Walkabout: The Druggist's Tale, Part 2

William C. Bolton, chairman of the Bolton Drug Company, was an enormously successful druggist with a growing chain of stores in Brooklyn, and a huge mail order business selling patent and other medicines. By 1890, he was very rich, socially connected, and utterly miserable. His wife of seventeen years, Charlotte Louise, was a difficult woman to live with, and he wanted out of his marriage. He and Charlotte had made plans to end the marriage several times, but in the end, according to William and his friends’ testimony, Charlotte kept taking his settlements, had moved out, had drained his bank account dry by living grandly at a local luxury hotel, but wouldn’t give him a divorce. In the meantime, William had met a young lady named Lillian Shuler, and wanted to marry her, and get as far away from Charlotte as possible. So, in 1891, he took a trip to Sioux Falls, South Dakota, Victorian land of quickie divorces, set himself up with a home and business, filed for divorce, came back, and married Miss Shuler in a ceremony in Newark, NJ. All was well, except that he seemed to have forgotten to tell Charlotte.

She had been living apart from him for almost three years, and when she found out, thanks to some of William’s friends, she immediately accused him of bigamy. Charlotte and her attorney went before the grand jury in Essex County, NJ, and stated that William’s second marriage was illegal because of the suspicious South Dakota divorce, and also because the minister who married them in his rectory in Newark had neglected to file the marriage with the county clerk, so it wasn’t legal. The NJ grand jury agreed, and offered up an indictment against William Bolton for bigamy, and the warrant was given to the sheriff of Essex County. The new Mr. and Mrs. Bolton were spending their honeymoon at the home of his father, Odem Bolton, in South Hadley, Mass. When he heard there was an arrest warrant out for him, William headed back to Brooklyn, where he was arrested for abandonment. He went before a local judge and got a $300 bond. A few days later, he was re-arrested for being a fugitive from justice because of the NJ indictment, and he ended up spending the night in the Raymond St. Jail, and had to pay another $2,500 in bail. A legal battle ensued between his attorney, Charlotte’s attorney, and the courts as to whether the NJ case had any merit or precedence over the Brooklyn case. A Superior Court Judge ruled in his favor, and immediately, Charlotte’s lawyer filed for another arrest in a case for divorce and alimony. Charlotte did not play.

Her affidavit stated that she had been a good and loving wife from their wedding in 1875, up until the day in 1890 that he, for no good reason, just up and abandoned her, leaving her only $30 a week to live on. She further stated that he had embarrassed and shamed her, by publically cavorting with women, and inviting them on trips overnight on his yacht, Domino. She specifically cited acts of a statutory offence with a woman named Mrs. Magee. Charlotte went on to state that she had asked for a divorce from William at that point, but then forgave him his offences, as a loving wife should, until he started cavorting around again. It was at this point that she said he got a phony divorce in South Dakota, on the grounds of abandonment and desertion, and she was never served with papers, and if she had known about the proceedings, she would have gone to South Dakota to contest it. Her testimony stated that William’s business partners and employees had signed statements of a false nature for William, and against her, and that she could prove he was not in South Dakota when he said he was, and was never a resident there, so the divorce was not legal, nor was his marriage, four days later, to Lillian Shuler. Lastly, William Bolton was a rich businessman, worth over a million dollars, and although she was in possession of company stock, she had never been paid any dividends, and had no means of support. She wanted the court to hold him in high bond, because she feared he’d flee jurisdiction, and she wanted the courts to compel him to pay alimony suitable to her station. William’s lawyers countered that the charges were false, the divorce from South Dakota perfectly legal, as was the new marriage, and stated that William’s infidelities (if there were any) were condoned by his wife at her own admission, and besides, he didn’t have the yacht in his possession until after the date that the alleged statutory offence took place, and he no longer had the yacht, anyway.

The headline in the Eagle on October 22, 1891, screamed With a Gun! Mrs. Bolton Appears in South Hadley. The father of the Brooklyn Druggist is terrified and sends word of warning to his son. Apparently Charlotte had taken a train up to find her husband, along with her lawyer and a young girl they said was one of William’s dalliances, and they confronted and frightened her father-in-law. When she realized her husband had left for Brooklyn, and they had probably passed each other on the rails, she came back. Obed Bolton sent his son the following telegram, (Charlotte) Louise has been here. She showed a gun. She has just gone back. Look out for your life. William’s night in the Raymond Street Jail was a publicity coup, and on his release, he stated, I slept like a top, and received the best of attention. It was my first experience and one which made me forget that Mrs. Bolton had ever been my wife. The papers were eating this up. Subsequent articles interviewed Mr. Bolton’s business partner, colleagues and friends, and none of these people painted Charlotte in a good light. One reported that the as long as he had known them, the couple had been fighting. The business partner told that after Mrs. Bolton had been given 588 shares of Bolton Drug Company Stock, after one of their almost-separations, she haunted the main headquarters of the company, and always wanted to see the books, and accused both the partner and the husband of cheating her. He stated,

Two months ago she came here to the store and usurped my seat behind the desk. It was a Friday. She sat there all day until closing time. I made no objection although it was a great inconvenience to me, because I thought she would get sick of the job and retire. But she showed up bright and early Saturday and began to tell the other stockholders and the clerks what she wanted to be done…… I ousted her from her throne, and she went about the store vowing vengeance on me and everyone else. Finally around 2:00, several hours after the episode, she announced her wrist was broken and that she was going to have me arrested. I told her to go ahead, because then I might be able to find some legal way to get rid of her interference in the company.

The Eagle also journeyed to South Dakota, and did an article about that state’s quickie divorce laws, and how various New Yorkers and Brooklynites were taking advantage of it. This was actually one of the few articles that showed William in a less than pleasant light, painting him as a slick operator who went to Sioux Falls, told everyone he was interested in making heavy investments in aluminum deposits, toured some aluminum mines, and then opened a drug store, and filed for divorce. He said Charlotte had abandoned him, she wasn’t there to defend herself, and the divorce was granted. He then posted notice of the divorce in a small town paper that no one from New York would ever see, Lillian arrived four days later, and they got married by a justice of the peace in a small town forty miles outside of Sioux Falls. Then they went back East, where he was arrested.

All of this gossip and press was much more exciting that the actual trial. The judge threw out the New Jersey bigamy case, and ruled that the South Dakota divorce was in fact legal, as was William and Lillian’s new marriage. He did find for Charlotte, as the plaintiff in the alimony case, and ordered her to receive annual dividends on her stock, generous income should the company be sold, or liquidated, as well as a healthy settlement and William would pay all future court costs. Just like that, the case was over. The press and the public quickly moved on.

Next Walkabout: What happened to Charlotte, William and Lillian Bolton? How did William get so rich, so fast? What was he selling, anyway? And were his legal problems over? Stay tuned for the final chapter on Thursday.
Photo: Brooklyn Public Library