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Chapter One
A Journey of Discovery
When William Wallace Whitney wed Myra Elizabeth Davis on September 13, 1832, he was not quite twenty-two, several years younger than his bride. According to the recollections of a bridesmaid many years later, their marriage began with a dramatic twist well suited to the pages of a romance that would later enthrall a nation. As the ceremony began, the minister discovered that no one had procured a marriage license. "The bridegroom was annoyed, the bride trembled, the bridesmaids fluttered with additional tremors of excitement," as the bride's family dispatched a messenger to ride "with all speed, upon the swiftest horse in the stables" to Wilmington for the necessary document. By the mistake of a "stupid servant" the messenger received, instead, "an old blind animal, who stumbled and blundered along in the rain and mud." Finding a magistrate with difficulty, the messenger returned to the waiting wedding guests after ten o'clock in the evening. Fate, however, smiled on the bridal couple as the ceremony ended. The bridesmaid remembered that "the storm ... ceased. The wind fell, the night calmed, and from among the scattered clouds the moon shone with peaceful rays across the lawn." This theatrical beginning marked the start of the drama that for fifty years newspaper editors, columnists, and gossip-laden memoirs called the "Great Gaines Case."
Stories written about her lawsuit in the latter half of the nineteenth century seldom mentioned Myra Clark Gaines's firsthusband. Editors preferred to concentrate on either Gaines herself or her more famous second husband, General Edmund Pendleton Gaines. Yet without William Whitney's support no Gaines case would have existed. Nineteenth-century married women had no legal standing before United States courts. Only in her husband's name could Myra fight for her inheritance. William Whitney enthusiastically aided and encouraged his wife's pursuit of her rights, and he instigated the first lawsuit. His early death at twenty-seven gave his young widow an additional reason to continue the suit, convinced as she was that only victory in the case he initiated could justify her first husband's untimely death, which she blamed on his incarceration for libel.
Young Whitney grew up in Binghamton, New York, the scion of a prominent New York family. He still lived at home with his parents when he met Myra. His father, General Joshua Whitney, was a founding resident of the upstate community, serving as land agent for the holders of the original Bingham Patent and as the first postmaster for the town. An early proponent of internal improvements, General Whitney supported New York governor DeWitt Clinton's project to build a state road from the Hudson River to Lake Erie through Binghamton. He also backed the Chenango Canal and, in the 1830s, served as one of the local incorporators of the Erie Railroad. His varied business interests allowed him to amass a comfortable fortune, and he became known around the state as a man of wealth and influence. In 1806 he built Whitney Place, considered "the finest dwelling in [that] part of New York State." Located on Upper Court Street in Binghamton, the house stood on a terraced knoll overlooking the Susquehanna River. It cost four thousand dollars to construct—a considerable sum—and the family furnished it on a grand scale. Imported furniture by Sheraton and Chippendale and silver by Sheffield created an atmosphere of taste and luxury. Secure in his position as a member of a respected family, William Whitney read law in a local office and established a modest practice. He developed an especially strong relationship with his father. "No child could cherish a parent with greater affection and gratitude," young Whitney assured the general. The assistance General Whitney gave his son and Myra and, after William's death, his special care for his son's widow demonstrated that the father returned his son's regard.
Myra had a more equivocal relationship with the man whom she knew as her father for the first twenty-five years of her life. She lived in the household of Colonel Samuel B. Davis almost from birth, raised as a daughter by Davis and his wife, Marian. In various depositions given in the court cases, both Davises, as well as their son, Horatio, concurred that Myra knew nothing of her true parentage until shortly before her marriage.
That moment of discovery became the subject of great speculation and imaginative reconstruction in the later years of the Gaines case. One author recounted that young Myra, taunted by schoolmates as a bastard, searched Colonel Davis's papers while he attended church. Finding "unquestionable evidence" that she was not his daughter, she confronted Davis. In this vignette Colonel Davis assured Myra that, although she was not his true daughter, she was heiress to a considerable estate in New Orleans. Since, according to her brother's testimony, no one outside their family knew of Myra's real origins—and the family never discussed it—this dramatic scene seems contrived solely for its emotional impact on followers of the Gaines case.
The colonel's own explanation can be pieced together from the four depositions he gave in the various lawsuits and a letter he wrote to the editor of the New York Evening Star soon after the litigation began. Several newspaper articles in New York and New Orleans papers had criticized Davis for failing to pursue Myra's claims against the Clark estate, and he replied in an effort to defend his reputation. The editors of the Evening Star encouraged the increasingly vituperative exchange because the case excited considerable attention from their readers and boosted their circulation. The public debate marked the first use of the press to promote a one-sided interpretation of events in the Gaines case.
According to Colonel Davis, Myra learned the truth in 1830. Early in that year, while Davis served as a representative to the Pennsylvania legislature in Harrisburg, he asked the young woman to search his private papers left in Philadelphia for some documents he needed. Rummaging through the colonel's correspondence, Myra discovered letters in which Clark acknowledged her as his daughter. Davis testified that this revelation gave his adopted daughter much distress, and when he returned home he decided to reveal the circumstances of her birth.
Davis's four trial depositions provide few details of Myra's early life. According to the colonel, she was the daughter of Daniel Clark, a New Orleans merchant who died in 1813, and Zulime Carrière DesGrange, a young Frenchwoman. In late June of 1804 or 1805 Clark asked Davis to find a house where Mme. DesGrange could give birth to their child privately. Davis induced his brother-in-law, Pierre Baron Boisfontaine, to loan a house near Esplanade for Zulime's "lying in." Their daughter was born on the last day of June; soon after the birth, the infant was put out to nurse with the wife of a coach maker, a Mrs. Gordon. But Myra remained with the woman less than two weeks. The wet nurse had a child of her own, and Myra appeared neglected. When Davis told his wife of his concern for the infant's welfare, Marian Davis went at once to see her. "Touched with compassion at her forlorn and desolate situation," Davis insisted on taking the little girl into her own household. A niece of Davis had a child at the breast and consented to nurse Myra, too. According to the colonel, his wife's actions sprang from "a prompt and feminine benevolence" that Clark appreciated. Since Clark refused to acknowledge Myra publicly as his own, the baby remained with the Davis family. Marian Davis had no daughter, and becoming attached to the infant, determined to keep her until she should be claimed by her parents.
Clark had requested help from Davis because of a business relationship and personal friendship developed over a six-year acquaintance. Davis led a checkered life up to the time he met Clark in 1799. Born in Lewes, Delaware, on Christmas Day 1765, he went to sea as a boy. By the early 1790s he owned a half interest in a schooner, the Delaware. For several years Davis captained the ship on trading ventures between American ports and the French West Indies. In 1793 a British "man-o-war schooner," the Flying Fish, returning from the burning of Cap-Français, captured the Delaware and took it to Jamaica. According to Davis the war between England and the revolutionary government in France made this a common fate for American ships trading with the French. Davis kept his entire fortune on board the Delaware, the "profit of many years' exertion and labor." This sum, thirty thousand dollars in specie, belonged to Davis and his Philadelphia partner John Brown. The British admiralty court awarded the Delaware and all its contents to the captain and crew of the Flying Fish as a prize of war, leaving Davis destitute.
Davis's fortunes soon improved. An acquaintance from Philadelphia came to his aid with a considerable sum, which allowed Davis to buy back and refit his vessel. His encounter with the British courts convinced Davis to seek revenge as a member of the French navy. Under the assumed name of Lieutenant Vaisau, Davis acquired a valiant reputation as an officer, but he resigned his French commission in 1798 when his own country became engaged in an undeclared naval war with France. His naval experiences gained him a position as first officer on the General Washington, an armed merchant vessel owned by Daniel W. Coxe of Philadelphia but consigned to Coxe's partner, Daniel Clark of New Orleans. Again Davis's ship fell victim to the British navy. Two English men-of-war, the Lynx and the Pheasant, captured the General Washington and took it to Bermuda. Coxe journeyed to the island, redeemed his ship, and gave command to Davis. As captain, Davis sailed for several years between Liverpool and New Orleans. In 1802 or 1803 he ended his naval career and joined the growing number of Americans seeking their fortunes in New Orleans. Davis prospered as a merchant. He invested in a "rope-walk" owned by Clark on the riverfront at Canal Street and bought his own ship, the Eliza. In 1805 (just before the date Davis gave for Myra's birth) Daniel Clark financed a partnership Davis formed with his nephew, William Harper. As "Davis & Harper" the firm purchased a hardware and ship chandlery business, using Clark's credit as security. Gratitude for Clark's assistance, as well as Mrs. Davis's desire for a daughter, motivated Davis's willing acceptance of Clark's young child into his home.
Davis could tell Myra little of her mother. She was "Madame Zulime DesGrange of New Orleans," and Davis understood that rumor accused her husband of bigamy at the time of their marriage. Many years later, in a deposition given in 1849 shortly before his death, Davis testified that Zulime frequently came to see her daughter while Myra lived with his family. After the Davis household moved north in 1812, Zulime never spoke to Myra again during her childhood. Davis described one short meeting that took place on the streets of Philadelphia when Zulime "looked very hard" at the child. Except for that incident, no contact occurred between Zulime and her daughter for more than twenty years.
Although Clark refused to claim Myra openly as his daughter, Davis explained that her father often visited her as a child and seemed proud of her. Clark also appeared willing to accept financial responsibility for Myra. Before a voyage he undertook in 1811 from New Orleans to Philadelphia, Clark made some special provisions for her. Hostilities between England and the United States seemed imminent; fearing capture or death at sea, Clark left a small trunk presumably containing valuable property for her support at a bank in New Orleans. He also assigned several notes of hand from General Wade Hampton to Davis for Myra's benefit. Davis returned the receipt for the trunk and the assignment of the notes when Clark arrived safely back in New Orleans. On an earlier occasion Clark had transferred several lots in New Orleans by bill of sale to Davis, and Davis later transferred the lots to another friend of Clark, the chevalier Delacroix. Neither bill of sale mentioned Myra, but both men understood that they held the property in trust for Clark's child, and no money passed from either man to Clark for the lots.
After war began between the United States and England in 1812 the Davis family left New Orleans for Philadelphia. Davis planned to join the forces defending the East Coast ports. His leadership in the heroic defense of Lewes against British bombardment gained him a commission from President Madison as lieutenant colonel in the Thirty-Second Regiment, United States Infantry. One of Davis's contemporaries during the bombardment of Lewes described the colonel's "imposing stature, decidedly fine in appearance" with "prominent features, large cheek bones, heavy jaw, large nose and mouth, expressive of firmness." Over six feet tall, Davis "possess[ed] qualities of discipline and intellect for the management of men."
After transferring to the Forty-Fourth Regiment, composed of fellow Louisianians, and reaching the rank of colonel, Davis commanded the defense of the entrance to New York harbor at Sandy Hook. Later that year (1813) he acted as one of the judges in the court martial of General William Hull, who had surrendered Detroit to the British in 1812. His next assignment found him leading his regiment to the defense of New Orleans. From Wilmington he marched his troops to Wheeling, West Virginia, where they embarked on flatboats for the trip down the Mississippi. The regiment arrived in New Orleans the day after Andrew Jackson's victory. Colonel Davis remained on active duty, stationed in Louisiana, until 1819. His family joined him, living on their plantation of Terre Boeuf north of the city; Myra, however, remained behind in Philadelphia at boarding school.
Upon his retirement the colonel sold Terre Boeuf and bought property outside of Wilmington on a hill where he and his men had camped on their march to New Orleans in 1814. The natural beauty of the site had impressed Davis, and now he obtained more than two hundred acres of riverfront property, on which he built Delamore Place as a home for his family. Years later a newspaper described Myra's childhood home: "Towering pillars ranged along the wide porch, reached by a flight of steps, [and] formed a pleasing example of the semi-colonial and Southern style of architecture." Myra lived at Delamore Place until her marriage to William Whitney in 1832.
When the colonel moved his family north in 1812, Clark threatened to take Myra from the Davises. The colonel refused to give up the child unless Clark took his daughter "under his protection or gave some other public and notorious evidence" of his paternity. Clark refused. Davis explained that his insistence and Clark's refusal caused a "coldness" to develop between the two friends that continued until Clark's death a year later. Despite Clark's denial of public recognition, Davis expected that he would provide for the child "as his ample fortune and generous disposition" warranted.
But no such acknowledgment appeared when the announcement of Clark's death in 1813 reached them. The following spring Davis wrote Clark's executors, Richard Relf and Beverly Chew (Clark's New Orleans partners), asking if any provision had been made for Clark's daughter. They replied that Clark's will, made in 1811, left his entire fortune to his mother, Mary Clark of Germantown, Pennsylvania. Moreover, the executors insisted that the war with Britain had rendered the estate insolvent, and they requested immediate payment of $2,500 to redeem a debt contracted by Davis. That amount represented the principal of a note for $ 2,361.00 plus 10 percent interest since 1812.
The demand for payment angered Davis. He wrote the two executors that Clark had forced the sum in question on him, and the entire amount was for the child's benefit. Davis explained that he and Clark had formally signed an agreement binding Clark to supply funds for Myra's education; Davis would invest Clark's money and use the interest for the child. Davis promised not to exceed the sum stipulated. The executors should find the agreement among Clark's papers. Davis concluded his letter with the hope that Clark's executors would "have too much respect" for his memory "to proceed further in this business to give trouble to one who for over ten years has never rec.d one cent for the support of [Clark's] child—except what is here mentioned."
Unfortunately Davis's hopes were misplaced. Relf and Chew replied that no agreement could be found among Clark's papers; Clark himself had endorsed the note to them shortly before his death. On December 8, 1814, Richard Relf and Beverly Chew brought suit against Davis in the First Judicial District Court of Louisiana to collect the debt. The judgment by the court ordered Davis to pay the executors the full amount of $2,500. He paid reluctantly. The whole experience, he later told Myra, convinced him that no funds would come to her from the estate of her father, and she continued in her ignorance of her real identity for fifteen more years. Davis explained that he and his wife had often considered whether they should tell their adopted daughter of her true parentage but had decided that "it would be less for her happiness and [their] own to change in any manner the ties that existed" between Myra and the Davis family. Only her accidental discovery of her father's letters eventually convinced him to break the silence.
Other evidence presented during the litigation questioned the accuracy of Colonel Davis's recollections. His letter in the Evening Star gave the source of the "coldness" that diminished his friendship with Clark as Davis's insistence in 1812 that Clark acknowledge Myra. On two other occasions, however, Davis explained that the coldness developed because of business differences that arose in 1807 or 1808 when Clark tried unsuccessfully to drive a wedge between Davis and his partner Harper. In this account Davis maintained that Clark's insistence that he accept money for Myra's education before he left New Orleans in 1811 was the first sign of their renewed friendship. More likely, Davis's plans to rejoin the military forces prompted Clark's concern for his daughter's future. Before Davis left New Orleans he conveyed the property he held in trust for Myra to Delacroix. Clark may have demanded this transfer to remove the property from Davis's estate should he be killed; for the same reason, Clark insisted he accept a sum of money whose interest would provide for Myra's upkeep if Davis died.
Another discrepancy exists in Davis's rendition of Myra's discovery of her parentage. He stated positively that Myra learned of her history in 1830, two years before her marriage, during a time when Davis served in the Pennsylvania legislature. Yet Davis, although elected in 1830, served his two terms between 1831 and 1833. Depositions by other family members agreed that Myra learned of her birth "shortly" before her marriage in 1832.
One piece of evidence indicates that Colonel Davis did not tell Myra of her heritage in early 1830 as he testified. In May of that year the chevalier François Dusnau Delacroix conveyed to "Miss Myra Clark" property in the Faubourg St. John, land that Delacroix originally received from Samuel Davis in 1812. According to the record of sale filed with notary Philip Pedesclaux on May 16, 1830, Delacroix sold the property to Myra for $2,000, a sum furnished by Davis. The record also indicates that the purchase price received from Davis supposedly came from money provided by Clark before his death for his daughter's welfare. Since that amount given by Clark to Davis had already been reclaimed by the executors of Clark's will, Relf and Chew, the purchase money must actually have come from Davis's own pocket.
The record of sale does not indicate whether the young woman knew anything about the sale. In an 1848 deposition Delacroix recalled meeting "Captain" Davis in the Exchange and asking him if Myra had accompanied him to New Orleans. Learning that she was indeed present in the city, the chevalier offered to transfer two portions of land Clark had placed in his possession for Myra. Davis replied that his adopted daughter would not be able to accept as she "was entirely ignorant that she is the ... child of Clark." Several days later Davis accepted the transfer of property in Myra's name. Under Louisiana law the age of majority for a woman was twenty-five; if, as Davis avowed, Myra was born on June 30, 1805, this sale took place just before her twenty-fifth birthday.
Whenever and however Myra learned the truth of her relationship with the Davis family, she showed no change in her attitude toward her adopted parents until after she met William Whitney. She made no demands that Davis seek money for her from the Clark estate, nor did she write directly to the executors or make plans to go to New Orleans. Davis told her she had no claims on her natural father's estate, and this statement apparently satisfied her. When she married William in 1832 the wedding took place at the Davis home in Wilmington and the newspaper announcement listed the bride as "Myra E. Davis."
The brief announcement of the wedding of Myra and William in the Philadelphia Gazette and Daily Advertiser gave no indication of the family controversy that swirled about Myra's decision to marry. Yet the marriage apparently changed Myra's relationship with her adopted father. A letter from William to his father makes clear that Colonel Davis did not approve the match but provides no indication of the colonel's reasons. Years later, during the heyday of the Gaines case, the popular press sought to portray the colonel as the stereotypical wicked guardian who schemed to obtain Myra's fortune for himself. One account accused the colonel of hiding valuable property given him by Clark for Myra and then scheming to marry her to one of his own sons to keep the property in the family. Another suggested that Colonel Davis proposed to marry Myra to another man—unnamed—of wealth and worldly stature and refused Whitney because of his youth and supposed lack of prospects. A popular legend dramatized the public's identification of Myra with the heroines of current sentimental novels. In this tale Myra fled her home, thwarted by the colonel's refusal to sanction Whitney's suit, and only her near death convinced her foster father to relent.
Colonel Davis's opposition to the marriage is difficult to explain. William Whitney, although younger than Myra, was a man of good, even excellent, family background, whose professional abilities earned him the respect of his community. Possibly the colonel believed Myra's marriage to a man trained in the law would reopen a subject he hoped would remain closed. Whitney did question Davis about Myra's background, and the answers indicated that Davis grew defensive about his acceptance of the executors' statements that the estate was bankrupt and no provision could be made for Myra. The forced repayment of Clark's advance humiliated the proud colonel, and he did what he could to discourage any further contact with the executors of the Clark estate. The property regained from Delacroix was another source of friction. Whitney demanded that Davis sign a statement indicating that he held that property in trust for Myra so that it would not become part of Davis's estate. Seeing the demand as an indication of a lack of faith, Davis refused, and the relationship between the two men worsened. William wrote his own father just after their wedding that Myra had suffered great anxiety over the past eight months, and that "the loss of sleep at night [made] her almost crazy." "Her Father's unkindness has very much distressed her," he continued, and "it will be better to have no further communication with him at the present time." In all her later letters, Myra called her father-in-law, General Whitney, "Father" but never referred to Davis as anything but "the Colonel."
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Excerpted from Notorious Woman by Elizabeth Urban Alexander. Copyright © 2001 by Louisiana State University Press. Excerpted by permission. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
