THE DEAD GIRL AT FOUNTAINGROVE

On a fine clear winter's day in January, 1896, Kanaye Nagasawa walked into the office of the Santa Rosa Republican. He must have been a most welcome sight - readers were always interested in the big Fountaingrove vineyard just outside of town - and as a bonus for the newspaper this was right after New Year's, which is always the sleepiest time of the year for news gathering. Was he bringing in an item about prestigious visitors at the winery, perhaps? That a record-setting number of barrels were sold over the holidays on the East Coast and in England?

Nagasawa brought news, all right, but it came with the request that it be suppressed as much as possible. He likely paid calls on Santa Rosa's other two daily papers and made the same plea to their editors.¹ Thus a day later, in its column of short local items the Republican printed this brief notice, following tidbits about members of the Congregational church having "a real good social time" and Elmer Carter getting a new bicycle:

While laboring under temporary insanity, Miss Mary M. Harris of Helena, Montana, took an overdose of strychnine and died of the same Thursday night at Fountain Grove. A coroner's inquest was held.

There was no obituary, or even mention that she was only sixteen years old.


The rest of this article can be read at the SantaRosaHistory.com website. Because of recurring problems with the Blogger platform, I am no longer wasting my time formatting and posting complete articles here. I will continue to create stubs for the sake of continuity, but will be publishing full articles only at SantaRosaHistory.com.

- Jeff Elliott