Chapter 6 - “Mr. Sharon and Lady”

Just as Frank Newlands was riding high, it all came crashing down. No sooner had Newlands successfully managed the regulation of the Spring Valley water company then a succession of freakish events transpired that would socially disgrace him in San Francisco and force him to Nevada. The bizarre events involved the richest man in the city—his father-in-law—and they centered on sex.

Things began in a small way in the small frontier town of Virginia City, Nevada. William Sharon liked sex, and he treated it like a business. By the mid-1860s, Sharon had become the “king of the Comstock,” having vertically integrated most of the mining-related businesses in Virginia City.  He had also started a little sex business. Sharon began the decade seeing Belle Warner, a local courtesan, on a regular basis. He helped her set up her own business, managing a string of young women on his behalf. He paid her a monthly retainer and regularly escorted Belle’s employees to the Glenbrook Hotel—co-owned by Sharon and Ralston—where he signed in as “Mr. Sharon and lady.” It was a tidy little business in a small town with 49 saloons and an established prostitution district. That was Virginia City in the 1860s. Nobody cared as long as there was no commotion.[1]

San Francisco in the 1880s was another matter. The San Francisco Sharon had entered in 1850 was still partly a tent city, not so different from Virginia City at its inception. Three decades later, San Francisco prided itself on its sophistication.[2] The city by the bay boasted stately office buildings and grand hotels. It was known for its many restaurants, so many that “restaurant living”—eating out every night—was possible. At 60 years old, Sharon was a U.S. Senator and the richest man in the city. He expected that his business in sex would continue as before.

He was wrong. Sharon’s ego hid from him that he was too old for the pace of a Virginia City lifestyle. Most important, his ego blinded him from seeing that—when it came to sex—the roles were reversed. Rich, old, and easily dazzled, Sharon was now the prey.

Sarah Althea Hill captured Sharon for one year, in 1880, and he never got rid of her. Attractive, sensuous, and haughty, she cost him almost everything—his health, his prominence, his California residence, and the respect of his family. Sharon kept his estate away from Sarah, but in the process forced his children to live in dusty Nevada.

When Sharon started seeing Sarah, he was a sitting U.S. Senator—in name only. Even by Gilded Age standards, Sharon’s performance in public office was pitiful. Whereas Stewart, his predecessor, was credited with authoring the Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution that protected voting rights, Sharon was almost two years late getting sworn in. Finding Washington dull and legislative sessions boring, Sharon attended only three of the Senate’s six sessions. He voted hardly at all and spoke on the Senate floor but once, explaining that he had been too busy to be a Senator.[3] He never once visited his Nevada constituency.

As a Senator, Sharon kept busy chasing two old favorites—land and ladies. When in the capital, Sharon’s biggest occupation was speculating in real estate. He had an eye for buying the right raw land just before it was developed. He had done it in St. Louis in the 1840s and in San Francisco in the 1850s and 1870s. In Washington, Sharon bought land in what was to become Dupont Circle. So shrewd was this investment that, a decade later, Newlands was to sell the Dupont Circle parcels and develop Chevy Chase, the country’s first “suburban new town.”[4]

The relationship with Sarah began in the spring of 1880. It is unclear who picked up whom. They met in the bar at the Grand Hotel, a Sharon property across Montgomery Street from the Palace. After a spell, they adjourned to Sharon’s suite at the Palace. An affair began. Soon, Sharon started making the kinds of mistakes he usually avoided. He installed Sarah in one of the Grand’s special suites, where he lived openly with her, on and off. And he encouraged her to play hostess at parties given at his Belmont beach residence 23 miles south of the city.

Sometime in 1881, Sharon tired of Sarah. He ended the affair and had her evicted from the Grand. Astonishingly, he started seeing no fewer than eight other women. Sarah would have none of it. She claimed that she and Sharon were in love and that Sharon had married her secretly on August 8, 1880. Sharon ignored her.

On September 8, 1883, Sarah had Sharon arrested for adultery. It was the first shot fired in a lengthy imbroglio. Sharon’s lawyers had the charge dismissed, contending that Sharon was not married to Sarah and, moreover, that adultery was not a crime in California. Sarah promptly sued for divorce, claiming to be in possession of a secret marriage contract with Sharon. Sarah filed her suit in the city’s superior court, part of the state court system. Sharon counter-sued in federal circuit court, claiming Nevada citizenship.

So began what became one of the era’s most high-profile and ill-fated court cases, breathlessly covered as far away as New York and London. It dragged on for five years. By the time the dust settled, Sharon had died, Sarah had gone insane, court bailiffs had been beaten up, a former chief justice of the state supreme court was jailed and then shot by a U.S. Marshal, and a United States Supreme Court Justice was attacked.[5]

The case ended with decisive rulings from the federal court in 1888, three years after Sharon died of congestive heart failure. Upon Sharon’s death, Newlands became the executive trustee for the Sharon estate. He left nothing to chance. Along with all the heirs to Sharon’s estate, Newlands moved to Nevada, thereby maintaining Sharon’s Nevada citizenship and protection under federal courts.[6] Newlands found Nevada drab and dull. But in it, he also found the makings of his own political future.