Personal Reminiscences of Early Days in California with Other Sketches Part 18

Whether he thought his marriage would frighten Judges Sawyer and Deady, who had just rendered their decision in the United States Circuit Court, and cause them either to modify the terms of the decree not yet entered, or deter them from its enforcement, is a matter of uncertainty. He was of the ultra State's-rights school and had great faith in the power of the courts of a State when arrayed against those of the United States. He had always denied the jurisdiction of the latter in the case of Sarah Althea, both as to the subject-matter and as to the parties. He refused to see any difference between a suit for a divorce and a suit to cancel a forged paper, which, if allowed to pa.s.s as genuine, would ent.i.tle its holder to another's property. He persisted in denying that Sharon had been a citizen of Nevada during his lifetime, and ignored the determination of this question by the Circuit Court.

But if Judge Terry had counted on the fears of the United States judges of California he had reckoned too boldly, for on the 15th of January, 1886, eight days after his marriage, the decree of the Circuit Court was formally entered. This decree adjudged the alleged marriage contract of August 25, 1880, false, counterfeited, fabricated, and fraudulent, and ordered that it be surrendered to be cancelled and annulled, and be kept in the custody of the clerk, subject to the further order of the court; and Sarah Althea Hill and her representatives were perpetually enjoined from alleging the genuineness or the validity of the instrument, or making use of it in any way to support her claims as wife of the complainant.

The execution of this decree would, of course, put an end to Sarah Althea's claim, the hope of maintaining which was supposed to have been the motive of the marriage. To defeat its execution then became the sole object of Terry's life. This he hoped to do by antagonizing it with a favorable decision of the Supreme Court of the State, on the appeals pending therein. It has heretofore been stated that the case against Sharon in the Superior Court was removed from the calendar on the 14th day of November, 1885, because of the defendant's death on the previous day. The 11th of February following, upon proper application, the court ordered the subst.i.tution of Frederick W. Sharon as executor and sole defendant in the suit in the place of William Sharon, deceased. The motion for a new trial was argued on the 28th of the following May, and held under advis.e.m.e.nt until the 4th of the following October, when it was denied. From this order of denial an appeal was taken by the defendant.

It must be borne in mind that there were now two appeals in this case to the Supreme Court of the State from the Superior Court. One taken on the 25th of February, 1885, from the judgment of Judge Sullivan, and from his order for alimony and fees, and the other an appeal taken October 4, 1886, from the order denying the new trial in the cause.

On the 31st of January, 1888, the Supreme Court rendered its decision, affirming the judgment of the Superior Court in favor of Sarah Althea, but reversing the order made by Judge Sullivan granting counsel fees, and reducing the allowance for alimony from $2,500 per month to $500.

Four judges concurred in this decision, namely, McKinstry, Searles, Patterson, and Temple. Three judges dissented, to wit, Thornton, Sharpstein, and McFarland.

There then remained pending in the same court the appeal from the order granting a new trial. It was reasonable that Terry should expect a favorable decision on this appeal, as soon as it could be reached.

This accomplished, he and Sarah Althea thought to enter upon the enjoyment of the great prize for which they had contended with such desperate energy. Terry had always regarded the decree of the Circuit Court as a mere harmless expression of opinion, which there would be no attempt to enforce, and which the state courts would wholly ignore.

Whatever force it might finally be given by the Supreme Court of the United States appeared to him a question far in the future, for he supposed he had taken an appeal from the decree. This attempted appeal was found to be without effect, because when ordered the suit had abated by the death of the plaintiff, and no appeal could be taken until the case was revived by order of the court. This order was never applied for. The two years within which an appeal could have been taken expired January 15, 1888. The decree of the Circuit Court had therefore become final at that time.

CHAPTER VII.

THE BILL OF REVIVOR.

It was at this stage of the prolonged legal controversy that Justice Field first sat in the case. The executor of the Sharon estate, on the 12th of March, 1888, filed a bill of revivor in the United States Circuit Court. This was a suit to revive the case of Sharon vs. Hill, that its decree might stand in the same condition and plight in which it was at the time of its entry, which, being _nunc pro tunc_, was of the same effect as if the entry had preceded the death of Mr. Sharon, the case having been argued and submitted during his lifetime. The decree directed the surrender and cancellation of the forged marriage certificate, and perpetually enjoined Sarah Althea Hill, and her representatives, from alleging the genuineness or validity of that instrument, or making any use of the same in evidence, or otherwise to support any rights claimed under it.

The necessity for this suit was the fact that the forged paper had not been surrendered for cancellation, as ordered by the decree, and the plaintiff feared that the defendant would claim and seek to enforce property rights as wife of the plaintiff, by authority of the alleged written declaration of marriage, under the decree of another court, essentially founded thereupon, contrary to the perpetual injunction ordered by the Circuit Court. To this suit, David S. Terry, as husband of the defendant, was made a party. It merely asked the Circuit Court to place its own decree in a position to be executed, and thereby prevent the spoliation of the Sharon estate, under the authority of the decree of Judge Sullivan in the suit in the state court subsequently commenced. A demurrer was filed by the defendant. It was argued in July before Justice Field, Judge Sawyer, and District Judge Sabin. It was overruled on the 3d of September, when the court ordered that the original suit of Sharon against Hill, and the final decree therein, stand revived in the name of Frederick W. Sharon as executor, and that the said suit and the proceedings therein be in the same plight and condition they were in at the death of William Sharon, so as to give the executor, complainant as aforesaid, the full benefit, rights, and protection of the decree, and full power to enforce the same against the defendants, and each of them, at all times and in all places, and in all particulars. The opinion in the case was delivered by Justice Field. During its delivery he was interrupted by Mrs. Terry with violent and abusive language, and an attempt by her to take a pistol from a satchel which she held in her hand. Her removal from the court-room by order of Justice Field; her husband's a.s.sault upon the marshal with a deadly weapon for executing the order, and the imprisonment of both the Terrys for contempt of court, will be more particularly narrated hereafter.

The commencement of the proceedings for the revival of the suit was well calculated to alarm the Terrys. They saw that the decree in the Circuit Court was to be relied upon for something more than its mere moral effect. Their feeling towards Judges Sawyer and Deady was one of most intense hatred. Judge Deady was at his home in Oregon, beyond the reach of physical violence at their hands, but Judge Sawyer was in San Francisco attending to his official duties. Upon him they took an occasion to vent their wrath.

It was on the 14th of August, 1888, after the commencement of the revivor proceedings, but before the decision. Judge Sawyer was returning in the railway train to San Francisco from Los Angeles, where he had been to hold court. Judge Terry and his wife took the same train at Fresno. Judge Sawyer occupied a seat near the center of the sleeping-car, and Judge and Mrs. Terry took the last section of the car, behind him, and on the same side. A few minutes after leaving Fresno, Mrs. Terry walked down the aisle to a point just beyond Judge Sawyer, and turning around with an ugly glare at him, hissed out, in a spiteful and contemptuous tone: "Are you here?" to which the Judge quietly replied: "Yes, Madam," and bowed. She then resumed her seat.

A few minutes after, Judge Terry walked down the aisle about the same distance, looked over into the end section at the front of the car, and finding it vacant, went back, got a small hand-bag, and returned and seated himself in the front section, with his back to the engine and facing Judge Sawyer. Mrs. Terry did not (at the moment) accompany him. A few minutes later she walked rapidly down the pa.s.sage, and as she pa.s.sed Judge Sawyer, seized hold of his hair at the back of his head, gave it a spiteful twitch and pa.s.sed quickly on, before he could fully realize what had occurred. After pa.s.sing she turned a vicious glance upon him, which was continued for some time after taking her seat by the side of her husband. A pa.s.senger heard Mrs. Terry say to her husband: "I will give him a taste of what he will get bye and bye." Judge Terry was heard to remark: "The best thing to do with him would be to take him down the bay and drown him." Upon the arrival of Judge Sawyer at San Francisco, he entered a street car, and was followed by the Terrys. Mrs. Terry took a third seat from him, and seeing him, said: "What, are you in this car too?" When the Terrys left the car Mrs. Terry addressed some remark to Judge Sawyer in a spiteful tone, and repeated it. He said he did not quite catch it, but it was something like this: "We will meet again. This is not the end of it."

Persons at all familiar with the tricks of those who seek human life, and still contrive to keep out of the clutches of the law, will see in the scene above recited an attempt to provoke an altercation which would have been fatal to Judge Sawyer, if he had resented the indignity put upon him by Mrs. Terry, by even so much as a word. This could easily have been made the pretext for an altercation between the two men, in which the result would not have been doubtful. There could have been no proof that Judge Terry knew of his wife's intention to insult and a.s.sault Judge Sawyer as she pa.s.sed him, nor could it have been proven that he knew she had done so. A remonstrance from Sawyer could easily have been construed by Terry, upon the statement of his wife, into an original, unprovoked, and aggressive affront. It is now, however, certain that the killing of Judge Sawyer was not at that time intended. It may have been, to use Mrs. Terry's words, "to give him a taste of what he would get bye and bye," if he should dare to render the decision in the revivor case adversely to them.

This incident has been here introduced and dwelt upon for the purpose of showing the tactics resorted to by the Terrys during this litigation, and the methods by which they sought to control decisions.

It is entirely probable that they had hopes of intimidating the federal judges, as many believed some state judges had been, and that thus they might "from the nettle danger, pluck the flower safety."

We have seen that they reckoned without their host. We shall now see to what extent their rage carried them on the day that the decision was rendered reviving the decree.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE TERRYS IMPRISONED FOR CONTEMPT.

On the day after Judge Sawyer's return from Los Angeles he called the marshal to his chambers, and notified him of Mrs. Terry's violent conduct towards him on the train in the presence of her husband, so that he might take such steps as he thought proper to keep order when they came into the court-building, and see that there was no disturbance in the court-room. On the morning of September 3d, the marshal was again summoned to Judge Sawyer's room, where Judge Field was also present. They informed him that the decision in the revival suit would be rendered that day, and they desired him to be present, with a sufficient number of bailiffs to keep order in court. They told him that judging from the action of the Terrys on the train, and the threats they were making so publicly, and which were being constantly published in the newspapers, it was not impossible that they might create a disturbance in the court-room.

When the court opened that day, it found Terry and his wife already seated within the bar, and immediately in front of the judges. As it afterward appeared, they were both on a war-footing, he being armed with a concealed bowie-knife, and she with a 41-calibre revolver, which she carried in a small hand-bag, five of its chambers being loaded. The judges took their seats on the bench, and very shortly afterward Justice Field, who presided, began reading the opinion of the court in which both of his a.s.sociates concurred. A printed pamphlet copy of this opinion contains 61 pages, of which 18 are taken up with a statement of the case. The opinion commences at page 19 and covers the remaining 42 pages of the pamphlet.

From time to time, as the reading of the opinion progressed, Mrs.

Terry, who was greatly excited, was observed to unclasp and clasp again the fastening of her satchel which contained her pistol, as if to be sure she could do so at any desired moment. At the 11th page of the opinion the following pa.s.sage occurs:

"The original decree is not self-executing in all its parts; it may be questioned whether any steps could be taken for its enforcement, until it was revived, but if this were otherwise, the surrender of the alleged marriage contract for cancellation, as ordered, requires affirmative action on the part of the defendant. The relief granted is not complete until such surrender is made. When the decree p.r.o.nounced the instrument a forgery, not only had the plaintiff the right that it should thus be put out of the way of being used in the future to his embarra.s.sment and the embarra.s.sment of his estate, but public justice required that it should be formally cancelled, that it might constantly bear on its face the evidence of its bad character, whenever or wherever presented or appealed to."

When Mrs. Terry heard the above words concerning the surrender of the alleged marriage contract for cancellation, she first endeavored for a few seconds, but unsuccessfully, to open the satchel containing her pistol. For some reason the catch refused to yield. Then, rising to her feet, and placing the satchel before her on the table, she addressed the presiding justice, saying:

"Are you going to make me give up my marriage contract?"

Justice Field said, "Be seated, madam."

She repeated her question:

"Are you going to take the responsibility of ordering me to deliver up that contract?"

She was again ordered to resume her seat. At this she commenced raving loudly and violently at the justice in coa.r.s.e terms, using such phrases as these:

"Mr. Justice Field, how much have you been bought for? Everybody knows that you have been bought; that this is a paid decision."

"How big was the sack?"

"How much have you been paid for the decision?"

"You have been bought by Newland's coin; everybody knows you were sent out here by the Newlands to make this decision."

"Every one of you there have been paid for this decision."

At the commencement of this tirade, and after her refusal to desist when twice ordered to do so, the presiding justice directed the marshal to remove her from the court-room. She said defiantly:

"I will not be removed from the court-room; you dare not remove me from the court-room."

Judge Terry made no sign of remonstrance with her, had not endeavored to restrain her, but had, on the contrary, been seen to nod approvingly to her, as if a.s.senting to something she had said to him just before she sprang to her feet. The instant, however, the court directed her removal from the room, of which she had thus taken temporary possession, to the total suspension of the court proceedings, his soul was "in arms and eager for the fray." As the marshal moved toward the offending woman, he rose from his seat, under great excitement, exclaiming, among other things, "No living man shall touch my wife!" or words of that import, and dealt the marshal a violent blow in the face,[1] breaking one of his front teeth. He then unb.u.t.toned his coat and thrust his hand under his vest, where his bowie-knife was kept, apparently for the purpose of drawing it, when he was seized by persons present, his hands held from drawing his weapon, and he himself forced down on his back. The marshal, with the a.s.sistance of a deputy, then removed Mrs. Terry from the court-room, she struggling, screaming, kicking, striking, and scratching them as she went, and pouring out imprecations upon Judges Field and Sawyer, denouncing them as "corrupt scoundrels," and declaring she would kill them both. She was taken from the room into the main corridor, thence into the marshal's business office, and then into an inner room of his office. She did not cease struggling when she reached that room, but continued her frantic abuse.

While Mrs. Terry was being removed from the court-room Terry was held down by several strong men. He was thus, by force alone, prevented from drawing his knife on the marshal. While thus held he gave vent to coa.r.s.e and denunciatory language against the officers. When Mrs. Terry was removed from the court-room he was allowed to rise. He at once made a swift rush for the door leading to the corridor on which was the marshal's office. As he was about leaving the room or immediately after stepping out of it, he succeeded in drawing his knife. As he crossed the threshold he brandished the knife above his head, saying, "I am going to my wife." There was a terrified cry from the bystanders: "He has got a knife." His arms were then seized by a deputy marshal and others present, to prevent him from using it, and a desperate struggle ensued. Four persons held on to the arms and body of Terry, and one presented a pistol to his head, threatening at the same time to shoot him if he did not give up the knife. To these threats Terry paid no attention, but held on to the knife, actually pa.s.sing it during the struggle from one hand to the other. David Neagle then seized the handle of the knife and commenced drawing it through Terry's hand, when Terry relinquished it.

The whole scene was one of the wildest alarm and confusion. To use the language of one of the witnesses, "Terry's conduct throughout this affair was most violent. He acted like a demon, and all the time while in the corridor he used loud and violent language, which could be plainly heard in the court-room, and, in fact, throughout the building," applying to the officers vile epithets, and threatening to cut their hearts out if they did not let him go to his wife. The knife which Terry drew, and which he afterwards designated as "a small sheath knife," was, including the handle, nine and a quarter inches long, the blade being five inches, having a sharp point, and is commonly called a bowie-knife. He himself afterwards represented that he drew this knife, not "because he wanted to hurt anybody, but because he wanted to force his way into the marshal's office."

The presiding justice had read only a small portion of the opinion of the court when he was interrupted by the boisterous and violent proceedings described. On their conclusion, by the arrest of the Terrys, he proceeded with the reading of the opinion, which occupied nearly a whole hour. The justices, without adjourning the court, then retired to the adjoining chambers of the presiding justice for deliberation. They there considered of the action which should be taken against the Terrys for their disorderly and contemptuous conduct. After determining what that should be they returned to the court-room and announced it. For their conduct and resistance to the execution of the order of the court both were adjudged guilty of contempt and ordered, as a punishment, to be imprisoned in the county jail, Terry for six months and his wife for thirty days.

When Terry heard of the order, and the commitment was read to him, he said, "Judge Field" (applying to him a coa.r.s.e and vituperative epithet) "thinks when I get out, when I get released from jail, that he will be in Was.h.i.+ngton, but I will meet him when he comes back next year, and it will not be a very pleasant meeting for him."

Mrs. Terry said that she would kill both Judges Field and Sawyer, and repeated the threat several times. While the prisoners were being taken to jail, Mrs. Terry said to her husband, referring to Judge Sawyer: "I wooled him good on the train coming from Los Angeles. He has never told that." To which he replied: "He will not tell that; that was too good."

She said she could have shot Judge Field and killed him from where she stood in the court-room, but that she was not ready then to kill the old villain; she wanted him to live longer. While crossing the ferry to Oakland she said, "I could have killed Judges Field and Sawyer; I could shoot either one of them, and you would not find a judge or a jury in the State would convict me." She repeated this, and Terry answered, saying: "No, you could not find a jury that would convict any one for killing the old villain," referring to Judge Field.

The jailer at Alameda testified that one day Mrs. Terry showed him the sheath of her husband's knife, saying: "That is the sheath of that big bowie-knife that the Judge drew. Don't you think it is a large knife?"

Judge Terry was present, and laughed and said: "Yes; I always carry that," meaning the knife.

To J.H. O'Brien, a well-known citizen, Judge Terry said that "after he got out of jail he would horsewhip Judge Field. He said he did not think he would ever return to California, but this earth was not large enough to keep him from finding Judge Field, and horsewhipping him,"

and said, "if he resents it I will kill him."