Mary Ann Conklin, also known as Mother Damnable and Madame DamnableT. S. Phelps:

'. Originally published by The Alice Harriman Company, Seattle, 1908. Accessed online November 2, 2006 on the site of the U.S. Department of the Navy. (1821–1873) was an American madam who ran

Seattle Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest regio ...

's first

brothel A brothel, bordello, ranch, or whorehouse is a place where people engage in sexual activity with prostitutes. However, for legal or cultural reasons, establishments often describe themselves as massage parlors, bars, strip clubs, body rub par ...

, the Felker House, a major means of funneling money from

sailor A sailor, seaman, mariner, or seafarer is a person who works aboard a watercraft as part of its crew, and may work in any one of a number of different fields that are related to the operation and maintenance of a ship. The profession of the s ...

s and lumbermen into local businesses. The name by which she is most widely known derives not from the nature of her business, but from her legendarily unrestrained language, learned at sea and from her customers. It was said that she swore expertly in Chinese, English, French, German, Portuguese, and Spanish.Conklin, Mary Ann (1821-1873) aka Mother Damnable
, at historylink.org. Accessed August 20, 2006.

Biography

Born Mary Ann Boyer in 1821 in

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...

, she met and may have married the captain of a

whaling ship A whaler or whaling ship is a specialized vessel, designed or adapted for whaling: the catching or processing of whales. Terminology The term ''whaler'' is mostly historic. A handful of nations continue with industrial whaling, and one, Japa ...

, David W. "Bull" Conklin, in 1851. In 1853, the captain abandoned her in

Port Townsend, Washington Port Townsend is a city on the Quimper Peninsula in Jefferson County, Washington, United States. The population was 10,148 at the 2020 United States Census. It is the county seat and only incorporated city of Jefferson County. In addition to ...

, and sailed away to

Alaska Alaska ( ; russian: Аляска, Alyaska; ale, Alax̂sxax̂; ; ems, Alas'kaaq; Yup'ik: ''Alaskaq''; tli, Anáaski) is a state located in the Western United States on the northwest extremity of North America. A semi-exclave of the U.S., ...

. She moved to Seattle which at the time was one of several small settlements competing for

Puget Sound Puget Sound ( ) is a sound of the Pacific Northwest, an inlet of the Pacific Ocean, and part of the Salish Sea. It is located along the northwestern coast of the U.S. state of Washington. It is a complex estuarine system of interconnected ma ...

business. There, she began to manage Felker House for Captain Leonard Felker. In this two-story building, on land purchased from her sometime-ally

Doc Maynard David Swinson "Doc" Maynard (March 22, 1808March 13, 1873) was an American pioneer, doctor, and businessman. He was one of Seattle's primary founders. He was an effective civic booster and, compared to other white settlers, a relative advocate ...

, she ran an efficient hotel with clean sheets, good food, and a brothel upstairs. She rented out unused rooms during the day, including the rooms for the Territorial Court.''Doc Maynard: The Man Who Invented Seattle'', by William C Speidel, 1978 At the time of the Battle of Seattle (January 26, 1856), sailors from the sloop-of-war '' U.S.S. Decatur'' wanted to improve Seattle's defenses by building a road that passed her hotel and incidentally threatened the bushes that assured the discretion of her well-to-do customers. According to memoirs of the sloop's navigator (later Rear-Admiral) Thomas Stowell Phelps:

Urban legend

After her death in 1873, her remains were initially buried in the Seattle Cemetery and moved in 1884, when that site was made into

Denny Park Denny Park is a park located in the South Lake Union neighborhood of Seattle, Washington. It occupies the block bounded by John Street and Denny Way on the north and south and Dexter and 9th Avenues N. on the west and east. History Denny Park ...

. According to legend, when her coffin was dug up, it was unreasonably heavy, so the workers opened it. The legend states that her body had turned to stone. Her gravestone, at Lake View Cemetery on Seattle's

Capitol Hill Capitol Hill, in addition to being a metonym for the United States Congress, is the largest historic residential neighborhood in Washington, D.C., stretching easterly in front of the United States Capitol along wide avenues. It is one of the ...

, incorrectly lists her death as occurring in 1887 (three years after the grave was moved.)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mother Damnable History of Seattle 1821 births 1873 deaths People of the American Old West American brothel owners and madams 19th-century American businesspeople 19th-century American businesswomen People of the Washington Territory