Cora Crane

[1] After Crane's 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.

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.

To gain freedom from the restriction that unmarried women required chaperones to go out in society, Cora married her first husband, Thomas Vinton Murphy.

She moved with him to England, where she cut a social swath after the fashion of fellow American Jennie Jerome, who had married Lord Randolph Churchill in 1874.

However, when Captain Stewart was assigned to India, Cora elected to stay in England as what was called an "Empire widow."

After living briefly at the country family estate, Cora had moved to London and entered its society.

During the later years of their marriage (she left him before 1895), he was assigned to the Gold Coast as the British Resident, where he was deeply involved in the colonial War of the Golden Stool (1900) against the Ashanti people.

Cora traveled with her lover on his yacht to the United States; following an argument while they were anchored off Jacksonville, Florida, she swam ashore in her shift.

Technically the elegant establishment was not a brothel because, although a man could meet a woman there for a sexual assignation, they had to go elsewhere to conduct "business".

"[4] After the war, the Cranes settled in England, socialized with the literary elite and joined the Fabian Society.

When Frederic, a novelist and The New York Times correspondent, died of a stroke in 1898, his wife had Lyon arrested and jailed for manslaughter.

Victorian society split, with some publishers' wives supporting Grace Frederic, and conducting press campaigns to raise funds for her children.

Cora Crane cared for Lyon's illegitimate children at her home of Brede Place while their mother was in jail.

McNeill was acquitted because the laws of the time recognized husbands' rights, and the all-male jury supported his action.

Crane became a regular contributor of articles to leading publications of the country, including Smart Set and Harpers Weekly.