the dangerous duelist Judge Terry and unfortunate Sarah Hill
Studio portrait of David S. Terry by Imperial Photography
Of all the Supreme Court Justices that California has had so far, Judge David Smith Terry is, despite some stiff competition, the one most likely to end up a villain in a comic book. His judicial career started as a member of the Texas Rangers. While fighting in the Mexican-American War, he stopped by Galveston and passed the bar by answering a single question: "Do you know the price of a dish of oysters?" Not only did he know the price of oysters, but he also knew that his examiners liked whisky with theirs.
Despite his stellar judicial knowledge, Terry lost a race for Galveston District Attorney in 1845. He was so disappointed that he took twenty of his best friends, also former Rangers, and a few of his slaves, and set out for California, arriving in 1849.
In California, Terry entered politics, needless to say, as a Democrat. He did his best to remove the anti-slavery provision from the first Californian constitution. When that failed, he tried to split the state into halves — slave and free. He failed, but this strong defense of slavery earned him the support of the Know-Nothing Party1MAGA of the nineteenth century, but with secret gestures instead of hats. and a seat on the State Supreme Court by 1855.
In the same year he cemented his reputation as a lawyer in California by his vigorous support of a poor Californio widow, Maria Encarnacion Ortega Sanchez. She was poor because the local sheriff, one William Roach, stole the fortune in gold she was left by her late husband. As her attorney, Terry hired a local gunslinger to assist him in kidnapping the sheriff and holding him imprisoned until the gold was released. Unfortunately, Sheriff Roach got word to his brother-in-law, who hid the gold and immediately died in a duel with the widow Sanchez' third husband.2You are probably wandering what happened to her second husband. He died in a steamboat explosion. Her first husband drowned. The fourth died of measles, and the fifth was shot in a hunting accident. Maria Encarnacion Ortega Sanchez Godden Sanford Crane Alviso was a singularly unlucky woman. The gold is still buried somewhere in Carmel Valley.
Terry was six feet three and always carried a bowie knife in case someone failed to notice his size. His life story can be told as a series of expensive temper tantrums. He paid fifty dollars for stabbing a litigant mid-session, three hundred for assaulting a newspaper editor, and nearly his life for attacking a Vigilante.
The Vigilantes were worried about a pro-slavery takeover of San Francisco and felt that a group of former Texas Rangers and committed Democrats should not be going into the city armory. Judge Terry, on the other hand, felt that he should be able to interview a witness to the Vigilantes' theft of an arms shipment intended for the lawful militia. The two opinions being irreconcilable, Terry stabbed a Vigilante leader, Sterling Hopkins, in the neck.
Terry was arrested and received what may have been the longest lynch trial in history3I do not defend lynchings, but please keep in mind that official justice at the time was dispensed by Judge Terry, that the other judges were not much saner than he was, that the San Francisco government was about as corrupt as a city government can get, and that the Vigilantes were staunchly anti-slavery., taking twenty-five days. In the end, because Hopkins survived, Terry was sentenced to mere exile from California. Even this lenient sentence was not enforced. Soon afterward the Chief Justice died, and Terry, as the senior Supreme Court judge, took his seat.
Terry's own seat went to a man forty years younger, one Stephen J. Field. Justice Field celebrated by having a special coat made that allowed him to carry two guns and shoot through his pockets.4Did you think Terry was unusual? No, California Supreme Court Justices just roll like that.
Field has been described as a man of "little-mindedness, meanlinesses, of braggadocio, pusillanimity, and contemptible vanity," and was widely disliked as a proponent of unchecked property rights, which he defended under the Due Process Clause of the newly passed Fourteenth Amendment. Justice Terry did not like the Fourteenth Amendment5The Fourteenth Amendment states, in part, "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States ... nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." You can see how Justice Field's insistence on using it all the time would really upset Justice Terry, who was sensitive about not being allowed to own people in California. How would it make you feel if your coworkers kept reminding you every day that you were not allowed to own humans? and felt that Field's anti-slavery views made him a bad Democrat.6California had two kinds of Democrats. The bad guys, Chivalry or Lecompton Democrats, believed there should be more slavery. The good guys, Free Soil Democrats, believed there should be more graft.
In 1859, Justice Terry was supposed to run for re-election, but the Democratic Convention, led by the anti-slavery Senator Broderick, refused to nominate him. Terry challenged Broderick to a duel7California had more lethal duels in the nineteenth century than any other part of the Union, and that's saying something, since for most of the century we were not even in the Union. and won. In a touching gesture of respect for the law, Terry resigned his position on the bench the morning before the duel.
After Broderick's death, Terry returned to private law practice until joining the Confederate Army in 1863. Having lost the war, he returned to California and the practice of law. At the 1878 California constitutional convention, he ardently supported women's rights. In 1879, he helped author California's Constitution and helped Clara Foltz win her lawsuit for admission to Hastings Law School (which denied her admission because of her gender).
In 1884, at the age of 60, long-widowed Terry finally found his soul mate. She was Sarah Althea Hill, known as "the Rose of Sharon" for her association with the millionaire William Sharon. Although Hill was a quarter of a century younger than Terry you could just tell by the assertive way she beat an elderly judge and pulled his hair that she was Terry's perfect partner. She always carried a pistol, being too ladylike for a bowie knife. It was love at first fight.
Hill was embroiled in a lawsuit, arising from her firm belief that she was married to William Sharon and owed half of his property on separation. Sharon claimed she was merely a kept woman and churlishly specified amounts. The lawsuits over control of Sharon's thirty-million-dollar estate continued for years, even after Sharon's death, with Terry gallantly representing Hill's interests through ten California Supreme Court decisions, ten federal circuit court decisions, and two U.S. Supreme Court decisions.
Terry represented Hill in one of the endless appeals, presided over by Justice Field when Field cast aspersions on Hill's virtue. In response she called Field "bought" and attacked him with a pistol. When court marshals intervened, Terry went to his wife's defense with his bowie knife, and both of them were jailed for contempt of court. Hill was soon released, but Terry served six months.
This insult could not be borne. The very next time Terry saw Field, he attempted vengeance. There is some disagreement over whether the seventy-seven-year-old Terry struck Field with his fists or merely slapped him. In either case, Field, being an acting U.S. Supreme Court Justice, was protected by an armed U.S. Marshal, one David Neagle. To his credit, Neagle began by asking Terry to stand down and shot only when Terry ignored him and continued beating Field.
This was Terry's most expensive temper tantrum. He died on the spot.
Neagle was very briefly arrested by California but was released by the federal government on habeas corpus. The resulting Supreme Court case, from which Field recused himself, established the right of the federal government to assign bodyguards to Supreme Court Justices. Amazingly, two of the Justices dissented, wanting their bodyguards to be authorized by Congress. Field rewarded Neagle for his courage and fidelity with a gold watch.
Sarah Hill went mad and wandered the streets of San Francisco for three years speaking with Terry's spirit. Finally, Mary Ellen Pleasant paid for her to be admitted to a psychiatric hospital which Sarah happily believed was her mansion. She died in the same hospital forty-five years later, on Valentine's Day, 1937, and is buried next to Terry and his first wife.
Field went on to dominate the U.S. Supreme Court for thirty-four years, refusing to resign even after becoming senile. He joined the majority in Plessy v. Ferguson, which makes one wish that he had resigned.
To this day, no one knows whether Sarah Hill was legally married to William Sharon nor where Widow Sanchez' gold is hidden.
1MAGA of the nineteenth century, but with secret gestures instead of hats. MAGA of the nineteenth century, but with secret gestures instead of hats.
2You are probably wandering what happened to her second husband. He died in a steamboat explosion. Her first husband drowned. The fourth died of measles, and the fifth was shot in a hunting accident. Maria Encarnacion Ortega Sanchez Godden Sanford Crane Alviso was a singularly unlucky woman.You are probably wandering what happened to her second husband. He died in a steamboat explosion. Her first husband drowned. The fourth died of measles, and the fifth was shot in a hunting accident. Maria Encarnacion Ortega Sanchez Godden Sanford Crane Alviso was a singularly unlucky woman.
3I do not defend lynchings, but please keep in mind that official justice at the time was dispensed by Judge Terry, that the other judges were not much saner than he was, that the San Francisco government was about as corrupt as a city government can get, and that the Vigilantes were staunchly anti-slavery. I do not defend lynchings, but please keep in mind that official justice at the time was dispensed by Judge Terry, that the other judges were not much saner than he was, that the San Francisco government was about as corrupt as a city government can get, and that the Vigilantes were staunchly anti-slavery.
4Did you think Terry was unusual? No, California Supreme Court Justices just roll like that. Did you think Terry was unusual? No, California Supreme Court Justices just roll like that.
5The Fourteenth Amendment states, in part, "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States ... nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." You can see how Justice Field's insistence on using it all the time would really upset Justice Terry, who was sensitive about not being allowed to own people in California. How would it make you feel if your coworkers kept reminding you every day that you were not allowed to own humans? The Fourteenth Amendment states, in part, "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States ... nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." You can see how Justice Field's insistence on using it all the time would really upset Justice Terry, who was sensitive about not being allowed to own people in California. How would it make you feel if your coworkers kept reminding you every day that you were not allowed to own humans?
6California had two kinds of Democrats. The bad guys, Chivalry or Lecompton Democrats, believed there should be more slavery. The good guys, Free Soil Democrats, believed there should be more graft.California had two kinds of Democrats. The bad guys, Chivalry or Lecompton Democrats, believed there should be more slavery. The good guys, Free Soil Democrats, believed there should be more graft.
7California had more lethal duels in the nineteenth century than any other part of the Union, and that's saying something, since for most of the century we were not even in the Union. California had more lethal duels in the nineteenth century than any other part of the Union, and that's saying something, since for most of the century we were not even in the Union.
Despite his stellar judicial knowledge, Terry lost a race for Galveston District Attorney in 1845. He was so disappointed that he took twenty of his best friends, also former Rangers, and a few of his slaves, and set out for California, arriving in 1849.
In California, Terry entered politics, needless to say, as a Democrat. He did his best to remove the anti-slavery provision from the first Californian constitution. When that failed, he tried to split the state into halves — slave and free. He failed, but this strong defense of slavery earned him the support of the Know-Nothing Party1MAGA of the nineteenth century, but with secret gestures instead of hats. and a seat on the State Supreme Court by 1855.
In the same year he cemented his reputation as a lawyer in California by his vigorous support of a poor Californio widow, Maria Encarnacion Ortega Sanchez. She was poor because the local sheriff, one William Roach, stole the fortune in gold she was left by her late husband. As her attorney, Terry hired a local gunslinger to assist him in kidnapping the sheriff and holding him imprisoned until the gold was released. Unfortunately, Sheriff Roach got word to his brother-in-law, who hid the gold and immediately died in a duel with the widow Sanchez' third husband.2You are probably wandering what happened to her second husband. He died in a steamboat explosion. Her first husband drowned. The fourth died of measles, and the fifth was shot in a hunting accident. Maria Encarnacion Ortega Sanchez Godden Sanford Crane Alviso was a singularly unlucky woman. The gold is still buried somewhere in Carmel Valley.
Terry was six feet three and always carried a bowie knife in case someone failed to notice his size. His life story can be told as a series of expensive temper tantrums. He paid fifty dollars for stabbing a litigant mid-session, three hundred for assaulting a newspaper editor, and nearly his life for attacking a Vigilante.
The Vigilantes were worried about a pro-slavery takeover of San Francisco and felt that a group of former Texas Rangers and committed Democrats should not be going into the city armory. Judge Terry, on the other hand, felt that he should be able to interview a witness to the Vigilantes' theft of an arms shipment intended for the lawful militia. The two opinions being irreconcilable, Terry stabbed a Vigilante leader, Sterling Hopkins, in the neck.
Terry was arrested and received what may have been the longest lynch trial in history3I do not defend lynchings, but please keep in mind that official justice at the time was dispensed by Judge Terry, that the other judges were not much saner than he was, that the San Francisco government was about as corrupt as a city government can get, and that the Vigilantes were staunchly anti-slavery., taking twenty-five days. In the end, because Hopkins survived, Terry was sentenced to mere exile from California. Even this lenient sentence was not enforced. Soon afterward the Chief Justice died, and Terry, as the senior Supreme Court judge, took his seat.
Terry's own seat went to a man forty years younger, one Stephen J. Field. Justice Field celebrated by having a special coat made that allowed him to carry two guns and shoot through his pockets.4Did you think Terry was unusual? No, California Supreme Court Justices just roll like that.
Field has been described as a man of "little-mindedness, meanlinesses, of braggadocio, pusillanimity, and contemptible vanity," and was widely disliked as a proponent of unchecked property rights, which he defended under the Due Process Clause of the newly passed Fourteenth Amendment. Justice Terry did not like the Fourteenth Amendment5The Fourteenth Amendment states, in part, "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States ... nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." You can see how Justice Field's insistence on using it all the time would really upset Justice Terry, who was sensitive about not being allowed to own people in California. How would it make you feel if your coworkers kept reminding you every day that you were not allowed to own humans? and felt that Field's anti-slavery views made him a bad Democrat.6California had two kinds of Democrats. The bad guys, Chivalry or Lecompton Democrats, believed there should be more slavery. The good guys, Free Soil Democrats, believed there should be more graft.
In 1859, Justice Terry was supposed to run for re-election, but the Democratic Convention, led by the anti-slavery Senator Broderick, refused to nominate him. Terry challenged Broderick to a duel7California had more lethal duels in the nineteenth century than any other part of the Union, and that's saying something, since for most of the century we were not even in the Union. and won. In a touching gesture of respect for the law, Terry resigned his position on the bench the morning before the duel.
After Broderick's death, Terry returned to private law practice until joining the Confederate Army in 1863. Having lost the war, he returned to California and the practice of law. At the 1878 California constitutional convention, he ardently supported women's rights. In 1879, he helped author California's Constitution and helped Clara Foltz win her lawsuit for admission to Hastings Law School (which denied her admission because of her gender).
In 1884, at the age of 60, long-widowed Terry finally found his soul mate. She was Sarah Althea Hill, known as "the Rose of Sharon" for her association with the millionaire William Sharon. Although Hill was a quarter of a century younger than Terry you could just tell by the assertive way she beat an elderly judge and pulled his hair that she was Terry's perfect partner. She always carried a pistol, being too ladylike for a bowie knife. It was love at first fight.
Hill was embroiled in a lawsuit, arising from her firm belief that she was married to William Sharon and owed half of his property on separation. Sharon claimed she was merely a kept woman and churlishly specified amounts. The lawsuits over control of Sharon's thirty-million-dollar estate continued for years, even after Sharon's death, with Terry gallantly representing Hill's interests through ten California Supreme Court decisions, ten federal circuit court decisions, and two U.S. Supreme Court decisions.
Terry represented Hill in one of the endless appeals, presided over by Justice Field when Field cast aspersions on Hill's virtue. In response she called Field "bought" and attacked him with a pistol. When court marshals intervened, Terry went to his wife's defense with his bowie knife, and both of them were jailed for contempt of court. Hill was soon released, but Terry served six months.
This insult could not be borne. The very next time Terry saw Field, he attempted vengeance. There is some disagreement over whether the seventy-seven-year-old Terry struck Field with his fists or merely slapped him. In either case, Field, being an acting U.S. Supreme Court Justice, was protected by an armed U.S. Marshal, one David Neagle. To his credit, Neagle began by asking Terry to stand down and shot only when Terry ignored him and continued beating Field.
This was Terry's most expensive temper tantrum. He died on the spot.
Neagle was very briefly arrested by California but was released by the federal government on habeas corpus. The resulting Supreme Court case, from which Field recused himself, established the right of the federal government to assign bodyguards to Supreme Court Justices. Amazingly, two of the Justices dissented, wanting their bodyguards to be authorized by Congress. Field rewarded Neagle for his courage and fidelity with a gold watch.
Sarah Hill went mad and wandered the streets of San Francisco for three years speaking with Terry's spirit. Finally, Mary Ellen Pleasant paid for her to be admitted to a psychiatric hospital which Sarah happily believed was her mansion. She died in the same hospital forty-five years later, on Valentine's Day, 1937, and is buried next to Terry and his first wife.
Field went on to dominate the U.S. Supreme Court for thirty-four years, refusing to resign even after becoming senile. He joined the majority in Plessy v. Ferguson, which makes one wish that he had resigned.
To this day, no one knows whether Sarah Hill was legally married to William Sharon nor where Widow Sanchez' gold is hidden.
1MAGA of the nineteenth century, but with secret gestures instead of hats. MAGA of the nineteenth century, but with secret gestures instead of hats.
2You are probably wandering what happened to her second husband. He died in a steamboat explosion. Her first husband drowned. The fourth died of measles, and the fifth was shot in a hunting accident. Maria Encarnacion Ortega Sanchez Godden Sanford Crane Alviso was a singularly unlucky woman.You are probably wandering what happened to her second husband. He died in a steamboat explosion. Her first husband drowned. The fourth died of measles, and the fifth was shot in a hunting accident. Maria Encarnacion Ortega Sanchez Godden Sanford Crane Alviso was a singularly unlucky woman.
3I do not defend lynchings, but please keep in mind that official justice at the time was dispensed by Judge Terry, that the other judges were not much saner than he was, that the San Francisco government was about as corrupt as a city government can get, and that the Vigilantes were staunchly anti-slavery. I do not defend lynchings, but please keep in mind that official justice at the time was dispensed by Judge Terry, that the other judges were not much saner than he was, that the San Francisco government was about as corrupt as a city government can get, and that the Vigilantes were staunchly anti-slavery.
4Did you think Terry was unusual? No, California Supreme Court Justices just roll like that. Did you think Terry was unusual? No, California Supreme Court Justices just roll like that.
5The Fourteenth Amendment states, in part, "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States ... nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." You can see how Justice Field's insistence on using it all the time would really upset Justice Terry, who was sensitive about not being allowed to own people in California. How would it make you feel if your coworkers kept reminding you every day that you were not allowed to own humans? The Fourteenth Amendment states, in part, "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States ... nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." You can see how Justice Field's insistence on using it all the time would really upset Justice Terry, who was sensitive about not being allowed to own people in California. How would it make you feel if your coworkers kept reminding you every day that you were not allowed to own humans?
6California had two kinds of Democrats. The bad guys, Chivalry or Lecompton Democrats, believed there should be more slavery. The good guys, Free Soil Democrats, believed there should be more graft.California had two kinds of Democrats. The bad guys, Chivalry or Lecompton Democrats, believed there should be more slavery. The good guys, Free Soil Democrats, believed there should be more graft.
7California had more lethal duels in the nineteenth century than any other part of the Union, and that's saying something, since for most of the century we were not even in the Union. California had more lethal duels in the nineteenth century than any other part of the Union, and that's saying something, since for most of the century we were not even in the Union.
Sarah Hill
