# @sachistorymuseum on Instagram

- **Type:** Image
- **Original URL:** https://www.instagram.com/p/C36SmGIPJ1y
- **Gondola URL:** https://gondola.cc/posts/76085116-sachistorymuseum-instagram
- **Thumbnail:** https://img.gondola.cc/tr:w-,h-,fo-auto/postThumbnails/8ca6f0d2b8.jpg
- **Posted:** 2024-02-29T00:10:35.000+00:00
- **Account Owner:** Sacramento History Museum (@sachistorymuseum) — https://gondola.cc/sachistorymuseum

## Caption

Caroline A. Williams, a Black woman, who came to California from Massachusetts in 1850 and known in the community as “Aunt Carrie,” was the proprietor of the private hotel called the Clarendon House. The hotel opened on December 12, 1855 on Second Street between K and L Streets in Sacramento. 

Williams was an experienced caterer and had a “flattering reputation” in Sacramento the previous 4 years where she had helped manage the Sacket Hotel and Grand Hotel. The Clarendon House was at a prime location near the steamboat landing and the B.F. Hastings Building, which housed the California Supreme Court. The weekly rate for a room at the Clarendon was 12 dollars. 

In 1857, however, the Clarendon closed and the furniture was sold at public auction. In 1861, Eugenie Dumas bought the Clarendon House and renamed it the Hotel de France, the fourth hotel by that name the city and owned by Dumas. Williams later rented rooms at the Fashion Saloon on J Street. 

On January 10, 1872, Williams trademarked the remedy “Aunt Carrie’s Magic Salve and Pile Ointment” that was made of California herbs. It was marketed as a cure for boils, sores, scrofula, carbuncles, and bleeding and blind piles.  She moved to San Francisco in the 1870s where she was the proprietor of the Sacramento House. She passed away on April 2, 1887 and is buried in the Sacramento Historic City Cemetery. Today, a reconstruction of the Clarendon House stands in the Old Sacramento Waterfront at its original location. 

Depiction of the Clarendon House from “A Birds-Eye View of Sacramento” in 1857 by George H. Baker, courtesy of the California State Library. Advertisement of the Clarendon House from the December 11, 1855 edition of the Sacramento Daily Union. Obituary of Caroline A. Williams from the April 4, 1887 edition of the Sacramento Daily Union. 
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#BlackHistoryMonth #BlackHistory #Sacramento #oldsacramento #oldsac #oldsacramentowaterfront #sacramentohistory #sachistorymuseum

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## Tags

oldsacramento, sacramentohistory, sacramento, oldsac, oldsacramentowaterfront, sachistorymuseum, blackhistorymonth, blackhistory

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