Kate Chase
| Kate Chase | |
|---|---|
Chase in 1873
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| Born |
Katherine Jane Chase August 13, 1840 Cincinnati, Ohio, U.S. |
| Died | July 31, 1899 (aged 58) Washington, D.C., U.S. |
| Nationality | American |
| Occupation | Socialite; political adviser |
| Spouse(s) | William Sprague IV (1863-1882, divorced) |
| Children | William (b. 1865), Ethel (b. 1869), Catherine ("Kitty," b. 1871), Portia (b. 1873) |
Katherine Jane ("Kate") Chase Sprague (August 13, 1840 – July 31, 1899) was a Washington society hostess during the American Civil War. During the war, she married Rhode Island Governor William Sprague.
She was the daughter of Ohio politician Salmon P. Chase, who served as Treasury Secretary during President Abraham Lincoln's first administration and later Chief Justice of the United States. She was a strong supporter of her widowed father's presidential ambitions which, had he been successful, would have made her First Lady.
Kate was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, the daughter of Salmon Chase and his second wife Eliza Ann Smith. Eliza Chase died shortly after Kate's fifth birthday; Chase later married Sara Bella Ludlow with whom Kate had a difficult relationship.
Kate Chase was educated at the Haines School in New York City, where she learned languages, elocution and the social graces along with music and history. After nine years of schooling, she returned to Columbus, Ohio, to serve as official hostess for her father, the newly elected Governor of Ohio, and by now widowed a third time. Beautiful and intelligent, Kate impressed such friends of her father as Charles Sumner, a Massachusetts senator and fellow anti-slavery champion; future President James Garfield; and Carl Schurz, a German-born American politician, who described her as follows:
In 1861, Salmon P. Chase became Secretary of the Treasury in Lincoln's administration. He set up residence at 6th and E Streets Northwest in Washington, with Kate Chase as his hostess. Her soirees were eagerly attended in the nation's capital; she became, effectively, the "Belle of the North." She visited battle camps in the Washington area and befriended Union generals, offering her own views on the proper prosecution of the war, often contrary to the wishes of the administration.
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