Quondam Washington:

Noah E. Sedgwick: Part III - A Career Destroyed

2011-08-11T11:35:00.000-07:00

By now, the press had begun referring to Officer Sedgwick as “Silver Bullet.” In a lengthy article about ghosts published in the Post on Dec. 15th, Sedgwick’s credibility was further damaged when it was revealed that he was not only afraid of ghosts, but of the “Night Doctors.”

Sedgwick, who is a colored man, used to be a school teacher in the District, and is quite an intelligent man, although extremely superstitious. Some years ago, Sedgwick used to be in the Third police precinct, instead of the Ninth. One night as he was lined up in the station, receiving instructions from the sergeant, just before going out on the midnight watch, the sergeant noticed Sedgwick’s mouth was all covered with grease.

“Sedge, what’s the matter with your mouth?” asked the sergeant.
“Nothing sir,” was the reply.
“Why, there’s grease all around it.”
“That’s so the night doctors can’t slap a plaster on.”
“What do you mean?”
“My mother told me that if I would grease my mouth, the plasters that the night doctors clap on the mouths of their victims, so that they can’t holler when they are being carried off, wouldn’t stick. That’s all. I don’t want to be kotched by no night doctor.”

By the early 19th Century, anatomy instruction had become a central component to medical study. The only legal cadavers were those of condemned murderers, however, there were not enough of these to satisfy the growing demands of science. Doctors thus turned to the so-called Resurrectionists--or body snatchers. In fact, body-snatching became so common in Washington that the newspapers are peppered with accounts, and terrified family members often hired guards to keep watch over cemeteries to ensure that their loved ones remained buried.

This gave rise to a legend exclusive to Washington, DC's African American population, who referred to the grave-robbers as "Night Doctors." They believed that if the Night Doctors couldn’t find fresh bodies in the cemeteries, they would kidnap the living. Writer Josephine Davis Leary, in her 1947 Backward Glances at Georgetown, wrote a rather patronizing account of the family's cook refused to work past dark in wintertime: "Mother's word was of no avail, so that we had to have dinner that Winter at 5:30 in order to keep Lucinda from being cut up by the night doctors."

There’s no way to know whether there is any basis for the belief; certainly the medical profession paid grave robbers handsomely for cadavers and would not necessarily ask for details; further, Washington’s population had swollen tremendously in the years following the Civil War. Its alleys were filled with freed slaves; roustabouts, military deserters and indigents, any of whom could easily go have gone missing, no questions asked.

By now, the transformation of Sedgwick is complete: The former teacher who wrote so elegantly in his application to the force, who was brave and strong enough to tackle thirty drunken men in a brawl and come out alive, has by now been reduced to the superstitious and easily frightened buffoon of minstrel shows.

And the charges were piling up:

On October 19th, 1895, Sedgwick was cited with failing to pay his legal fines. The police board ordered him to make good his debt in monthly $5 installments and warned him that “a failure to comply will be deemed sufficient cause for his removal from the force.”

On October 30, Sedgwick summoned to court yet again--this time, for failing to pay his lawyer, Aloysius P. Geier $34.75. Even though the prosecuting witness failed to appear, Sedgwick pled guilty and was ordered to pay back the debt in $5 monthly payments.

April of 1896, Washington Post reporter William P. Spurgeon wrote a story that created a sensation, to the embarrassment of the Commissioners and Police Force:

SEDGEWICK WILL TELL

Police Scandal Brewing in the

Ninth Precinct

---

UNREPORTED INCIDENT AT A FIRE

---

The Colored Officer Who Loaded His Gun with a Silver Bullet to Shoot a Ghost

Declares His Intention of Bringing Charges Against Sergt. Pearson, Which Will Lead to an Investigation Similar to the Fat Men’s Club Affair of Two Years Ago

---

If Police Officer Sedgwick, of the Ninth Precinct, carries out his present intentions, the result is likely to be a sensation in police circles equal to that caused by the famous raid on the Fat Men’s Club room, in South Washington, which was followed by the dismissal of a number of officers who were found toying with the foamy growler when off duty.

…These charges will not only affect Pearson, but will also involve a dozen officers attached to the precinct, including Sedgwick himself.

…Sedgwick claims that his action is inspired by Pearson’s subsequent display of inefficiency and unofficial conduct, which he will bring witnesses to prove. He will attempt to show that Pearson fails to visit policemen on their beats when it is his duty to do so. It is understood, however, that Pearson recently accused Sedgwick of leaving his beat twenty minutes before the proper hour, and also caught him standing in front of a saloon and changing some money. Sedgwick is thoroughly in earnest about the matter and it is said has interested a United States Senator in the case who will also go before the Commissioners in retaliation to the charges. Sedgwick is the colored policeman who not long since claimed to have seen a ghost on his beat, and loaded his pistol with a silver bullet to bring down the strange apparition which seemed to be haunting him.

According to Spurgeon, Sedgwick planned to expose the following:

One evening back in October, fire broke out at the Washington Brick Machine Company on Florida Avenue in Ivy City. Acting Sergeant John A Pearson brought roughly eighteen men from the 9th Precinct with him to preserve order at the scene and supervise employee efforts to save the premises.


Noah Sedgwick, from Washington Bee

When the fire was finally put out, the owner and general manager of the brick company, Theodore L. Holbrook, invited the entire precinct over to Bohn’s restaurant at the corner of Fourteenth and Maryland Ave for “refreshments.” The majority of the eighteen men present accepted the invitation, including Sergeant Pearson. In full uniform, they spent the next two hours drinking whiskey, beer and assorted other intoxicants at the bar, which meant that for that time, their respective beats went completely uncovered.

Sedgwick himself was among them. He would later tell the Board that he went along with the whole thing because he didn’t dare say no.

The article was not only a public relations nightmare for the Force, but placed Sedgwick in a very vulnerable position. Two days later, the Post published a letter from Sedgwick, who denied having talked to the reporter—(whether he did or he didn’t and what he said would be taken up in detail during the coming trial):

As an officer of the Metropolitan Police Force, I am unwilling to lend my name to newspaper notoriety. In your article of the 4th instant I have been quoted without my knowledge and consent. I deny that I have knowingly met a representative of your paper, or that I have given out the information attributed to me. Desirous of acting fairly in this matter, and in the hope that you will publish this explanation, I remain, very respectfully,
N.E. Sedgwick, Metropolitan police, Ninth Precinct, Northeast.

Sedgwick then wrote a letter, dated only April 1896, in which he charged that Sergeant John A. Pearson had failed to visit Sedgwick as he was required to as Night Inspector:

Furthermore, the said acting Sergt. Pearson did on or about the 17th day of October 1895 enter a bar-room situated at the corner of 15th and Md. Ave., N.E. and at 6 o’clock AM did then and there order his men being officers of the Metropolitan Police Force to enter the abocve restaurant and partake of whatever they cherished. Furthermore that the said Act. Sergt. Jno. A. Pearson did cause several of the police territorial beats to be unprotected and at the mercy of Robbers, Murderous thugs & c. for over 1 hour, this while on duty in the District of Columbia.

Acting Sergeant John A. Pearson (not to be confused with Inspector Ike Pearson), an Ohio-born former machinist, had been a Metropolitan Police Officer for over ten years. There were strong rumors that he was a card-carrying member of the American Protective Association (APA), a secret society patterned after the “Know-Nothings” prior to the Civil War. The APA was a nationalist, nativist group hell-bent against Catholics—and any group that undermined the Protestant fabric of America.

John Pearson’s service records are peppered with charges of unbecoming conduct, neglect of duty and intoxication—nearly a dozen of them over his 28 year career. Charges were dismissed in most cases; where he was found guilty, he was cautioned. He does not appear to have been fined so much as a nickel. He was also promoted twice in his career, which ended with his death in December, 1911.

Pearson turned around and slapped Sedgwick with an accusation of neglect of duty, and on April 8th, only four days after Spurgeon’s revelations in the Post, Sedgwick was back before the Trial Committee on the following charge:

That N.E. Sedgwick…on or about the 31st day of March, 1895, at or about the hour of 6:00 A.M., leave his beat and visit the saloon of one George Reinsfels, situate [sic] at or about number 1101 C Street, N.E. and did, on or about the date aforesaid, at or about the hour of 12:00 P.M., did leave his beat and again visit said bar room premises, and did, on day and date unknown, make such statements and circulate such rumors as to create and cause to appear a scandalous and false publication in the Washington Post, concerning the conduct of several officers of the Metropolitan Police Force.

While they were at it, the Board then tried Sedgwick on the second charge of maligning the force to a newspaper reporter. Post reporter William Spurgeon was the first to testify.

Several pages of testimony reveal that Spurgeon (photo below) went to the 9th Precinct house and asked for Officer Sedgwick. It is not clear whether Sedgwick realized he was talking to a reporter—but he certainly talked some; Spurgeon admitted to filling in the rest of the blanks: “That was sometime ago and I have forgotten the exact words he used, but I know the impression he conveyed to me...

Q: In writing these articles, you judge from a man’s face of course and appearance, and if a man says, “never mind about that,” you judge from that just what it is?
A: (Spurgeon): You can do that under certain circumstances.
Q: Of course you think he would tell you right out if it was not so?
A: If I could not get information in any other way, I might be driven to reading his face.
Q: You would reason if it was not so he would say so, and if he did not say no or yes you could take it for granted it was so? That is the way these articles are written?
A: Generally, we have more to base our articles on than looks.

On May 15th, District Commissioners dismissed charges against Sedgwick, but issued a formal reprimand.

Ordered: That the charges against private N.E. Sedgwick…tried April 8…are hereby dismissed, but that said private be warned not to talk about his superior officers nor assist in circulating reports calculated to bring the Police Force into disrepute.

That the charges against acting Sergeant J. A. Pearson…for gross neglect of duty and conduct unbecoming an office, are hereby dismissed, but that Private Sedgwick be reprimanded and admonished that a repetition of his conduct will be deemed sufficient cause for his removal from the force.

A month later, John Pearson was and transferred to the Second Precinct, for street duty.

A few days later, the police received a letter from a Samuel Oppenheimer, likely the butcher who, in the 1890 is doing business at 1732 8th Street, NW. He complained that Sedgwick owed him $45.75 in unpaid bills and threatened to sue. This was a common practice at the time, and police files are filled with bills from creditors including tailors, grocers and other retailers.

Sedgwick, fearing that he was about to be dismissed, turned in his resignation. Then he thought better of it and asked whether he could withdraw his resignation. The Police Commissioner told him it was too late.

Sedgwick appealed to the DC Commissioners:

May it please your Honorable Body:

By your direction I have been advised, through your Secretary, William Tindall, Esquire, that you were not inclined to favorably consider my application for reinstatement on the Metropolitan Police Force.

Feeling that your action was predicated largely, if not entirely, on my failure to fully explain my case, the causes, etc., which led to my resignation, I now ask permission to do so and most respectfully and earnestly request that my application for reinstatement be considered in the light of the facts herein presented.

So far as I know and am advised my record as a police officer is good. Sometime prior to my resignation three deaths occurred in my family, namely, my mother, my brother and my son, for whose funeral expenses I became responsible. I was also indebted to Mr. Samuel Oppenheimer to the amount of about $45 or $55, and in consequence of the other expenses above stated, I was not able to pay him the amounts, and in the manner he desired, whereupon he brought suit before a justice of the peace, and obtained judgment for the amount due and costs. Still being unable to satisfy the judgment in the manner desired by Mr. Oppenheimer, he threatened to bring the matter to the attention of the trial board, and have me tried for non-payment of debt. Rather than have the heads of the police department annoyed with the matter, I resigned. My resignation was purely and simply the result of my wish not to have the department annoyed by trying me for nonpayment of a debt, which I desired to pay but could not do so in the manner desired by Mr. Oppenheimer.

Within a few days after I sent in my resignation over two hundred prominent citizens, who knew me as an officer, sighed a petition requesting your Honorable Board of Commissioners to reinstate me.

This petition was handed to James L. Pugh, Jr., Esq., Assistant Attorney for the District of Columbia, who promised to look over it and return it to me. When I called for it, Mr. Pugh advised me that he had inadvertently misplaced it and could not find it, but that he would willingly endorse another application, in which I might use his name if I desired…

…That matter of debt for which Mr. Oppenheimer threatened to bring me before the trial board, and which caused me to resign…has been satisfactorily adjusted…

…I most respectfully and earnestly request that your Honorable Body may favorably reconsider your action in declining to reinstate me on the Metropolitan Police Force.

At the bottom of the letter appears a note in the DC Attorney General’s own hand attesting that he “lost or misplaced” the aforementioned petition. “When Sedgwick was on the force, he made a very good policeman,” added Pugh.

The Board refused to reinstate Sedgwick.

Sedgwick would never wear a uniform again.

Two years later, we find him listed as a cook in the City Directory. He is still cooking the last time he's found on record, in 1903.

Noah's son, William Noah Sedgwick, a laborer, according to DC death records, passed away on June 18, 1900, and was buried in an unknown location two days later.


Mt. Zion Cemetery, Georgetown, DC

"Nowah Sedgwick" died in Washington DC of causes unknown on February 27, 1906 and was buried on March 2nd, also in an unknown location.

Captain Isaac Pearson retired and was placed on the pension roll at $90 a month.

James Pearson died in December, 1911.

Journalist William P. Spurgeon ended up being promoted to managing editor at the Post and was elected the first president of the National Press Club in 1908. He died of typhoid fever in on June 4, 1920.

Getting Around Washington Back in the Day

2011-08-08T14:45:00.000-07:00

QW has been very remiss in attending to this blog, which she started with the greatest ambitions of maintaining. However, as so often happens in life, her diligence has faltered due to changes in job and personal life. She apologizes to her readers, and offers amends in the form of a couple of memories she discovered while surfing the Wonder that is the Web this evening.

Like many Washingtonians of a certain age, she remembers the street car and Capital Traction systems which once criss-crossed the city and made driving an option. Metro has never quite managed to make up for the loss of the street car. Regard these clips which demonstrate the evolution of public transportation in Washington--and note that QW owes full credit to the folks who posted these on Youtube:

The Turn of the Century

1941 in Washington - or so says
the post; to my eye it could be
earlier

A Rather Sentimental trip from Georgetown to Glen Echo

And Lastly...

AME Zion Church Cemetery, Georgetown, Washington DC

2010-09-27T10:25:00.000-07:00

It was a longshot--walking through this sad little cemetery in the farthest possible NW corner of Georgetown yesterday afternoon, hoping against hope to find the grave of the man, Noah Sedgwick, who I have been researching.

I knew that this cemetery would not likely be as manicured as its neighbor, Oak Hill. But I was stunned to see how neglected it had been over the ages, and that these mothers, fathers, sons and daughters were likely evaporated in the memories of the town in which they had lived and served.

So I began taking pictures. I took well over a hundred photos of every grave whose inscription was legible, and I shall try to post them here on this blog, so that any African Americans with a Georgetown heritage may be able to find long-lost ancestors.

I have looked up census info on a couple of the graves--ultimately, I will get as much information on each one as I can.

I've created a set on Flickr--AME Zion and Female Union Band Cemetery. Go to: http://www.flickr.com/photos/54312378@N02/

Feel free to download--credit is appreciated, but not necessary!

Noah E. Sedgwick Part II - Sedgwick's Ghost

2010-03-23T08:04:00.000-07:00

Ghost stories ran rampant on the 19th Century police force among both races. Every precinct had its ghosts—and perhaps none was sensationalized more than the ghost of the Ninth Precinct—“Sedgwick’s Ghost.”

It was five minutes past midnight in September, 1895. Private Sedgwick had nearly completed his nightly beat. As he neared the corner of 10th and D Streets, N.E., he heard the sound of shuffling. He assumed that it was his relieving officer and in a moment of mischief, Sedgwick decided to play a little joke on the man. He picked up a cobblestone and, just as he was about to throw it, he saw the ghost for the first time.

I saw that the thing was dressed in white and had no head.

A stunned Sedgwick dropped the stone.

… and as I did so there was a gust of wind and an awful groan, and the ghost fell against the fence, knocking down three panels. I looked and the ghost was gone, but there were the three boards to prove that it had been there.

The next time I saw it near the Twelfth street colored church. I thought it was a stray cow, and as I went close I saw that it was a headless man, and then it disappeared.

He saw the ghost for a third time on Sunday, November 22, at 2:20 a.m., according to a statement he was required to make:

I was walking along the commons at Fourteenth and Warren streets, when suddenly I saw a figure crouching by a tree box near a lighted naphtha lamp. I could see it as plain as I see you now. It looked like a man, and didn’t seem to be in white. I was not afraid, for I thought it was a man. I started to go up close, but it kept ahead of me. When I would stop it would stop. I could not get closer than twenty feet, no matter how fast I walked. At last I called to it:

“Charley,” said I, “stop, I want to see you.”

It didn’t answer, but commenced to get white and to move away.

“Stop,” said I again.

It would not stop, so I drew my revolver and fired. I was cool and collected, and shot straight at it. The spook disappeared instantly. I could see the smoke from my revolver, but the ghost was gone.

Because firing his pistol without reason was in violation of police code, Sedgwick was required to write a statement, and there was reason to believe he would be called before the trial board. Sedgwick worried about one more trial, but he stood by his actions and told the press that if he were called to trial, he would have no trouble finding a dozen witnesses had also seen the Ninth district ghost.

Officer Lewis Gee stepped up to say that he had seen the ghost just a week earlier at the corner of Eleventh and C streets northeast, just a half block away from the precinct house.

Station-keeper W. H. Burkhart also corroborated Sedgwick’s story: One evening, Burkhart had spotted the creature—headless, robed in white, with short arms, it was leaning against a tree box and moaning eerily. When Burkhart approached, it vanished “as if by magic.”

“Sedgwick’s ghost” was the talk of the station house and certainly increased newspaper sales for a few days. Some of the officers believed Sedgwick. They decided that the ghost was the spirit of Joseph Beam, who had murdered his stepdaughter Annie Leahy the previous December and had been hanged for it. Others believed it may have been the ghost of Annie herself.

On November 24th, two nights after Sedgwick had fired on the ghost, an unnamed Post reporter decided to take a walk with Sedgwick on his beat. Accompanying them was a new night Inspector, Lieutenant Francis E. Cross, who was skeptical, to say the least.

The reporter described the scene as “desolate.” The streets were, for the most part, unpaved and unlit, and houses were few and far between. As they walked, they passed the occasional alley church holding evening services; the “quavering” voices of both preachers and congregation drifted and faded into the dark night. Was it any wonder, asked the writer, in the racist prose of the times, that Sedgwick, “himself a colored man” saw ghosts—“and when such reliable men as Officer Gee and Station-keeper Burkhardt” also claimed to have seen them.

The writer indulged in several more lines of hyperbole (“It was just such a night as ghosts are said to like. The wind was roaring and groaning, and the shaking of the branches of the leafless trees sounded like the rattle of dry bones.”). Then he returned to the subject of his walk with Sedgwick and the Inspector—the modern reader marvels that a reporter could have remembered such conversations with any accuracy, lacking any kind of recording device and it being too dark to take notes:

“Well, Sedge, have they been around tonight?” asked Inspector Cross.

Sedgwick said no, but it was still early. Then, catching the smile on Cross’s face, he said:

Lieutenant, you may not believe what I said that I have seen, but as sure as I stand here, as sure as there is a judgment day coming, I’ve seen that headless ghost. It was over here again last night. There’s a dog over yonder that often comes out and walks with me for company, and gets some of my lunch. Well, last night, I was walking along and I heard the dog come up behind me and sniffed at my pocket.

“Hello, Jack,” says I. And then I happened to think that I didn’t want the dog with me that night, and I turned around to drive him away, when, what do you think? It was a ghost in the form of a dog. Just that quick it got as big as a horse and as white as the driven snow. Then it changed into a man without any head, and says, “Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!!—just like that—and disappears right through the fence.

Sedgwick reportedly went on to say that he was going to order a set of silver bullets—to the tune of $3 a set.

You can’t kill a ghost, you know, but my grandmother and my mother used to tell me that with silver bullets you could lay the spooks so that they wouldn’t bother you no more.

Cross, still amused, told him, “While you are out shooting as spooks be careful that you don’t shoot me or any one else. I would advise you to shoot in the air.”

Meanwhile the two white policemen, Officer Lewis Gee and Station keeper W. H. Burkhart stood by their stories, and endured ribbing from their colleagues. Over the next week or two, thrill-seeking youth from elsewhere in the city explored Sedgwick’s beat by bicycle in the hopes of seeing the ghost. No one saw a thing.

Had Sedgwick seen anything? If so, were his eyes playing tricks on him in the darkness—or were his fellow officers playing tricks?

That is the most likely scenario--and lest that seem unlikely, consider the great detective Alan Pinkerton, who in his 1878 memoirs, Criminal Reminiscences and Detective Sketches, describes playing a cruel joke on a superstitious Irish officer named O'Grady, on guard duty in a cemetery overnight.

After Sedgwick fired his gun, the ghost was never seen again. But by the time the newspapers were done with Sedgwick, he had been reduced in the public eye from Brave Cop to Timid and Superstitious Negro.

Sedgwick's ghost must have boosted readership, because in December, the Post published a lengthy feature cataloging supernatural goings-on across the city. Of interest in the Sedgwick case is the ghost that two veteran cops—Tom Lynch and Bernard McCormick, then with the Eighth precinct—stepped forward to report: They had seen a woman robed in white, with skin like alabaster and strange glowing eyes.

Here’s how Officer McCormick told the tale:

One raw misty night, after the ghost scare had run on for some time, Lynch and I were on a side street. It was away past midnight. Lynch was stretched out on a cord of wood that had been stacked in the road, and I was standing by the side of the pile, keeping a lookout for the night inspector.

Suddenly, I saw the ghost. There is was flitting along the other side of the street looking for all the world as if it had just come out of the grave. I gives Lynch a rap with my night stick, and says in a whisper:

“Tom, the ghost is here.”

Lynch hops up as if he had been bitten by a Jersey skeeter. You see, he thought it was the night inspector.

When Lunch jumped up, that kind of scared the ghost. The thing jumped back and didn’t know what to do. It turned its face, and such a face I never saw. It was only half way across the street from us, but I could see that it had the face of death. The ghost puts its hands down at its sides and draws back its white robe a little. And I saw that it had small white feet, like a woman. Then it gave a shriek that ended in a mocking laugh, that seemed to freeze the very marrow in my bones.

I tell you, it makes a fellow feel a little shaky when a ghost gets across the street from him and gives him the ice house laugh. The ghost seemed to be as badly scared as we were, so I says to Lynch, “Tom, let’s find out about this blamed thing, right now.”

“All right,” says my partner, and then we darts across the street right at the spook.

The thing never moved, and we grabbed it. Well, what do you think. It wasn’t no ghost at all. Just a woman. She was a little gone mentally, and the saddest looking woman I ever saw, and I’ve seen lots of ‘em a-lookin’ so sorrowful and a-making a fellow feel sorry for the misfortunes of mortals. This woman’s eyes were sunk away back in her head, and were as black as night itself. And her face was dead white, except around her eyes. And her hair was very long and all loose. She had on a night gown and was barefooted. She didn’t do anything but shriek kind o’ frightened like and then laugh in her awful way.

Tom and me took her over to the station, and the Sergeant said it wasn’t no use holding her, ‘cause it’s mighty hard to make a disorderly conduct cause against any one that’s crazy. So we went back to Le Droit Park and scouted around until we found out who were her relatives, and then we turned her over to them. They said that as a rule, she wasn’t very bad, only sometimes she was worse than others, and that they would take care of her. So that was the end of the ghost out in the Eighth.”

As an interesting side note, McCormick had recently been transferred from the Eighth to the Ninth Precinct.

Could creating a ghost to spook Sedgwick have been inspired by his tale?

Oh, no! the reader might be tempted to cry. They wouldn’t have done anything so mean, would they?

One wonders. Over on Brown Street in Georgetown, a few years later, “ghosts” rained rocks, bricks and even rotting vegetables for several nights in a row over the terrified black inhabitants of a certain alley. Police patrolled the area but did not seem to do anything more than stand around and declare they were mystified. Some residents blamed the supernatural; others blamed “pranksters;” but one thing is for sure, the incident nearly caused the “depopulation” of the black neighborhood which was, in the eyes of many white Georgetowners, an eyesore.

More to come...

Picture credits: "Jim Crow," courtesy Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA

Top left: Author's own.

Portraits of Noah Sedgwick and Francis Cross from: Young, J. Russell and Feeney, James L., The Metropolitan Police Department: An Official Illustrated History. Washington D.C., Lawrence Publishing Co., 1908.

Noah E. Sedgwick: A Black Cop in DC's Gilded Age

2010-03-22T11:43:00.000-07:00

March 17th, 1892:

34-year-old Noah E. Sedgwick dipped his pen in ink and began a letter to John W. Ross, Commissioner of the District of Columbia:

Dr. Sir, I have the honor to make application for a patrol driver or the like under your branch of the District Government. I will faithfully discharge the duties assigned me. Your obedient Servnt, Noah Sedwick.

A month later, Sedgwick once again took up his pen and filled out an application for appointment to the Metropolitan Police Department.

13. Have you ever been indicted and convicted of any crime?   Have not.
14. Are you addicted to the use of intoxicating liquors, morphine or opium? Not.
15. Have you ever been addicted to the use of any of these articles?   No.
16. When did you last drink intoxicating liquors?   March 11th, 92.

The application even asked whether Sedgwick suffered from piles or rheumatism, but it did not ask him his race.

Sedgwick attached to his application endorsements from some of Georgetown’s most prominent businessmen: Lumber merchant Samuel E. Wheatley; Frederick L. Moore, who owned an agricultural warehouse; Druggist William D. Brace; N Street physician, Dr. Henderson Suter; George T. Dunlop; and about a dozen others, all of whom agreed that the former schoolteacher and waiter Noah E. Sedgwick was cheerful, hard-working, and honest.

From his application, we know that Sedgwick was born on August 5, 1858 in Montgomery County, Md., just four years before the institution of slavery was abolished, and was a resident of Georgetown, D.C.

We know that his father had earlier died of typhoid fever and that Noah was now supporting a family of four—his mother may have been among them.

Noah may have been the son of Richard Sedgwick, born about 1845 in Berry’s District (just northeast of Wheaton) Montgomery County, who later moved to Georgetown, D.C.

On November 19, 1878, Noah was licensed to marry Emma L. Senkfield in Georgetown, and by 1880, the couple were living in Cracklin, Maryland (before it was incorporated in 1892, Laytonsville in Montgomery County was called Cracklinville, after the popular Cracklin bread, which was baked in a local tavern. After awhile, the entire district around the area was nicknamed “Cracklin.”). He was listed as a school teacher.


Grifton School, courtesy Sandy Spring Museum

Nina Clarke and Lillian Brown's History of the Black Public Schools of Montgomery County, Md: 1872-1961 show that in 1880, Noah taught at the tiny Grifton school on Mt. Zion road, halfway between Laytonsville and Sandy Spring, Md., which had been built four years earlier.

A year later, he was teaching at the Emory school in the black settlement of Emory Grove, near Gaithersburg, Md. Emory Grove had, since the mid 1800's, been the site of a black Methodist camp meeting that predated the white meeting site at Washington Grove. Camp meetings, usually held in late summer, gathered together Methodist and non-Methodist Christians for several days of preaching, prayer, bible study and socializing--and baptisms.

By 1883, as the chart below shows, he had an average of 35 pupils enrolled for at least three terms of the year. This number fell in summer, when children were needed at home to help with farming. That year, he was paid $172.41--based on enrollment.

It is assumed that Noah's wife Emma died sometime before 1883, which was the year he married his second wife, Mary. The same year, Mary gave birth to the couple's first son, William. Records show that they were still living in Maryland at the time of his birth.

By the late 1880s, Noah was living in Georgetown, where he worked over the next few years alternately as a cook, laborer, teacher and waiter. At the time of his application to the DC police force, he was both living and working at Charles Field’s Saloon at 3004 M Street (where the Latham Hotel now stands), supporting a family of four.

On August 1, Sedgwick was accepted onto the Metropolitan Police Force and appointed a Private, Class 1 D.C. Police Officer and was assigned to the 9th District in Northeast (pictured in 1894, below. Sedgwick is standing, second to right figure in the back row).

It is not difficult to imagine his feelings as he donned the private’s uniform for the first time: It was single-breasted blue “frock”--or long jacket--ending two inches above the knee, with a single row of nine buttons extending up to a stand-up collar. Sedgwick’s trousers would have had two pockets behind and two in the front: One of these was a regulation five inches wide, seven inches deep and lined with chamois or buckskin, to accommodate his firearm. Lastly, he would have pinned the final symbol of his authority, Badge 379.

Sedgwick was hired at a salary of $900 a year—that is, $75 a month, a very decent salary in the last decade of the 19th century. He had no way of knowing that his time on the force would be limited and that like black officers in departments across the country, white officers would watch his every movement, looking for an excuse to let him go.

Above, abandoned 9th Precinct Building today
Photo © Cecily Hilleary, 2010

The District of Columbia had always had some type of police presence. In the first half of the 19th century, the force consisted of only a handful of constables who kept watch and enforced the laws of the fledgling capital. After the outbreak of the Civil War, however, the safety of the Federal City became a greater concern. Congress officially established the Metropolitan Police Department (hereafter, MPD) on August 6, 1861.

In July, 1869, the MPD accepted its first black officers, Charles C. Tillman and Calvin C. Caruthers. This was not to satisfy any concerns about equal opportunity; this was purely because black cops would be “convenient” to walk the streets of black neighborhoods.

Racial tensions were high in Washington as in nearly every urban center as blacks came to terms with the reality that emancipation was not the same as political freedom. White officers were prone to the use of excessive force when dealing with blacks—and those blacks who tried to challenge the system were met with resistance, if not violent reprisals.

White residents blamed blacks for rising crime and asked the city to hire more police (from 1866 to 1880, the police force employed only 200 officers; differing shifts meant that at best, there were only about 125 stretched over a territory 75 square miles). It was hoped that black residents could better identify with black officers.

Tillman and Caruthers faced considerable opposition within the MPD. One white officer, Samuel H. Ellis, refused to work with a black man and was dismissed. He was later pardoned and reinstated. Some black residents would have resented the two, seeing them as agents of white authority and oppression.

It would be difficult to find statistics on how many black officers served at any one time in Washington—histories of the police force do not provide statistics, nor do service records.

What is certain is that they remained the minority: 1890, there were over 74,600 police-and firemen in the United States; only about 2,000 were African American. Another certainty is that a black man never served on the force for long: In 1879, only a single black officer remained of the previous 50 black officers hired.

In Washington as in cities across the U.S., 19th Century black officers would never be assigned to white neighborhoods, and certainly any attempt by a black policeman to enforce the law upon whites would have generated resentment, if not all-out retaliation—never mind the legendary arrest of Ulysses S. Grant by a black officer who did not recognize the President. Grant had been racing his horse buggy at a breakneck clip through the streets of Washington. After the officer impounded both buggy and horse, the president cheerfully commended him on his work and walked back to the White House. Or so the story goes.

Black officers, not surprisingly, were subjected to severe discrimination by both the department and fellow officers: They were given the most undesirable shifts and beats, were passed over for promotions, and in many cases actively driven from their jobs.

Sedgwick’s beat was vast: It ran from Twelfth Street N.E. to the Eastern branch of the Potomac River and from North Capitol Street all the way to F Street N.E. He does not appear to have worked with a partner, but it is clear that white officers kept a close eye on his comings and goings.

Like other policemen, he was in charge of keeping law and order on his beat. This did not simply amount to chasing criminals. More often than not, it was mundane work: helping the homeless, searching for lost children, returning stray livestock to rightful owners, checking doors and escorting the inebriated back to their families.

Sedgwick distinguished himself in at least two sensational cases: In May, 1894, he made the newspapers by arresting the so-called “Candy Man,” a 40-year-old German pedophile named Henry Windelberg, tried to lure two young girls away from Lincoln Park by promising them candy.

A year later, Sedgwick went unassisted to investigate the unreported death of an elderly woman at “Aunt” Hetty Green’s, a notorious “cook shop” (saloon) and brothel at the corner of 17th and B Streets, N.E. (today’s Constitution Avenue). He found a
large group of men holding a “wake” over the woman’s body.

This in itself was not an unusual practice among the city’s poor residents; funerals were often conducted in alleys and neighborhood streets, where family members took up collections to pay for a coffin and other funeral expenses.

However, the men gathered at Green’s saloon this particular evening were drunk and made a huge racket singing “indecent” songs. Sedgwick ordered them to disperse, and they did—that is, all but one, who sneered and challenged Sedgwick’s authority.

“What are you afraid of?” the man called out to the others and he cursed “that there man in brass buttons.” In no time, a crowd began to surround Sedgwick, and when he tried to arrest the instigator, as many as thirty men attacked him.

Sedgwick fought bravely. In fact, said the Post, the only way he escaped with his life was with the “free use” of his nightstick. Somehow, Sedgwick got away--cut, bruised and missing both a tooth and his police badge.

These and other examples of Sedgwick’s diligence and bravery are not noted in his service record. What the file does contain is a series write-ups, complaints and charges of neglect of duty, each of which resulted in $5-10 fines—and recommendations that he be released from the force.

Sedgwick was not the first—and would not be the last—cop, white or black, to be charged with misconduct. Browsing service records and newspaper accounts, officers seemed to spend as much time as possible finding ways to break the rules and avoid the sharp eyes of 9th Precinct House Inspector Isaac Pearson. “Uncle Ike,” as he was called, was a Civil War and Navy veteran noted for his toughness. His job was not only to inspect the officers, as his title suggested, but to prowl their beats to ensure that his officers did not stray from duty.

The most common offenses were “hoodling”—that is, the practice whereby one partner would keep lookout while the other napped, consorting with hookers and drinking on duty. Every corner had its saloon, and all a man in blue had to do was tap on a window, and a glass of whiskey or beer would be passed to him.
On October 19th, 1892, Sedgwick was up before the Trial Committee for the first time:

That said Noah E. Sedgwick, a private of Class 1 in the Metropolitan Police Force D.C., while on duty on or about the 10th day of October, 1892, did leave his beat and enter grocery and liquor store kept by John T. Cheshire, No., 1168 20th Street, N.W.

Sedgwick pled guilty and gave several excuses which were rather lame. He was fined $10, half of which was to be paid in November and the other half in December.

Sedgwick was tried for neglect of duty again in August, 1893. Both he and a new white recruit, D.M. Reidy, were accused of having failed to patrol their beats between 3:50 and 4:20 A.M. Both men pled guilty and were fined $10, payable in two installments. No further details were noted. It can only be presumed that one of them caught a half-hour nap while the other kept guard. Figuring out who did which is a matter for guesswork. Sedgwick promised it would never happen again.

Some sort of charges were pending against Sedgwick in May, 1895--which prompted a Mr. A.S. Richardson to write a letter to DC Commissioner George Truesdell in support of the officer:

Dear Sir: I understand that there are charges against Noah Sedgwick, a policeman within whose beat I reside and whom I have known some years. I beg to say a word in his behalf or rather to suggest that from my observation and knowledge of him he is a very efficient officer and a man of strictly temperate life. He is popular and well liked and any consideration extended to him will meet the approval of the citizens in this section.

Trusting that you will excuse this, perhaps seeming trespass, I am, very respectfully yours...

On July 3, 1895, Sedgwick once again went before the DC Board of Commissioners:

That N.E. Sedgwick, a private of Class 1 in the Metropolitan Police Force, D. of C., did, on or about the 25th day of June, 1895, at or about the hour of 10:40 p.m. enter a bar room premises situate [sic] on B between 13th and 14th streets, N.W., and remain therein three minutes. This while on duty.

This case would have been thrown out of any modern trial room. Sedgwick left his beat to use a privy located in an alley stable, which happened to be situated a few yards behind a saloon. Uncle Ike Pearson had observed the entire thing from the street and was the first to testify against Sedgwick:

Q: Inspector, state what your knowledge is concerning this case.

A: On the evening in question, I saw Mr. Sedgwick enter these premises and remain in there about three minutes, and then come out.

Q: What premises were they?

A: B Street [Constitution Avenue] between 13th and 14th North-east.

Q: What kind of premises?

A: Bar room premises.

Q: Did he enter the bar room proper?

A: No, sir; he entered through the alley, through a stable.

Q: Was he gone from your view long enough to have gone to the bar room?

A: Yes, sir.

Well, no, admitted Pearson, when pressed, he didn’t exactly see Sedgwick go into the bar. He saw him enter the premises.

Q: Did you discover any fumes of liquor on his breath?

A: I thought I did at one time; one time I got pretty close to him, I thought I smelled liquor, but he got away from me every time I got close to him; he would step away, back away…

Q: What excuse, if any, did he give for entering the place?

A: Said he went in there to urinate.

Q: Was there any other place in the vicinity where he could have gone that was not a bar room premises, for this purpose?

A: This was an alley, a very dark alley, and there was a cart in this alley where no one could have seen him…

Q: Suppose, Lieutenant, instead of urinating in the stable he had gone to a privy, and found a man there, and had to wait a minute or two, you would not have reported him?

A: No, sir; if he had gone there, and a man was in there, and Mr. Sedgwick had to wait there a few minutes, and I knew that he went in there for the purpose of urinating, and there was no other place for him to go, I would not have reported him, but there were other places to urinate, but he selected this place to urinate, and also that I had a complaint that he went there every evening on duty to drink.

In what had to be an excruciatingly embarrassing experience, Sedgwick desribed how he had entered the stable from the alley and found the privy occupied. Unwilling or unable to wait any longer, he said he had stepped out into the yard between the stable and the saloon and urinated there.

Q: What did you go in there for?

A: To urinate.

Q: Is that or not a part of the bar room premises?

A: I would not consider it so.

Q: What premises are the?

A: Mr. Calahan has charge of that stable; he rents that stable.

Q: Was it on your beat?

A: Yes, sir.

Q: And you don’t think you were in there three minutes?

A: No, sir, I don’t.

Q: The Lieutenant thinks you might have secreted yourself in some other place than in that water closet to urinate, how about that? Do you know of any other place?

A: Yes, sir, the whole commons is wide open.

The privy occupant, Mr. William Clayton, supported Sedgwick’s testimony; in fact, he said, Sedgwick had inadvertently opened the door on Clayton, and exchanged brief words with the man. Clayton could hear Sedgwick urinating outside.

In addition, the bartender, A. W. Clark, testified that Sedgwick had never entered the bar room nor had any drinks delivered to him in the yard.

In spite of all the testimony in his favor, the trial committee found Sedgwick guilty of a neglect of duty and fined him $5, due on or before August 5th.

More to come...

Photo Credits:

Photos of Ninth Police District and detail of Noah Sedgwick from: Young, J. Russell and Feeney, James L., The Metropolitan Police Department: An Official Illustrated History. Washington D.C., Lawrence Publishing Co., 1908.

Washington DC Police and Fire Precinct Map arranged by Richard Sylvester, from Report of the Commissioners of the District of Columbia [1898], courtesy Historical Society of Washington, D.C.

Found: Old Photo of Wilson Normal School Students, 1923

2010-03-22T10:33:00.000-07:00

Perhaps somewhere out, a reader might recognize one of the young ladies in this photo, which QW found while indulging in one of her favorite pastimes, flea marketing.

The Wilson Normal School, first named the Washington Normal School, was established in 1873 to train young white high school graduates to become elementary school teachers. One of the school’s chief missions—as with “normal schools” all over the country—was to established standards of teaching or “norms”—thus, the term “Normal."

Predating the Wilson School, the Normal School for Colored Girls had been established in 1851; its name was thankfully changed to Miner Normal School in 1879.

The Washington Normal School changed its name to the James Ormond Wilson Normal School in 1913 to honor the then-superintendent of D.C. schools.

The School was originally housed in the Franklin School Building at 660 K Street, NW (left). It's first graduating class of 18 young white women began classes in September, 1873.

In 1911, Congress granted the white school money to erect a new building at Eleventh and Harvard Streets, NW (right). This was completed a year later and first occupied in 1913. Today, this delightful building houses the Carlos Rosario International Career Center.

The Miner College then occupied Franklin School.

In 1929, the US Congress turned both the Wilson and Miner Schools into four-year teaching colleges--they were renamed the Wilson Teachers College and Miner Teachers College respectfully.

In 1955, the segregated Wilson and Miner Teachers Colleges were merged to become the District of Columbia Teachers College--the precursor to the University of the District of Columbia.

Photo credits:
Students, Wilson Normal School, from QW's private collection.
Buildings, courtesy University of the District of Columbia, Learning Resources Division, University Archives Collection.

Update on Lena Gray (Quondam Washington,Jan. 17, 2009)

2010-03-22T09:48:00.000-07:00

Lena Gray, three of whose photos appear on QW's 1/17/2009 posting, may have been Josephine L. Gray, daughter of John A Gray, a prominent African American restaurateur in Washington during the second half of the 19th Century.

Gray was nominated by President Ullyses S. Grant, April 13, 1871, to serve as a member of territorial Washington's council of the legislative assembly, along with Frederick Douglass and others.

Gray's restaurant was said to have been one of the "first" restaurants in the city, and the African American newspaper, the Washington Bee, listed him as one of the "moneyed" members of DC's black society.

Gray was born in Washington, DC in 1835 to Jane and Basil Gray, a laborer. The family appears in the 1850 census as living in Ward 4.

By the 1850s, John had established himself as a caterer in Washington. For awhile, he had a restaurant which, according to the Bee and other sources, was popular among a predominantly white clientele.

The Gray family found itself the subject of some unwanted attention in February of 1859. John rented out a house he owned--at 383 15th Street, N.W., just two blocks away from Lafayette Square. His tenant? The dashing rake, Phillip Barton Key, the son of Francis Scott Key. Phillip was a US District Attorney who fell in love with the beautiful Theresa Bagioli, the wife of N.Y. Congressman Daniel Sickles.

For two years, the couple carried on, using the Gray house as their "love nest," according to George Rothwell Brown in his 1930 book, Washington: A Not too Serious History. Whenever Key wanted to meet his lover, he would stand in Lafayette Park within view of her windows and flap his handkerchief as a signal.

On Saturday night, February 26, Mrs. Sickles broke down and confessed everything in writing to her husband (published in Harper's Magazine, below, right).

The next evening, an unsuspecting Key waved his handkerchief as usual. It was Mr. Sickles who met Key, not Mrs. S.

Key, you scoundrel!" Sickles allegedly cried. "You have dishonored my bed–you must die!"

With that, he pulled out his two-dollar and fired at Key. He missed the first shot and as Key begged for mercy, he calmly walked up closer and shot him twice again.

As readers likely know, Keys died, Sickles was tried and acquitted of the murder by reason of temporary insanity. This was the first time such a defense had been admitted in US jurisprudence.

This is not so terribly surprising, as according to the thinking of the times, a man had a right to exact revenge on his wife's seducer--even if she had been a consenting party.

Sickles reunited--at least publicly--with his wife, but was shunned by Washington society forever after.

He retired in 1861.

Theresa died of TB in 1867.

And Quondam Washington supposes that John A. Gray found another tenant soon thereafter.

However, none of this answers the fundamental question--what really did become of the lovely Lena Gray?

Photo credits:

Lena Gray, courtesy of the Photography Collections, University of Maryland, Baltimore County.

Washington Bee, courtesy the Library of Congress and National Endowment for the Humanities. Chronicling America is sponsored jointly by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Library of Congress as part of the National Digital Newspaper Program (NDNP).

Coming Soon: Black Man's Beat--On Being a Black Cop in DC's Gilded Age

2010-03-01T15:32:00.000-08:00

March 17th, 1892:

An excited Noah E. Sedgwick dipped his pen in ink and began a letter to John W. Ross, Commissioner of the District of Columbia:

Dr. Sir, I have the honor to make application for a patrol driver or the like under your branch of the District Government. I will faithfully discharge [sic] the duties assigned me. Your obedient Servnt, Noah Sedwick.

A month later, Sedgwick once again took up the pen and filled out an application for appointment to the Metropolitan Police Department:

13. Have you ever been indicted and convicted of any crime? Have not.

14. Are you addicted to the use of intoxicating liquors, morphine or opium? Not.

15. Have you ever been addicted to the use of any of these articles? No.

16. When did you last drink intoxicating liquors? March 11^th, 92.

The application even asked whether Sedgwick suffered from piles or rheumatism.

It did not, however, ask him his race. As if this did not matter...

1908: Washington Segregated

2010-02-23T19:27:00.001-08:00

In researching a coming blog post, Quondam Washington came upon the following article, written in 1908, commenting on the near-complete segregation of blacks and whites in the Capital City (citation below).

The author, incidentally, was an African American.

A COLOR PHASE IN WASHINGTON

By Osceola Madden

In Washington, the great capital city of the greatest country on earth, the separation of the races is more nearly complete than in any other city of the union. This does not even except the South, for here, where there is the largest colored population of any of our cities, the largest point of contact, that of personal service, is growing smaller each year and white help in private homes, boarding houses and hotels is taking the place of colored, while "white barber's" shops, until recently unknown in the South, arc getting very common.

Shoe-shining parlors in the downtown districts, well appointed, with upholstered seats, electric lights and fans, periodicals and newspapers, have monopolized the trade of the once familiar black bootblack with box and chair.

In Washington the colored infant is introduced to his existence by a colored physician, often in a colored hospital with colored staff and nurses (the Freedmen's is the largest in the District). When old enough he goes to a colored school to study and play with colored children only. He sees white children and grown-ups in the complete than in any other city of the union. This does not even except the South, for here, where there is the largest colored population of any of our cities, the largest point of contact, that of personal service, is growing smaller each year and white help in private homes, boarding houses and hotels is taking the place of colored, while "white barber's" shops, until recently unknown in the South, arc getting very common. Shoe-shining parlors in the downtown districts, well appointed, with upholstered seats, electric lights and fans, periodicals and newspapers, have monopolized the trade of the once familiar black bootblack with box and chair.

After a course in the colored graded schools, should a profession be desired he can make a limited selection and get an excellent training at the one colored university, Howard. With the exception of the Catholic University all the others are closed tight — for him.

Should he not have desired or have been unable to obtain, a professional education, when ready to look for a life vocation or compelled by circumstances to hustle for a living, he is certainly up against a hard proposition if he is intelligent and ambitious. The number of trades offering him opportunity to become a skilled mechanic is small, and industries in which he can secure profitable employment, regardless of his preparation and ability, are few. Without capital and experience, it is practically impossible for him to make a successful business beginning. What he shall do is not easy to decide.

Later, should he require legal assistance of any sort, excellent lawyers of color are ready to aid him, or if unfortunate enough to run afoul of the law he may be arrested by a policeman of his own race and have his case, if minor, tried before a colored magistrate. When he has lived a long and useful life, and all hope of local suffrage to help lessen the discrimination against him has departed, he gives up the ghost, and after a colored minister of the gospel has eulogized him in a colored church, a colored undertaker buries him in a colored cemetery. From beginning to end he has not crossed the color line.

As a matter of fact, in Washington, as in many other southern cities, the better classes of white and colored people know absolutely nothing of each other. They pass on the streets, sometimes, but that is as near as they ever get. In the schools, in the churches, in the various pursuits of gaining a livelihood, and —speak it gently — socially, the two races are entirely separate and apart.

According to the police census of last year the district has a population of 329,591, of which number 96,188 are colored people. Of approximately 450 clerks in the District (municipal) Building nine are colored men, a majority of the messengers and laborers being of the same race. The police force of 731 has thirty-eight colored officers on its roll, while nine of the 398 members of the fire-fighting force are colored. . The chief of the fire department says that he contemplates establishing a fire company composed entirely of colored men some time in the future.

In the city post office there are 556 white and seventy-nine colored clerks, including substitutes, and 325 white and fifty-five colored mail carriers on the list. Of the six city magistrates one is a colored man drawing a salary of $2,500. The colored Recorder of Deeds gets $4,000 as his annual compensation, and the president recently appointed a young colored lawyer as Assistant United States Attorney at a salary of $2,000.

The local school system is a dual one, the superintendent being white with a white assistant superintendent in charge of the white schools and a colored assistant in charge of the colored schools. For the 111 white and sixty-five colored school buildings there was an enrollment at the close of the last school year of 1,058 white teachers with 35,356 white pupils, and 517 colored teachers who gave instruction to 17,382 colored pupils.

For a great many years the government departments have drawn numbers of capable colored men with their families from all parts of the country, and there are now thousands of cultured, well-educated and refined colored people in the capital, many of them living in handsome and even elegant homes of their own. In this connection it may be worth while to state that of the total value of taxed property in the District of Columbia, $382,987,251 (this does not include government property to the value of hundreds of millions); nearly $23,000,000 worth is owned by colored people. This estimate is based upon the latest report of the Assessor of the District.

In the nine executive departments of the National Government there are approximately 1,450 colored employees, about three hundred of that number being clerks, drawing salaries ranging from $240 for the humble charwoman to $4,000 for the Register of the Treasury. The total amount paid these 1,450 employees is about $817,240 each year. One colored woman clerk enjoys a salary of $1,800. In addition to the Register of the Treasury, the Assistant Register, the Auditor for the Navy Department and, I believe, one or two chiefs of divisions are also colored.

The corps of instructors in the local schools includes graduates of Harvard, Yale, Amherst, and others of the leading colleges, as well as a few from Oxford and from the leading universities of France and Germany, and some who have studied in Italy and Spain. Howard University, the foremost colored institution of learning in the country, and to which, by the way, Andrew Carnegie has recently donated $50,000 for a library, offers many advantages to the student in the higher branches, and is making an effort to include technical courses for those inclined to take more than the ordinary course in manual training. This institution is supported by Congressional appropriations and by private contributions.

Washington has no large industries or business houses managed by colored men, and there is no colored bank. There are many small stores and enterprises operated successfully, and in a limited number of trades many colored men make a comfortable living.

Of the benevolent and kindred organizations the "True Reformers" are very prominent. The local manager states that the order has a membership of ninety thousand, spread over thirty-seven states, including five thousand in Washington. They have erected in the city at a cost of $100,000 a handsome structure which contains the armory for the colored militia, a commodious entertainment hall, a drug store, and a number of office and lodge rooms. The building has proved a paying investment.

Among the professional men of color are many lawyers, some of whom do well, a goodly number of dentists with all they can do, and physicians with large and in some instances lucrative practices. Of the 1,459 registered physicians in the city seventy-six are colored, about fifty being regular practitioners; a number of the others are government clerks, "Sun Downers," practicing after office hours. Some of these physicians do exceedingly well, one in particular having a sanatorium and dwelling in the residential portion of Pennsylvania Avenue, about six blocks from the White House, and valuable properties located in other parts of the city.

There are a number of colored architects, at least two being very successful with excellent work to their credit, an automobile establishment, ten drug stores, two of which contain sub-post office stations, and two first-class photographic studios. A colored woman conducts an establishment of considerable size with schools of instruction in dressmaking, millinery and cooking, and in addition an employment bureau. There is also a flourishing Conservatory of Music and School of Expression in its fifth year, with an enrollment of 178 pupils and eight instructors.

A Young Men's Christian Association and a like organization for young women are struggling to get well established, and in the southwest portion of the city a colored woman is conducting a social settlement, which is doing most excellent work among the poorer classes of colored people in that section.

There are 114 colored churches in Washington, of all denominations, a majority Baptist with a goodly number of Methodists; also Episcopal, Presbyterian, Seventh Day, Holiness, Catholic and Lutheran, which would seem to assure a happy future for the colored people now here, however the present may seem.

The World To-Day, Vol. XIV, No. 1, January 1908, pp 549-552.

Photos, courtesy Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA

History of a Defunct Church: Central Presbyterian Church of Washington, D.C.

2010-02-19T15:08:00.001-08:00

Note: in the pages of a book the writer recently picked up in a used book shop, she found the following history, typed on three folded, yellowed, nearly-transparent sheets of paper. The name "Pat Pritchett" is written in blue ink at the top right of the document--in a decidedly feminine hand. I have duplicated the piece as it was written, commas and all.

Today, the former Central Presbyterian Church building, at 3047 Fifteenth Street, NW, houses the Capital City Public Charter School.

CENTRAL PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH

OF WASHINGTON, D. C.

----------------------------------

It was in January, 1868, that a handful of Christians decided to begin public worship in Washington, D.C., and the Rev. A.W. Pitzer was invited to preach. They had secured a room in the Columbian Law Building on

Fifth Street, N.W.

, between D and E Streets. The church was organized and this small group, with no money, no officers, no Presbytery, not a foot of ground—nothing to encourage them—planned to build a church. A Sunday School had already been organized. As a result of faith and self-denial a lot at the corner of Third and I Streets, N.W., was purchased on December 1, 1871 and ground broken June 24, 1872 for erection of a chapel. Within five years after organization of the church, the chapel was completed. The main sanctuary was built alter and was dedicated December 6, 1885.

For thirty years, the Central Presbyterian Church was the only Presbyterian Church in Washington connected with the Southern General Assembly.

After a remarkably long and active pastorate, Dr. Pitzer resigned in April 1906, was made pastor emeritus, and moved to Salem, Virginia, his boyhood home, where he lived until his death.

In September 1906, the Rev. James H. Taylor was called as pastor, and entered upon the work in November 1906.

Due to changing conditions in the neighborhood the congregation considered securing a new location, and a lot was purchased in August, 1909, at 13^th and Monroe Streets, N.W. On this lot was erected a portable chapel and a Sunday School started. Son this piece of property was deemed inadequate for expansion and it was disposed of. A new site at the corner of Fifteenth and Irving Streets, N.W. was secured and the frame chapel moved to this site in 1912. During these years, Dr. Taylor was assisted during various periods by the Rev. John W. Walker, the Rev. H. W. Shannon and the Rev. D. W. Gates.

Before the property at Third and I Streets was sold in 1913, Woodrow Wilson came to Washington as President of the Untied States, and on the first Sunday after his inauguration he came to Central Church to worship—on March 9, 1913—and became a regular member of this congregation.

In October 1913, preparations were begun for the new building at 15^th and Irving Streets, N.W. On December 19, 1913, President Woodrow Wilson laid the cornerstone. This new building was occupied in February 1914. Soon after the President came to Washington, word was received that he would supply the flowers each Sunday for the sanctuary. These flowers were always delivered on Saturday. During his term of office The President presented two gold plated vases for flowers.

The new sanctuary was dedicated May 31, 1914, with Dr. Pitzer addressing the congregation. In May 1918, Central Church celebrated its Fiftieth Anniversary, at which Dr. Walter W. Moore of Union Theological Seminary, Richmond, Virginia, preached.

The property on

Irving Street

, adjacent to the church, was purchased, and in 1930 a Sunday School Building erected, with the cornerstone laid by President Herbert Hoover.

On May 28, 1933, the Sixty-fifth Anniversary of the organization of the church was observed.

The Seventieth Anniversary, on May 29, 1938, was another important event, when Dr. Ben R. Lacy, Jr., President of Union Seminary, Richmond, Virginia, Preached. Other ministers who assisted the pastor during these years included the Rev. Fred V. Poag, the Rev. R. McFerran Crowe, the Rev. William F. Mansell, the Rev. Yandell Page and the Rev. J. Walter Dickson.

A Vacation Bible School had been started and carried on for over twenty years under the supervision of Miss Mary Coit. Also a Friday night Class, begun in 1924, under the instruction of the pastor.

Many beautiful memorials have been presented to the church over the years. Only two pastors served the church in seventy-five years.

In October 1943, Dr. Taylor resigned and became pastor emeritus. (Dr. Pitzer died in 1927). The Rev. William F. Mansell became pastor, following Dr. Taylor, but ill health forced his resignation February 26, 1946.

Chaplain Alexander J. McKelway served as preacher for morning services until 1947, when the Rev. Graham Gordon Lacy was called as pastor and installed June 8, 1947. The honorary degree of Doctor of Divinity was conferred on him by Hampden-Sydney College June 1948.

On November 18, 1956, a noteworthy event occurred, when a Centennial Memorial Service for Woodrow Wilson was held at Central. At the 9:30 A.M. Service of Remembrance a bronze tablet was unveiled by Mrs. Wilson, renaming the educational building the Woodrow Wilson Building. The Memorial Service was held at 11:00 A.M., with the Rev. Dr. John Alexander Mackay as speaker.

The question of possible relocation of Central Church was considered, and on June 10, 1958, the congregation voted to remain at the present location. At the same time the calling of an assistant minister was authorized, together with the purchase of a manse. As a result of this action, the Rev. Jamie D. Stimson was called as Assistant Minister, and installed June 21, 1959.

Photo, courtesy http://www.streetsofwashington.blogspot.com/

Mothers of Invention

2010-02-16T15:18:00.000-08:00

Today, Quondam Washington would like to pay tribute to some Washington inventors--men and women whose creativity, ingenuity and perseverance have somehow been forgotten to history.

Mr. James H. Welch of Georgetown who designed what observers claimed was the most perfect machine yet produced for its purpose—that is, the liquor bottle register. A nickel-plated device, it was attached to the neck of liquor bottles so that it registered every drink a customer took. This way, bartenders had no opportunity to forget how much liquor they dispensed. At the time of this invention (1878), the liquor tax was two and a half cents per drink—that is, if they remembered to register the drinks. Proponents of Welch’s bottle register suggested that if the contraption were used consistently, tax authorities could reduce the liquor tax to a half cent a bottle and still generate more tax revenue. Dull, yes, but clever.

Mr. John J. Burrows patented in 1872 a form of pavement involving rectangular wooden blocks—it’s a bit difficult for the highly non-technical QW to visualize the system: Block were composed of one vertical and one inclined side, and one concave and the other convex. When the blocks are laid, the projection of one block would fit into the recess of an adjoining block. Oh, yeah, I get it now. Between each row strips would be placed, which would leave grooves—and these would be filled with concrete, gravel or sand.

Good thinking, Mr. Burrows. But even more boring than the liquor bottle register.

19th Century schoolteacher Miriam E. Benjamin conceived of a device she called a “Gong and Signal Chair” for hotels. Hotel and restaurant guests, if they needed the service, would simply press a button located on the chair which would not only send a signal a waiter or other attendant, but cause a small light on the chair to be illuminated. In her patent application, Ms. Benjamin declared that her invention would “reduce the expenses of hotels by decreasing the number of waiters and attendants, to add to the convenience and comfort of guests and to obviate the necessity of hand clapping or calling aloud to obtain the services of pages.” QW gives her honorable mention, as her chair was an important predecessor to the signals we now use on airlines across the globe.

At least two African American women of Washington obtained patents for their inventions: In 1884, Judy W. Reed, the first woman of color to ever do so, was awarded a patent for her hand-operated dough kneader and roller. I'd buy one--if they were still offered for sale. I'll wager Ms. Reed never got rich, and there is scant mention of her in the literature.

QW’s heart goes out to another African-American inventor in Washington, Ms. Ellen Eglin. She invented the clothes wringer for washing machines which would have been a real money-maker for her. However, she sold the patent rights to her wringer for a mere $18, because, as she explained,

You know I am black and if it was known that a Negro woman patented the invention white ladies would not buy the wringer, I was afraid to be known because of my color, in having it introduced into the market, that is the only reason.

James William Bryan in 1923 announced he had some three dozen or more patents for an automobile with legs. Imagine a five-passenger car with no clutch, no gears, no springs—and weighing half of a Model T or any other wheeled car. Most amazing of all, Mr. Bryan claimed that with two engines developing a combined horsepower of 40, why, his machine was capable of racing as fast as 81 miles per hour. Most amazing of all, he claimed his car could rise up or down one foot—without moving the motorcar from a horizontal plane. You hear that, Smart Cars???

Perhaps the city’s most prolific inventor was Mr. C. Francis Jenkins, a lowly stenographer with an interest in film. Mr. Thomas Edison may have gotten all the credit for inventing the kinetoscope, but it was Jenkins who originated and patented the original Phantascope. After a dispute with Jenkins, his partner Thomas Armat sold the design to Edison—and it was reborn as the Vitascope.

In 1924, Jenkins wowed Washingtonians with a demonstration at the Wardman Park Hotel of the “radio photo letter”—the predecessor of today’s facsimile machine.

By 1913 he was promising Americans that they would be able to enjoy radio vision—that is, moving pictures by wireless. In 1925, he said that he had only a few more details to work out. “To me, it does not seem strange that we shall presently plug into the loudspeaker jack of our radio receiving set a small boxlike device which will project a picture on a small white screen—an action picture of some event then taking place downtown, or in some more distant city, a Presidential ceremonial, a national sport, a spectacular event.” Jenkins built the nation’s first television transmitter, located on the Virginia side of the Anacostia river. On June 13, 1925, he performed his first public wireless transmission from Arlington, Virginia across the river to Washington, D.C. Besides all this, he was granted more than 400 U.S. patents for inventions ranging from an altimeter, a brake for airplanes, a machine that shelled beans and even the conical paper drinking cup.

QW doesn’t step into an elevator without wanting to go back in time and give Thaddeus Cahill a sharp elbow in the ribs. The grandfather of Muzak, Cahill was a Washington lawyer and inventor who liked to fool around with sound. He wanted to be able to amplify music through the telephone, but there was really no way to amplify it enough so that anyone but the person holding the receiver could hear. If there were, why music could be played in hotels, restaurants, theaters and even private homes.

Thus was the Teleharmonium born. In the earliest model, sound was audible via acoustic horns built from piano soundboards; later models were linked directly to the telephone network or to a series of telephone receivers fitted with special acoustic horns – not unlike those used in old Victrolas.

Cahill built three Teleharmonims [ae?], each one bigger than the last. The final machine weighed about 200 pounds and took up an entire building on west 56th street in New York City. Sadly, his scheme to pipe music on a grand scale failed because it ended up costing too much—in addition, it was discovered that the Teleharmonium interfered with local telephone calling.

Finally, we go way back in the history of our nation, all the way back to our first Commander in Chief, George Washington, who, according to legend, invented an object without which nary a cocktail or a Starbucks latte could be mixed—the swizzle stick. Or so at least one New York Times journalist would write. It was during a trip to Barbados to visit his ailing brother. One hot day, the two men were out walking, and George’s brother declared to that he was tired and thirsty. “It is against my principle,” said George “to venture in uncertain taverns out of idle curiosity.” Why, he would just as soon cut down a cherry tree than taint himself as a barfly!

However, it being an emergency, and his brother looking so terribly peaked, George led the two into a certain tavern before—clearly, he was no stranger there, for the tavern keeper took one look at him and produced a bottle of schnapps.

But on this day, schnapps alone would not do. Our founding father wanted something a bit cooler. The tavern keeper produced a few local ingredients, and George set about composing a concoction that even Washington’s mixologist celebre Derrick M. Brown would envy: Four parts schnapps, a teaspoon of South American bitters and a grating of kola nut. George then broke his clay pipe in half and used the stem to stir the mixture until foam appeared at the top. Thus, the swizzle, both stick and cocktail, was born.

Well, truth or not, this wins QW’s award for one of the most useful inventions ever produced by a Washingtonian. And now, if you’ll excuse me, it’s time to log off, go into the kitchen to mix a Swizzle, which I will stir to a perfect froth with a swizzle stick (lacking a pipe, I'll use my finger), pour it all into a conical paper cup and plop my feet up in front of my portable radio vision machine for some well-deserved leisure time.

Is it me, or did 19th Century DC reporters have far too much time on their hands…

2010-02-15T07:52:00.000-08:00

From the Washington Post, Feb. 24, 1895, p. 17, "He Attracts Attention"

"Like a burst of sunshine in a shadowy place, he comes into the passing crowd and becomes a part of it. Others skip with rapid feet, bending from heel to toe clad in brown and black and somber grays, but he plods steadily along with stiff ankles, like a boy on stilts. His feet are covered with queer contraptions. The soles are thick and unyielding; black velvet binds them at the sides, and buff silk constructs the uppers. The lower limbs to the knee are swathed about with lightly gathered folds of white cloth that look all the world like bandages, and queerly made trousers of bluish satin continue loosely upward. A full sleeved, ample-bodied garment of gray silk hangs from his shoulders, and down the back of it floats a long plait of hair as black as ink. A small silk cap with a blue button on its top rests upon his head, and a pair of glasses with crystals as large as Mexican dollars reposes on his well-shaped nose, and serve as windows for the thoughtful, brown eyes to look through. He thumps along with head erect on sloping shoulders, leaning forward with no evidence knowledge of the effect he is creating. Some people turn and regard him with undisguised wonder. They have bundles in their arms that will cause comment for a week out in the country. Disrespectful gamins make remarks about rats and Japan. Every woman wishes she had a gown made of silk like he has in his coat. But his imperturbability never forsakes him. He turns into a bookstore and selects the latest work in philosophy and scientific research. He buys the last French and German periodicals. Then he strolls out and swings along out the streets and up the Fourteenth street hill to the big stone pile at the top. The servant salaams to the floor as Mr. Yei Shung Ho enters the Chinese legation."

Apologia

2010-02-14T16:56:00.000-08:00

A number of folks have complained, since viewing the photo which accompanied my last entry, Headless Chicken, that they were so disgusted that they've since become ardent vegans.

With apologies to the poultry industry, Quondam Washington offers a replacement photo which, she hopes, her readership will find a bit more appetizing.

The Case of the Headless Chicken--Cruelty Most Fowl

2010-02-11T15:50:00.000-08:00

Dr. M.P. Key of the District’s Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals was outraged as he walked into the office of DC District Attorney Moore’s office at Police Court on Christmas morning of 1883. Over one arm hung a basket, from whose depths could be heard a curious fluttering.

The creature inside, he announced, had been on public display for several days at 941 Pennsylvania Avenue. The owners of the creature, Mssrs. Randolph Warrick and Henry Irving, had been placed under arrest for animal cruelty.

In what certainly had to be a memorable moment in DC legal history, Dr. Key opened the basket. Out jumped a headless rooster.

To the amazement of those who gathered to see the spectacle, the chicken had a well-developed body, neck and legs. However, most of its head appeared to be missing. Those who had the stomach to lean forward and examine the flustered bird more closely noticed that though its eyes and beak were absent, it did retain its ears and what appeared to be the base of the head.

Mssrs. Warrick and Irving appeared before Judge Snell some time later that day, represented by lawyer Campbell Carrington. Warrick explained that he had bought the curious bird from a Richmond man for $25. The former owner explained that the bird had been missing its head for over a year. It happened this way: the former owner from Richmond had chopped off the heads of a number of fowl one day. However, the bird in question refused to die. So the Richmond man had kept it alive by forcing feed down what he believed was its windpipe.

Warrick and Irving argued that they had received a permit to show the bird from Chief of Police Dye.

After lengthy arguments over the nature of animal cruelty, Judge Snell dismissed Irving but fined Warrick a hefty $50—twice what the latter had paid for the bird.

It was Snell’s opinion that exhibiting the bird amounted to animal cruelty—and any creature missing a brain had to be suffering.

He also publicly questioned why in the world Police Chief Dye would have given a permit to exhibit the poor bird.

Dr. Key placed the bird back inside the basket and left the courtroom. Meanwhile, Mr. Warrick told the press he was astonished by the verdict—why, Mr. Barnum of circus fame would likely be willing to pay $1,000 for such an oddity as the headless chicken.

That should have been the end of the matter…it was not. The following day—Boxing Day, when other Washingtonians were home still digesting their Christmas dinners of headless geese and suckling pigs, Warrick and his attorney Carrington were back in Police Court, appealing Judge Snell’s decision. Today, the defense was ready to scientifically prove that the headless rooster was not suffering. Carrington had arranged for an autopsy of the hapless fowl by the esteemed Deputy Coroner, Dr. Hartigan.

It was Hartigan’s observation that though the head had been removed and a greater portion of the bird’s brain was missing, a small portion remained in the base of the missing skull. Furthermore, he opined, since that portion of the brain which feels pain was located in that part of the brain that had been missing, the bird had not, in fact, suffered at all. If the bird were in pain, he pronounced, it would not have thrived as it had.

Furthermore, Dr. Hartigan stated, he had conferred with a number of other physicians, all of whom concurred with his diagnosis.

Judge Snell, however, stuck to his guns—as well as his previous judgment. “I think this is a demoralizing exhibition,” he said. “If this is allowed, we will have all the boys in the city trying to cut the heads off chickens.”

The case was dismissed. Justice was served.

And someone enjoyed a fowl supper that night.

Dolly Barber's Tree

2010-02-11T10:19:00.000-08:00

Hard by a poplar shook alway,
All silver-green with gnarled bark:
For leagues no other tree did mark
The level waste, the rounding gray.
She only said, "My life is dreary,
He cometh not," she said;
She said, "I am aweary, aweary,
I would that I were dead!"

-- From “Mariana,” by Alfred Lord Tennyson

Every so often, Quondam Washington comes across a bit of history that she cannot explain.

This time the author is completely stymied and is forced to call upon her readership to see whether her research is faulty—or whether the facts are simply lost to history.

At issue is the legend of the “Dolly Barber Tree”, an ancient popular which once stood along what is now Reservoir Road in the vicinity of Foxhall Village and was once the trysting place of the 18th Century girl after whom it is named.

There is no doubt that the tree existed; from earliest times it was an important reference point for surveyors and is mentioned in old land surveys. It apparently marked the convergence of three important properties west of Georgetown, belonging to William Murdock, Henry Threlkeld and Henry Foxhall, all famous old names in West Georgetown history:

• Henry Threlkeld (1716-1781) was an early settler who bought "Alliance," an estate of 1,000 acres bordering on the Potomac River. This tract, part of which came to be known as Berlieth (the spelling has changed over the years), extended north from the river to include the grounds of what is now Georgetown University, Visitation Convent and farther north to the present-day Duke Ellington School of the Arts and the neighborhood now called Burleith.

• Henry Foxhall was an Englishman, said to be a friend of Thomas Jefferson's. Prior to coming to Washington, he had been a partner in an iron works firm in Philadephia. Arriving in Washington around 1799, he built a foundry at what is now Glover-Archbold Park. He lived at a expansive estate called “Springhill” in the vicinity of what are today 44th and P streets.

• Finally, William Murdock the Older, was a prominent early landowner in lower Frederick County, which in those days encompassed the entire Foxhall area. He was the son of Rev. George Murdock, a Marylander ordained in London's St. Paul's Cathedral in 1724, and the first rector of Rock Creek Parish (from 1726 until his death in 1761).

William’s first wife was the daughter of Col. Thomas Addision, and his father-in-law gave Murdock a portion of land at “Friendship”, a famous old estate which sat about a mile north of Georgetown where American University is now.

His son Col. John Murdock (b. 1734, d. 1791) was a partner in a lucrative tobacco export business with Uriah Forrest and Benjamin Stoddart, formed in 1783. John, in turn, had a son named William whom I believe plays some role in the Dolly Barber mystery.

The “Dolly Barber” tree has had brief mention in old newspapers:

On August 2, 1899, a huge summer storm hit Washington and took down an old local landmark called the “Dolly Barber Tree”, an event which at the time was so newsworthy that it was reported by the New York Times three days later.

Two years later, District surveyor Henry B. Looker submitted his annual report to Commissioners, in which he commented on the significant increase in the number of requests for land surveys—this, as citizens began spreading into the suburbs and formerly large tracts of land were divided and subdivided to accommodate them (Post, Aug. 2, 1901). Incidental to the report, Looker referred to a the “Dolly Barber Tree,” which he acknowledged as the cornerstone of several original Georgetown tracts. In order to preserve its exact site, “south side of the New Cut road west of Foundry Branch,” Looker’s office placed a permanent monument at the exact spot where the tree once stood, which carefully recorded auxiliary points for future land surveys. (Report of the Operations of the Engineer Department of the District of Columbia for the Year Ending June 30, 1900, Washington: GPO, 1900).

Developers of Foxhall Village in the 1930s, in promoting their new development, cited the romance of the site and made reference to the Dolly Barber Tree.

So, the tree existed—but where, exactly--and who, then, was Dolly?

References insist she was the daughter of “William Murdock”—which could be either the father of Col. John Murdock or his son, also named William. Regardless of which Murdock was her father, why did she carry a different surname?

The possibilities are interesting—but before QW and the reader get too carried away with theories, let us examine one or two clues that bear consideration:

• A Dorothy Barber is listed in the 22 August 1776 census of Frederick County’s Lower Potomack Hundred (the same general “neighborhood” as the Murdock family and the tree. She is described as being 11 years old, thus, born in 1765.

• Col. John Murdock, before his death in ca. 1791, writes a will in which he goes to some length to ensure that Dorothy Barber and her three teenaged children are provided for:

Fifthly it is my will and desire not withstanding anything herein before contained and I do expressly desire unto Dorothy Barber one hundred acres of land to be paid off for her by my said trustees immediately after my death to include the plantation where James Collins now lives and the house where the said Dorothy Barber now dwells to be bounded to the eastward by the Mill Branch and the southward by the east line of Whitehaven and to the westward and northward by such lines ... and to hold during her natural life the said premises and after her decease & will and desire the said land to John the son of the said Dorothy and his heirs forever provided nevertheless if the said John shall die before the age of twenty one years a without issue of his body living at the time of his death...

His will states that Dorothy has three children: John, under age 21; Elizabeth, under age 18; and Mary, also under age 18.

• Consider another tantalizing clue: John’s son William is clearly a ne’er do well, implied in this segment of John’s will:

In the Name of God Amen. I John Murdock of George Town in Montgomery County and state of Maryland do make and ordain this my last will and testament. Whereas to my great uneasiness I have discovered that my son, William, does not possess care and prudence sufficient to qualify him for the management of our estate…[it is my will and desire to] pay and satisfy all such debts as may be justly due and owing from my son William …

• Box 40, folder 2 in the Jesuit Archives for Maryland at Georgetown University contains a number of warrants of resurvey and/or indentures between 1791 and 1824. Among them is an indenture (1822) between John Murdock alias John Barber. Could this be Dorothy’s son John, using both names?

As a final note, A. Boschke’s Topographical map of the District of Columbia, surveyed in the years 1856 '57 '58 & '59, shows an “M. Barber” as the owner of a land just northwest of Georgetown.

What, dear readers, does this all mean?

Do you know who dear Dolly was?

The Assault on Elsie Ough

2010-02-09T07:32:00.000-08:00

One chilly December morning in 1893, a Miss Elsie Ough, the daughter of a prominent Canadian architect, was driving her father to work along the New Cut Road, which is today, Reservoir Road, through Georgetown and all the way to 14^th and F Streets in the City, where his practice was located.

She drove her open buckboard wagon all the back through Georgetown.

The family home was said to be a pretty little cottage which sat on the left side of Conduit Road, past the water holding tank--at about two miles out the New Cut Road. Once outside of town, she would have trotted through open farmland where sheep and cows grazed, past the College Woods and the forests and meadows of what we now know as Glover Archibald Park.

She had just crossed a little stream at Foundry Branch when she felt her buggy jerk. Before she knew it, a man had leapt onto the back of her vehicle and had his hands about her throat. Elsie tried to cry out, but he carried a knife and threatened to use it on her if she made another peep. She would later tell the court that the man made indecent proposals to her.

The brave young woman resisted him and did scream; however, the area was so rural at the time that none could hear her. As the man and girl continued to struggle, her horse continued his trot toward home—and the feeding trough, no doubt.

They made it to the site of the Dolly Barber Tree*. At last, someone heard Elsie’s cries; Lazarus Whetzell was an elderly widower who happened to be working in his garden at the top of a rise above the water.

Elsie’s assailant, seeing that there was a witness, jumped down from the wagon and began to run down the road. However, he suddenly changed his mind and ran back toward the wagon.

Elsie lashed her poor horse as hard as she could and managed to race home before the stranger could get to her. She arrived home in a state of hysteria. Her shocked family summoned the police, to whom Elsie gave a description: The man had been wearing a blue coat with brass buttons—suggesting he might have been a naval cadet. He had run back in the direction of Aqueduct [Key] Bridge.

Once word got out, the rural neighborhood was outraged. Their excitement had not even begun to die down when another girl was assaulted. This time it was 13-year-old Annie Drury of Foxhall Road and her 15-year-old girlfriend and neighbor, Kitty Babcock, who were assaulted. They had been walking together when the man came from nowhere and made some of the same indecent proposals to them.

The description given by all three girls matched a certain young Georgetown resident, Milton Chamberlain. Police issued a warrant for his arrest, and just a few mornings later, Milton’s father James, a Thirty-Second Street grocer, hearing that one of his sons was suspected, brought both his sons to the Seventh Precinct Station House—Milton and Robert. When the girls positively identified Milton, Robert was allowed to return to school.

Police charged Milton with four counts of assault, battery and indecent language between the three girls. He was taken to Police Court, where Milton’s father was able to make the $500 bail Judge Miller ordered.

At the February 13 trial, Elsie testified as to the alleged attack on her by Milton Chamberlain back on December 18. Milton’s lawyer, a Mr. Campbell Carrington, argued the charge of criminal assault because no clothes were torn. However, the prosecution, Mr. Mullowney, countered that there was legal precedence for charging a man with criminal assault solely on the basis of his indecent remarks.

In March, the case went before Judge Cole’s criminal court. Milton’s mother Louise Chamberlain stated emphatically that he had never owned a blue coat with gold buttons. Family and several school friends and all came forth to speak for Milton. His one-time teacher at the Jackson School, Ms. Sarah M. Farr, wrote a letter to the editor of the Washington Post, pleading his case, reminding the public that he was only a few months out of knee pants. “Think of the innocent, fifteen-year-old boy sent to jail for ninety days, to be a companion of thieves, murderers and assaulters Mothers, tremble for your boys! Any one of them may be seized at any time to be a scapegoat of offended public feeling.” (Post, April 2, 1894, p. 5)

On April 4^th, the jury found Milton guilty of simple assault. He was sentenced to ninety days in jail—however, his attorney, Mr. Carrington—or so it was initially reported--brought the matter to the attention of the President of the United States, Grover Cleveland. On or about May 14^th, President Cleveland granted a full pardon and signed for the release of lucky young Milton, stating he believed the entire matter had been a case of mistaken identity.

Several days later, a presumed attorney by the name of Milton Myers wrote a letter to the editor of the Post. It stated that Carrington had nothing to do with bringing the matter before the President, that it was, in fact, Miss Farr and two other of his teachers who had petitioned the White House. (Post, May 17, 1894, p. 7)

Milton would go on to work as a clerk in his father’s grocery—and later, its butcher. He would marry a girl named Lucy; they would have a child who they would name Milton, Jr. He was a fireman at the Bureau of Mines at American University by age 40, when he registered for the World War I draft. After that, only his son Milton shows up in the records.

Elsie Ough never appeared again. Her family either moved away or she married soon thereafter.

Nothing more is known about Annie Drury.

Kitty Babcock remained living with her parents William and Gertrude in their house on the now obsolete Ridge Road, near Foxhall, for at least another fifteen years. After that, she too disappears.

A Man's Home: Ryder's Castle and the Removal of Little Abby

2010-02-08T11:40:00.000-08:00

No, it was not an elegant mansion on upper Sixteenth Street. The building carrying this soubriquet was a neglected three-story house on 6th Street NW, halfway between D and E Streets, where the Hyatt Regency-Capitol Hill now stands.

The building was nicknamed after its claimed owner, George S. Ryder*, who operated a rooming house whose inmates were well-known to police at the No. 6 Precinct—swindlers, fortune-tellers, loafers and pickpockets.

In January,1897, George was said to be not only old and grey, but recently paralyzed. He hardly sounded like the father of the five-year-old little girl named Abby K. Ryder who had just been removed from the house by Agent Parkman of the Children’s branch of the Washington Humane Society.

In fact, many doubted that old George really was Abby’s father. Including George himself. In a hearing January 2, he told Police Court Judge Miller he couldn’t be sure, though he loved her and wanted to provide for her as if she were his own. He even agreed to place her in the care of his lawyer, General William Birney. However, the court dismissed this possibility after Ryder failed to make arrangements for her move.

DC Police Officer Patrick J. Creagh, along with two other officers, Kelly and Lynch, testified that the residents of Ryder’s Castle were persons of immoral and corrupting character—why, the housekeeper, Mrs. Baxter, was an alcoholic. Worse, eh hmm, well, police had sneaked inside the house once to find Ryder and Mrs. Baxter in bed together—as well as the child!

It had been Creagh who, a few years earlier, passed by the old Castle and overheard a group of three young women were laughing riotously about a scam they had going: On Pension pay days, they would follow old soldiers and pick their pockets. They were so vociferous in planning the next day's outing that Officer Creagh arrested them on the spot and had them sent to the workhouse for sixty days. For at least that month, the neighborhood’s Civil War veterans were safe from assault.

Now, Ryder, in an effort to appease the court and keep little Abby with him, told the judge that he had evicted all the residents of the house—save for Mr. and Mrs. Percy and Maud Brown, who were elderly, and a Mr. Hawkins who was an old gentleman of color.

After investigating the situation, two weeks later, Judge Miller turned poor little Abby over to the Board of Children’s Guardians, a poorly-funded agency which, more often than not, placed children in public institutions rather than private homes.

Sadly—but not surprisingly—Abby never appears in any Washington census. What became of her is not known, unless one among our readers can shed any light.

As for the "castle": There had been some doubt all along that George Ryder was its legal owner. Sometime that year, the city had ordered Ryder to hook up to the sewer system, however he failed to do so. In September, Ryder was forced to admit that the property did not really belong to him, and pending charges were dropped.

That was the last time George Ryder made the newspapers.

Ryder Castle presumably fell into ruin...but not until far worse goings on were discovered there.

This would not be the last time the names Percy and Maud Brown appeared--in either newspapers, District court dockets or this blog.

*Not to be confused with the George Ryder of equestrian circles and society pages.

Photos courtesy Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA

Washington Digs Out...For the Umpteenth Time

2010-02-07T22:01:00.000-08:00

A reminder to all those Washingtonians who are currently excavating cars and sidewalks that
Snowmaggedon has been visited upon Washington many, many times before...

John Brown's Mysterious Origins

2010-02-07T21:48:00.000-08:00

Nineteenth and early Twentieth Century journalists loved a good mystery. Apparently, so do some Twentieth Century bloggers.

The Washington Post of May 10, 1904, carried the following tale of a mysterious stranger:

On a cold and blustery night in the mid 1860s, a cold and starving stranger knocked on the door of Georgetown’s Franklin Inn at 168 Bridge Street—later, 3249 M Street--asking for food and shelter. Innkeeper Ann Cleveland was the widow of John Cleveland, who had died in a tragic accident at the Washington Monument construction site. Sympathetic to the man, she ordered her servants to give him food and a place to lie down for the night. She told him not to leave in the morning until she had had a chance to speak with him.

The next morning, she offered the man, who called himself John Brown, a job as a general handyman. He accepted the offer and ended up working there, according to the Post, for two decades until Mrs. Cleveland’s death in 1888.

Mrs. Cleveland, prior to her death, had instructed her daughter Louisa Phipps to provide for Mr. Brown and, on his death, give him a respectable Christian burial.

Mr. Brown died at Providence Hospital in May, 1904, and true to her word, Louisa arranged for Father Smythe from St. Joseph’s Church on Capitol Hill to preside over the funeral. She buried John Brown in the family plot at Holy Rood Cemetery in Georgetown.

Mr. Brown was as much a mystery to the family and neighbors at his death as he had been in life. He had appeared to be an educated man from a good family. He never divulged a single detail about his past, no matter how much pressure he was put under. He kept to himself, never making friends with either men or women.

The Post fancifully hinted he may have been connected to the infamous abolitionist by the same name—but of course, this would have been impossible, as the famous John Brown had been put to death in December, 1859.

Census returns show John Cleveland in Georgetown as early as 1840. The 1870 census shows a widowed Mrs. Cleveland and her children, as well as several servants and staff—among them, three Johns: Sweeney, Whelan and Haines, but no Brown. The 1880 census shows a plasterer named John Fowler.

No John Brown is listed in the tombstone transcripts of Holy Rood Cemetery, though further examination of burial records held at Georgetown University may reveal his name.

The Wild Man of Tennallytown

2010-02-07T15:41:00.000-08:00

Some years ago, the author read an account of a wild man who lived in a cluster of rocks on the Virginia side of Long Bridge, and she has been collecting tales of these “half men-half beasts” ever since. Most of these savages have simply turned out to be homeless indigents or aged victims of dementia.

The following is one of her favorites:

In July of 1894, farmers in Tennallytown began reporting having seen a half-naked man roaming the pastures and byways of their village, ranting as if he were wild. A local butcher reported seeing a white man of heavy build running through the woods just south of old River Road. When he called out, the running man simply shook his fist. The same day, a milkman on Conduit Road, about a mile and a half away, caught sight of a half-clad man running on his property. He thought it was a joke.

Streetcar No. 5 Motorman W. M. Vogt reported that while on a run through Tennallytown, he saw the wild man running down the middle of the road, flailing and threatening to tear up the track. Later, on a return trip, Vogt saw him crouching by the track. As the car passed, the wild man scurried away with a speed impossible for a drunk.

When a guest at the Woodley Inn claimed he saw the wild man in a ravine outside his window, authorities began to sit up and take notice.

Citizens began to talk about forming a posse to track down the wild man, but their efforts were hindered by rain over the next few days.

Police had found a pile of clothes in a ravine behind the Woodley Inn—a dark grey serge vest and coat and a brand-new straw hat. They joked that these likely belonged to someone too embarrassed to claim them.

Word of the wild man was beginning to spread. Housewives, who stayed at home alone during the day, became nervous. Though no one had been harmed by the wild man, the newspapers reported that there was no telling what he was capable of. It was supposed he subsisted on nuts and berries he found in the woods.

Concerned citizens checked with the mental asylum to see whether any inmate had escaped. None had.

Tennallytown resident Edward Brooks claimed his black servant had come across the wild man sleeping in the brush on the side of the road: The latter wore only “pantaloons", i.e., boxers, and a pair of worn socks, as well as several days’ growth of whiskers.

Patrolman Lohmann was sent to look for the wild man, who had by that time absconded.

Next, a carpenter who lived near Woodley Inn told mounted officers Heide and Murphy he had sighted the wild man just south of the Inn.

Under pressure from a nervous public, police arrested a black man named George Douglas, a hitherto harmless Tennallytown resident who was said to be nearly insane with grief over the death of his wife two years earlier. It was doubtful he was the “wild man,” in spite of his light complexion, because the clothes found in the woods were far too large for him.

Late on the evening of July 23, the night watchman in the powerhouse of the Tennallytown Electric Railroad Company heard an “unearthly shriek” from the engine room. Workers searched the building twice—and twice more heard the “demonic yell,” but found nothing and no one. They returned to the office, their hair standing on end. Perhaps the sound had come from outside, for there was no sign of forced entry into the powerhouse, and all its doors and windows were locked tight.

Then, just as suddenly as the wild man had appeared, he disappeared—for at least a few days. Locals theorized that the rain had forced him to seek cover in a local barn. Some believed he may have died from exposure or hunger. Search parties were called off. Tennallytown women and children breathed a sigh of relief.

And then on the afternoon of July 25, a man who called himself Mr. Lamb walked into the Seventh Precinct station house and asked for his clothes. Yes, he said, he was the wild man who had been terrorizing the vicinity. He blamed his antics on the kind of insanity that comes in a bottle.

It seems that Mr. Lamb had gone into the country some time in the preceding week, carrying with him “a large load of vinous stimulants.” He didn’t remember anything else, save for waking up to find himself nearly naked. He hitched a ride on the wagon of a butcher who he met on the road.

Officers told him his clothes had been sent to police headquarters and would be sent for immediately. Lamb could claim his clothes the next day. When he did, he announced that the hat they presented him was not his original $3.50 hat, but one of a much more inferior quality. Police believed that the officer who delivered the clothing from downtown headquarters had exchanged his own inferior hat for Mr. Lamb’s hat. They promised to keep their eyes on Officer Hauptman, just in case he should ever show up with a new straw hat.

Dead Man's Beat

2010-02-07T13:14:00.000-08:00

If you were a policeman in Georgetown during the latter half of the nineteenth century, there was one assignment that would fill your heart with dread: Patrolling Cherry Hill, a rundown and disreputable neighborhood of alleys along the C&O Canal south of Bridge Street—today’s M Street, NW.

If you believed the papers and tales shared among officers in the Georgetown Precinct House, every policeman who had ever been assigned to patrol “Spooks’ Alley” had either died or suffered disaster and misfortune.

Police Officer [Samuel] Frank Burrows had been on the force for many years and told anyone who would listen that he’d rather resign the force than ever again walk the grim alleys around Cherry Street. It was haunted; plenty of folks had seen the ghost. He would appear every night, whether in summer or winter, just after St. John’s bells finished pealing twelve midnight: A phantom policeman wearing a heavy winter uniform, his collar pulled up to his ears. Whenever one of the officers would approach him—and few dared—he would disappear.

It was Dead Man’s Beat that had turned his hair white overnight.

In the beginning, Burrows didn’t believe in ghosts or spooks and thought less of his colleagues for being so gullible—that is until one evening when he was sent to the haunted beat. He didn’t get further than Thirty-second and M Street before he turned around and beat a hasty retreat to the station house. He begged to his lieutenant to either reassign him or dismiss him, for he was determined not to ever patrol the area again. He had seen the ghost in every conceivable shape, sightings so terrifying that he wished he had never been born.
The next day, Burrows woke up with snow-white hair.

And the officer who had been sent to replace him on the beat was found dead.

©Cecily Hilleary, 2010
Photo, courtesy Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA

Now Showing! President McKinley's Inauguration

2010-02-07T10:20:00.000-08:00

This is the inauguration procession of the 25th President of the USA, William McKinley. This is the first sitting president to be filmed.

This clip was filmed on March 4, 1897 and follows the Procession down Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington D.C.

This clip, which is in the public domain, is from the Motion Picture Division of the U.S. National Archives and is made available by the good folks of the Internet Archive.

The Sad End of Miss Blanche Magruder

2010-02-07T09:39:00.000-08:00

Her family was as old as Georgetown itself—even older than that. Emily—or Emma--Magruder was the daughter of Nathanial Magruder, whose Scottish ancestor Alexander had immigrated to Maryland as early as 1652. For generations, the name Magruder was synonymous with wealth, and Magruders had been among the first landowners in the City of Washington.

Emily Magruder was born in the mid-1840s and spent her entire life in same house at 1304 35^th Street, near N, and close to Holy Trinity Church. One of the oldest houses in Georgetown, by the early 1920s it had grown so dilapidated that its paint was peeling and in places, its roof had begun to cave in. Emma’s sole brother, Charles, and two of her sisters—Kate and Virginia—had died years earlier. Nothing is known of her sister Blanche, who died in the 1930s.

Emily lived alone and had done so since the turn of the century. Neighbors rarely saw her—she was considered an eccentric, and their opinion was only confirmed by the fact that the rare times when she left the house, she did not use the front door; instead, she climbed in and out of a front window.

Early in the 1920s, the city of Washington condemned the aging house and presumably warned Emily she would have to leave. However, when demolition crews arrived to do their work, the aging spinster was so vocal in her resistance that the workers left and never returned.

In early 1929, Emily made a decision that would later baffle authorities. She simply picked up and left her house and belongings and moved into the District’s poorhouse. Officially named the Washington Home for the Aged and the Infirm, it was a located at the southernmost tip of Washington’s 8^th Ward, an area called Blue Plains. The Home sat on over a hundred acres, comprising an infirmary, schools for both whites and blacks, a complex of cottages, and assorted other buildings that would one day become the notorious DC Village.

It the time of its establishment, it was billed as a haven of fresh air and sunshine, where residents could farm and grow their own vegetables and have plenty of fresh milk from the cows that grazed there. That, at least, was the story given to the public. The truth was that the Board of Charities’ appropriations were so meager that the Infirmary amounted to little more than a Dickensian work farm. Buildings were flimsy in design and material; furnishings were sparse; staff was insufficient to tend for a growing number of inmates. As results, almost since its founding, the Home’s reputation had been blemished by reports of poor standards of living, abuse and worse. By the 1940s, a shocked Eleanor Roosevelt would announce, “It is sad and horrible if we are going to let Blue Plains be our standard for the nation on the attitude to old age.”

By the summer of 1929, neighbors began to notice frequent comings and goings at the Magruder house and complained to police. In August, the Washington Post reported that officers of the Seventh Precinct had arrested eleven individuals who had ransacked the house and stolen approximately $1,000 in cash.

As it turns out, that was only a fraction of the fortune Emily had hidden both in the house and its gardens.

When Precinct Detective Norman S. Nodkinson, accompanied by Officers William O’Connor and Charles C. Clay, entered the house, they were stunned to find it furnished with antiques and other curios, including large oil paintings copied after old Masters. They discovered more than $600 in old currency and silver coins, hidden under stacks of papers, in books or in cracks in the rotting walls. In addition, Emily had reportedly buried a strongbox containing a “small fortune” in a well in the back garden. All in all, it was rumored, Emily secreted away approximately $40,000—money she made, it was said, through investments of her early savings.

Here is where the narrative begins to twist: The story was first reported on August 16, 1929. However, cemetery records show that Emily Magruder had been buried March 13, 1917, twelve years earlier. The only Magruder sister still alive in 1929 would have been Blanche, who doesn’t show up as buried until 1934.

Could police and neighbors have been mistaken about the elderly Miss Magruder’s identity? Could Blanche have simply assumed her sister’s identity so as to retain the house and investments?

The plot began to thicken.

And ten days later, it was revealed that it was indeed Blanche who had been living in the ancient manse on Thirty-fifth Street. Her niece, Ms. Marie Clarke, had stepped forth and hired an attorney to represent Miss Magruder; plans were underway to remove her from the poor house at Blue Plains and place her in a private institution.

Meanwhile, police continued to comb the house, which was reputed to still be listed under the ownership of Blanche’s father, Mr. Nathaniel Magruder, who had died many years before. Neighbors gossiped that Nathaniel had left a rumored $40,000 in cash to the spinsters in cash—but police had so far recovered only about $4,000, stashed in the most incongruous of hiding places. That, combined with the approximate $5,000 value of the house, would be enough to ensure that Blanche would be cared for until the end of her days.

What happened to Blanche after that is not known. And Emily, as it turns out, had indeed died in 1917—as an inmate at St. Elizabeth’s Mental Asylum.

©Cecily Hilleary, 2010

Excerpt from The Workhouse, a poem by Alexander Brand. London: W. Robins & Co., Printers, 1819.

Call to Naval Historians: Who Was Captain William Chanler?

2010-02-06T12:40:00.000-08:00

One evening in mid-June of 1892, a Georgetown police officer named Sullivan {likely, Thomas Sullivan) passed a forlorn little house on Valley Street—that is, present-day 32nd Street, between R and P. The house was back from the street; unruly trees and bushes nearly obscured it from the view of passersby. Sullivan had passed the house innumerable times on previous rounds, but tonight, he thought it looked more desolate than ever. Something was wrong.

He knocked on the door and called out. He heard a moan from inside, so he forced open the door. In the dim light inside, he found an elderly man sitting unconscious in a chair, where it turned out he had been sitting for two days.

Sullivan carefully lifted the man from the chair and carried him to a crude bed. He found a bottle of liquor and some water in a cupboard, with which he revived the old man.

Sullivan sent for Dr. Abraham Shekell, who lived just around the corner on 32nd Street. They learned the names and addresses of two relatives from Maryland—a Mrs. Franklin of Baltimore and an Edward Ghant (Gannt?) of Annapolis, who the papers reported to be a Maryland State’s Attorney. Chanler’s niece and nephew engaged outside help to look after the man. Finally, they decided that the crumbling house was not livable. So they sent their uncle to Garfield Hospital, a charitable institution erected only a few years before.

Presumably, Chanler lived out the rest of his days there. No records can be found of either his life or his death in Washington, in spite of a plethora of details provided by newspapers at the time:

According to those reports, Chanler was 86 years old and had lived like a hermit for years. At the break of the Civil War, he had been a senior “Captain” in the United States Navy—“outranking” even the famous Naval war hero, David Dixon Porter, and others. His heart was said to lie with the South, but because he couldn’t think of any way of honorably resigning from the Navy, he remained and distinguished himself by capturing “five of the first prizes taken from the Confederacy.”

At some point during the War, Chanler reportedly broke down and went South. He allegedly returned to Washington a broken man.

There are far too many William Chanlers/Chandlers in census and military records to ever be able to pinpoint the exact man found languishing in Georgetown.

Interestingly, a William Chandler served as Secretary of the Navy from 1882 to 1885; there is, however, no chance that our Georgetown hermit was this distinguished gentleman.

©Cecily Hilleary, 2010.

Sketch by Charles Deforest Gedney, courtesy, Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA

Recognize This Man? Coming Soon!

2009-01-19T05:03:00.000-08:00

There's no fool like an old fool...Quondam Washington will take us back to one of 19th century Washington's juiciest scandals...it's the stuff you won't find in the history books. Stay tuned...

Who Was Lena Gray? Early African American Photographs

2009-01-17T14:27:00.000-08:00

Just yesterday, I perused the University of Maryland's Baltimore Campus and came across several photos of African Americans from Washington, D.C. Among them are several portraits of a woman named Lena Gray. A black friend of mine recently bemoaned the fact that it's nearly impossible to research an African American family tree without hitting the brick wall of the 1860s--before which time, few records were kept.

I was intrigued by the photos I found yesterday--and found three photos, all taken of a Lena Gray.

The first (above) was taken by photographer William L. Spedden, also taken in Washington DC during the 1870s. It is captioned, "Lena Gray as a baby, Uncle William's daughter." The photo is so faded that I've had to brutally heighten the contrast in order to make out her face.

Next, another photograph of Lena (right), now looking to be about eight or nine years old. Captioned "Lena Grey, Uncle William's daughter, it was taken by A.H. Beck, at 1532 7th Street, NW.

Astonishingly, there is one more photograph of Lena (below), this time taken by "Miller" in Minneapolis during the 1890s, and it bears Lena's signature. She now appears to be in her early 20s.

I have tried to locate Lena Gray in the standard internet genealogical sources, but haven't been successful. Would any of my readers be able to help? Perhaps out there are Gray descendants who would appreciate the photos.

A Film Trip Down the C&O from Cumberland to DC

2009-01-15T14:42:00.000-08:00

Your blog host, being to some degree technologically-challenged, hasn't yet figured a way to embed this amazing series of digitized films onto this posting. So she will have to do it the old-fashioned way, inviting readers to visit the following link for an amazing, three-part film by the Thomas A. Edison Manufacturing Company. Down the Old Potomac follows a week-long journey by canal barge from Maryland to Washington--featuring scenes of the locks in operation; a mile-long, hand-dug tunnel which was built in 1840; coal barges plying the canal; Maryland farming country; Harper's Ferry; and Great Falls.

Follow this link, scroll to the bottom of the page and enjoy a trip through time:

http://www.travelfilmarchive.com/results.php?filmmaker_id=7

http://www.travelfilmarchive.com/results.php?filmmaker_id=7

Whatever Became of Little Reddy the Brave?

2009-01-14T03:56:00.000-08:00

Nineteenth Century New York had its Forty Thieves gang, which operated in the Five Points area of Manhattan. So too did Washington.

The only trouble with researching the Forty Thieves is that the group was so fluid that it may have been more than one, spread out over the city and operating until 1923, when the last of the gang was “captured.”

One such named gang surfaced in Georgetown. Its members were both black and white, and sufficiently organized that they carried membership cards and, by the mid-nineties, wore silver badges. Each took an oath of eternal loyalty to each other and the group. And by all indications, they were astonishingly young.

In January of 1883, Georgetown’s Forty Thieves appeared in court, charged with a variety of petty offenses:

• Collectively, Charles Bannon, George Dayton, Lemuel Finnecome, Joseph Jenkins, William Johnson, Alexander Walker and Thomas Wynne were convicted of stealing a keg of beer from the wagon of one John O. Guethler, for which they were give a one month jail sentence;

• Bannon, Dayton, Jenkins and Walker received an additional one-month sentence for having stolen five bottles of beer from a wagon belonging to Charles C. Bryan.

• Jefferson got a third month for having stolen brooms from a shop owned by William Keifer.

• Walker and Finnecome were also given extra sentencing for stealing a batch of cakes from one Henry Ruppert’s wagon. In this instance, Walker had threatened the baker with a gun.

Nine years later, we find four gang members in court charged with stealing jewelry, stationery and “Florida water,” for which they were given a lecture and a warning.

By 1895, we find the Forty Thieves headed by a young man named Bernard Dyer—or “Reddy the Brave”—known by Georgetown’s constabulary as “the worst boy in the crowd.” Bernard claimed he wasn’t sure of his exact age, but police estimated him to be only ten years old. His hair, said the Post, was as red “as they hair which has done so much to make Mrs. Leslie Carter a ‘famous actress.’”

Under Bernard’s leadership, the gang was said to be responsible for nearly every crime committed in the Georgetown precinct in several months—robbing stores and “smoking cigarettes.”

According to the Post, he lived with his mother in the 32nd block of O Street in Georgetown—that is until Detective Frank Burrows arrested him for robbing Clinton’s Jewelry Store on M Street.

Confronted with the evidence of this and several other robberies, young Bernard gave in: “Ise guilty, judge, an’ der ain’t no use of tryin’ ter bluff yer.” He was sentenced to Reform School and “took his punishment with a smile,” grateful he hadn’t been given a worse sentence.

Who Bernard was and what became of him isn't known. There is no record of him in the Georgetown census--and he appears to have vanished into Washington history.

Announcing the First Quondam Washington Readers' Challenge: Who Was This Mysterious Georgetown Trio?

2009-01-13T16:49:00.001-08:00

Can any of my readers help identify the trio and/or the house described in this wonderfully-romantic article from the Washington Post (April 29, 1888, pg. 9.)? Could its be the Sims House on M Street, here pictured?

A STATELY OLD MANSION
---
ITS STRANGE OCCUPANTS AND THE STORIES TOLD ABOUT THEM

Toward the upper part of Bridge Street, near the newly-finished bridge, stands a stately mansion of a long past style, from which the stucco has peeled away in places, leaving a staring surface of greenish-looking brickwork. The upper part of the house—the Taylor Mansion as it is called—is always closed from the front. Heavy blinds effectively shut out the light and the solid oaken doors are seldom opened.

A mysterious looking and non-talkative Negress is the only attendant, and by many of the conservative inhabitants of Georgetown, is considered the only occupant. There are other inmates, however, whose peculiar habits and mysterious ways have ever been a source of wonder to the average citizen of the burg across the creek.

Their names, it has been said, are Weston, but whence they came, how long they have lived in Georgetown, or who they are, no one seems to know. They are three in number. First, there is an ancient looking and sedate appearing gentleman, who looks as though he had just stepped from the pages of Cervantes. His pure white hair is fashioned in silvery curls about his head, and adorns a face of patrician outline that, though weak in character, is strengthened somewhat by a firm aquiline nose. The air of courtly grace that is suggested by every movement strikes on in harsh contrast to the quaint-looking garb he wears. One could better imagine him in the doublet and hose of a courtier. The other members of the household are equally striking. The daughter, wherever and whenever seen, is not easily forgotten. Attired always in a manner to attract attention by the oddity of her style, she is rendered even more striking by the voluminous mass of thick hanging curls that fall about her head and upon her shoulders. In winter she dresses invariably in white, flimsy material and in summer in furs. These two, the father and daughter, are often seen upon the streets of Georgetown, but their habits are so exclusive that few of the inhabitants have ever spoken to them. Their accent is decidedly foreign and has given rise to many strange rumors about their origin.

As they walk the streets, one may hear the passers by exclaim, “There goes the Countess,” or “There is the Spanish exile,” these remarks being occasioned by the stories in vogue concerning them.

THESE STORIES ARE MANY AND CONFLICTING

One is that the old gentleman once held a proud position among the nobles of Spain, but receiving a slight from the king, he organized a force of insurgents and was about to proceed against his ruler when the plot was discovered, and barely escaping with his life, he fled to America. Another is that the daughter was at one time a woman of such remarkable beauty that in Italy, the land of her birth, she was famed far and wide. The stories of her beauty coming to the ears of a noble high in power, he contrived to meet her and at once he became wildly enamoured of her charms. His regard was reciprocated, but upon learning that his daughter’s suitor was already married, the distracted father, taking his wife and daughter, left his sunny clime, resolved to spend the rest of his days in an alien country. The inside of the house has been seen by but a few Georgetownians besides the attendant, the circumstances being as romantic as the rest of this history.

One evening late in June, four Georgetown youths returning from a fishing expedition to the Great Falls happened to be going along Bridge Street past the Taylor Mansion when the sound of music from the balcony of the house attracted their attention. Just below this balcony is a handsome flower garden, and the soft perfume of the many flowering plants was borne upon the air. Seated in the balcony mentioned was the daughter arrayed in a pure white garment of aesthetic Greek cut, while her fingers strayed softly over the strings of a guitar or mandolin. A soft soprano voice was raised in a song of superb tenderness. As she finished, a hush fell upon the young men.

“Spanish, isn’t it?” said one.

“No, Italian,” said another.

No one really knew, and no one knows yet.

“I am going to see inside of that place,” said one of the party, and as he made the remark, there was a slight noise, and on looking up the balcony was found vacant.

A few minutes later, the party crept over the railing and by a dint of considerable exertion, climbed upon the balcony. A light shone out through the crevices, and on looking through into the room beyond a strange sight met their eyes. Seated in a large throne chair, with rich purple hangings, was an elderly woman, one whose broad white clustering ringlets fell in such rich profusion, but whose eyes had a vacant unmeaning stare.

At her feet sat the daughter, still playing on the same soft instrument, while the old patrician sat near her with his head buried in his hands.

The light of a shaded lamp cast a shadow upon the sad scene, which so surprised the adventurous youths that they cautiously withdrew, and it was long before they would speak of their strange adventure.

Col. Joseph Rickey--Did he or Didn't He?

2009-01-12T18:40:00.000-08:00

July of 2008 was declared Rickie Month by the DC Craft Bartenders Guild, which held a month-long challenge among its members for the best Rickie recipe. The winner was Justin Guthrie of Pennsylvania Avenue’s Central Michel Richard Restaurant, who added black pepper syrup to the traditional mix of gin or bourbon, lime juice and soda water.

Well, the drink may have thrilled the judges, but Colonel Joseph Kyle Rickey would have rolled in his grave to see what had become of the drink he is said to have invented. He was a confirmed bourbon man who insisted his favorite libation (Belle of Nelson) be served to him in a thin-stemmed glass, with chunks of ice and enough Apollaris to make up a highball—all at a cost of only 25 cents.

But first, a little history:
Born in 1842, Rickey grew up in the town of Keokuk, Lee County, Missouri. Until 1837, the sole inhabitants of the area were members of the Sauk and Fox tribes. In 1837, the tribes agreed to a treaty that allowed limited settlement of white farmers. Shortly thereafter, white settlers began to migrate into the area. In a second treaty in 1842, the Fox and Sauk tribes were forced to move further west. Whites began camping along the county border a month before the treaty went into effect. At one minute after midnight on May 1, anxious settlers rushed in to stake their land claims. By the beginning of the Civil War, Keokuk was home to a population of approximately 13,000 people.
The 1860 Census of Keokuk, Lee County, Iowa shows him to be an 18-year-old law student. A year later, he ran away from home and enlisted in the 2nd Iowa infantry on May 4, 1861. The infantry, Company B., was mustered on May 27, 1861, and under the leadership of Colonel Samuel R. Davis, was charged with taking military control of the lines of the Hannibal and St. Joseph and North Missouri Railroads.
Rickey was discharged from service on Nov. 29, 1861 at Benton Barracks, Missouri. By 1870, he was living in Fulton, Calloway County, Missouri, listed as a 21-year old land agent, married to Sallie Howard, who was a pupil at the convent where his sister studied, according to his New York Times obituary. At the age of 21, he is listed At the start of the Civil War, he ran away to enlist. He later studied law and, by 1880, was living and practicing in Fulton County, Missouri.
At some point, he operated a brokerage business along with his son-in-law, Robert Spencer, under the name Rickey and Spencer. According to the New York Times, he was a avid enthusiast of horse races and poker, with an interest in mineral water—a component of what would become the “Rickey.”
It isn’t known exactly when Rickey arrived in Washington—but from at least the mid-to-late 1880’s, this colorful Democrat was a prominent lobbyist, known as much for his capacity for drink as his political work. For years, he—was a regular at Hertzog & Shoomaker’s, a saloon had been opened in the 1850’s by two German-born army officers who had served in the Civil War—namely, R.H. Otto Hertzog and William Shoomaker.
The bar was located a block off Pennsylvania Avenue, at 1311 E Street, NW. Because of its vicinity to the Washington Post and other newspaper outlets, it was a favorite of the city’s newspapermen, as well as the likes of Former Speaker of the House Joe Cannon, congressmen and senators, justices, cabinet members and the military elite. It was a place, wrote “Elbert Hubbard” in a pamphlet called “A Little Journey to Shoomakers,” (1909) “where big men who carry big burdens play to the gallery of their own cosmic selves.”

This was no genteel establishment, but a “dive.” The building was not only worn-down, but a downright eyesore, riddled by the dust and cobwebs of the ages. It comprised two rooms, front and back: The front was stacked with wine crates and kegs, which Shoomaker sold to individuals and restaurants. The back room held a wide bar which ran the length of the room under a low ceiling affixed with dusty gas lamps. In the middle of the floor sat a coal stove, and to the side, several oak tables and wooden chairs. It lacked even the basic amenities, such as spittoons. The roughest patrons spat their tobacco on the floor, while the better classes would open the stove door and spit directly into the fire.

The enduring legend has it that Rickey strolled into Shoomaker’s one hot summer morning and threw together the ingredients of the drink that would make him famous.

However, the truth may Rickey didn’t invent the drink at all. According to George Rothwell Brown (Washington: A Not Too Serious History, Baltimore: Norman Publishing, 1930), it was a visiting stranger from the Indies.

Here is Brown’s account:

By August of 1883, both Hertzog and his partner Shoomaker were dead, and the bar was slated to close. Col. Rickey was so devastated that he purchased the place himself, installing George Williamson and Gus Noack as managers.

One summer afternoon, an unknown stranger visiting from the Caribbean walked into Shoomaker’s and asked Williamson for a rye whiskey. He pulled a lime from several he was carrying in his pocket, proceeding to squeeze it into his drink, in a manner he said was popular in the islands. On departing, says Brown, he left several limes on the bar.

When Ricky arrived the next morning for his “eye-opener,” Williamson suggested to him that he try a little lime juice to his regular bourbon. Rickey was delighted with the taste and later invited his friends, Cincinnati Gazette correspondent Frederick Mussey and and Charles Towle of the Boston Traveller, to sample the concoction. It was agreed all around that the lime juice was a “happy thought,” and the drink was officially born.

The following day, Mussey returned to Shoomakers and ordered one of those “Joe Rickey” drinks, and in no time at all, “Rickeys” were being concocted all over Washington D.C. and beyond, with much experimentation and modifications. When Rickey eventually moved to New York, he took the recipe with him.

Interestingly, according to the “Craft of the Cocktail,” by Dale DeGroff, Rickey later went on to become one of the first importers of the limes.

Footnote:

Rickey and his wife Sallie had at least three children: Alby Prather (named after the Civil War Colonel “Gus” Prather, a crony), Natalie Kyle and William Hyde (named after Civil War Colonel William Hyde) Rickey.

In later life, Rickey moved to New York City, where he lived at 24 West 25th Street. Rickey died on April 23, 1903. His family were convinced he had committed suicide by drinking carbolic acid; the coroner found small traces in his stomach and concluded that Rickey had added a small amount to a glass of whiskey.

A day earlier, while out on a stroll along 25th Street to the corner at Broadway, where he clutched his heart and was escorted home by a passing police officer.

Shoomaker's remained in business right up until Prohibition forced its doors to shut. George Williamson was tending bar right up until the end.

©Cecily Hilleary, 2009
Photo: Shoomaker's, ca. 1946, National Photo Company Collection (Library of Congress)

Coming Soon...

2009-01-12T05:47:00.000-08:00

Reddy the Brave..."I'se guilty, judge, an’ der ain’t no use of tryin’ ter bluff yer."

and...

Who really invented the "Rickey?"

Eddie and Lil -- Conclusion

2009-01-10T04:56:00.000-08:00

If Eddie and Lillian had a honeymoon period, it was short-lived. From the start, constant quarrels, heavy drinking, and physical abuse—on both sides, plagued their relationship. It is difficult to understand Eddie’s feelings for Lillian, which may have been tied into guilt over having “ruined” her so many years before and reneged on his promise of marriage. Or, as some have suggested, Eddie could well have been Lillian’s source of narcotics, and their relationship could have been tied up in the complex relationship between distributor and addict, master and slave. Lillian was an attractive woman, though worn by years of drug and alcohol abuse. One early police mug shot in particular showed her faded beauty. With fine arched brows, well-shaped mouth, and saddened downcast eyes, she looked more like a Madonna from a Renaissance Pieta. Photos at the time of the murder show a heavier Lillian, eyes blackened and face puffy from drink.

It is perhaps easier to understand Lillian’s feelings for Eddie. She had met him as a young adolescent, when Eddie was already 24 years old. He was an attractive firebrand—likely glamorous to a girl just discovering her own sexuality. If, as she said, her first sexual encounter were with Eddie, it would have bonded her to him in a way that subsequent relationships may not have been able to. He had promised to marry her, but only as a ruse to seduce her, and the betrayal may have left her with a drive for a fair “settlement.” In her adult relationship with Eddie, he abused her, and as is often the case with abuse victims, she may have clung to the relationship out of a sense that it was all she deserved.

Their second affair came in the wake of the Depression, a time when there were few opportunities for women, outside of a traditional marriage. As an addict with a police record and two bad marriages behind her, she would have seen Eddie as someone who could offer her security and possibly, protection from the law.
During her relationship with Eddie, Lillian employed a housekeeper, Hannah Smith, who later described the relationship as toxic from the start.

Eddie sought to isolate Lillian from friends and family. He would often hold her as a prisoner, keeping visitors away from the house for days and weeks at a time. On one occasion, he locked Lillian aboard the Florence K., anchored on the Chesapeake Bay, and left her there alone for three weeks, threatening repeatedly to kill her. He once threatened to kill Lillian after she had refused to take part in a dangerous game: He had wanted to shoot a lit cigarette from between her fingers, just for the sport of it. On Christmas Eve, 1934, Lillian had asked Eddie for permission to deliver gifts to her Georgetown family. Eddie become so enraged that he tore off her clothes knocked her half-naked to the ground and kicked her repeatedly. Once, said Hannah, when Eddie was sitting downstairs, he shouted for Lillian, who was upstairs at the time. Getting no answer from her, he shot his pistol through the ceiling.

It was that same pistol that Lillian would ultimately use to end his life.

***

On Thanksgiving Day, 1935, Lillian was formally arranged for the Eddie’s murder. State’s Attorney James Pugh had already begun building his case. At first he was unconvinced by Lillian’s confession, and combed it carefully, looking for flaws. He found one puzzling contradiction: Lillian claimed that she shot Killeen in self-defense, after he had beaten her. However, the Georgetown doctor who had examined her in her cell the night of the murder said the bruises and cuts on her body had been three to seven days old—enough to support her claim that Eddie had beaten her, but not on the day of the murder.

Pugh had trouble accepting the fact a man with so many powerful enemies had been murdered by a penniless girlfriend. He became convinced she had not acted alone and that there may have been another gunmen in the house.

Four bullets had been fired. Investigators examined slugs from Eddie’s body and compared them to those found in the bedroom wall, but concluded that only one gun had been fired, and that the fifth chamber of Eddie’s .38 caliper pistol had been empty at the time of the shooting.

The Washington underworld was rife with speculation that Eddie’s rivals had paid Lillian to murder Killeen. Though there was no evidence to support the idea, Pugh was certain someone was backing Lillian. How else had she managed to retain Maryland State Senator Stedman Prescott, a prominent and high-priced lawyer?
Eddie’s gamester rivals made no secret that Lillian had done them a service by killing off they man they hated and feared. Some of them now approached her lawyer openly, asking whether there was a chance she might be released on bail, whether she needed anything in her cell or witnesses to testify on her behalf.

In the end, while he did not believe her story in its entirety, Pugh concluded she had acted alone.

Meanwhile, the fledgling Federal Bureau of Investigation was interested in learning what Lil may have known about interstate racketeering. Within only a few days of her arrest, her lawyer Prescott granted the FBI permission to interview Lil, and was present during the questioning. The FBI later refused to disclose what, if any information, Lil gave them.

States Attorney Pugh and a team of investigators now shifted the focus of their investigation to Eddie himself. They sifted carefully through the boxes of papers they had retrieved from the Brookmont house. Slowly, they pieced together a chronicle of Eddie’s criminal rise and his hold on District and Maryland rackets—of interest, but not the prize they were seeking: any bit of information that could link Eddie to the killing of paper carrier Alan Wilson. Three Washington detectives had spent more than a year working the case—at the time, a record for any one murder.

Finally, investigators found what they had long been seeking: a box of stationary belonging to Mickey McDonald’s Richmond House casino—physical evidence linking Eddie with McDonald.

In another part of town, the defense began putting together their case. Lillian’s estranged husband, John Maddox, retained the services of a second lawyer to assist Prescott Stedman, Harry Whelan, who had earlier helped Eddie secure his liquor license. Though separated from Lillian, Maddox said he was determined to see she was adequately represented during her trial.

Meanwhile, Washington crime lords were scrambling to fill the void left after Eddie's death. The papers called the resulting power scuffle a "dog fight" and wondered nervously who would emerge as the new "Mayor" of the DC underworld.

***

Lillian remained in jail for more than two weeks. A preliminary hearing was scheduled for the first week in December, but rescheduled because her attorney was tied up in a Prince George’s County trial.

The State outlined to the press their strategy for the upcoming preliminary hearing.
“So far as the county is concerned, we are satisfied that the slaying occurred in the manner described by Mrs. Maddox,” State’s Attorney Pugh told reporters.

At the on December 11th, her lawyer, Stedman Prescott, read out Lillian’s initial confession, in which she said that she knew what she was doing when she shot Killeen, and that he would have killed her had she not done so. Prescott told the court that Eddie “was haunted by fear that he was to be the next victim [of the mob], and carried a gun wherever he went.” Months before his murder, Eddie began to drink heavily and physically abuse Lillian.

The defense called its principal witness, Lillian’s former housekeeper, Hannah Smith, who testified to the abuse she had witnessed Eddie inflicting on Lillian.
Lillian’s Georgetown doctor testified that just two weeks before his death, Eddie had beaten Lillian in her face so severely that she needed medical attention. She had appeared in the doctor’s office with blood flowing from her mouth, her teeth nearly cut through her lower lip. Killeen, he said, had followed her and waited in his car outside. After Lillian left his office, the doctor watched from the window as Eddie threw Lillian roughly into his car and threatened to kill her again, crying, “What the hell are you trying to do?”

Lillian, heavily made up and looking far older than her age, did not testify at the hearing. However, at one point in the proceedings, she was asked why, if Eddie was so brutal, did always return to him. She answered simply, “Because I loved him.”

The following day, Judge Harold Smith reduced her first-degree murder charge. Based on the State’s evidence, he said he did not believe a trial jury “would convict her of anything more than manslaughter.” The court released Lillian on $5,000 bond to await a grand jury trial.

Lillian said nothing, but smiled. A few minutes later, she fainted into the arms of her lawyers and had to be revived with smelling salts. She then signed her bond and left the courthouse for her sister’s house in Georgetown.

Killeen's estate was assessed in late December. He had left behind $2,650, consisting of $900 cash, two diamond rings, a car, and $300 worth of prize gamecocks. His yacht was not to be found, and there was no mention of the watch and knife police had confiscated at the house.

Florence, disappointed at Eddie’s meager legacy, began looking into whether the Northampton Brewing Company, who had retained Eddie as an agent a few years earlier, would provide any residuals.

***

On January 21, a Montgomery County jury charged four men with the murder of newspaper carrier Alan Wilson: Eddie’s former chief lieutenant Albert Sutton, “Slim” Dunn, Bill Cleary, and Ernest Myers. Cleary made a deal with lawyer, confessing to his involvement in killing Wilson and implicating the other three. In return, he was given legal immunity. The court postponed setting a trial date until “Slim” could be retrieved from Alcatraz Federal prison. The others were serving time in Washington jails. Another Tri-State” member, Dewey Jenkins, kept in seclusion somewhere in Washington, was indicted after having made a confession implicating the suspects in the murder.

The following day, State’s Attorney Pugh moved to extradite “Slim” from the California prison and issued warrants for the other three suspects.

***

On the first of February 1936, Lillian was arrested for shoplifting at department store at 9th and D Streets, NW. Caught with two pocketbooks, a packet of rouge and a bottle of massage oil for a total value of $6, she was held, and then released, on a $300 bond. She told reporters she was "back running dope."

***

On February 25, Sutton, Dunn, and Myers were arraigned in a Rockville court, and their trial date set for March 30th. Cleary did not appear in court. Sutton, Dunn and Myers, “nattily dressed and clean-shaven,” said the Herald, showed no emotion as the charges were made before Judge Charles Woodward. Sutton and Dunn, convinced they could not get a fair trial in the District area, obtained a change of venue, and would later be tried in Cumberland, Maryland.

On April 4th, after the Rockville jury deliberated only an hour and a half, 37-year-old Ernest Myers was found guilty of first-degree murder.

***

On April 8th, 1936, the manslaughter trial against Lillian Callahan opened in the Rockville Circuit Court. It took only an hour to select the jury. Three times, the sheriff was forced go out into Rockville streets to round up new prospects, after several potential jurors said they had already formed opinions about the case.

Lillian pleaded not guilty. Apparently confident, she showed little interest in the proceedings.

In his opening statement, her lawyer, Prescott, described Eddie Killeen’s underworld history, telling jurors that “Big Eddie” had been “practically” the head of all gambling in the area. Only a few days before his death, Prescott said, Killeen had woken Lillian from her sleep, striking her in the face, and raving that he was planning to kill gambling rival Sam Beard and US Attorney Leslie Garnett, who had headed the capital’s crackdown on gambling rackets.

He chronicled Lillian’s relationship with her lover. State's witnesses--two police officers and Lillian's own written confession--all corroborated a history of brutality at the hands of Edward Killeen.

In light of that testimony, State's Attorney James Pugh announced he did not feel he could ask the jury to convict Lillian. That day, the jury acquitted Lillian of all charges. She left the courthouse on the arm of her lawyer, beaming to the surrounding throng of reporters and photographers.

***

The New Deal enthusiasm for patching up and mending a worn national infrastructure had by now hit Georgetown. A few years earlier, the Rockefeller Foundation had invested millions to restore colonial Williamsburg, Virginia, to better-than-original condition. Inspired, Georgetown citizens set about restoring their long-neglected township. They purchased crumbling houses at fire-sale prices and refurbished them. They mended fences and manicured gardens. Shopkeepers painted storefronts and hung new signs. Gradually, Georgetown began to hold its head up again, its decorum restored.

So, too, did Lillian set about repairing up her life. She returned to her sister's house in Georgetown, where she would live quietly for years, fighting for sobriety and respectability. If Lillian knew more about the day Eddie Killeen died, she kept it to herself. Whether she formally divorced John Maddox is not known, but she returned to using her maiden name, Callaghan.

Though she never made it back to the front pages, she was never, at least in Georgetown circles, able to completely live down her past as a Notorious Woman. Neighbors either avoided her entirely, or nervously pretended the whole affair had never happened.

Children found her fascinating, among them, Washington painter and architect James Hilleary.

“Every time she would open her purse to take out a cigarette, I'd look to see if she was carrying her ‘gat’,” he remembers.

In her later years, Lil became somewhat of a local legend. Neighbors quietly referring to her by the nickname, “Diamond Lil,” after the Mae West character, due in part to her appearance.

“She’d wear clothes—the only way to describe them is ‘costumes.’ Like Sunset Boulevard,” former neighbor Jane Ward says.

Once, some time after World War II, Lillian threw a lavish party, in what some guests saw as an attempt to reinstate herself into Georgetown society. James Hilleary attended the party at Lillian’s apartment, which she had decorated very elegantly. She had draped a silk-tasseled shawl over a white lacquered piano and filled the rooms with flowers.

“It was the funniest mixture of people you would ever want to meet. She had all the Holy Hill Irish there, you know, the pillars of the Church,” he says. “Poor Lillian. The party was going well until some unwanted guest, somebody from her past, showed up drunk and made a big scene and shocked everyone.”

Lillian had one more brush with the law, says area resident Carmel Nance, who knew her in her later years. In the 1950s, while driving along Georgia Avenue near Silver Spring, Maryland, she was involved in a car accident. When police examined the wreck, they found a packet of heroin. She was sent to a hospital at Lexington, Kentucky, where she underwent treatment for the addiction that had plagued her since childhood.

Lillian spent her last years in a retirement home in NW Washington. The Georgetown University Hospital physician who cared for her in the early 1980s said she spent most of her time staring out of her bedroom window in silence. He did not know her history. In fact, she was a puzzle to him: On the surface, she looked every bit the “sweet little old lady.” But, her body, on physical examination, bore unmistakable signs of past physical and chemical abuse.

She never left the nursing home. Lillian Alice Callahan died in November of 1984, at the age of eighty-six.

© Cecily Hilleary, 2009

Eddie and Lil - Part Two

2009-01-09T03:36:00.000-08:00

1928 was a bull market year on Wall Street, prompting hundreds of thousands of investors to funnel their savings into the stock market. On September 3, 1929, the market hit a record high, then in the following weeks, began to waver, then fall. Nervous investors began to sell, sending prices plunging further. On “Black Thursday,” October 24, securities plummeted six billion dollars. By Tuesday the 29th, stock prices collapsed altogether.

In 1931, thirteen and a half million Americans may have been out of work, but in Washington, the government kept thousands employed, and city residents were unaware of the extent to which the rest of the country had been devastated. Eddie Killeen was oblivious. The once small-time carnival gamester had by now reached the pinnacle of his underworld career.

It was not just shrewd business sense that helped Eddie rise to power, or the unspoken code among mobsters that they never testify against a fellow gangster. One of Eddie’s sisters was married to a local attorney named John Costello, the Democratic Party National Committeeman for the District of Columbia. According to Washington Herald accounts, Costello was also a man of ambition and am exhalted sense of his own importance. With the coming of Democratic Franklin D. Roosevelt to the White House, Costello began perceiving himself as the “boss” of the city of Washington and planned to appoint new, exceedingly liberal District Commissioners and an equally liberal Superintendent of Police. Eddie was arrested countless times over the years. It was commonly believed that John Costello helped protect him from conviction.

Perhaps the most sensational instance of Eddie’s “untouchability” occurred back in January 1921. During a party at the Cabin John, Maryland, Boblinger Hotel, Killeen and a man named Barnett Tanner got into a fist fight. Tanner's date, Bessie Harris, tried to intervene and in the ensuing tangle, Eddie shot her in the heart, and she died. If the shooting was accidental, Eddie was not contrite: When police arrived at the hotel, they found Eddie and his friends singing “Auld Lang Syne.”

Eddie was arrested and tried for her murder. He told jurors he had shot Harris accidentally, that he had actually been aiming at Tanner. In spite of the damning testimony, jurors found Eddie not guilty. Among those who testified against was an eyewitness to the Boblinger shooting, Evelyn La Rue. The day after the trial ended, Evelyn La Rue was found dead of poisoning in downtown hotel. Police could never prove that Eddie killed her, but the word quickly spread on the street that Eddie was not a man to cross, and his rivals began to fear him.

He would elude the law again and again. In 1930, police raided and shut down one of his gambling dens on G Street, NW. Though he was not present at the time, prosecutors showed evidence that Eddie leased the property, and indicted him for operating a gambling business. Inflamed, Eddie went to police headquarters and threatened the arresting officers.

“I wish I had been there,” he told them. “I would have shot you down like dogs.” He was tried in the District Supreme Court, but after several hours of deliberation, nervous jurors once found Eddie not guilty.

By 1932, the “Mayor” controlled more than fifty gambling establishments, most of them small operations which “laid off” their bets with his central office—this way, he ensured he would never get caught on the premises. One house, on Conduit Road, just a mile past the D.C. line, was raided a dozen times, but police never found enough evidence to indict him. They kept a close eye on Eddie for years, waiting for him to slip up. A confident man, Eddie now boasted publicly, “They can’t touch me.”

Eddie surrounded himself with several henchmen, who worked to keep his enemies at bay and ensure that underlings did not pinch any profits.

“The Mayor was always sure to have a lieutenant with no mercy in his heart,” wrote the Herald, “and a ready trigger finger to see that the boys stayed in line.” His chief lieutenants were Bryant McMahon, Jack Cunningham, Tally Day, and Joe Nally, all of them with long criminal pasts.

As his self-assurance rose, Eddie began encroaching on the territories of other syndicates, some of them quite powerful. He had long been friendly with a prominent Washington racketeer, millionaire Sam Beard, who ran the 14th Street Richmond House, a casino that served as many as 500 bookmakers. In 1933, Beard was convicted and jailed for tax fraud. Eddie solemnly promised to look after Beard’s business interests until his friend was released. Once Beard was safely out of the way, Eddie seized control of the Richmond House and began banking its enormous profits for himself.

Feeling invincible now, Eddie took the step that would prove to be his downfall. He issued an invitation to powerful mobsters across the country to come to Washington.
“This city is going to be wide open,” the Herald newspaper later paraphrased him. “See me, and you can do what you want.”

Hindered by police crackdowns in other states, many of America’s criminal “big shots” heeded Eddie’s call. Hungry for the promise of “an undisturbed heaven” of gambling and legal immunity, they flocked to the District, which was rapidly transformed into a lawless capital of gambling, plunder and murder, all fed from the profits of racketeering. The newspapers of the day were filled with editorials decrying the new crime wave. Civic groups called for a tightening of laws, and D.C. lawmakers, in turn, shifted the blame to Congress itself, which controlled the financial purse strings.

A pressured DC government, aided by the Federal government, ordered a crackdown on crime and began to take a closer look at Eddie—and his political connections. In the first blow to Eddie’s empire, the Roosevelt administration dismissed Eddie’s brother-in-law, John Costello, from his post as Democratic National Committeeman, citing “questionable family connections.” Police cracked down on out-of-town gangsters, many of whom were arrested, convicted and sentenced to new, tougher penalties. Some ended up without any livelihood at all, save for “cutthroat competition” with each other, and—said newspapers—with Eddie, who had failed to live up to his promises.

In 1932, an armed battle for underworld primacy began, and Washington streets and alleyways were bathed in the blood of fallen gang members. Eddie lost a number of friends and “lieutenants.”

His chief “lieutenant,” Bryant McMahon, was killed in a gun battle with a rival gambler, as he tried to defend Killeen’s gambling interests at a “game meeting” in the Houston Hotel.

Another henchman, Jack Cunningham was killed in a shoot-out in a 14th Street alley.

Joe Nalley was murdered in a downtown nightclub.

Talley Day, who ran Eddie’s M Street gambling house, was killed by a man named Elmer “Bulldog” Sweeney in a fight over a card table.

To make matters worse, Eddie’s old friend Sam Beard was released from prison. Discovering Eddie’s betrayal, he declared war on Eddie. In a matter of weeks, Eddie found himself suddenly stripped of all his protective armor.

With his top aides gone, Eddie promoted one of his last remaining henchmen to serve as his chief “lieutenant.” Albert Sutton was a hardened, ex-convict who had been recently paroled from the “Big Top,” the Federal Penitentiary at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, where he was said to have organized a thriving dope ring. Rival gangsters were elated. Sutton was the weakest of Eddie’s aides and could easily be eliminated.

“Hovering in the background like jackals,” wrote the Herald, “they were afraid to make a move as long as the ‘Big Shot’ was alive.”

Around that time, Mickey McDonald, a gambler and former underling of Eddie’s who operated a large and prosperous numbers racket in Montgomery County, was looking for ways to expand his enterprise. Emboldened by Eddie’s new vulnerability, McDonald began to muscle in on Eddie's clientele, refusing to share the profits.

In retaliation, Eddie ordered his “lieutenant,” Sutton, to take out McDonald. Sutton placed a dynamite bomb—a “pineapple”—in McDonald’s car, but it failed to go off.

Fearing that McDonald would quickly strike back, Eddie called in a “big gun” from Philadelphia, a member of the then-notorious Tri-State Gang which operated along the East Coast from Virginia to New York: Tony “the Stinger” Cugino, a man law enforcement billed as one of the most ruthless and vicious killers in the underworld.

Cugino traveled to Washington to meet with Sutton. Two weeks later, they agreed on a deal. Sutton paid Cugino an undisclosed sum of money to execute Mickey McDonald.
Just before dawn on October 23, 1934, Cugino set off to accomplish his mission. He was accompanied by a driver, Howard Bailey; fellow Philadelphia gangster Bill Cleary; Sutton; and three other Tri-State gangsters: Albert McDermott (alias John “Slim” Dunn), William Cleary, and Ernest Myers.

A short time after the hit men arrived at McDonald’s Takoma Park, Maryland, home, another car approached, driven by a young Washington Herald newspaper carrier named Alan Wilson. Wilson left his car to place the morning paper in a mailbox by the McDonald’s front door. In the still-dim light, he did not notice the men crouched behind a cluster of bushes.

The unsuspecting Wilson never had a chance. “Slim” had mistaken Wilson’s car for McDonald’s and instructed Cugino and Myers to begin firing. Alan Wilson died in a salvo of shotgun fire and pistol bullets.

McDonald's wife Viola, who had been sleeping at the time, leapt from her bed to the window in time to see the attackers flee.

Bailey, Dunn, Myers, Sutton and Cleary were later arrested. They believed that Eddie was still powerful enough to get them out of jail, and, according to the Code, they refused to admit who had ordered the hit.

Bailey later attempted to break out of Lorton Reformatory and was shot dead by guards.

Cugino was arrested in New York, but committed suicide a few weeks later after confessing his criminal history.

Bill Cleary broke down, confessing to police that he had been approached by Sutton to murder McDonald, but, according to a newspaper account, he developed “amnesia” whenever Killeen’s name was mentioned.

District police took over the investigation for its obvious links to DC gambling. Investigators were certain Eddie had ordered the botched hit, but in the absence of supporting evidence, the investigation was deadlocked. As for McDonald, he had no doubt that the bullets which killed Wilson were meant for him. Nor did he have any doubt about who had ordered his execution.

***

A year earlier, in 1933, Washington citizens had been shocked to learn that 88 people had been murdered in that year alone and that Washington had the highest murder rate among similarly-sized cities across the nation. The Wilson killing touched the city's nerves, waking it up to the relationship between gambling and organized crime. “Enough!” cried Washingtonians, and the city declared an all-out war on crime. U.S. Attorney Leslie C. Garnett spearheaded the effort.

Numbers was a relatively new racket in Washington, and the laws against it were ineffective. One of Garnett’s first steps to combat crime was to appeal to newspapers to stop publishing racing results. The Washington Herald, the Evening Star, the Washington Times and the Washington Post all complied, but to his disappointment, this had little effect on the flourishing bookmaking industry.

Garrett began arguing either for the legalization of gambling or the revision of lenient laws and took his case to Capitol Hill. He proposed a series of amendments before the Senate District Committee, but these did not pass in either House. He then initiated a series of spectacular police raids on gambling establishments, resulting in many indictments, which were enumerated under glaring headlines across front pages.

President Roosevelt had recently formed the Federal Bureau of Investigations, endowing it sufficient resources and authority to put down the nation's gangsters from New York to Los Angeles. “G-men” joined local authorities in keeping Eddie under constant surveillance.

Eddie’s final blow came when “lieutenant” Albert Sutton’s parole was revoked and he was sent back to Leavenworth. Word quickly spread that Eddie had lost his last defense. Now, powerful Philadelphia syndicates began to move in on his territory.

Eddie fled the city, moving his records and equipment to his Brookmont bungalow, abandoning all but a few quasi-legitimate business ventures and a small numbers racket. He stored his gaming devices in a steel vault in the basement, and then exiled himself for several months on the Florence K., anchored off Colonial Beach. Depressed and drinking heavily now, he waited for the heat blew over, and used his new free time to plan his comeback. He boasted to his few remaining friends that he was planning on setting up a gambling establishment that would rival even the upscale Mohican Lodge, one of two stone “castles” along Conduit Road, near Glen Echo, Maryland.

Sometime during this period, he re-encountered a thirty-seven year-old woman whom he had known briefly during his youth in Georgetown. Her name was Lillian Callaghan Maddox.

***

She was born Lillian Alice Callahan in March 1898, to Alice Wills Baker, a nurse, and Timothy Callahan, a Georgetown blacksmith. Her parents were respectable working-class Georgetown immigrants. Her father had been a wheelwright and was among the hundreds of Irish laborers who had earlier come to Washington to build the C&O canal. Their first home was a squat frame house on Prospect Avenue. They later moved into a larger home in the 3200 block of P Street, NW, just a block away from the Killeen house.

Neighbors called Lillian a "bad apple,” “ahead of her time.”

Former neighbor Jane Ward remembers Lil as pretty and clever, “from a good Catholic family, but she just got mixed up with the wrong crowd.”

Early on, Lillian developed a fascination for Eddie Killeen, and neighbors said she frequently passed by a Wisconsin Avenue saloon where Eddie worked. Here, one neighbor claimed, Eddie also ran an upstairs brothel, and he alleged that Lillian took a job there as a “hostess.”

Lillian later told police that she first met Eddie in 1911, when she was only thirteen years old. When she was fifteen, Eddie, twice her age, seduced her by promising to marry her.

By 1915, Lillian was working as a salesclerk at Hecht & Company downtown, still living in her family’s P Street, NW, home. On November 3rd of that year, at the age of only 17, she married a cigar clerk named Richard Lewis Collins. Father Edwin Corbetts performed the ceremony at Holy Trinity Church only after obtaining special dispensation from the Diocese, as Collins was not a Catholic. Collins lived with the Callahan family for several years, but no details are known about the marriage itself, which later dissolved.

***

Lillian first discovered opiates during her childhood. After she fell from a garden wall, at the age of six or seven, doctors prescribed narcotics for her pain. This was not an uncommon practice at the end of the 19th century, when opiates were freely dispensed for headaches, pain, and even menstrual cramps. Until they were banned early in the twentieth century, over-the-counter patent medicines--containing up to forty percent opiates by volume—were widely available, and led many down the path to addiction. By the 1880’s, there were an estimated 300,000 opiate addicts in the United States, most of them women, and a great many of them from the upper and middle classes.

For decades, physicians had freely prescribed opiates to “innocent addicts,” viewing them not as criminals, but as pathetic victims to be spared the pains of withdrawal from drugs. In 1914, the US passed its first drug law, the Harrison Narcotic Act, a tax measure regulating the import, manufacture, transport and sale of opiates. Doctors were still permitted to prescribe drugs, and narcotics clinics still operated in dozens of American cities. However, in 1919, the US Supreme Court ruled that physicians could no longer provide narcotics to addicts. Clinics across the country were shut down, and by 1924, a total prohibition was in place.

This saw the birth of the street drug trade. Having no legal access to drugs, addicts all over America were forced to turn to illegal sources to support their habits. Dealers quickly grew wealthy, and addicts were forced to commit petty crimes to pay the increasingly high price of drugs. Many women addicts were forced to turn to “houses of ill fame” as sources of opiates.

Lillian was arrested ten times between 1924 and 1933. At 26, she was arrested for the first time and fined for disorderly conduct—the legal euphemism for being under the influence of alcohol or narcotics. At the time she was working as a clerk at Washington’s Union Station. By now divorced from her husband Richard Collins, she was still using her married name.

In spite of her weakened leg, Lillian had a reputation as a fighter who could rival any man. In 1930, after a car struck hers, she pursued the motorist into his downtown office, where, said the Washington Herald, she rained blows on him sufficient enough to drive the desperate man back out into the street. It took four police officers to subdue her.

In the 1920s, Lillian married a Union Station co-worker, a gambler named John Maddox. The couple later separated, but remained friendly for years. Maddox would later subsidize, in part, her legal defense in her later trial for Eddie Killeen’s murder, and stood by her throughout her trial.

In 1932, she briefly took up with a local hoodlum called “Hoofsie” Davis.” In June, the two traveled to Atlantic City. There, she was arrested in connection with the murder of a small-time racketeer named "Milsey" Henry, killed the previous April. Police accused Hoofsie of driving the getaway car for the murderer. Lillian was charged with hiding Hoofsie from justice and briefly jailed, however, the case was dismissed for lack of witnesses.

In February 1933, she was arrested for narcotics charges and sentenced in April to serve from one to two years at Lorton Reformatory. At that time, the Washington Herald labeled her “a drug peddler and operator of an opium den.” She was released from Lorton on probation thirteen months later, in May 1934 and promised anxious friends and neighbors she would go “straight.”

It was that year that she was reintroduced to Eddie Killeen, the man to whom she had lost her virginity so many years earlier. He took Lillian for a cruise on the yacht where he was by now living in exile, and in May of 1934, the two began secretly living together, splitting their time between her Third Street, NW, apartment, the Florence K., and his Brookmont bungalow.

It did not take long for Eddie’s wife Florence to find out about the relationship.

“Oh, I don’t remember exactly when it happened,” she later told reporters. “A year or so ago, I guess. He never talked about her. But I knew. There’s always a friend who will come and tell you about those things.”

Florence said Lillian had always held a strange fascination for Eddie, even though their meetings nearly always ended in quarrels. Though Florence downplayed her reaction to Eddie’s mistress, Florence had been privately despondent at the time. Once, she went to Lillian’s apartment when the latter was away and left a note threatening, “Next time I come here, I will blow you to hell.”

When Eddie and Lillian began living together, a desolate Florence attempted to commit suicide by turning on the gas in her Chesapeake Street home. She was revived by rescue workers, and told them, “I couldn’t go on living with him anymore.”
Eddie kept up his relationship with his mistress, and Florence eventually decided she had had enough. In September 1935, Florence filed for divorce.
“I charged desertion because I didn’t want to drag the other woman into it,” Florence later explained. “I was a better sport than she was.”

Marshals looking to serve Eddie his divorce papers found him in Lillian’s apartment. Eddie pleaded with them not to tell “the other side” where he was. Eddie opposed the divorce, and over the coming weeks and months, telephoned Florence several times, begging her to reconsider. Florence refused to back down, and after the divorce was made final, Eddie provided Florence with a generous settlement, giving her the fashionable Chesapeake Street house, paying all household bills, buying her a car, and giving her $25 a week in spending money—which was not a large sum of money by any means. One decent hat at Woodward $ Lothrop’s would have consumed an entire monthly allowance.

***

To be Continued...

© Cecily Hilleary, 2009

Eddie and Lil: Washington’s Gangland King And the Woman who Shot Him Down-Part One

2009-01-08T06:42:00.000-08:00

"A blazing gun in the hands of an infuriated woman yesterday snuffed
out the life of big Eddie Killeen, who won his crown
as king of Washington's underworld by ruthlessly
crushing his rivals and ignoring the law..."
--The Evening Star
Saturday, November 24, 1935

It was the third week of November 1935, and Washingtonians were getting ready for the coming Thanksgiving holiday. For those without families, Dr. Grace Thompson was organizing a "Strangers' Dutch Treat Thanksgiving Dinner" in the Shoreham Hotel’s Garbo Room. Arnold’s F Street Beauty Salon was advertising Thanksgiving permanent waves for $2.50. The Marx Brothers “Night at the Opera” was playing at the Lowe’s Fox Theater.

Late Friday evening, November 22nd, thirty-seven year old Lillian Maddox accompanied her lover, fifty-year old Edward Vincent Killeen, to his Brookmont, Maryland, home. It was an unimposing yellow stucco bungalow on an unpaved lane just below Conduit Road—now MacArthur Boulevard. Lillian still kept an apartment in town, but she had been spending most of the past eighteen months with Eddie, either here in Brookmont, or on his yacht, the Florence K., anchored in the waters of the Potomac.

It had not been a happy year-and-a-half. Eddie, once a rich and powerful mobster, was now living in exile and in constant fear of his rivals and police. Lillian, just eighteen months out of Lorton Reformatory, had believed that this was going to be the start of a whole new life with a man she had loved since childhood.

This was a grim little house, little more than a way station now, as Eddie waited for a chance to rebuild his fallen empire. The wood floors were bare, the windows curtain-less. Its rooms were furnished with only a few sagging chairs and the odd, worn table. No pictures hung on the walls, only faded and grimy wallpaper depicting racing and hunting scenes.

Eddie and Lil spent most of evening in bed—a bare mattress covered with a soiled blanket—drinking heavily, likely listening to the radio.. The bedroom was littered with their cast-off clothes, empty glasses, and scattered papers. The window was not trimmed with curtains, only a smudged paper shade which they kept drawn day and night. Everywhere lay the heavy dust of neglect.

Late Friday night, the couple began quarrelling. Eddie had always been quick-tempered, but nowadays, he had become downright vicious. If his spiteful words and strong fist did not impress Lil, then waving his revolver would always put a quick end to their arguments.

During her early childhood in Georgetown, Lillian had fallen from a garden fence and severely injured her right leg. She had walked with a limp ever since, something Eddie taunted her about when he was feeling mean.

“You’re already crippled in one leg,” he told her now. That is when their fight reached a flash point. He pulled out his gun and threatened, “I’ll put a bullet in your other leg and fix that so you can’t walk.” Later, she would tell police he put the gun away, only after much coaxing on her part.

If they slept that night, it would have the heavy sleep of intoxication. If they had sex, it would have been less lovemaking than biological wrangling. If they ate, it would have been hastily scrambled eggs, or a tin of soup and some crackers, all washed down by bottles of Heurich beer, or shots of White Horse scotch.

By Saturday morning, the couple began fighting again before they even left the bed. Both Eddie and Lil were nearly nude, each wearing one of his undershirts, and nothing else.

This, their last argument, escalated quickly, fueled by fresh shots of whiskey and pushed by an alcohol-induced fury that neither was able or willing to control.

Some time around noon, Eddie announced he was leaving Lil. He intended to sail to Miami on his yacht, one of the few luxuries he had managed to keep hold of. Miami was a wide-open town, with plenty of opportunities for enterprising businessmen like himself.

Eddie had threatened to leave her many times. This time, Lil knew he was serious. Just the day before, she had overheard him calling his steward with instructions to load a stove onto the Florence K. and ready it for a long cruise. Frantic at the prospect of losing Eddie, Lil softened her approach and pleaded with him not go. She loved him. She needed him. What would she do without him? She was still battling the dope and could not face her Georgetown relations, whom she had let down so badly. Nor was she willing to return to her long-estranged husband, a local gambler named John Maddox.

Eddie, disgusted by her pleas, now went for her emotional jugular. He told her he could do better than some hopped-up, shopworn scrag like her, and, in fact, he had already reconciled with his ex-wife Florence, who would be traveling with him to Miami.

What happened next is unclear. Lillian would later testify that Eddie began to physically abuse her, blackening one of her eyes and bruising the weaker of her legs. He told her, “I’m going to kill you. You’re no good!”
“Eddie, you don’t want to do anything like that!” she told him.

Newspaper reports, too, offer conflicting versions of the events that followed. What is certain is that Eddie again seized his revolver. One account says Lillian scrambled out of the bed and gave it a good shove in Eddie’s direction. Caught off balance, he staggered, fumbled, and then dropped the gun, which she seized in an instant.

By other accounts, Lillian talked Eddie into putting the gun back down on the bedside table, and as Eddie turned away from her, she seized it and fired: One! The bullet hit him in the back. Stunned, he whirled back toward her, and she fired again. Two! He was struck in the abdomen. Three-four-five! The remaining bullets missed, lodging in the wall behind him. Eddie slumped, then collapsed to the floor.

Lillian froze, aware of a ringing in her ears, the echo of the gun’s blasts. Somewhere in the distance, she made out the shouts of children. She dropped the gun and waited, divided between the fear that he was really dead, and the fear that at any second, he would leap up and really give it to her. When he did not move, she took a few tentative steps toward him. He lay still, wedged between the bed and the wall. She pulled the bed out to get a better look. Blood had pooled around the wound in his abdomen. She knew, without a doubt, that he was dead. Throwing the blanket over his body, she then steeled herself with another shot of whiskey.

In a field behind the house, two neighborhood boys had been playing an after-lunch game of football. When they had heard the sound of gunshots, they ran for help. Lillian went to the telephone and asked the operator to connect her to the police.

***

The Montgomery County police force was housed in a relatively new building, a two-story stone structure in Bethesda. Built by Italian stonemasons a decade earlier at a cost of $30,000, it was the pride of the County. 30 men comprised a recently expanded force. Among them was Private E.R. Jones, who was sent to investigate the Brookmont call.

Brookmont, Maryland, was a small community tucked away off the Conduit Road, within a mile of the District line, carved twenty years earlier out of an old District park. Today, it is a peaceful, upper middle class community overlooking the C&O canal and Potomac River. During Prohibition years, however, its remoteness from town attracted bootleggers, gamblers and saloonkeepers, and the neighborhood was dubbed the “Bucket of Blood” for its Saturday night brawls.

Edward Killeen had been no stranger to the local police force. They had been keeping an eye on him for months now, hearing rumors that he was planning on opening a new gambling operation in the Glen Echo area.

Now, Officer Jones, accompanied by his partner, steered his patrol car down onto Maryland Avenue, and left onto a small, unpaved lane. Killeen's house was only a few hundred feet to the right. The officers spotted Lillian immediately. She was standing on the covered porch in a dressing gown, which did not hide the man’s undershirt she wore beneath. As they stepped onto the screened porch, the officers noted her disheveled hair, her bloodshot eyes and a badly bruised jaw.

"What's the trouble?" Jones asked.

“Come on upstairs and see for yourself,” she answered.

The officers followed her up the dim stairwell to the bedroom, then over the side of the bed where Eddie lay.

“I’m not sorry,” she told the shocked men. “I would do it again.”

Jones immediately telephoned Montgomery County Chief of Police William Garrett and Maryland State's Attorney James Pugh. Though the shooting had taken place in Maryland, Pugh then called in the District police, who had been seeking to link Eddie with a murder that had been baffling investigators for nearly a year.
Over the next few hours, officers from both jurisdictions conferred at the house, while a small crowd of curiosity seekers, including neighbors and the boys who had heard the gunshots, hovered outside.

Late in the day, Eddie's brother William and nephew Jack and two friends showed up at the house. Will was weeping inconsolably as he entered the house. The police later sent them away.

After they finished taking her statement, the officers waited while Lil dressed in a brown "ensemble,” silk stockings and T-strap shoes. She pancaked and rouged her cheeks in an effort to mask her bruises. Then she donned her best coat—plaid, tapered and double-breasted—and was led to an awaiting patrol car. By the time it reached the Montgomery County courthouse in Rockville, Washington Herald reporters were already waiting. A photo that appeared in the next day’s edition showed Lillian covering her face with one hand. She appeared to be weeping.
Lil confessed willingly to investigators.

“He said he was going to beat the hell out of me,” she told them. “It was his life or mine. He began beating me and he wouldn't stop. During the scuffle, the gun, which had been lying on a table, was knocked to the floor. I snatched it up and began firing--I don't know how many times.” Then, she added, "I'm glad I killed him,” repeating, “I would do it again.” After she signed a confession, she was formally charged with murdering Washington’s underworld “Mayor.” Later, as the steel door slammed her into her cell, she threw her hat and coat on the bunk and swore, "Damn it, in jail again!" That night, she was heard to murmur repeatedly, “Why did I do it?” Finally, before falling into an exhausted sleep, she cried out, “Well, it served the damn fool right!”

She slept for a few hours, and then woke up screaming at ten p.m. Guards sent for her Georgetown physician, who treated her cuts and bruises and gave her a sedative for what he called alcoholic “jitters.” He ordered that a guard spend the rest of the night in the cell, giving Mrs. Maddox a drink every two or three hours until she could “taper off.”

Back at the Brookmont house, investigators were excited. It was a seemingly cut and dry case of murder, but the murder was, for them, secondary. This was the opportunity District and Montgomery County police had waited months for: a chance to pry through Killeen’s papers.

For more than a year, they had believed he was behind the murder of a Maryland newspaper carrier, but had never produced any evidence. Now, they rifled through Eddie’s desk, boxing up papers and correspondence. They discovered boxes of ammunition, a double-barreled shotgun, a rifle and two .38-caliber revolvers. They located a secret room behind a steel door, filled with gambling paraphernalia. They hauled away boxes of paper, $3,000 worth of roulette wheels, gaming tables and "chuck-a-luck" cages.

Behind the house, they found cages full of gamecocks Eddie used to fight for high stakes during parties. In the early evening, an old woman came to feed them dried corn.

“I don't know nothing about nothing except that I come to feed the chickens every day like this,” she told investigators. “He paid me to. He was always good to me. I never heard no quarrels.”

Killeen had been wearing two large diamond rings at the time of his death. Police also found an expensive watch, a watch chain embedded with pearls, and a knife engraved with the initials “E.V.K.,” which they turned over to the State’s Attorney’s office.

***

Eddie’s ex-wife Florence first heard about his death over the radio. Shocked, she went immediately to the home of her sister-in-law, Mrs. John Costello, for what she told reporters was “comfort and advice.” Family members later took her to the W. W. Chambers funeral home in Southeast Washington to arrange for Eddie’s burial. Dressed in a fashionable plaid coat and a smart, brimmed hat, she told reporters waiting there that she wanted Killeen “to have the best in death as he had in life.”
That night, a Montgomery County medical examiner performed an autopsy on Eddie’s body. He found two slugs—one, which had entered through the back, just above Eddie’s hip. The other had entered his abdomen.

Eddie Killeen was buried on the following Tuesday morning, two days before the Thanksgiving holiday. Because he had been divorced, Eddie was denied the customary Roman Catholic funeral Mass. A priest from St. Paul's Catholic Church, however, agreed to chant the Latin litany of the dead in the funeral home’s chapel.
A crowd of more than 200 curiosity seekers gathered on the sidewalk outside Chambers. Women with babies in their arms stood alongside curious workmen, who had wandered over from a nearby construction job in time watch the pallbearers remove the casket from a hearse.

Inside, Eddie lay in an open copper casket that had cost more than $1,000 at a time when complete funerals could be arranged for $300. His ex-wife Florence had dressed him in a tuxedo that had still been hanging in their home. She had pinned a white carnation to his lapel and twined his boyhood rosary through his fingers.
The casket was surrounded by lavish arrays of yellow chrysanthemums and red roses. Family members, friends, regional breweries such as Tru Blue and Abner Drury, and even some of Eddie’s more powerful underworld enemies had signed the attached cards. Moments before the service began, an unidentified man rushed in with a wreath, saying, “I never liked Eddie Killeen, but I am sorry he had to die this way.”
As the priest chanted the litany, an organist played “Ave Maria.” Florence, in widow’s black, knelt beside her sister-in-law, crying throughout the service, “Oh, Eddie, Eddie, why did it have to happen like this?” She wept, too, throughout his subsequent burial at Mount Olivet Cemetery. Later, however, she posed dry-eyed for photographers and the press, answering questions about her life with Eddie, the gangland “Mayor” of Washington, DC.

***

Edward Vincent Killeen was born in 1887 to a respectable Georgetown family of Irish-Catholic descent. His father, George Emmett, had emigrated from Ireland and married Margaret O’Reilly, an English woman from Liverpool.

By the turn of the century, Georgetown, once a thriving port and fashionable address, had lost its colonial charm. Where the waterfront once harbored graceful schooners, it was now a tangled mess of power company smokestacks, gas works and grim brick factories. The new industry had attracted hundreds of European immigrant workers. The town soon swelled, and to accommodate the newcomers, developers erected countless cheap row houses and carved antebellum mansions into tenement flats. Old Georgetown gradually disappeared, and its former aristocracy migrated to Dupont Circle or the quieter suburbs of Maryland and Virginia.

George Killeen opened a Wisconsin Avenue saloon, which did a lively business. He and his wife Margaret settled into a three-story brick house in the cobbled block of 3300 P Street, where they raised their nine children. George was an active Democrat and became a personal friend of political leader and lecturer William Jennings Bryan, contributing heavily to Bryan’s political campaigns. Like most of the Irish in Georgetown, the Killeens attended Sunday mass at Holy Trinity Church and sent their children to the parish school.

Little is known of Eddie's childhood. Holy Trinity parishioners and classmates later remembered Eddie as a “stray sheep” and a constant embarrassment to his family. His parents fought to keep him out of trouble. When Eddie was only a boy, his father instructed the District police to arrest him, should they ever find Eddie in the vicinity of Washington’s “red light district.”

When he was a teenager, Eddie left home and spent time as a circus barker in the disreputable environment of a traveling carnival. There he also operated small games of chance, learning the basics of a business that would someday make him rich.
By May 1906, Eddie was nineteen years old and had returned to Washington. That month, he was arrested for the first time, on gambling charges. Police failed to convict him, and it was generally believed that his father’s strong political ties had helped Eddie get off. In fact, he would be arrested time and time again, but never convicted of any crime.

Eddie began his rise, like so many of America’s notorious gangsters, during Prohibition. The passage of the 18th amendment in 1919 banned the manufacture, transport or sale of alcohol. Within only months of Washington’s having going dry, open-air distilleries began cropping up all over the dense forests of surrounding Maryland and Virginia, out of the government’s sight. Most of these were small operations, but there were exceptions. In 1922, Internal Revenue agents raided one of the city’s more sophisticated distilleries in the woods off Bladensburg Road. They confiscated $15,000 worth of distilling equipment and thousands of pounds of sugar and corn meal. The plant operated seven days a week, producing up to 200 gallons of 10-proof corn whiskey each day. Rumrunners were paid $50 to haul as much as three hundred gallons of moonshine into the District each night. They sold the whiskey to dispensers, for $5 a gallon. They, in turn sold it in the streets for $8 a gallon, pocketing the difference.

Eddie Killeen began as a dispenser. Because the 18th Amendment did not prohibit the buying or drinking of alcohol, he had plenty of eager customers. His concession prospered. He used the profits to begin a sideline business in gambling.
Washington had been a gambler’s paradise since before the Civil War. The best gambling houses had always been located on or nearby Pennsylvania Avenue. Some were princely, appointed with the finest furniture, carpets, and crystal, and attracting Washington’s elite: Congressmen, White House officials, and top military commanders. Thousands of dollars, it is said, could be traded in a single night at Faro tables.

Elsewhere in Washington, second-class gambling houses catered to the middle and lower classes. Cheaply furnished, they drew the bulk of their clients from the large numbers of business visitors to Washington. The proprietors of these houses employed “red herrings” to loiter in hotel lobbies and in the Capitol building. The decoys would introduce themselves to unsuspecting strangers, volunteer to show them around the city, and then lure them to the gambling houses. In the most squalid of these establishments, visitors would be forced to drink, then forced to play. The decoys were paid commissions on the victims’ winnings. The victims, embarrassed at their gullibility, rarely complained to police.

Gambling casinos often began as “parties.” Struggling young workers invited their friends to rented rooms and basements across Washington, and for a quarter “admission,” provide them with bootlegged whiskey (two dollars a jar—four, when flavored with a fruit extract and billed as peach or apple brandy). These were generally bare bones operations, outfitted with tables and crates, where card games were played, at penny stakes. As their operations expanded, their proprietors would branch into numbers, the illicit lottery in which random numbers are chosen to determine race winners. Or they would offer blackjack and dice, the proprietor taking a percentage of all winnings.

It was a risky business. If patrons’ guests became too noisy, police might raid them, arrest the occupants and players, and shut down the operations. If operators attracted clientele from the bigger gambling syndicates, the “small fry” were forced out of business, taken over, or murdered. Clever operators might be hired by the bigger syndicates. Some, like Eddie, kept their noses clean and thrived. As his profits grew, he opened a series of successful gambling houses in the District and Montgomery County.

After the 1933 repeal of Prohibition, Killeen applied for a wholesale beer distributor's license from the District's Alcoholic Beverage Control Board (ABC). Many board members opposed his membership on the basis of his well-established reputation as a gambler. However, because he had never been convicted of any crime, the ABC grudgingly granted him a license and, as a necessary formality, declared him “of good moral character.”

This infuriated many Washingtonians, and the resulting controversy received wide media attention. The Evening Star accused the Board of “throwing the liquor business into the hands of racketeers.”

In spite of the furor, Eddie retained his license and opened a business distributing Northampton Brewing Company beer to more than fifty small stores in the Metropolitan area. That concession was short-lived, however, because of the strong-armed tactics used by his employees: “Buy Northampton Beer or we’ll dump any other beer you buy in the gutter,” they told clients.

Losing the concession did not worry Eddie. The Repeal had driven the price of alcohol so low that there was no longer much profit in the alcohol business. The real money, he told his friends, was in gambling.

***

In 1926, Killeen met his future wife, Miss Florence Underhill, an attractive, young stenographer from New York. By now, nearing forty, Killeen, was an attractive man, with dark eyes that seemed to be borrowed from a Byzantine icon. He wore his hair parted on one side and pomaded back from his forehead. He dressed in elegantly tailored suits and patted his face generously with expensive toilet waters.
Florence was swept off of her feet.

“Eddie was a fine looking man,” she later told reporters. “He had a way with him.”
The couple was married on Halloween Day, 1926. Eddie bought Florence a platinum wedding band set with diamonds, and they honeymooned in Hot Springs, Arkansas-- a favorite resort of the era’s high rollers.

Florence later described the marriage as a happy one, even though childless.
“That was in the laps of the gods. We both wanted them, but never had any,” she later said.

She knew all about Eddie's gambling business but later claimed it was not until they were married that she became aware of the darker side of his operations. She spent many years urging him to give up “the racket,” but to no avail.

“Eddie was always his own worse [sic] enemy…it was no use to point out the danger to him. He didn’t know what fear was.”

Eddie and Florence moved into an elegant Tudor-style home on Chesapeake Street, N.W. He built a summerhouse in Brookmont and purchased a large, wood-trimmed motor yacht, which he christened the Florence K., after his wife. On weekends, the newlyweds frequently invited friends and Eddie’s business associates to sail out to Point Lookout, Maryland, or Colonial Beach, Virginia.

The two never had any trouble, claimed Florence, “until he got mixed up with this woman.” The woman was Lillian Maddox.

To be continued...

© Cecily Hilleary, 2009, May not be published or reprinted without permission.

The Woeful Demise of Little Sophie Major

2009-01-07T15:10:00.000-08:00

On Thursday, February 7th, 1878, a small notice appeared in the Washington Post obituaries:

MAJOR -- At 7 p.m., February 5, 1878, after short illness, Olivia S., oldest daughter of David and Elizabeth Major, in the 20th year of her age.

Her death ignited a controversy which, though brief, was fiery. Possessing all the best elements of a good Victorian melodrama, the story of Sophie’s death and burial ignited passions and touched nerves across Washington.

By all accounts, 19-year-old Sophie Major was a beautiful girl of sweet disposition. With long dark hair, brown eyes and fair complexion, of medium height, and weighing 140 pounds, she possessesd what one Post reporter called a “faultlessly proportioned figure.” She had attended Grace M. E. Church Sunday school all of her life, though she was not an official member of the church as was her mother. She worked at Lansburgh’s Dry Goods store for a few years, but at the time of her death, had been “furloughed.” She lived at 229 Q Street, N.W.

At the age of 16, Sophie met a young man named John W. Hurley, a plumber and gas fitter who lived at 925 Massachusetts Avenue and worked nearby. He lived with his mother, Mrs. Amanda Hurley, a dressmaker. Tall, slender and red-headed, John was said to be a bit wild, but not to the extent that his reputation suffered. He was known to spend his evenings at a restaurant near Mt. Vernon Square (7th and NY), in present-day Shaw. The two saw each other for the next three years, and it was generally accepted that they were engaged to be married, though no announcement was made.

However, in November of 1877, according to newspaper accounts, friends and family noticed that Sophie, normally cheerful, looked more contemplative than usual. They made no comment. In December, thinking that her daughter was suffering from a cold, her mother consulted the family physician, Dr. Richard Mauss, asking for a remedy.

Dr. Mauss, in his mid-thirties, had been born in Germany and had studied medicine at the Georgetown Medical College.

When the medication failed, the doctor examined Sophie himself and confirmed his suspicions: Sophie was pregnant—-something she admitted “with much confusion and innocence of manner.” According to Dr. Mauss, he suggested to Sophie’s mother that the young couple should marry; she told him that Hurley had refused to marry Sophie. At this time, Sophie grew quite emotional, and she begged the doctor to help her in ending her pregnancy. It was Mauss’s contention that he scolded her for the danger and wickedness of her suggestion. “I saw the girl was so bent upon self-destruction,” he later told jurors, “that I had recourse to every artifice in my power to keep her from injury.

However, John Hurley told the Evening Star a different story: That it had been Dr. Mauss who had performed the abortion.

Oddly, a marriage license had been issued December 27, 1877 at DC’s City Hall; later, according to the Washington Post, many persons would go to City Hall and try to get that license back-dated. Were the young couple ever really married? John Hurley offered contradictory accounts. Yes, they had been married, he later told Dr. Mauss. He also stated that he had planned on marrying her on December 28th, but did not end up doing so, “for reasons, which while they exhibit a great degree of baseness,” Dr. Mauss did not care to disclose to the press. His grandmother later told a reporter that she did not know why, but that Hurley had insisted to her the couple had never been married. Hurley told his mother, however, that he had been married, though failed to show her the certificate, nor identify who who had officiated the ceremony. But Dr. Mauss said the young man had given him a reason: Later, Dr. Mauss told reporters that John confessed the two had actually been married on December 20th,

It was then that Sophie allegedly answered an advertisement in the newspaper and consulted a woman named Mrs. Pierce, who advertised in a city paper. Whether any such woman existed and who really performed the abortion is not known.

An inquest into Sophie’s death was held on February 6th, the day after she died, at the Second Precinct Police Station. The first to be questioned was Dr. William H. Triplett, who said he had been called that Monday afternoon, by the Major family physician, Dr. Mauss, to attend to the girl, whom he found in a “feeble” condition. Triplett testified that Sophie had told him the following: that on January 29, suffering from a “severe internal hemorrhage,” she had visited a Dr. Woodworth at his offices on 7th Street, between G and H. The doctor had performed an operation on her, which did not hurt until later. She described Dr. Woodworth as a tall man with black hair and said that she had paid him $50 for the procedure. On examining Sophie, Dr. Triplett said it had been his impression that she suffered from septicemia, caused by the abortion, though he could find no evidence of an instrument having been used.

The coroner questioned the family physican, German-born Dr. Mauss (b. 1843, approximately 35 years old), who insisted that he had seen nothing of the girl since she had declared her intention of obtaining an abortion. He testified that Mrs. Major had sent for him the Thursday before [January 31st), and finding Sophie in such bad shape, he had called Dr. Triplett in for consultation. His story varied only slightly from Dr. Triplett’s; he stated that Sophie told him she had answered an advertisement by a Mrs. Pierce, who brought the mysterious Dr. Woodworth to perform the abortion at the Major’s house. Mrs. Pierce visited the house several times after that to check on the girl, and was paid $50.

The cornoner apparently did not investigate Hurley’s claims that Dr. Mauss himself performed the abortion, and the jury, in the end, ruled that Sophie Major had died of complications of an abortion procured by “Dr. Woodworth” with Mrs. Pierce as an accomplice.

Initially, newspapers announced that funeral services would be held at Grace M.E. Church, at 9th and S Streets, NW, site of the present-day New Bethel Baptist Church. That, however, was before the circumstances of her death were made public, and several members of the church threatened to leave the church if the funeral were held there. The church’s board of trustees met and decided against the funeral; three members of the board—Mssrs. Humphrey, Riggles and Tinkler, informed Sophie’s brother John that the family that they would have to hold the funeral elsewhere. It was a decision that would create great dissent within the hurch and outrage the city. Within days, four out of seven of the church’s trustees had left to join other churches, and other churchgoers complained that Church matters had long been run by the trio of trustees.

The bereaved Major family held the funeral on the afternoon of the 7th at their Q Street home. The occasion attracted a large throng of friends and strangers, who had read about Sophie and had been attracted by her sad tale.

Sophie lay in an open casket, amid a “profusion of flowers,” a single white tea rosebud on her breast. But what astonished funeral-goers most was the small silver plaque attached to the coffin that read, “Olivia S. Hurley,” which most mourners believed was only a gesture by John to protect his own reputations.

Most outragous of all, John attended the funeral himself, leaning on the arm of Sophie’s sister and lamenting Sophie’s loss as emotionally as anyone else present. “A deal of indignation,” wrote the Post, “was manifested by many persons at his presence, and some strong language was used, particularly by ladies, in reference to his part in the affair.” Mourners set aside their feelings long enough for Sophie to be laid to rest at Rock Creek Cemetary, but talked freely to the press afterward.

“It’s too late, it’s too late!” lamented one mourner. “His name cannot do the poor girl any good now!”

Two days later, a reporter hunted John Hurley down at his favorite restaurant, determined to settle the matter once and for all. The dialogue was reported as follows:

"Were you or were you not married to Miss Major?"

"I was married, and have already told the reporters so."

"Have you any objections to stating where and by whom the ceremony was performed?"

"Yes, I have. I don’t want this thing talked about in the papers any more."

"If you will give the minister’s name who married you, or the names of any of the witnesses, or produce the marriage certificate, it will settle the question and put a stop to all the talk."

"Well, all I have to say is, I was Miss Major’s husband when she died, and that is all there is about it."

On April 29th, 1891, Dr. Mauss, suffering from a serious case of pneumonia, shot himself in the heart in his own bedroom, saying afterward, “I was in such pain, and I thought I’d shoot it away.” He died two days later.

As for John Hurley, a check of the 1880 census found him still living with his mother Amanda; the 1900 census showed him married to one “Catherine J.,” and by 1910, he had a son, John W., Jr., who eventually went into the plumbing business with his father.

C.H. ©2009
Image,"Poor Sophie Major," Julia Holmes, ©The Washington Post, 1877-1954): Feb 9, 1878; Proquest Historical Newspapers The Washington Post 1877-1991) pg. 2

Missus Mattingly's Miracle Cure

2009-01-05T15:23:00.000-08:00

In spring of 1824, the bells of Georgetown College pealed for a full day with news of a miracle that had taken place in nearby Foggy Bottom. The event, which triggered great cynicism and controversy--even within the Catholic Church--was viewed with awe by the common folk of Georgetown and triggered more than a few religious conversions, including from among my own ancestors.

It involved a 30-year-old German priest with a name as incredible as the healing powers he was said to possess, and the sister of the Mayor of Washington, Ann Carberry Mattingly.

Ann Carberry was born in St. Mary’s County in about 1781, one of the nine children of Thomas Carberry and Asenath Simmons, whose ancestors had settled Maryland in the mid-1600s. Anne’s brother was a Catholic priest at St. Inigoes in Saint Mary’s County. Another brother, Thomas, served as the sixth mayor of Washington in 1822—this following a hotly-contested election that brought into question his former military record.

In the early winter of 1803, she married John Mattingly, and the couple eventually moved to Washington D.C., where they raised four children: William, George, John and Mary Susan. Ann’s husband died when he was in his forties, and little else is known of her life, either before or after her marriage—certainly nothing that would give any hints of the dramatic events that took place in 1824, during the last year of her Georgetown brother’s post as Mayor of the city.

According to her brother, Mayor Carberry, she had been living with him since 1815. , and two years later, when she was about age 34, Mrs. Mattingly discovered a tumor “the size of a pigeon egg,” growing just beneath her left breast. Painful to the touch, it began to grow, and within a year, the woman was bedridden and in constant pain. Her doctors, William Jones and Alexander McWilliams, were helpless to offer her any remedy except for hemlock, mercury and generous doses of laudanum—as many as 350 drops a day. Her misery only increased with the development of bedsores and the onset of constant vomiting. In early 1824, her doctors pronounced her a hopeless case, and Ann Mattingly resigned herself to death. Friends and family, however, held out one last hope.

Enter Étienne Larigaudelle Dubuisson—Father Stephen, as his Jesuit colleagues knew him. Born in Haiti to creole parents and raised in Nantes, this former employee of the French Army felt a calling to the priesthood, much to the objection of his parents. Dubuisson left Paris in secret for Maryland—and Georgetown College. There, he was miserable, disliking fellow students almost as much as they disliked him. He was appointed prefect a year later, in 1816. His efforts to crack down the unruly pupils made him so unpopular that in 1818, students hatched a plot to kill him in study hall. Luckily for both, the plot was uncovered by a fellow priest, and the would-be assassins were expelled. Undaunted, Dubuisson continued his religious studies and in 1821 was ordained a priest.

He was known to be a brilliant orator, and it is said that when he preached at Holy Trinity, it was to a standing-room-only crowd. He no doubt projected an old-world sophistication that made him stand out in Georgetown; this was only enhanced by the fact that he spoke several languages and had once served as treasurer of the French Crown.

Mrs. Mattingly’s friends approached Dubuisson, urging him to call in the Big Gun: A titled cleric from Bamburg, Germany bearing the extraordinary name of Prince Alexander Leopold Hohenlohe-Waldenbourg-Schillingsfurst.

A priest with a reputation for effecting miracle cures through prayer, Father Hohenlohe had been banned from public “miracle-working” by the Pope, but allowed to cure in private. Ann Mattingly had little to lose and gave her consent for the German priest to be contacted. Father Anthony Kohlman, of Holy Trinity Church in Georgetown, wrote the letter.

Hohenlohe replied in a letter to the Archbishop of Baltimore that he would offer a special Mass for anyone wanting his help on the 10th of every month, 9:00 a.m. European time. Mrs. Mattingly’s priests should offer a novena—9 days of prayer—in the days preceding this Mass.

Throughout the nine-day novena, Mrs. Mattingly was fading fast. On the morning of the 10th, to coincide with the Mass being said by Father Hohenlohe in Hamburg, Father Dubuisson said a special Mass at Saint Patrick’s Church on 10th Street, downtown. As soon as he was through, he raced by carriage to Mrs. Mattingly’s bedside to bring her Holy Communion.

The five or six witnesses in her bedroom that dark morning—friends, family, doctors and priests—say she was barely able to move as Father Dubuisson read the text of Hohenlohe’s letter and prepared to read the last rites. He then offered her Communion; by now, it was 4:15 a.m., and it took her some minutes to work the thin wafer down her parched throat. Later, Mrs. Mattingly would say, “I believed that the hour was at hand…In the distressing situation, I calmly and without agitation of mind awaited the final close of my earthly miseries…”

This is how Father Dubuisson described what happened next: “Mrs. Mattingly fetches a deep sigh, rises slowly to a sitting posture, stretches her arm forward, and exclaims with a firm but somewhat weak voice, ‘Lord Jesus, what have I done to deserve so great a favor?’”

Mrs. Mattingly, who was wearing only bedclothes, sat up on the side of her bed and asked for her stockings. These were brought to her, and she put them on and began to get out of bed, to the astonishment of the others in the room, who gasped or cried outright. Father Dubuisson suggested a prayer of thanks, and when he had finished, the patient got out of bed and knelt down, proclaiming the tumor was gone, as were the ulcerations on her back.

“Suddenly,” she later said, “in the twinkling of an eye, the pain left me, my body was entirely healed, and I found myself in perfect health.” Indeed, such perfect health that she immediately began moving around the room, pulling at the heavy curtains and tidying things. Later, she had a hearty breakfast, where before her “cure,” she had not been able to manage eating much of anything at all.
Word spread quickly through the streets of town and the bells of the Catholic churches began to ring in celebration and it is said that more than a few Protestants converted to Catholicism before the furor died down. Family and friends who had witnessed the miracle wrote testimonials on her behalf, including Father Dubuisson.

Looking back, it might have been seen as a public relations triumph for the Catholic Church, still fighting to maintain itself in an overwhelmingly Protestant America. Some of the worst skeptics were to be found in the Catholic Church itself. The Archbisop of Baltimore scolded Dubuisson, urging him to “moderate and guide the popular emotion” in order to avoid “irreparable evil and scandal.” Father Matthews later commented with sarcasm, saying the ‘miracle’ had caused so much trouble that it was a “happy thing” miracles didn’t occur more often. The parties involved all gave sworn depositions to both the Church to the Supreme Court of the United States. In the end, the entire incident was downplayed, out of fear it would incite a superstitious public. Rome never issued a statement.

Gradually, the numbers of well-wishers beating a path to Mrs. Mattingly’s door died down. So, too, did her notoriety. She briefly joined Visitation Convent, much later in life, but left after only a year. She is said to have witnessed a second miraculous cure—this time, it was an injured foot. She died in quiet obscurity at the age of 71.

Father Dubuisson served as President of Georgetown College for awhile, but so hated the job that he begged to be relieved from it. After a brief nervous breakdown, he went on to have a distinguished career as a missionary pastor. He died in France in 1864.

Trinity’s Father Kohlman went to Rome and ended up as the tutor of the future Pope Leo XIII.

Timothy Carbery never ran for Mayor again.

Seen below, Carbery house, 17th and C Streets, NW, built ca. 1818. Library of Congress, National Photo Company Collection.

Father Hohenlohe went on to become, in 1844, Chorepiscopus and Titular Bishop of Sardico. His method of curing the sick was continued after his death by his friend and disciple, Joseph Forster, pastor of Hüttenheim, who died in 1875.

And to this day, every March 10th, St. Patrick’s Church in Washington, where Father Dubuisson said the Mass for Ann Mattingly, marks the occasion with a special novena in memory of the event.

©Cecily Hilleary 2009,

Top Photo: Holy Trinity Church, Georgetown, ca. 1849, Courtesy Woodstock College Archives, Georgetown University Special Collections Research Center.