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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 homes of Fred and 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 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 victim.
Miss Park is referred to as Mrs Pleasant’s niece in only one visitation notice (see Daily Alta notice above). This again raises the question of the Park family’s relationship to MEP? 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.
The Parks of Philadelphia (and later Ohio) again fit the profile of James W Smith’s relatives. The main inconsistency in the oft repeated narrative that Smith was from Virginia. Recent scholarship has identified the Park’s origins being North Carolina not Virginia. When Jane Park’s enslaver died, he was residing across the Roanoke River in Virginia near relatives but he was originally from Warren County, North Carolina. 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.
Stories of a brutal murder in the Slot (area now called South of Market, SOMA) has been a part of MEP’s legend. The murder Holdredge repeated however is attributed to an Ann Phoebe Smith, described as a young coquette. Earlier posts note that a widow named Phoebe Ann Smith was a middle aged woman from New York working at MEP’s Jessie Street laundry. Mrs. Phoebe Ann Smith died one month prior to Caroline and was buried in one of MEP’s Laurel Hill cemetery plots. The “legend” story had MEP pressuring the girl to move forward with the relationship and speak with the man. The linked inquest story however notes that Caroline F Park, with the support of her aunt and others, had determined to not marry the pursuer. She was however, afraid to tell him so.
Holdredge’s retelling of the story misconstrued many elements of the story-the name of murder victim, MEP’s role in pressuring the romance and overall the nature of the crime. It was one of many slights undertaken in the 1953 book Mammy Pleasant which further damaged Mrs. Pleasant’s reputation.