The Grocer's Wife, the Forged Letters, and the Poisoned Glass

Through the manifold troubles of Phillip Abrahams, erstwhile prominent grocer of this city and now private detective in California trying to find his household goods that were spirited away by Mrs. Kate Hamilton, one little silver cloud has just made its appearance. Mrs. Abrahams, who made that famous trip to Honolulu and on returning filed an affidavit in the superior court charging her hubby with conspiring with Mrs. Hamilton to get rid of her, now comes to the front and says openly that after a thorough investigation she is certain that Mr. Abrahams had nothing to do with getting her out of the country, but instead that the whole affair was planned by Mrs. Hamilton, who desired to break up the family. Mrs. Abrahams tells a very interesting story about Mrs. Hamilton, whom she characterizes as a bold, bad, designing woman, who travels around the country under false pretenses, doing harm wherever she lives.

Mrs. Abrahams told the following story to a Post-Intelligencer reporter last evening:

'In September, 1894, I hired as a servant Mrs. Kate Hamilton, an elderly woman who had two children between the ages of 8 and 10 years. After keeping her a week I found that she did not suit, and discharged her. She commenced to cry and beg for assistance, and I finally helped get a little cottage across the street and gave her furniture to fit it up. Then Mr. Abrahams and myself helped her along by giving her flour, provisions, etc. I thought she was a deserving person, and at the time my husband disappeared asked her to come to the house that evening to look after things, as I was completely unnerved.

'The next day I came to the city to see an attorney as to what could be done in regard to the store. On returning home Mrs. Hamilton said that Mr. Abrahams had been there and taken two suits of clothes, a K. of P. badge, some papers from under the carpet and some shirts. I found on looking that the articles mentioned had been taken, and supposed her story true. She also said that Mr. Abrahams said that he would write from San Francisco to me through her. Since then I have found out that the things taken from the house were given by Mrs. Hamilton to a tramp named John Burns and that Mr. Abrahams was not at the house at all.

'At different times after Mr. Abrahams' disappearance Mrs. Hamilton showed me three letters, one from Victoria, one from Los Angeles and one from San Francisco, supposed to have been written by my husband. At that time I believed they were. I decided, on her advice, to go to Honolulu to meet my husband, and Mrs. Hamilton purchased my tickets. I gave her $130 to buy the tickets and to pay for the freight on my goods. I also had her check my trunk, and she insisted that the trunk should go to Honolulu direct, instead of being checked only to San Francisco, as I desired. I don't know how it was, but I seemed entirely under the woman's control. I am satisfied now that she was administering slow poison to me and my child.

'I went to San Francisco, stayed there twelve days at the International Hotel, having my meals brought to me at my room so that I would not be discovered, and then sailed for Honolulu, expecting to meet my husband after the Arawa sailed, January 12. When he did not appear I gave the matter no thought, as Mrs. Hamilton said I would not see him until I was a day out. When I arrived in Honolulu and still could not find my husband, and learned that my trunk had been robbed of all my clothes and the baby's, and that my household goods had not come at all, I immediately saw that something was wrong. Through the kindness of passengers I got back to Seattle and then thought that my trip to Honolulu had been carefully planned by Mrs. Hamilton and my husband.

'When I commenced to make a thorough investigation, however, I discovered that my husband had nothing to do with the affair and that Mrs. Hamilton had given me a forged bill of lading for my goods and had gone to San Francisco herself and gotten possession of them. She stored them at the Pacific Transfer Company's storehouse on Sutter street, as the property of Mrs. Kate Hamilton. I also learned about her giving the things to the tramp Burns she said my husband got. At different places I found different things she had given or sold in this city.

'Through Miss Kittinghouse, of Georgetown, I learned that Mrs. Hamilton confessed to her forging the letters that she told me came from my husband, and also said that she would send "me and my kid to hell," as she had already sent two others.

'About the 11th of November I had a severe headache, and as my husband was in the hospital Mrs. Hamilton came over and said she would fix the headache. Then she put some kind of a powder in a glass of water and told me to drink it. I did as she said and about an hour later commenced to foam at the mouth and was delirious for three or four hours. She said that she thought the powder might have been too strong. I was ill for several days but had no more vomiting spells for a week.

'Mrs. Hamilton said that Mr. Abrahams told her she ought to stay at the house. Still, up to the time I reached San Francisco I had those vomiting spells every day, and the baby also had the same spells. Mrs. Hamilton said the baby had swallowed a tack. After I reached San Francisco I had just one vomiting fit, and none since then.

'I see well that she was giving me some kind of a drug. She told Miss Kittinghouse that the baby would be dead before I had been away a month, and that I would never see Mr. Abrahams again. She also said she hated me and had sent me away.

'I have been informed that Mrs. Hamilton was known in Denver as Madge Chartris, and was also notorious in Everett in August, 1894.'