Mansfield is best known for being at the center of a fatal love triangle involving two wealthy, high profile men: financier Jim Fisk and his business partner Ned Stokes.

Mansfield was a descendant of many colonial families of Massachusetts, most notably John Alden, and was a distant cousin of Frank Gannett.

[3] On the morning of June 23, 1854, Joseph Mansfield was murdered on the streets of Stockton, California by a business rival.

[4] After her father's death, Mansfield moved with her mother Sarah back East to the Charlestown district of Boston and lived on Mystic Street, near the Bunker Hill Monument.

[6] According to Barbara Goldsmith, "Josie would later say that her stepfather sexually molested her when she was twelve and continued to do so for three years, threatening to maim her if she ever spoke of it.

Her plump, well-developed figure was flattered by the shorter hemlines (that often revealed a glimpse of petticoat) and higher heels that were fashionable at the time.

"[7] Charles Mansfield frequently stayed home while his wife Sarah loved to dress up and go into town.

[2] Sarah Mansfield sailed to California after her divorce,[2] and rented a house on Bryant Street in San Francisco with her daughter Josie.

[10] D. W. Perley, the wealthy English law partner of Judge David S. Terry, began calling at the Warren home, and became attracted to Mansfield.

At Perley's instigation, the San Francisco newspapers published the details of the event, describing it as a conspiracy between the Lawlors and the Warrens.

[2] By 1867, Josie Mansfield had become so impoverished that she had only one presentable dress and despaired of ever paying the overdue rent on her tiny room on Lexington Avenue.

There, in November 1867, she met Jim Fisk, a wealthy financier who was known for handing out $100 bills to women who caught his eye.

[11] Fisk eventually bought Mansfield an elegant home at 18 West 24th, furnished it, and supplied her with everything she desired.

[2] The four-story brownstone (after some $65,000 worth of improvements) had four servants, a wardrobe filled with dresses, and a jewelry case accented by real jewels.

Besides the emeralds, he gave her a diamond necklace, earrings, and tiara, pearls, corals, medallions, and twenty five rings.

[11] In November 1868, nine months after they met, the Springfield (Massachusetts) Republican published an exposé of Fisk's relationship with Mansfield.

He also took over the refinery by force and obtained injunctions to prevent Stokes and his mother, who owned the site, from entering the premises.

They contained no insight into Fisk's business dealings, just evidence of his love for Mansfield and his jealousy of Stokes.

[19] On the morning of July 22, 1872, Mansfield went to Saratoga Springs, New York, to testify in the Court of Impeachment concerning Fisk's relations with Judge George G. Barnard.

Her passport application describes her as 5 feet 5+1⁄2 inches (166.4 cm) tall, with a high forehead, an aquiline nose, a small mouth, dark brown hair, a light complexion, and an oval face.

[19] The 1891 U.S. $1,000 silver certificate, known as the Courtesan Note, depicts the image of a woman that was based on a photograph of Josie Mansfield.

[27] In October 1891, Mansfield married Robert Livingstone Reade, an expatriate American lawyer, at St George's church, Hanover Square, London.

[28] During her later life, several stories appeared in newspapers claiming that Mansfield was sick and poor and living with siblings, although she was an only child.

[29] Another article claimed that from 1902 through 1909, Mansfield was living as "Mrs. Mary Lawler" with a "brother" in Watertown, South Dakota.

[32] She was buried on October 29, 1931, as Mrs. Helen Josephine Mansfield Reade, in a grave beside her mother's in historic Montparnasse Cemetery on the southern heights of Paris.