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One of the names that comes up repeatedly in MEPs business transactions is Rebecca Jane Howard Gordon Boone (1854-1917). In a few stories that mention Mrs. Boone, she’s listed as MEP’s associate, and in two or three articles, as her niece. (See Post with the Park-Howard family tree.)
Rebecca was born in 1854 in Xenia, Ohio. Research indicates that the Howard family had a farm In Xenia, not Akron, Ohio and it figures in some tales about MEP and the Underground Railroad. Rebecca was the second of six children of John W. Howard and wife, Anna Mary Park. In June of 1858, her father transfered his land holdings out of his name into his wife and children’s. Rebecca appears to have lived in Xenia until after her mother’s death in 1863. Upon her father’s remarriage to a Minerva Moore, the family relocated to Springfield, Ohio where Mr. Howard managed a saloon. In 1871, Rebecca’s mother’s sister, Caroline M. Dunn a seamstress of Cleveland, Ohio, went to court to seek guardianship of the Howard minor children. That paperwork indicates that John Howard had abandoned the children and had not been fulfilling the requirements of probate due to his wife’s late wife’s estate and the children’s guardianship status.
Rebecca appears to have come to San Francisco in 1876 after the death of Mrs Dunn of tuberculosis. And a few years later Rebecca’s sister, referred to in various papers as Anna Mary or India, also ventured to San Francisco. Uncovered court records indicate that both Rebecca and India, received a small inheritance from her late aunt, Mrs. Dunn in addition to the 1858 transferred Xenia, Ohio farm. The name India Howard appears in 1890-1891 in a few San Francisco deed transactions with MEP. And a cousin Robert M. Park of Philadelphia and his British wife, Susanna Jessie Park, were also closely affiliated with MEP, emigrated to SF around 1878. It was Robert’s sister, Caroline F. Park, who was murdered in the Woodworth household in December 1860 (link to post).
In the 1890s, Rebecca would be called to court to testify about her business practices during some of the MEP insolvency proceedings. As described by local press, Rebecca Jane was not an impressive witness. She did not appear to know her own assets or the origin of them. A few years later, she would sue MEP over ownership of a piece of property on the outskirts of San Francisco, MEP’s Geneva Cottage. It appears there was some back and forth transactions, possibly to hide MEP’s assets from the Court. But for a time, Mrs. Gordon and her first husband and children lived at Geneva Cottage, where Mr. Gordon appears to have operated a dairy with either Rebecca’s brother, John Howard, Jr or her father, John Howard Sr., In court, Rebecca would claim that MEP managed funds that came from her late father, but her father appears to have still been alive at the time of the testimony.
Now the house that the Gordon-Boone family lived before and after the diary business at Geneva Cottage was actually quite impressive and still stands today in San Francisco’s Lower Pacific Heights neighborhood at 2016 Pine Street. The large 3-story Italianate/Late Victorian home with elaborate ornamentation — decorative cornices, columns, balustrades, arched windows, carved moldings, occupied a significant hillside lot. Others have said MEP provided a great deal of the money for this house and it’s unlikely the small inheritances could have covered the $35-45,000 constructions. Mr. Gordon for a time tried to have business in finance, but it appears by his detour into dairy farming that maybe that wasn’t entirely successful. The Gordon’s would divorce in 1891, Mrs. Gordon sought the divorce on the grounds of desertion. She would go on to remarry a man named Charles Herstman Boone and Nicholas Gordon would testify in 1923 in the Bell Children’s Lawsuits regarding their mother’s last will and testament.
Also noted in court testimony in the 1920s and documented in federal census records, when one of the Bell children, Viola Bell Smith, was kicked out of the mansion at 1661 Octavia circa 1892, the young girl was taken in by Rebecca Boone. Viola Bell Smith would continue to live with Mrs. Boone until her death in 1917. [The sad tale of Viola Bell Smith will be covered on another post.]