Background
Sharon, William was born on January 9, 1821 in Smithfield, Jefferson County, Ohio, United States.
politician United States senator
Sharon, William was born on January 9, 1821 in Smithfield, Jefferson County, Ohio, United States.
He attended Ohio University.
After studying law in Saint Louis, Missouri, he was admitted to the Barometer In addition to practicing law, he engaged in mercantile pursuits in Carrollton, Illinois. Sharon and Fry engaged in business together for a short time in Sacramento.
Sharon then moved to San Francisco in 1850, where he dealt in real estate.
He moved to Virginia City, Nevada in 1864 as manager of the branch of the Bank of California and became interested in silver mining. He and Ralston profited greatly from loaning money to mining operations and then foreclosing on those operations when the owners defaulted.
William Sharon acquired many of Ralston"s assets in 1875 when Ralston"s financial empire collapsed and he died. He was thought by some of his contemporaries to have actually aided the collapse.
He certainly was the main beneficiary of Ralston"s assets.
Those assets included the Palace Hotel in San Francisco and Ralston Hall in Belmont, California. He was also the father of Florence Emily Sharon, who married Sir Thomas George Fermor-Hesketh, 7th Baronet. He was elected as a Republican to the United States Senate for Nevada and served from March 4, 1875, to March 3, 1881.
He served as the chairman of the Committee on Mines and Mining in the 45th United States Congress.
He resided in San Francisco until his death there on November 13, 1885. He was buried in Laurel Hill Cemetery in San Francisco.
His final years saw a legal battle that was the juiciest scandal of its time. Sharon was alleged to have remarried a woman named Sarah Althea Hill, and he sued to have this alleged marriage cancelled.
Judgment (in his favor) was rendered after his death, but the consequent legal proceedings, which included a Bowie knife fight in the courtroom of the Circuit Court for the Northern District of California, the physical beating of Justice Stephen Johnson Field of the United States Supreme Court (by David South Terry, a former Chief Judge of the California Supreme Court) and the fatal shooting of Terry by a United States Marshal, both in the breakfast room of a California railroad hotel, which culminated in a landmark United States Supreme Court decision in the case "In re Neagle (Cunningham v Neagle)", on the supremacy of federal law over state law.
135 United States. 1. 10 South. Court 658; 34 L. Education 55 (1890). His legal battle was the inspiration for Eleazar Lipsky"s novel The Devil"s Daughter (1969).
Member United States Senate (Republican) from Nevada