1835
JOICE HETH, a negress, was said to be 161 years old and the former nurse of George Washington was being displayed around the country by the showman Phineas T Barnum. He had bought her for $1000 and it was the start of his career as the world’s greatest showman. Joice was blind and paralysed but she had learnt her role well and often told stories of her life with the Washington family, and how she had helped to raise the hero of the American nation. She could also sing hymns and the mixture of patriotism, religion and curiosity brought the crowds in their hundreds. Whenever public interest waned, Barnum would put out stories about her the crowds soon flocked back. When she died an autopsy proved her to be no more than 80 years old
Celebrated women born in this year
..... Adah Isaacs Menken ..... who began her dramatic career in New Orleans in 1857 and married a Cinncinnati merchant. Her stage career took her to New York in 1859 where she visited the Bohemian rendezvous Pfaffs. In 1861 she first played her famous title role in Byrons Mazeppa which is noted for the scene in which she appears clad in pink silk flesshings, strapped to the back of a ‘fiery steed’. She was known as ‘ the naked lady’ and was the mistress of Alexandre Dumas pere and of the poet Swinbourne. She also became a favourite of literary groups in San Francisco, London and Paris. Married three times, once bigamously to the prizefighter Heenan, her adventures became fabulous and her poetry, like her life and acting, was rich, garish and romantic. Her collected poems were published in 1868 Infelicia…She died in 1868. … You know what Hell is said to be paved with. I believe that I am a very large shareholder in the pavement
..... Eliza Alicia Lynch ..... in County Cork, Ireland, and for sixteen years was the mistress of Francisco Solano Lopez, a vain, ruthless megalomaniac who succeeded his father as President of Paraguay. Together they precipitated a war against the combined forces of Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay which ended with cities in ruins, the economy destroyed and half the population dead. At the age of fifteen she was married to a French officer but soon tired of him and by the time she was eighteen years old was back in Paris beginning her life as a courtesan because she could not think of another way for a girl like her to live in wealth and luxury. Through a few fortunate introductions she joined the elite circle of Princess Mathilda and was soon appearing at every great occasion. Before long it became fashionable to call on Madame Lynch and this was how she met Lopez. They went on a European tour and in 1854 sailed for Paraguay and Eliza took with her a vast wardrobe of Paris gowns, furs, jewels, trunks full of household linen, an elaborate table service, opulent furniture, a piano and cases and cases of porcelain. The reception she received in Paraguay however was not the one she wanted or expected. The women were hostile and referred to her as the "Irish strumpet". She was also pregnant and before she was thirty two years old she was to have six more children. When the old President died she became First Lady of Paraguay and swore to repay all those who had insulted her. Many wars followed but in 1870 Lopez was killed and for her own safety Eliza was put on a ship to Europe. She returned to London and lived there the rest of her life until her death on 27th July 1886, most of it spent in legal wrangles over the valuables which she had managed to slip out of Paraguay - an estimated total of about one third of a million pounds. Her death certificate described her as " the widow of Francisco Solano Lopez " and on the 44th anniversary of his death her descendants had her proclaimed a national heroine
..... Eliza Emma Crouch ..... better known as Cora Pearl was the daughter of a Plymouth music teacher. Her father became famous in his own account by writing the beautiful ballad Kathleen Mavourneen the year she was born. She was educated on the profits from its sales and went to a convent school in Boulogne, which gave her a taste for the French way of life. By the mid-1860s she was the most famous and costly courtesan in Paris. Her lovers were many and among the most noble and wealthiest in the country. From 1862 she set the pace for the gay and elegant Paris of the Second Empire. The years from 1865 to 1870 were the most dazzling for her. She became so rich that her jewels alone were valued at a million francs, she had three houses furnished regardless of cost and had servants and a stable of 60 horses. She held fabulous masked balls and dinners and one night had herself served up on a huge silver platter wearing only a sprinkling of parsley after wagering her guests that they would not dare to cut the meat which she would give them for dinner. She also caused a sensation on the Paris stage when she appeared half-naked. When the Franco-Prussian war started in 1870 she turned one of her homes into a hospital, to the surprise of many, and made bandages and shrouds from her own fine linen and worked among the wounded for sixteen hours at a time. After one of her lovers shot himself at her door, the Paris demi-monde turned on her and she decided to go on a world tour. However she was not well received anywhere and so returned to Paris. From 1874 when Prince Napoleon broke his relationship with her, her life began to fall apart and she had to sell off her houses and jewels and all her fabulous possessions. She ended up living in a cheap boarding house in the back streets of Paris, her looks and her admirers gone. When she died of cancer on July 7th 1886 not one newspaper recorded the fact of her death. She was saved from a paupers grave by an unknown man, undoubtedly an aristocrat, who called at the undertakers to pay for her to have the finest funeral and she was buried in the style in which she had once lived
..... Tz'u-Hsi ..... the Dragon Empress. She was born the daughter of a minor court mandarin and at the age of 16 was sent to the Imperial Court to become one of 3000 concubines and 3000 eunuchs whose lives were dedicated to the dissolute 20 year old Emperor, Hsien-Feng. Although she was of the lowest rank she was very cunning and worked her way into the affections of the Empress. Three years later she was sent for to share the Emperor’s bed and nine months later in 1856 gave birth to a son, the Emperor’s only male child. Her status was immediately changed. In 1861 the Emperor died and she and the Empress became regents. The Empress herself had no interest in political power and so Tz'u-Hsi reigned alone. In her first year 20 million people died. For nearly fifty years she controlled the destiny of 400 million people and believed herself to be the cleverest woman in the world. Eventually her feudal outlook, and her convictions that China was the centre of the world and that all foreigners were barbarians, brought about the end of the great Ch’ing dynasty. In 1900 her hatred and cruelty came to a terrifying climax with the Boxer rebellion. She was forced to flee and to live in poverty for the first time in her life. By 1901 peace terms were agreed and she returned to Peking managing to convince herself that she had had nothing to do with atrocities and demanding that history be rewritten and that all decrees favouring the Boxers be wiped from the records. In 1907 she suffered a slight stroke and the following year became ill and weak with dysentry. She died on November 14th 1908 and was buried in great splendour. Twenty years later her tomb was broken into and the treasure that had been buried with her was stolen