The year was 1894. In Washington, a U.S. Congressman was cheating on his wife with a woman 30 years younger than him. Not that that’s really news today, but back then, the mistress, Madeline Pollard, who’d had it with the Congressman after being strung along in their 10-year relationship, decided enough was enough and sued him for failure to make good on his promise of marriage.

Congressman William Breckinridge of Kentucky was a five-term Democratic Congressman with aspirations to higher office — and this little wrinkle in his personal life was enough to wreck his chances of re-election, so he hired a spy to find out the dirt on Miss Pollard. Turns out the spy was a secretary, a young girl from Wiscasset named Jane Tucker.

What happened next is a true story of intrigue layered in scandal, a topic that fascinates Elizabeth De Wolfe, professor of history at the University of New England.

De Wolfe, whose husband owns a rare books store in Alfred, happened to be at a rare books and antique show when she stumbled across what’s called a salesman’s sample (basically like Amazon’s Look Inside feature) of a book called Pollard Vs. Breckinridge.

“I was thinking as I was reading, ‘Who is this girl who would sue a U.S. Congressman?’ ” she said. “I went home and did some research and the more I looked into it, I knew this would be a good story.”

De Wolfe began to find the pieces of the story through a vast amount of research. After trying to find the rare book all over the U.S., she discovered there were only three copies in the U.S. Two were vastly expensive. The third, she found out ironically, was located at her husband’s book store.

“After that, I knew it was a sign,” she said. “I had to write this book.”

Jane (alias: Jennie) Tucker, a stenographer from Wiscasset, never set out to be a spy.

”She’d had it with Wiscasset,” said De Wolfe. “She was a very driven, entrepreneurial young woman who was bored living with her parents, bored with a small town. So, she goes to Boston and then New York City to become basically a temp. That was a brand new profession for women. She gets sent to the Astor Hotel, a very posh hotel to work for a Kentucky businessman as an office manager. The economy goes sour again and loses her job and has to come back to Maine. But the businessman never forgot her and six months later, she gets a telegram that says ‘I have a job for you. And if you do it, you’ll be set for life, financially.’”

Her assignment was to spy on Pollard. So, Tucker assumed the first of her many aliases, renaming herself as Agnes Parker, and went down to Washington D.C., where Pollard was now living, at a home for “fallen women.” Parker convinced the nun she was too was “a fallen woman” and got herself into the home, where her plan to make fast friends with Pollard.

“At this point Pollard really needed a friend,” said De Wolfe. “Her Washington crowd dropped her like a hot potato.”

Tucker/Parker then gleaned vital information from Pollard, which she then passed on to Breckinridge’s camp, which had the potential to swing the case.

”Make her mad on the stand,” was Tucker/Parker’s suggestion. “Her real true self will come out when you do.”

However, Breckinridge’s legal team failed to take that sage advice at their peril. At this point in the story, no one actually wins.

“As far as I can tell, the Congressman was wiped out financially by the trial and never paid his bill to Tucker/Parker,” said De Wolfe.

Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned goes the old expression. You would have thought by this time Breckinridge might have figured that out.

“For all of their differences, the Mistress and the Girl Spy had a lot in common,” said De Wolfe. “They both wanted independence where they had control over their own future. Neither of them wanted to to be married with a house full of kids. Neither one of them wanted to spend their lives in some rural, backwoods town. They were both ‘The New Woman’ of the 1890s.”

To find out what happened to the Congressman, the Mistress and the Girl Spy from Maine, De Wolfe is giving a talk about the trial, titled The Congressman, the Mistress and the Girl Spy Thursday, June 25. Her book on the topic is still in progress.The talk starts at 7 p.m. in the Nickels-Sortwell House Barn, 121 Main Street in Wiscasset. The barn entrance is on Federal Street. Admission is $5 for members of Historic New England, $10 for non-members. Pre-registration is recommended. To reserve a place, call 882-7169 or visit www.HistoricNewEngland.org. To see more of De Wolfe’s research visit: www.elizabethdewolfe.com

Kay Stephens can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com