Cora Crane

Cora Crane, born Cora Ethel Eaton Howarth (July 12, 1868 – September 5, 1910) was an American businesswoman, nightclub and bordello owner, writer and journalist. She is best known as the common-law wife of writer Stephen Crane from 1896 to his death in 1900, and took his name although they never married. She was still legally married to her second husband, Captain Donald William Stewart, a British military officer who had served in India and then as British Resident of the Gold Coast, where he was a key figure in the War of the Golden Stool (1900) between the British and the Ashanti Empire in present-day Ghana.

Crane accompanied Stephen Crane to Greece during the Greco-Turkish War (1897), becoming the first recognized woman war correspondent. After his death, she returned to Jacksonville, Florida, in 1901, where she developed several properties as bordellos, including the luxurious Palmetto Lodge at Pablo Beach; she had financial interests in bars and related venues. In this same period, she regularly contributed articles to such national magazines as Smart Set and Harper's Weekly.

Cora Ethel Eaton Howarth was born July 12, 1868 in Boston, Massachusetts to John Howarth, a portrait painter, and Elizabeth Holder. According to the 1870 United States Census, the family was living in San Francisco when she was five years old. She was educated to lead a life of refinement, socialized with the well-educated of Boston, and gained recognition for her talent in short story writing.

She moved to New York City, where she had a series of adventures and misadventures. To gain freedom from the restriction that unmarried women required chaperones to go out in society, Cora married her first husband, Thomas Vinton Murphy. He was the son of Thomas Murphy, the former Collector of the Port of New York and a New York state politician. The younger Murphy and Cora went into business, running munitions and a gambling house.

...
Wikipedia