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Katherine Jane Chase Sprague (August 13, 1840 – July 31, 1899) was a Washington society hostess during the American Civil War. During the war, she married Rhode Island Governor William Sprague . She was the daughter of Ohio politician Salmon P. Chase , who served as Treasury Secretary during President Abraham Lincoln 's first administration and later Chief Justice of the United States .
- Early Life
- Ohio’s First Lady
- Kate Chase in Washington
- Suitors
- Wedding
- Political Maneuvering
- Early Marriage Troubles
- 1868 Presidential Politics
- Switching Parties
- Scandals and A Deteriorating Marriage
Kate Chase was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, on August 13, 1840. Her father was Salmon P. Chase and her mother was Eliza Ann Smith, his second wife. In 1845, Kate’s mother died, and her father remarried the next year. He had another daughter, Nettie, with his third wife Sarah Ludlow. Kate was jealous of her stepmother and so her father sent her to the ...
In 1849 while Kate was at school, her father was elected to the U.S. Senateas a representative of the Free Soil Party. His third wife died in 1852, and in 1856 he was elected as Ohio’s governor. Kate, at age 16, had recently returned from boarding school and became close to her father, serving as his official hostess at the governor’s mansion. Kate...
Although Salmon Chase had failed in his attempt to become president, Lincoln appointed him secretary of the treasury. Kate accompanied her father to Washington, D.C., where they moved into a rented mansion. Kate held salons at the home from 1861 to 1863 and continued to serve as her father’s hostess and advisor. With her intellect, beauty, and expe...
Kate had many suitors. In 1862, she met newly elected Senator William Sprague from Rhode Island. Sprague had inherited his family business in textile and locomotive manufacturing and was very wealthy. He had already been something of a hero in the early Civil War. He was elected Rhode Island’s governor in 1860 and in 1861, during his term in office...
Kate Chase and William Sprague became engaged, though the relationship was stormy from the beginning. Sprague broke off the engagement briefly when he discovered Kate had had a romance with a married man. They reconciled and were married in an extravagant wedding at the Chase home on November 12, 1863. The press covered the ceremony. A reported 500...
Kate Chase Sprague and her new husband moved into her father’s mansion, and Kate continued to be the toast of the town and preside at social functions. Salmon Chase bought land in suburban Washington, at Edgewood, and began to build his own mansion there. Kate helped advise and support her father’s 1864 attempt to be nominated over incumbent Abraha...
Kate and William Sprague’s first child and only son William was born in 1865. By 1866, rumors that the marriage might end were quite public. William drank heavily, had open affairs, and was reported to be physically and verbally abusive to his wife. Kate, for her part, was extravagant with the family’s money. She spent lavishly on her father’s poli...
In 1868, Salmon P. Chase presided at the impeachment trial of President Andrew Johnson. Chase already had his eye on the presidential nomination for later that year and Kate recognized that if Johnson was convicted, his successor would likely run as an incumbent, reducing Salmon Chase’s chances of nomination and election. Kate’s husband was among t...
Ulysses S. Grant won the Republican nomination for the presidency, and Salmon Chase decided to switch parties and run as a Democrat. Kate accompanied her father to New York City, where the Tammany Hallconvention did not select Salmon Chase. She blamed New York governor Samuel J. Tilden for engineering her father’s defeat. Historians deem it more li...
Salmon Chase had become politically entangled with financier Jay Cooke, beginning with some special favors in 1862. When criticized for accepting gifts as a public servant, Chase stated that a carriage from Cooke was actually a gift to his daughter. That same year, the Spragues built a massive mansion in Narragansett Pier, Rhode Island. Kate took m...
Later, Chase’s son-in-law, Rhode Island Senator William Sprague, bought the house for $32,000. Sprague and Chase’s daughter Kate shared the house with Chase and his other daughter Nettie. The house was one of the social and political centers of Washington because whatever Chase lacked in charisma, he made up for in ambition.
May 11, 2020 · American Queen: The Rise and Fall of Kate Chase Sprague, Civil War “Belle of the North” By John Oller (Da Capo Press, October 2014, 416 pages) From the publisher: Had People magazine been around during the Civil War and after, Kate Chase would have made its “Most Beautiful” and “Most Intriguing” lists every year.
Apr 10, 2019 · The narcissism of William Sprague. William Sprague IV. Posted Wednesday, April 10, 2019 1:12 pm. By KELLY SULLIVAN. Kate Chase Sprague and her daughter sat on one side of St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in Narragansett while her ex-husband, William Sprague IV, sat on the other side with his new wife. The gold-mounted, solid rosewood coffin at ...
Oct 27, 2015 · Summer finds the Spragues distracted by the conversion of the “Sprague Farm,” a 350- acre property William had purchased on Narragansett Bay, into “Canonchet,” a 68-room mansion named after a 17th-century Indian chief. Their son and first child, William Sprague the fifth (Willie) is born on June 16, 1865.
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Apr 25, 2014 · Mr. Lincoln and Kate Chase Sprague. Kate was a beautiful, charming, precocious, a leading social figure in Washington at 19, and a top political aide to her father until his death. View the feature in its entirety at: Mr. Lincoln’s White House. Published April 25, 2014 By. Categorized as Feature.
