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How Can You Keep Her Down on the Farm?

Scandal occurs in any era, but it always gains more attention when it happens to prominent families. Gibson Atherton was a lawyer in Newark after attending Denison and graduating from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. He was the prosecuting attorney of Licking County in 1857 until his election as Mayor of Newark from 1860 through 1863. He was elected as U.S. Representative to Congress from 1879-1883. He served as judge on the Ohio Supreme Court for six months and then returned to his law practice in Newark. He died in 1887 and was buried in Cedar Hill Cemetery.

Gibson’s nephew, Herbert A. Atherton, Sr. was also a Mayor of Newark from 1898 through 1901, and Herbert’s son with the same name served as Mayor of Newark from 1918 through 1921.
Gibson Atherton and his family were well used to travelling in Europe, where his daughter, Clara, was primarily educated. She boasted of knowing five languages fluently. She met a German gentleman in Switzerland named Reidell and married him. They moved to an estate in Virginia named “Dangerfield” which was purchased for them by her mother. Dangerfield was near Alexandria, contained 400 acres, and was one of the oldest estates in Virginia. Clara and her husband had two children.

Mr. Reidell died around 1897, and Clara grew weary of farm life and of her son and daughter. Her father’s friends had secured a job for her in the War Department in Washington. There, she began an affair with a co-worker named William Morey. In 1901 she was 44 and he was 32. That might have been scandal enough in those days, but he was also married with five children of his own. Word of their antics spread around the offices, but not to Mrs. Morey, who would not believe it, until one Monday when she received this note from her husband: “Dear Wife, I am going to leave you forever. I will see that you get $100 a month during your life, enough for you and the children. My reputation here is ruined.”

Meanwhile, Clara had sold her farm for less than its value to a real estate agent, and the two lovers disappeared. She left her children behind with a servant. Her mother, who had recently returned to Newark from Europe, made arrangements for the children.

That is not the end of the story. It seems that Clara had a reputation in Washington for wrecking homes. One woman had pleaded on her knees for Clara to leave her husband alone and later appeared at Clara’s door with the intention of killing her. But Clara was long gone.

[Dan Fleming is a reference librarian at Newark Public Library. This is part of a weekly series throughout 2008, brought to you by the Licking County Bicentennial Commission. If you would like to share early Licking County stories, please send an e-mail to tallhorse@juno.com. We reserve the right to edit, and cannot guarantee publication.]