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William Wilmore was the son of two of Mrs Pleasant’s employees at her Boarding House at 920 Washington Street, was interviewed by Helen Holdredge for her book on Mrs. Pleasant. One of the stories he told was of the murder of one of MEP’s laundry service employees by a sailor. He reported a bloody attack. Research shows a murder did occur but Mr. Wilmore confused the details of a horrific incident that did occur to a person within Mary’s network. Helen Holdeidge wrote about the incident based on the Wilmore intrview but misidentified the young woman as Ann Phoebe Smith. Historic records do show a Mrs. Phoebe Ann Smith, of New York and a laundress working at Pleasant’s Jesse and Ecker location, died in November 1860. Mrs. Smith’s funeral records show her to be 59, dying of natural causes and buried in Laurel Hill Cemetery in a plot purchased by Mrs. Pleasant. The tragic story of a bloody murder involved not one of MEP’s workers but her own niece in a home where they both worked.
One of, if not the earliest mentions of Mrs Pleasant in the mainstream newspapers of San Francisco, is this grainy notice on December 3, 1860 from the Daily Alta newspaper.
The tragic story of this 17 year old girls death was covered in local papers but without mention of Mrs. Pleasant’s name. In December 1860, Caroline F Park was employed in the home of Selim Woodward on Hawthorne Street in San Francisco. Mrs. Pleasant was the housekeeper and resided nearby on Mission between First and Freemont streets. Reports indicate Caroline was quite attractive and dating a man named Joe Clarkson, a cook on the SS Chrysopolis. She was also possibly seeing a second man named Oliver Cromwell. One Saturday evening, Clarkson, Cromwell, Miss Park and Mrs Pleasant were dining in the kitchen of the Woodworth home after serving the family dinner. At some point Clarkson withdrew a razor blade and attacked Miss Park. She ran from the dwelling bleeding. She collapsed on Folsom and Third Street. Her assailant was secured by the Woodworths and taken to the police. Caroline died from her wounds and her assailant was executed in June 1861.
Here are further articles about this incident.
Times Gazette December 8, 1860
Sacramento Daily Union January 24, 1861
Sacramento Daily Union, April 11, 1861
San Joaquin Republican June 5, 1861
This horrific incident mirrors the story Willmore told except it did not occur in one of Mrs Pleasant’s laundries but in a home where she worked. Also, in the area now known today as SOMA (South of Market), was at least one of the laundries MEP did operate. The incident occurred before 920 Washington street opened and seventeen years before Willmore was born, hence the potential for him to have misremembered the exact location of the incident and the name of the vicitim.
Another important note, Miss Park is referred to as Mrs Pleasant’s niece. The victim of this violence was not simply a worker but her family. This again raises the question of the Park family’s relationship to Mary? Caroline F Park was born in Philadelphia. She is the daughter of John Park, the son of Jane Park of Philadelphia, later Xenia, Ohio. As covered in this post–the Park family figures in Mary’s story and two women from the family are recorded as Mrs Pleasant’s “niece” – Caroline F Park and Rebecca Jane Boone, daughter of Anna Park Howard. Additionally, a third member of this family, Caroline M Park Dunn, aka Mrs. Dunn of Cleveland, is mentioned as MEP’s “former” sister in law. Again this ties MEP to this family by her first marriage.
The Parks of Philadelphia (and later Ohio) again fit the profile of James W Smith’s relatives. The main inconsistency in the known narrative is the Park’s origins being North Carolina not Virginia. And thus an intriguing and loaded question arises, is their matriarch, Jane Park of Philadelphia and later Xenia, Ohio, James W Smith’s mother? Link to draft Park Family Tree.
Another element to note in this story, as Mrs. Pleasant was known to be black, she would not have been called to testify to what she witnessed due to California’s racists testimony laws nor was the other witness Mr. Cromwell called to testify. The whole incident had to rely on the testimony of the house owner, Selim Woodworth and other white witnesses. Mrs. Pleasant’s advocacy to change the laws, which would occur in 1865, was personal, very personal.