliments of Tom Spencer, Livingston & Co.’ for Gold Lion whiskey, 1234 Deer Run”.
William likely had this because of another of his companies. From 1892 to 1901 he had the largest retail and wholesale liquor store in Santa Rosa, first on Exchange Avenue then moved to lower Fourth St. Yet curiously, he later acted as if it never existed – that long-running business went unmentioned in his history book bio and in the obituaries.
“Mrs. A. H. Bates, Capt. M. V. Bates” (Courtesy Sonoma County Library)
The Hudson album also included a souvenir card from a circus sideshow with Anna and Martin Van Buren Bates, the “tallest couple in the world” according to a blurb printed on the back. The man of “ordinary” height next to them was about six feet tall. The Bates were part of the W. W. Cole circus which played Santa Rosa on October 6, 1880.
It was not uncommon to include such photos in a family album. My own family’s collection had a portrait from about that same time of an adult couple with dwarfism, but no caption explaining who they were or if they were relations. (This caused high anxiety in my cousin when we were kids, as she was slightly shorter than her schoolmates and convinced herself she had stopped growing.)
This keepsake cabinet card and the whiskey ad above make the point the albums weren’t just archives of dead ancestor portraits. They were storybooks. Particularly in the age before radio and TV, the family album was an important source of entertainment – a display of assorted interesting people to talk about. Other identified (and presumably unrelated) portraits connected to the Hudsons included a Petaluma minister and the vice president of the United States under Grover Cleveland.
An album might be pulled from the shelf when relatives or old friends stopped by to visit and the pictures unlocked memories: Perhaps someone would say, “Oh, here’s grandma Gus. Remember how blue were her eyes?” The visitors might chip in with their own stories and for a few nostalgic moments the clock turned back as she was recalled tenderly (or not). And then everyone had a good laugh over the card of the girl with riding crop in her teeth on the next page.
“Unidentified male member of the Hudson family, about 1880” (Courtesy Sonoma County Library)
The photo of this unknown workman is (in my opinion) the most intriguing of the Hudson set. There must be quite a tale behind it; Victorian-American tradition was to wear somber “burial clothes” and pose in the style of formal classical painted portraits. Everyone else in the Hudson album was a model of respectability to be honored for a life well lived.
It’s not just that he’s dressed as a heavy laborer and looks like he’s taking a break from ditch digging. His hands are rough, dirty and he’s holding them in a way to draw attention to them. Having that big cigar clenched in his teeth makes him seem all the more defiant over having to sit for a portrait. “Ya’ nagged me for a damned picture and here it is. Hope yer’ happy.”
Some other unknown portraits from the Hudson collection in the Sonoma County Library
We don’t know the name of our stogie-chompin’ pal, nor do we know when he was photographed. Among the Hudson set there are eighteen others of unknown people from the family or supposedly connected to them. Of the 31,000+ images in the Sonoma County Library Photograph Collection, I imagine there are easily a thousand with one or more unidentified figures. And that’s just for our little slice of heaven – multiply that by all the holdings in university and library archives and posts on social media nationally. A truly staggering number of pictures show people who have no names and likewise no stories.
With a family album like the Hudsons where nearly half of the entries have no-names, the temptation to speculate can be difficult to resist, even for experienced genealogists. That middle-aged couple photographed in Iowa, where the Hudsons lived when William was a child – it must be safe to assume they are his parents, right? Well, no; they could easily be relatives from far-flung branches on the family tree or just friends.
Is there a solution to this identification problem? I believe there is – or at least, a means to ID lots of these mystery people.
It should come as no surprise that late 19th century studio photographers made their real money on selling copies, not taking the picture itself. Customers were sold packs of cabinet cards like the ones seen above to be given away to family and friends (prices ranged around 4/$1.00 and 12/$2.00). This means there could be surviving duplicates of these cards floating around in other online collections. And some of those surely have details about who’s in them.
Much has been written about AI companies scraping the internet for text that could be reused for apps such as ChatGPT. Lesser known is that they also collect image data on the web and reverse image search apps, such as Google Lens, can find other copies of the same portrait. In theory.
For better or worse you can’t do that, but not for any technical reasons. In Google Lens any image search for a person comes with an alert which reads, “results for people are limited”. Experiments using images from the Hudson collection results in no exact matches but plenty of lookalike portraits, almost all from commercial sources such as eBay, Etsy and antique vendors where they are available for purchase. Yet we know Google has indexed the Sonoma County Library pages because it finds the captions from the photos. What’s going on here?
Google and its ilk are justly concerned image search tools can be used to easily violate privacy – there’s no foolproof way to determine whether the picture of someone’s face came from a century-old source or was taken sans permission using a phone five minutes ago. The risk of all manner of wrongdoing is indefensibly high.
But as you can probably imagine, there’s also plenty of complaining on social media that this approach is overbroad. Not only does it restrict legit research such as genealogy, it also can enable crime by helping identity thieves keep themselves concealed.
Unless I’m missing some fine legal hairsplitting, it seems to me the solution to the researcher’s dilemma is to recognize that exact matches for images now in the public domain are fair game. That’s how Google and Internet Archive handle books; currently anything produced before 1929 (the 95 year limit of copyright) is available for full download without restrictions. Similarly, you should be able to find other copies of your ancestor’s Victorian era portrait if Google et. al. know where they are. Or to put it another way, the search engines with this particular information do not have a legitimate reason to hide it from you.
There’s no dispute Google Lens is the 800 lb. gorilla in the world of reverse image search, so this is an issue only that company can solve. Perhaps they should split off (what surely is) the small niche of historic image searching to a different body, such as an academic institution or Ancestry. They could even drop the facial recognition module – ain’t nobody’s going to use a portrait of your g-grandma to catfish lonely men on dating sites.
Linking all the image archives on the internet with simple matching could be an incredibly powerful tool. Historians may discover photos which were described at the time but have been long considered lost; genealogists could find unknown branches of their family. And we even might learn that all the strange business packed into that whisky ad was just symbolism connected to silly rituals performed by a group like the Elks’ club in the day.
1 “Lots of Names, Few Photo IDs” Sonoma Historian 2010 #4, pg. 14-15
2 Honoria Tuomey, History of Sonoma County, California Vol. II, 1926, pg. 548-549
J. K. Piggott’s studio at the corner of Fourth and B street first advertised in 1888 and he sold it a year later, then repurchased it in 1890 before selling it again the next year. So the photo had to be taken 1888-1891 except for a gap between Nov. 1889 and Aug. 1890.
4 Confusing matters further, there was another Santa Rosa girl named Ethel Hudson, born in 1879. She was the daughter of daughter of Henry W. Hudson and on at least one occasion the Democrat confused H. W. Hudson with our W. H. Hudson. It appears there might be a link between those two Hudson families. The mother (Mrs. H. W. Hudson) of 1879 Ethel was part of the Northcutt family. Percie was the aunt of a Miss Lou Northcutt – see reference in sources below. Tracing it further, however, is beyond my genealogical skill set.
All images above from the Sonoma County Library Photograph Collection have been slightly modified, usually to brighten the photo and improve contrast. The entry with Hudson and the girl was flipped horizontally so the text on her fan would be legible
MARRIED. PALMER-HUDSON — In Healdsburg, July 10, 1881, at the residence of the bride’s parents, by Rev. S. A. Taft, Miss Percie Palmer of Healdsburg to Wm. H. Hudson of Ukiah. With the above happy announcement came the largest package of the best-made wedding cake, and we join the many friends in wishing the young couple much joy. The groom is a nephew of T. W. Hudson, Esq., of this city. Arriving in this State a few years ago in his teens, he aided us a few times in printing the Flag; bis course since then has been characterized by enterprise and industry till now, by his own exertiona he has become a partner in a good business in Ukiah, as well as the possessor of one of the fair young ladies of Healdsburg. How many of our young men have made a better record? We congratulate both of the young people and have unbounded confidence in their success and happiness.
– Russian River Flag, July 14 1881
Mrs. W. H. Hudson and little daughter Ethel returned from Columbia, Missouri, where they been visting for some time past. Mrs. Hudson’s niece, Miss Lou Northcut, accompanied them, and will spend the summer with her aunt in this city.
– Daily Democrat, May 14 1886
HEART ATTACK HELD CAUSE OF HUDSON DEATH
Retired Businessman, 71, Drops Dead in Street; Final Rites Thursday
William H. Hudson, 71, for 40 years a resident here and founder of the Santa Rosa Bottling Works, dropped dead in Third street within two blocks of his home yesterday morning while on his way uptown. Heart trouble is blamed for his sudden death, although he is said to have been in good health and is reported to have remarked to members of his family before leaving home how well he was feeling. He was picked up by passersby, who saw him fall near the cannery. Although Coroner Fred Young could not be reached last night, it is probable there will be a formal investigation, the date for which has not been set.
Funeral services will be held Thursday afternoon at 2 o’clock from the Welti chapel on Fourth street, with the Rev. J. Allan Price of the Baptist Church officiating. Burial services will be held in Odd Fellow’s cemetery by Santa Rosa Eagles, of which Hudson member. Hudson was born in Missouri on December 24, 1885 [sic], and when a child went to Iowa and then to Nebraska with his parents, where he learned the printer’s trade. On first coming to California in 1882 he entered the hotel business at Ukiah, later establishing a bottling works in Mendocino.
Five years later he transferred the business to Visalia and in 1887 he moved to Santa Rosa, where resumed business. He retired in 1924 and since that time has not been actively engaged in business. He married Miss Percie Palmer. daughter of Mr. and Mrs. J. S. Palmer, Healdsburg pioneers, on June 10, 1881. Clyde V. Hudson is the only surviving son of the two children born to the couple.
Besides his son is survived by two sisters, Mrs. Theodicia Schroder and Mrs. Allie Tolson of Long Beach.
Santa Rosa could not believe its great good luck in the mid-1870s: A money man of the San Francisco Stock Exchange had taken interest in our little farmtown, quickly launching public works projects and buying 130 acres for an addition to the city. Nearly every issue of the local newspapers had shoutouts to our benefactor or the mansions being built on the grand avenue bearing his name.
Now shift forward twenty years and he’s viewed as less the benevolent tycoon and more like a penny-ante robber baron. He seems bent on suing the city into bankruptcy and is using the courts to bully elected officials and anyone he views as rivals. He’s accused of bribery, coercion and conspiracy as well as being criminally negligent. Ladies and gentlemen, please meet Mark L. McDonald.
Mark L. McDonald c. 1879. Image courtesy Sonoma County Library
For someone with such a storied name, his life has remained remarkably unexamined. Today there’s a small Wikipedia page on the family and most writers lean heavily on the 1911 profile in the Tom Gregory county history, which is the sort of hagiography that results when the subject is paying for the pleasure.
His connection to Santa Rosa came via his wife Ralphine. They were married in early 1866, just a few months after her family arrived here in the wake of the Civil War. The ceremony was at the home of Thomas L. Thompson, the rabidly pro-Confederate editor of the Democrat. It was perhaps the town’s reputation as a Confederacy enclave that drew the North family here; they had a Mississippi plantation and father Ralph had been a Natchez judge. (Edited to correct: The family plantation story was probably a myth; see the following article.) The following year Ralphine was involved in the ball held on the Santa Rosa Plaza to raise money for the “Ladies’ Southern Relief Fund” which was all or in part organized by her dad.
Although Mark was likely there that evening dancing with his wife to aid the ex-slave states, we don’t know much about where he stood on almost anything. In 1877 he wanted to be appointed to fill a vacant seat in the U.S. Senate and while much was written about his fine character, his views were never mentioned. We do know he was unwaveringly opposed to the Chinese in California; he was chair of an anti-Chinese committee that sent a lobbyist to Washington, refused to hire Chinese laborers and when he became a Santa Rosa City Councilman in 1883, the first resolution he introduced was to wipeout the tiny Chinatown on Hinton Ave.
Ralphine and Mark lived in San Francisco where he mostly made his fortune by savvy stock trading. No mention was made of him being in Santa Rosa until 1875 when he bought the water company, which had struggled to offer even minimal service for years.
During the years 1876 and 1877 he took the town by storm. He bought the big chunk of land and announced he was going to build a home there. Digging began on the pond to be used as a reservoir for his waterworks and would later become known as Lake Ralphine, but when he learned the contractor was using Chinese workers he demanded they be fired and replaced with white laborers, promising to make up the difference of their much higher wages. The next year he started laying rails for a horse-drawn streetcar system.
Those were the dawn of halcyon days. “We consider it fortunate that a gentleman of the wealth and energy of Mr. McDonald has become so largely interested in our midst,” gushed the Democrat newspaper. The water mains reached farther into the town and there was at least enough water pressure to ensure a hearty trickle up to the third story of a building. Santa Rosans so loved his streetcar that they took excursions out to the Rural Cemetery after Sunday dinners.
Besides those good works historians often credit him with establishing the town’s free public library with a donation of his private collection, along with leading efforts to have the city brighten the evening darkness with gaslights. He was a library trustee briefly but if he contributed books (or money!) it was never mentioned in the papers at the time – he was, however, open to putting up bookshelves at the City Hall to house magazine and book donations from the public. And when placement of streetlights was under discussion by the City Council in 1884 he discouraged lighting the downtown plaza but “wanted the lights scattered about where respectable people lived,” i.e. places like McDonald Avenue.
Come the 1890s, tho, the McDonalds – Mark, and to a lesser degree his brother James and son Mark Jr. – were being seen as rapacious, self-serving capitalists who were indifferent to Santa Rosa’s progress and even safety.
Mark’s street railway went from Railroad Square down Fourth street, turned on McDonald Ave. and terminated at Argyle Park (now the Presbyterian Church campus). Well and good for those who had a swank address on McDonald, but the town was mostly expanding on the north side, which we now call the Junior College neighborhood. When another streetcar company began serving that area, Mark McDonald sued them. Another company later tried offering service to Bennett Valley and he sued them too. More about those lawsuits will be discussed in a following chapter.
McDonald undoubtedly lost good will with his petty efforts to stay the streetcar czar, but far more serious were matters involving the waterworks.
Under state law, cities like Santa Rosa which relied upon a private water company had to set rates annually based on the company’s profits. Through most of the 1880s the City Council rubber-stamped McDonald’s proposed rates for the coming year after he submitted a brief summary of his financial statements, sometimes remarking on the record that his prices “were just and fair.” But come 1889, the Council rejected his summary; he resubmitted it and that too was found inadequate, but based on it the city set a lower rate for the coming year. A committee from the Council did get a look at his books, however, and discovered he was apparently trying to short-change investors – he claimed gross revenue was only $8k when it was really over $21,000.1
Two years later the town had soured on Mark McDonald, with rumors going around that he was pulling the strings at City Hall by dishing out bribes. This came up at a City Council meeting with one of the members protesting “He was tired of having it said that Colonel McDonald ran the Council: that the Council men had been wined and dined and driven about by the Colonel.” The others spoke up to declare themselves uncorrupted and incorruptible, although one admitted having “wined with Colonel McDonald, but paid for the wine.”
At that same July 22, 1891 council meeting the main topic was the quality of water McDonald was providing. The Democrat reported one Councilman said “he was heartily tired of hearing Colonel McDonald talk about his pure and limpid streams and exhaustless supplies.” McDonald was supplying customers with untreated pond water, Councilman Tupper said: “Go and look at what passes into your street sprinklers. There is enough crawling vermin in them to fill a bushel basket.”
Mark was present at the meeting and argued he had spent lots of money on the water system and it was against the interests of the city to say it was contaminated – but if they wanted to visit Lake Ralphine and look around they were welcome to do so. He must have thought they wouldn’t call his bluff, but the Council ordered the Board of Health to investigate. There was also talk of offering a bond to either buy him out or build a municipal waterworks from scratch. Spectators at the meeting loudly stamped their feet in approval.
Lake Ralphine c. 1905. Image courtesy Sonoma County Library
The inspection was made by the Board of Health and a City Council committee. Always eager to spin the news for McDonald, the Democrat asked the most sympathetic Councilman what they saw. “We found many things that, it seemed to me, were not right. There were drainages leading into the lake that should not exist, and I am surprised that the management should have allowed such things to exist.”
That was a helluva understatement. The Board of Health report (transcribed below) thought McDonald’s waterworks were “criminally negligent and indifferent to our welfare as a city.” There was no effort to block runoff from surrounding farms (“on the contrary, we saw evidence which went to show that it was rather encouraged”). The Republican newspaper went further and explained “The sides of that pond are a pasture field extending almost to the water’s edge. Every rain carries manure from the stock pasturing on the hills surrounding this pond.”
The creeks feeding the reservoir were also being contaminated by farm runoff: “We do not hesitate to say that as things existed when we visited the creek the health of this community is greatly menaced.”
Besides creating embankments to keep manure from washing into the reservoir, the Board recommended McDonald tap two large springs known as the “Shaw Springs” which fed a creek that passed near the lake. Unfortunately, the report stated, “On its way it flows through a low, marshy piece of ground, on which hogs and other animals graze, and upon which marsh dead animals are often thrown.” The property owner had built a dam to block that creek from polluting the reservoir.
So what was Mark McDonald’s first response to the Board of Health report? He sued the Shaw Springs landowner to remove the dam so the fully contaminated water could enter the lake. Gentle Reader’s jaw should now be picked off the floor.
The Democrat printed the report, but commented “The least said about the indictment of the water probably the better it will be for the city.” Even that paper – which the Republican was calling the “organ of the Water Company” – grudgingly admitted something must be done, either condemning McDonald’s company so the city could buy it or building a municipal plant. Mark told a Councilman that he would be willing to sell out for $250,000.
By the end of the year, however, the Democrat was back to being McDonald’s propagandist, to wit: Mark is making improvements which will increase Lake Raphine’s capacity and laying new water mains, people should remember how bad the situation was before he took over, the quality “is as pure and limpid as the most delicious spring water,” no “disease or prevailing sickness [has] been traced to the unwholesomeness of the water,” yadda, yadda.
To prove how wonderful the water quality was, editor Thompson said he personally took a sample directly from a hydrant and sent it to UC/Berkeley. The analysis by the esteemed Prof. Hilgard of the Agricultural Department showed it was “abundantly good enough” though harder than some people might like.2
Thompson reprinted that analysis over the following year until the Republican pointed out his water sample had obviously come from someone’s well and not the waterworks – the only aspect of McDonald’s water everyone liked was its extraordinary softness. “Soften the water of Ralphine! Ye gods!” Republican editor Allan Lemmon jeered.
In January 1893 it was pretty clear which direction the town was heading. A consultant Santa Rosa hired several months earlier finished his plans for a municipal waterworks which was estimated to cost $165k. The mayor and city attorney also made a field trip to Santa Cruz and gave the City Council a glowing report that their city-operated system was the “pride of the people” and had the lowest water rates in the state.
At the following meeting the Council ordered a special election for approval of a bond to either build a new plant or buy out McDonald. Mark said he would sell it to the city at the slightly reduced price of $210,000. His offer was immediately rejected, as it would additionally cost half again as much to fix all the problems with his water system.
Thus in May 1893 the city enthusiastically voted for a bond to build a municipal waterworks. The 74 percent approval was surely a repudiation of Mark McDonald – in the weeks before the Democrat editorialized and ran letters lamenting all the “prejudice” against him. (The Democrat’s other position before the vote was the city had no guarantee the municipal system “scheme” would find an adequate water supply and anything pumped from underground “would be absolutely dangerous.”)
Now that Santa Rosa was firmly on course to build its own system, one might presume McDonald would stop fighting over the issue. He was a very, very rich man; profits from the waterworks would have been small change to the likes of him. As he still had the control of all the water mains via the old city franchise, wouldn’t it have behooved Mark to make a deal to help ease transition into the upcoming municipal system? After all, his family were residents of the town themselves (at least part time, anyway).
Not on your life. He was also a very, very petty man; witness the lawsuits he waged over streetcar lines that didn’t even compete with his own. Everything covered here was just the prelude to years of expensive, meaningless court fights that strived to beat down and economically cripple Santa Rosa along with personally crushing his town critics.
The takeaway was that no one – no one – could be allowed to brace the wind against the force that was Mark L. McDonald.
2 The water sample had about 84 mg/l calcium/magnesium carbonates and gypsum. The USGS classifies 61 to 120 mg/L as moderately hard, 121 to 180 mg/L as hard and over 180 mg/L as very hard.
During the past week a controlling interest in the stock of the Santa Rosa Water Company was purchased by Mark McDonald, of San Francisco. We are informed that the supply of water will be increased and the reservoir improved. For the present there will be no increase of rates. Messrs. Hahman, Juilliard, Williams, Temple, Latapte, Clark, and others have sold their interests. We hope the gentlemen who have realized from the sale of their stock will now turn their attention to the development of some other enterprise for the benefit of Santa Rosa.
– Sonoma Democrat, April 24 1875
CITY COUNCIL.
…Colonel McDonald asked the privilege of the chair to say a few words, and, his request granted, he went on to state that while there might be a difference of opinion as to the water system and the manner in which it is conducted, he thought it was prejudicial to the interests of the city to have the impression go abroad that the water is not pure and wholesome. The evening paper he continued, had printed an article attacking the water company, and misrepresenting the quality and quantity of water. The water company had tried to conform to the requirements of the laws made by the Council and desired to do anything and everything to improve the service furnished the citizens. He was anxious the Council should appoint a committee to visit the reservoir and investigate as to the cleanliness and purity of the water. The company had expended several thousand dollars in furnishing the citizens with an adequate supply of water, and many other improvements were in contemplation.
Mr. Tupper was opposed to having any newspaper dragged into the controversy, and he said he was heartily tired of hearing Colonel McDonald talk about his pure and limpid streams and exhaustless supplies. He knew, as all the citizens knew and as Colonel McDonald knows, that the water is impure. [“]Go and look at what passes into your street sprinklers. There is enough crawling vermin in them to fill a bushel basket. The reservoir has not been cleaned but once in ten years, and under a hot sun in an arid country like this the water in a little pond like the Colonel’s is bound to become foul and impure.[“]
Colonel McDonald said, in response to Mr. Tupper, that he had not intended to attack any paper; he was simply criticising what be deemed a misstatement. He was heartily desirous of having the Council investigate the purity of the water. He would guarantee that there was not purer water furnished in any other city of the State.
Mr. Doyle, who had seen what Mr. Tupper referred to when speaking of the crawling vermin from the sprinklers, asked Colonel McDonald if the water taken from the hydrants by the sprinklers was the same as that used by the citizens.
Colonel McDonald said it was, and explained how particles of dirt get into the pipes.
Mr. Berka moved that the Council have the water analysed as to its purity.
A suggestion was made about referring the matter to the Board of Health.
Mr. Berka’s motion was carried.
Mr. Overton thought it would be well for the Council to investigate and find out whether there were any corrals or stock kept along the creeks which supply water to the reservoir.
After some further discussion of a similar character to that quoted above, in which Colonel McDonald explained in what manner the improvements now being made would increase the supply, Mr. Tupper offered a resolution providing for the holding of an election on the question of issuing $80,000 bonds to construct a water works system and $15,000 bonds to construct a lighting plant.
Mr. Doyle did not believe in mortgaging the city or the tax payers to the tone of $95,000 for any purpose.
Mr. Overton said he would not be in favor of voting bonds if the present water company could provide adequate service. Water was needed for fire purposes and the city could not afford to wait until the citizens had been burned out before providing the necessary facilities.
Mr. Tupper went on to show that the citizens had paid the water company over $100,000, and that much of that money could be saved to them and pure and abundant water secured if the city owned its own plant.
The spectators present signified their approval of Mr. Tupper’s sentiments by loud stomping of feet.
Mr. Mailer thought the city should furnish the citizens with an abundance of pure, wholesome water.
Mr. Berka took occasion to say that nothing could be done without money, and that if the city was to improve its water and light facilities it must have money. He was tired of having it said that Colonel McDonald ran the Council: that the Council men had been wined and dined and driven about by the Colonel. But he wanted to say he had not been “it it.” He further stated that he had to pay for his water.
Mr. Doyle did not like the insinuations supposed to be lurking beneath Mr. Berka’s remarks. He wanted it definitely understood that he had to pay for his water and he supposed all the other Councilman did the same. He said he had never been wined or dined by Colonel McDonald.
The Mayor desired it to be distinctly understood that he had not been wined and dined by Colonel McDonald, and if he had he would not have considered himself contaminated. He had ridden with Colonel McDonald, however, and was not injured thereby. He was owned by no one and shaped his official career to conform with his own convictions.
Mr. Overton said he had wined with Colonel McDonald, but paid for the wine.
There was some further talk of this kind and the resolution submitting to the citizens the question of bonding the city for water and light plants was put to a vote and carried, the only negative vote being cast by Mr. Doyle.
– Daily Democrat, July 22 1891
CITY COUNCIL.
…Mr. Doyle asked how Mr. Tupper expected the $80,000 or $200,000 bonds were going to be paid. He said the bonds could not be paid in thirty years; the first bond could not be paid off where there are two systems to compete in the price of water. The competition must reduce rates, and the income from the city’s works would not equal $5,000 a year. The system would not pay running expenses.
Mr. Tupper contended that the system would pay for itself.
Mr. Berka could not see why if other towns went into debt to carry on their improvements Santa Rosa could not do the same.
As a business proposition Mr. Doyle thought it would be better to condemn the present works and buy them.
Mr. Tupper said it would cost $200,000 to improve the McDonald works after the city purchased them; he would rather construct works on Mark West creek.
Mr. Mailer said he would prefer purchasing the McDonald works, if they could be bought at a reasonable figure.
Mr. Tupper said he had made Colonel McDonald a fair proposition to buy the works and that the latter had fixed his price at $250,000.
– Sonoma Democrat, August 1 1891
…Mr. Doyle is a member of the city council of Santa Rosa, and there has been much talk there of late of that city buying and owning the water works. In all his votes on that proposition as presented, and we have noticed by the Republican that Mr. Doyle was opposed to the proposition, not because he had any interest in the Santa Rosa works, but because he was a large owner in the Petaluma water works and that he was afraid that if the people of Santa Rosa should vote to buy and control its own water, that Petaluma might “follow suit.” And so we made bold to ask him about the matter, and from memory we quote his words. He said: “There has been and is a proposition for Santa Rosa to issue bonds and construct new water works. I have opposed it because I do not know where they are going to get the water. It is all very easy to issue your bonds and get your city in debt, lay miles of pipe, and all of that, but where do the people get off? Suppose they should do so, then they would come in direct competition with the old works whose franchise is still good. And then, where are they to get the water? I will say to you that a few days ago, in company with members of the Santa Rosa Council, we visited the lake where the city gets its water. We found many things that, it seemed to me, were not right. There were drainages leading into the lake that should not exist, and I am surprised that the management should have allowed such things to exist. No, I am not opposed to the city owning its water works. If the Santa Rosa works cannot or will not give the city pure water and an abundance of it, I believe that the city should buy the works, and in failure to do that, to condemn the works under the law…
– Sonoma Democrat, August 15 1891
THE WATER COMPANY CONDEMNED.
Every resident of Santa Rosa should read the report of the Board of Health of this city in regard to the water supplied to the people who live here. It is a document that speaks for itself. Mayor Brooks, Dr. R. P. Smith, Councilman Mailer, Marshal Charles and Newton V. V. Smythe, Secretary, consisting all the members of the Board of Health, did not prepare and sign this unanimous report until fully satisfied of its correctness and the necessity for this action. It recites a condition of affairs that calls for prompt and decisive action by the people who live here.
When the REPUBLICAN led in the agitation of this water question some weeks ago it was with sufficient facts to warrant all that was said and more too. We then spoke as mildly as circumstances would permit. Putting the health and welfare of the community above the friendship and patronage of any man or set of men, we urged investigation by a committee of representative men. That investigation has been made and the report will be convincing to every man who reads it.
Now let us have a report from the other committee appointed some weeks ago to investigate water systems and recommend what should be done under existing circumstances. Has that committee employed experts and conducted an investigation that will be of value to the community? Money was appropriated for this purpose and it is of prime importance that the people of this city be informed without delay as to the action that should be taken on the water question.
– Santa Rosa Republican, August 17 1891
OUR WATER SUPPLY.
Report of the Board of Health on the Condition of the Water Works.
To the honorable Mayor and City Council of Santa Rosa,
Gentlemen: At your request the undersigned Board of Health of Santa Rosa visited the water works which supply the city with water, for the purpose of investigating the purity of the same and to see if due precautions were taken by the Water Company to procure as healthful and pure a supply as the circumstances would permit.
We first visited the creek at the place where the Water Company has a dam for the purpose of utilizing the supply above. We then walked for over a half mile up the stream, noting the condition of the bed of the creek and the adjacent banks. We found that with a very little outlay of money intelligently expended, the supply here might be greatly increased – at least one-half more, and possibly as much more as now flows in the pipes. This would add in the summer-time very materially to the purity of our supply as well as to the quantity; also, that owing to farming settlements and other habitations on the banks, that a state of affairs existed that was by no means creditable to the management of the Water Company. A very little care and forethought with some expenditure of money, would entirely remove the causes for complaint on our part. We do not hesitate to say that as things existed when we visited the creek the health of this community is greatly menaced.
We then visited the reservoir. Here the same negligence and indifference to the public welfare was exhibited. No effort is, or has been made to prevent surface water from running into the reservoir; on the contrary, we saw evidence which went to show that it was rather encouraged.
We then inspected the open ditch which has been dug by the company from the extreme eastern end of the reservoir toward two large springs on the Hillman ranch, best known as the “Shaw Springs.” We believe that if this water could be got in its purity at the springs, and brought down unadulterated, that it would be a valuable acquisition to the water supply of our city, but as it is now it is an abominable nuisance. On its way it flows through a low, marshy piece of ground, on which hogs and other animals graze, and upon which marsh dead animals are often thrown, and we think it is a blessing that, for reasons best known to the owner of the land through which these waters flow, dams were placed by her to prevent the Water Company from appropriating the water.
In conclusion, we would earnestly urge your honorable body to take steps to ameliorate the conditions of affairs at the fountain heads of our water supply, for we believe the Water Company to have been criminally negligent and indifferent to our welfare as a city, and to their trust and own interests.
[Board of Health]
– Santa Rosa Republican, August 17 1891
THE WATER WORKS COMPANY.
Immediately following the report of the Board of Health telling of the filth that has been permitted to find its way into the water furnished the residents of Santa Rosa, the Water Works Company appears with a statement to the effect that the things complained of have been corrected. That corporation now declares “No stagnant or impure water finds its way into the city. The water comes from a living stream and is pure and healthful.”
The REPUBLICAN doubts the truth of the above statement. It is in line with the other falsehoods that have been going out from the Water Company from time to time. The person that looks through a glass of city water knows that it is impure. Whoever smells or tastes this water that many people here are almost compelled to use, knows that the Water Company is guilty of unblushing and impudent misrepresentation. The Board of Health of this city has declared the belief of its members that the Water Company has been CRIMINALLY NEGLIGENT in permitting the befouling of the water furnished our people, and the City Council, by unanimous vote, has endorsed this sentiment.
But says the Water Company “The water comes from a living stream and is pure and healthful.” Instead, the water comes from an artificial pond into which filth has long been running. The sides of that pond are a pasture field extending almost to the water’s edge. Every rain carries manure from the stock pasturing on the hills surrounding this pond into the receptacle for the water furnished by the Water Company. Then there is the filth that has been coming from the hog pens, the water from too close proximity to dead animals, and other things that caused the Board of Health to declare that the “health of this community is greatly menaced.” All these things have long been dumped into that pond from which the supply of water from this city must come and yet this mendacious company declares the water “pure and healthful.”
How long will the people of Santa Rosa submit to this outrage? How long will they consent to this villainous condition of affairs? Will they wait until a pestilence touches hundreds of homes? Shall we consent to see our town ruined by an avaricious, grasping, soulless corporation that knows no principle but greed and that is so silly as to be continually sending out statements that many know to be false? Shall we continue the quarrel with this unenterprising and unreliable combination of capital or, as a town put in our own water system? The future of the city will largely depend on the action the people here will soon take in this matter.
– Santa Rosa Republican, August 18 1891
The report of the Board of Health supplemented by the report of a sub-committee of the Council, together with the endorsement of each of these reports by the unanimous vote of the Council, settles the issue between the Water Company and the city authorities. The water, the company, and the business methods of the latter, have been condemned in language that cannot be misunderstood. It is not necessary for us to recapitulate what has been said in the reports. The least said about the indictment of the water probably the better it will be for the city. It now remains for the Council to proceed at once within the scope of its lawful authority to provide an abundant supply of pure water. This may be done either by forcing the existing company to increase its supply and the care of the water, by condemnation and purchase of the works, or by building new works and bringing in a supply from other sources. The Board of Health say that the main stream now running into the reservoir “with a very little outlay of money intelligently expended might be greatly increased — at least one-half more, and possibly as much more as now flows in the pipes.” We have no doubt that an ample supply of pure water may be obtained from the Santa Rosa, Alamos and other streams flowing from the Guilicos range of mountains, but we would not set our opinion up against the estimate of a water engineer such as should be consulted by the Council at once. We would prefer to see the people own the works, believing that by proper management they could be made to return to the city a handsome revenue besides affording the best care of the water. The Council has adopted a resolution to submit a proposition to bond the city for $80000. This sum will no doubt have to be increased and ought to be if the city is to build new works, because they should be of the most substantial character in every respect. It would be economy to make them so rather than such as the official reports show we now have. The Council have acted wisely in taking time for mature consideration of the subject. Now that it has arrived at a definite conclusion the sooner it consults a competent expert and engineer as to plans the better.
– Sonoma Democrat, August 22 1891
Water Rights.
The Santa Rosa Water Works Company has brought suit against Mrs. James Hillman and J. Hillman for damages in the sum of $2,500 and for an order of court to compel the defendants to remove certain dams from a channel dug by the plaintiff from the springs on defendant’s property known as the Shaw springs. In the complaint the plaintiff alleges that the springs have been used by him for the last 14 years and that by the obstruction of said channel the plaintiff has been damaged in the sum of $2,500.
– Sonoma Democrat, September 26 1891
The Republican refers to this paper as the “organ of the Water Company.” We are not the organ of the Water Company, nor of any other special interest. Our mission is to build up the business interests of this community. The Democrat is a newspaper. It gives the current local news impartially, promptly and more in detail than any other paper. No one knows this fact better than our neighbor, but he could hardly be expected to proclaim it.
– Sonoma Democrat, October 3 1891
THE SANTA ROSA WATER WORKS.
Their Magnitude and Importance to the Improvement of the City.
Residents of some time back are in a better position to realize the important part the water works have played in the development of the city and in increasing its residential attractions than those who have never known Santa Rosa except in its present state. It may be said without fear of contradiction from those who have the fairness to institute comparisons with other towns in the State that our water system both in supply and quality of water is one of the best in the State. All public institutions naturally come in for their share of criticism, much of it that is captious and less that is warantable, but when it is considered what money and labor have been and are being expended to make the works as perfect as possible, credit cannot be denied the company and its projector. Our older residents will remember what the works were in 1877 when Col. M. L. McDonald, president of the present company, purchased them from Messrs. Juilliard, Temple, Farmer and Davis. The present reservoir, which is even now undergoing extensive improvement, had not been constructed and the supply was drawn from the old reservoir farther up the canyon. The system was entirely inadequate to the needs of the city, even at that time and its rapid development made it necessary to expend a great deal of money in the improvement of the works. Soon after the purchase was consummated work began on the new reservoir, which cost over $15,000. Its capacity is 100,000,000 gallons. New pipes were laid and everything was done to render the service satisfactory to the patrons. Accordingly for years the supply was adequate and the consumers were supplied with an abundance of fresh, sweet and pure water for domestic and irrigation purposes. But with institutions of this kind the stage is never readied when it can be said the work is finished. Pipes wear out and new ones must be laid; miles of streets are opened through the city and it becomes necessary to extend the mains to meet the increasing demand, and as the town grows in size and population expenses for the company for improvement are piled up in a corresponding ratio.
The new main down Sonoma avenue extension entailed the expenditure of several thousand dollars and similar improvements go to swell the aggregate amount necessary to be expended in keeping up a plant of the kind. Not including the cost of the work now underway, the amount spent for improvements and developments by the present company since 1877 is $153,000. The work of raising the dam will cost between $10,000 and $15,000, and from 100,000,000 gallons the storage capacity will be increased to 230,000,000 gallons, a supply adequate, with the streams which are running into the reservoir all seasons of the year for the needs of a city of 50,000 inhabitants. Estimating the cost of these improvements it makes the valuation of $250,000 set upon the plant appear small. The site of the reservoir if fashioned by the hand of man could not be bettor adapted to the purpose, both as to elevation and distance from the city; and the topography of the land is such that in years hence, should it become necessary to increase the storage capacity, another reservoir could be constructed farther up the canyon. The main supply is derived from Santa Rosa and Los Alamos creeks, a dam being constructed at their junction, two miles above the main reservoir. The water as it flows over the pebbly beds of those creeks down from their fountain head in the mountains is as pure and limpid as the most delicious spring water. From the dam it is conveyed to the reservoir in closed pipes with screens at intervals to prevent impurities and foreign substances from contaminating its purity. At the reservoir the same care is taken to preserve the purity of the water, and with what success is shown by the fact that never in the history of the works has any disease or prevailing sickness been traced to the unwholesomeness of the water. And in this connection it is proper to state that the editor of the Democrat, in order to satisfy himself as to the chemical purity of the water, when the matter was under discussion several months ago, forwarded samples of it, taken by himself from a hydrant directly off one of the largest mains, to the State University for analyzation. In reply the following was received:
Berkeley, Oct. 9, 1891.
Thomas L. Thompson,
Dear Sir: —Inclosed find analysis of your well water, which proves it to be as good as any water need be for general use, and rather remarkable for the small portion of soluble salts it contains. This also shows it to be free from sewage contamination. If harder than you wish, boiling or mixing with about one-twentieth of its bulk of clean lime water will correct that; after mixing let stand a few hours, when a white sediment containing both the lime originally in the water, and that of the lime water will be at the bottom of the tank. For most uses, however, the water is abundantly good enough just as it is.
Very truly yours,
E. W. Hilgard.
Following is the analysis…
…The city owes much to Colonel McDonald, the president of the company, not only for his efficient management of the extensive works, but for the public spirit he has displayed in many other respects. The beautiful avenue bearing his name, lined on both sides with umbrogean trees and handsome residences was a grain field without a house or shrub upon it when he came to this city fourteen years ago. He bought the plot of 153 acres comprising McDonald’s addition and opened the avenue, planted the trees along its wide promenades, and soon afterwards constructed the street railway connecting the depot with the cemetery. Nothing can he fairer than judging a man by his works, and, taken on this evidence in the light of his liberality and enterprise in forwarding the interests of the city, his station is certainly among our most valuable and substantial citizens. He has ever taken a prominent part in forwarding schemes looking to the further development of the city, and many of the important measures which have been carried out during the last ten years bear the stamp of his pressing energy and rare good judgment.
– Sonoma Democrat, January 2 1892
THE WELL WATER FRAUD.
The Democrat ends a long tirade of insinuations against the common council of the city of Santa Rosa with what it would have the people of this city believe is an analysis by Prof. Hilgard of the water of the reservoir from which this town is supplied.
But the first statement in Prof. Hilgard’s letter gives the lie to the entire proceeding. He says: “Inclosed find analysis of your WELL WATER,” etc.
Now Prof. Hilgard knows the difference between well water and that which runs or stand upon the surface of the ground. He is an exact scientist and would not call the few feet of material that stood at the bottom of Lake Ralphine in the autumn of 1891, when our people were denied the privilege of sprinkling their door yards and lawns because of the scarcity of water, we say he could have known that stuff was not WELL water and would not have applied that term to it.
Again, Prof. Hilgard referred to the hardness of the water sent to him and told how to soften it. Soften the water of Ralphine! Ye gods! We have been told time out of mind that its waters are soft and yet the corporation organ would like to have its readers believe that the only criticism Prof. Hilgard had to pass on those waters was in regard to their hardness.
Now there can be nothing clearer to anybody who knows the conditions of things here in the autumn of 1891, and who knows about Prof. Hilgard and his standing as a scientist, than that attempt was made to do a fraud.
Who furnished the Hon. Thomas L. Thompson with the water he sent to Prof. Hilgard? Out of whose WELL did it come? Let the facts come out. If Mr. Thompson was imposed on he owes it to the community to expose the imposter. It is evident that Prof. Hilgard detected the attempted imposition at once and hence his analysis of well water.
Again, if the Hon. Thos. L. Thompson was not altogether certain a fraud had been practiced on him or by him in this water, why did he not publish the analysis at the time it was made? Then the people were carrying water from wells blocks distant from their homes because they were afraid to drink the material that came from the water mains. Then an analysis of that material which would have shown that it was not charged with disease and death would have been a boon in the homes of hundreds of users. Why, we repeat, was the analysis not given to the people then?
Did Mr. Thompson discover the fraud? Has somebody dug up the report in his absence and published it without detecting the fraud on its face? Who furnished the water that was analyzed? Who paid for the analysis? There are a number of interesting questions to be answered in regard to this transaction that the Democrat will have to answer of stand before this community in most deplorable light.
– Santa Rosa Republican, April 11 1893
A communication was received from the Santa Rosa Water Works Company, offering to sell their works to the city for $210,000, and the following resolution by Councilman Berka was introduced and passed declining the offer:
Whereas, The Santa Rosa Water Works Company having been requested by the special water committee to submit a proposition to the Santa Rosa City Council for the purchase of said company’s water works, and
Whereas, Said company has submitted a proposition, naming therein the sum of $210,000 as the price of said works, be it
Resolved, That the thanks of this Council are due and hereby tendered to said water company for the submission of a proposition to purchase their works, but in the judgment of this Council $210,000, the amount named as the price of said works, is far above its true value. Competent experts estimate that it will require $125,000 for a system of new and durable piping to distribute the water, that all parts of the city may have a proper service, to elevate the reservoir and properly clean, enclose and roof the same, to protect the water from continual pollution by man and beast and the festering rays of the summer suns. Therefore, be it
Resolved, That this Council could not in justice to the people they represent ask you to vote bonds to the amount of $335,000, necessary to purchase and improve said water works, and the proposition as submitted by the Santa Rosa Water Works Company is herewith respectfully declined…
When the only daughter of the richest family in town gets married you expect a fuss. The engagement will be announced in the press, often with a portrait. The big church wedding would be the social event of the season; the newspapers would describe the bride’s trousseau in loving detail, the bridesmaids and others in the party would be named, followed by a long list of family members and VIPs attending the ceremony.
Thus many in 1891 Santa Rosa were likely surprised to read a small item in the Democrat stating Jessie Overton and Ed Livernash were married one Monday morning. “The wedding was very private, only the members of both families being present,” the Democrat paper reported.
Perhaps they wanted to avoid a showy wedding because of Jessie’s deep piety; not long before that her father, ex-Judge A. P. Overton, had convinced her to leave the convent she had joined as a novitiate. Or maybe they wanted it kept quiet because she was then three months pregnant.
The Overtons probably approved of Ed as their son-in-law, despite his role in creating the family’s awkward situation. He was ambitious, whip-smart, and seemed headed towards Democratic party politics, which would have certainly pleased the old judge. They might have felt differently if they had a crystal ball, however – by the end of the year Ed would be charged with attempted murder as well as being arrested for impersonating an African-American woman.
Most of we wretched souls have life stories that tread a straightforward path, cradle to grave. Not so Edward J. Livernash; he did remarkable and more than a few crazy things; he was brilliant and unpredictable, sometimes cunning and criminally inclined; he had spells when he seemingly had a tenuous grip on reality and had other episodes where he saw the world with greater clarity than anyone around him. Why there is not a book or movie about this guy is a complete mystery.
Jessie was 25 when they married and her new husband was 24, yet he already had a biography of someone who lived a full life.1 He was an attorney (having passed the bar on his 21st birthday) but was mainly a newspaperman, having founded a successful paper in Cloverdale at age 16, which he sold a couple of years later to buy the Sonoma Index (which he renamed The Tribune). After selling that he worked at the San Francisco Chronicle, edited and published a respected literary journal, and at the time of their marriage was editor of the Healdsburg Enterprise.2
(RIGHT: Undated portrait of Edward J. Livernash courtesy of Craig Livernash)
Regular visitors to this dusty digital nook have already met Ed via “THE MURDEROUS SOMNAMBULIST,” where he attempted to kill an elderly Cloverdale man and claimed at the trial he was not responsible because he was in a “somnambulistic state.” This article is about an incident a month earlier when he was arrested for dressing like a woman, but the two episodes were really different sides to the same coin. There are several callbacks below to the somnambulist tale and if Gentle Reader does not have time to (re)read that entire story, please review the synopsis provided below as a sidebar.
While waiting for Jessie to give birth, Ed worked for the San Francisco Examiner during the spring of 1891 and in June paid $1,000 cash for another country weekly, the Livermore Herald. Their baby Alberta was born in August.3
But in September, Ed’s life began to unravel. The Livermore newspaper’s office caught fire and was nearly a total loss, yet Ed continued publishing it by contracting with a printer in Oakland. He began seeing Dr. John W. Robertson, who owned the Livermore Sanitarium and often testified in Bay Area courts during the 1890s as an expert on insanity.
And so we arrive at the afternoon of Saturday, September 26.
The policeman on duty at the San Francisco Ferry Building saw someone who didn’t look right to him. Said the sergeant, “You are a man, sir, masquerading in female attire.” The suspect denied it.
“You are a man,” reiterated the sergeant, gazing at the masquerader sternly. “It is against the law for one of your sex to appear in public in petticoats. I shall have to take you in.” With that the sergeant snatched the black veil away, revealing sharp features, smeared with black grease-paint.
Illustrations from the September 27 1891 San Francisco Examiner and Chronicle
All San Francisco newspapers covered the story, but it’s obvious only the Chronicle happened to have a police reporter at the station house. The Chronicle described the dress as blue sateen “almost concealed under a fashionable traveling ulster” (now called a “duster coat”), a gray hat, black gloves and new leather bag.
From the Chronicle: “‘What is your name?’ demanded the desk sergeant. ‘George Jones.'”
“Nothing of any importance was found about the prisoner’s person but the opening of the satchel created a sensation. First was fished out a pound bottle of chloroform which had not been opened. Next were produced two one-pound bottles labeled prussic acid, likewise unopened…By this time the police were genuinely interested, and pressed Jones for explanations. But he had nothing to say.”
Asked why he was wearing women’s clothes, he said only he planned to play a joke, but would not say who it involved. “I decline to answer that. It would involve the names of some very prominent people, and I would die before dragging their names into the matter.”
Livernash was placed in a cell pending a court appearance on Monday. Later that night he dashed off a lengthy note to the Chronicle which appeared in the Sunday edition. This was his new explanation: “I determined to play a joke I had been planning for a fortnight or so. It was this: To dress as a negress and apply for service to a lady friend in this city, who shall be nameless.”
When he appeared before the judge he told still another version – apparently expecting no one had read his statement printed in the Sunday Chronicle. He now said it was a joke “to fool my wife” because “he wanted to see if she would recognize him.” He claimed in court the new mother was staying with someone she knew in San Francisco and while he was indeed wearing her clothes, he had taken them and dressed up in the city hotel where he stayed when not in Livermore.
Swiss cheese has fewer holes than that story.
Then there were questions about the poisons and why he was waiting to take a ferry. Again his answers made no sense.
In his letter to the Chronicle, Livernash wrote he intended to pour out the bottle of chloroform but put it in the satchel anyway. The prussic acid was too dangerous to leave in the hotel room so he took it along as well.
While costumed and enroute to his wife, or lady friend, or very prominent people, he suddenly remembered someone from San Francisco was going to meet him in Livermore that evening. That took priority, so he hustled to the Ferry Building to intercept his buddy from making a needless trip. Alas, he was busted before he was able to board the ferryboat.
(RIGHT: Newspapers heavily played up the impersonation angle of the story, illustrating stories with highly feminized portrayals of Livernash. At top is a drawing from the September 29 1891 San Francisco Chronicle and below is an engraving which appeared in many papers nationwide)
In both his jailhouse letter and in court, Livernash said he was inhaling chloroform because of chronic insomnia – although the police reporter noted the bottle was unopened. He said that in Livermore he and his pal were going to use that industrial-size stash of prussic acid for oddball experiments in extracting gold from coins.4
At his court appearance Dr. Robertson testified his patient “is afflicted with insomnia and hypnotism. Hypnotism, a condition not thoroughly understood, is produced artificially by mesmerists and magnetizers, or is produced by the person afflicted. Livernash hypnotized himself.”
SF Examiner: “In Dr. Robertson’s opinion Livernash was not in normal mental condition during his masquerading tour.” SF Chronicle: “the case went on it developed into one which would hold the Society of Psychic Research spellbound with interest…he is not morally responsible for what he does.”
Like the police, Judge Joachimsen showed a great deal of skepticism about the entire story, particularly why Livernash was carrying an enormous supply of an extremely lethal compound. He took the case under advisement and found Livernash guilty of the misdemeanor charge of wearing woman’s apparel in public. Accounts differ as to the fine being $50 or $100.
Newspaper editors across the country (helllooo, Sioux City Iowa!) loved the story and can be found printing a shortened version of the Chronicle’s court reporting over the next few months, the delays presumably due to them waiting for the engraved portrait to be shared. Curiously, that version got the judge’s decision wrong: “After thinking the matter over for a day, the judge concluded to let Mr. Livernash go.”
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SYNOPSIS OF THE MURDEROUS SOMNAMBULIST
On October 28, 1891, Ed Livernash paid a visit to a wealthy bachelor in Cloverdale. Days earlier, Livernash had written a letter claiming to be from his father-in-law, stating he wanted to buy the elderly man’s livery stable. Livernash said he would return when his in-law arrived and gave the man a bottle of wine as a gift. The wine was poisoned with prussic acid.
Livernash came back by himself later that night and made smalltalk while supposedly waiting for his relative. Livernash remarked on two portraits on the wall and was told those were the man’s niece and nephew. “I thought you had no relatives,” Livernash said before growing agitated.
Suddenly Livernash pulled out two guns. “Make out your will in my favor or I will kill you, God damn you!” He fired seven times. Four of the bullets hit the victim in the face but incredibly did no serious damage.
The trial opened exactly a year after the shooting. Little new evidence was introduced – the whole defense rested on whether or not Livernash was in a “somnambulistic state” while he was blasting away.
During part of his testimony Livernash was supposedly placed in a hypnotic trance by the Superintendent of the asylum in Napa. He spoke of an elaborate conspiracy against him and that the man he shot was really Judge Joachimsen in disguise. The Napa doctor told the jury he was certain Livernash had an exceedingly rare condition and was not faking. In a commentary section I remarked that during his months at the Napa asylum, it appeared the doctor and patient developed a codependent relationship to use his case to support theories in the emerging field of psychology.
The jury deadlocked 8:4 and a second trial was held, Livernash acting as his own attorney. Jury selection was lengthy because he quizzed them closely “as to their ideas of hypnotism and insanity.” His defense did not include hypnosis again but argued he and others in his family sometimes just went nuts. This time the verdict was not guilty.
What to make of this unusual story? Today Edward J. Livernash lives on as a footnote in LGBTQ history, mentioned in books, academic papers and websites as a documented example of 19th century cross-dressing. That might be true or not; there’s no evidence of gender dysphoria aside from this 1891 incident, and Ed later had plenty of enemies who might have gladly used something like that to attack and discredit him.
(The articles transcribed below do, however, say a great deal about how the press was – and still is – pushing aside hard news when it has a delicious scandal it can serve up instead. The lede for this story should have been that police suspected Livernash was planning some sort of serious crime. From the Chronicle report on his arrest: “The peculiar articles found in the satchel and the fact of the prisoner assuming such an elaborate disguise incline the authorities to believe that they have unearthed something much more sensational than an intended joke.”)
Lurking in the background of Ed’s 1891 misadventures is the question of whether there was something actually wrong with his mind. A sidebar in the somnambulist article discusses some possibilities, but it’s now too late to know if he had real problems or was faking temporary madness to stay out of prison.
But aside from Ed’s shifting excuses for dressing up and having toxic chemicals, when this incident is taken in context with other events around that time a more complex picture appears – and strongly points to him methodically plotting a series of crimes rather than being a madman performing impulsive and irrational acts.
Whether insane or no, he certainly intended to murder the Cloverdale man. He dropped off the poisoned wine and began shooting when he returned and found his victim still alive. His motive was apparently to forge a will making him the beneficiary.
If Livernash was not deranged, then the only explanation must be that he was desperate for money. In that light, recall the Livermore newspaper office burned in early September; just a few days prior, he had taken out a $1,000 insurance policy on it.
So was there likewise some sort of financial motive behind the cross-dressing episode? His “practical joke” explanations made no sense to Judge Joachimsen or anyone else. Either he had a sexual kink for dressing up in public or was intending to travel back to Livermore looking like that.
Perhaps the dress and particularly the blackface makeup meant he was trying to slip into Livermore in disguise. At the time the town only had about 1,400 residents, and Ed Livernash would have been known by many on sight. Yet a glance at a well-dressed, face-veiled, African-American woman in a traveling coat with a large bag might easily be presumed to be newly employed at Ravenswood, the ever-expanding estate just outside of Livermore where the San Francisco elite frequently hobnobbed.
The sole part of his story which was consistent and believable, however, was he intended to meet in Livermore a man named Peter Cunningham.5
Peter Cunningham was reportedly an expert jeweler who had even worked for Tiffany in New York, which might explain Livernash’s uncharacteristic interest in gold plating. It could be why Ed was hauling around two pounds of prussic acid (although at the later Cloverdale trial Livernash would give an excuse for having it that didn’t mention anything to do with Cunningham or jewelry).
But Cunningham was also crazy himself, or at least extremely eccentric. Every year or so in the late 1880s-1890s there would be a rash of San Francisco newspaper stories about him being arrested as a suspected lunatic or for vagrancy – once specifically for being “in the nightly habit of visiting swill barrels in the rear of hotels, bakeries and saloons and picking out pieces of meat and bread.” Each time charges were dismissed after Cunningham gave the names of well-known people as references and produced bank books showing he was actually quite wealthy. In 1898 he was worth exactly $51,559, which was the equivalent of $1.6M today.
Cunningham was unmarried and lived in a house he owned just a couple of blocks from the Ferry Building. In sum: He was a very rich elderly bachelor who appeared to have no family members – exactly the same profile as the man in Cloverdale who Livernash would try to kill a month later with the same prussic acid he was carrying in his satchel.6
Illustration of Peter Cunningham that accompanied the article transcribed below from the San Francisco Call, August 21 1898
Ed’s arrest at the Ferry Building put an end to whatever he planned to do in Livermore, and after being taken into custody “the prisoner cast one last mournful look at the ferry boat and turned away as if resigned to fate,” in the Chronicle’s fanciful description. It was an embarrassing failure in a life that had been surprisingly full of failures – despite his marvelous smarts and law degree, he had never been more than a printer and editor of struggling little country papers.
There will be a final chapter here about Ed (although I humbly beg your indulgence as it will drift ever farther away from doings in Sonoma County) because his bizarre story has never been properly told. Not to give away too much, but he did other things both awful and heroic; he remained a newspaperman for the rest of the decade, entered politics, divorced Jessie (1909) and married Zilla Daisy Shaw Ashby Mayne Dumouriez, possibly the only person on the planet who could match (and exceed!) Ed’s penchant for strangeness.
As for Jessie, she returned to Santa Rosa following the breakup of the marriage, although she and Alberta also lived in San Francisco and spent extended time in Europe while her daughter studied piano.
Her father had died in 1898 but his vast estate wasn’t settled for seven years (he had owned or co-owned much of downtown). The lawyer for the estate was Edward J. Livernash. Yes, he was then the Overton’s in-law but that was still mighty generous of the family, considering Ed had used the name of the late judge in that forged letter sent to the Cloverdale man.
Jessie obtained some of her father’s prime real estate on the corner of Fourth street and Mendocino Ave. The new Exchange Bank was built directly on the corner (architect: Brainerd Jones) and in 1909 she built “the Livernash Block” on the L-shaped property surrounding the bank. The Fourth street side was used for retail stores (including the town’s first Woolworth) and the Mendocino side was professional offices on the ground floor with apartments upstairs. Jessie lived there and Alberta had a piano studio which included a small recital hall.
Jessie Overton Livernash died in 1913 and is buried in the Overton family plot at the Rural Cemetery.
1 The death certificate for Edward J. Livernash lists his birth year as 1868, but all other records, including voter registrations, the 1880 and 1900 census reports and his 1899 passport application all specify 1866.
2 The Livernash family bought the Healdsburg Enterprise in 1890 and sold it two years later, shortly before Ed’s first somnambulism trial and presumably to pay for his three lawyers. The buyer was M. Menihan, owner of the United States Hotel in Cloverdale, where Ed had stayed during the attempted murder. Ed and his siblings Lizzie and John J. continued publishing the paper until Menihan sold it in 1898. Besides running the Enterprise almost single-handed, Lizzie supported her five younger siblings and grandmother and was bitter about the sale, as the new owner promptly told her to get out. In a statement to the Feb. 20 1898 SF Call, Lizzie said: “We were turned out without a dollar. As soon as Mr. Menihan acquired possession of the paper he turned us out bag and baggage.” (The Call reporter confused Menihan as the buyer instead of the seller.) She continued: “Ed had deserted us and brought shame upon us. He has not contributed one cent to the support of our five young brothers and sisters since he was married. He is the cause of the rumor that there is a taint of insanity in our family.”
3 Alberta Pauline Livernash was born in San Francisco in August 1891 (1900 census) or September 13 1891 (1899 passport application). I have not seen her birth or death certificates, but family genealogists have settled on her birthdate as Aug. 15. Until her death in 1920, she was known by the nickname “Pink”.
4 Prussic Acid was the 18th century name for hydrocyanic acid. A combination of hydrogen, carbon, and ammonia, it is the precursor for more practical forms of cyanides used in electroplating and mining, the latter where it extracts gold from low-grade ore. Taken at face value, Livernash seemed to be saying he wanted to create a non-smelting process to remove gold from coins and then plate it on a different coin or something else. If this was an actual plan it would have returned little or no profit, as a $20 gold coin contained nearly $19 worth of gold at 1891 market rates. It would have been far more practical just to use lower-carat raw gold for plating, as others were doing. Prussic Acid is also a fast-acting poison if swallowed or inhaled.
5 A search of online California newspapers, voter registrations, census data and other resources available through Ancestry.com turned up only two adults named Peter Cunningham living in the Bay Area during the 1880s and 1890s. The other was Peter R. Cunningham, who lived in Oakland and had various management positions at the Oakland Planing Mills company.
6 Cunningham did have an older brother who lived with him, but that was never mentioned until the subsequent 1898 article, and the brother might not have been around in 1891.
LIVERMORE September 6. – This morning at 5:30 o’clock the Herald office, Bank of Livermore and G. W. Langan’s law office were destroyed by fire. The fire broke out in the Herald office and soon extended to the other two buildings. All three are wrecks…
– San Francisco Chronicle, September 7 1891
IN FEMALE ATTIRE. A Masquerader Captured at the Ferry. Chloroform and Poison in His Satchel. He Is Identified as E. J. Livernash, a Livermore Newspaper Man.
She appeared to be a stylishly dressed colored woman with a dainty mincing gait and she glanced about with a timorous air aw she walked through the Oakland ferry entrance to take the 4:30 o’clock boat yesterday afternoon.
Sergeant Kavanaugh, who was on duty at the ferry, saw the ebon-hued belle but was too astute to be deceived.
Stepping up and clutching her arm, the sergeant said:
“You are a man, sir, masquerading in female attire.”
The object of the sergeant’s suspicions flashed an indignant look at him through her black veil.
“How dare you attempt to insult me, Mr. Officer? I am a lady, if I am black.”
That settled it. Her last hope of escape was gone. The voice was too unmistakably masculine to deceive even a policeman.
“You are a man,” reiterated the sergeant, gazing at the masquerader sternly. “It is against the law for one of your sex to appear in public in petticoats. I shall have to take you in.”
With that the sergeant snatched the black veil away, revealing sharp features, smeared with black grease-paint.
The prisoner cast one last mournful look at the ferry boat and turned away as if resigned to fate. Sergeant Langford turned up and constituted himself assistant captor. The patrol wagon was summoned and fifteen minutes later the hero stood before the booking desk at the city prison.
The prisoner was a sight well worth gazing upon. Not a stitch of masculine clothing was there about him. A blue sateen dress was almost concealed under a fashionable traveling ulster of gray goods with a small cheek. A splendid sample of the milliner’s art – a symphony in gray – surmounted the prisoner’s head. On his hands were a pair of new black gloves. Not the least noticeable feature of the outfit was a brand new russet leather satchel. Everything about the prisoner, in fact, was of inviting newness.
“What is your name?” demanded the desk sergeant.
“George Jones.”
And after giving this cognomen, not another word could the prisoner be induced to say.
Nothing of any importance was found about the prisoner’s person but the opening of the satchel created a sensation. First was fished out a pound bottle of chloroform which had not been opened. Next were produced two one-pound bottles labeled prussic acid, likewise unopened. After these discoveries two keys, attached to long metal shanks and evidently taken from some hotel were found; then came four small satchel keys, $82.45 in money, a lady’s gold watch, a razor, a pocket knife, a package of black grease paint, a paper of hairpins and other minor articles of utility, some used by the sterner sex and some by the gentler.
By this time the police were genuinely interested, and pressed Jones for explanations. But he had nothing to say. Sergeant Kavanaugh rushed up stairs and noticed Chief Crowley. Then Detective Ben Bohen came down to investigate, followed shortly by Detective Rogers. A trusty brought hot water and Jones was ordered to wash up. Then all hands, including Chief Crowley, who had just arrived, took a good look at Mr. “George Jones.”
They saw a short, slight, sharp-featured young man about 25 years of age. The Chief and the detectives shook their heads. They did not know him.
“Come, now,” said Chief Crowley, “tell us all about this, Jones.”
“I will tell you privately,” was the answer; “I won’t talk here.”
So they took him into the city prison hospital.
“It was all intended as a joke,” Jones began.
“Upon whom?” interposed Chief Crowley.
“I decline to answer that. It would involve the names of some very prominent people, and I would die before dragging their names into the matter.”
A ticket for Livermore which the prisoner had attempted to throw away was here produced.
“What were you going to do in Livermore?”
“I am employed there as a printer. I was a reporter at one time and have also dabbled in law.”
“Yet you didn’t know it was against the law to masquerade in female attire?” demanded the Chief.
The prisoner became suddenly mute.
“What were you going to do with those bottles of poison?” resumed Chief Crowley.
“I use the chloroform myself.”
“And the prussic acid?”
Again the prisoner was mute.
Thereupon the prisoner was conducted to a cell. There may have been no facetiousness intended, but he was assigned to one of the “bird cages” usually occupied female prisoners.
The prisoner was identified later as Edward J. Livernash, a country newspaper man. He was at one time editor of the Healdsberg Enterprise, and recently bought and ran the Livermore Herald, the office of which was destroyed by fire about two weeks ago, an adjacent bank building being consumed at the same time.
What Livernash was doing with three pounds of poison and hotel and satchel keys are things which the police would give a good deal to know. The peculiar articles found in the satchel and the fact of the prisoner assuming such an elaborate disguise incline the authorities to believe that they have unearthed something much more sensational than an intended joke. At any rate they refused to admit him to bail, although the $82.50 found on his person was more than sufficient for cash bail for the misdemeanor of masquerading in feminine attire.
HE SAYS IT WAS A JOKE
Livernash’s Peculiar Explanation of His Queer Action
About midnight Livernash, who was still in the city prison, sent to the Chronicle office the following statement written in his own hand in the form of an interview with himself and requested that it be printed as his explanation of the cause of his arrest:
“I am publisher of the Livermore Herald. I got into this unpleasant but somewhat ludicrous fix through a clumsy attempt at practical joking, and of course will readily establish my entire innocence of any questionable motive. I’m deucedly sorry the affair has happened, but I’m trying to look on it as valuable in curing me of my propensity to joke.
“I came to town to-day to meet my brother and by appointment saw him at the Lick House, where I had a room for several days. I intended to return to my home by the 4:30 o’clock train, having business needing attention there tomorrow.
“I have been feeling unwell for several days, and felt especially so to-day. I happened to inhale a little chloroform recently, during one of my spells of restlessness, and I liked the results, save for the after effects. So this morning I bought some of the preparation and put it in a small grip intending to take it home with me. But when I found myself unusually ill after luncheon I concluded not to use the drug, fearing after all that it would do me more harm than good. I didn’t pour the stuff away but intended to.
“I went to bed in my room and on arising felt bright and well. Then it was that I determined to play a joke I had been planning for a fortnight or so. It was this: To dress as a negress and apply for service to a lady friend in this city, who shall be nameless. I dressed, and was about to go to her home, when I remembered that I ought to save a friend of mine from an unnecessary journey in search of me, so I went directly to the ferry in search of my friend. Not finding him, I supposed he had gone aboard the steamer. I arose to get a ticket to Oakland and return in order to meet him, but I was conscious of being much stared at and grew ashamed of my folly, and concluded to back down, get into a corner of a car and return home without further nonsense. I bought a ticket and as I was boarding the boat was arrested.
“As to the acid found in my grip, I placed it there to-day to avoid the risk of accident from having it in my bureau. I bought it in quantity of a wholesaler, and intended to use a little of it in testing for myself a statement made to me by the friend last mentioned as to plating silver with gold.
“I took the grip as it was for the sake of having something in hand and merely added to its contents a few trifles needed in my masquerade and a razor I had just bought and did not wish to leave on the bureau top.”
– San Francisco Chronicle, September 27 1891
HE DOES IT HIMSELF. The Masquerading Livermore Editor Is an Auto-Hypnotist. HIS APPEARANCE IN LONG SKIRTS. During One of His Hypnotic Conditions His Wife Roused Him by Wagging His Right Wrist Exactly Forty Times.
Edward J. Livernash, editor and proprietor of the Livermore Herald and owner of a part of the Healdsburg Enterprise, who was arrested Saturday at the Oakland ferry dressed in woman’s clothing and with face blackened by cork, is described by Dr. John W. Robertson, an expert in nervous disease, as a man subject to strange hypnotic conditions.
Less than a year ago Livernash married Miss Jessie Overton, daughter of ex-Judge Overton, the Santa Rosa millionaire. She at one time determined to become a bride of the church, and took the while veil. Her father was much opposed to her becoming a nun, and she yielded to his opinions, left the sisterhood aud subsequently married young Livernash, who is an attorney-at-law as well as editor, author and publisher.
Last week the office of the Livermore Herald was destroyed by fire, and only two cases of type were saved. The proprietor, who estimates his loss at $1,000, is having the paper printed in Oakland until he can procure a new supply of material.
EXHAUSTING SLUMBERS.
Yesterday he was tried before Judge Joachimsen on the charge of wearing woman’s apparel in public. The police officers proved the arrest at the ferry and the garments that Livernash wore when arrested.
Then the young man told his story to the Court. He described strange dream-like conditions that control him at times. He is greatly troubled with insomnia and somnambulism. At night when he sleeps he lives over the work of the day or events in his past life, or sometimes seems to see himself doing things he would not do in his normal state, yet has no will power to control his actions. He awakes more tired than on going to bed.
On the day that he was masquerading in black face and skirts he came to San Francisco, and at the Lick House had a consultation with his brother about their mother, who is very ill. About 2 o’clock in the afternoon he went to bed, hoping to sleep, as he had not rested the night before.
He awoke at 4 o’clock, but instead of putting on his trousers and other garments he donned long stockings, patent leather shoes, a white skirt, a dress, a cloak and a hat, all of which were the property of his wife.
He blackened his face and then walked out of the ladies’ entrance to the Lick House.
“Why did you dress like that?” asked the prosecuting attorney.
A SURPRISE FOR MRS. LIVERNASH.
“To fool my wife,” he replied. He explained that Mrs. Livernash was visiting at a house on California street, and he wanted to see if she would recognize him. He intended to put on her garments in a room at the house where she is staying, and why he thus arrayed himself at the Lick House he could not tell.
When about to go out to California street he remembered that he had an engagement at Livermore with Peter Cunningham, and took a car to go to the ferry in order to intercept his friend. In the car he noticed that people stared at him, and at the waiting-room at the ferry he tripped twice on his dress skirt. He noticed that he was attracting attention, became dizzy, purchased a ticket for Livermore, explaining that seeing people watching him he thought if he could get on the Livermore train he would be safe, because the conductor knew him. He was arrested at the ferry landing.
Of the chloroform and hydrocyanic acid found on him he said he had bought the chloroform intending to inhale some to produce rest, as he was very nervous and particularly depressed on this day that he was to play the joke on his wife. The acid, he said, was to be used for some experiments in removing gold from coins to be used for plating. He had a letter from his friend Cunningham explaining the sweating process.
HYPNOTIZED HIMSELF.
Dr. John W. Robertson, for two years a physician at the Napa Asylum for the Insane, has been treating young Livernash for some time. He testified that his patient is afflicted with insomnia and hypnotism. Hypnotism, a condition not thoroughly understood, is produced artificially by mesmerists and magnetizers, or is produced by the person afflicted. Livernash hypnotized himself. Sometimes when in a hypnotic state he knew his condition and would tell his wife how he might be aroused from it. He told her once to move his wrist forty times, and at the fortieth movement he came from under the hypnotic influence.
Another time he told her to put a drop of alcohol in his hand. She did so and he awoke.
During one spell he told her to give him some water. He drank half the water in a glass and threw the remainder over himself. Instantly recovering his normal condition he blamed his wife for throwing water on him.
He also was a somnambulist, and one night wanted to climb out of a window to walk on a balcony when there was no balcony there.
In Dr. Robertson’s opinion Livernash was not in normal mental condition during his masquerading tour.
Judge Joachimsen reserved his decision until to-day, and incidentally expressed surprise that a wholesale druggist should sell two pounds of hydrocyanic acid to a stranger.
– San Francisco Examiner, September 29 1891
A HYPNOTIC TRANCE Editor Livernash’s Queer Defense. A Strange Story Sustained by a Doctor. A Good Subject for Investigation by the Society of Psychic Research.
Editor E. J. Livernash of Livermore, who was arrested at the ferry Saturday for masquerading in female attire with his face blackened, was given an opportunity to explain his escapade yesterday in Judge Joachimsen’s court. As the case went on it developed into one which would hold the Society of Psychic Research spellbound with interest. An attempt was made to prove that Livernash is a rare example of a hypnotic patient – a man who has occasional lapses of memory and loss of mental control during the existence of which he is not morally responsible for what he does.
The prisoner was neatly attired in his proper habiliments when he appeared in court. He appeared to be in a condition of suppressed but intense nervousness, and this is the story he told:
“My great trouble,” said he, “is restlessness and insomnia. For some months past I have been in a state verging upon nervous prostration. When I retire at night I generally fail to get refreshing rest and wake up in the morning frequently more exhausted than when I retired.
“I began to go to school when I was 7 years old,” continued Livernash. “At 14 I left school From 16 until now at 25 I have been engaged at intervals in publishing newspapers. I have also been a reporter. When I was 19 I began to study law and was admitted to practice on my twenty-first birthday. I have always been engaged in hard mental work and it has affected my health seriously. Very often, when I go to bed at night, instead of sleeping healthily my mind goes over all the incidents of the day in very vivid dreams. I have often while resting thus gone over the most trivial details of things that happened many years before. During my real waking hours in the day time my will-power very often is not strong enough to recall the past with anything like the same distinctness.”
“Have you any recollection of the events of last Saturday?” was asked.
“I have a distinct recollection,” Livernash replied. “I came to the city in the morning from Livermore and put up at the Lick House, where I had had a room for several days past. My mother’s health is in a critical state, and I came down mainly to consult my brother as to what should be done for her. Through the day I was weary and unwell, becoming gradually worse. I went out and got some chloroform, with the idea that inhaling it would calm me. I saw my brother and we made arrangements for the care of our mother.
“At 2 o’clock Saturday afternoon I felt the need of sleep. I meant to try the chloroform but decided not to, as I was afraid of its effects. A little before 4 o’clock I woke up and proceeded to carry out a plan which I had for some time in mind. This was to black my face, put on woman’s clothes and call upon my wife who was visiting in this city, and play a joke upon her without revealing my identity. My original plan had been to assume this disguise in a vacant room in the house where my wife was staying.
“Now I had promised to meet a friend in Livermore that evening. After I was dressed in the woman’s clothes, in which I meant to play the joke upon my wife, I remembered my appointment. As I did not intend to go to Livermore, it occurred to me that as he would probably leave San Francisco on the 4:30 o’clock boat I could meet him at the ferry.”
Livernash claims to have but a very confused recollection of what happened on the way from the Lick House to the ferry, but he remembers starting to go aboard the boat and also remembers the fact of his arrest.
Dr. Robertson of 705 Sutter street gave the technical part of the testimony for the the defense. Livernash has been under his treatment for the past two weeks.
“He is,” said the doctor, “one of the most pronounced instances of hypnotism that ever came under my observation.”
“What do you mean by hypnotism?” demanded the counsel.
“Hypnotism is a thing generally misunderstood,” waa the expert’s reply. “It is a condition of trance, which may be induced by a mesmerist, or may be induced by the patient himself, without even the intention of so doing.”
“And is the subject conscious of what he is doing while in the hypnotic state?”
“That is just as it happens. Sometimes the subject is partially conscious and sometimes absolutely unconscious as long as the hypnotic trance lasts.”
Dr. Robertson continued, giving a history of Livernash’s case since the young man has been under his treatment. When asked if he considered that the prisoner was morally responsible when he dressed himself in woman’s clothes on Saturday, the physician replied that in his professional opinion. Livernash would never have done such a thing if he had been in complete possession of his faculties.
Judge Joachimsen took the case under advisement and will give his decision this morning.
Dr. Robertson told a Chronicle reporter later that he had never known a man of such peculiar hypnotic temperament as Livernash although the latter’s brother presents a case full or interest to experts.
“The brother,” said the physician, “was taken with epileptic fit not long ago and it required six men to hold him. He acted vindictively toward all six of the men, but when he came out of the fit he had no recollection of what had happened. The next time he had an epileptic fit, however, he remembered perfectly all that happened on the previous occasion and all his former vindictiveness against the men who had held was revived. He put a pistol in his pocket and started for this city from Healdsburg with the intention of shooting one of the men who had held him during the former attack. Fortunately he came out of the trance before he found the man. Yet if he had shot him while in that hypnotic trance he would not have been morally responsible.
The case of Editor E. J. Livernash is one that well recommends itself to any one who is interested in psychic research.
– San Francisco Chronicle, September 29 1891
THE LADY IN BLACK. Livernash, the Female Masquerader, Is Found Guilty.
E. J. Livernash, who was arrested for masquerading in female attire by Sergeant Kavanagh on Saturday evening last, was found guilty by Judge Joachimsen, Tuesday, and ordered to appear Wednesday morning for sentence. His honor held that the hypnotic idea was not tenable. That Mr. Livernash, a lawyer and journalist, should array himself in female attire at a hotel and then glide out on the street, take a street car, go to the ferries and purchase a ticket for Livermore while waiting for one Cunningham, under the pretext that he was going to play a joke on his wife, who lived on California street in this city, was an improbable story. His honor had never been hypnotized save by Prosecuting Attorney Martin Stevens or Attorney J. H. Long, and then he thought that “paralyzed” would have been the proper word. Therefore he did not believe in such bosh: hence the order.
Detective James Rogers recovered a wig worth $40 which Livernash had hired from Goldstein & Cohen on the pretext of using it for a masked ball. It was in the Property Clerk’s office. —S.F. Post.
Edward J. Livernash, the Livermore publisher who was convicted of masquerading as a negro woman at the ferry in San Francisco, appeared before Judge Joachimsen for sentence. The case was continued until to-day, when a motion for a new trial will be argued.
– Sonoma Democrat, October 3 1891
EDITOR LIVERNASH What is Thought of His Joke at His Home.
Livermore, Sept. 28. — The arrest of Editor Livernash has caused much excitement here. He came here four months ago and bought a newspaper from W. P. Bartlett for $2000, paying $1000 cash. A few weeks ago a fire in his office burned out his establishment, but an insurance policy taken out a few days before covered his loss. He was in town Sunday afternoon, and he repeated his statement that he was merely playing a practical joke. The presence of so much poison in his satchel caused a great amount of speculation here.
– Sonoma Democrat, October 3 1891
Editor Livernash’s Sentence.
E. J. Livernash, editor of the Livermore Herald, convicted of misdemeanor for having masqueraded in female attire around the ferry landing, was sentenced by Judge Joachimsen, in San Francisco, Friday, to pay a fine of $100 or be imprisoned in the county jail for fifty days. His counsel gave notice of appeal to the Superior Court, and Livernash was released on $600 bonds pending the hearing of the case.
– Sonoma Democrat, October 10 1891
Peter Cunningham, an old man of fifty years, dressed in rags, after being found guilty of vagrancy yesterday morning by Judge Rix declared that he was worth $36,000, and gave the names of several reputable citizens as references. The Court gave Cunningham till this morning to prove what he said under promise of a new trial.
– San Francisco Examiner, June 19 1889
WEALTHY, BUT A VAGRANT
Peter Cunningham, an old miser, was convicted of vagrancy by Judge Conlan yesterday, although he has $51,559 on deposit in six banks and is the owner of real estate in the city and a ranch in the country. He was arrested last Tuesday night on Bush and Sansome streets by Pollceman Tom Langford, who committed suicide the following night, and Special Officer Rowland. Several officers testified in court yesterday that Cunningham was in the nightly habit of visiting swill barrels in the rear of hotels, bakeries and saloons and picking out pieces of meat and bread, which he took to his home at 316 Davis street. When arrested several scraps were found in his pockets. He and an old beggar had been seen to run a race to get first to a swill barrel. Special Officer Rowland said that on one occasion he had given his dog a juicy leg of mutton to eat and Cunningham had taken it from the dog. He was also in the habit of going along the streets in the daytime and picking up odd things.
Cunningham, in his own defense, denied that he purloined stuff from swill barrels, but he appeared to know something about whether they were boxes or barrels, and that some of them were locked. He produced six bank books, showing that he had, as he said, about $52,000 on deposit. He admitted that he very frequently took some meat and bread that a Chinese employed in a saloon on Front and California streets used to leave at the foot of a palm tree in front of the saloon for newsboys.
Judge Conlan said it was one of the worst cases that had come before him. If a poor man had taken meat and bread out of swill barrels, there would be some excuse for him but there was no excuse for the defendant, who, although a wealthy man, was, in his opinion, “an inveterate bum.” It was not necessary that a man should be a drunkard or an associate of known thieves to be a vagrant, and he had no hesitation in saying that the acts of the defendant constituted him, in the eyes of the law, a vagrant. He would convict him of the charge and order him into custody to appear for sentence to-morrow morning.
Cunningham was was up on a similar charge before the late Judge Campbell in February last, and the case was dismissed. He was therefore considerably taken aback by the judgment of Judge Conlan, and instructed his attorney to appeal the case. He had given his attorney, E. S. Comyns, his bank books, but later insisted upon their being given into the custody of the police.
“I am not a vagrant,” said Cunningham when seen in the City Prison, “and this is a job on the part of the police. I have lived here since 1856, and should be allowed to live my own way. I do not need to work, as I have plenty of money, which I honestly earned. I was born in the west of Ireland and am a jeweler by trade. I worked for Tiffany in New York before coming here, and worked for some of the leading jewelers in this city. I speculated in stocks and was successful, and then I gave up work. I have an elder brother living with me and have relatives in the country. I suppose they call me an old miser, but that is none of their business.”
RIGHT: William Hall Hudson (1855-1927)
