Myron Lake's Divorce: What the Jury Actually Found

In November 1880 a jury in Reno was handed a list of written questions about the marriage of the richest man in town, and told to answer them one at a time.

There were about thirty-five of them. They had been drafted by the Court. They covered every material allegation in the wife's complaint, and the jury's answers, as the newspaper explained to its readers, “may be held to settle the facts in the case.”

Then the Gazette did something that has been quietly useful for a hundred and forty-six years. It printed the questions and the answers, in order, in full.

The man was Myron C. Lake, who owned the toll bridge the town grew around and is generally called the founder of Reno. The woman was Jane Lake. And what that jury found is not what you will read anywhere else.

What Everybody Says

The modern accounts of Myron Lake's marriage are short and they are all the same. They say that he beat his wife, that he threatened her life on several occasions, and that she divorced him for it. One widely read profile of him is headed Reno's First Robber Baron.

The public half of that reputation is solid, and nothing here disturbs it. The ten-year toll monopoly, the petition for a lower toll that sat for six months and produced a twenty-five-cent cut, the fencing-off of a railroad bridge to stop people avoiding his gate, the morning in January 1873 when the county declared his bridge a public highway and he locked it anyway and was fined twenty dollars — that is a documented record of a man who did not much care for the public interest when it cost him money.

The private half is different, and this is the uncomfortable part.

“He beat her and threatened her life” is not a finding. It is a pleading. It is what Jane Lake's complaint alleged, and modern accounts have repeated the complaint as though a court had agreed with it.

A jury heard the evidence for three weeks and answered the allegations one by one. It is worth knowing what it said.

The Most Important Divorce Suit Ever Brought in Nevada

That is not this article's description. It is the subhead the Gazette ran on 15 November 1880, over a column and a half of verdict:

LAKE VS. LAKE. The Jury's Verdict on the Evidence. The Most Important Divorce Suit Ever Brought in Nevada — A Leading Case in the Law Annals of the State — Half a Million Dollars Involved — The History of the Case — Legal Points for Decision.

The paper was not exaggerating for effect. Its opening paragraph explains exactly why the case mattered:

“The suit of Jane Lake vs. M. C. Lake, an action for divorce on the ground of extreme cruelty, will be set down as a leading case in Nevada, and is likely to be frequently referred to in the Courts of other States. The case is important from the large amount of property involved, estimated at from $400,000 to $500,000, which must be divided between the parties should a divorce be the result of the action. From a legal point of view the action is interesting, because of some nice points of law involved. From the fact that both the parties to the suit are among the oldest residents of Reno, and that the possession of considerable money has given M. C. Lake a certain importance in this community, the trial has been of much social interest in this section.”

Four hundred to five hundred thousand dollars, in 1880. Set that beside the twenty-dollar fine he paid for locking his bridge, and you have the shape of the man's life in two numbers.

The Trial

It opened on Monday 25 October 1880 in the District Court at Reno, and the Gazette gave it four lines that tell you how seriously both sides were taking it:

“The divorce suit of Jane Lake vs. M. C. Lake came up to-day for trial in the District Court. Lindsay & Dixon, of Virginia, and W. M. Boardman have been admitted associate counsel with C. S. Varian, for the plaintiff, and Gen. Kittrell with Gen. Clarke for the defendant… A jury is being impanelled to try the case. Out of twelve jurors called this morning, five were passed, and no challenges had been made.”

Three lawyers for her, including a firm brought over from Virginia City. Two generals for him.

And note the last detail, because it is easy to skim past: a jury. A divorce tried to twelve men, in a town of a few thousand people, about the marriage of the man who owned the bridge.

Three days later, this:

“In the District Court to-day the examination of Mrs. Lake, as witness in the divorce suit of Lake vs. Lake, has been going forward. At two o'clock she was excused and Mary Wall called to the stand.”

Jane Lake was on the stand for the better part of three days. What she said is not in the paper. The Gazette reported the fact of her testimony and not one word of its content, which was the convention of the time and is the reason the special verdict matters so much. The answers are all that survives of the evidence.

Question 10

Here is the question the whole reputation rests on, and the jury's answer, exactly as printed.

No. 10. — Did the defendant beat or knock the plaintiff down in Nov. 1876, or use any character of personal violence towards plaintiff? If so, describe the character and extent of such violence and its effect upon Mrs. Lake.

Ans. — Yes. He slapped her with his hand and bruised her neck, causing bodily pain.

That is the finding. One occasion, in November 1876, four years before the trial. A slap with an open hand and a bruised neck.

It is less than the modern accounts claim and it is not nothing. The jury was asked what followed from it and did not soften anything:

No. 12. Did any injury to plaintiff's life, limb or health result therefrom, or was plaintiff's life or limb or health endangered or threatened thereby? Ans. — Yes.

No. 13. Did plaintiff suffer extreme bodily pain or any bodily injury from said acts? Ans. — Yes.

No. 15. … whether such act or acts of the defendant caused plaintiff to suffer bodily pain or mental anguish or both, and whether thereby she was put in physical peril or danger. Ans. — Yes. Bodily pain and mental anguish and danger.

So: one assault, which endangered her health, caused extreme bodily pain, and put her in danger. Twelve men who had heard three weeks of evidence wrote that down about the most powerful man in their town.

She Ordered Him Out of the House

The next pair of questions is the one a careless writer would leave out, and leaving it out would be dishonest.

No. 11½. Were said acts of November, 1876, committed in a quarrel between plaintiff and defendant and when defendant was in a passion provoked by the plaintiff? Ans. — Yes.

No. 16. … state here whether the acts or conduct of defendant were provoked by plaintiff, and herein what she said or did to provoke him. Ans. — Yes. She ordered him out of the house.

There it is. A quarrel in their own home in November 1876. She told him to get out. He slapped her and bruised her neck.

And then the question that settles what to make of that, which the defence had plainly asked for and which the jury answered against him:

No. 17. — If you find that plaintiff in any way provoked the defendant… then state whether such provocation was sufficient to excite the anger and passion of a reasonable man having due regard for the relation of a husband to his wife, and was sufficient to justify the act of violence on the part of the defendant.

Ans. — No.

Provoked, yes. Justified, no. A jury of twelve men in 1880 Nevada was asked whether being told to leave his own house excused a man for striking his wife, and said that it did not.

That is a more interesting fact about 1880 Reno than anything in the robber-baron version.

One Hundred Dollars a Month

What happened after the slap is the part of this story nobody has told, and it is extraordinary.

The Gazette summarised it in three sentences:

“The history of the case, in brief, is that, for causes set forth below, Mrs. Lake threatened a suit for divorce in November, '76. An agreement was then made by which Mr. Lake consented to pay her $100 per month as pin money. The action was not begun, and the parties continued to live together until December, '79…”

She threatened to sue him in November 1876. He settled it at a hundred dollars a month. She dropped it, and they stayed married for another three years.

The jury was asked about that arrangement directly, and its answer is the legal hinge of the entire case:

No. 14. — Did the plaintiff thereafter, for a consideration of money paid and agreed to be paid, expressed in writing, forgive and condone the acts?

Ans. — Yes.

Condonation. In the law of divorce it means forgiveness of a marital offence, and forgiveness of an offence normally bars you from suing on it later. If Jane Lake had condoned the 1876 assault, she could not get a divorce for it in 1880.

But condonation in that era came with a condition attached, and the jury was asked about that too:

No. 33. — Did the defendant, after the times of the alleged violence in the years '70 and '76, expressly promise plaintiff, as a condition of plaintiff's forgiving defendant's past offences, never in the future to repeat the same or similar offences, and to always treat her with conjugal kindness?

Ans. — Yes.

Two things fall out of that question, and the second is easy to miss.

The first is the bargain: money and a promise, in exchange for forgiveness. A hundred dollars a month, a written agreement, and his word that he would never do it again and would always treat her with conjugal kindness.

The second is in the wording. The alleged violence in the years '70 and '76. There were two occasions in the pleadings, not one — something in 1870 as well. The jury was only asked to make a finding about November 1876, and so 1870 remains an allegation and nothing more. But it is in the question, and it is the only trace of it anywhere.

Four Quiet Years

The questions then turn to everything that happened after the agreement, and this is where the modern version of Myron Lake comes apart.

No. 27 (in part). … defendant inflicted any act of personal violence upon plaintiff? Ans. — No.

No. 28. Since Nov., '76, has defendant attempted or threatened to inflict any act of personal violence upon plaintiff? Ans. — No.

No. 29. Did the defendant refuse to furnish plaintiff with necessaries suitable to her station in life, as alleged in the complaint? Ans. — No.

No. 30. When plaintiff left the bed and board of defendant and brought this action, did she have any just cause or reasonable ground to apprehend any acts of personal violence from the defendant, or any injury to her body or health from defendant's conduct? Ans. — No.

No violence after 1876. No threats of violence at all — which disposes of the claim, repeated in every modern account, that he threatened her life on several occasions. No failure to keep her. And no reasonable ground to fear him physically on the day she walked out.

On the evidence a jury heard, Myron Lake kept the promise he made in 1876. For three years he did not lay a hand on her and did not threaten to.

And she divorced him anyway, and won.

Which means the cruelty that ended this marriage was not the slap.

December 1879

The last run of questions is about one month, and one night in it.

At some point in December 1879, Myron Lake accused his wife of unchastity with a man named William Roberts.

The jury was asked whether he believed it.

No. 32. — Did he believe that she was guilty of unchastity with William Roberts, or did she at the time or does she now, believe that he believed it?

Ans. — No.

Read that answer carefully, because it is the heaviest thing in the whole document.

He did not believe it. She knew he did not believe it. And he said it anyway.

In 1879, accusing your wife of adultery with a named man was not a private insult. It was the one accusation that could follow a woman out of the house and into every parlour in town for the rest of her life. The jury found that the man who made it knew it was not true.

Then the night itself:

No. 34. — Did the conduct of defendant towards the plaintiff since Nov., '76, and particularly on the night of Dec. 3, '79, cause plaintiff to suffer great mental anguish, and did such suffering and mental anguish continue after Dec. 3, '79, and until Dec. 12, '79? Ans. — Yes.

No. 35. — Did the conduct of defendant after Nov., '79, and particularly on Dec. 3, '79, seriously or otherwise affect the health of the plaintiff, and did such conduct, considered in connection with previous acts… Ans. — Yes.

Something happened in that house on the night of 3 December 1879. The record does not say what. It says only that it caused her great mental anguish, that the anguish did not stop, that it seriously affected her health, and that it has to be considered together with what came before.

Nine days later, on 12 December, the anguish was still running.

On 13 December 1879, Jane Lake filed for divorce.

Question Thirty and a Half

There is one more answer, and it is the one the decree almost certainly turned on.

The questions numbered 30 and 30½ sit next to each other and appear to contradict each other. They do not. They are asking different things, and the difference is the case.

No. 30. When plaintiff left… did she have any just cause or reasonable ground to apprehend any acts of personal violence? Ans. — No.

No. 30½. Is there any just cause or reasonable ground to believe that the continuance of the marriage relation between the plaintiff and defendant would be attended with bodily harm or further personal injury to the plaintiff? Ans. — Yes.

She was not in fear of him on the day she left. But staying married to him would hurt her.

That is not a contradiction, it is a diagnosis. The jury is describing a marriage that was no longer violent and was still doing damage — by accusation, by conduct, by whatever happened on the third of December — and saying that going back into it would cost her bodily harm.

Set the findings out in order and the legal shape of the case is visible even to a layman:

He assaulted her in 1876. She was provoked into no justification for it. She forgave it in writing for a hundred dollars a month, on his express promise to treat her with conjugal kindness from then on. He did not strike or threaten her again. But in December 1879 he accused her of adultery with a named man while not believing it, and something on the night of the third of that month damaged her health.

Did breaking the promise undo the forgiveness?

That is what the Gazette meant by “some nice points of law involved,” and why it thought the case would be “frequently referred to in the Courts of other States.”

The Decree

The jury answered its questions on 15 November 1880 and then everybody waited.

Judge King took almost five months. On Friday 8 April 1881 the Gazette ran it under the same standing headline:

LAKE VS. LAKE. A Decree of Divorce Granted — No Decision Regarding the Property or the Child.

“In the suit of Jane Lake vs. M. C. Lake, Judge King this morning granted the plaintiff a decree of divorce. He intimated that the decision might have been given earlier had he not been in hopes of a private settlement of the difficulty between the parties. The Judge said nothing respecting the custody of the child.”

She won.

On a special verdict that had answered most of the cruelty questions in her husband's favour, the Court granted her the divorce anyway.

And look at the reason the judge gave for the delay, which he volunteered in open court. He had been sitting on the decision in the hope that the Lakes would settle it privately between themselves. Four hundred thousand dollars of community property, a child, and a judge waiting five months for two people to work it out rather than make him rule.

They did not work it out. The property and the custody were left undecided on the day the marriage ended, which tells you what the next stage of the fight was going to be about.

What This Article Will Not Claim

It is worth being explicit, because the next person writing about Myron Lake will find the same sources this one started with.

There is no finding that he beat his wife repeatedly. There is a finding of one assault, in November 1876, described by the jury as a slap with his hand and a bruised neck.

There is no finding that he threatened her life. The jury was asked, in terms, whether he had attempted or threatened any act of personal violence since November 1876, and answered no.

The 1870 incident is an allegation only. It appears in the wording of question 33 and nowhere else that has been found. No jury finding was made about it.

What she actually said on the stand is lost. She testified for the better part of three days and the newspapers printed none of it.

And set against that, the things the jury did find, which are equally part of the record and which no modern account mentions at all: that the assault endangered her health and caused extreme bodily pain; that nothing she did justified it; that she was paid a hundred dollars a month to forgive it under a written agreement; that he expressly promised never to repeat it and to treat her with conjugal kindness; that he later accused her of adultery with a named man while not believing it himself; and that continuing the marriage would be attended with bodily harm to her.

That is a harder and more specific portrait than “robber baron beat his wife,” and every line of it comes out of a document that was printed in a Reno newspaper and has been sitting there ever since.

The toll-bridge record stands exactly where it was. A man can be both.

What Is Still Open

The night of 3 December 1879. Two questions turn on it and neither says what happened. The answer is in the trial testimony, and the trial testimony was not printed. It may exist in the District Court file.

The rest of the special verdict. Questions 1 to 9 and 18 to 27 have not been read. They are on the same page and they cover the allegations this article has had to leave as allegations, the 1870 incident among them.

The money. The decree of April 1881 left the four hundred thousand dollars undivided. There is a further report in July 1881 that has not been read, and the division of that estate is a whole article by itself.

The appeal. Secondary accounts say the Nevada Supreme Court decided for Jane in 1882, with custody of their son, two hundred dollars a month and costs. Now that the district court decree is documented, that appeal needs its own search — and if the Court wrote an opinion on condonation and conditional forgiveness, that opinion is the reason the Gazette called this a leading case.

Who William Roberts was. A man was publicly accused of adultery with the wife of the richest man in Reno, by a husband the jury found did not believe his own accusation. Roberts has a side of this and nobody has looked for it.

And who Mary Wall was — the witness called the moment Jane Lake stepped down.

Resources & Further Reading

Everything quoted in this article comes from four issues of the Reno Evening Gazette, all on page 3.

The opening of the trial, the admission of Lindsay & Dixon of Virginia City and W. M. Boardman as associate counsel with C. S. Varian for the plaintiff, Generals Kittrell and Clarke for the defendant, and the impanelling of the jury are from Monday 25 October 1880. The examination of Mrs. Lake and the calling of Mary Wall to the stand are from Thursday 28 October 1880.

The special verdict — the headline and deck, the estimate of $400,000 to $500,000, the note that the questions were put to the jury in writing by the Court and that the answers “may be held to settle the facts in the case,” the history of the November 1876 agreement at $100 a month as pin money, and the numbered questions and answers reproduced above — is from Monday 15 November 1880, under the headline “Lake vs. Lake: The Jury's Verdict on the Evidence.” Questions 1 to 9 and 18 to 27 appear on the same page and have not been transcribed here.

The decree, Judge King's remark about having hoped for a private settlement, and the absence of any ruling on the property or the custody of the child are from Friday 8 April 1881.

Further coverage of the case that has not yet been read: the Gazette of 26 October and 9 November 1880 and 18 July 1881, and the Nevada State Journal of 26 October and 12 November 1880 and 27 May 1885. The July 1881 item is the likeliest place to find the division of the property.

The account of Lake's public conduct referred to near the start — the ten-year toll franchise of 1862, the delayed petition and the twenty-five-cent reduction, the fenced-off railroad bridge, the locked gate and the twenty-dollar fine in January 1873, and the Supreme Court decision of May 1873 that made the bridge free — is drawn from published profiles of Lake and from the recollections of the editor Allen Bragg, and is not re-argued here.

A note on searching this case. The caption works and nothing else is needed: “Lake vs. Lake” as an exact phrase, restricted to Nevada, returns 42 clean matches between 1879 and 1885 with no optical-character-recognition noise at all, and narrowing to late 1880 isolates the seven items that cover the trial. Searching on the parties' names is far worse, because both are common words.

A note on the people. Myron Lake died in 1884 and Jane Lake in 1903; their son, William Roberts and Mary Wall are all long dead. Everything above was printed in a newspaper at the time and is a matter of public record. The one thing this article has declined to do is repeat as fact anything the jury did not find.

• The Lake Mansion — the house, the bridge and the founding of the town. This article is the part that piece could not carry.
• Glendale, Nevada: The Town That Lost to Reno — the older town four miles east, and the land auction on Lake's ground that finished it.
• How Fourth Street Became Nevada's Main Street — the road that the toll bridge was built to tax.
• The Masonic Hall on Commercial Row — Reno in the same decade, two streets away.

A note on the absence of a picture. The Lake Mansion still stands in Reno and is photographed often, but the available photographs of it carry share-alike conditions this blog does not use, and no public-domain image of Myron Lake, of his toll bridge, or of the courtroom where this was tried has been found. That is a smaller loss here than usual. The subject of this article is not a building. It is a document — a list of questions and answers printed in a Reno newspaper on 15 November 1880 — and it is reproduced above at greater length than it has been anywhere since.