An Old West tale of love, loss and murder
Anne Maddison Bradley was born in 1873 in Kansas City, Missouri. In 1890, Anne and her family moved to Salt Lake City when Anne was 17 years old. Young Anne got a job with the Salt Lake Water Works Department as a clerk where she worked for nearly three years. In September 1893, Anne married Clarence A. Bradley. Bradley worked for the Denver & Rio Grande Western Railroad. The pair settled down in Salt Lake City and Anne had two children, Martha Clare and Matthew.
An intelligent woman, Anne had a wide variety of interests and busied herself with many civic pursuits, including the Utah Woman’s Press Club and the Salt Lake City Woman’s Club. Anne was appointed as Secretary of the Republican Committee in Salt Lake. It was here that she met Arthur Brown.
THE WILD SENATOR FROM UTAH
Arthur Brown, the playboy Utah Senator was born in Michigan in 1843. He was a lawyer looking to make a name for himself. Brown was married to a woman who went by Mrs. L.C. Brown and they had a daughter named Alice. Brown’s wandering eye soon landed upon Isabel Cameron, the young daughter of a Michigan state senator. The two fell in love and Brown separated from his first wife.
Looking to better his career, Brown and Cameron moved to Utah in 1879 where Brown had aspirations to become Utah’s first U.S. district attorney. The appointment never came. Meanwhile 36-year old Brown divorced his first wife and married Isabel. They had one son, Max.
In 1896 the Utah Legislature elected Brown as the first United States senator to Utah after Utah gained statehood in 1896. Drawing the short term, Brown only served until March 1897. Although he served for only a short time, Brown was much loved by the people of Utah, particularly within the Republican party. After his term ended, Brown devoted much of his time to the party where he met Anne.
AN ADULTEROUS AFFAIR
Anne had separated from her husband Clarence in 1898 and was living alone with her two children. At first, the 23-year old mother of two rejected the 53-year old Brown’s advances, calling them “unseemly.” She later said that after several uninvited visits to her home she fell in love with Brown. Brown seemed to echo the feelings telling Anne, “Darling, we will go through life together.” Brown assured Anne that he was in the process of getting a divorce from Isabel…but it was taking some time. The pair even traveled to Washington, D.C. with Brown’s daughter Alice, with Brown claiming Anne as his wife during the trip. Anne gave birth to a son, Arthur Brown Bradley in 1900.
By 1902, the relationship with Brown strengthened, and Brown had separated from his second wife Isabel. Not one to be cast aside and forgotten, Isabel sought legal help from a district attorney. The pair hired a private investigator to follow Brown and uncover his relationship with Anne. In 1903, with charges levied by Isabel, Anne and Brown were arrested and charged with adultery. According to court documents, Isabel offered Anne a settlement to leave Brown alone; they would buy Anne a house valued at not more than $500 ($13,900 in today’s money) and give her $100 (or $2,777.78 in today’s money) per MONTH as support for her and her children. As a comparison, in 1902, the average U.S. worker made between $200 and $400 per year. Anne was being offered $1,200 per year. A $500 house would have been the equivalent of a 4-5 room salt box style house, which are all over Utah to this day. Obviously, Isabel wanted Anne gone. Still, Anne turned down the deal claiming to only want Brown.
The tensions between Anne, Isabel and Brown came to a head when Isabel tracked Brown and Anne to a hotel in Pocatello, Idaho. Isabel went to the hotel to confront Brown about his continued affair with Anne. Knocking on Brown’s door, Isabel threatened to “mash” the door in when she saw Anne climbing the stairs. Turning on Anne, Isabel grabbed Anne by the throat and threw her down the stairs, yelling at her traveling companion to “Let me kill her!” Anne fled.
Brown and Isabel reconciled, and Anne was once again on her own while three months pregnant with her and Brown’s second child, Montgomery Brown Bradley. Isabel’s hatred of Anne continued to grow and fearing for Anne’s safety, Brown gave Anne a revolver to provide her “the protection necessary” against Isabel. Their affair continued with Anne believing that Brown was going to divorce Isabel any day.
In 1905, Isabel Brown died of stomach cancer. Anne thought that Brown would seize the opportunity to marry her quickly, providing for her and the two children he fathered. Brown balked and put Anne off of marriage time and time again with excuse after excuse, once even calling Anne on the day of the wedding to say that he was “too ill” to attend. Brown also made the promise to provide her money to start her off with a business of her own though he had additional excuses why he couldn’t do that either.
LOST GIRLS: A JEALOUS RAGE
In December 1906, Brown had arranged to meet Anne in Los Angeles and had sent her a train ticket. Working on a hunch, Anne had the ticket changed to Washington, D.C. When she arrived on December 8, she inquired at the hotel where Brown always stayed, sure enough he was registered there. Anne registered as Mrs. A. Brown and went to his room. There she found several letters written to Brown by Utah actress Annie Adams Kiskadden. Kiskadden was known for playing Peter Pan and other theater roles on Utah stages. Reading through the letters Anne discovered that Brown and Kiskadden were going to be married.
Anne confronted Brown in his room. A surprised Brown sought to smooth things over with Anne, claiming that the letters from Kiskadden meant nothing…but Anne wouldn’t be appeased. According to testimony, Brown charged at Anne. Drawing the revolver that Brown had given her for protection, Anne shot Brown. Yep, she shot him with his own revolver…in the crotch! Worse, she would later admit that it was the first time she had ever fired any gun.
Brown was hurried to the hospital where surgery was performed, but the bullet was lodged too tightly into his pelvic bone. They left the bullet in him. The 63-year old Brown died five days later on December 13, 1906 from kidney failure, a side-effect of the infection from the bullet wound. Anne, a 33-year-old mother of four, was arrested and charged with murder.
AN OUTCRY OF PUBLIC SUPPORT
Public sentiment was immediately on Anne’s side. The public viewed Brown as a playboy scoundrel who had done Anne wrong. Anne was held in jail until her trial in November 1907, almost a full year later. While she was in jail, Anne was showered with gifts from women all over the country and from Utah. One even paid for the jail to fix Anne a five course meal and serve it to her by candlelight surrounded by flowers in an effort to boost her spirits after a newspaper article stated that Anne was “despondent.”
The tide of public support overflowed when Brown’s will was published. In the document, Brown formally denied any money or support to Anne Bradley or the two children he sired by her, leaving his entire estate to his two “legal” children Alice and Max.
When the trial began, the sordid details of the long affair with Brown came out, although initially Anne refused to divulge their secrets, not wanting to sully Brown’s name. Anne’s lawyers were using a temporary insanity plea and Annie’s own mother took the stand and said that “Anne was hit in the head with a hoe as a child.”
It became known that Anne had suffered several miscarriages and three abortions during her time with Brown. When pressed to provide the name of the doctor who performed the most recent abortion, an illegal procedure in Utah, Anne had to admit that the abortion was in fact, performed by Brown himself on an unwilling Anne. The botched procedure had caused problems for Anne while she was in jail and she had to be hospitalized for a time.
While the citizens of Utah were showing their support, in the beginning, the newspapers did not, and Anne was vilified. As more and more details came out and prominent Utah citizens confronted the reporters, their stories changed. By the end, Senator Brown would be labeled as the “Gentile Polygamist,” a term that Anne had allegedly coined for him.
INNOCENT ON ALL COUNTS
In the end, almost one year after the shooting, Anne was found innocent on the grounds of temporary insanity brought on by Brown’s mistreatment of her and her children. Anne Bradley left Washington D.C. a free woman and returned at once to Salt Lake City. Once there, Anne took what money she had and sought to begin the business that Brown had promised to help her start.
Anne and her four children moved to Price, Utah where she opened up the Style Shop in Price’s main business district. The family lived in apartment quarters in the back of the store. For a time, Anne’s life seemed to be turning around. Her business was successful, her children were growing, her eldest son Matthew Bradley was a stand out student at Carbon High School and very popular with his classmates. Matthew Bradley was very good at literary pursuits and was instrumental in starting the Carbon High School newspaper, “The Carbon” that still exists today.
That all changed in 1915 when tragedy struck Anne Bradley a second time.
A RABID SIBLING RIVALRY
Anne frequently left her three boys at home in Price while she attended to business trips. During a trip to Nevada in March 1915, the boys turned on one another. In charge of the household in his mother’s absence, 18-year old Matthew Bradley apparently ran the house with an iron fist. On the evening of March 22, 1915, Matthew returned home with a friend to find that his 15-year old half-brother, Arthur Brown Bradley, had made dinner for himself. Matthew was angry that Arthur had only thought of himself and threatened to take the younger boy’s meal to give to his guest. Arthur told him that if he did “he would cut him” and produced a butcher’s knife. The boys fought and Matthew was wounded in the arm, the abdomen and in the groin. The wound to the arm severed an artery.
Help was called and Matthew was taken away by doctors. He was treated for his wounds, but the older boy died early on the morning of March 23 from massive blood loss. Arthur Brown Bradley was arrested. Anne Bradley was not reached until the next day; she then returned to Salt Lake City at once to accept the body of her son.
Anne fiercely defended Arthur saying that it was a silly argument that boys all over the country had with their brothers and that Arthur did nothing but act irresponsibly. Anne claimed that there was no animosity between the half-brothers. Arthur was cleared of any wrong doing by a coroner’s inquest, declaring it an “unfortunate accident,” and was cleared to travel to Salt Lake City with the body of his brother. The boys were also accompanied on the train by a group of classmates and teachers from Carbon High School.
Matthew Bradley was laid to rest in Salt Lake City. After the death of Matthew and the acquittal of Arthur, Anne sold her store and left Price. She returned permanently to Salt Lake City where she opened an antique store that she ran until she died at the age of 78 on Nov. 11, 1950 from a heart attack. Her death certificate, with information given by her son Montgomery Brown Bradley lists her husband as Arthur Brown. Even after a tumultuous relationship, her causing his death, her fight for freedom, the loss of several children, and a stressed business life, she and her family still claimed Brown, take that how you will. Obsession, love, and wild emotions are never a good combination.