The Murder of Jane Stanford | STUFF YOU SHOULD KNOW

Early Life and Stanford's Fortune

• 💡 Jane Stanford, born Jane Lathrop in 1828, came from a wealthy family in upstate New York and married Leland Stanford, an attorney who became a successful dry goods shop owner during the California Gold Rush.
• 💰 Leland Stanford amassed significant wealth as one of the "Big Four" robber barons who financed the Central Pacific Railroad, using his political positions as California governor and senator to further their interests through questionable means.
• 🚂 The Stanfords' fortune was built on a monopoly of the railroad industry, including secretly acquiring the Southern Pacific Railroad, leading to a prestigious but controversial legacy.

Founding Stanford University

• 💔 The tragic death of their only son, Leland Stanford Jr., at age 15, inspired the Stanfords to found a university in his honor, with the mission to educate the children of California.
• 🎓 Stanford University was established as a unique institution: tuition-free, co-educational (a rarity at the time), and non-denominational, initially focusing on preparing students for practical life skills.
• 🔮 While Leland Stanford claimed the idea came in a dream, a medium named Ma Lord Drake asserted it originated from a seance with Leland Jr., a detail the university likely whitewashed.

Jane Stanford's Influence and Challenges

• 👑 After Leland Sr.'s death, Jane Stanford became the sole trustee, exercising total control over the university, including hiring, curriculum, and even capping female enrollment at 500.
• ⚔️ She had a contentious relationship with the university's first president, David Star Jordan, who held controversial views on eugenics and scientific racism, and clashed with Jane over the university's academic direction.
• 📚 Jane's attempts to integrate spiritualism and liberal arts into the curriculum, including proposing an academic chair in psychic psychology, were often met with resistance from Jordan.

The Poisonings and Death

• ⚠️ In January 1905, Jane Stanford survived a rat poison attack in her San Francisco home, prompting her to flee to Hawaii with her secretary, Bertha Burner, and a new maid.
• 💀 On February 28, 1905, in Hawaii, Jane Stanford suffered a second, fatal poisoning after ingesting strick nine in baking soda and water, dying within minutes with her body convulsing.
• 🔍 The local Hawaiian authorities, including Dr. Francis Humphris, conducted a thorough murder investigation and coroner's jury, concluding she was murdered by poison.

The Cover-Up and Unresolved Mystery

• 🤫 President David Star Jordan orchestrated a cover-up, flying to Hawaii with a trustee and two detectives, then publicly dismissing the murder findings and promoting a false narrative of death by heart failure due to indigestion.
• 📰 Jordan's narrative, which accused the Hawaiian doctor of adding strick nine post-mortem, was widely accepted on the mainland, effectively quashing the murder investigation and protecting the university's reputation.
• 🕵️‍♂️ Decades later, books by Stanford professors Robert WP Cutler (2003) and Richard White (2022) revisited the case, with White directly accusing Bertha Burner, Jane's secretary, of the murder, citing opportunity and potential motives like inheritance and resentment.
• ❓ Despite these later investigations, the murder of Jane Stanford remains officially unsolved, with the true culprit never definitively identified or prosecuted.