Sep 15 2021 26 mins 1
Filled to the brim with scandal, murder, and historic characters ranging from Queen Victoria to Thomas Edison to Wyatt Earp, the history behind the Golden Gate Villa is nothing to scoff at. In 1907 Santa Cruz was served a salacious historic scandal resulting in a horrific tragedy...leaving the house rumored to be haunted in its wake.
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Episode Transcript: Available below the sources in the show notes
SOURCES:
Hello, and welcome to Crimes and Witch Demeanors, the paranormal podcast where we go beyond the Wikipedia page and delve into historic sources to find the truth behind your favorite ghostly tales. I’m your host and loveable librarian – Joshua Spellman.
Today we have a very exciting ghost story filled to the brim with scandal, murder, and historic characters ranging from Thomas Edison to Wyatt Earp the outlaw but even these prominent figure are obscured by today’s ghostly tale. Trust me, it’s juicy, and we have all the gossipy progressive-era tabloids to prove it. And boy, are some of these newspapers gorgeous, so make sure to check them out on the podcast Instagram.
Also thank you to everyone who purchased some merch from the shop! You are true bibli-ahh-graphers! If you want to support the podcast please go ahead and grab something for youself, crimesandwitchdemeanors.com link in the description!
So, anyway, you’re here for the salacious historic scandal and the modern haunts that resulted from it. So put on your sunnies, grab a parasol, we’re headed to Santa Cruz and learning the legend behind the Golden Gate Villa and the tragedy that transpired there…
Considered one of the most historically significant homes in all of California, Golden Gate villa is perched atop Santa Cruz’s historic Beach Hill neighborhood. It’s face is painted a buttery gold with a bright orchid trim; cheerful colors that belie it’s dark and twisted past.
Major Frank McLaughlin was born sometime around 1840. During his early career he served on the police force in Newark, New Jersey and developed a life-long friendship with esteemed inventor Thomas Edison. He fought with Union forces briefly during the Civil War, but his stint was brief and it’s unlikely this is where he earned his military title. Instead, it is thought he achieved it from his later activity with the California state militia.
McLaughlin became an engineer on the Pacific Railroad, helping to lay tracks across the plains and the Wild West. In the Wild West he earned quite the reputation, known as “one of the quickest men on the frontier” and was one of only a handful of men to ever challenge Wyatt Earp and live to tell the tale.
In 1877, McLaughlin returned to the East coast where he began to court a New Jersey widow by the name of Margaret Loomis. During this period Thomas Edison was developing the incandescent light bulb but ran into trouble finding a dependable source of platinum to use as filaments. Without this precious metal, he would not be able to market his invention.
McLaughlin suggested that Edison source from the Feather River in California, as McLaughlin heard that there had been a find there. Upon this suggestion, Edison commissioned McLaughlin to head out west and prospect for the mineral. Before he did so, McLaughlin married Margaret Loomis and adopted her young daughter Agnes.
Like with most of his endeavors, McLaughlin went all-in. It was said that he "never settled for the petite when the mammoth was available" and his exploits in Butte county were no exception. He soon earned the title “King of Feather” for his domination of the river where his sights quickly turned from platinum to gold. He soon began to make a fortune, but he was smart never to invest his own money – instead he organized companies he would manage giving himself a hefty salary.
During this time McLaughlin commissioned San Francisco architect Thomas J. Welsh to design a home for Margaret and Agnes to escape the brutal summer heat. McLaughlin instructed Welsh to "spare no expense in making Golden Gate Villa the showplace of Santa Cruz” – and that he did. The mansion was named the after Golden Gate Mining Company, which managed the operations back in Feather, and provided all the funds for his lavish home. Naturally, being friends with Thomas Edison, the home was outfitted with the newest luxury available – electricity.
The home was magnificent and the McLaughlin’s hosted many events including costume parties, magic shows, musicals, fireworks displays, and the first moving picture ever shown in Santa Cruz. Agnes became a figure of note in the local community and was pronounced as “indescribably pretty”, a “petite beauty with rose leaf complexion”, and as the “ideal American girl” by a number of publications. Perhaps it’s no wonder the focal piece of the Golden Gate Villa is a gigantic stained glass portrait of a young woman reaching to pick an apple blossomed branch. Rumour has it that McLaughlin cut some of Agnes’ hair to be mixed in with the color of the glass. Despite Agnes’s earthly beauty and love of parties and extravagance, she regularly attended mass with her dog…who she often sprayed with expensive cologne. Agnes had never married, though she almost did once. She was engaged to a man named Sam Rucker, and while the invitations to the ceremony were sent nothing ever came of it.
While the McLaughlin women lived in luxury in Santa Cruz, McLaughlin was busy with various endeavors: From olive orchards to orange groves, to a 9-mile tunnel at Big Bend, a 30-mile flume for the hydraulic mine, and funding development in the area, McLaughlin was quickly amassing a fortune. However, his biggest endeavor was to divert the water of the Feather so that gold could be mined from the river bed.
Receiving letters of recommendation from Thomas Edison, the governor, and two California state senators, McLaughlin travelled to London to try and secure investors. He was charming, as usual, and made such an impression that the newspapers declared that “Not since Benjamin Franklin had an American made such an impression on English society” McLaughlin seemed to have luck in all of his projects and this trip was no different – due to a misunderstanding he came home with $12 million in funds…a great deal more than he planned or ever dare thought to get.
However, the project itself would not see the same luck. The project took four years to complete the end resulting in a 7,000 foot long canal and a retaining wall twelve feet wide and twenty feet high. It became one of the greatest mining feats of the era and Thomas Edison, McLaughlin’s chum, provided the first electric lights ever to be used on a construction site as the workers labored all hours of the day.
When the water was diverted and the riverbed dry, McLaughlin was the first to take his shovel to the dirt. While he struck gold in London, much like the river, this project would soon run dry. McLaughlin was sure that he would make a 100 million return on the initial 12 million invested but the project ended in catastrophe. Instead of hitting gold, he hit bankruptcy. All they found were small gold nuggets, old rusty picks, and buckets.
It turns out that McLaughlin was 50 years too late. Half a century earlier, 49ers diverted the same river with a simple wooden flume, exhausting all the gold in the area and walking away with a fortune. The locals of the area knew this, and knew that McLaughlin’s project was doomed from the start but decided to keep it a secret to watch the man go down in flames.
Like his previous project, McLaughlin declined to invest any of his own money, and upon learning this, the English investors were furious. They found out that McLaughlin had lost no money at all, and was paying himself a generous salary. Queen Victoria herself launched an investigation and sent Scotland Yard to investigate. However, when the agent arrived, he was scared off by McLaughlin who wasn’t afraid to wave his pistol about…he did survive an encounter with Wyatt Earp, a timid Englishman was nothing to him.
McLaughlin soon got into politics, earning quite the reputation as a staunch frontiersman and capitalist though he never held office he became chair of California's Republican State Central Committee during the 1896 presidential campaign and was credited with carrying the whole state for McKinley. In fact, McLaughlin was offered a seat in McKinley’s cabinet though he declined, just as he declined to run for governor despite the pleas of the people.
Mrs. Margaret McLaughlin died in on November 16, 1905, turning Frank into a widower and leaving her daughter Agnes behind. On that same date in 1907, Agnes attended an early mass in memory of her mother. After returning home, Agnes retired to her bedroom in the tower to take a nap. While Agnes slept someone entered her room unnoticed, pressed a 44 caliber pistol to her temple, and fired.
Knowing that his step-daughter was sleeping, Major Frank McLaughlin set their maid out on an errand before going upstairs and murdering his beloved step-daughter. Shortly after the deed was done, McLaughlin called his banker William Jeter and urged him to come to the home immediately. Jeter was preoccupied and could not come but McLaughlin insisted shouting "You must come at once. I have just killed my Bob (his pet name for Agnes) and I am going to kill myself.”
And he did. He ingest a fatal dose of potassium cyanide, dying just as his friend arrived. To everyone’s shock…Agnes had survived…at least for the time being. While she survived the initial wound at the hands of the Major, she succumbed to her injuries at 6:30 that evening.
Newspapers published salacious headlines for weeks that ran alongside the obituary that McLaughlin had penned himself. The tragedy was naturally a hit with the media being full of scandal and intrigue as it was. McLaughlin for the most part was an incredibly popular and well-liked man and the thought of this crime was nearly inconceivable. Why…how on earth could he do such a thing?
You see, this was not just a random act of violence or a crime of passion. It was not executed on a whim. No, the Major had been meticulously planning the did for months which he outlined in the documents he left to Jeter including farewell letters to friends and family, instructions, and an explanation for his crime.
It turns out that McLaughlin was beginning to suffer financially, though he kept it hidden from everyone. Major McLaughlin feared falling into poverty and being unable to provide for his step-daughter that he loved so dearly. He wrote in his letter “"To leave my darling child helpless and penniless would be unnatural and so I take her with me to our loved one. She is the very last one who could face this world alone.”
However, at the inquest it was revealed that he could have liquidated his estate and had a large surplus to spare – hardly leaving him or Agnes impoverished. Some supposed he was simply embarrassed by his failure at Feather River, his reputation shattered by the incident. However, no rationalization could really explain why he did what he did.
Though whispers around Santa Cruz gave wind to a new theory. Many thought it strange that after Mrs. McLaughlin’s death that Agnes continued to live with the Major since she was not of blood relation to him. The fact that she had remained unmarried well into her thirties also didn’t quite sit right with the local community. In fact, they could recall that many years prior announcements of Agnes’ marriage to Sam Rucker were sent out but that the wedding was cancelled at the last moment…presumably because the Major couldn’t bear to see her married to another man.
Then, a man by the name of Christian R. Wolters, a prosperous merchant in the city, stepped forward claiming that the was secretly engaged to Agnes at the time of her murder…making it hard to believe that Major Frank McLaughlin couldn’t stand to see his step-daughter fall into poverty when she would be well-provided for by her would-be husband.
Regardless of his motivations, whether the Major was truly in love with his step-daughter or whether he just could not stand the thought of aging alone in the villa without a family he wrote in his letter “I love her so and so I take her with me” In a letter to the family doctor, F.E. Morgan, McLaughlin wrote “Please see that we are not cut up, at least that my pure sweet child is not” and on the outside of the envelope he had written “Dear Doc. Please do me one last favor and chloroform our old cat”
And so, the mystery remains. However, inside the confines of the shining Golden Gate Villa the spirit of the McLaughlin’s remain…if only they could divulge their secrets the living…
I got a lot of my information from an article in the November 17, 1907 issue of the San Francisco Daily call titled “Frank McLaughlin Kills Daughter and Himself at Santa Cruz” which had an interesting juxtaposition with another article “Suicide Ends Happy Love Affair of Girl – takes poison when father refuses to consent to wedding.” Just such similar situations but different ends – albeit both tragic ones.
But the majority of my information, or the source I followed to historic ones was by a life-saver of a librarian or historian from the Santa Cruz Public Libraries local history collection by the name of Susan Dormanen. There wasn’t very much online at all historically speaking and Susan wrote a great piece, and like any great librarian, had an endless supply of footnotes for me to peruse leading me to the primary sources.
I found it interesting that reports of McLaughlin fighting Wyatt Earp were published awhile after his death, no doubt the papers were still riding the coattails of the tragedy. On the 19 of November two interesting stories came out, and while they came out later it does make sense that they would – they wouldn’t have had much reason to publish these prior but I think it gives an interesting look into the Major’s personality…at least towards those that weren’t his wife or Agnes.
1
Always a Foe of Earp Major McLaughlin was unsparing in his denunciations of the rascality of Wyatt Earp, and it was said up and down Market St. that Earp had vowed to shoot McLaughlin on sight... When the two encountered one another at Johnny Farley's Peerless saloon, Earp and the little Major had a staring match for a thrilling instant in which the petulant pop of the pistol was expected by all. But the Arizona gun man saw that he could not intimidate through many a gun play on the western frontier, and so he said with a tone smacking something of an apology: 'I know, Major McLaughlin, that you would not have made such remarks unless you believed them to be true,' and left the saloon while the man he was supposed to kill on sight took his time over his drink, uttered a few jocular remarks for the benefit of the bystanders, and went his own way with a nerve seemingly shaken not at all.[5]
No Fear of a "Bad Gun"
There was never any doubt of his physical courage or his willingness to accept a challenge from any bad gun man. When he was managing the campaign of D.M. Burns for the United States Senate there were many threats that he would be killed, and one day in the corridor of the Golden Eagle Hotel in Sacramento he met Major Goucher of San Diego, who was supposed to have a particular grudge against him. Major McLaughlin calmly spat in Major Goucher's face and pushed him with his left hand. Goucher made no effort to resent the insult and afterwards said: "I was too wise to be taken in by that old frontier trick. He spat in my pistol eye, and pushed me off with his left hand, so that he was free to draw on me with his right."
