William Sharon
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| William Sharon | |
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| In office March 4, 1875 – March 3, 1881 |
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| Preceded by | William M. Stewart |
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| Succeeded by | James G. Fair |
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| Born | January 9, 1821 Smithfield, Ohio |
| Died | November 13, 1885 (aged 64) San Francisco, California |
| Political party | Republican |
| Spouse | Maria Malloy |
| Residence | Virginia City |
| Profession | Attorney, Real estate |
William Sharon (January 9, 1821 – November 13, 1885) was a United States Senator from Nevada who profited from the Comstock Lode.
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[edit] Early life
Sharon was born in Smithfield, Jefferson County, Ohio, January 9, 1821, the son of William Sharon (Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, 1793 – Mount Pleasant, Jefferson County, Ohio, 24 April 1875) and wife (married at Smithfield, Jefferson County, Ohio, January 21, 1815) Susan Kirk (Lackawanna, Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, 1796 – Mount Pleasant, Jefferson County, Ohio, 1833), paternal grandson of William Sharon [1] (Pennsylvania, 1753 – Jefferson County, Ohio, 1809, son of James Sharon and wife, paternal grandson of William Sharon (d. 2 March 1751) and wife Margaret Chambers and great-grandson of William Sherran and wife Mary ...) and wife (married c. 1789) Sarah Smiley (Juniata County, Pennsylvania, 1762 – Jefferson County, Ohio, 1857, daughter of George Smiley and wife) and maternal grandson of William Kirk (Juniata County, Pennsylvania, c. 1770 – Smithfield, Jefferson County, Ohio, 1814) and wife Rachel Jones (c. 1772 – c. 1830).
He attended Athens College. He moved to St. Louis, Missouri and studied law. He was admitted to the bar and practiced. He engaged in mercantile pursuits in Carrollton, Illinois.
[edit] Career in the west
William moved to California in 1849 and engaged in business in Sacramento. He moved to San Francisco in 1850 and was a dealer in real estate. He married there in 1852 Maria Malloy (Québec, 1832 – San Francisco, California, 14 May 1875). He moved to Virginia City, Nevada in 1864 as manager of the branch of the Bank of California and became interested in silver mining.
Senator Sharon was a business partner of William Chapman Ralston and was the Nevada agent for the Bank of California. He and Ralston profited greatly from loaning money to mining operations and then foreclosing on those operations when the owners defaulted.
William Sharon acquired many of Ralston's assets in 1875 when Ralston's financial empire collapsed and he died. He was thought by some of his contemporaries to have actually aided the collapse. He certainly was the main beneficiary of Ralston's assets. Those assets included the Palace Hotel in San Francisco and Ralston Hall in Belmont, California.
He became the father-in-law of future Congressman and Senator from Nevada, Francis G. Newlands, by whom he is the great-greatgrandfather of Chris Strachwitz. He was also the father of Florence Emily Sharon, who married Sir Thomas George Fermor-Hesketh, 7th Baronet, becoming the mother of Thomas Fermor-Hesketh, 1st Baron Hesketh (1881-1944).
[edit] Senator
He was elected as a Republican to the United States Senate for Nevada and served from March 4, 1875, to March 3, 1881. He served as the chairman of the Committee on Mines and Mining in the 45th United States Congress.
[edit] Later years
He resided in San Francisco, California until his death there on November 13, 1885. He was buried in Laurel Hill Cemetery in San Francisco. His final years saw a legal battle that was the juiciest scandal of its time. Two lawsuits Sharon vs. Sharon, 1884 and Sharon vs Hill, 1885 encapsulated his death. He lost the first case and before the appeal was decided, he was already dead, but he won, thus ruining Sarah Althea's Hill's hopes to be recognized as his wife or widow.
Senator Sharon was claimed to have remarried a woman named Sarah Althea Hill, but he sued to have this alleged marriage cancelled. The judgement (in his favor) was rendered after his death, but the consequent legal proceedings, which included a bowie-knife fight in the courtroom of the Circuit Court for the Northern District of California and the physical beating of Justice Stephen Johnson Field of the US Supreme Court (by David S. Terry, a former Chief Judge of the California Supreme Court) and the fatal shooting of the Terry by a US Marshal, both in the breakfast-room of a California railroad hotel, culminated in a landmark US Supreme Court decision in the case "In re Neagle (Cunningham v. Neagle)", on the supremacy of federal law over state law. 135 U.S. 1; 10 S. Ct. 658; 34 L. Ed. 55 (1890).[2]
[edit] Notes
- ^ The National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution (NSDAR) publishes a Patriot Index, a list of persons whose honorable service in the cause of independence during the American Revolution renders their female descendants eligible for membership in the NSDAR. Several ancestors of Chris Strachwitz appear in the Patriot Index, including: William Sharon (number 120). While Mr. Strachwitz is not eligible for membership in the NSDAR (by not being female), he is eligible for membership in the equivalent organization for men, the National Society of the Sons of the American Revolution.
- ^ For details see, for example, http://lawbooksusa.com/cconlaw/neagleinre.htm.
[edit] References
- Kroninger, Robert. Sarah and the Senator. Berkeley, Calif.: Howell-North, 1964
- Roberts, Gary L. In Pursuit of Duty. American West 7 (September 1970): 27-33, 62-63
- William Sharon at the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress
- Hudson, Lynne. The Making of Mammy Pleasant: A Black Entrepreneur in Nineteenth Century San Francisco Chicago and Urbana IL.: University of Illinois Press, 2003. (p63)
- Stone, Irving. "Men to Match My Mountains."
| Preceded by William M. Stewart |
United States Senator (Class 1) from Nevada 1875–1881 Served alongside: John P. Jones |
Succeeded by James G. Fair |
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