Chapter 6

Voodoo Queen

Mary Ellen Pleasant—San Francisco

Even in death, Mary Ellen Pleasant has been demeaned. She has been accused of being a procurer, blackmailer, baby farmer, voodoo queen, and murderer, and while the charges may or may not be true, one thing is for sure: Mary Ellen was far from the stereotypical meek female of the Victorian Age. A go-between, corporate spy, and power broker for businessmen during the early days of San Francisco, Mary Ellen was business savvy and well paid for her services. As a result of the work she did for civil rights, she came to be known as “the Mother of Human Rights in California.” So much of her life is shrouded in mystery and rumors that the real truth will never be known. Even the year of her birth is speculative. Yet, what is most degrading is the racist nickname attributed to her: Mammy.

Born Mary Ellen Williams in either New Orleans or Boston to a freed Louisianan slave mother and a Cherokee father, Mary Ellen worked as a chef for a well-to-do Boston family. She was a beautiful, intelligent, and charming woman, and in all probability moved easily in Boston’s upper crust society because she looked more Caucasian than African. Her most startling physical feature was that her eyes were two different colors, one blue, and the other brown. She passed herself off as a Caucasian to whites and as a Negro to blacks.

Mary Ellen married a wealthy Cuban, Alexander Smith, when she was twenty years old. Smith was a passionate abolitionist, and the couple traveled throughout the South, quietly informing slaves about the Underground Railroad and the freedom that awaited them. When Smith died in 1844, he left Mary Ellen forty-five thousand dollars, a fortune in those days, and he encouraged her to do everything she could to help end slavery.

In 1851, Mary Ellen married John Pleasant, an employee of her late husband, and she continued her work of smuggling slaves out of the South into the northern states and Canada. Unable to keep up with his wife’s activism, John Pleasant fell by the wayside. Mary Ellen gave abolitionist John Brown thirty thousand dollars toward his effort to lead an armed slave rebellion. When Brown was captured at Harper’s Ferry, after he and his sons had taken over the Federal Armory there, a note was found on his body that was signed “M.E.P.” Mary Ellen took the remainder of her money and got on a ship to San Francisco, just in time for the Gold Rush.

In California, Mary Ellen Pleasant’s reputation as a chef was so strong that she was able to auction her services. The closing bid ended up being five hundred dollars a month, for cooking only. Her contract stipulated that she would not wash dishes.

Pleasant soon tired of being an employee and opened a boardinghouse for single men. Politicians, bankers, and the ne’er-do-well took rooms at the Pleasant House, where they were fed and taken care of like kings. She saw to their every need, including their vices. Soon Pleasant was receiving stock tips and financial advice from the influential men of the booming new city.

Speculation about blackmail spun around the beautiful woman, speculation that was no doubt race-based. Pleasant was a successful female in an extremely male-dominated San Francisco, and she was an exotic one at that. Given the shortage of women in San Francisco, it wasn’t unusual for a prostitute to end up marrying a male from elite society, and Pleasant arranged many of these marriages. Racist views that extend to this day have tarnished Pleasant’s reputation with allegations that she was a voodoo queen—as if she needed black magic, and not intelligence, to be successful.

Slavery was still legal in the Southern states, and California had its share of Southern prospectors who brought their slaves with them. Pleasant would help any slave or former slave who came to her, whether in finding employment or a place to live. If an African-American got into trouble, Pleasant would show up in court with an attorney to provide representation.

In one instance, Pleasant interrupted court proceedings as a young African-American was being sentenced to San Quentin. She told the judge not to send him to the notorious prison, because if the judge did so, the young man would be ruined. The judge sentenced the man to prison, but he was pardoned by the governor before he reached the prison gate. The judge fell into obscurity.

The escaped slaves she had aided were grateful for Pleasant’s help and would do anything for her, including eavesdropping on their employers’ dinner guests for stock tips and gossip that Pleasant could use. She may have frightened the more timid blacks by threatening to put a curse on them if they didn’t do what she wanted. Many of the former slaves were just a generation or two from Africa and carried their superstitions with them.

In 1866, Pleasant challenged segregation on San Francisco streetcar lines and won. Her case, Pleasant v. North Beach & Mission Railroad Company, was used as precedent in California courts and in many civil rights cases.

Pleasant befriended Thomas Bell, a rising executive at the Bank of California who lived at her rooming house at 920 Washington Street. He shared investment tips with her, and the two of them became richer. Bell was eventually worth fifteen to twenty million dollars.

Bell became enamored of one of Pleasant’s girls, Teresa Clingan-Harris-Percy. Pleasant arranged the marriage and then moved in with the couple at a stately mansion at 1661 Octavia Street that Pleasant had designed. The marriage turned sour quickly, and Teresa, Pleasant, and Bell ended up living in different wings of the house. The marriage was not legitimate, as the paperwork was never turned in by the priest who performed the ceremony. Teresa tried to sue for divorce, but since there was no legal document, the relationship became fodder for gossip all over San Francisco. Teresa remained in the mansion and Pleasant ran the household.

Bell wanted children to carry on his name and inherit his wealth. Always the wheeler-dealer, Pleasant arranged heirs for him at fifty thousand dollars a child. There was no shortage of abandoned newborns in San Francisco, and, over time and as legally as possible, Pleasant came up with five heirs for Bell.

Pleasant helped Bell throughout his life and raised his children, making sure that they got the best education possible, as she had with other important men of the era who had illegitimate children with her girls. Pleasant had arranged many marriages in the female-deficient city and knew all of the San Francisco power brokers’ secrets. They paid her well for her help and cooperation.

Thomas Bell began having difficulties with William Sharon, a United States Senator from Nevada and the Bank of California’s Nevada agent. Sharon was a shady character who was probably responsible for the downfall of Bell’s friend, William Ralston, founder of the Bank of California, and he appeared to have the ailing Bell in his sights as his next target. Pleasant got to him first with a beautiful southern belle, Sarah Althea Hill.

Sharon and Hill hit it off and began an intense love affair, leaving Sharon with little time for scheming. Once Sharon had tired of Hill, she produced a marriage certificate and threatened to sue for divorce. Sharon hit the ceiling, and instead of paying off Pleasant and Hill, he took Hill to court to prove that the marriage never happened.

The scandalous trial was covered by all of the San Francisco newspapers, and the courtroom was packed every day it was in session. Hill was represented by the psychotic attorney and former California Supreme Court Justice David S. Terry. The infamous Terry had killed California Senator David Broderick just outside the San Francisco city limits in a duel in 1859, and he was feared and detested in the city. The trial lived up to the newspapers’ expectations, as guns and knives were pulled, fisticuffs broke out, and every sordid detail of the romance came out in court.

Pleasant’s name was dragged through the mud during the three-month long trial. She was accused of being the instigator of the entire ordeal, using her voodoo skills to create a love potion that was used on Sharon. Pleasant was smeared by the press as being a voodoo queen, baby stealer, cannibal, madam, and murderer. It was whispered that Pleasant paid for the attorney fees. The press bestowed upon her the racist nickname “Mammy.”

The trial went through the court system for years, eventually landing in California’s Supreme Court, where it was decided in Sharon’s favor. By this time, Sharon was dead. Hill ended up in a mental hospital for the rest of her life.

Pleasant continued to care for the ailing Thomas Bell in his mansion until his mysterious death in October 1892. During the night, Bell fell three stories to his death at his home. Pleasant was thought to have murdered him, but charges were never filed. At the age of seventy-eight, it is unlikely that Pleasant had been the one who killed him.

More lawsuits were filed by Bell’s children and Teresa Clingan-Harris-Percy over his will. It is assumed that Pleasant died in poverty on January 4, 1904; however, she must have had money stashed away, as she was buried at Tulocay Cemetery in Napa and not in a potter’s field.