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Also included are more than 350 full-text local newspaper articles on films and movie-making and on the Japanese-American internment.
In addition, this is an online index for births, deaths, and personal names from The Mountain Echo. The complete print index is available at the library. For more information see The Mountain Echo."]],["elementText",{"elementTextId":"1840007"},["text","Most of the indexed articles are available on microfilm in the Californiana Room or in the clipping files in the Local History Room at the Downtown branch. Copies of individual articles may be available by contacting the Reference Department - Ask Us.
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Also included are more than 350 full-text local newspaper articles on films and movie-making and on the Japanese-American internment.
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At times the lightness,\nthe gilt spires on the castle-like roof line, seem to mock the old\nsolemnity of the house. For more than a hundred years, passers-by\nhave paused before it to trade gossip. Many are vaguely aware that\nsome enigmatic tragedy occurred here long ago.\nSuch lasting curiosity bears witness to the romantic mystery of the\nVilla. Sole legacy of Major Frank McLaughlin, it stands as a fitting\nmonument to the lavish era in which he flourished and declined.\nThere seems a general perception that just behind the high front\nhedge, across the shaded porch, inside the beveled-glass doors,\nmust lie a terrific story. Stepping inside, you are not disappointed.\nThick, solid walls shut out the Twentieth Century clamor. The air is\ncool and still. A graceful vault arches high in the wood-ribbed\nceiling; the subtle gloom is enlivened by stained glass prisms. The\nimage of a pearl-like Magdalene gazes mournfully from a wall\nopposite an old oil of someone's favorite hound. The sense of\nsanctuary is echoed in the motto Major McLaughlin composed for\nhis house, which hangs framed at the entry: He who enters here\nleaves all cares behind.\nIf you are lucky enough to be greeted by today's resident owner,\nPatricia Sambuck Wilder, she may walk you through the amazing\nrooms like a little girl bringing out her best dolls: somewhat afraid\nGolden Gate Villa: 924 Third Street\nthey might not be properly appreciated. Plaster rosettes hold goldplated chandeliers, intricately carved and mirrored mantels of exotic woods frame onyx-faced fireplaces. In one room\ncherubs flutter on a frieze band high overhead, in another mythological figures pose in gilded bas-relief. The dining,\nbilliard and music rooms are identified by motifs depicted in the jeweled-glass transoms. On first view the opulence can\n1\n\n�take your breath away, but no one could call it pretentious. The Villa wears her gems with simplicity, under a homey\nhousecoat of dust.\nLighting the broad staircase to the second floor is the masterpiece and soul of the house: a full-length stained glass\nportrait of a young woman in ancient dress, reaching up to pick an apple-blossomed branch. \"That's Agnes,\" Patricia\nintroduces her, \"step-daughter of Major McLaughlin who built the Villa. The legend is he cut some of her own hair to mix\nthe color of that glass.\"\nPatricia resides on the first floor with her family and a pack of rambunctiously affectionate hounds. On the upper floors\na few tenants find more of a home than most renters ever know. \"I can always tell who belongs here,\" Pat confides.\n\"The dogs like them.\" Writers and other visionaries are especially attracted to the house. More than one has attempted\nto chronicle the spiritual energy often sensed at the Villa, felt to be a lingering emanation of its first residents.\nPatricia has owned the Villa since 1967, a longer term than any previous proprietor. It nearly came into her family much\nearlier. Her grandfather, Stephen Scurich, a prominent Watsonville rancher, considered buying the Villa after\nMcLaughlin's death in 1907. However, his wife, Lucia, refused to occupy a site rumored to be haunted. And so the\nMajor's fellow Elks stood guard at the mansion until it was purchased in 1912 by Lucian Sly, builder of the exclusive\nStanford Court apartments on San Francisco's Nob Hill.\nThrough the early part of the century, the Villa changed hands often, as one after another infatuated purchaser learned\nthe high cost of keeping such an extravagant mistress. After a few apartment companies unsuccessfully tried to make\nthe Villa turn a profit, it opened to the public during the 1940s and '50s as the Palais Monte Carlo, \"unrivaled among\nPacific resorts.\"[2] One woman who visited during its days as an inn never forgot the enchanting house. Just before she\ndied, Anna Sambuck sent her daughter Patricia to see the Villa, as if she sensed the two were meant for each other.\nIt was for sale when Pat arrived. Uncared for, painted false colors and humiliated with sagging scrollwork, the Villa stood\nundefended. Multi-millionaire William Durney had bought it on a whim, then hurried back to Beverly Hills and rarely\nthought of it again. Patty says her heart sank at what a piece of work she was taking on, but there didn't seem to be a\nchoice. Although she didn't know it at the time, the November day she took possession of the Villa was the exact date\nthe McLaughlin tragedy had left it empty sixty years before.\nPatricia has since discovered what many life-savers learn to their dismay - that once reclaimed, the saved one continues\nto require daily heroic efforts. For more than a quarter of a century, with painstaking research and an intuition born of\nlove, she has worked to preserve the fragile grandeur of a bygone era. The house was entered into the national Registry\nof historical landmarks in 1975 and has also been recognized by the California Heritage Council.\nIn her own apartment Patricia may show you a remnant of the dining room's historic wall covering, said to be African\nelephant hide bagged by Teddy Roosevelt and presented to the Major in gratitude for his political exertions. The fragile\nold leather had to be removed after the 1989 earthquake loosened the underlying plaster. Watching Patty strip it from\nthe walls was like seeing her peel off her own skin.\nA guest room on the second floor is named for Roosevelt, one of McLaughlin's many celebrated visitors at the Villa.[3]\nDuring a house tour, Patricia sometimes shows her collection of old photographs, beginning with a portrait of the Major.\nKing of the Feather\nDapper to the point of foppishness, McLaughlin poses on a construction site scaffold, sporting a black handlebar\nmustache, wide-brimmed hat and knee length patent leather boots. A dominant figure in the state's mining industry, he\nbecame known as the \"King of the Feather\" for his engineering exploits on that California river and in the surrounding\ngold fields, where he made and lost several fortunes.\n\n2\n\n�McLaughlin was born about 1840. As a young man, he served on the police force in Newark, New Jersey, and began a\nlife-long friendship with Thomas Edison. After a short stint in the Union Army, he was, by 1864, an engineer on the\nUnion Pacific Railroad, helping push tracks across the Plains. His military title most likely stemmed from later activity in\nthe California state militia rather than his brief Civil War record.\nHe acquired an impressive reputation with the six-gun, driving stage coach through the Wild West, and as a Dodge City\ndeputy to Marshall Bat Masterson, who called him \"one of the quickest men on the frontier.\"[4] McLaughlin earned fame\nas one of the few men to publicly challenge Wyatt Earp and live to tell the tale. Sources vary as to the time and place of\ntheir falling out over a decision Earp made while refereeing a prize fight. The Sentinel told the story thus:\nAlways a Foe of Earp\nMajor McLaughlin was unsparing in his denunciations of the rascality of Wyatt Earp, and it was said up and down Market\nSt. that Earp had vowed to shoot McLaughlin on sight... When the two encountered one another at Johnny Farley's\nPeerless saloon, Earp and the little Major had a staring match for a thrilling instant in which the petulant pop of the\npistol was expected by all. But the Arizona gun man saw that he could not intimidate through many a gun play on the\nwestern frontier, and so he said with a tone smacking something of an apology: 'I know, Major McLaughlin, that you\nwould not have made such remarks unless you believed them to be true,' and left the saloon while the man he was\nsupposed to kill on sight took his time over his drink, uttered a few jocular remarks for the benefit of the bystanders,\nand went his own way with a nerve seemingly shaken not at all.[5]\nMcLaughlin returned East in 1877, to court a buxom New Jersey widow who loomed as large as her suitor's ideas. It was\nsaid McLaughlin \"never settled for the petite when the mammoth was available.\"[6] During this time, the Major renewed\nhis friendship with the century's most famous inventor. Edison was developing the incandescent light bulb, needing only\na dependable source of platinum for filaments in order to market his discovery. He commissioned McLaughlin to\nprospect for the mineral in California, where the Major had heard of a find on the Feather River.\nBefore his second departure for the West in 1879, McLaughlin married the widow Margaret Loomis and adopted her\nyoung daughter Agnes.\nIn California, the partners' mining interest soon turned toward gold. The Major eventually controlled some of the richest\nproperties on the Feather, yet rarely invested his own money. Rather, he organized stock companies which he managed\nfor a hefty salary. This unusual arrangement later led to ugly rumors among his detractors, of which the evercontroversial McLaughlin had as many as any successful, flamboyant entrepreneur.\nThe Major promoted several impressive projects in Butte County during the 1880s - a nine-mile tunnel at Big Bend, a 30mile flume at the Miocene hydraulic mine. Some, not all, were marked successes. He was also involved in large orange\nand olive orchards around Oroville and in developing the Thermalito Land Colony with its impressive Bella Vista Hotel.\nBy 1890, the large-thinking Major had conceived his biggest project: a great wall to divert the Feather from its bed so\nplacer gold could be mined from the bottom.\nArmed with letters of recommendation from Thomas Edison, two senators and California's governor, McLaughlin's trip\nto London to attract financing for his new project was so successful that newspapers noted: \"not since Benjamin Franklin\nhad an American made such an impression on English society.\"[7] Due to a misunderstanding about currency (while he\nwas talking dollars, his British investors were thinking pounds) McLaughlin came home with $12 million, more than even\nhe had envisioned. The error seems characteristic of the brash, reckless Major.\nThe work, which would take a thousand men four years of labor, was underway by 1892. A canal forty feet wide and\n6,000 feet long was dug alongside the river. The stone retaining wall, twelve feet wide at its base and up to twenty feet\nhigh in places, was said to resemble the Great Wall of China. By 1896, it was known as one of the West's greatest mining\nfeats and visited by engineers from around the world. Edison provided the first electric lights ever used on a\n3\n\n�construction site, and work continued around the clock. The expansive Major was a genius at self-promotion and the\npress was highly attentive, building suspense throughout the country.\nWhen the wall reached 7,000 feet in length, a dam was built which threw the river from its bed into the canal on the\nother side. A crowd cheered as McLaughlin himself stepped into the drained bed to lift the first shovelful of gravel. A\nreturn of at least $100 million was expected on the $12 million investment. Yet within a year, the great undertaking had\ncollapsed in bankruptcy.\nMcLaughlin's miners found rusted picks and buckets instead of gold nuggets on the Feather's bed, evidence of an earlier\nraid. Half a century before, with little fanfare, the forty-niners had diverted the river with a wooden flume at the same\nsite, harvesting a fortune. What they'd left behind wasn't worth the taking. Old-timers in Oroville, knowing the Major's\ngrandiose enterprise was doomed to failure, had kept the secret for years to enjoy a last laugh on the Easterner who had\nbeen too successful on their home turf.\nThe $12 million loss was a heavy blow to the English stockholders. They were enraged to learn that, McLaughlin, true to\nhis habit, was not an investor. He had suffered no losses, but had drawn a handsome salary over the years. So unhappy\nwere the British backers that Queen Victoria asked Scotland Yard to investigate. Upon arrival in Oroville, the evidently\nsomewhat timid investigator was promptly scared off by the pistol-packing McLaughlin.\nIn frustration and indignation, perhaps trying to drown out the chortles of the old-timers, McLaughlin dynamited his\ndam, returning the river to its original bed. For years the great wall remained as a memorial to perhaps the cruelest\ndisappointment of California's fickle gold country, where disappointments were said to be \"as common as hangings.\" In\n1963 the completion of the Oroville dam submerged the last traces of one of the West's great mining adventures and\none of its most spectacular failures.\nLeaving Cares Behind\nUpon his departure from Oroville, the resilient Major devoted himself to politics. On his management of the Senate\ncampaign of Colonel Burns, the Santa Cruz Sentinel reported:\nNo Fear of a \"Bad Gun\"\nThere was never any doubt of his physical courage or his willingness to accept a challenge from any bad gun man. When\nhe was managing the campaign of D.M. Burns for the United States Senate there were many threats that he would be\nkilled, and one day in the corridor of the Golden Eagle Hotel in Sacramento he met Major Goucher of San Diego, who\nwas supposed to have a particular grudge against him. Major McLaughlin calmly spat in Major Goucher's face and\npushed him with his left hand. Goucher made no effort to resent the insult and afterwards said: \"I was too wise to be\ntaken in by that old frontier trick. He spat in my pistol eye, and pushed me off with his left hand, so that he was free to\ndraw on me with his right.\"[8]\nSo effective was McLaughlin, who was chair of California's Republican State Central Committee during the 1896\npresidential campaign, he was personally credited with carrying the state for McKinley. McLaughlin attended inaugural\nevents at the invitation of the new president, but he declined the offer of a seat in McKinley's cabinet, as he refused\nrequests to run for governor in California.\nHailing him as \"in some respects a bigger man than Caesar, whose refusal of a crown was very feeble,\"[9] the Sentinel\nconcluded that, \"the happy man is the contended man, and the contented man does not want anything. Major\nMcLaughlin, who does not want state or federal office - refuses to accept an appointment brought to him on a stick must be a happy man.\"[10]\nIt seems the Major would have agreed, at least during his first years at Golden Gate Villa when he composed his carefree\nepigram for the house.\n4\n\n�The Showplace of Santa Cruz\nWhile still engaged on the Feather River, the Major retained San Francisco architect Thomas J. Welsh to design a\nmansion in the seaside resort of Santa Cruz, where Mrs. McLaughlin and Miss Agnes often escaped the brutal summer\nheat of Oroville. Welsh, best known for his cathedrals, was the architect of Holy Cross, locally, and many significant San\nFrancisco churches destroyed in the 1906 earthquake, including the first St. Mary's. His illustrious career, once nearly\nforgotten, has recently been lovingly documented by his great-granddaughter, Patricia Welsh.[11]\nThe Major instructed his architect to \"spare no expense in making Golden Gate Villa the showplace of Santa Cruz.\"[12]\nMcLaughlin evidently named the house after his profitable Golden Gate Mining Company, which provided the funds.\nContemporary accounts praised the lightness and variety of the design, incorporating veranda and balconies particularly\nsuited to Santa Cruz's mild climate. On the top floor an airy belvedere between the two large towers, later enclosed, was\na favorite retreat of the young Agnes. The rear façade, made up almost equally of glass, wall and roof space, descends\nthe steep slope of Beach Hill. An ivy-draped walkway to the town below winds through the terraces supported by\nfortress-like stone walls; they were built by Italian masons McLaughlin brought over to supervise work on his Great Wall\nin Oroville. \"A decided ornament to Santa Cruz,\" was the verdict of the local press.[13]\nThe Villa was wired for the new luxury of electricity, but the original chandeliers still in place are fitted with gas jets in\naddition to electric sockets, as a foil to the frequent outages of the Swanton power plant. Throughout the house,\nredwood wainscoting is meticulously hand \"combed\" with an artistic grain. A turreted carriage house, in keeping with\nthe style of the Villa, contains a turntable for carriages; this was akin to the cable-car turn-arounds the Major had\nadmired in San Francisco.\nSeven boxcars of solid, dignified furnishings arrived from the city, down stuffed Spanish leather armchairs, carved\nmahogany settees, curved sleigh beds a bit too short for today's physique. A handsome bronze representing Goethe's\nMarguerite seems to have been particularly admired, as much for its weight, requiring three men to lift, as for taking\nfirst prize at the Vienna Exposition. Despite the Villa's eventful history, some of the original furnishings remain in use\ntoday, just as Welsh's original floor plan is preserved remarkably intact.\nBy the time the McLaughins took up residence in 1892, it was clear that the Villa had been created to delight and\nentertain. The cream of Santa Cruz society left visiting cards and awaited a return invitation. It transpired, however, that\nthe family largely ignored their neighbors, preferring to mix with San Francisco, San Jose, and East Coast millionaires.\nLocally, the aura of mystery evolved around the McLaughlins. The town's curiosity had to make do with glimpses of\nmother and daughter attending Holy Cross Church or arriving and departing the Southern Pacific depot with all the fuss\nof well-to-do women on their travels and with newspaper accounts of entertainments hosted at the Villa, to which few\nSanta Cruzans were invited.\nHospitality in the Grand Style\nNearly every January during the family's years in Santa Cruz, front-page Sentinel columns covered festivities at the\nmansion on Beach Hill: \"New Year's Eve is always an important event at Golden Gate Villa, for it is celebrated with all the\nmagnificent hospitality for which Major and Mrs. Frank McLaughlin are noted.\"[14] Fancy dress balls, tableaux vivants,\nmagic shows, musicals, fireworks displays and the first moving picture ever shown in Santa Cruz varied the formal\ndinners and midnight suppers where the Major himself sometimes acted as chef, mixing his famous tea punch. The\nprofound Victorian menus might start with terrapin, canvasback duck and pheasant, on through exotically prepared\nseafood and wild boar bagged by McLaughlin himself.\nThe regular company included Con Edison, nephew of the famous inventor; Lieutenant Governor of California William T.\nJeter, the Mayor's banker; newspaper publisher M. H. de Young, before he and the Major clashed over the Chronicle's\ncoverage of a hot election; San Francisco politico \"Boss\" Abe Ruef. But the most frequently mentioned house guest in\n5\n\n�those years was Sam Rucker, a former mayor of San Jose, said to be courting the blond debutante who presided at the\nVilla.\nThe Ingenue\nWhen Governor Markham escorted Miss McLaughlin to a gala given for officers of the state militia encamped at Santa\nCruz during August of 1892, the Sentinel commended the Governor's \"good taste in selecting such a pretty young lady as\nhis partner for the evening,\" continuing, \"Miss McLaughlin, as usual, was the recipient of much admiration.\"[15]\nThe adored only child of a rich papa, Agnes did indeed receive much public admiration. At a fancy dress ball deemed\n\"part of the history of the state,\" the press declared her \"indescribably pretty\" dressed as May Day, in a costume of pink\nsilk with baby's cap, shepherd's crook and bouquet of sweet peas.[16] After an exhibition of \"living pictures\" at the Villa, a\nnovel entertainment being introduced for the first time in Santa Cruz, Agnes was praised as \"the ideal American girl,\"\nlooking as if she had stepped from one of Gibson's famous posters.[17] Her costume for the 1899 inaugural ball of\nGovernor Henry T. Gage was described in the Sacramento Record-Union, which noted that the \"petite beauty with rose\nleaf complexion\" had donned her favored black, wearing no jewels but carrying a bunch of violets (as she does in her\nportrait at the Villa.)[18]\nAgnes presents a puzzling mixture of the frivolous and the devout. Her adored dog, which one account claimed she\nbathed in eau de cologne, accompanied her everywhere. Despite the constant round of parties, she was noted to attend\nmass every morning in a gleaming phaeton pulled by a jet black horse with a stylish way of going. Mrs. Lena MacLachlan\nof Burlingame, herself a boarder pupil at Holy Cross School around the turn of the century, tells how she would line up\nwith the other little girls to watch Agnes's daily arrival at the church and how they would argue for the role of \"Miz\nMcLaughlin\" when they played at dressing up.\nAgnes had long been betrothed to Sam Rucker;[19] a series of dinners given in her honor as far back as February 1893,\nwere thought to have marked her engagement.[20] Yet somehow the marriage never came off, and the self-effacing Miss\nMcLaughlin continued to drive herself pensively to church, attended only by her perfumed setter. After Mrs.\nMcLaughlin's death, the Major sometimes introduced he step-daughter as \"my charming chatelaine.\" It seems a\ncomplicated relationship for this sometimes bar-room brawler, convoluted in tone like his clipping of her pale hair years\nago to mix in the colors of her stained glass portrait.\nIt was discovered that Agnes was also secretly betrothed to a mysterious New Jersey suitor at the time of her violent\ndeath.[21]\nA Gothic Tragedy\nOn the morning of November 16, 1907, Agnes attended an early mass at Holy Cross Church in memory of her mother,\nwho had died on that date two years before. Upon returning home she retired to her upstairs tower bedroom, loosened\nthe whalebone corsets that grew ever more punishing as she thickened toward middle age, and laid down to rest on her\nsleigh bed of girlish bird's-eye maple.\nAware that she was napping, the Major sent her maid out on an errand. Near 11 a.m., he softly entered her room, put a\n44 caliber pistol to his beloved daughter's temple, and fired a bullet through her head.\nAt the inquest, his friend and banker William Jeter recounted receiving a telephone call from McLaughlin between 10\nand 11 that morning: \"Please come to the house immediately.\" Jeter replied that he could not come at once, but he\nwould be there as soon as he was at liberty. Then McLaughlin spoke in a changed tone. \"You must come at once. I have\njust killed my Bob (his pet name for Agnes) and I am going to kill myself.\"[22]\n\n6\n\n�True to his word, the Major swallowed a fatal dose of potassium cyanide and drew his last breath as his friends arrived.\nIncredibly, Agnes was found alive. Doctors could not do anything for her terrible wound and she died at six-thirty that\nevening.\nThe news sent shock waves through the state, where it occupied the front pages for days. Evidently one friend of the\nfamily offered to kick the chief of the Sentinel downstairs if he didn't remove the unbelievable headline from the streetfront bulletin board: TRAGIC DEATH OF MAJOR McLAUGHLIN CONTINUED REVERSES END IN A DOUBLE TRAGEDY.\nThe November 17, 1907 San Francisco Examiner eulogized McLaughlin as one of the \"most hospitable and most popular\nmen in California.\" In one of his multitudinous last letters the Major composed his own obituary, \"During my life I did\nmuch good and but little evil...\"[23]\nThe welter of farewell letters and instructions left by McLaughlin at his death indicates he had painstakingly planned his\ndesperate act. In an explanation to Jeter he wrote of financial reverses he had hidden from the world, his dread of living\nin poverty and horror of leaving Agnes unprovided for: \"To leave my darling child helpless and penniless would be\nunnatural and so I take her with me to our loved one. She is the very last one who could face this world alone.\"[24] His\nlong-lost cares had at last come home to roost.\n\"O! Why did he do it?\" one friend was quoted, echoing the thoughts of all. \"His friends were numerous and were willing\nto pay any indebtedness he owed. He could have asked and thousands, even hundreds of thousands, would have been\nat his disposal.\"[25] It seemed incredible that a mere change of fortune could drive so resourceful a man to such an act.\nMcLaughlin's star had set, and risen, several times before. According to Jeter, his friend's resources \"were not\nparticularly low\" at the time.[26] The Sentinel's final epithet for the Major was \"the man of mystery,\" noting, \"we know of\nno one in Santa Cruz who knows as much as the age of either the Major or his daughter at the time of their demise.\"[27]\nIn his last letters the Major appears pitiably anxious to pay off creditors and provide for family servants. Even the\ndiamond ring he wore was to be sold, to send Agnes's maid back East to her home. But those most familiar with his\nestate professed that \"there was more than sufficient to liquidate all liabilities, with a large surplus.\" And the demands\nwere substantial. McLaughlin's personal secretary, Anna Busteede, (who claimed the Major once offered to marry her)\nfiled a $15,000 suit for back salary.[28] $15,000 was about equal, at that time, to the cost of two fine houses in Santa\nCruz. Yet there is no mention of the curiously well paid Miss Busteede in the smudgy carbon-paper copy of the inquest\nproceedings.\nSome assumed McLaughlin was shattered by the notoriety of his Feather River failure. Others surmised he was more\nhumiliated than impoverished at being outdone by unscrupulous cohorts in a later Big Bend electric power scheme,\nwhich he had counted on to recoup his waning power.\nThe devastation of San Francisco society in the previous year's earthquake was no doubt another blow to the Major's\nequilibrium. As in the 1989 quake, the damage to his own Villa was largely superficial, toppled chimneys and fallen\nplaster. But seeing the lives of powerful friends reduced to shambles in a moment's time must have heightened his own\nsense of vulnerability. None of the theories seemed to lay the question to rest.\nAttempting to answer that resounding \"Oh Why,\" friends recalled that Agnes had lately confided how distraught her\nfather was as the anniversary of his wife's demise approached. Mrs. McLaughlin's death certificate gives the cause of\ndeath as 'locomotor ataxia,\" progressive deterioration of the spinal cord. A hushed but persistent rumor echoed through\ntown that the long-suffering lady had at last succumbed to a social disease. A story circulated that the Major entered the\nreceiving vault where his wife's corpse had lain for two years, and made his own investigation of the remains. Mrs.\nMcLaughlin's body had not been buried, as the Major wished it sent East with his own when he died, that they might be\nlaid to rest together at the New Jersey church where they were married. The gossip was that neither had the lady been\nembalmed.\n7\n\n�The envy that had dogged his success and celebrated his failure in the gold fields resurfaced with a vengeance at the\nMajor's death. Resentful Santa Cruz society, still smarting under its exclusion from the Villa, professed itself scandalized.\nIt was questioned why the Major and Agnes, no blood relation, had continued living together after Mrs. McLaughlin\ndied. The sought-after Miss McLaughlin remaining unmarried into her thirties was taken as evidence that her father\ncould not bear to give her to another man. Announcements of Agnes's marriage to Sam Rucker were actually sent, Mrs.\nWilder's grandmother, Lucia Scurich, recalled. But the wedding was canceled at the last moment. And no one could\naccount for the mysterious second fiancé who claimed a posthumous engagement with Agnes.\nAmong the faded news clippings of the tragedy is one disturbingly truncated sidebar:\nNEWARK MAN CLAIMS TO HAVE BEEN BETROTHED TO MAJOR'S DAUGHTER\nNEWARK, N.J., NOV. 18. - Agnes McLaughlin was to have married Christian R. Wolters, a prosperous commission\nmerchant of this city. (It is hard to understand how the Major could have felt his daughter unprovided for, if engaged in\nmarriage.)[29]\nThat last timid sentence was set in parentheses, as if one dared not speak the insinuation out loud.\nAt end, the Major's feelings are not open to speculation, for does any man lie with his last words? In McLaughlin's last\nwords, he wrote: \"I love her so and so I take her with me.\"[30] It cannot be known if he harbored a guilty passion for his\nstepdaughter, or simply could not bear to be left alone and aging in the Villa he had created for the pleasures of society.\nNo autopsy was performed. After his own postmortem investigations of his lady, the Major had the forethought to\ninstruct the family physician, Dr. F. E. Morgan: \"Please see that we are not cut up, at least that my pure sweet child is\nnot.\"[31] On the outside of the envelope was scrawled: \"Dear Doc. Please do me one last favor and chloroform our poor\nold cat.\"[32]\nCatholicism forbade the remains of a suicide inside the church, but Father P. J. Fisher of Holy Cross consented to\nperform a requiem mass, because he was convinced the Major was not sane at the time of his death. After private\nservices at the Villa, Sam Rucker accompanied the bodies of all three McLaughlins to New Jersey, to be buried at the\nchurch where the couple had wed years before. The haunting epigram McLaughlin composed for his Villa was at end a\nphrase gone wrong. The words \"He sho enters here leaves all cares behind\" went with him to his tomb.\nThe Villa itself stands as the remaining key to mystery. If a man's home reveals his character, it is likely this gracious\nmansion, where the echo of lighthearted cheer still lingers, was built by a generous soul.\n\nFootnotes\n1\n\nSanta Cruz Daily Sentinel, 9 September 1891, 6:3.\n\n2\n\nAmerican Drive Guides. Highway 101: The Ocean Route. Seattle: Northwest Mapping, 1952.\n\n3\n\nMayor's Proclamation of Historic Landmark for 924 Third Street, City of Santa Cruz. \"WHEREAS: this residence has had\nas its guests Theodore Roosevelt, Thomas Edison, and other important persons in the history of the United States;\"\nsigned and sealed this fifth day of April 1977, by John G. Mahaney, M.D., Mayor.\n4\n\nSan Francisco Chronicle, 19 November 1907, 29:3.\n\n5\n\nSanta Cruz Sentinel, 19 November 1907, 2:3.\n\n6\n\nTalbitzer, Bill. Lost Beneath the Feather. 2d ed. Oroville, Calif.: Bill Talbitzer, 1963.\n\n7\n\nLenhoff, James. \"The Great Chinese Wall Folly,\" Stone Magazine 82, no. 4 (April, 1962): 21.\n8\n\n�8\n\nSanta Cruz Sentinel, 19 November 1907, 2:4.\n\n9\n\nSanta Cruz Sentinel, 15 November 1898, 1:1.\n\n10\n\nSanta Cruz Sentinel, 20 April 1897, 2:1.\n\n11\n\nWelsh, Patricia A. Thomas John Welsh, Architect - A Journey of Discovery. San Francisco: PAW Productions, 1993.\n\n12\n\nCannon, Patricia K. The Golden Lady. Unpublished manuscript, 1980, p. 38.\n\n13\n\nSanta Cruz Daily Sentinel, 9 September 1891, 6:3.\n\n14\n\nSanta Cruz Sentinel, 1 January 1898, 1:1.\n\n15\n\nSanta Cruz Sentinel, 11 August 1892, 3:2.\n\n16\n\nSanta Cruz Sentinel, 2 May 1897, 1:1.\n\n17\n\nSanta Cruz Sentinel, 1 January 1897, 1:3\n\n18\n\nRecord-Union (Sacramento), 13 January 1899, as reported in the Santa Cruz Sentinel, 16 January 1899, 3:2.\n\n19\n\nSan Francisco Chronicle, 17 November 1907, 1:2.\n\n20\n\nCannon, Patricia K. The Golden Lady. Unpublished manuscript, 1980, p. 51.\n\n21\n\nSanta Cruz Morning Sentinel, 19 November 1907, 1:3.\n\n22\n\nInquest proceedings of Frank McLaughlin and Agnes Loomis McLaughlin. Held in Santa Cruz, 17 November 1907.\n\n23\n\nSanta Cruz Morning Sentinel, 17 November 1907, 1:2.\n\n24\n\nMcLaughlin letter to Jeter read at inquest; see note 22 above.\n\n25\n\nSan Jose Mercury, 21 November 1907.\n\n26\n\nSan Francisco Chronicle, 19 November 1907.\n\n27\n\nSanta Cruz Morning Sentinel, 22 November 1907, 9:1.\n\n28\n\nChase, John. Sidewalk Companion to Santa Cruz Architecture. Revised Edition. Santa Cruz: Paper Vision Press, 1979,\n17.\n29\n\nSanta Cruz Morning Sentinel, 19 November 1907, 1:3.\n\n30\n\nSanta Cruz Sentinel, 20 November 1907, 12:2.\n\n31\n\nMcLaughlin letter to Morgan read at inquest. See note 22 above.\n\n32\n\nMercury and Herald (San Jose), 17 November 1907, 1.\n\nThe content of this article is the responsibility of the individual author. It is the Library's intent to provide accurate local history\ninformation. However, it is not possible for the Library to completely verify the accuracy of individual articles obtained from a\nvariety of sources. If you believe that factual statements in a local history article are incorrect and can provide documentation,\nplease contact the Webmaster.\n\n9\n\n�"]]]]]]]]],["collection",{"collectionId":"14"},["elementSetContainer",["elementSet",{"elementSetId":"1"},["name","Dublin Core"],["description","The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. 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They are written by Albert Wilson, Botanist, and a team of surveyors. These descriptions (and some photos) of plants can be searched either by the plant name or by the location address."]]]]]]]],["itemType",{"itemTypeId":"1"},["name","Document"],["description","A resource containing textual data. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre text."],["elementContainer",["element",{"elementId":"7"},["name","Original Format"],["description","If the image is of an object, state the type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data"],["elementTextContainer",["elementText",{"elementTextId":"1839845"},["text","Paper"]]]]]],["elementSetContainer",["elementSet",{"elementSetId":"1"},["name","Dublin Core"],["description","The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/."],["elementContainer",["element",{"elementId":"50"},["name","Title"],["description","A name given to the resource"],["elementTextContainer",["elementText",{"elementTextId":"1839776"},["text","The Golden Gate Villa"]]]],["element",{"elementId":"43"},["name","Identifier"],["description","An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context"],["elementTextContainer",["elementText",{"elementTextId":"1839777"},["text","HG-AR-132"]]]],["element",{"elementId":"49"},["name","Subject"],["description","The topic of the resource"],["elementTextContainer",["elementText",{"elementTextId":"1839846"},["text","Golden Gate Villa"]],["elementText",{"elementTextId":"1839847"},["text","Houses"]],["elementText",{"elementTextId":"1839848"},["text","McLaughlin, Frank"]],["elementText",{"elementTextId":"1839849"},["text","Wilder, Patricia Sambuck"]],["elementText",{"elementTextId":"1839850"},["text","Murder"]]]],["element",{"elementId":"41"},["name","Description"],["description","An account of the resource"],["elementTextContainer",["elementText",{"elementTextId":"1839851"},["text","924 Third Street, also known as The Monte Carlo"]]]],["element",{"elementId":"39"},["name","Creator"],["description","An entity primarily responsible for making the resource"],["elementTextContainer",["elementText",{"elementTextId":"1839852"},["text","Dormanen, Susan"]]]],["element",{"elementId":"45"},["name","Publisher"],["description","An entity responsible for making the resource available"],["elementTextContainer",["elementText",{"elementTextId":"1839853"},["text","Santa Cruz Public Libraries"]]]],["element",{"elementId":"42"},["name","Format"],["description","The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource"],["elementTextContainer",["elementText",{"elementTextId":"1839854"},["text","Text"]]]],["element",{"elementId":"44"},["name","Language"],["description","A language of the resource"],["elementTextContainer",["elementText",{"elementTextId":"1839855"},["text","En"]]]],["element",{"elementId":"51"},["name","Type"],["description","The nature or genre of the resource"],["elementTextContainer",["elementText",{"elementTextId":"1839856"},["text","ARTICLE"]]]],["element",{"elementId":"38"},["name","Coverage"],["description","The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant"],["elementTextContainer",["elementText",{"elementTextId":"1839857"},["text","Santa Cruz (City)"]],["elementText",{"elementTextId":"1839858"},["text","1900s"]]]],["element",{"elementId":"46"},["name","Relation"],["description","A related resource"],["elementTextContainer",["elementText",{"elementTextId":"1933308"},["text","Pacific Coast Architecture Database"]]]]]]],["tagContainer",["tag",{"tagId":"37"},["name","Crime and Criminals"]],["tag",{"tagId":"11"},["name","Homes"]]]]]