crime

THE SEDUCER’S SCHOOL

Jeff Elliott Leave a comment

Profiled earlier was a Santa Rosa girl who died from a botched abortion in 1909. Now let’s meet the villain responsible for her pregnancy: Professor Forest C. Richardson, a 45 year-old teacher, husband, father and serial sexual predator.

If this story was less outrageous it’s doubtful the local newspapers would have covered it at all. Anything related to sex that might arouse prurient interests was downplayed and thickly coated in euphanisms; a child molester who lurked around the E street bridge in 1906 and repeatedly grabbed young girls was described in a Press Democrat headline as a “hugger.” The only time I recall seeing the word “rape” was in a 1909 PD item that did not mention the victim at all – although readers of the Santa Rosa Republican knew she was 13 years old (that paper, however, described the the crime merely as “assault”). Also taboo was abortion, which was dubbed instead the “criminal operation,” as discussed in the essay about the young Santa Rosa woman who died following the procedure.

It was apparently a mention of Professor Richardson in the San Francisco coroner’s jury findings that led Sonoma County District Attorney Clarence Lea to bring him in for questioning. Richardson and his family had been in Santa Rosa since 1905 and operated the Richardson’s Business College at 521A Fourth street, which was probably only a room or two of walk-up office space. As the Press Democrat pointed out at some length, it had nothing to do with Sweet’s Santa Rosa Business College, “a large and successful institution [that] stands high in the estimation of the community.” Those who attended Richardson’s school, according to the Republican paper, were “mainly poor girls, struggling to get along in the world and make something of themselves.”

From the accounts that appeared in the Santa Rosa papers and San Francisco Call, Richardson was emphatic that the District Attorney understood he had nothing to do with the girl’s abortion-related death. But yes, he confessed he had a “familiarity with her” that dated back four years – when she would have been 14 years old – and that there had been others as well. When any of the girls became pregnant he gave them some sort of pill that was supposed to be an abortifacient. Richardson was arrested after signing a lengthy confession and the Grand Jury indicted him on criminal assault (rape) and furnishing girls with drugs for illegal purposes (abortion).

The prosecutor dropped the rape charges – perhaps the four young women investigated by the DA were consenting adults? –  and concentrated on a star witness. This woman testified Richardson had vowed to run away with her to another country and had given her a ring. When she became pregnant he gave her some of his special pills. They didn’t work and as childbirth drew near he didn’t provide the financial help promised. Thus she came to court and testified against him, bringing along their infant. Also in the courtroom were Richardson’s wife and four kids, which probably made for a few squirmy moments.

With excerpts from his confession being read in court and no defense made except to vilify the character of the witness, it was assumed that jurors would make quick work of their decision. They didn’t. The jury was deadlocked after being sequestered overnight.

When the retrial began a couple of weeks later, the Press Democrat could no longer maintain its pretense of journalistic objectivity, such as the nicety of using the word, “alleged.” One headline read, “State Calls Further Witnesses in Case Revealing Degeneracy of a Former Instructor” and while mentioning that Richardson’s family again was in the courtroom, sneered “the children being fortunately too young to grasp the meaning of the details of their father’s lust.”

The second jury found him guilty within five minutes, cheering themselves for a job done well. Richardson was sentenced to four years in San Quentin.

Richardson’s family remained here while he was in prison, living at 125 W 8th St. [UPDATE: It’s not the small house now at that address.] The 1915 city directory revealed he joined them and was again working as a teacher (yikes!) somewhere not mentioned. The last trace of him is in the 1920 census, where he was listed as a janitor at the Western Union office in Seattle.

PROFESSOR RICHARDSON FACES SERIOUS CHARGE
Testimony of Young Girls May Convict Teacher of Felony

Professor F. C. Richardson, of Richardson’s Business College in this city, is under arrest at the county jail and is being held to face a serious charge.

The exact charge against the accused is that he has supplied a girl with drugs to be used in an attempt to commit an abortion, and directing their use. This charge will not bar the district attorney from filing another complaint at any time on a more serious charge.

According to the evidence against the man, he has ruined a number of girls who have attended his school, and has used his office in that place to accomplish his purpose. Some of his victims are declared to be under the legal age of consent, while some of the charges against him are now outlawed.

Richardson was summoned to the office of District Attorney Lea Saturday morning and was there given an opportunity to tell his story. Previously Mr. Lea had devoted considerable time to investigation of the girls alleged to have wronged by this monster. It is alleged that Richardson admitted much of the charges placed against him.

As yet no warrant has been issued against Richardson. He was arrested by constable Gilliam and is being detained at the county jail.

The man’s offense is all the more heinous when it is considered that his victims were mainly poor girls, struggling to get along in the world and make something of themselves, while he has been at work tearing down their defenses and betraying them.

The penalty for the crime with which Richardson is charged is from two years to five years in the penitentiary.

– Santa Rosa Republican, January 22, 1910
CONFESSES GUILT OF HEINOUS CRIME
Professor C. H. Richardson Arrested Saturday and is Now Lodged in the County Jail

Professor C. H. Richardson, who for several years conducted Richardson’s Business College in this city, occupies a steel-bound cell in the county jail, where he was lodged Saturday after he had told a shocking story to District Attorney Clarence Lea admitting improprieties with a number of young girls.

To men whose official duties frequently cause them to hear details of depravity, Richardson’s admissions, coupled with the evidence they have secured, constitute a case unsurpassed by any that has come to their knowledge. With some show of shame, Richardson admits that he has been “very foolish.” Beyond that he has little to say.

Richardson’s traffic in immorality, according to his own statement to District Attorney Lea, has covered something like four years, or practically ever since he took up his residence in Santa Rosa. In his former home in Texas similar charges were made against him, and he left there.

To District Attorney Lea Richardson on Saturday confessed to five victims of his lust. District Attorney Lea is withholding names, but it is known that one of the victims of the man now behind the bars was a young woman who died recently in San Francisco under suspicious circumstances and whose death it will be remembered was made the matter of investigation. Richardson states that his familiarity with her dates back four years ago, but he denies any complicity with the cause of her death.

The specific charge against Richardson in the complaint sworn out in Judge Atchinson’s court by Constable Boswell is that of furnishing drugs to girls for an improper purpose. When seen Saturday night District Attorney Lea said:

“There is no doubt as to the truth of Richardson’s admissions. He has been persistently and incessantly ruining young girls. The matter was first brought to my attention a day and a half ago, and since then we have worked diligently on the case, and when Richardson was arrested today we were quite sure of our ground. He later made a confession to me of his wrong doing.”

– Press Democrat, January 23, 1910

UGLY CHARGES PUT PROFESSOR IN JAIL
Girl Pupils Accuse the Head of Santa Rosa Business College of Heinous Offense

(Special Dispatch to The Call)
SANTA ROSA, Jan 22.–With the arrest today of Professor Forest C. Richardson whispered rumors grew into broad tales of scandal concerning conditions at the local business college of which he is the head. A number of young Santa Rosa girls have been pupils at the institution and the revelations have shocked the community.

The investigations were begun by District Attorney Clarence F. Lea following the death in San Francisco of Leora Hendrison, an 18 year old girl, who had been a student at Richardson’s school. Miss Hendrison’s death was followed by the arrest of a San Francisco physician. The ensuing inquiry caused attention to be directed toward Richardson’s school.

The information that has come to the district attorney leads him to believe that the most serious accusations against Richardson are to follow. There are four specific cases under investigation. In some instances the girls involved were but 14 and 15 years old. There are charges also that many young women were compelled to abandon their studies shortly after enrollment because of the demeanor of the preceptor.

Richardson came to Santa Rosa six years ago from Corpus Christi, Tex. For four years he has conducted the business college. He is far from attractive in personal appearance. He is untidy of dress and of irregular features. He is 45 years old and has a wife and family of growing children. He has been active in religious undertakings and has professed sympathy with the local good government league.

Richardson was placed in a cell tonight. He will make no attempt to obtain bail for the present, believing he is safer in jail than out.

– San Francisco Call, January 23, 1910
NOT SWEET’S SANTA ROSA BUSINESS COLLEGE

A San Francisco paper refers to F. C. Richardson, now under arrest here on a serious charge, as “President of the Santa Rosa Business College.” This is not correct. The Santa Rosa Business College is conducted by James S. Sweet, former Mayor of the city, and one of the best known and most reliable men in this community and Richardson is not and never was associated with him or with that institution in any way.

Richardson ran a commercial class in a rented room on Fourth street. Sweet’s Santa Rosa Business College owns its own three-story building on Ross street. It is a large and successful institution, and stands high in the estimation of the community.

Readers of The Press Democrat should not confuse the facts in this case. Richardson’s commercial school and Sweet’s Santa Rosa Business College are two separate and very distinct concerns.

– Press Democrat, February 1, 1910
RICHARDSON CASE IS NOW ON TRIAL
Former Commercial School Teacher Faces a Jury on a Very Serious Charge

[12 men] were yesterday chosen in Judge Seawell’s court as the jury to try the felony charge against F. C. Richardson, who formerly taught a commercial school in this city. Richardson was indicted by the Grand Jury on two counts. He is now being tried on a charge of furnishing medicine and drugs for the purpose of producing a miscarriage.

After the impannellment [sic] of the jury District Attorney Lea made an opening statement. Assistant District Attorney Hoyle is associate for the prosecution.  William F. Cowan is the attorney for the defense.

The young woman who is the prosecuting witness took the witness stand and her testimony was damaging to Richardson. She admitted her yielding to the importunings of the defendant, and their illicit relations, the birth of the child, etc.

The witness’ testimony presented a disgusting state of affairs. Her allegations more than hinted at Richardson’s alleged depravity and cunning. She told of his avowed affections for her and of his having given her a ring (the ring being produced in court) and of his providing her with a veil so that her identity might not be revealed on the occasion of visits paid to secluded spots in the country, when opportunities in town, she said, had frequently availed. [sic]

The witness detailed that upon one occasion Richardson had told her that he could not marry her, but he would be willing to run away with her to a foreign country. She said further that he told her he had been familiar with other girls. The defendant’s counsel objected to the latter evidence as he claimed it was offered to liken Richardson to “a moral monster” in the eyes of the jury.

Under cross-examination the witness’ direct evidence was not shaken. She denied that she had ever received any money from Richardson. Twenty days before the child was born she admitted she wrote Richardson a postal card on which she had told him that she was waiting for money. She did this, she said, because he had promised to help her and had not done so.

Richardson’s wife and four children occupied a front bench in the courtroom while the prosecuting witness was relating her story.

Under cross-examination the witness was asked questions touching upon her previous character. The case will be continued today.

– Press Democrat, May 18, 1910
ALL EVIDENCE IN; ARGUMENT BEGINS
Richardson Case Will Go to the Jury Today–Both Sides Have Rested Case

The trial of F. C. Richardson, charged with furnishing medicine to a young woman for the purpose of producing a miscarriage, was resumed Wednesday before Judge Seawell and a jury.

A startling feature of the evidence adduced Wednesday was the introduction of portions of a statement made by Richardson to District Attorney Lea and taken down by Court Reporter Scott, in which statement Richardson admitted his intimacy, with the young woman who is the prosecuting witness in this case. The statement was taken after the arrest of Richardson. In it he admitted giving the young woman pills.

When court resumed on Wednesday morning the prosecuting witness was recalled by Attorney William F. Cowan, counsel for the defense, and her cross-examination was continued. She amplified certain evidence given on the previous day. An effort was made to bring out that her character had not been all that it possibly should have been.

Medical and expert testimony was also a feature of the day, evidence dealing with the nature of medicine alleged to have been procured for the prosecuting witness by the defendant.

Thomas Price, for over fifty years an analytical chemist of San Francisco and a frequent expert in the courts, was called on Wednesday afternoon, and testified as to an analysis he had made, at the request of the prosecution, of a box of pills. He detailed the result of his examination, and gave the ingredients.

Another medical witness was Dr. J. W. Jesse, who was asked a hypothetical question regarding the medicinal properties referred to by Analyst Price.

Other witnesses were called during the day by the prosecution, including the foster parents of the prosecuting witness.

Only portions of the statement made by Richardson were read in evidence, the part telling of his conquests with other girls being omitted as not connected with the case at bar. The statement in full covers many typewritten pages.

During court recesses Richardson joined his wife, and they sat chatting earnestly together. Their children, four small ones, were not brought into court by their mother as on the previous day of the trial. The little baby in the case was in court for a few moments Wednesday morning.

[..]

– Press Democrat, May 19, 1910
RICHARDSON CONVICTED BY THE JURY LAST EVENING
Verdict Returned After A Few Minutes’ Deliberation

F. C. Richardson was on Thursday night found guilty in the Superior Court of the crime of furnishing medicine to a young woman for the purpose of committing an abortion. The young woman was a student at the commercial school of which he was principal. The maximum punishment for the offense is five years in the State’s prison. Judgement will be pronounced by Superior Judge J. Q. White at nine o’clock next Monday morning. Judge White presided at the trial for Judge Seawell.

Five Minutes Deliberation

The verdict was returned into court after a few minutes deliberation on the part of the jury. At five minutes to nine at night the jury retired; twenty minutes later they were ready with their verdict of conviction.

Two Ballots Taken

As is customary with juries, the first ballot taken is usually to ascertain the feeling of the twelve men and before deliberation of the evidence ensues. The course was followed out in this case and on the first ballot there were eleven for conviction and one for acquittal.

Just as quick as fresh slips of paper could be passed around another ballot was taken, with the result that all twelve men voted for conviction.

Jurymen Cheer

Directly upon the taking of the ballot there was a cheer from the jury room, which could be heard echoing over the Court House. A few minutes later the electric bell connecting the juryroom on top of the Court House with the outside corridor rang boldly, and when Deputy Sheriff Reynolds answered the call and inquired whether the jury had agreed upon a verdict there was a lusty “yes” is response.

[..]

– Press Democrat, June 10, 1910

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ON TUESDAY THE MONSTER CAME TO TOWN

Jeff Elliott Leave a comment

He showered Fourth street in silver coins and 3,000 attended his debut, equivalent to every third person in town in 1909. He was a showman famous throughout the West: The Great Fer-Don, lecturer, traveler and philanthropist. He was also a monster, and if there’s such a thing as a criminal genius, he was probably that, too.

(This is Part II of an article about the “Great Fer-Don.” Have you read Part I?)

Santa Rosa had never seen a scam artist like James M. Ferdon, who introduced a new kind of confidence game wrapped inside something old and familiar. He combined features of the traditional medicine show – a ballyhoo and parade, leading to a free evening stage show with entertainers to draw an audience and a pitch to buy an elixir for what-ails-you – but all that was now just the warmup. Waiting at a nearby hotel, Ferdon told the crowds, were European doctors who were experts in the ultra-modern technique of “bloodless surgery.” They could cure the most serious medical problems: Complete blindness and deafness. Paralysis. Gallstones. Appendicitis. Tumors. Cancer. All without a scalpel or the loss of a single drop of blood.

(RIGHT: James Ferdon portrait in the Salem, Oregon Daily Capital Journal, June 15, 1910)

It was such a brazen collection of lies that it apparently had the effect of shock and awe, even fooling people who thought they were the sort who never could be fooled. According to Ferdon, his European Medical Experts were so esteemed that local physicians flocked to them to be healed themselves of serious diseases. “Each day hundreds of people are cured by my doctor’s method,” Ferdon was quoted in an article that appeared in the Press Democrat. “Many local physicians come to us in diffent cities we have visited. We removed a cancer from a prominent physician in Dallas, Texas.” Claiming to perform such miraculous cures “bloodlessly” was the cake icing. What exactly that meant was never made clear, but some of the procedures described in the ads sound remarkably like “psychic surgery,” where tumors and such are pretended to be removed without breaking the skin – the “surgeon” uses basic sleight-of-hand techniques to palm animal organs and other gory bits that could be flourished in front of the patient as diseased tissue. If so, this apparently would be the earliest example of psychic surgery fraud in the United States.

Ferdon was also fuzzy on how much treatment would cost. In one instance his “Medical Expert” asked for $175 to remove gallstones, and demanded a $300 advance from someone else for the same “surgery.” (In Santa Rosa at that time the annual household income was about $500.) Ferdon was not only duping people into believing life-threatening illnesses could be cured by mysterious and unbloody means, he was stealing every cent they had, which probably denied them the hope of seeking real expert medical attention after they wised up. This made him a monster twice over.

As much as Ferdon was a villain, it’s hard not to stand agape at his salesmanship skills; this was a man who could sucker you into buying an interest in his new breed of racing horses that had wheels for legs and were powered by gasoline engines. His audiences simply didn’t see there was something discordant about world-class physicians teaming up with a man running a cornball show crafted to appeal to yokels. At one Santa Rosa performance he had a “ladies’ woodsawing” contest; the next night a live pig was given away (“the person winning it will be obliged to carry it out in their arms”). Ferdon had a particular affection for showing off tapeworms preserved in jars; no matter where he went, to hear him tell it, there was always someone ready to shower him with gratitude for having rid them of a gargantuan 50, 70, 90-foot parasite (which they measured how?) after all other treatments failed.

Another factor in his success was the manner in which he shamelessly bought off local newspapers, including both the Press Democrat and Santa Rosa Republican. Yes, he placed big ads announcing his shows, and nothing wrong with that. Yes, he also made claims that his European Experts could perform impossible cures, and there was nothing wrong with that, either, at the time; as discussed here earlier, the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906 enforced truth in labeling but didn’t even mention truth in advertising – the newspapers here (particularly the PD) routinely published ads for miraculous potions, including drugs that were supposed to prevent tuberculosis or repair heart disease. But Ferdon and the newspaper editors crossed an ethical line because his ads didn’t look at all like ads: They looked like regular news stories. They appeared above the fold in line with other articles (ads were usually at the bottom of the page or grouped together in the back section) and except for the headline font and layout being slightly different from the rest of the paper (Ferdon apparently provided his own headline typeset block as part of the deal), it was impossible to tell at first glance that it was fake news.

The articles that appeared in the Santa Rosa papers were written in general newspaper style, clearly adapted by someone using copy provided by Ferdon – phrases, even whole paragraphs, can be found in similar articles published in other towns. While some of the prose is rather purple (“the great Fer-Don [has] caused the whole of Europe and America to talk about his wonderful medical discoveries and the citizens have been patiently waiting for his arrival in our city”) much of it could pass for a real article of the day. The trusted local papers had become willing accomplices to fraud.

It may have come as a surprise to editors Ernest Finley and Allen Lemmon, but not all newspapers were eager to sell out their readership to hucksters; some investigated his claims and exposed him as a fraud, warning subscribers to stay away.

In the first in a series of front page muckraking stories, the Seattle Star in January 1910 described what happened when a reporter sought treatment under the guise of being a workman. Ferdon’s medical expert diagnosed “a heart affection” and a “bad case of the ‘nerves'” which could be cured by a two month treatment. As for the price, the doctor said, “I will let you down light. You say that you are an electrician and have a good job with the Seattle Electric company. Well, I’ll make it $50 for the entire treatment. This includes your prescriptions for the first month. After that you will be charged extra.”

When Ferdon entered the room to collect the money, the reporter confronted  him on operating a “fake medical bureau.” Ferdon denied the charge and tried to change the subject. “In California, mothers and invalids worship me. Every week I visit the orphan asylums and scatter gifts among the waifs. The newsies I remember on Christmas with huge Christmas trees. I intend to do the same thing in Seattle.” As the reporter continued pressing, Ferdon threw out another red herring: “There is not a business or profession that is free from faking…the grocer will advertise milk as the best, but in reality it is half water. The ethical physician tell you a man is hopeless, but at the same time he will treble his visits until the victim passes away. The politician is a faker–we’re all fakers, if you put it that way.”

Ferdon told the reporter “My treatments consist of massage, vibrators, medicines and the violet rays.” The medicine, he claimed, was formulated by his doctors in a “laboratory”  elsewhere in the hotel building. The reporter checked and found the so-called lab just another hotel room.

Most of all, Ferdon seemed irate that the newspaper didn’t play along. “The Star is doing wrong in trying to drive me out. I bring lots of money to this city. Why in hell don’t you and your editor quit and leave me alone. The P. I. and the Times are not molesting me.” In its introduction, the editor commented, “If The Star had chosen to accept the advertising instead of exposing these fakers it would have been richer by probably $3,500.” The Seattle Star also found that in 1907 the Portland Daily News had similarly investigated him rather than accept the fraudulent ads. The Star summed up Ferdon’s advertising strategy: “Their scheme, highly successful in most cases, is to buy up venal newspapers with large advertising contracts at hush money rates, and then take advantage of the credence the public puts in these prostituted journals.”

The Seattle Star continued its front page exposé, even printing an interesting letter from a woman, Mrs. E. J. Eakin, who lived in Napa just before Ferdon came to Santa Rosa that revealed his other activities in this area (which were never mentioned in the PD or Republican):


I was residing in Napa, Cal. two years ago when Fer-Don and his band of ‘fakers’ came to town…For the first two weeks he did not make a cent. Then one Saturday night he managed to sell $4 worth of medicines to the ranchers. That gave him his opportunity. Ascending the stage steps, he said that he did not sell the medicine for money — but to cure the sick. Then he threw the $4 among the audience and a general scramble occurred. When it was noised about that Fer-Don was throwing money away the audiences increased rapidly…gradually every home in Napa had his medicines…

…The last week he was there, Fer-Don gave away coupons with every sale. The coupons entitled the holder to an examination by one of his “European Experts.” The simple people were made to believe that they had awful diseases, and the agony that they would suffer was pictured to them by the experts. Then a ‘treatment’ was advised, and it usually ended with the victim depositing from $10 to $500 with the fakers…[T]he victims began to awaken to the fact that Fer-Don and his experts were fakers and the medicines nothing but colored water. When Fer-Don found that the people were wise, he skipped out to Petaluma. He stayed there for several weeks, then returned to Napa. Then the town authorities took up the matter and raised his license so high that he had to leave town.

Normally Ferdon would milk a large metro area like Seattle for weeks or months, but the heat generated by the Star series drove him out after a few days. He made brief stops in Everett, Washington and Medford, Oregon, where his fake news stories boasted of his great cures (epic tapeworms mentioned, as always) but also included a new claim of being persecuted by busybodies: “[E]nmity always follows success, and there is always a certain class of humanity ready to cry ‘humbug,’ ‘fake,’ and ‘quack,’ but such howlers and defamers of honest characters are very seldom successful in any line of business because they do not attend to their own. They are too busy sticking their noses into the affairs of others.”

Two weeks later he was in Spokane, where the Spokane Press followed the Seattle Star in exposing his fraud in front page stories. “The ‘marvelous cures’ that he is alleged to have performed by his ‘psychic,’ ‘magnetic’ or ‘mesmeric’ process of ‘bloodless surgery’ have been heralded in large double column display ads in some of the papers, and the ‘wonderful’ Fer-Don has been preparing to rake in the shekels, as he has in the past, where exposure has not been present to lay bare his game. The Press was offered his advertising and refused it.”

The Spokane paper also offered an interesting tidbit about what happened after Ferdon left Santa Rosa: He tried to setup operations in Sacramento, but the City Council there moved quickly to get rid of him, passing a special ordinance requiring a $100/day license for any “medical minstrel shows.”

Even though Ferdon wasn’t in Spokane long, the muckraking newspaper kept the story alive. They found a woman from Pomona, California who had been diagnosed with “nervous trouble” by one of his “Experts” and her husband had raised the money for Ferdon’s treatment. Later the couple consulted a real physician who discovered she had an incurable tumor (which might have been breast cancer, judging from the newspaper’s description): “It was just too late then to effect a cure and leave her a whole woman, though had your Mr. Dunning been a physician he would have discovered the trouble in time to have given her a chance.”

That March, 1910 item in the Spokane Press was the paper’s last exclusive about Ferdon’s misdeeds; by April, the Great Fer-Don and his band of fraudsters were fugitives and drawing the attention of more newspapers.

Ferdon’s downfall began with a warrant from Everett, WA charging him with practicing medicine without a license; also wanted on a criminal charge was one of his staff, William Ramsey. By the end of April, the Sacramento grand jury indicted Ferdon and H. Thayer Thornberg, another associate, for obtaining money under false pretenses. And sometime around this period, Dr. Seth Wells, Ferdon’s main accomplice (see Part I) lost his Utah medical license after a conviction for assault.

Thornberg went to trial in June, where the prosecution presented evidence that Ferdon’s “medicine” for gallstone cure was 98 percent water with the rest being alcohol and coloring. He was found guilty and sentenced to two years in prison.

Meanwhile, “Where is Fer-Don?” articles began popping up in Utah, California and Washington papers. The Los Angeles Police Department was keeping a close eye on his home. Ferdon and crew, however, were hiding in plain sight; in June and July they were up to their usual business in Salem, Oregon. To accompany his fake news articles there, the Daily Capital Journal even ran two pictures of “Fer-Don,” the only time known his photograph appeared in a newspaper.

By the summer of 1910, there can be no doubt that the publishers of the Press Democrat and Santa Rosa Republican knew Ferdon was running a con game, and a potentially deadly one at that. Items about the police pursuit and the Thornberg trial had appeared in the San Francisco and Oakland papers, as well as in other well-read dailies from Sacramento and Los Angeles. The criminal charge against his associate, William Ramsey, even had been filed by someone in Santa Rosa. And, at the risk of projecting modern ethics onto the past, the editors had to realize that Ferdon had committed wrongs far worse than the objectives of usual medicine advertising, which was selling harmless, inexpensive snake oil to rubes – and he had done these bad things with their collaboration. At the very least, one might hope that editors Finley and Lemmon also recalled all the serious diseases that Ferdon’s “Experts” claimed to cure in the news-advertisements that appeared in their papers, and wanted to alert subscribers that any diagnosis and treatment was probably bogus. But not one word, as far as I can determine, ever appeared in either Santa Rosa newspaper to discredit him in any way. No mention of warrants or other legal woes, not even the complaint made against Ferdon’s accomplice came from someone right here in town. Once his show left Santa Rosa, he was never written of again. It was a second, and fundamentally worse, betrayal of their public trust.

Thornberg’s conviction marked the end of “The Great Fer-Don,” but there was a footnote of sorts: In December his wife, Mrs. Alpha Ferdon, made a plea deal in Sacramento to pay a $1,000 fine for “conspiracy to commit a felony through fake cures.” Her husband received the same offer but did not appear in court. Alpha paid another $1,000 for his bail, which was forfeited.

Fer-Don the “European Medical Expert” agent might be dead, but long live “The Great Lavita.” Through a 1912 Illinois medical newsletter and a Tacoma newspaper we find Ferdon and Seth Wells were still partners, this time Wells posing as Dr. A. E. Williams who treated the sick using the “marvelous Lavita method.” Except for the lack of the medicine show angle, it was identical to the Fer-Don scam; placement of fake news articles, bloodless surgery, wonderful cures, and as always, descriptions of a lady thrusting into the doctor’s hands a jar containing a monstrous tapeworm.

By at least 1914, Ferdon had changed persona yet again and emerged as “The Great Pizaro” (sometimes Pizarro). While the Fer-Don scam undoubtedly made him rich, being Pizaro kept him more-or-less out of trouble with the law, and it was something he enjoyed doing: Pitch man for an old-fashioned traveling medicine show, with musical and comic acts. There is available a wonderful first-hand account of the show from someone who worked for it as a child: “We basked in the lurid flames of the gasoline torches for the big evening performance. We helped to hand out free samples and pass along the bottles containing tapeworms purged from local citizens now able to live full and happy lives again for the first time in seven years….”

(RIGHT: Worker setting up the stage for the Pizaro Cactus Juice Show, c. 1920. Photo courtesy Durham County, North Carolina library collection)

This time he sold homemade nostrums such as “Cactus Juice Compound,” mineral salts, and his “Great Catarrh Remedy” (which the Cleveland Board of Health had analyzed and found to contain just soda, borax, and salt) but what he was really selling was nostalgia for the old-timey form of entertainment. Through that means he also gained a kind of respectability. He appeared in the 1920 census as a “manufacture of medicine” living in a very nice house in Hollywood, just off Sunset Boulevard. Billboard magazine reported on his comings and goings as they did all legit traveling performers: “Jim Ferdon (Great Pizarro) was wintering in Galveston, Texas” (1938) … “Mr. and Mrs. James Ferdon have opened their med show in Reading Pa., after spending a profitable and pleasant winter in the Sunny South. Mrs. Ferdon reveals that Sunshine Sal and Her Little Pal, of radio fame in the South, are none other than herself and daughter, Barbara Ann. They will be with the Piazaro med opera this summer” (1942).

Until his death in 1944, Ferdon toured the country with his Pizaro show, except for the three years he served in the federal penitentiary at Leavenworth. The Great Paul/Fer-Don/Lavita/Pizaro had yet another alias: inmate #23328. In 1924 he and four others – including Seth Wells – were convicted of “oil promotion fraud.” No other details of the scam can be found, but if Ferdon was behind it, you just know that a jar filled with tapeworms was involved somehow.

BLOODLESS OPERATION PERFORMED
UPON  PROMINENT EUREKA PHYSICIAN BY FER-DON’S EUROPEAN MEDICAL EXPERT
Dr. Goyer Has Large Tumor Removed to Test Bloodless Surgery–No Knife Was Used

“As we grow older we grow wiser,” is a saying that has followed humanity down the corridors of the centuries. True in every department of life, it is especially true with reference to the science of medicine and surgery. Never since the world began has medicine and surgery been reduced to such an exact science as at present and never have there been so many improvements and discoveries as within the past few years. All of the great discoveries in medicine and surgery have been by European doctors. Prof. Koch of Berlin, Germany, discovered the germ of consumption and other death dealing germs. Dr. Lorenz of Vienna, Austria, discovered bloodless surgery, whereby cripples, paralytics, hip joint disease, tumors, gallstones and appendicitis and diseases of women could be cured without the use of the knife. American physicians who for years have resorted to the knife and still keep in the same old rut today with their foggy ideas, are slow to recognized the new methods of the European Experts. It was left to Dr. Lorenz and the Great Fer-Don to bring into America the new method. To see is to believe and there are thousands who have seen and do believe; thousands who have been drawn from the yawning mouth of the sepulchre and restored to perfect health and happiness.

Eureka Physician Tests Method.

Among the many who came to test the healing power of these European Medical Experts and Bloodless surgeons who are now demonstrating upon the sick, crippled, and afflicted every day, there came one of Eureka’s most prominent physicians, who for years has enjoyed a successful practice. His reputation as a physician and surgeon has spread throughout the Sate of California and extended into other States. Broad minded, good natured, liberal in thoughts and deeds, he has won for himself many friends in Eureka. Dr. Goyer is his name. “For years I could have removed it myself with a knife if I could have got at it. I have heard whereby that tumors could be removed without the knife by the European Expert’s methods. I went and saw for myself. I am always willing to yield to science, and made up my mind to have my tumor removed by the Bloodless method. I am over 70 years old and I had confidence in Fer-Don and his experts. Well, it took about six minutes for Fer-Don’s European doctors to remove my tumor. No knife was used and no blood. I am perfectly satisfied. I am a practicing physician here in Eureka and have lived here for years.”

Fer-Don in speaking of the case said: “Each day hundreds of people are cured by my doctor’s method and many local physicians come to us in different cities we have visited. We removed a cancer from a prominent physician in Dallas, Texas. “You see,” said Fer-Don, “my office is crowded with sick. We will be in Santa Rosa at the Rex hotel for some time yet, then we go back to our main headquarters at 933 Market street, San Francisco.”

– Press Democrat, January 8, 1909

THREW THE MONEY AWAY
THE GREAT FER-DON ASTOUNDED A LARGE CROWD OF SANTA ROSA CITIZENS LAST NIGHT BY THROWING AWAY HANDFULS OF SILVER DIMES, QUARTERS, HALVES AND DOLLARS–VERITABLE SHOWER OF SILVER–DEMONSTRATIONS AND AN EXCELLENT SINGING SHOW ON THE BILL THIS WEEK

The Great Fer-Don, lecturer, traveler and philanthropist, the man, who, with his brother, has caused more comment than any other man who has [illegible microfilm] Oakland and San Francisco, is a man of many parts. During his stay many things have brought his name and his deeds to public notice. Last night on Fourth street he added yet to the entertainment by throwing broadcast into the crowd, money in handfuls until the air seemed filled with a shower of silver. To an observer it looked as if more than a hundred dollars must have been scattered in this way. It has also been whispered about that Fer-Don has assisted, in his own way in relieving a great deal of distress among the poor and sick of Santa Rosa. Presents of food, money and medicines have gladdened the hearts of many of the poor and many over whom the darkness of poverty and despair had settled found Fer-Don always ready to shed the sunshine of real help across their path.

Some people insist that Fer-Don is a spendthrift in throwing away money and in disposing of it so indiscriminately among those who need it, while others, wiser perhaps, say that all this is but bread cast upon the waters, to return in two ways; first, in the consciousness that he is doing real good; second, in the golden stream which flows into his coffers from the sale of his remedies, and which has made him the millionaire he is reputed to be.

At any rate the sales of these remedies all over the country are so great that Fer-Don is enabled to have the European Medical Expert, who accompanies him, treat all who come to their offices at the Rex Hotel, 533½ Fourth street, just for the cost of the medicines alone during the week. And here probably in making the cost of treatment so low, as these experts do is the most good done, for many who are sufferers from chronic diseases who would probably not be able to pay the price asked by most specialists are taking advantage of these low rates.

The Great Fer-Don will hold another entertainment tonight. Fer-Don does not lecture of sell medicine on Sunday  [illegible microfilm] troupe that accompany give an entertainment on that evening.

– Press Democrat, January 10, 1909
A SILVER SHOWER PARADE
THROWS MONEY AWAY AND CREATES BIG EXCITEMENT IN SANTA ROSA
The Great Fer-Don Greeted by Crowds of People Saturday Night–A prominent Lady Relieved on Monster Tape Worm.

The newspapers have been making announcements daily of the arrival of the great Fer-Don, the man who had caused the whole of Europe and America  to talk about his wonderful medical discoveries and the citizens have been patiently waiting for his arrival in our city.

There were thousands of people out Saturday night to see and greet this great man, who is noted for his charitable deeds to the poor and afflicted, and they say that he has given away hundreds of dollars to the poor and destitute of Los Angeles and Oakland.

His name there is a household word. All men, women and children know him by his kindness and deeds, and they say he has won a warm spot in the hearts of many of the people of Los Angeles and vicinity.

Fer-Don will be long remembered here in our city, especially by the young people, for Saturday night, just about 7 o’clock, Ferdon was escorted to the Pavillion Rink by his band.

Fer-Don amused himself by throwing handful after handful of money to the vast crowd that followed the parade. The amount Fer-Don threw away nobody knows, but a banker who saw the silver shower estimated the sum at one to two hundred dollars.

When Fer-Don arrived at the show he was greeted by 3000 people, and when he appeared upon the stage he held his audience spell bound by his magnetic manner and eloquent flow of speech. The audience was interested and pleased, as we could tell by the expressions on their faces.

Fer-Don told of his great success in San Francisco and Los Angeles, gave one testimonial after another with the names and addresses of people cured of rheumatism, stomach trouble, tumors, gall stones, tape worms and cancers and then he asked for people to come upon the platform to test the methods of his wonderful treatment.

Crowds Eager to Buy

When Fer-Don offered his remedies for sale, everybody wanted to try the remedies and secure a card to consult the European Medical Expert about his method of healing the sick.

Office at 533½ Fourth street Crowded

Saturday was a busy day for the European doctor. Over sixty people called to see the doctor, some on canes, others on crutches. One old lady was carried on a cot. Some were cured then and there, others were much benefited. One prominent lady came and asked to see the European doctor and was told she must wait her turn. She replied, “I must see him at once, as I have something here in this glass jar for him.” When admitted to the doctor’s office she explained that she had been suffering stomach trouble for a long time; appetite was irregular, stomach would bloat and swell after eating, was very dizzy at times, also hot and cold flashes would come over her. She tried different medicines, but none seemed to do her any good. “My husband attended the show one night last week and brought home a bottle of Fer-Don’s Medical Compound. I have taken only four doses of the medicine and to my surprise I was delivered of a monster parasite which measured 30 feet in length.” The lady is well known here and left the worm with the doctor here for exhibition.

The great Fer-Don will deliver another lecture tonight and every night this week at the Pavillion Rink.

Ladies’ Woodsawing Contest Tonight

Fer-Don will give the best lady woodsawer a prize of five dollars in gold tonight at the show. A number of prominent ladies have entered the contest.

– Santa Rosa Republican, January 11, 1909
FER-DON IS LIBERAL
MIRACULOUS SIGHTS
Crowds of People Saw Fer-Don Each Evening in Spite of the Rain
THOUSANDS MADE HAPPY BY FER-DON’S LIBERALITY — CHILDREN’S DAY AND THEATER PARTY BIG SUCCESS — MANY PROMINENT CITIZENS TELL PUBLIC OF MIRACULOUS CURES

Local people claimed Fer-Don was a passing fad, and would soon wear out. The facts are that Fer-Don and the European Medical Experts are growing more and more interesting each day; many cures are added to the list  and it is almost impossible to find a man or woman or child in Santa Rosa who is not a staunch and true friend of the Great Fer-Don. Fer-Don, by his charitable deeds and liberal way to the public, has gained for him a warm spot in the heart of the many citizens.

Takes Children to Theater

Today Fer-Don entertained over 500 children, taking them to the Richter theater and picture shows. Fer-Don’s love and fondness for children has been the talk of all the large cities he has visited.

A thousand people saw Fer-Don last night. The music and entertainment was highly appreciated.

Fer-Don Headquarters Crowded Daily

At the office in the Rex Hotel Fer-Don’s European Medical Expert is kept busy. It is estimated that three hundred persons called at his office Saturday to take treatment with the expert.

– Santa Rosa Republican, January 16, 1909
BEWARE OF FRAUDS AND IMITATORS
THE GREAT FER-DON’S PHENOMENAL SUCCESS BRING TO LIGHT RANK IMITATORS WHO CLAIM TO BE BLOODLESS SURGEONS
ONLY GENUINE BLOODLESS SURGEONS ON THE COAST–NOW AT 533 1-2 FOURTH STREET, SANTA ROSA CAL.

The successful man is always the mark for imitators and impostors, who hope to build up a business through the great popularity and success of the one imitated. That is one of the penalties of greatness, and the public is warned against those who have recently established themselves in the vicinity of Oakland and San Francisco, claiming to be practitioners of bloodless surgery. The Great Fer-Don, at the cost of thousands of dollars, has alone bought these secrets and has engaged the only bloodless surgeons now practicing in America.

No one in need of the services of Fer-Don’s European Experts or Bloodless Surgeons can afford to trifle with imposters. Health is too valuable an asset to lose by dealing with imitators who have no knowledge of what they claim and hope to succeed only by false allegations in diverting the people away from the real and only specialists of this character, who are now located at 533½ Fourth street.

For two years or more the Great Fer-Don and his large staff of eminent experts have engaged in the practice of bloodless surgery through California. In Los Angeles, where they were most successful for one year, rank imitators sprang up in various parts of the city. Like the mushroom, they came and died in a day.

No real merit to their claims, no basis for their existence, they faded away like the mist before the noonday sun. Imitations may be the sincerest flattery, but not at all times, and the Great Fer-Don is doing a real service to mankind when he sends out warnings to beware of the “imitators.”

COMPARE AND CONSULT TESTIMONIALS OFFERED

Get at the bottom. See and judge for yourself. Call on Mr. W. H. Harvey of 264 Eureka street, San Francisco, whom Fer-Don relieved of over 200 gall stones after one treatment.

[..]

These are facts–these testimonials can be verified–these are no mythical persons. They are stories of the phenomenal success of the Great Fer-Don, a marvelous record of a marvelous man, and in the face of these statements you cannot afford to take chances on the wile and unfounded claims of others who fraudulently claim to be what they are not.

PIG GIVEN AWAY TONIGHT

The show at the rink had a good crowd, in spite of the bad weather. Tonight the pig will be given away. The person winning it will be obliged to carry it out in their arms.

– Santa Rosa Republican, January 22, 1909

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A BIG WELCOME FOR THE FLIMFLAM MAN

Jeff Elliott Leave a comment

The old Santa Rosa newspapers loved writing about con artists – except, of course, when the crook was an advertiser. Compare and contrast the treatments given these two stories from 1909.

There was much excitement in town when it was announced a large ranch in Glen Ellen was to be purchased and turned into the world’s only Emmanuel Sanitarium.  At the time the Emmanuel Movement was much in the news because it had developed an alcoholism treatment program (the forerunner of Alcoholics Anonymous) and it appeared the organization planned to spend lavishly here to create a luxe facility. The agent, Dr. F. Harry Williams of Chicago, made deals with contractors in Santa Rosa and Berkeley to build the place, including stables for Kentucky thoroughbreds. Williams said that a $1 million bond was in the works to pay for it all.

Come three months later, the contractors had plans ready and the purchase option was about to expire – but Williams was nowhere to be found. Both the Press Democrat and Santa Rosa Republican printed “Where is Williams?” articles, revealing that the man had been fêted by locals and the property owner even advanced him some money. It turned out to be exactly the same con game that was played in Santa Rosa just a year before, when “Baron Von Senden” fooled local real estate agents into believing he planned to buy a huge spread, generously allowing them to pamper him with fine living and the loan of a little cash. (In a wonderful believe-it-or-not twist, the Baron turned out to be an impoverished immigrant whose last job was as a San Francisco rat catcher.)

The Santa Rosa papers denounced Williams as a swindler, even though there were no legal actions taken against him. And for all the fuss, there really wasn’t all that much harm done, except for the waste of several contractor’s time and the loss of (apparently) a small sum loaned by the property owner. This is in sharp contrast to how both newspapers treated James M. Ferdon, a huckster who called himself “The Great Fer-Don.” He conned people out of fairly large amounts of money, probably shortened the lives of a few, and was pursued by the law in at least three states. Yet readers of the Santa Rosa papers knew none of this, perhaps because this con man spent lots of money on ads.

The tale of Jim Ferdon is introduced here and continues in the following essay; it’s an amazing story that has never been completely told anywhere. He started out as a medicine show man, much like The Great McGonigle character played by W. C. Fields in his 1934 comedy “The Old Fashioned Way.” In the years around the turn of the century, local newspapers would first announce a famed expert was coming to town. There would be a free show of some kind and afterwards the audience would have the opportunity to purchase a miraculous nostrum that promised to cure what-ails-you. “Blood purifiers” were popular, and Ferdon’s specialty was the elimination of tapeworms; he would flourish a glass jar with a leviathan floating inside and say it was a gift thrust into his hands by a grateful customer from the next town over.

Selling colored water (or in Ferdon’s case, probably a laxative) as “medicine” is dishonest, but it isn’t what made Ferdon a monster. He crossed that line when he stopped peddling one-dollar bottles of ineffective-but-harmless remedies and began claiming he knew how to painlessly cure cancer and other serious diseases, at fees that probably cost some people everything they had – and not least of it, left victims believing they were cured and didn’t need to seek actual medical help.

Part of the story is also about the role newspapers played in Ferdon’s potentially deadly con game. In some papers, his advertisements didn’t look like ads; they appeared to be regular news articles, although the text was boilerplate provided by Ferdon with a few local details sprinkled in. Other publishers read his outrageous claims and refused to participate in a scam intended to defraud – and maybe, kill – the paper’s readers; most happily took his blood money, and he apparently paid quite, quite well.

Jim Ferdon was probably crooked from the first moment after his birth in 1870. His earliest career is documented in “Snake Oil, Hustlers And Hambones” by Ann Anderson, which is the definitive reference work on the medicine shows. Ferdon was apparently still in his teens when he began working for one of the most well-known medicine showmen, Nevada Ned, who made a popular cold remedy using sweetened milk and cocaine. He also worked in another troupe as the “Boy Wonder,” then struck out on his own and came up with the idea of pretending to be a trustworthy Quaker by the name of “Brother Paul.” Ferdon probably lifted the idea from another medicine show fake Quaker called “Brother John,” who toured under the professional name “The Great Kamama” and always made his entrance in a chariot pulled by four horses. (I am gobsmacked that anyone once walked on this earth who actually had the thought, “I will fool more people into believing I am a Quaker by calling myself ‘The Great Kamama’ and driving a horse-drawn chariot.”)

Ferdon created the Quaker Medicine Company with a failed doctor named J. I. Berry, the two of them wearing wide-brimmed hats and clothes that looked Quaker-ish. Writes Anderson:


Soon they were “theeing and thou-ing” all over the continental United States. Ferdon usually botched the Quaker language, saying things like, “Where’s thou’s baggage?” When questioned. he’d say. “I have lived so long among the world’s people that I have had much of my orthodoxy wore off of me.” Ferdon’s pious act kept the city leaders at bay. He often got away without having to pay a license fee. Timing his appearance just after the harvest, Ferdon caught farmers in a relatively unhurried and introspective mood. They were in a frame of mind to consider their aches and pains, real or imaginary, and spring for a liniment or tonic.

Ferdon and Berry claimed that their special mineral water was discovered by prospectors in the Panamint mountains in Death Valley. One swig was the recommended dose for indigestion caused by a diet of sourdough and pork. A spoonful of the desert salts mixed with a gallon of spring water would replicate the water from their secret spring. Their so-called Quaker remedies were supposedly produced by a genius botanist in either Bucks County, Pennsylvania, or Cincinnati. depending on what came into Ferdon’s head while he was lecturing. Quaker Botanical Herbs were to be mixed with eight ounces of whiskey or gin and a quart of water. The resulting mixture tasted awful, but never failed to clean out the user’s intestinal tract in a frightening hurry.

The Quaker ruse may have lent some credibility to sell snake oil to rubes but Ferdon was often in trouble with the law, with a 1906 medical journal noting he had been arrested some fifty times for failing to obtain a license or illegally practicing medicine. That year was also the beginning of the end for all medicine shows, as passage of the Pure Food and Drug Act required ingredients be shown on the label; no more selling ethanol dressed up with a few flavorings as “medicine.” Ferdon’s Quaker show also had numerous imitators – including one with an actual Quaker. It was time to invent a new scam. Inspiration apparently tumbled from the pages of a newspaper.

That summer, newspapers across America carried news that Lolita Armour had been miraculously cured by a European specialist. The young daughter of meatpacking tycoon Philip Armour was born with a dislocated hip and Dr. Adolf Lorenz, known as “the bloodless surgeon of Vienna,” was called upon to treat her. Lorenz was a pioneer in non-surgical orthopedics, where congenital bone deformities and other problems are fixed by using plaster casts or traction. The idea fired the popular imagination; a story soon followed claiming Lorenz was also treating the little daughter of Andrew Carnegie for the exact same condition, which wasn’t at all true – the child was observed limping from a sprained ankle – but shows the public wanted to hear more about the miracle cure (and just maybe, some gratification that ultra-rich families had private sufferings). Inspired, Ferdon grasped that all the public seemed to remember was that there were European experts who could perform surgery without cutting, somehow. And thus a new field of quackery was invented.

A year later in the summer of 1907, we pick up his trail through the Salt Lake City newspapers. Ferdon had met a Dr. Seth M. Wells and enlisted him into the scheme, dubbing him “Boy Phenomenal.” (His “Boy Phenomenal” was not to be confused with better-known “Boy Phenomenon,” who ran a magnetic healing con in the Midwest at the same time.) His new show included the “Diamond Cluster” band which would toodle lively tunes before Ferdon promised miracle cures to be had from the “Fer-Don Medical Experts” now seeing patients at rooms in a nearby hotel. “Bloodless surgery” was prominently mentioned in the advertisements, as was the claim that Boy Phenomenal could even cure cancer.

Business must have been great. Another member of the troupe was “The Marvelous Lopez,” a 26 year-old osteopath named Earl S. Beers. After only a month Ferdon sent him to Ogden, Utah, to open a Boy Phenomenal franchise there. Alas, this satellite office did not long endure; Dr. Beers was beaten to death that September by a husband who discovered the good doctor having an affair with his wife.

Faced with headlines describing Boy Phenomenal being both a cad and dead, a lesser man might have tossed in the towel and sought an honest line of work. Not Jim Ferdon. In a large photo ad in the Salt Lake City Tribune shown at right, it was confusingly (un)clarified that “Dr. Wells was until recently the Boy Phenomenal. He dropped that name because of the disgrace which was brought upon it by the Dr. Beers murder in Ogden.”

It was likely the big advertisement that caused more trouble; Wells was recognized as a fugitive. In 1902, he was arrested for performing an illegal operation (read: abortion) on a woman in Logan, Utah and skipped bail. Now arrested again, he appealed for a new trial and freed on a $1,000 bond as Wells and Ferdon headed to California. Farewell, Boy Phenomenal; Wells was henceforth “the European Medical Expert.”

It’s pretty easy to track The Great Fer-Don over the year that followed. In even the fragmented digital newspapers archives currently available he can be found all over the state, although he mainly stuck around Los Angeles. There’s even a photo of the band from this period taken in Eureka. It was inevitable that eventually his troupe would descend on Santa Rosa, and in the early weeks of 1909, so they did.

WILL BUILD A BIG SANITARIUM
Company Purchases the Dr. C. C. O’Donnell Ranch at Glen Ellen–Extensive Plans

Arrangements were completed yesterday whereby the United States Sanitarium Company purchased Dr. C. C. O’Donnell’s 170-acre ranch at Glen Ellen. Dr. O’Donnell and F. H. Williams, of San Francisco, the latter representing the company were in Santa Rosa yesterday on business connected with the deal, which involves a large sum of money.

The company proposes to erect a large sanitarium on the place in addition to other large buildings. The deal includes the buildings at present on the ranch, with the exception of the O’Donnell residence which the well known physician reserved.

It is announced that the sanitarium will be known as the “Emmanuel Sanitarium,” and it is proposed to follow out the plan of the “Emmanuel Movement,” which is at present attracting so much attention throughout the country and abroad.

On the O’Donnell place are a number of springs famed for their curative agencies, and the number has lately been increased by the discovery of other springs. It is proposed to spend a large sum of money in the ornamentation of the grounds about that sanitarium, which will be located amid the rural scenery that makes the beautiful Sonoma Valley famous. There are many plans that will be developed along this line. The United States Sanitarium Company is now floating bonds in the east for the carrying out of its extensive project on the O’Donnell place. In company with Attorney Alexander Bruce of this city, Dr. O’Donnell and Mr. Williams drove to Glen Ellen yesterday afternoon.

– Press Democrat, March 20, 1909
HOT-AIR FOUNDATION FOR ‘EMMANUEL SANITARIUM’
Now Where is ‘Dr.’ F. Harry Williams Hiding Himself?

Where is F. Harry Williams. doctor of laws and doctor of medicine? He claimed to be both lawyer and doctor when one day five months ago he came to Santa Rosa. Shortly before he departed it was he who gave out the wonderful story that he represented the United States Sanitarium Company, an organization of capitalists, almost as wealthy as old John D. himself, which had purchased Dr. C. C. O’Donnell’s ranch and other property at Glen Ellen for $75,000 for the purpose of erecting an Emmanuel Sanitarium thereon. It was to be a  princely institution and the only one of its kind in the country.

Williams told how it was the intention of his company to float a million dollars in bonds at once for the purpose of making the O’Donnell ranch like unto a paradise, and while not exactly paving the streets with gold, to have them paved with asphaltum; and all that beauty and that wealth o’er gave would be found, he said, at the Emmanuel Sanitarium and its park grounds. As to the price paid for the ranch–or rather what Williams said he was willing to pay–the bombastic fellow said $75,000 was a mere bagatelle.

The proposition and price looked good to Dr. O’Donnell, and it is said that it did not take much coaxing on the part of Williams to get an option and a contract to purchase for that figure out of the doctor, who knows a good thing when he sees it. Williams and Dr. O’Donnell drew up the agreement in the office of Alexander Bruce the erstwhile Santa Rosa attorney now sought elsewhere. Bruce assisted Williams in describing all the glories of the wonderland that was to be made out of the partially-barren O’Donnell ranch. He claimed to have made a nice pile out of the sale of the premises.

But so much for this immense institution and the immense capital back of it. Where is F. Harry Williams? Dr. O’Donnell would like to know. So would Contractor Frank A. Sullivan of Santa Rosa, who got a thirty thousand dollar contract from Williams to erect the sanitarium building and whose time and brainwork in drawing a splendid set of plans are still unpaid for. An abstract concern in Santa Rosa has a little bill for an abstract amounting to $250 which it would like settled; then there is a man here from whom Williams secured $250, who is just as anxious for its return; and still further there is Contractor Armstrong in Berkeley, to whom Williams awarded a contract to construct a bridge across Sonoma Creek to make the sanitarium easy of access, he wants to see Williams very much.

Contractor Sullivan stated Monday night that he did not hesitate in branding Williams a “fakir,” and said further that he ought to be arrested. Dr. O’Donnell said he has been buncoed and that they all think likewise is common report.

When Williams first called on Dr. O’Donnell  at Glen Ellen he brought letters of recommendation from prominent San Francisco lawyers and doctors. When the bargain was struck Williams made frequent trips to Glen Ellen. Just as frequently Dr. O’Donnell met him at the depot and hurried him to his residence in an automobile, where he was wined and dined, the man with the ranch for sale sparing no expense with a $75,000 largess in sight.

In addition to the sanitarium buildings, Williams wanted first-class stables erected for the thoroughbred stock that was coming from Kentucky. Then, as detailed, the contracts for the sanitarium buildings and the bridge and other improvements were let.

The option on the place expired on June 6. A day or two before its expiration Williams sent Dr. O’Donnell  a polite note telling him to have the deeds and abstract and everything ready by the following Saturday, as he was coming to Glen Ellen with the coin.

“Let me know by return, doctor,” he wrote, “as to whether you would like the %75,000 all in cash or part in cash and certificate of deposit. Possibly you may not like to have all that money about with you in the country.” Since then the doctor has not heard anything from him.

They say, too, that Williams got a little advance in coin from Dr. O’Donnell. The doctor admits that he advanced something, but how much deponent sayeth not. He agrees that he was “held up.” He has also investigated the glowing testimonials that Williams presented to him when he first came to see him regarding the buying of the ranch, and discovered, it is reported, that in each instance the names had been used without consent. He is in a quandry as to what to do. He has posted notices on his place to the effect that no material must be dumped theron, and if it is, he will not be responsible for it. Sullivan says “fakir.” Dr. O’Donnell  says “bunco.” Glen Ellen has its biggest sensation and the Emmanuel Sanitarium is not even founded upon the sand, rather on “hot air.”

– Press Democrat, June 29, 1909

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