STAKING A WHEELBARROW RIDE ON A U.S. ELECTION
A.J. Marks was convinced Democrat Grover Cleveland would trounce Republican Benjamin Harrison in the 1888 U.S. presidential election. So the flamboyant paint store owner decided to issue a challenge to Harrison supporters.
“For a stake of $10, (Marks) will back Cleveland against Harrison,” said an ad in the Nov. 5, 1888 Vancouver Daily World. “The losing man (will) wheel the winning man on Cordova Street from Carrall to Homer Street, and down Water Street to the place of starting.”
It’s unknown whether anyone took Marks up on the bet, but he’s lucky if no one did.
The day of the election (Nov. 6) the World ran a front-page headline, “Cleveland Elected! Democracy Again Triumphant.” But it took a couple of days for the votes to be tallied, and on Nov. 8, a less exuberant headline read “Republicans Win.”
Cleveland won the popular vote (taking 48.6 per cent to Harrison’s 47.8), but lost the election because Harrison had more Electoral College votes (233 to 168).
In 2016, many Americans said they’ll move to Canada if Donald Trump is elected. But Marks did the opposite, announcing he was leaving Canada to live in Whatcom County in Washington state.
“Mr. Marks has many friends in town who will be sorry to see him ‘pull out,’ ” the World noted. “With all classes he was a favourite, and the regret is general that so good a citizen should leave us.”
Marks wound up in Nelson in the spring of 1889, however, where he opened the Nelson Hotel. The Nelson Archives says he also built the War Eagle Hotel in nearby Rossland in 1895.
He had a substantial amount of money in mining and real estate, and dabbled in other businesses — in 1897 the World reported he had “completed arrangements” to build an $8,000 theatre in Nelson.
Marks didn’t forget Vancouver, where the World characterized him as one of the city’s “liveliest hustlers.” When the park board launched an appeal for animals for a Stanley Park zoo in 1891, Marks donated a five-month-old “shebear” cub. It was named “Nelsie.”
Marks died on Oct. 8, 1904 at age 63.
His obituary in the Nelson Daily News said Alfred John Marks was born in London, England and came to Canada in 1861. He became a house painter in London, Ont., but “a spirit of adventure probably impelled him to turn westward.”
He moved to the U.S. in the 1870s, spending time in Pueblo, Colo., before coming to Vancouver in 1886. The obit said Marks was married twice and left three kids.
But he probably had a third wife, and was married to two women at the same time.
In 1908, a woman calling herself Annie Jane Marks sued Susan Elizabeth Marks for part of A.J.’s estate. Susan married A.J. Marks in 1902, and was given $50 per month in his will. The rest of his money was to be divided among his three children from his first wife, who died in the 1870s.
Annie Jane Marks said she married A.J. Marks in Buffalo, N.Y., in 1873.
“Immediately after the alleged Buffalo marriage, the appellant (Annie) and the testator (A.J.) lived as man and wife with her father and mother in Kincardine, in Ontario, for three months, and then took up house there,” says a Supreme Court judgment posted online.
“He was a house-painter, but so shiftless and improvident that he could not maintain his wife and sold everything in the house and left her at the end of 18 months or a couple of years. He returned to Kincardine some months later, but in the course of a year or so he left her finally in 1878 and never saw her again.”
Annie moved to Michigan after A.J. split and took up with a man named Franckboner. Franckboner died in 1897 and left her his house.
This may be why A.J. didn’t marry Susan until his health started to fail in 1902. Still, the Supreme Court rejected Annie’s suit, finding A.J. meant to leave his money to Susan.