my younger life was Mrs.
Isaac Jones, who, in her own set, was known as "Bloody Mary." Why this
name was applied to her I cannot say, as she was not in the least either
cruel or revengeful, as far as I knew, but on the contrary was suave and
genial to an unusual degree. She lived on Broadway, directly opposite
the site where the New York Hotel formerly stood, and her entertainments
were both numerous and elaborate. She was one of the daughters of John
Mason, who began life as a tailor but left at his death an estate valued
at a million dollars, which was a large fortune for those days. Isaac
Jones was president of the Chemical Manufacturing Company and later
became prominently connected with the Chemical Bank of New York. A
brother of Mrs. Jones married Miss Emma Wheatley, a superior young woman
who, unfortunately for her father-in-law's peace of mind, was an
actress. This alliance was most distasteful to the whole Mason
connection, and when John Mason was approaching death George W. Strong,
a prominent lawyer, was hastily summoned by his daughters to draft his
will. Almost immediately following Mr. Mason's funeral a legal battle
was commenced over his estate. He left outright to his three daughters
their proportionate share of his fortune, but to his son who had
displeased him by his marriage he devised an annuity of only fifteen
hundred dollars. Charles O'Conor, the counsel for the son, in his
argument in behalf of his client, said that Mr. Mason's daughters,
instead of sending for a clergyman to console his dying moments, had
demanded the immediate presence of a respectable lawyer, "a lawyer so
respectable that throughout his entire practice he never had a poor
client." Mr. O'Conor succeeded in breaking this will, and young Mason
was given his proper share in his father's estate.

One of John Mason's daughters became the wife of Gordon Hammersley,
whose son Louis married the beautiful Miss Lilly Warren Price of Troy,
the daughter of Commodore Cicero Price of the United States Navy. She
subsequently married the Duke of Marlborough, and afterwards Lord
William Beresford. The Marlborough-Hammersley ceremony was performed in
this country by a justice of the peace, and the new Duchess of
Marlborough went to England to live upon her husband's depleted estates.
It is said that she was allowed by her late husband's family an annual
income of one hundred and fifty thousand dollars; and Blenheim, which
had long felt the strai