The Virtual Dime Museum

Original Gene Conquers the East River

noreply@blogger.com (Lidian) — Tue, 04 Sep 2012 18:38:00 +0000

East River and Brooklyn Bridge, from NY World building (NYPL Digital Gallery)

If you'd been anywhere near New York City's East River on June 15, 1890, you might have seen a remarkable sight: a young man trussed up with rope, holding iron dumb bells in both hands, swimming from the Brooklyn Navy Yard to Pier 19 at the foot of Dover Street in Manhattan.

He was a 24 year old "exhibition swimmer" from St. Louis named Eugene "Original Gene" Mercadier. Mercadier was born in 1866 in St. Louis to French immigrant parents Benjamin, a mail carrier, and Claudine; here they are on the 1880 census. He had won several swimming races in St. Louis, and also held the American record time for a 20 mile swim - 4 hours, 59 minutes, 46 seconds. His route was from Alton, Illinois to St. Louis "with strong current, but in rough water and against a high wind," notes The Young Folks' Cyclopaedia of Games and Sports (1890, p. 796).

The drawing of Original Gene illustrating several of the articles about his East River exploits shows a grim-faced young fellow tied up entirely in rope - arms and legs bound tight right down to wrists and ankles. This drawing appeared in several newspapers across the US - you can see one here at the Library of Congress Chronicling America site, from the Daily Yellowstone Journal. But as Mercadier told the New York World before his swim, that he'd never swum in salt water before and was not familiar with the tides and currents of the East River. So he planned to swim with his legs free below the hips and his arms free below the elbows, so that he could shift the 2 pound dumb bells around a little.

Paul Boyton in his suit; NYPL Digital Gallery

On that June day in 1890 at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, Original Gene launched himself from a "boat manned by a crew of his admirers." These included none other than Steve Brodie, wearing (as the Brooklyn Eagle noted) "his Paul Boynton [sic]* rubber suit." Brodie, as you probably know, was famous for his purported leap from the Brooklyn Bridge in 1886.This would enable him to accompany Original Gene more closely and "advise him how to avoid the currents."

The admirers' boat was accompanied by several other boats, including a steam tug and a boat from Brooklyn's own Varuna Boat Club. I'd like to think that my great great uncle Daniel Hicks - age 23 in 1890, and an enthusiastic member of the Varuna - was along that day.

It took Mercadier about 45 minutes to make the swim. When he (and Brodie, and the boats) got to the Dover Street pier, Gene felt a little bit seasick, he said. And also, since the ropes had been dry when put on, they contracted in the water and cut Mercadier, who was bleeding when he emerged from the river. But Brodie announced that in a week's time Gene would do it again - only this time, he'd be bound up to the wrists and ankles, just like in his picture. Brodie added that he'd pay $1000 to "any man in the world" - tied or untied - who could beat Original Gene. I haven't found any mention of the follow-up swim, though. Mercadier had had enough, and who could blame him?

Sources

"Bound Arms and Legs," New York Sun, May 25, 1890, p. 17.
"He Swims In Harness," New York World, Jun. 16, 1890, p. 6.
"Mercadier's Big Swimming Feat," Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Jun. 23, 1890, p. 1.

*Paul Boyton [not Boynton], also known as the "Fearless Frogman," was a swimmer/showman who (among his other exploits) had invented rubber swim wear that was part drysuit, part personal kayak. See here at the Providence Public Library, "10,00 Miles in A Rubber Suit" - there is a great image at the link.

Note: Awhile back I wrote a post about a Brooklyn medical man of the 1860s called Professor Angelo Balbo. His widow, Mary (Clayton) Balbo, was a friend of my 3rd great Aunt Rachel Van Duyne; they lived together in the 1880s. If you click on the link, you'll find my initial post about him and his "volcanic baths." But the Professor's interest in water wasn't limited to his therapeutic baths. The New York Sun article about Mercadier mentions Professor Balbo as "a professional swimmer" who "some years ago...succeeded in swimming the East River at its narrowest point with arms and legs tied." His arms were tied behind his back "but the rope was bound in such a manner as to allow the hands plenty of latitude, sufficient to keep him afloat." Researching Balbo, by the way, is what led me to Original Gene's story.

Bartholomew's Fall

noreply@blogger.com (Lidian) — Sun, 02 Sep 2012 19:23:00 +0000

Nos. 4-10 Grove St., NYC (Berenice Abbott photo, NYPL Digital Gallery)

My great great uncle Bartholomew Carey was born in New York City in 1873 to Irish immigrant parents. Unlike my Hicks ancestors, he led a quiet life and didn't get into the newspapers much. Only once, as far as I know - and it was because he had had a terrible work accident in the winter of 1905.*

In 1905 he was 32 years old, single, and living at 10 1/2 Grove Street in the West Village (see above right for a view from 1936). He was working in Washington Heights all the way at the other end of Manhattan, in street construction or repair. I'm not sure which, as the article in the New York Herald is rather vague. Bartholomew was pushing a wheelbarrow full of dirt across a 50 foot deep pit or shaft in the road, over which was laid a board. He fell off the board and into the pit but "the other laborers paid no attention to the accident."

Amsterdam Ave. and 153rd St, NYPL Digital Gallery

Someone must have paid attention, though, because soon afterwards, an ambulance arrived. But according to the herald the other workers didn't know why it had come, and it "went back empty." Poor Bartholomew was stuck in the pit until that night, when his groans were heard by a policeman from the nearby station on "West 153rd Street." I think that they mean what was the 32nd Precinct House at Amsterdam and 152nd Street, which is now a New York City Landmark.

With the help of a ladder attached to a 50 foot long rope, and several other policemen, Bartholomew was lifted out of the pit and taken to the Washington Heights Hospital (which was at 179th St. and Broadway) with "serious" injuries. There's no follow up article - this wasn't, of course, considered a major news story - but I know that he did survive. Two years after the accident, in August 1907, Bartholomew married my great grandfather's sister Anna.** Bartholomew and Anna were still alive in 1940, in which year the census lists them as living on East 89th Street in Manhattan.

Old 32nd Precinct House (Wikipedia)

Source: "Searches Deep Pit for Injured Man," New York Herald, Dec. 2, 1905, p. 6.

*There are 2 Bartholomew Careys in the 1900 census for NYC - my great great uncle and an elderly man age 78, who was not likely to have been the laborer in 1905. So I'm going on the premise that the poor fellow who fell into that pit was my great great uncle. There is a 1905 NY State census which, of course, is the only census in which Bartholomew eludes me. He shows right up in all the others, federal and state, from 1880-1940, always in Manhattan, always a laborer, always born in the 1875-7 range, and married to my Aunt Anna after 1910). When I do track him down in the 1905, I'll edit this post.

** Anna was 7 years his senior and was born in northern Germany on her parents' estate in Bad Kleinen, Mecklenburg. Her family lost the estate sometime in the 1870s, when they moved to Hamburg. My great grandfather Friedrich arrived in New York on New Year's Day 1886, at the age of 17, and found work in a lumber yard. Anna and her mother joined my great grandfather in New York in 1894, where they supported themselves by taking in laundry.

Nerve Corns and Cancer Warts

noreply@blogger.com (Lidian) — Sat, 25 Aug 2012 21:45:00 +0000

Brooklyn Daily Eagle ad, 1881

What did my 3rd great uncle - a hot-tempered photographer from the Eastern District of Brooklyn in the 1880s - have in common with Ulysses S. Grant's mother?

They both were the grateful patients of a certain Dr. L. Kimbell (or sometimes Kimball) who treated corns, warts, and other dreadful skin afflictions.

These days, I usually write about Victorian patent medicine over at The Doubletake. But I'm making an exception for this ad from the Long Island Daily Star of July 1881 because it lists several Brooklyn residents who were cured by it - and one of them appears to be a relative of mine, my 3rd great uncle L.S. [Lemuel Stephen] Hicks. I am not allowed to reproduce the ad but you can see it here at the fabulous Fulton History site.

The ad on the left is from a Brooklyn Eagle*, also dating from the summer of 1881. The Long Island Star advertisement, which takes up almost a full column, is from "the Well-Known Dr. L. Kimball" who was temporarily at 100 Fourth Street, Brooklyn, which was a Williamsburgh hotel called the Wall House. According to Edwin Armbruster in The Eastern District of Brooklyn, the Williamsburgh post office was located there in the early 1870s. By the 1890s it had been renamed the Hotel Boswyck. Lemuel Hicks' photographic studio was at 158 Grand Street. Google Maps estimates that it's a 5 minute walk from 158 Grand to 100 South Fourth.

Hannah S. Grant

By July 1881, Dr. Kimbell had been practising for several weeks in "Parlor No. 19, up one flight of stairs" at the Wall House. Although he was primarily chiropodist, he also treated ailments elsewhere on the body with "a new liquid process...only known to Dr. Kimball." Among his grateful patients - most of whom were local to Greenpoint and Williamsburgh, Brooklyn - was "Ex-President Grant's aged mother [who was cured of] terrible nerve bunions and nerve corns." It was called Doctor Kimball's Magic Oil and cost a dollar a bottle He also made several more specific remedies including a Wart Banisher (this may have been what Jacob and L.S. availed themselves of), and a Chiropodian Remedy.

Hannah Simpson Grant (1798-1883) was the Pennsylvania-born mother of ex-President Ulysses S. Grant. In 1879 she was living in Jersey City and granted a rare interview to the New York Graphic, a transcription of which is at the link. There is a Hannah Grant, born in Pennsylvania in 1798, living in Jersey City in 1880 (according to the link under her photo, she died there in 1883). So geographically, it is possible that she was treated by Dr. Kimbell.

Anyway, among the local patients listed in the 1881 Long Island Daily Star ad, I noticed "Jacob Morch and L.S. Hicks [who] had cancer warts exterminated from their faces." Unfortunately, unlike some of the other people, Jacob and L.S. did not provide their addresses. So how can I know for sure that the L.S. Hicks of this ad is my particular L.S. Hicks? Well, I can't be 100% sure. But as far as I can determine, I think that it probably is.

For one thing, I haven't found any other L.S. Hickses in Brooklyn in the early 1880s (with the exception of Lemuel's namesake son). The Brooklyn Public Library is digitizing their collection of city directories, which is great news for anyone who has Brooklyn ancestors. I checked the directories closest to the year 1881, which confirmed my recollection of not finding any other L.S. Hicks in the 1850-1900 period in Brooklyn except Uncle Lemuel (and his son, who was 10 years old in 1881):

1880 Brooklyn directory [link here] : Lemuel S. Hicks is the only L.S. Hicks listed
1883 Brooklyn directory [link here] : same as 1880

Dr. Kimbell seems to have travelled to several cities from the 1860s through the 1880s, usually seeing patients in a hotel. In 1885, for example, he was in Norwich, Connecticut; the Norwich Day ran this long-winded ad (two columns long) offering free exams from 9am to 4:30pm at the Crocker House. He specialized in corns and "nerve excresences" of the feet, as well as "excessive perspiration," chilblains, boils and "all kinds of Cancers [and] Cancer Warts." And there is a wonderful ad in the Hartford (Conn.) Morning Record of Oct. 31, 1892 which quotes a lady with the memorable name Mrs. Pliny Jewell, who was cured of a horrifying number of corns by Dr. Kimbell.

All of which goes to show that anything can be a family history resource (and local history resource) - even an old patent medicine ad.

* Lemuel Hicks is not among the eminent patients in this and other Eagle ads for Dr. Kimbell. It's probably just because the Star ad is miles longer. But it's also a fact that the name L.S. Hicks was well known to Eagle readers from his acrimonious divorce, his angry outbursts to photographic subjects (tough to be fair this was not until 1883), and his connection to an infamous Brooklyn murder case as the outspoken brother-in-law of the perpetrator.

Parrots By Gaslight

noreply@blogger.com (Lidian) — Fri, 18 May 2012 14:17:00 +0000

Flying foxes, unimpressed with the show (NYPL )

In May 1892, a man and woman "whose names are unknown to the police" (a curious phrase, that) opened a small dime museum in Brooklyn. They rented a store at 277 Fulton Street and put curtains over the windows. They filled the store with "parrots, flying foxes, snakes in glass boxes, and a lot of pictures of actresses, and have hung outside a big sign which reads 'For Men Only.'"

Just inside the door, the Times reporter noted that there were two additional signs reading "Paris By Gaslight" and "European Pleasure Resorts." Both of which hinted at all manner of unsavory, illicit and exciting things within. Admission was a dime, and the place (the Times reporter noted) had been filled with "boys and old men" who had found the signs irresistible.

Library of Congress

The Times reporter asked the male owner why women weren't allowed (excluding the woman owner, I guess) and he "pretended to be deaf." The police visited, too "and found no reason to shut it up."

The Brooklyn Eagle also sent a reporter over to 277 Fulton with a dime, and told him to look around. He did. And what he saw was not very exciting at all. On the right side of the room (he wrote) there was a counter with glass ornaments displayed in it and "a big man with a blow pipe was making some more" while "three discouraged patrons" were watching him. There was a stereopticon (a magic lantern or slide projector, that is) showing "half a dozen very dirty [i.e., smudged] prints." The subjects of the prints were some historic battles, and the rescue of a little girl from the sea in Newfoundland.

Then the Eagle reporter moved on to the middle of the room. There was a boa constrictor in a glass box there, and a lone green and red parrot was perched on a stick in front of a stage hung with red curtains. Eventually, a stage show began. The main event consisted of a magic trick in which a man was decapitated. Unfortunately, the body was that of a dummy; the glassblower peeked up from behind it, pretending to have his head cut off. The dummy's neck was painted red to lend realism to the trick. It didn't. The next, and final, act featured a paper skeleton dancing a "breakdown."*

The Eagle reporter asked the glassblower (after he had emerged from behind the decapitated dummy) why women were excluded from this museum. He hesitated, then said that it was to "keep bums and loafers out." The reporter asked if he meant to imply that women were included in that category. The man pretended not to understand the question. Then he said with a grin, "Evil be to him who evil thinks." Which is what the saloon keeper with all those pictures of leaf-covered ladies said, too, as you might recall.

The woman proprietor then invited everyone to come see the part of the museum that truly was "for men only." That cost a second dime, and turned out to be the pictures of the actresses, "but they were all as carefully clad as though a committee of Minneapolis moral censors had had charge of dressing them." Still, noted the Eagle reporter, business had been very lively, and they were making $25 a day - a huge amount of money in 1892.

Bowery, 1910 (NYPL)

Four years later, across the river, there was a Bowery establishment calling itself "Paris By Gaslight." Just like the 227 Fulton "Paris By Gaslight," this venture had a stereopticon which showed scenes including Napoleon crossing the Alps and also the Battle of Gettysburg. The proprietors were charging a nickel and saying that it was "for gentlemen only." The same people? Maybe. The article calls it the "funniest" of the places that Police Commissioner Welles was checking out. There may have been several places called "Paris By Gaslight" in the Bowery. This one, though, was "shut down in five minutes" by Welles for being "an imposture."

Welles also seems to have visited a similar "Paris By Gaslight" (in the same month, July 1896, which is odd) at Coney Island. He called the Coney Island PBG "a fake of the worst description, but there is nothing immoral there. One sees the ruins of Palmyra there, and a few miscellaneous stereopticon scenes of other cities, a picture of a woman, not at all objectionable, and that is about all." Again, this sounds familiar: the fakery and the dreary slides of historic battles. One hopes that the parrot had flown away by then, taking the flying foxes and the boa constrictor with him.

"Women Excluded For No Good Cause," New York Times, May 8, 1892.
"To Fools 'Jays,'" Brooklyn Daily Eagle, May 7, 1892, p. 6.
"Welles Visits the Bowery," Brooklyn Daily Eagle, July 21, 1896, p. 16.
"Coney Island Must Be Good," New York Tribune, Jul. 22, 1896, p. 1.

All images courtesy of the NYPL Digital Gallery.

*William Ernest Henley calls this a "noisy dance" in his 1890 dictionary, Slang and its Analogues Past and Present.

An Incident on the Ferry, 1849

noreply@blogger.com (Lidian) — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 14:30:00 +0000

Looking from Brooklyn to NYC, 1849 [NYPL]

My great great grandfather Daniel Losee Hicks went through many occupations in the mid-19th century before he settled on shoemaking (which I suspect was his father's trade as well). When he came to Brooklyn from Little Neck*, in the late 1840s, he and his brother Andrew made gold pens. By the 1850s Daniel had had enough of gold pens and went to work on the ferries that transported people between Brooklyn and Manhattan.

Daniel probably got the ferry job through his brother-in-law, Garret Van Duyne. In March 1849, Garret was 22 years old; later that year, he would marry Rachel Barnett (sister of Daniel's wife Polly). He was the conductor of the steamboat "Montauk," which was part of the Fulton ferry line. He was already known as being both "suave" and "gentlemanly," according to the Brooklyn Eagle, but not afraid to keep order on the boat, either. Unfortunately, some of the passengers were not as pleasant. On March 29th a man named Edward Tremaine boarded on the New York side "with a cigar in his mouth." He then proceeded to "[take] up his station at the door of the ladies' cabin."

Steamboat, with ladies' cabin probably on left [Brooklyn Public Library]

Van Duyne politely asked Mr. Tremaine to please go to the other side of the boat, where smoking was allowed. Tremaine refused. Garret asked him again, polite but a bit more "urgent in his remonstrance." Garret put his hand under Tremaine's elbow. As soon as he did, Tremaine took a stick that he had in his hand (presumably a walking stick) and struck Garret - hard. He broke the bridge of Garret's nose and wounded him under the eye.

Tremaine was arrested as soon as he got off the ferry in Brooklyn "and marched forthwith to Judge Garrison" who put Tremaine in jail right away. Tremaine seems to have been in jail until the end of April, when he was arraigned and pleaded not guilty. He was probably released at this point. In 1855, an Edward Tremaine living at 17 Beekman Street in New York City made a complaint to the Mayor "that the vault coverings opposite the Sun Buildings in Nassau-street, are not properly adjusted, thereby causing great danger to foot-passengers." How ironic - if this is the same man - that he should be worried about things that might cause injuries to passersby.

After recovering from his terrible injuries, Garret resumed work as a ferryman. Unfortunately, he died in January 1858, leaving a widow and three small children, at the age of 31.

More about ladies on the Brooklyn-New York ferries, and about complaints to the Mayor, in soon-to-come posts.

Sources:

"Gross Outrage," Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Mar. 30, 1849, p. 3.
"Kings Co. Oyer and Terminer," Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Apr. 20, 1849, p. 3.
"Mayor's Black Book," New York Times, Feb. 13, 1855.
Garrett Van Duyne household, 1850 US Census, Brooklyn Ward 11, Kings, NY, dwelling #276, household #538, FamilySearch image here. Garrett is age 23, Ferryman, b NY.

*Little Neck: a town in Queens County, bordering on Nassau County, famous in the mid-19th century for its quahogs (clams) which became known as littleneck clams in honor of the town. It was a small village when my Hicks ancestors were living there. A timeline of Little Neck history is here.

The WCTU Ladies and the Bock Beer Goat

noreply@blogger.com (Lidian) — Tue, 27 Mar 2012 12:23:00 +0000

A saloon without fancy murals, 1864 [NYPL Digital Gallery]

"Mild and chaste and full of leaves."

I came across this story while researching the Bedford Gang, a group of young middle class ruffians in the Bedford section of Brooklyn in the first decade of the 20th century. My grandmother's cousin Garrett Wilson was one of them, before he drifted into vaudeville.

The comic hero of this story, though, is one George Boemermann, proprietor of "a bower of beauty sort of barroom" at the corner of Fulton and Nostrand, in the early 1900s. In the winter of 1904, the New York Sun reported that he had been reprimanded by the local WCTU (Women's Christian Temperance Union) ladies for the risqué murals all over his saloon's walls and ceilings. The WCTU, founded by Carrie Nation (below right, with hatchet) were vehemently against alcohol, saloons, and - certainly - frolicking nymphs on the walls of those saloons.

But how did the ladies discover them?

Carry Nation of the WCTU, 1910

Well - they peeked. One lady was quoted as saying "You can't help seeing them if you stand on tiptoe and look...Why, Madame President, it's legs, legs, legs all over the wall." Another lady chimed in "And arms and shoulders and backs and waists. I peeked too, Madame President, hoping to see something that would help the committee." The WCTU ladies wanted Boemermann to have "more fig leaves" painted on or else they were going to come and read their resolutions "right over his own bar."

But Boemermann was quite pleased (though he would not have been quite as pleased if Carry Nation had been among the Brooklyn ladies - she was six feet tall and liked to enter saloons waving that hatchet). Delighted, in fact. Because even back then, "bad" publicity could be very, very good for business. "Heaven bless the temperance ladies for calling attention to my grand works of art." He said the paintings had been there for 8 years and no one said a thing about it "till the ladies peeked and resolved." Why, he had had to hire three extra bartenders to handle all the extra customers, who were no doubt hoping to see some naughty pictures on the walls and ceiling.

Boemermann wanted people to know that the paintings were not a bit naughty, though. For one thing, the ladies' peeking had been obscured not only by frost on the window but also by the steam from his hot toddy machine. "You know how a little frost will make a painted woman look different," he told the Sun reporter. You don't see all the modest leaves covering the figures, for one thing! He could have had the artist make them much more saucy looking, but he had reasons not to:

We have to be very careful over here in Brooklyn, especially here in the Bedford district. It would never do for me to have pictures like those temperance women thought they saw when they peeked through the frost - not here in this neighborhood. I kept the artist here two evenings sizing up the Bedford gang Lotharios and seven-dollar-a-week double-life leaders so he'd know just how far he could go. And the artist said 'We'll have to make it very mild.' And that's what my art is. Mild and chaste and full of leaves.

Meanwhile, business was better than ever.

1883 Bock Beer ad [LiveJournal Vintage Ads]

Boemermann ends his remarks to the Sun with a little history, and his future design plans. He asks their reporter, "What was that that some king or other said when he picked up a garter belonging to some queen and some guy hanging around the court said something that wasn't fit for even a queen to hear?"

"'Honi soi qui mal y pense,'" the reporter says.

"Yes," Boemermann replies. "That was it. I don't know what the devil that means, but I'm going to have it fixed in electric light letters and put out over the door in front of my bock beer goat, so it will look as if the goat was saying it."

I really, really hope he did. And don't you wish that the New York Public Library Digital Gallery magically happened to have a photograph of the talking Bock beer goat? I do.

Source: "Ladies Peeked and Saw Legs," New York Sun, Feb. 6, 1904, [page not visible in scan].

Ellen Russell, The Cock of the Walk

noreply@blogger.com (Lidian) — Sat, 24 Mar 2012 15:00:00 +0000

NYPL

It was not often, even in the 19th century underworld of New York, that beautiful (if immoral) young ladies had nicknames which saluted their fighting prowess - but such was the case with Ellen Russell in the 1850s, who was known in her neighborhood (around Orange Street) and to the police of the area, as "the Cock of the Walk." Her nickname "Cock of the Walk" had been given to her for her "pugilistic powers." She seems to have specialized in coaxing a man into visiting a saloon with her, then picking his pocket.

She was probably born about 1830 (she claimed to be 22 in 1852) and lived on Orange Street in lower Manhattan, in the area known as the "Bloody Sixth" (Ward) or Five Points. It was a notorious slum, bounded by Bayard to the north, Cross to the south, Orange to the west and Mulberry to the east. Five Points was named for the intersection where five streets met: Orange, Cross, Anthony, Mulberry and Little Water Streets. It was full of old, derelict tenement buildings - including the infamous Old Brewery - as well as cheap saloons, vicious street gangs* and dark alleyways. It was probably the most dangerous place in the city to wander about even during the day. People did, though, including Charles Dickens in 1842; he said (among other things) that "all that is loathsome, dropping and decayed is here."

In other words, if you were a tourist in New York in 1851, and you were sporting a wallet full of money, it was the last place you ought to have gone. It was true that Five Points was beginning to be cleaned up a bit - the Five Points House of Industry was established there in that year by the Methodist group, the Ladies' Home Mission Society, and some slum clearance had begun. This had hardly changed anything, though.

Five Points in 1859 (NYPL)

George Chandler from Westfield, Massachusetts seems not to have read any cautionary guidebooks about where not to wander about by yourself in New York. It was November 1851, and he was doing a little sight seeing at the intersection of Mulberry and Orange. It was here that he met the Cock of the Walk.

Ellen asked him to come home with her, and he said no to that - but he did agree to go with her to "a groggery." Ellen then "made herself very familiar" with Chandler. She also got very familiar with his wallet, which had $75 in it. Chandler didn't discover that he wallet was gone for some time but when he did he called at the 6th Ward Police Station and described Ellen and what had happened. The police recognized the thief as "Ellen Russell, who for some time past has been a noted prostitute in the Sixth Ward and is familiarly known to the police as 'Cock of the Walk.'" She was arrested, Chandler identified her, and "she was then committed to prison for trial."

She must have been out of prison by the following spring, because in April 1852 she was arrested in the 14th Ward for having stolen a Mr. Wilson's wallet which contained a gold ring and $16. Mr. Wilson, who lived at 37 King Street, was "persuaded' to visit an "oyster cellar" or "oyster saloon" by Ellen, who then proceeded to sit close to him and pick his pocket. She was arrested the following evening by Officer William Hayes - who must have wished afterwards that he hadn't. On the way to the station, Ellen took out a knife and stabbed Hayes in the left arm "inflicting a severe wound." A charge of "stabbing with intent to kill" was added to the robbery charge and Ellen was sent to the Tombs.

Rum shop at Five Points, 1872 (NYPL)

Her trial was in May. Her lawyer, C.S. Spencer, entered a guilty plea, but only for assault. The District Attorney pressed for the charge of intent to kill. The New York Herald noted that

The prisoner...[was] fully up to her own weight with man or woman, a fact of which Mr. Hayes was fully aware, casting, at the same time, furtive glances art her, as she sat beside counsel.

Ellen then protested about there being an Irishman on the jury, which she didn't want - so they dismissed him and found someone else. Then the judge questioned William Hayes. He said he hadn't hit her with his club or in any other way; he was too busy trying to "save my face" from her "pugilistic powers." He demonstrated how he did this, to the amusement of the courtroom. The jury decided that Ellen was only guilty on the second count - intent to maim. She was sentenced to two years in prison, to which she replied "Oh! very well. I'm satisfied if you are."

In October 1858, Ellen was arrested once again for stealing a gentleman's watch after she "had picked [him] up on the street."

In December 1860, the New York Herald ran an advertisement for a story in the New York Clipper entitled The Cock of the Walk: or, the Bowery Boys on the Trail of Blood: A Thrilling Story of New York Life. A detailed chapter outline follows, though it is still hard to make out the plot of the story. It featured a female lead called Belle Flint, who seems to be a pickpocket - but her nickname in the story is "the Honeysuckle," not "Cock of the Walk" - who was, of course - as people would generally expect - a man. Ellen Russell must have been an exceptionally strong and flamboyant person to win this particular nickname. I wish I knew the end of her story.

SOURCES

"A Countryman Robbed," New York Daily Tribune, Nov. 25, 1851
"Robbery and Stabbing," New York Times, Apr. 9, 1852
"Court of General Sessions," New York Herald, May 11, 1852
"Alleged Larceny," New York Evening Telegram, Oct. 22, 1858
Advetisement, New York Herald, Dec. 18, 1860, p. 5.

[Note: Both the wonderful Fulton History site (sometimes), and the New York Times Archive (always), present scans without page numbers, hence the partial lack thereof.]

More about Five Points here from The Bowery Boys and Urbanography

*The book and movie Gangs of New York are set in Five Points in the mid-19th century. One of the main characters, Jenny Everdeane, is a maid, who is a very good thief, like Ellen.

The Ice Cream Garden and the Auld Lang Syne

noreply@blogger.com (Lidian) — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 15:51:00 +0000

Biddy Stephenson was well-known in the Brooklyn of the 1820s and 1830s. She was the proprietor of an Ice Cream Garden, which was an ice cream shop with outdoor seating where people could enjoy both their ice creams and a live orchestra. She seems to have been a bit of a character too, who liked to entertain people with songs at the "famous military garden" (Stiles, p. 82, see Sources below). This was Duflon's Military Garden, a center of entertainment in Brooklyn in the 1820s, near the future Court House.

Ice cream gardens and ice cream saloons (which were similar institutions) were popular through the 19th century. Castle Clinton, an old fort at the southern tip of Manhattan island, was used as an ice cream garden in the 1820s ["Castle Garden," The American Agriculturalist vol. 40 (1881), p. 76]. Castle Clinton was roofed over and renamed Castle Garden by the 1850s, when it was a place of entertainment - Jenny Lind sang there. Later still, it was the place where immigrants entered New York prior to the opening of Ellis Island in 1892.

Ice Cream Saloon, ca 1880, in Asbury Park, NJ (NYPL)

In one humorous 1850 story, a couple do a little courting in a New York ice cream garden:

Julia and Thomas Augustus sat alone one evening in a small arbor, or rather wooden box, in a retired corner of an ice cream garden in the Bowery...and a variegated lamp, attached to the front of the box, was all that shed a melancholy radiance over the scene....and they each had a glass of ice cream before them.

Thomas Augustus remarks, "How beautiful is the firmament with all its countless myriads of twinkling stars," and Julia agrees. He then adds, "And this ice cream ain't so coarse, neither." The story ends when the waiter tells them that there's a no kissing rule in effect - "he did not allow of them sort of proceedings in his garden!" ["First Love," The Golden Rule, vol 12 (1850), p. 17].

Not the Washington Inn but Labon's Inn in Flatbush (1853)

Whether Biddy allowed such goings-on is not known. Biddy's Ice Cream Garden was located next to a house that was "on about the line of the present Orange Street" in Brooklyn Heights, according to historian Henry Reed Stiles, writing in 1869. The house was originally owned by Cortlandt Van Buren and then by my distant Losee cousin Losee Van Nostrand. Biddy's ice cream garden was also a liquor saloon; in some sources it is simply called a tavern, and was said to be located "on the left hand side of Fulton street, between Concord and Nassau" [BDE, "Harrison's Grandsire," Aug. 19, 1888 p 11].

Biddy's husband William Stephenson ran a "bar and billard room" across the road from her place; William's tavern was called the Washington Inn - or, less formally, as the Auld Lang Syne. In the 1823 Spooner Directory, William Stephenson was listed as running a tavern at 160 Fulton street. After William died, Biddy moved her ice cream/liquor business over to the Auld Lang Syne and carried on from there. Biddy Stevenson is listed as a widow living at 93 Fulton street in the 1833-34 Directory of Brooklyn (reprinted here in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle in 1934). She died soon after this, in 1834 and some of the tavern furnishings were auctioned off by W.R. Dean of 88 Orange Street, Brooklyn in May 1834. The list of sale items suggests that Biddy's place was a well-established inn/tavern/place of entertainment:

...8 buttering [?] tubs, 2 large cisterns, 1 lot of lead and copper pipes, comprising a part of the bath establishment. Also a ten pin alley and fixtures, a shuffle board, grate, mahogany counter, summer houses, lamp, sign post, signs, &c. &c. [New York Evening Post, May 28, 1834, p. 1]

Brooklyn Daily Eagle, May 18 1843

Stiles says that lots of people held meetings at Auld Lang Syne- local politicians, and the general public, too. For example, in 1822, the first meeting of the Medical Society of the County of Kings was held there. And this Google Book from 1824 (sadly, we can't actually read it) describes a "rational and elegant entertainment" at Mr. Stephenson's Hotel, Brooklyn - including a performance by a Mr. Cartwright on "the musical glasses." I would give a great deal to be able to hop on the Time Machine and see this for myself.

What became of the Auld Lang Syne? By the early 1840s, 160 Fulton was a grocery store run by Francis Wilson, whose specialty seems to have been Pure Milk from Orange County, New York. By 1859, 160 Fulton had been transformed back into a tavern, called Desor's Saloon and Philadelphia Lager Bier Depot (see, for example, Brooklyn Daily Eagle, August 29 1859, p.3). In the 1870s, 160 Fulton was the Knickerbocker Life Insurance Company, and in the 1880s it housed a Chinese laundry and then something called the Scotch Oats Essence Company. I suspect that by then the original tavern was long gone, with a multi-story building in its place. Another building long gone - insert "auld lang syne" remarks here - was the Washington Inn's next door neighbor, the Log Cabin - quite a famous place in early 19th century Brooklyn. I'll tell you all about it in my next post.

SOURCES

Stiles, Henry Reed. A History of the City of Brooklyn (1869), p. 82
"Come Into the Garden," Brooklyn Daily Eagle May 29 1887 p.4.
"Christmas In Old Brooklyn," Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Dec. 23, 1894, p. 28 [mentions Biddy and her singing at the military garden]

Undue Fear of a Billiard Room

noreply@blogger.com (Lidian) — Sun, 11 Mar 2012 15:27:00 +0000

NYC firemen's billiard room, 1877 (NYPL)

I find the most wonderful things when I am researching Other Things altogether, and this is one of them. It caught my eye because the house in question is about a block away from the house my grandmother was born in in Brooklyn in 1889. This unusually long ad for "Brooklyn Property for Sale and to Let" is from the New York Herald of November 29, 1870 (p. 2) - and it was its length that first caught my eye (I was looking for something else on the page). It really ought to be the beginning of a mystery novel or a true crime story*:

TO LET - A LARGE HOUSE, FOR $790. The three story attic basement and sub-cellar brick House No. 1,386 Fulton avenue [i.e. Fulton street], next to northeast corner of Franklin avenue, containing 13 rooms and modern improvements, such as bath, water closets, hot and cold water, brick furnace, vestibule doors, bells, speaking tubes, sewer connection, and being 22 feet wide, with lot extra deep and having a court yard in front, will be rented until May 1 or for an additional year, at the above very low figure.

Oh dear, you may think: why is such a grand, spacious, modern house so cheap? There must be a catch! And you are right:

House is carpeted throughout, has shades up, is extra well built and in fine order. The first floor of the adjoining house is used as a billiard room, but the surrounding neighborhood in every direction being first class it is not frequented by roughs, but is kept in a quiet and orderly manner; otherwise the location is very desirable, being in the midst of fine improvements and convenient to ferry; house would rent for $1,400 under ordinary circumstances. To any responsible party desiring it, but having undue fear of a billiard room, it will be rented for a single month on trial, with privilege of remaining. Apply to J.E. CORNELL, Court street, corner Joralemon, Brooklyn.

Wikimedia

Poor Mr. Cornell. A few inches above his verbose, rather nervous-sounding ad there is a brownstone for sale across the river in wicked, sophisticated Manhattan, which among its features has a "billiard room" and is in a "splendid location" (though where precisely, the anonymous owner declines to say) besides. That is not surprising. Billiards (we would call it pool now) was a popular game for gentlemen in the 19th century. Many wealthy people would have had a billiard room in their house for said gentlemen to retire to after dinner for brandy, cigars, and a game or two. Although I suppose that women sometimes played billiards, too - this delightful ad from the 1880s shows some fine ladies playing at a splendid table held up by carved lions. They look like they know just what they are doing, too. As does the little girl practising on a nearby chair. I also love the painting of the gentlemen, who appear to be watching in a most benign, indeed approving, manner!

No one, not even J.E. Cornell, could disapprove of or fear a billiard room like this.

But the problem on Fulton Street seems to have been that the billiard room in the house next door was the sort of place one found in oyster saloons and other such low places. It took up the entire "first floor." The implication seems to be that it was open to the public. But, Mr. Cornell assured everyone, that was not a reason to worry about gangs of "roughs" hanging around the corner of Fulton and Franklin. Not at all.

I couldn't find out anything else about 1385 Fulton and its billiard room, unfortunately. But while I was searching, I came across a Brooklyn woman of the 1850s who was quite a character (her husband kept a billiards saloon, which is how I came to discover her). And I'll tell you all about her in the next post.

*It has gone into my file box of notecards on which I'm writing - very slowly, but the notecards seem to be working for me - the Brooklyn/NYC steampunk/alternative-world/mystery that I've been working on for - well, a long time. That's one of the writing projects that keeps me offline more these days. But working on Virtual goes well with both projects, happily.

Brooklyn's Human Ostrich

noreply@blogger.com (Lidian) — Sun, 04 Mar 2012 16:17:00 +0000

NYPL Digital Gallery

John Fasel was one of a certain kind of "dime museum freak" whose chief talent was eating nails, glass and other unpleasant things. They were known as Human Ostriches. As early as 1880, a San Francisco man named Gorista Mattovich entertained people in that city by "consuming nine ordinary glass tumblers" followed by a glass of claret [Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Aug 17, 1880, p. 1].

By the 1890s, there were several Human Ostriches performing in sideshows and at dime museums. They were generally men, with the exception of Miss Onon at the Fulton Museum in 1891.* One famous Human Ostrich called Harry Harrison was so attractive that at least two upstate New York girls ran off with him after he performed in Corning and Oneonta. You can see Harrison's picture here in a 1900 Bridgeport Herald article, which mentions that he is "splendidly proportioned and muscled in a marvellous way." Less attractive was his "star specialty [of'] eating horse shoe nails, carpet tacks, and other ostrich food and topping them off with broken glass."

John Fasel was a Brooklyn native, born about 1871. He started out in life as a tailor, but had not been a successful one. How and when he made the cognitive leap of thinking that pins were sewing implements, to swallowing them is not known. He may have seen a Human Ostrich in a sideshow on Coney Island - or read about one in the papers. He would have though that here was a way to make plenty of money.

Unfortunately, he was also a man who made plenty of trouble for himself, too.

NYPL Digital Gallery

In 1900 Fasel was arrested for assaulting his brother in law, August Strempfer, "over the possession of a watch" and was sent to jail for three days. The Eagle noted that in 1899 he had had an operation to remove three pounds of metal including foot-long steel and brass chains, brass rings and nails. He had been performing at "seaside resorts" but "since then he has become a magician." The following year saw him jailed again (for eight days) on a charge of "assault and disorderly conduct. " This time, Fasel not only assaulted his father in law but "resisted a policeman."

In the same year he was in St. Catherine's Hospital where a brand new innovation, the X ray, was being used to "determine the exact amount of cash and size of other deposits" inside of Fasel, who the Brooklyn Eagle called "the human bank." He also performed as "the human pincushion" when on exhibition at "a Manhattan dime museum" - he stuck pins in himself rather than swallowing them.

In 1900 Fasel ended up in St. Catherine's Hospital after a trip to Andy Lober's saloon in Brooklyn. Fasel started swallowing nickels to impress people and then said "Ain't nobody else got any money? You see, my funds are pretty low now and I want to put a little into my bank." Nobody wanted to contribute any money to his bank so "he swallowed a big bone and left."

You won't be surprised to learn that when he got home, he felt quite ill. He then told his brother that a crowd of young men in Lober's saloon had urged him to eat lots of nails and he'd said no because even swallowing one hairpin would endanger his life. Then he said some men forced him into a back room and beat him up until he swallowed some nails and a bone. His brother went to complain to the police about this. The police, who knew Fasel pretty well by now, took him to the hospital. When the police talked to Lober, he told them that no one had forced Fasel to swallow anything.

In 1904 Fasel had an operation at Brooklyn's German Hospital to remove the following from his stomach: six penknives, two watch chains, two key chains, six keys, a buttonhook, six pins, and seventeen nails. The New-York Tribune noted that three of the last item were three-inch nails. He was then living at 248 Varet Street, Williamsburg with his wife and children, and was about 33 years old. Not surprisingly, Fasel was reported to feel "great relief" after the operation. It was the third operation of this kind that he'd had in as many years. The New York Tribune noted in 1904 that:

In St. John's Hospital, about two years ago, the doctors took about three pounds of junk out of him [and] he had been out of Bellevue Hospital only three weeks when his stomach went back on him again while making a meal off a penknife and a watch chain in the store of a friend at Willoughby and Sumner avenues, last Sunday.

It was definitely the understatement of the year to describe Fasel's digestive issues as his stomach "going back on him." But despite all of his strange digestive exploits, he was still alive in 1930. And he seems to have gone back to his original profession: in the New York State census of 1905, Fasel's occupation was listed as being "Tailor."

The Afflictor has written about John Fasel, too, specifically about his 1904 dining exploits. And here is a New York Times article from 1908 about Frank Durga of Oregon, another Human Ostrich. And over at Boing Boing there is a short piece (complete with disturbing photo) of The Great Waldo, a mid-20th century Human Ostrich who swallowed not only small metal objects but also whole lemons and live mice.

*As you can imagine, I am searching for more information on Miss Onon - definitely an unusual Victorian woman. When (if) I track her down, I'll write about her here. Harry Harrison looks interesting enough for a another post, too, actually.

SOURCES

"Theaters and Music," Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Jan. 11, 1891, p. 13. [Miss Oron]
"Junk in Human Ostrich's Stomach," New-York Daily Tribune, May 4, 1904, p. 25.
"Pounds of Junk in His Stomach," Syracuse Telegram, May 4, 1904, [n.p.] [Mentions JF's age and occupation]
"Human Ostrich in Trouble," Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Jul 27, 1900, p. 14.
"Human Ostrich in Jail," Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Apr. 9, 1901, p. 20.

CENSUS LINKS [link is to FamilySearch transcript page as records can be difficult to read; you can get to the originals from here where they are available]

1892 New York State Census Brooklyn Ward 16: Frank [sic] Fassel, 36y b US Tailor; Louisa Fassel 35y b US; John Fassel 10y US; Lizzie 1y US.

1900 US Census: Brooklyn ED 8 NYC Ward 18: John Fasel 42y NY Tailor; Katie 44y US; children all b US: John 19y Tailor, Martin 15y, Joseph 13y, Lizzie 9y, Katie 7y, Gertrude 3y.

1905 New York State Census 182 Troutman Street, Brooklyn: John 24y b NY Tailor; Louisa 21y Housework; Maggie 3y At Home

1910 US Census Brooklyn: John Fasel 29y, Louisa Fasel 26y, Margaret 8y, Louisa 3y.

1920 US Census Brooklyn: John Fassel 38y, Loiuse 36y, Margaret 18y, Louise 12y, Katharine 8y, Frank Gartner 25y [perhaps a relative].

1930 US Census Brooklyn Districts 0251-0500: John Fasel 49y, Louisa Fasel 46y

The Bedford Black Sheep

noreply@blogger.com (Lidian) — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 14:11:00 +0000

This post is essentially a précis of a few future posts about a Hicks cousin - yes, another one. His story involves a notorious Brooklyn gang, the New York vaudeville and burlesque scene in the 1910s, and some side trips to upstate New York and Omaha, Nebraska, too.

Garrett Wilson was my grandmother Grace Hicks' second cousin. The picture of him here is a detail from a photograph showing Garry with Grace and her siblings and their goat cart, taken in 1896. Garry was 14 at the time; my grandmother was 7. Garrett was born in 1882, the son of Franklin P. and Hannah (Van Duyne) Wilson. He was named for his grandfather Garrett Van Duyne, who died in 1858 at the age of 31 (my great grandfather, Charles Garrett Hicks, was named for him, too).

Hannah (Van Duyne) Wilson died when Garrett was only 3, in 1885. His father married again in 1889, to Isabelle Tichenor, and had another son, Franklin P. Wilson, junior, born about 1892. Garrett lived with his Van Duyne grandmother from about 1892 to 1900; I'm not sure if he was sent away because of family problems, but I suspect that.

In the summer of 1902, when he was first arrested, he was 20 years old. He was a natty young man "wearing clothing of expensive material, cut in the latest fashion, and having the appearance of being very well connected." He was charged with check fraud and tip selling at the Brighton Beach racetrack. But that was only part of what he had been up to. His step-grandmother explained to a persistent Brooklyn Eagle reporter that Garrett had told them that he was part of a group of disaffected young middle-class men known as the Bedford Gang.

This was news to me. Then I found his obituary - he died in 1916, at the age of 33 - which omitted the criminal career and spoke only of his 12 years in vaudeville and burlesque theater. I didn't know about that, either - until yesterday.

Fulton and Bedford, 1942 [NYPL]

I'll tell you about the Bedford Gang in a soon-to-come post. I'm not sure when, because I have plenty of research to do. A preliminary search in the papers shows that they were quite notorious in Brooklyn in the late 1890s and early 1900s.

About 1905, Garrett joined a burlesque troupe, which I want to write about, too. He became quite a well-known part of the vaudeville and burlesque world in Brooklyn and New York.

******
In the months to come, I am also going to write about another Hicks I discovered recently - Charles Hewlett Hicks, a brother of my gg grandfather Daniel Losee Hicks. He was one of the original 49ers and was in California by about 1851. I've been able to find out a fair amount about his life there, and it is quite a story.

I see a book in all of this: the Gold Street Murder, the Gold Rush, vaudeville, gangs, arsenical tragedies, brawling photographers, divorce and scandal* - all in one reasonably small family group. I've been thinking about this and working on it for a while. And every time I find another startling story, I think: you really have to do this.

I have another book project going, too - also having to do with New York history.** So I'm struggling with the problem of how to balance blogging and freelancing with that. If I don't post as much on some of my other blogs, well - that's why!

So what I write here will be the shorter version (partly because a blog is no place to write long chapters and also because, yes, I would like to have an audience for a future book!). As I work on all this, I'll post short, interesting glimpses of the past that I find - like the last post about Emily Speakers.

*I won't link all the stories, but the links will take you to a few of the main ones.

**I'll just tell you that it has to do with women's history and hasn't really been done before - I think. That's all I want to say for now!

Whoever Harbors Her

noreply@blogger.com (Lidian) — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 15:20:00 +0000

East New York in 1857 [NYPL Digital Gallery]

I found this story when I was looking up something about my Losee ancestors in an 1852 Jamaica Long Island Farmer, over at the fabulous Old Fulton NY Postcards. And I couldn't stop wondering about Emily and her family - and what the story was, and whatever happened to her:

NOTICE:

LEFT HOME on the 19th inst., my daughter Emily, 13 years old, small of her age, dark complexion, hair short and black eyes, had on a calico bonnet, green shawl, light blue frock, brown apron, blue quilted petticoat, black stockings, and heavy shoes just mended. Whoever harbors her after this notice will be prosecuted according to law. Any one returning her will confer a great favor and the thanks of her parents.
-- ISAAC G. SPEAKERS, East New-York, March 22d, 1852. -- Long Island Farmer (Jamaica, NY)

According to the 1850 census* - the only one I found Emily in - she had been born in New Jersey, like her parents and siblings - in 1839. Isaac and Cornelia (Van Riper) Speakers were from New Jersey,** but were in Flatbush, Brooklyn by 1850. They soon moved on to East New York, as we know from Isaac's notice. And of course, something happened there. Something or someone that caused 13 year old Emily to leave home - either voluntarily or not, we don't know.

Bigger version of map here

East New York is a neighborhood in eastern Brooklyn, bordered by Cypress Hills Cemetery in the north, Jamaica Bay on the south, Queens to the east and railroad tracks running parallel to Sinderen Avenue in the west. It grew out of a town called Broadway Junction which developed in the 1850s at the point where the Brooklyn and Jamaica Plank Road (the future Fulton Street) and several train lines met at a hilly point between Brooklyn and Queens. In 1843 one guide book describes East New York as a part of Flatbush with

400 residents, 50 dwelling houses, 2 Dutch Reformed churches, 3 taverns, 3 stores, 1 large clock manufactory propelled be steam, a suspender and boot web manufactory; besides several other kinds of mechanic work shops. [A Gazetteer of the State of New-York; J. Disturnell, Albany, 1843, p. 150]

In other words, not a large place where people disappear into the urban sprawl and bustle.

In the map (above right), East New York is the pink area directly above Jamaica Bay. But no map can tell us what happened to Emily - or where she went, and why. As with so many of the Victorian New Yorkers I write about here, I have to end by saying: I don't know what happened next. But I'll keep looking. Isaac's description of her was so vivid. You can just picture her - small, dark-haired, wearing that green shawl and calico bonnet.Walking in those heavy, newly mended shoes down a road like those in the picture at the top of this post: lined with small wooden houses, in sight and hearing of Jamaica Bay and all those railroad tracks and newly built avenues. Maybe she is stepping onto a steam train headed west into downtown Brooklyn. Maybe after that, she will take a ferry across the river to New York. How quickly she disappears. And Isaac did not put a notice in the paper again - not in the Long Island Farmer. Nothing in the Brooklyn or New York papers, either.

And - as I have said before also - if I do find out any more, I'll let you know.

* Source: 1850 US Federal Census (Population Schedule), Flatbush, Kings, NY, Dwelling 290, Family 310, Isaac J. Speakers household, page 84.

**"Cornnelia [sic] Van Riper [married] to Isaac G. Speakers both of Manchester 12-4-1845"- from the Paterson Intelligencer, transcribed here at VANRIPER-L archives at Rootsweb.

The False Mother-in-Law

noreply@blogger.com (Lidian) — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 14:51:00 +0000

Detail from 1928 photo Fulton/St. Felix [NYPL]

Many thanks first of all to Apple at Apple's Tree for the heads-up about the newly indexed 1875 New York State Census over at FamilySearch. If you have any New York ancestors you'll want to have a look at this, too. I couldn't resist going straight over there and start looking up ancestors. I immediately ran into a couple of mysterious new people in the household of my gg grandparents, Daniel Losee Hicks and his wife Mary Ann Barnett Hicks.

Mary Ann, also called Polly, was an intrepid young woman from the East End of London who came to America at age 13 (in 1848). She was 40 years old in this census, listed as born in England. And she was. She is in the 1841 UK census in Shadwell, Middlesex, along with her brother and sisters, and parents Joseph and Mary.

In 1875 Dan and Mary were still living together (something that would change by the 1880 census) and running a shoe business at 1620 Fulton Street, Brooklyn.

Here's the 1875 entry for the Hicks family in the 25th Ward of Brooklyn. I love that this census tells you what your ancestors' house was made of and how much it was worth. You can see that 1620 Fulton was a brick building worth $6500. It probably looked a lot like the building in the 1928 photo detail on your left, taken at Fulton Avenue and St. Felix Street, Brooklyn.

Daniel's and Mary's information is correct. So is that of three of their children - Charles, my great grandfather, born in February 1856, Minnie, and Mary (who renamed herself Mae in the 1890s and became the wife of the notorious broker Charles W. Morgan). The fourth child, 8 year old Benjamin - who on earth is he? At first I thought I'd discovered a new Hicks child and was quite excited. Then I realized that is probably Daniel Losee junior, who was exactly 8 years old in 1875, lived until 1939, and isn't elsewhere on the census.

And then there's mysterious Martha Chamberlain, 60 years old and born in New Hampshire, in the "clothing retail" business. Relation to the head of the house? "Mother in Law." But this just can't be right. Daniel's mother-in-law was Mary Barnett, born about 1806 in England. She came to New York in 1848, but I haven't traced her past the 1850 census.

Maybe I will try tracing Mary Barnett a little further. Not that I think she and Martha are related, but all this has reminded me about her - the real mother-in-law.

The Christmas-Tree Ride

noreply@blogger.com (Lidian) — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 19:40:00 +0000

Every December, starting in 1887 (and continuing at least through the next decade), Durland's Riding Academy at Columbus Circle and 59th St.* in New York held a "Christmas-Tree Ride." Wealthy riders gathered inside the arena and showed off their equestrian skills in honor of the season.

In 1894 the New York Times reported that Durland's was decorated with "flags and bunting of many colors, a profusion of wreaths of holly and evergreen, and Christmas trees...at the north end of the arena." There were red, blue and white lamps hung everywhere, too.

Durland's, undecorated

The evening typically began with "the grand entrée," led by the grand-sounding Baron Vietinghoff. There was vaulting, jeu de barre and the intriguing-sounding "umbrella and pumpkin races" which "elicited much laughter." Racing with carriages was also a featured part of the evening - you can see that there was a lot of room at Durland's for that.

Accompanying all of this was music, presumably from an orchestra. One hopes that they were situated well away from the carriages, the vaulting - and the umbrella and pumpkin races, too.

Source: "Christmas-Tree Ride," New York Times, December 27, 1894.

*Durland's moved to West 66th Street between Central Park West and Columbus Circle in 1901.

The Mysteries of Mary Lupton, Part 2: Some Notes

noreply@blogger.com (Lidian) — Thu, 24 Nov 2011 17:34:00 +0000

East 14th St. at 3rd Ave. [NYPL]

What I have for you as a follow-up to the story of Mary Lupton's amnesia is really a series of notes for a longer piece. The people in the Lupton case are both fascinating and elusive (like so many so-called ordinary Victorians). In other words, I can tell you a little bit more - what I know so far.

Mary Frances Smith was born about 1866 in New York City, on East 14th Street between 2nd and 3rd, according to one of her uncles. She was the daughter of Patrick Henry and Catherine/Kate (Plunkett) Smith, according to her marriage license. You can imagine what it is like trying to find a particular Smith family in the US Census - especially in New York City. Pretty much impossible. In fact, the only reason I found a slight trace of Patrick Henry later in his life was because he identified himself as a plumber, and moved to Boston - after having moved a few other places, too.

But that is getting ahead of the story.

Mary Frances, known in her family as Mamie, lived with both parents - and probably some siblings - until about 1879, when Patrick Henry left his family. He told a reporter in 1891 that he went west for health reasons, but the truth is probably that he just abandoned his family, plain and simple (or, as was suggested in one news story in 1898, because he had killed someone and had to leave New York in a hurry).

Meanwhile, Mary and her mother moved in with Mary's uncle, a fish dealer named William Cartwright. When her mother died, Mary stayed on with the Cartwrights until about 1884 or so, when she left or was thrown out of the house; she may have been staying out at night and being a bit wild, since she was known to have done that as a young married woman. She moved to a boarding house, probably also in Manhattan, and it was there that she met a salesman named Edward Fanning Lupton*.

Mary and Edward probably would not have got married were it not for Edward's lawyer, Max Eller. Eller seems to have arbitrated several of their quarrels and then in October 1886 became so sick of this that he called them both into his Manhattan office. Mary and Edward arrived to find that Eller had invited a minister, too. Eller insisted that they resolve their differences by getting married right there and then.

This peculiar solution proved to be a huge mistake. Soon after their daughter Florence was born in 1887, the Luptons separated. They were divorced in 1888, and Mary left with their servant but without their baby, Florence.

Kansas City, MO [NYPL]

Lupton then apparently took Florence to Kansas City. Mary went to Kansas City in 1890 - I don't know why it took her two years - and "stole" Florence. They went back to New York, where Mary sued Edward for alimony. She won $4 a week plus $50 legal fees. Edward and Mary both complained of cruel treatment. She said he was neglectful and abusive, striking her, calling her names and withholding food; Edward said that she was bad-tempered and stayed out late at night, telling him it was none of his business where she was going. Eller represented Edward in the divorce action. He must have regretted having insisted on their marrying.

At some point after returning to New York, Mary was unable to care for Florence, who was sent to board with a Dr. Fontaine and his family. I don't know why Florence could not live with one of Mary's many aunts and uncles in the city, but she didn't. Mary Lupton still owed the Fontaines three years' board for Florence when her amnesia made the newspapers in 1898. This suggests that Mary did not receive the fortune that she seemed about to inherit seven years before, when her long lost father came back into her life.

Tremont St., Boston [NYPL]

In May 1891, Patrick Henry Smith turned up in New York and put an advertisement in the papers for his daughter, one Mary Lupton, wife of Edward. He claimed that he had inherited a fortune from a relative named Eugene Smith and had no relative in the world to share it with. He said that he had two plumber's shops in Boston, one on Tremont Street, and one on Shawmat.

Smith was not a typical Victorian patriarch. Smith, like comedian Jack Benny, insisted that he was only 39 years old - which would have made him only 14 years older than his daughter Mary. As one reporter put it, "he is at least 50, and incoherent." He claimed to be related to the Smiths of Smithtown, Long Island - even though according to the few records I found, he was born in Ireland. And Smith berated the reporters who came to talk to him, insisting that he would not talk - then sat down and rambled for over an hour. I have only just begun trying to find out more about Patrick Henry, and what I do know is so strange and disjointed that I'd better save it for the book chapter. In any case, Smith seems to have faded away again. He may have died in Boston in 1896, still claiming - if this is indeed him - to be 39. Mary either got no money, or spent what little she did receive.

I'm still trying to trace Mary (and Florence) in the years between 1891 and 1898. And also to figure out whether Patrick Henry Smith indeed had to leave New York City in the 1870s because he had murdered someone. But this is certainly more background information than I had been expecting to find with regard to Mary Lupton's bout of amnesia while Christmas shopping in New York in 1898.

*Lupton was born about 1851, and grew up in Williamsburgh. He is also a very distant cousin of mine; we share an ancestor, Rev. Edward Bulkeley (ca 1540-1619/20) of Odell, Bedfordshire, from whom several Long Island and New England families descend. Lupton descends from Edward's daughter Dorcas, through his James line; I descend from Dorcas' sister Martha, through Elizabeth (Moore) Hicks, born about 1679.

The Mysteries of Mary Lupton, Part 1

noreply@blogger.com (Lidian) — Sun, 13 Nov 2011 17:44:00 +0000

NYPL Digital Gallery

I always enjoy combining history with genealogy, and trying to track down the people in a particular long-ago news story. This story takes place in the winter of 1898 in New York City, and it "served to bring out an odd tale of the seamy side of life," as the New York Times man put it, delicately.

It all began when a woman living at the Hotel Metropole (at 147 West 43rd St., near Times Square) contacted the police and asked for their help. She told them that she had forgotten her name and where she lived. She asked if anyone had come to them looking for a missing woman.

The police took her to St. Vincent's Hospital (at 11th St and 7th Ave.) and there a man showed up with his 11 year old daughter, saying that they were her husband and child. But no one seems to have taken his name and he went off with the little girl again. If this sounds confusing, that's because it was. It will get more confusing, believe me.

A second man went to the police that evening and said that he was her husband. He said her name was Mary Smith, daughter of a man named P.H. Smith who "was concerned in a murder here [in New York] several years ago, and had to leave the city." He also mentioned a Dr. Fontaine who lived at 109 East 40th St. The police went to talk to Dr. Fontaine who said the woman's name was Mary Lupton, and that for 4 years her daughter Florence had been boarded with him and his family.

NYPL

Soon after this the phone rang at Police Headquarters at 3am and a woman asked (again) if anyone had been inquiring for a missing woman. The phone operator put her through to "Roundsman Brady in the Bureau of Information." She asked Brady if "anyone had inquired for a woman thirty-two years old, with dark hair and blue eyes, who wears a sealskin jacket, red waist, black cloth skirt, and a black velvet hat trimmed with ostrich feathers."

Well, no, said Brady, they hadn't. Mary (for of course it was her) told him that she'd been describing herself. She said she didn't know her name or address. She would like to know them. Brady told her she'd better come down in person. She did. She was "richly dressed" and had quite a bit of jewelry on. Brady questioned her and said she seemed quite normal (though nervous) in all respects except for not knowing her name and home address.

Mary said she'd gone Christmas shopping on 23rd Street. She took a "cable car" to get there and as she was wandering around a store she simply forgot who she was. She said "I walked in the streets for hours, looking in vain for a familiar face to tell me who I was." Then she started crying and admitted to having taken some cocaine that day, for her nerves - it was then a legal medicinal substance. Brady called St. Vincent's. They sent an ambulance and a Dr. Maloney.

Normal College, NYC [NYPL]

Dr. Maloney talked to her for awhile. She recalled at last that her maiden name was Smith. She said her husband was a Wall Street broker. She'd gone to school on West 27th St. and at Normal College (later known as Hunter College). Dr. Maloney gave her "an opiate" (not more cocaine, one hopes) and she got some sleep.

The next morning the man with the young girl visited again and she recognized them. She said she would go home with them although she still did not recall her name. The driver of the carriage they hired later said that they went to an address at 6th Ave. and 37th St.

Mary's husband told the police some interesting things about Mary's "life of recklessness." He said he met her in a boarding house in New York in 1886. She said she had been thrown out of her wealthy uncle Mr. Cartwright's home because of her bad behavior. They married her in 1887, had a child named Florence, and separated shortly after that. He and Florence went to Kansas City; then I guess they divorce, because Mary then sued him for alimony. She got the alimony. Then they reconciled, but that soon failed and she took the baby and went away. He said that Mary "kept up anything but a proper life." It was at this point that she boarded Florence with the Fontaines. The husband also mentioned another uncle of Mary's called John Branigan of 235 East 22nd Street. No one at that address had ever heard of Mary.

Finally, the police went back to talk to the Fontaines. Mrs. Fontaine was home; the doctor was not. Mrs. Fontaine said no child had ever lived with them and anyone who said so "must be crazy." And a jeweler, Mr. Gay, who lived near the address given for Mary's uncle Mr. Cartwright, said he'd never heard of any Smiths or Cartwrights in the neighborhood.

*****
There's a lot to work with in this mysterious story of possible murder, secrets, recklessness, amnesia, disappearing uncles and multiple husbands. And of course I'm just giving you the short version here; in a book chapter there will be plenty of scene-setting and background about places and people.

This will be a two-part story, as far as the blog-post version goes. In the next post, I'll let you know what I found out about Mary Smith Lupton and the secrets of her life. I can't wait to start looking into it. I think this is going to prove most interesting.

Source: "Forgot Name and Address," New York Times, December 18, 1898.

The Ghost Who Paid No Rent

noreply@blogger.com (Lidian) — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 16:05:00 +0000

In the summer of 1901 people began to notice a ghostly woman in the windows of a vacant house at 92nd Street and Fort Hamilton Parkway in Fort Hamilton, Brooklyn. The house had been the home of a wealthy man named Christensen who had died two years before. The photo on the left is a 1928 shot of the corner of 92nd and Fort Hamilton. I am hoping that the house on the right is the Christensen mansion, because it looks just the way a haunted house should look.

The neighbors told police that the Fort Hamilton ghost appeared about three times a week, sometimes dressed all in white, sometimes all in black. She stood at one of the windows with a lamp in her hand, moaned loudly for awhile, then disappeared. People started watching the house every night. Children made detours on their way to and from school in order to avoid going near it. And people started remembering "the ghost of old Drury, supposed to have haunted the old Town Hall." There was a lot of excitement, in other words. Eventually there were about 200 people gathering around the old house every night to wait for the moaning, sobbing woman with the lamp in her hand, dressed in black or white.

Finally, a police detective named Martin White had had enough and decided - accompanied by "a hundred men and boys" - to break right into the haunted mansion and confront the ghost. They searched the empty house and found nothing. But just as they were about to give up, White saw a woman's foot sticking out of the side of the fireplace. He dragged her out of it and, pulling a sheet off of her head, discovered a very real woman - quite frightened, too, as you can imagine. She was a squatter - I do not think there was such a word in 1891 but that's what she was - named Mrs. John Barrett, a "trim" woman, about 35 years old. She told White that "the ghost business was merely a sham to keep people from entering the house."

The Brooklyn Eagle article ends there - but to me, that is just the beginning of the mystery. Who was she? Why was she living alone in an empty house - that she had broken into? Most Victorian women were not squatters. And for heaven's sake, what happened to her after White pulled her out of the fireplace?

******

I will probably write some short posts in the next few weeks, related to my NaNoWriMo endeavors in November - the mystery set in New York and Brooklyn in the 1890s that I've had in my head for, well, a long time now. It's been totally revamped as far as plot, though - and there are some dark corners of NYC history I need to do a bit of research on. To be continued...

******

"The Ghost Was A Woman Who Did Not Pay Rent," Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Aug. 29, 1901, p. 3.

Shanty Restaurants and New York Shantytowns

noreply@blogger.com (Lidian) — Sat, 22 Oct 2011 15:05:00 +0000

Billboard, May 30, 1942

The Shanty restaurants were a chain of diners, as far as I can tell (there isn't much information about them) that were popular in New York City in the 1930s and 1940s.There were 18 Shanty restaurants in the city by the late 1940s. They were all below 53rd Street, which may be part of the reason I never had heard of them from my parents, who were living uptown then, near Columbia.

Over on eBay you can buy a 1949 Shanty menu (and paper napkin) which features "Egg Dishes," "Hamburgers," and "Griddle Cakes" - which makes me think that it was more of a generic diner, albeit one with a slightly southern touch. Most restaurants with the word "Shanty" in the name tend to be seafood places or serve country food.

The Shanty restaurants specialized in diner-type breakfasts, and also served sandwiches, salads, ice cream and doughnuts. The 1949 menu (which is great fun to look at, over on eBay) shows that a full breakfast of two eggs, bacon, toast and coffee "with Pure Cream" was only 55 cents. If you wanted to move on to things like ice cream sundaes, they were a quarter.

In 1939 The New Yorker published this anecdote about The Shanty:

A Southern gentleman stopping in New York got into the habit of having an occasional breakfast in one of the Shanty restaurants, because it served corn muffins that reminded him of home. Last Sunday he ordered a rounded southern breakfast, winding up with instructions about plenty of syrup for the muffins. The girl set his order before him with "O.K. Tobacco Road.*" [ "From Dixie," Dec. 9 1939]

NYPL Digital Gallery

The word shanty had two meanings: it could be a sea song or chant sung by ship's crews to pass the time while working; or it meant a shed or shack. There were many shanties in New York, long before the restaurant chain. The Old Shanty - which is hardly a true shanty - stood on Delancey Street. The picture on the right shows it in 1861; it is the small building in the righthand side, and was a "News Depot."

There were shantytowns in New York City at the end of the 19th century. They were mostly the homes of poor Irish and German immigrants. An early settlement at 1st Avenue and 40th Street was called Dutch Hill (i.e. Deutsch or German, as in the Dutch grocery) was what one historian calls "a well-known squatter colony, where [people] tended their cows, pigs, goats and fowl, and worked in near-by quarries and manure heaps." Another Civil War era shantytown was located west of Sixth Avenue between 40th and 80th Streets.

from Darkness and Daylight; or Lights and Shadows of NY Life (1892)

As the city grew northward, the shantytowns moved farther north too, ahead of new buildings and increasing urbanization. In the 1880s, there was a shantytown between 65th and 85th Streets near Central Park. By the late 1890s, they centered around 90th Street; there is a photograph of this last settlement in Old New York In Early Photographs by Mary Black (Dover 1976, p. 199). Black notes that it would vanish by the early 1900, replaced by "row houses and mansions."

Yet as late as the Depression, in the early 1930s, many people who had lost their jobs and homes lived in shacks in Central Park. The area was called "Shanty Village" or "Forgotten Man's Gulch," according to Louise Chipley Slavicek in her book New York City's Central Park (2009, p. 97).

The Shanty seems like a strange name for a chain of downtown restaurants specializing in cheery breakfasts, when you look at the pictures of real New York shanties, uptown.

*The waitress was referring to the 1932 novel (and/or the 1933 play based on the novel) by Erskine Caldwell, which was about sharecroppers in Georgia. The phrase also can refer to the tobacco-growing regions of North Carolina.

Additional Sources

Campbell, Helen. Darkness and Daylight; or Lights and Shadows of New York Life (Kessinger 2005, 1st pub. 1892, p 418)
Erst, Robert. Immigrant Life in New York City, 1825-1863 (Syracuse UP 1994, p. 40).
Husband, Julie and Jim O'Loughlin. Daily Life in the Industrial United States, 1870-1900 (Greenwood 2004, p. 32)

Behind the Curtain: Finding My 18th Century Theatrical Ancestors

noreply@blogger.com (Lidian) — Sun, 16 Oct 2011 20:14:00 +0000

Wikipedia

Meet my 7th great grandfather, the 18th century actor Johann Friedrich Schoenemann, whose rather jolly picture is on the right. I would like to think that the ladies in the balcony behind him are his wife, Anna Rachel Weigler, and his daughter (my 6th great grandmother) Elisabeth, who were both actresses - but unfortunately they have not been identified.

I discovered my acting ancestors on my copy of a hand-drawn family tree (literally drawn as a tree with the names in little medallions) from about 1900. The tree listed my great great grandmother, Juliane Livonius (born in 1840), her parents and grandparents, and so on. One of Juliane's great grandmothers was Henriette Caroline Charlotte (Loewen) Rudow. Henriette's parents were listed as Loewen and Schoenemann - no first names. I received the tree from a relative back in the 1970s, and for 30 years Henriette's ancestry ended there.

The relevant detail of the tree is below left - the scan is horrible, since my copy is a 1970s Xerox (remember Xerox?). Henriette is at top left and her parents "Hofsecretarius Loewen" and "Loewen - Schoenemann" are at middle and bottom right ( "Ilsabe Maria Rudow - Hansen," bottom left, is Henriette's MIL, so please disregard).

Family tree detail

Last summer I was looking around on Google Books and searched Henriette's full name, just for fun. And there was a mention of a Henriette Caroline Charlotte Loewen-Rudow. Yes, I thought, that's her!

She was in a book that mentioned her mother - a Madame Loewen - and acting. And then, as I started looking at the German text, I noticed an actor called Johann Friedrich Schoenemann who was mentioned in conjunction with Madame Loewen and her poet-theatre critic husband and thought: I wonder...? And then another 19th century German book mentioned the name of Henriette's husband - the same name as the one on my family tree: Friedrich Ulrich Aemilius Rudow.* And just like that, thanks to Google Books, I had found some lost - and really interesting - ancestors.

Johann Friedrich Schoenemann was born in Crossen an den Oder, Prussia (now Krosno Odrzanskie, Poland) on October 21, 1704. He seems to have been from a reasonably well-off family; he was studying medicine when he ran away to join a traveling Harlequin troupe in 1725 at age 21. Five years later he joined the theatrical troupe of Caroline Neuber, and specialized in comic parts. He married one of Neuber's leading actresses, Anna Rachel Weigler and in 1740 the two broke off from Neuber to start their own company. Schoenemann was not considered to be a great actor, but he was very good at spotting talent and hired several actors who would go on to great careers on the German stage.

By the 1750s Schoenemann lost interest in acting (as he had done with regards to medical school) and started a brief career in horse trading, of all things. Having failed at this, he and his family went to Schwerin, Mecklenburg, where he became a minor court retainer - hence the "Hofsecretarius" or Court Secretary designation on my family tree. He died in 1782 in Schwerin.

Loewen's Hamburg National Theater

Johann and Anna Rachel had two sons and one daughter, Elisabeth (in some sources, Eleanora) Lucia Dorothea Schoenemann, born in 1732; she is the "Loewen -Schoenemann" of the tree. Elisabeth, like her mother, was considered a good actress. She met her husband, theater critic and poet Johann Friedrich Loewen through her father. Loewen himself deserves a separate post - he wrote the first history of the German theatre and established (briefly) the first national theatre in Germany, in Berlin, in 1767.

Loewen and Elisabeth married in 1757, and at that time Elisabeth retired from acting. However, she returned to the stage, briefly, 9 years later in 1766 as Madame Loewen. When Johann Friedrich Loewen established (briefly) a German National Theater in Hamburg the following year, Elisabeth returned to the stage (as Madame Loewen) for a short time - and she was pregnant with my 5th great grandmother Henriette (born in July 1767) by then.

Prince Louis, Loewen's employer

The Loewens and Schoenemanns finally settled in Schwerin, Mecklenburg. Loewen had already been working, in addition to his writing and theatrical endeavors, as the private secretary of Prince Louis of Mecklenburg-Schwerin. J.F. Loewen moved with his family to Rostock in 1769, and died there 2 years later. He continued to write poetry until the end of his life - his works include "Die Walpurgisnacht," in which a certain Dr. Faustus appears on the witches' mountain, the Blocksberg. This is thought to have given Goethe inspiration for his own Faust: A Tragedy (1808).

I suspect that the Schoenemann-Loewen contingent were deliberately left off of the official family tree precisely because they were actors and thus slightly disreputable. The rest of the family (traced back to the 16th century in northern Germany) were clergymen, merchants, government officials and lawyers. Friedrich U.A. Rudow, the lawyer/mayor who married Henriette Loewen, was exceedingly respectable. The Schoenemanns and Loewens were by far the most famous people in the family** - but not quite respectable enough to join it entirely, at least on the official family tree.

I'm regarding this post as a placeholder for further research, so please read it as an interesting piece, rather than a definitive treatment. There's a lot I left out, of course - but I'm reading and making notes, slowly. And I may move the Schoenemanns and Loewens to a sub-blog or separate section of Virtual that will be strictly genealogical in nature - I'll let you know when and if I do.

Johann Friedrich Schoenemann (1704-1782) = Anna Rachel Weigler (abt 1705-1770)
Elisabeth Lucia Dorothea Schoenemann (1732- ) = Johann Friedrich Loewen (1727-1771)
Henriette Caroline Charlotte Loewen (1767-1820) = Friedrich Ulrich Aemilius Rudow (1759-1831)
Juliane Rudow (1791-1841) = Joachim Christian Livonius (1776 - 1852)
Friedrich Wilhelm Christian Livonius (1808-1868) = Louisa Friederike Lisette Muller (1813-1868)
Juliane Livonius (1840- ca 1924, NYC ), my great great grandmother

*Friedrich Ulrich Aemilius Rudow (1759-1831) was a lawyer/politician whose lengthy bio I found on GoogleBooks in an 1833 book published in Mecklenburg. This biography mentions that he married Henriette Caroline Charlotte Loewen, and that their eldest daughter Juliane married a man named Livonius (these last two were my 4th great grandparents).

**There are many mentions of Schoenemann, Loewen and Elisabeth Schoenemann ("Madame Loewen") in books about German theater; in addition, J.F. Loewen published several books, and Schoenemann wrote at least one book. And in 1895 Hans Devrient published a biography of Johann Friedrich Schoenemann (which I intend to read all the way through one of these days; one of my New Year's resolutions is to get my German reading skills back up to speed).

New Mown Hay Face With Montague Curls

noreply@blogger.com (Lidian) — Sat, 08 Oct 2011 00:09:00 +0000

Brooklyn Public Library

Any lady in the last quarter of the 19th century who wished to have a beautiful complexion and curly bangs (which were especially fashionable in the 1870s) had only to look to one cosmetics manufacturer for all her skin and hair care needs: one R.M. Hunter of Philadelphia. The 1880s trade card shown above, from P. Jackson's Botanic Drug Store in Brooklyn, extolls two of Hunter's products: Invisible Powder, and Quince Bandoline Powder, guaranteed to work wonders upon women's faces and women's hair.

Advertisement from Scribner's Magazine (1889)

Hunter's Invisible was a face powder sold in the late 1880s and 1890s. The advertising copy tells the usual story: it is completely natural, it is the best cosmetic of all time, and so on. Best of all, the ingredients were "happily blended." This is very good to know. And it's also good to know that with Hunter's Invisible you could have a "New Mown Hay Face" - according to the tin below (which is for sale at goantiques.com, by the way).

1897 Hunter's Invisible tin

Mr. Hunter also made Pure Quince Bandoline Powder, which sold for 10 cents a packet. Bandoline was a sticky, scented hair fixative made from quince, Irish moss or gum tragacanth. It was the Victorian equivalent of styling gel, in other words. In 1880 the New York Times ran an article entitled "The Mystery of Bandoline"* which stated that:

The preparation is a viscous fluid used for the purpose of gumming to the forehead[s] of the women of fashion the flat devices of hair which are known as Montague curls...In rural New-England, they were called 'spit-curls,' - not a nice name, as the candid reader will admit, but sufficiently expressive of a style of hair-dressing which prevailed before bandoline was invented.

1879 drawing from a French catalogue

According to The Dictionary of Fashion History by Valerie Cumming and C.W. Cunningham Berg, 2010, p. 134), they were arranged in crescent-shaped bangs over the forehead. The lady at the left seems to be wearing them. It must have taken a lot of bandoline to hold all those curls.

The Times added that some ladies made their own bandoline by pouring water over quince seeds. Hunter's Bandoline Powder seems to have been made of ground up dried quince seeds (others were made of gum tragacanth). When reconstituted with water, it became "half a pint of Elegant Bandoline" - enough for a whole household of fashion-forward late Victorian ladies.

*Which is a wonderful name for a lost Victorian sensation/romance novel, don't you think? Written by Mrs. E.D.E.N. Southworth. Or possibly Ouida. There would be a tragic, weepy heroine with many perfect Montague curls and a pearly complexion, married by mistake to the wrong groom who shows up in place of his twin brother, after which she runs away and becomes a famous opera singer.

A Terrible Descent: Augustus Hicks, June 1891

noreply@blogger.com (Lidian) — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 15:03:00 +0000

Tenement air shaft [NYPL Digital Gallery]

Note: I've been working on this one for about a week, and I'm going to post it as it is. It remains - as do all my extended Hicks and true crime posts - a work-in-progress. If and when it makes it into The Book, it will have more background, more New York history and (I hope) more answers than mysteries to share.

It was the evening of Tuesday, June 9th, 1891. Picture an Old Law tenement building on Third Avenue at East 100th Street - 1805 Third Avenue, no longer there. It was probably five or six stories high, and had few windows. The building, one of several crammed together, has 3 foot indentations at the middle of each side - space for an air shaft which allows light and air to penetrate the dark center.

Augustus T. Hicks was my great grandfather Charles Hicks' first cousin. Augustus and his wife Carrie lived in one of the dark narrow flats at 1805. He was in his early 40s and had been married for ten years. Augustus was described as a photographer by the New York Times and in the New York Evening Telegram as a "clerk" - but in any case he was out of work, and had been for at least two months. He and Carrie were starving. One newspaper noted that "the life of himself and his wife, both deserving people, had long been a hard and most wretched one."

Augustus was the only child of Brooklyn photographer Lemuel S. Hicks and his first wife, Lydia Newell, herself a photographer, which had ended in an acrimonious divorce in 1863. Lemuel married a second time in 1868, to Jane Anderson, and they had several children. Lemuel and Jane and their children are listed in the official 19th century Hicks genealogy. Lydia and Augustus were omitted; perhaps they were an embarrassment to that old Long Island family, descended from John Hicks, who emigrated in the 1630s.*

In the 1870 census Lydia and Augustus were recorded as living in Brooklyn, both working as photographers. In the late 1870s, still in Brooklyn, Augustus was juggling two careers: he was a photographer and also sold shoes (see notes below). He married Carrie C. Barton there in 1881. They were in Brooklyn as late as 1889. They were in Manhattan by about 1890, where their fortunes must have declined.

Tenement room, early 20th c. [NYPL]

By June 1891, Augustus had been out of work for two months and felt absolutely desperate. He and Carrie had no food and no money. Enough to bring anyone to the point of despair. Then add in the darkness that seems to have haunted this particular branch of the Hicks family. Consider Lemuel and his brothers Andrew and Daniel (my great great grandfather), all prone to fits of rage.Andrew's daughter Sarah (Augustus' cousin) had committed suicide in 1887, four years before, at the age of 24. Daniel and another brother, Hiram, had drinking problems that were severe enough to warrant alarm. Augustus drank, too: since he had lost his job, the Times said, he had been "drinking to excess."

The New York Evening Telegram tells what happened next, in the early hours of Wednesday morning, June 10th

All...evening he acted in an insane manner, walking about the house with a clothes basket on his head and a teakettle in his hand. He muttered incoherently and from time to time he would take a drink from the kettle. His queer actions alarmed the neighbors and they advised the distracted wife to notify the police. She declined to do so and tried to quiet her husband.

Presbyterian Hospital

This state of affairs continued until half past three o'clock in the morning, when Hicks started downstairs. At last Mrs. Hicks, now thoroughly alarmed, sent for the police. When Hicks heard them coming he rushed upstairs to the second floor, barricaded the room, and when entrance was forced he jumped out of the window, down a very narrow air shaft. In his descent he struck the cornices of the windows opposite, crushing his face and head. His right arm and leg were crushed and his recovery is impossible. He was removed to the Presbyterian Hospital.**

Augustus was not expected to live, the papers all said. But he did. I cannot imagine how, considering the trauma and injuries he must have sustained. I do not (yet) know what happened to him until 1905, when the New York State Census shows him in Brooklyn, a resident of the Kings County Alms House on Clarkson Street. In 1910, he was a widower living in the German Evangelical Home in Bushwick. He seems to have died in 1911 (see notes below).

German Evang. Home for the Aged [NYPL]

A paragraph in a long-forgotten newspaper article can evoke a scene so vividly that you are transported back into a moment that - but for some long-ago reporter - would have disappeared. A little window that you never knew was there. Ever since I found the Telegram article, I have been thinking of Augustus and Carrie. Of how they arrived at that June night at 1805 Third Avenue - and of what happened to the afterwards.

*Ironically, John Hicks' wife Herodias Long was a Colonial version of Lydia - she divorced John in Rhode Island (he countered by divorcing her in New York, where he'd gone with his son Thomas, ancestor of the Long Island Hickses) and was the heroine of many scandals.

** In 1891, Presbyterian Hospital was located at Fourth Avenue between 70th and 71st Streets, as is shown in the picture above.

SOURCES

"It Is Suicides' Day; August Hicks' Desperate Attempt To Kill Himself," New York Evening Telegram, June 10, 1891, p. 6.
"City and Suburban News," New York Times, June 11, 1891, n.p.
"News Items," Lowell [Mass.] Daily Courier, June 13, 1891, p. 5.

For more on Old Law tenements check out:

Tenement Museum at 108 Orchard Street on the Lower East Side
Living Together: Dumbbell Tenements at Columbia University Digital Knowledge Ventures
Ephemeral New York on Old Law tenements

Augustus Hicks in the records (all directories are Lain's Brooklyn Directories unless noted):

1860 US Census, pop. schedule, Brooklyn Ward 14 District 10, Kings, NY, P.O. Williamsburgh:
Augustus T. Hicks age 11 b NY living with parents Samuel [sic Lemuel] S. age 31 Photographer b NY and Lydia A. age 30 b NY.

1870 US Census, pop. schedule, Williamsburgh Ward 14, Kings, NY, dwelling 761, family 2074, Roll M593_955, page 258A, image 519, FHL film # 552454. [August Hicks age 20, Book Keeper, b NY, living with his mother Lydia age 35 [sic - she was about 40], Photographer, b NY $3000 pers.]

1875, 1892 NY State census: as yet not found. To be researched further.
1880, 1900 US census: as yet not found. To be researched further.

1879: Augustus Hicks, photographer, 195 Grand St., res. 391 Herkimer St., Brooklyn. A separate listing in the 1879 Lain's shows him as A.T. Hicks, res. 391 Herkimer, in the business of "shoes" at 1710 Fulton. Many members of this particular Hicks family were in the shoe business including my gg grandparents and my great grandfather - all at various Fulton Street addresses: 1590, 1620, 1710 and 1720. My grandmother was born in 1889 above the family shoe store at 1590 Fulton.

1881: Augustus "F" Hicks marries Carrie C. Barton, Brooklyn, NY certificate # . No other marriage record found and since Augustus was married in 1891, am going on assumption that Carrie was the Mrs. Hicks of the article. Other scenarios are of course possible. Note that a Caroline Hicks age 55 (born ca 1845) died in Manhattan 4 May 1900 certificate #15497, which might be this Carrie.

1889: Augustus Hicks, photographer at 478 Myrtle St., Brooklyn

1905 NY State Census, pop. schedule, Brooklyn Assembly District 14, ED 14, image 43, FHL film #1930276, Kings County Alms House, Clarkson St. [August Hicks, Inmate W M 59y, US citizen, former occ. Photographer]

1910 US Census, pop. schedule, Brooklyn Ward 28, Kings, NY, Roll T624_982, page 7A, ED 0915, image 434, FHL film # 1374995, German Evangelical Home for the Aged [Augustus T. Hicks, Inmate W M widowed 65y, b NY, parents b NY]

1911: Augustus J [sic?] Hicks age 67 dies Brooklyn, NY April 22, 1911 [b ca 1844] certificate #8516; undoubtedly the Augustus J. Hicks buried at Greenwood Cemetery Apr. 25, 1911. However, have not been able to place the Hickses in same lot (29725/134) in our family, so perhaps not correct Augustus. Having said this, have only identified one Augustus born in mid to late 1840s in Brooklyn area. To be researched further.

The Dutch Grocery

noreply@blogger.com (Lidian) — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 17:25:00 +0000

NYPL Digital Gallery

This old Dutch building, dating from the 17th century, housed a grocery in the 19th. It has the "step gable" typical of traditional Dutch and German architecture. It looks altogether like a tidy place.

But a Victorian New Yorker, hearing the term "Dutch grocery," would picture not this charming place, but a shabby emporium, like the one Henry James wrote of in The Bostonians (1885-6). James' character New Yorker Basil Ransom lives on the Upper East Side, well away from Fifth Avenue. And it was not a fancy place at all, as this passage tells us:

Old house in Delft

...The two sides of the shop were protected by an immense pent-house shed, which projected over a greasy pavement and was supported by wooden posts fixed in the curbstone. Beneath it, on the dislocated flags, barrels and baskets were freely and picturesquely grouped; an open cellarway yawned beneath the feet of those who might gaze too fondly on the savoury wares displayed in the window; a strong odor of smoked fish, combined with a fragrance of molasses, hung about the spot; the pavement, towards the gutters, was fringed with dirty panniers, heaped with potatoes, carrots and onions...The establishment was of the kind know to New Yorkers as a Dutch grocery; a red-faced, yellow-haired, bare-armed vendors might have been observed to lounge in the doorway.

NYPL Digital Gallery (prob. dates from 1850-75 period)

Nineteenth-century New York "Dutch groceries" mainly were run by German shopkeepers - Dutch being used in the same sense as "Pennsylvania Dutch" - as a corruption of Deutsch, or German. The Brooklyn Eagle in 1872, for example, mentions a Dutch grocery's "Teutonic storekeeper" ("Hydrophobia," Mar. 8 1872 p. 4). The earliest references to Dutch groceries seem to date from the 1850s - which also marked the beginning of a rise in German immigration to New York.

The Dutch grocer and his store were often the targets of racist jokes. The cartoon on the left shows a Dutch grocer, and pokes fun at his accent and lack of comprehension. It may refer to the failure of the Croton Reservoir which stood at 5th Avenue and 42nd Street ) where the New York Public Library stands today) in October 1855: "Visiting there during the past week, we found it shorter by several feet than usual. Housekeepers should be careful about fires just now, and the police, if not too busy in politics, should look out for incendiaries" ("Short of Water," New York Times, Oct. 22, 1855, n.p.).

In the Brooklyn Eagle of 1854, a reader referred to "the...Dutch grocery way of doing business" - meaning, charging 25 cents for 24 cents' worth of goods (Aug. 10, 1855, p. 2). And as late as the 1890s, the Eagle ran so-called "funny" series called "The Gowanusians" which featured an Irish housewife and her run-ins with a "Dutch" (German) grocer (see, for example, Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Apr 22, 1894, p. 4 and Jul. 2, 1893 p.4).

In addition, the Dutch grocery was a symbol of a "low" and dangerous area. In Putnam's Monthly (vol. 4, 1854, p. 51) in a story entitled "Hard Up," a description of "horrid" Elizabeth Street in lower Manhattan includes "a Dutch grocery...loom[ing] at either corner, where at night a red, unwholesome light glares out upon the dark street, and shrieks and blasphemies, and cries of murder echo along the street." And in 1856, $3000 worth of "saddles and shoes, teaspoons and overcoats, silk dresses and sleighbells, cart-wheels and ear-rings" - were found stowed away in trunks (behind the counter, it is implied) in a Dutch grocery at the corner of Mott and East Houston Streets* "kept by a German named William Randeau."(New York Times, Mar. 29, 1856, n.p.) Randeau had fled, so the police arrested his hapless clerk - who was also German.

*Just a few blocks from the tenement at 441 East Houston where my grandfather was born into a German immigrant family in 1893 - none of them had a grocery, though.

Orangeine

noreply@blogger.com (Lidian) — Sat, 23 Jul 2011 01:57:00 +0000

UCLA Library

Orangeine sounds like the Victorian equivalent of Tang (and what a strange terrible thought that is!) but it wasn't a beverage, and didn't actually contain anything remotely related to an orange.

It was a medicine for headaches and - you guessed it - a slew of other ailments, a miracle cure according to the letters printed in ads in the late 1890s and early 1900s. You also will not be surprised to learn that it was full of ineffectual, even dangerous, things.

Orangeine was made by the Orangeine Chemical Company in Chicago. The main ingredient was acetanilide which was used as an analgesic prior to the development of aspirin; it was similar to acetaminophen. But unfortunately this particular analgesic was made with aniline - a toxic chemical primarily used for making dyes. According to the 1912 edition of Nostrums and Quackery*, Orangeine also contained caffeine and sodium bicarbonate. Interestingly enough, acetaminophen and caffeine are used to counteract migraines today.

Some of the advertising was directed at women, insofar as Orangeine could be used, it was hinted delicately, to combat menstrual pain. The ad on the left is from an 1899 edition of the Brooklyn Eagle, and offers "Wonderful Orangeine" for the relief of "Pain, Depression, Exhaustion, "Blues," Headache, Neuralgia, Women's Pains, and CURES THEIR CAUSE." It was called "Blessed Orangeine" and "Heavenly Orangeine,"and women were said to rely on it to help them over "Hard Places." The women pictured in the ad are actress and interior designer Elsie de Wolfe on the left, and stage actress Hope Ross on the right.

Orangeine was sold in powder form; as an 1899 ad put it, the powder was "easily carried, taken anywhere WITHOUT TEASPOON OR "SLOPPY LIQUID."

Samuel Hopkins Adams wrote in The Great American Fraud (1905) of several deaths resulting from taking Orangeine. Some women died from taking orangeine powders; some survived, but grew pale and anemic from protracted use.** He noted that

The wickedness of the fraud lies in this: That whereas the nostrum, by virtue of its acetanilid content, thins the blood, depresses the heart, and finally undermines the whole system, it claims to strengthen the heart and produce better blood. Thus far in the patent medicine field I have not encountered so direct and specific an inversion of the facts.

Finally, why was it called Orangeine? Oranges were a delicious and expensive treat back in the late 19th century; a particular high point of a child's Christmas stocking was the orange in the toe. For my grandmother, growing up in Brooklyn in the 1890s, that Christmas orange was the only one she got all year. Oranges were also associated with warm, sunny climates and good health. All of these associations would be pleasant and positive - and sell plenty of headache powders.

It was ironic that Orangeine was not, in fact, very good for you at all.

*Nostrums and Quackery (American Medical Association Press: Chicago, 1912), p. 497.

**Thanks to the Museum of Quackery for the Samuel Hopkins Adams extracts; you can read more details about Orangeine-associated deaths over there.

Note: Madame Talbot has some framed, bright-orange packets of Orangeine in her wonderful Quack Medicine Curio Exhibit.

Belden's Miniature New York

noreply@blogger.com (Lidian) — Fri, 06 May 2011 16:45:00 +0000

In 1845-6, Ezekiel Porter Belden and his 150 assistants built a carved wooden model of New York and Brooklyn - featuring every building, every street and landmark, even (in the words of one reviewer) "every shanty" - as far north as 32nd Street.

In Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898 (Oxford UP, 2000, p. 672) , Edwin G. Burrows and Mike Wallace note that the model was twenty feet long and twenty four feet wide with 200,000 tiny buildings over 2 million windows and 150,000 chimneys.

The Model was topped with an 15 foot high Oriental canopy decorated with "gold and brilliant colors." It was"supported by twelve elaborately carved columns...and is mounted with pinnacles forming compartments"* at the top. And in those compartments were nearly a hundred oil paintings of "the leading business establishments and places of note in the city" - all commissioned by the industrious Mr. Belden. It cost $20,000 to build - an incredible sum of money in the 1840s.

Belden's 1849 guidebook New-York: Past, Present and Future (1849) is dedicated to his Carved Model. There are many pages of descriptions of the carvings, and more pages after that with reprinted newspaper reviews (all most complimentary, of course). The Model stood on a huge wooden platform, and included a depiction of the harbor complete with steamers, tow-boats and all "customed shipping."

In Belden's book you can read in great detail about what is in the Model - the description itself is a kind of virtual walking tour, and great fun to read. Belden not only includes the big attractions - the Battery, Castle Garden, Broadway, Barnum's American Museum, City Hall, Washington Market, the Tombs - but also the telegraph wires, the Novelty Works ("an extensive manufactory of steam engines and other machinery" near the East River), and the United States Revenue Boarding Office. I was glad to see that he included the Floating Church, too. The New York Sun pointed out that "every inhabitant of New York will be enabled to recognize his own dwelling."

Broadway and Canal St, 1836 (NYPL)

Ezekiel Porter Belden, of an old Connecticut family (the Porter-Belden House is in Wethersfield), also wrote a book about Yale, and - according to one of the newspaper reviews Belden includes - was "the proprietor of the Model of New Haven" - so this wasn't his first miniature city.

The Model City was built at Belden's rooms in the Granite Building, 360 Broadway. In July 1846 Belden rented the "large hall of the Minerva Rooms, Broadway" for his Model, and opened it to the public on the 4th. The Minerva Rooms were at 406 Broadway (at Canal Street), and were usually a venue for entertainers.

Can you imagine what fun it would be to see this? Another place I want to go in that time machine, certainly. And I'd like to know what happened to the Miniature New York, too. Did it survive? And if so - where is it?

*All quotations, unless otherwise noted, are from New-York: Past Present and Future (1849) by Ezekiel Porter Belden.

The Champagne Pavilion

noreply@blogger.com (Lidian) — Sun, 03 Apr 2011 13:56:00 +0000

from Popular Places of Resort Around N.Y. (1881)

This is exactly the sort of thing I'd like to visit in a time machine - the Champagne Pavilion at West Brighton Beach, Coney Island, in 1881. Ten cents for a glass or a "cocktail," which you could sip while you lounged in this elegant pavilion. They need more seating, but otherwise I like this very much.

The guidebook that features this ad says that other delights of West Brighton included fountains of "pure water," the Grand Plaza which was lit with electric light "of 25,000 candle power" in the evening, a Camera Obscura, restaurants and amusements of all kinds. I think I'll just sit in the pavilion quietly, though, sipping my cocktail, and watching everything. And since I always like to know these things, I found an 1889 recipe for champagne cocktails. This is from The Steward's Handbook and Guide to Party Catering by a man with two old Long Island names (which is why I chose his recipe), Jessup Whitehead*:

Champagne Cocktail - A large lemonade glass half filled with shaved ice, 2 drops each orange, lemon and gentian** essences; 1 tablespoon each orange-flower water and syrup; well shaken; 1 glass champagne added.

*Probably not a relation, though - I have a possible Whitehead ancestor, and at one time thought there were Jessups back in one of my ancestral lines, but have since learned otherwise. I do have a distant cousin called Whitehead Hicks, who was Mayor of New York from 1766 to 1776 - so perhaps Jessup is a very, very distant cousin.

** Gentian is a flowering plant, whose roots are sometimes used in bitters. Apparently the old soft drink Moxie was flavored with gentian root bitters - it is still being sold in parts of the US (New England and Pennsylvania). I don't know if it still has gentian root bitters in it, though.