A Secret Life_ The Lies and Scandals of President Grover Cleveland - Charles Lachman [47]
It was Maria’s good fortune that Whitney, a native of Vermont, was by nature a flinty New Englander. As he listened to her story, he became indignant, like Dr. Ring. If Maria was to be believed, Whitney later recalled, then Cleveland had “plotted” her abduction and “hired the men to carry it out.” It was clear to the lawyer that Cleveland was trying to get her out of the way by throwing her into an insane asylum, which Whitney deemed “outrageous.” Just four months before, Whitney’s wife, Mary, had given birth to the couple’s first child, Grace. Maria Halpin’s determination to take any measure necessary to reclaim her son surely moved this caring new father.
Whitney told Maria that he would have to investigate her allegations, but if everything she said held up under scrutiny, he would take the case and institute legal proceedings against “all concerned in the assault and abduction.” He was inclined to disregard her claims regarding breach of promise, for now. Bluntly, he informed Maria, the evidence was weak and open to dispute. Alleging kidnapping and false arrest would make for a far more muscular case.
The death of Sarah Kendall King and Dr. James E. King’s only child, Mary, age ten, in March 1874 had left Sarah bereft in her grief. The Kings lived in a grand house at 93 Niagara Street, but a grand house without a little one to raise was an empty and lonely place for a woman yearning to be a mother again.
Sarah was born in Pembroke, New Hampshire, in 1841. Her father, Prescott Kendall, was an early follower of the biblical prophet William Miller, who predicted the Second Coming of Jesus Christ sometime between March 21, 1843, and March 21, 1844. When March 21, 1844, turned into a day like any other day, Miller, upon further biblical analysis, prophesized a new date—April 18, 1844. He tried again with October 22, 1844. When this day also passed into night, the Millerites “wept till the day dawn” over what became known as the Great Disappointment. Prescott Kendall remained a disciple and lived to the ripe old age of ninety-five, even after his doctor had given up all hope, because, it was said, he wanted to live to see the Second Advent of Christ.
Sarah’s sister, Elizabeth, or Lizzie as she was known, left New Hampshire in 1850 to seek her fame and fortune as a dancer and actress. When she returned, she had banked enough cash to rescue the Kendall family farm from foreclosure. Then she went back on the road, this time accompanied by Sarah and another sister, Jenny. Appearing under the name the Misses Kendall, the sisters were a sensation, performing at theaters as far west as Chicago, usually as second billing to such Irish farces as “How to Pay the Rent,” and the saucy comedy “Day After the Wedding.” Sometimes their brother Charles Kendall, who played the fiddle and banjo, accompanied the Misses Kendall.
Their reviews were excellent, and always emphasized the correctness of their performance in an era when many women in the theater were considered to be one step from the gutter. A Philadelphia critic called them “young, beautiful and graceful,” and wrote that they were blessed with a fairy-like grace. Appearing in Chicago in 1856, the Kendall Sisters were praised for their “deportment in their public and private life.” The backstory of how they had saved the family farm through hard work and talent added to their popularity.
Jenny was the sister with the blushing rosy cheeks; Elizabeth, who danced with the tambourine, had a “dazzling gaze”; and Sarah, the youngest of the three, walked out on the act and married Dr. James E. King.
King was born in 1821, in Warren, Pennsylvania, and settled in Buffalo, seventy miles to the north, after earning his medical degree. He shunned romantic entanglements, telling friends he was too busy building a medical practice to worry about raising a family. He was in his late forties when he saw Sarah Kendall onstage and became besotted with her fine figure and exquisite face. She had the