Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 20, Number 106, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 September 1899 — A FAMOUS BEAUTY. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

A FAMOUS BEAUTY.

DAUGHTER OF A GOVERNOR AND WIFE OF ONE* Mrs, Kate Chase Sprague, Once the t-octal and Political Queen in Washington, Died in Obscurity—lncidents of Her Interesting Career. The death of Mrs. Kate Chase Sprague, wife of a former Governor of Rhode Island and daughter of the late Salmon P. Chase, at one time Governor of Ohio, Secretary of the Treasury and chief justice of the United States Supreme Court, which occurred at Edgewood, near Washington, not long ago, closed a highly dramatic career. She was born in 1840, the only daughter of Salmon P. Chase, and owing to the death of her mother she early became mistress of her father’s household. Her father, the most famous member of a family whose scions had already gained fame at the bar, on the bench and In the Protestant episcopate, was already one of the leading lawyers in Cincinnati, when, in 1849, a coalition of Free Sellers and Democrats sent him to the United States Senate. At the expiration of his term, in 1855, a somewhat similar coalition elected him Governor of Ohio. In 1857 the Republican party returned him to the gubernatorial seat. How much of his advancement he owed to the personal popularity of his daughter Kate cannot be estimated. It is certain that before she had passed out of her teens she was spoken of not only as the leading' belle of Cincinnati, but as one of the most astute politicians in Ohio. Between her and her father there existed a love that was little short of mutual adoration. All the little girl’s ambitions seemed to center in him. t Just as she was reaching the maturity of her charms her father became a great figure in national politics as candidate for the Republican Presidential nomination, in 1860, and Secretary of the Treasury in Lincoln’s cabinet a year later. In the latter position he won a reputation second only to that of Alexander Hamilton. At the height of his power he established his home at Edgewood, where his daughter has just died. Here the most illustrious men of the nation, the most distinguished visitors from abroad, were always welcomed. And here Kate Chase ruled supreme over a crowd of admirers. A little prior to this time she had met William Sprague, the man who was to become her husband. Sprague was

born in Rhode Island, in 1830. In 1856 he had succeeded to the management of the print works, established by his grandfather, and continued by * his father and uncle. In 1860 he had been elected Governor of his State. In September of that year he had headed a deputation from Rhode Island to the dedication of the statue of Commodore Perry in Cleveland. It was then that he first met Miss of love at first sight, and on Nov. 12, 1863, they were married, all fashionable and official Washington being represented at the wedding. Mr. Sprague had just been elected United States Senator from Rhode Island. The honeymoon was spent in Providence. Mrs. Sprague cast her eyes over her hueband’s broad ancestral acres in that town, renamed the spot Canonchet, and proceeded to replace the old mansion with a splendid new palace. It still remains an unfinished Aladdin’s palace. Possibly it was the headlong extravagance of the wife in this and other matters which made the first rift in the matrimonial lute, but, in fact, the two were utterly dissimilar in taste, in character, in ambitions. Mrs. Sprague took far more interest in her father’s political future than in her husband’s. She devoted herself to the former with even more assiduity than before her marriage. With the wealth at her command, with her brilliancy, her tact, her

unfailing charm of manner, she easily remained the center of attraction ' In Washington society. All these gifts of fortune were utilized in the effort to make Salmon P. Chase President of the United States. Chase, who had left the Democratic party on the slavery issue, was willing to become a candidate of a reconstructed Democracy, and in 1868, when the national convention was held In New York Mrs. Sprague opened up quarters there In the Interests of her father. Every effort was made to bring the man and the platform into harmonious relations, but failed. The convention would not go far enough to suit Mr. Chase and the latter was unbending. He did not long survive his disappointment In 1870 he suffered a paralytic stroke and In 1873 he died. His death precipitated a rupture between Mrs. Sprague and her husband. After that event she became lees circumspect in her conduct, less reticent

about her domestic troubles, more extravagant in her expenses. Finally the husband’s remonstrances culminated in a request that she should name some friend in whom she had confidence and whom he might take into his. She suggested Roscoe Conkling. The husband was staggered. Conkling was his enemy, politically as well as personally. Moreover, it was Conkling’s name that was linked with Mrs. Sprague’s in the gossip of the capital. Nevertheless, so desperate were his straits—for even then the shadow of financial ruin was impending—that he consented to unbosom himself and lay bare all his private affairs to his foe. On Aug. 10, 1879, occurred the sensational episode which was the first blow to the political prestige of the New York Senator. Mr. Sprague, returning home to Canonchet unexpectedly from an interrupted journey, surprised Conkling breakfasting with his wife. He gave him half an hour to leave the house under pain of death. Mrs. Sprague, with her accustomed audacity, .laughed at “Willie’s threats” and heartened the Senator to remain, but the return of Mr. Sprague with a shotgun made the Sepator-beat a precipitate and Inglorious retreat, the shotgun in his rear. The flight of the wife from Canonchet followed on Aug. 31. Then came divorce suits, brought by the wife against the husband and by the husband against the wife. Finally an amicable arrangement was reached, and on May 27,1882, a decree of divorce was granted. Mr. Sprague retained the son, William Sprague Jr., and Mrs. Sprague the three daughters. Sprague afterward married the daughter of a Virginia farmer. While the Governor spent his time in litigation, trying to save something out of the wreck, Kate Chase retired to Edgewood, the small property left by her father in the suburbs of Washington. There she lived during the last fifteen years, with steadily dwindling fortunes, until a few months ago she was offered by Secretary Gage a clerk’s position in the Treasury Department, over which her father had once presided. She declined the place, and only a few weeks ago, Edgewood, covered with mortgages, was ordered to be sold. Of her children the son committed suicide in Seattle in 1890, but her three daughters survive her. The eldest, Ethel, went on the stage, but a short time ago she married and retired from ‘public view.

KATE CHASE SPRAGUE.

MISS KATE CHASE AT THE TIME OF HER MARRIAGE.