Jane Gray was born February 22, 1819, at Violet Bank, her mother’s ancestral home in Petersburg, Virginia. She was the eldest child of Dr. William Shippen (the son William Shippen Jr, the Surgeon of the Army of the Revolution) and Mary Louisa Shore, a descendant of the Lee and Carter families of Virginia. 

When Jane was eight, her family moved from Virginia to Philadelphia. She studied at the Moravian Female Seminary (now Moravian University) in Bethlehem PA and was the only one of the Shippen girls to attend college. 

In 1842 at the age 23, she married Edward “Ned” Wharton and moved back to Petersburg, giving birth to their only child, Mary Louisa, three years later. In 1857 when Jane was 38, she was admitted to a Quaker hospital in Philadelphia with “debility”, a diagnosis often associated with mental illness and depression. 

By 1860, she and her husband and daughter had moved to K Street in Washington, D.C. where Ned worked as a clerk in the Coast Survey Department (now part of NOAA). They lived next door to Secretary of War Edwin “Mars” Stanton and his wife Ellen. 

 After the deaths of her family, Jane returned to Philadelphia, inheriting her father’s home and laboratory that she ultimately rented to her nephew, Shippen Wallace, a chemist. 

Jane lived in the Colonnade Hotel in Chester Hills until her death in 1907. She died just a few days shy of her 85th birthday of “senile degeneration of the brain” and is buried at Laurel Hill cemetery beside her husband and daughter. 

Ellen was the daughter of George Nugent, a successful silk and fine goods importer by his second wife. Of his many children, Ellen was his favorite and he indulged her every whim. Her fondness for high fashion accumulated debt of thousands of dollars on her father’s account. 

Ellen was a refined belle with many admirers, yet her friends were surprised when she announced her engagement to Isaac Williamson, a handsome bachelor in Philadelphia. Invitations were sent to society’s elite and on the day of the wedding, guests from across the city arrived at the Nugent family seat, but the bridegroom did not. Ellen’s father sent for Mr. Williamson and was shocked to learn that Mr. Williamson had never proposed to Ellen and knew nothing about the affair. 

Ellen’s father made the decision to send Ellen to an asylum for the insane. The day before she was to be institutionalized, Ellen ran off with Captain Henry “Hank” Wharton and the two eloped. Ellen continued to incur debt on her father’s account until Captain Wharton was ordered to Fort Kearney and Ellen relocated with him. During the war, Major Wharton was stationed in Baltimore. Utilizing her family’s considerable wealth and status, Ellen adeptly manipulated political and legal spheres to bend outcomes to her favor. Her charm and calculated influence made her a prominent, though enigmatic figure within the city’s social and power structures. 

After her murder trial, she became an outcast from Baltimore’s high society and moved with her daughter Nellie and her husband to Poplar Grove, the Nugent family ancestral home in Baltimore. She died in obscurity in 1890 and is buried in Bryn Mar. 

Major Henry “Hank” Wharton is a charismatic figure known for his good looks and influential Wharton lineage. Born in 1811, Hank was the youngest son of Colonel Franklin Wharton and grandson of the powerful Joseph Wharton of Walnut Grove.  

Orphaned as a young boy, Henry and his siblings were sent to live with various relatives, including the home of his uncle Fishburn Wharton, the father of his cousin Edward “Ned” Wharton.  

Hank enlisted as a ‘seaman’ in 1827 and served with General Scott Ketchum at Ft. Smith Arkansas, forging a deep bond that extended beyond the military into family friendships.  

He enjoyed a long military career achieving the rank of Major. An injury sidelined him from combat duty during the Civil War and he was transferred to Baltimore as a disbursement officer.  

William Scott Ketchum was born on July 7, 1813, in Norwalk, Connecticut. He graduated from the United States Military Academy, at West Point, New York, in 1834, and served in the Seminole Wars and on the Western frontier.  

At the start of the Civil War, Major Ketchum, with US Fourth Infantry Regiment, commanded Fort Dalles in Oregon, protecting settlers from Indian raids. He was ordered to San Francisco and then sent to take command of the federal troops in Southern California to protect it from secessionist rising and Confederate invasion from Arizona or Texas. Relieved by California Volunteer troops, Ketchum and his regiment assembled in San Pedro for the voyage to eastern United States in the late fall of 1861. 

Ketchum was promoted to lieutenant colonel in late 1861. He was made a brigadier general of Volunteers in February 1862. For the rest of the war he had staff duties in Washington, D.C., and was concerned with inspection, recruiting, and auditing, working directly for War Secretary Edwin Stanton. 

Following the Civil War, General Ketchum spent four years on special service in the adjutant general’s office in Washington, D.C., then retired in December 1870. Scott Ketchum was twice a widower, marrying sisters, and had two sons, Charles Leavenworth Ketchum by his first wife Nancy, and James Daniel Ketchum by his second wife Rebecca. 

Known for his integrity and attention to detail, Scott Ketchum was a respected figure in Washington’s military. He was fond of music and the theater and particularly fond of hymns and church choir. Though described as a “quirky” and “tight with his money” he never retreated from a friend in need and was well-known to bring flowers to ailing wives and daughters of his colleagues. He is buried in Rock Creek Cemetery in Washington, D.C. 

Captain Jacob “Jake” Frey was born in Germany in 1836 and immigrated to Baltimore when he was 10. As a young boy, he witnessed the violence and hardships imposed on immigrants by the city’s gangs.  

He journeyed as a tinner for a German stove maker and started his own stove manufacturing business shortly after completing his apprenticeship.  

 Jake was appointed to the Baltimore Police force with the rank of Captain in 1867, was made Deputy Marshal in 1870 and Marshal (Chief of Police) in 1885. He served as Marshal until 1897.  

 Marshal Frey was known for his integrity and determination and remains one of Baltimore’s most notable police chiefs. He died in 1911.