"Mrs. Charles Gardner, the thrifty matron, is about 45 years of age."

This article from the January 28, 1892 edition of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle has everything: an older woman, a younger man, a jilted husband, bigamy, fistfights, murder threats and the invention of a brand new piano varnish. An excerpt:

“Astoria gossips are very busy at present. A thrifty matron there has two husbands. The younger and the latest acquisition, whom she prefers, has sworn out a warrant for her arrest for bigamy. The older one, to whom she was wedded nearly thirty years ago, loves her still and is persistent in efforts to have her return to him and threatens to shoot the favored husband if he does not remain away from the woman.

Mrs. Charles Gardner, the thrifty matron, is about 45 years of age. She was once a gay soubrette. She played with a stock company in Philadelphia over thirty years ago and possesses still the charms, though now decidedly matured, that won applause and bouquets from from the Johnnies of that strictly proper city then. She was known to fame as Amy Lloyd. Charles Gardner, a comedian who at another theater was making Quaker citizens smile, met, wooed and won her. Her father in law being of an inventive turn of mind invented a piano varnish at about this time. Mr. Gardner, who was in ill health and tired of the stage, became interested in the invention and purchased some stock in a company formed to exploit it. It was arranged that the father in law should manufacture the varnish and Gardner, who is a fluent talker, should travel and sell it. The ex-comedian did very well. Several years ago he and Mrs. Gardner came to Astoria to live. As Gardner was on the road nearly all of the time his wife superintended the building of a pretty cottage on some property they purchased there.

I will shoot D'Antreville if I find him in the company of Mrs. Gardner again.

Three years ago in this month of roses the Gardner cottage was sufficiently near completion for the decorators to begin work. Among the workmen who came to do the decorating was Eugene D’Antreville. He was a sturdy, handsome fellow of 23, of the same age as the Gardners’ youngest son. Mrs. Gardner met him frequently. Their acquaintance ripened into love and it is said that, although it was not a leap year, Mrs. Gardner proposed marriage to him. He referred to Mr. Gardner, her drummer husband, as an impediment to their becoming one. She then declared that she had never been married to Gardner and went into hysterics as she had often seen the leading lady in her old stock company do. When she revived, she threatened suicide unless D’Antreville would become her husband. He then consented, and on Sunday, January 13, 1880, they were married, the Rev. Mr. Sheppard of the Reformed church in Newtown performing the ceremony.

The honeymoon was spent in the Gardner’s cottage, now completed, and nothing marred their domestic felicity until May, when Gardner came home from a long Western trip. When Gardner had put away his sample cases and looked over the new house he was informed that Mr. D’Antreville was lord and master there. It is needless to state that unpleasantness followed. No one who witnessed the trouble would ever have thought that the Gardners played in light comedy. After some furniture had been broken and the husband and wife were more or less battered and bruised a policeman arrived and quelled the disturbance and Mr. D’Antreville was forced leave.

Tar barrel. (Image by kallerna.)

To obviate further trouble, Gardner removed with his wife to New York City. A few days later Gardner returned home and found D’Antreville there. A free fight followed, but no one was seriously injured. The Gardners then returned to their Astoria cottage. Gardner, on returning from a trip on the road several weeks thereafter, found D’Antreville again ensconced in the new cottage. D’Antreville stoutly maintained that he was the women’s rightful husband, and there was another fight. Both husbands threatened murder, and Mrs. Gardner fled to a neighbor’s home for protection. D’Antreville exhibited his marriage license to prove his claims and challenged Gardner to produce one. Gardner subsequently obtained a duplicate of the record in Philadelphia, showing that he had been legally married to Mrs. Gardner, and argued that he was her only legal husband. He threatened to shoot D’Antreville if he finds him in the company of Mrs. Gardner again. Gardner alleges that the woman is insane, but this is not believed. Mrs. Gardner follows D’Antreville about and frequently goes to his place of business. She was driven from the building the other day by D’Antreville’s younger brother, who placed a tar barrel by her chair, and literally smoked her out by dropping red hot chains into it.”