Person:Myra Clark (2)

THE GREAT GAINES CASE.
WE publish herewith a portrait of Mrs. General Gaines, the heroine of the most remarkable lawsuit ever prosecuted in our civil courts. This lady has just won a case which entitles her to a property variously estimated at from ten to fifteen millions of dollars. The circumstances which gave rise to that case constitute a romance stranger than the boldest fancies of novel writers.
Just sixty years ago a young man, handsome, polished, brave, energetic, who, from some strange whim, had devoted himself to a life of trade among the Indians and French settlers on the Mississippi, spent a winter in the American metropolis of that day—Philadelphia. The young man's name was DANIEL CLARK. He was fond of gayety and social pleasures. In some social haunt he met a French lady of uncommon beauty and rare wit, named ZULIME CARRIER. She was living with a Frenchman named Lagrange, a common adventurer, whether legitimately married to him or not it is now not easy to discover. In 1805 this lady left Lagrange, and went to live with Daniel Clark. The theory accepted by the Supreme Court of the United States is that Zulime Carrier was never married to Lagrange, and that she was married, privately, to Daniel Clark. In 1806, at Philadelphia, the only issue of her union with Clark—Myra, the present Mrs. Gaines—was born.
After the birth of this child it would seem that Clark sent Zulime to New Orleans, and prosecuted his amatory career at Philadelphia with the gay freedom of a bachelor. He engaged himself in marriage to the celebrated Miss Caton, who after-ward married the Marquis of Wellesley. He formed other connections, the offspring of which have figured in the Gaines case. After a time Zulime returned to Philadelphia, and claimed her rights as a wife. Clark denied her right to the title, and she was unable to maintain it. She seems herself to have recognized the feebleness of her claim ; for soon afterward she married or accepted the protection of a Dr. Gardette, with whom she lived till his death.
Meanwhile Daniel Clark grew tired of Capua, and returned to New Orleans. He formed extensive business connections, and being gifted with rare mercantile capacity, made money in every thing he touched. He soon became the leading merchant on the Mississippi. Those were the days when fortunes were made in judicious trading with the Indians. Daniel Clark was one of the wise men who saw the opportunity and turned it to ac-
count. When his daughter Myra was yet a child, her father was a rich man, whose wealth was daily increasing.
It does not appear that he ever took steps to re-unite his fortunes with those of his much-loved
Zulime. But he certainly took charge of her child Myra, had her properly educated, and testified much affection for her on all occasions.
In 1813 Daniel Clark died, leaving an immense fortune, mostly invested in land in New Orleans
and other cities on the Mississippi. A will was produced, bequeathing his fortune to his mother and to the city of New Orleans. The legatees and executors entered into possession. Some thirteen years afterward Myra, his daughter, married a Mr. Whitney, of New Orleans, and set up a claim as heir to the property. Thus the great Gaines suit began. Myra claimed to be the only legitimate daughter of Daniel Clark, and sought to have the above-mentioned will set aside. It was natural that, where so much property was at stake, the claim should be hotly contested. It was so; and Mr. Whitney, Myra's husband, died during the first campaign in the war. His widow —young, beautiful, and as energetic as her father —continued to prosecute the suit. Meeting General Gaines shortly afterward, she married him, and he espoused her cause with warmth. The case was tried and lost at New Orleans : it was carried to the Supreme Bench at Washington, and lost there too. In 1852 the hopes of Mrs. Gaines seemed utterly extinguished, and the death of General Gaines appeared to crush out the last ember of expectation.
But the lady had an indomitable spirit. After the judgment of 1852 a will was discovered, duly executed by Daniel Clark, certifying that Myra was his only legitimate child, and creating her his sole heir. This will Mrs. Gaines offered for probate, and sued the possessors of her father's property thereupon. In the New Orleans Court the case went against her. She appealed again to Washington ; and after several years of tedious legal proceedings, she obtained a judgment on March 14, 1861, confirming the will, declaring her the only rightful heir of Daniel Clark, and entitling her not only to the whole property left by him, but to the rents of the same during the thirty odd years which had elapsed since she first set up her claim.
So the case now stands. The judgment was de-livered by Mr. Justice Wayne, of Georgia, who significantly remarked that the Supreme Court would have their decree carried out in Louisiana. No one knows how far the secession of that State may have impaired the power of the United States Supreme Court within the State limits. Mr. Justice Wayne's diction looks as though the judgment would be acknowledged. If it is, Mrs. General Gaines will soon be the richest woman in America. The portrait which we publish herewith reveals something of the indomitable spirit and energetic will which has enabled this lady to prosecute her case through so many courts, and for so many weary years.
Picture Mrs. General Gaines

Before a Higher Court.
The death of Mrs. Myra Clarke Gaines is announced in the New Orleans papers of the 10th inst. She died on the 9th aged 79 years.

The court annals of this country does not present her parallel as a litigant and she has received her share, along with other celebrities, of public notice. Like Miss Flite, she lived in hopes of a judgment. Her measure of success was greater, however, than that of the little woman in Bleak House, but it was never realized to its fullest and it is not improbable, judging by her litigious spirit, if we maybe allowed the expression, that she has, like the ward in Jarndyce and Jarndyce, ³begun the new world,² and is now pleading her cause before the high chancery of heaven.

We append the following interesting though necessarily short sketch of her life and the cause celebre in which she figured, from the Picayune:

The career of Mrs. Gains was so eventful, so full of passages upon which a biographer could dwell at length, so pregnant with suggestion and incident, that it were vain to attempt, in a newspaper article, to do more than sketch her life in outline, leaving to others the interesting labor of giving body and mature form to the narrative.

The deceased was a prominent figure in the history of this city for more than half a century, and the most noted of the litigants of this country. The cause celebre of which she was the heroine, if one might use the expression, was termed by the Federal Supreme Court ³the most remarkable in the records of the courts,² and associates her name indissolubly with forensic annals.

Mrs. Gaines was born in New Orleans in 1806. Her mother was Marie Zulime Carriere, a woman of great beauty. She married a Frenchman named De Grange, said to have been of noble ancestry, but who was reduced in circumstances and was engaged in business as a confectioner at the corner of Royal and St. Ann streets. It was charged at the time of this marriage De Grange had a wife living, and the matter was submitted to ecclesiastical investigation. No positive proof was brought forward of the accusation, and the investigation terminated. Shortly afterwards De Grange left the city and never returned.

About this time there was in New Orleans a man celebrated in that day, Daniel Clark, a high-spirited, energetic, wealthy young Irishman, who was taking an active part in public affairs. Employed in 1803 in the negotiations attending the purchase of Louisiana, he was chosen as delegate to Congress from the new Territory and served from 1806 to 1809. Daniel Clark, fascinated by the charms of M¹me De Grange, married her, notwithstanding the doubt existing as to the legality of the marriage were De Grange still alive. The issue of this union was Myra Clark, who, from her earliest recollection, lived in the family of Samuel B. Davis, and went by the name of Myra Davis. In 1812 she accompanied the family to Philadelphia and lived with them until 1832, when she married Wm. W. Whitney. He died in 1838.

When Daniel Clark went to Washington as Territorial Delegate he became infatuated with the beautiful Miss Canton of Baltimore, and contemplated annulling his marriage with M¹me De Grange, on the ground of illegality, to espouse the fair Baltimorean. He returned to New Orleans, it is narrated, with this object in view, but was involved in financial embarrassments and became very ill. During this sickness he is supposed to have repented of his conduct toward Myra Clark, and made a will acknowledging her as his legitimate daughter, bequeathing to her his property. This occurred in 1816, and shortly afterward Daniel Clark died. M'me De Grange married a Dr. Gardette and removed to Paris.

It was not until 1834 that Myra Clark, then Mrs. Whitney, obtained information that she was the daughter of Daniel Clark and his universal legatee under the will of 1813. The first probated will of Daniel Clark was written in 1811, and make his mother, Mary Clark, who lived in Philadelphia, legatee, with Richard Relfand and Beverly Chew of New Orleans as executors.

Mrs. Whitney took steps, as soon as practicable, to prove her identity and establish her claims. Her husband died in 1838, and in 1845 she married Major Gen. Edmund Pendleton Gaines, U.S.A., known as the "hero of Fort
Erie." She consented to become his wife only after he had pledged himself to aid her in fighting the great legal battle which she had undertaken.

The litigation dragged on slowly, and it was not until 1856 that the will claimed to have been made in 1813 was ordered probated. Gen. Gaines died in 1858, and his widow never remarried. Alone, and in the face of tremendous odds, she prosecuted her cause with marvelous persistence and dauntless courage. In 1868 the Supreme Court of the United States declared the legitimacy of Myra Clark Gaines, and the validity of her claim as sole and universal legatee of the estate of Daniel Clark.

It would require much time and space even to review in brief the course of this interminal (sic) litigation. The proceedings since 1868, the great suit against the city of New Orleans wherein Mrs. Gaines obtained a judgment for a million of dollars or more, and the appeal of this case to the Supreme Court, are facts sufficiently recent to be familiar. The suit is still before that tribunal, and pending in the United States Senate is a bill appropriating $38,000 in favor of Mrs. Gaines, in lieu of land belonging to the Clark estate, and sold by the government.

Mrs. Gaines passed away without enjoying the fruits of her arduous labors. In fact she died poor. Gen. Gaines left a son by a previous marriage who is blind and for whom Mrs. Gaines provided out of her slender means. The issue of her union with Mr. Whitney was a son, who is also deceased, leaving three grandchildren, and a daughter, Mrs. Christmas, now dead, whose children numbered three likewise. These six grandchildren are living, three being residents of Washington, and three at school.

In her youth Mrs. Gaines was a lovely woman, gay, intelligent, vivacious and good natured. These qualities she retained throughout her troubled career, and no distress or reverse could silence the music of her laughter. She was kind-hearted and of a religious temperament, frequently asserting that when she became possessed of the wealth to which she laid claim, it would be devoted to the relief of the poor and needy.

Her acquaintance with the laws relating to successions was amazing, and more thorough than that of many lawyers. On several occasions she pleaded her own cause with astonishing force and eloquence.

Family History Compiled by Horton, Lucy (Henderson), Mrs., 1851-. page 160. page 195.
Published 1922
full text available on archive.org

Notorious Woman: The Celebrated Case of Myra Clark Gaines
By Elizabeth Urban Alexander

Myra Clark Gaines
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