Kate Chase
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Katherine Jane Chase (August 13, 1840 – July 31, 1899), was the daughter of famous Ohio politician Salmon P. Chase. She is best known as a society hostess during the American Civil War, and a strong supporter of her father's political ambitions. Kate was born in Cincinnati, Ohio.
Keenly interested in politics and well-educated, Kate married wealthy Rhode Island Governor William Sprague during the height of the war in 1863. They eventually had four children. Kate's beauty, intelligence, and political maneuvering made her a rival of First Lady Mary Todd Lincoln, who did not attend her wedding.
A few months before their wedding, William and Kate paid a visit to Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles. He recorded these comments in his diary:
May 19, 1863
Governor Sprague and Miss Kate Chase called this evening. I have been skeptical as to a match, but this means something. She is beautiful, or, more properly perhaps, interesting and impressive. He is rich and holds the position of Senator. Few young men have such advantages as he, and Miss Kate has talents and ambition sufficient for both.
Kate's marriage with Sprague was an unhappy one and ended in divorce in 1882. William had problems with alcohol, and lost huge sums of money in poorly conceived business ventures. Before their divorce, Kate was accused of having an affair with New York politician Roscoe Conkling.
In 1873, she moved onto the “Edgewood” estate in the District of Columbia, which later became the neighborhood of Edgewood, Washington, D.C. (Her father purchased the bulk of the estate in 1863, and he had constructed a mansion upon it.). She lived a reclusive life with her three daughters (according to the 1880 federal census), Ethel Sprague, Kitty Sprague, and Portia Sprague, raising pigs and chickens until she died in poverty in 1899.
The Cincinnati Enquirer had this to say regarding Kate's funeral:
Hardly more than two or three—and they the nearest relatives on earth—were gathered together yesterday morning around the new-made grave in Spring Grove Cemetery, where, with the simple ceremony of commitment—"Dust to dust, ashes to ashes"—the mortal remains of the daughter of Salmon P. Chase were laid to rest forever beside the dust of her illustrious father.
[edit] Further reading
The Belle of Washington by Eleanor Harper Shumaker
Kate Chase and William Sprague: Politics and Gender in a Civil War Marriage by Peg A. Lamphier
Kate Chase for the defense by Alice Sokoloff
Kate Chase, dominant daughter;: The life story of a brilliant woman and her famous father, by Mary Merwin Phelps
