It had been years since a “psychic” huckster had worked the city of roses and rubes, so Santa Rosa was ripe for plucking by 1908.

Not that the town was completely bereft of soothsayers; the occasional spiritualist slipped into town and announced she was available for consultations via a cheap, two-line ad, where Madame promised she would peer into your future, talk to the spirits, read your stars, and what have you. Although the number of psychic ads dropped off in the year following the great earthquake, the fortune-telling biz appears to have roared back in 1908, perhaps in part because of widespread anxiety following the recent bank panic and near collapse of the U.S. economy. (It might seem that a natural disaster would spur a greater demand for those who claimed mystic abilities, but crisis psychology can defy assumptions; in San Francisco, for ex, reports of suicide fell dramatically after the 1906 earthquake and remained low until the following year.)

As these carny-like fortune tellers came and went, there was also an elite cadre of magicians that allowed the gullible to believe that their diamond-stickpinned selves had actual supernatural powers. Some, like “The Great McEwen” who passed through Santa Rosa with his mentalist act in 1904 (see my earlier “City of Roses and Rubes” series), only used offstage stunts to draw audiences to his performances, but other magicians dishonestly used tricks to convince suckers of their psychic bona fides. Houdini did this early in his career and later felt ashamed for having fooled people into believing he could actually communicate with the dead. Less scrupulous was a man named Grant Chesterfield, who followed a magician’s playbook to convince Santa Rosans that he could diagnose their illnesses or peer into their futures by studying the palms of their hands.

Chesterfield arrived in Santa Rosa with a splash at the end of 1908. Large ads appeared in the newspapers daily, either with a photo of him or an illustration of someone’s hand to accompany a little story about what Chesterfield discovered there. An article about him – undoubtedly written from copy provided by Chesterfield – claimed he was “endorsed by such authorities as the Press Club of Chicago, practically by the Universities of St. Petersburg.” (That he was “practically” endorsed is a nice touch; read that quote again, imagining it in the voice of W. C. Fields as The Great McGonigle.)

From that article and others we learn that he also introduced himself to a new community via the same tricks as stage magician McEwen. He drove a vehicle blindfolded (in this case, piloting a ferry from Oakland to San Francisco) and opened safes by “reading minds.” Both were tricks detailed in a 1901 book by “Professor Leonidas” that all of these would-be psychics copied – see link above for more details.

Grant Chesterfield was born in 1862, and first mention of his palm reading can be found in a Salem, Oregon paper from 1898. From newspaper accounts he seemed to work mainly in the Portland area, with occasional trips to California, from San Francisco to smaller cities such as Bakersfield. He was in the Midwest 1912-1913, where he curiously never mentioned his endorsement by the nearby Chicago Press Club. In the prairie states he instead touted himself as the palm reader of choice by politicians, European royalty, and declared he was “looked upon in Eastern cities as a prophet.” His trail disappears after a mention in the 1916 Klamath Falls newspaper, and he appeared in the U.S. census exactly once, in 1900. Occupation: “Palmist.”

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SEES WITH HIS MIND
Most Miraculous Are the Powers of Grant Chesterfield

Grant Chesterfield, the noted thought reader and clairvoyant, who is going to pilot the “Piedmont” from San Francisco to Oakland mole blindfolded shortly, possesses power most marvelous, if the statements of the most prominent citizens of Santa Rosa are to be believed. They claim that he has examined their palms, immediately told them the story of their past, diagnosed their physical condition, described their present situation of affairs, and then proceeded to define for them their future. They further aver that many predictions made by the enigma have already come to pass. Seen at his parlors at the Hotel Majestic, 435 Fourth street. Professor Chesterfield said:

“Possibly some reports are exaggerated, but then you must remember that I have been endorsed by such authorities as the Press Club of Chicago, practically by the Universities of St. Petersburg and a long string of others.

Again among the hotel personages whose palms I have read are the most distinguished of either hemisphere, so I hardly thing this report that you have heard is at all exaggerated.”

“But do you pretend to read one’s future?” was asked.

“I read the palm, and the future as well as the past is written therein.”

“Do you give legal advice?”

“The same as in certain cases I diagnose one’s condition and advise according how to recover lost nerve energy and power and what to do to take care of their health in the future. Some have certain business changes they should make, others have marriages, divorces, lawsuits in store for them; still others have mining interests or geographical changes to undergo, and so it runs on.”

“How many palms do you read daily?”

“Oh, that’s hard to say. In Fresno I read 2000 in several weeks. Now come up another time and I’ll give you a reading.”

Then the wonder worker, who kept Boston, New York, Copenhagen and other cosmopolitan cities in a flurry, called “next” and vanished into his consultation room.

– Santa Rosa Republican, December 29, 1908

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Here’s an interesting little case study in journalism ethics: What does an editor and publisher do when an advertiser is exposed as a fraud? It’s a delicate problem — unless, of course, the advertisements appeared in a rival paper.

Even before America was a nation, its newspapers had an oily history with advertisers. Readers of the November 16, 1775 New York Gazette couldn’t miss that splashy ad on page one, column one, for “Maredant’s Drops,” a snake-oil that promised to prevent scurvy and cure leprosy (scrofula, pimples and ulcers, too!) — but more diligent readers might have noticed that other little item on the same page that didn’t even have its own headline: King George had ordered the property of all colonial rebels to be confiscated by the crown.

Besides crowding out important news, there’s always been the problem of truthfulness in advertising. Did Maredant’s Drops work as promised? Probably not, and were even likely to kill you — a key ingredient was the ultra-toxic mercuric chloride. (And by the way, that big advertisement may even have been selling fake deadly snake-oil; Maredant’s Drops were frequently counterfeited.) More than a century later, a steady stream of pharmaceutical display ads appearing in the early 20th Century Press Democrat showed that the hucksters was still as bad, or even worse: A particular cod liver oil formula promised to cure tuberculosis; horehound syrup would stop you from coughing to death.

But let’s give our dear old editors and publishers the benefit of doubt, and presume they didn’t know that the nostrums they helped sell were often useless and sometimes potentially lethal. Likely those same quack cures could be found in their home medicine cabinets as well; anyone who thinks newspapermen were smarter and more well-informed than the general population should spend more time reading editorial pages.

We also should cut the 1905 newspapers some slack for running ads from fortune-tellers, mediums, and other spiritualist hokum. It would still be almost two decades before Houdini^* and Harry Price brought media attention to exposing these con-artists. And again, maybe those in charge of the newspapers really believed in occult powers; as debunked in the earlier “City of Roses and Rubes” item, “The Great McEwen” passed through Santa Rosa with his skillful telepathy act in 1904, with the Press Democrat acting as his enthusiastic cheerleader.

Both the Republican and Press Democrat ran classified ads for spiritualists in 1905. Some examples:

But it was a 1906 dust-up over phony names that made offers of supernatural services newsworthy. The simple story is this: A woman in Santa Rosa sent a letter with questions to “Ismar” in San Francisco, enclosing a dollar (remember that her buck was the equivalent of $100+ today). While waiting for an answer, she learned that “Ismar, the Great Egyptian Spiritualist and Trance Medium” supposedly was now in Santa Rosa. The letter-writer — exercising some long-overdue skepticism — discovered that the fortune-teller in town was an impostor of the San Francisco seer. No arrests were made for false identity, by the way.

(At left: the “real” Ismar, from an ad in the 1905 San Francisco Call.)

The Press Democrat was running competing classified ads for “Madame Florence” at the time, and the bogus “Ismar” was advertising exclusively in the Republican (see ad below), which by itself gave PD editor Ernest L. Finley incentive for snark. As no display ad or classified appeared in the Press Democrat, Finley was also presumably miffed that she used another printer for flyers that must have been posted around town spelling her name as “Ismer.” (The Press Democrat also claims that the letter-writer learned about the fake Ismar’s arrival from a notice in the PD, although I couldn’t find it on microfilm.)

To discredit the bogus psychic who advertised elsewhere, the PD tossed up her name as often as possible in the article. But even more astonishing is the equivalent Santa Rosa Republican story, where the reporter never mentioned the fortune-teller’s name — some acrobatic writing, that. Yet the Republican still continued to run the Ismar ad for the full week. Look, it’s not our fault if you’re defrauded by an impostor of a fake spiritualist that we sort-of warned you about.

^*Until the recent biography, “The Secret Life of Houdini,” it was little mentioned that he began his stage career as a fake medium. He had found the out-of-print 1891 book, “Revelations of a Spirit Medium,” and although the anonymous author wrote it intending to expose chicanery, the teenage Houdini studied it to learn how to pose as a psychic as well as picking up several magic tricks used in his early stage career. When Harry Price and others reprinted the book in 1922, Houdini wrote a praiseworthy review in the New York Times crediting its influence on him and other magicians. Two years later, Houdini followed Price and other spiritualist debunkers with his autobiographical A Magician Among the Spirits.

WHICH IS THE REAL THING?
Two Fortune Tellers Who Look Alike But Yet Are Different

Who is “Ismar, the Great Egyptian Spiritualist and Trance Medium”? Is she the woman who is now in this city advertising her powers in the local papers, or is she the woman who is advertising in the San Francisco newspapers and still doing business at the original stand? That is what a good many people are asking themselves these days.

A few days ago a clairvoyant arrived here and began advertising herself as “A. Ismer, the Great Egyptian Spiritualist and Trance Medium, who created a profound sensation in San Francisco.” She knows her business, according to the advertisement, for it goes on to say: “The sick and broken-hearted went away happy in mind and body. Lovers were united, and those who consulted her were not divorced.”

When questioned last night as to her identity, the seeress now doing business here denied that she was or that she claimed to be “Ismar, the Great,” and through her manager called attention to the difference in the way the two names were spelled. She also said that she had been “fighting” the San Francisco notability for some eight years, and that she had plenty of documents with which to prove her claims to occult power.

A few days ago a lady residing in this city wrote to “Ismar” asking some professional questions. No reply was received, and on picking up the Press Democrat one morning the seeker after information noticed that “Ismer” was here. On phoning to the latter at her Santa Rosa address and asking if the inquiry had been received, the seeress now here replied in the negative and explained that her mail had not been forwarded regularly. The next day the answer was received in due form from the San Francisco office. When questioned again by phone “Ismer” explained that when she left her San Francisco office she put a competent woman in her place. A message received from the San Francisco office last night claim [sic] that the local seeress is an impostor. She spells her name differently, however, and except in the general tenor of the advertisement and the similarity of the two names, both of which might be mere coincidences, there is no real proof of any intention to deceive.

– Press Democrat, January 25, 1906

SEERESS IS DECLARED TO BE AN IMPOSTER

A San Francisco seeress of repute had sent a telegram to persons in this city that a woman doing business under her name is an imposter. The woman who is here under the name of the San Francisco seeress is alleged to use the same address as that given by the woman in the metropolis who claims to be the original of that name. The discovery was made by a Santa Rosan sending a dollar to the San Francisco woman asking answers to three questions, and after a long delay and no answer arriving, she telephoned to the woman at the address in this city. The latter declared that the letter had not been received, but that possibly her “secretary” had the missive. Finally the answer came from the San Francisco woman, and then the Santa Rosan called up the local seeress and asked if the letter had been received. The reply in the negative showed that something might be wrong and a hurried letter to the metropolis brought forth the response that was expected. It was as follows:

“Have not left San Francisco. Woman using my name is an imposter.”

– Santa Rosa Republican, January 25, 1906

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