California’s First Female Lawyer
“I am Mrs. Clara Foltz, the owner and editor of the San Diego Daily Bee. I must have access to your wagon.”
The Deadly Stingaree, Chapter 7, The Bank Mob
So begins the introduction of Johnny Cong, the protagonist of The Deadly Stingaree, to a remarkable and important figure in California’s history. Clara Shortridge Foltz (July 16, 1849 – September 2, 1934) was a crusading journalist and the first female lawyer on the West Coast of the United States. She pioneered of the idea of a public defender’s office.
Abandoned by her husband and raising five children, Mrs. Foltz moved to San Diego during the land rush of the late 1880s. Here in San Diego she worked as an attorney and political orator. She founded, published and wrote for one of the city’s leading newspapers, the San Diego Daily Bee.
Her time in San Diego was short-lived, but her later life in California included many historic firsts:
- first female clerk for the State Assembly’s Judiciary Committee
- first woman appointed to the State Board of Corrections
- first woman named director of a major bank
- first woman to run for Governor of California
I first learned about Mrs. Foltz and her achievements when I started my research for The Deadly Stingaree. I knew from the start she would play a key part in the book.
Foltz first proposed the idea of a public defender system during a speech at the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair. She wrote a number of articles on why the costs should be shouldered by the government and felt that the public defender should act as a mirror to the public prosecutor, with a similar selection process and salary. Her efforts paid off in 1913 when the state of California established the first public defender’s office in Los Angeles.
For the conviction of the accused every weapon is provided and used, even those poisoned by wrong and injustice. But what machinery is provided for the defense of the innocent? None, absolutely none.
Clara Shortridge Foltz, from her speech at the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair.
In honor of her important contributions to the justice system, The Criminal Courts Building in downtown Los Angeles is now known as the Clara Shortridge Foltz Criminal Justice Center.
Christmas Music 2025
I’m trying to write a new Christmas/Holiday song every year. My alternative to sending cards. Here’s this year’s edition, an instrumental bit of holiday musical cheer I’m calling Santa’s Workshop.
Here’s a music-only version without all those distracting visuals 🙂
In the Christmas spirit yet? Check out some of my earlier seasonal musical compositions:
The Great Hiatus
My latest book, The Deadly Stingaree, takes place in 1891. Which just happens to be the first year of what is known as The Great Hiatus of Sherlock Holmes.
What was The Great Hiatus you might ask? Well, it’s the time between what was believed to be Sherlock Holmes’ death as described by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in The Final Problem and Holmes’ reappearance in The Adventure of the Empty House many years later. The Final Problem was published in 1893 but the events described in the story took place in 1891, after which Holmes disappears for a number of years. But where did he go?
When Holmes reveals himself to Dr. Watson in The Final Problem, he tells Watson, “You may have read of the remarkable explorations of a Norwegian named Sigerson, but I am sure that it never occurred to you that you were receiving news of your friend.”
The narrator of The Deadly Stingaree, Johnny Cong, meets a man who identifies himself as “John Sigerson” and tells Cong that he is a Norwegian explorer who has come to San Diego to recover from a somewhat mysterious illness he refers to as lethargy. As we learn later in the story, Mr. Sigerson hardly lacks for energy and enthusiasm. He shows no signs of a lethargic condition.
Which brings us to the question. Could Sherlock Holmes have visited San Diego in 1891? We know from the literature that he wasn’t in England and that the timeline of The Great Hiatus makes it a possibility.
Over the course of the book the narrator provides some additional information that connects the mysterious Mr. Sigerson to Sherlock Holmes. But you’ll need to read The Deadly Stingaree to find out more.
Radio Interview – The Deadly Stingaree
I was recently interviewed for the Inside Art program on KSDS Jazz 88.3 FM. Host Dave Drexler and I discussed my creative process and the historical inspirations for The Deadly Stingaree.
You can listen to the interview here or below.
Lawman Turned Capitalist
When you come across a historical document that relates some previously unknown exploits of Wyatt Earp during his years living in San Diego, you take notice. Such was the case with my discovery of the manuscript for The Deadly Stingaree, which will be published in November 2025.
Earp is one of the most famous and mythologized lawmen in American history. But by the time he arrived in San Diego in the late 1880s, he’d hung up his badge and was pursuing less dangerous and more lucrative occupations. San Diego was growing at a phenomenal rate and a rampant business in land speculation was underway. Earp purchased and owned at least a dozen properties in the city including stables, office buildings, gambling halls and saloons. He listed his occupation as “Capitalist” in the local directory.
The author of The Deadly Stingaree is Johnathan Cong, a fourteen-year-old Chinese orphan who, with a bit of luck and a entrepreneurial savvy, makes friends with the former lawman. Earp admires the young man’s ambition and engages him to provide laundry services for the bordello upstairs from Earp’s gambling hall. There’s more to the story as Earp teams up with the young Cong and some other historical San Diegans to investigate a potential plot against President Benjamin Harrison during the president’s visit to San Diego in April 1891.
Fact or fiction? It’s hard to say. Earp would have been 43 years old in 1891. The real estate boom had turned into a bust. Earp lost money and he and his wife Josie began looking for opportunities elsewhere. There are reasons to doubt his part in this story, but there is enough historical evidence to believe it as well.
The Deadly Stingaree also describes a boxing match held in the bullring in Tijuana, Mexico, in which Earp serves as the referee. There is some historical context for this as well. Earp refereed at least 30 boxing matches during his life, the most famous of which was Fitzsimmons vs. Sharkey in San Francisco in 1896. Earp awarded the victory to Sharkey on a technicality, leading many in the crowd to believe the match was fixed. The cartoon below ran in newspapers later that week.
I’ll have more to say about The Deadly Stingaree and its historic veracity in the coming weeks, but you may have to read it yourself to decide.