The Blackest Bird (5 page)
Authors: Joel Rose
7
N
ot much of the murder of Mary Rogers appeared in the newsprints in those first days following the discovery of her body. Only a small mention on July 29 was made of the crime in the
Commercial Advertiser:
but beyond that nothing.
It wasn’t until the morning of August 1, 1841, that news broke in James Gordon Bennett’s
Herald
.
cried the headline.
“The first look we had of her was most ghastly,” began the account. “So much violence had been done to her, her features were scarcely visible.”
When we saw her, she was laying on the bank, on her back, with a rope tied around her, and a large stone attached to it, flung in the water. Her face and forehead so butchered that she had been turned into a mummy.
On her head she wore a bonnet—light gloves on her hands, with the long watery fingers peering out—her dress was torn in various portions— her shoes were on her feet—and altogether she presented the most horrible spectacle that the eye could see.
And so it was, the body of Mary Cecilia Rogers, the Beautiful Segar Girl. It almost made our heart sick, and we hurried from the scene, while a rude youth was raising her leg, which hung in the water, and making unfeeling remarks on her dress.
Bennett demanded nothing less than immediate and full-scale action leading to an arrest.
A murder of such atrocious character must be taken from the realm of
mere police report so that especial attention will be paid, and our young
women protected.
After reading this, Hays remained silent for some seconds before wondering of his daughter, “Do you feel like you need protection, Olga?”
“I feel so sorry for her, Papa,” she admitted. They were in the kitchen together. “I am beginning to fear in this city all young women—all women—need protection.”
If anything, his daughter was too much like himself. When he first told her of Mary’s murder, her first concern had been for how much she, the victim, must have suffered.
“Has Balboa arrived yet?” Hays asked her.
“No, Papa, not here yet.”
“Then do me the good service, Olga. Run to the news hut and buy the gamut of newsprints.”
“All?”
“The
Commercial Advertiser
, the
Mercury
, the
Times
, Greeley’s
Trib
, the
Sentinel
, the
Sun
. Whatever you can lay hands on. Whatever the boys are hawking.”
“Certainly, Papa. But I don’t think the
Tribune
will be in yet. It’s an afternoon paper.”
“No matter. Whatever is available. Take some coins from my pocket purse.”
The newspaper shed, two blocks northwest from their home on Lispenard, stood at the corner of Church and Canal. She returned less than fifteen minutes later carrying eleven papers.
The high constable by this time was fully dressed for the day’s demands, and waiting for her. “Do you mind, dear, would you thumb through these with me and see if there is any further mention?”
She undertook the eleven sheets with him, although nothing more was to be found. The only mention proved the one in the
Herald
.
“Mark me on this,” Hays told her, putting down the large magnifying glass that more and more enabled him to discern the newspapers’ small typesets, “the other prints will be on the topic soon enough.”
It was at this point that Balboa arrived. Olga pressed upon him a cup of coffee, for which he thanked her, and drank, unsweetened, straight down.
As Hays predicted, by late afternoon, making quick note of increased
Herald
sales, the other public prints, in rapid succession, took up the crime.
All were full of the death of the segar store girl, many in extra editions with enriched, lurid detail. Particularly, the
Sun
now advanced Mary had been abducted, raped, and strangled in a display of hideous violence performed by diabolical, unrepentant gangsters. Mentioned as possible culprits were several papist Irish groups including the Dead Rabbits, Kerryonians, Roach Guards, and Plug Uglies.
Rather than the Irish, the native gangs, the Bowery Butcher Boys and their brethren, were implicated in the
Mercury:
“no matter how
loudly the latter group of rapscallions might deny their culpability in like cases of murder and rape.”
Other suspects, these mentioned in the
Evening Journal,
were the Chichesters, Five Pointers, and the Charlton Street Gang, river pirates by profession, and known to own a rowboat.
“Three hundred and fifty thousand souls live in this city,” opined Walter Whitman, a young reporter recently come to the
Brooklyn
Eagle
from the
Argus
. “And of these some thirty thousand we might humbly deem as ruffians. Ergo, we as citizens should never knowingly negate the possibility of their participation in crimes of this horrid and sordid nature.”
Speculation of all sorts raged for ten days.
The
Commercial Advertiser
now alleged it was not Mary’s body at all that had been discovered, but the body of some other unfortunate creature. The real Mary, the
Advertiser
conjectured, was hidden, out of public view. For whatever reason, remained unexplained.
Thrice during this period High Constable Hays sought out Acting Mayor Elijah Purdy, still sitting stead for unwell Mayor Morris, in vain attempts to elicit the acting mayor’s approval in order to commence his investigation.
But Purdy declined the first time and the second, and on the third attempt refused to even meet with High Constable Hays.
Throughout the city, citizens continued to thrill to the story. Newspaper sales soared to previously unrecorded heights. A young woman who had experienced both the freedom and perils of the city, ending up the way Mary Rogers had, enthralled and frightened all. Many young women refused to leave their homes alone on any errand for fear they would be the next victim.
Hays’ thoughts deferred to the murder and Mary Rogers at the expense of all other constabulary concerns, frustrating his days, which then ended with sleepless nights wherein he found himself worrying about his own daughter. Without the endorsement of the mayor’s office, however, the high constable remained powerless.
In the
Herald
of August 9, Bennett reiterated the charge that it had been gangsters who killed Mary Rogers. But this time he pointed his rather bent finger at a band of Negroes.
That evening the
Evening Signal
published an account claiming a witness who swore to having seen Mary Rogers on the Sunday morning of her disappearance in Theatre Alley with a gentleman with whom she seemed quite intimate.
Next morning over breakfast Olga pointed out to Hays an additional report in the
New York Mercury
wherein Mary was said to have been spotted later that same Sunday after the incident in Theatre Alley at the foot of the Barkley Street pier, boarding the Hoboken ferry with a “dark-complexioned man.”
Eyewitnesses reportedly thought him a naval or army officer. For some reason again remaining unexplained, the
Mercury
charged, this military gentleman later choked Mary to death.
At that point, having little firsthand knowledge, Olga, rather, calling his attention to various leads and information after reading of the events related in the prints, the high constable took it upon himself to steam-ferry to Hoboken to have further word with Dr. Cook.
As in his own city, in Jersey’s Hudson County no investigation of any consequence had yet to begin, limited, like the high constable, by the recalcitrance of local authorities.
Hays asked the medical examiner if there was any merit to the
New
York Mercury’s
assertion that Mary had been murdered not by a gang, but by an individual.
Dr. Cook coughed, said there might be that possibility, the body arranged in such manner to mislead investigators, but he would have to reexamine the remains to ascertain for sure. “This will not happen at present, however, High Constable,” Dr. Cook said. “As you well know, my superiors are locked in a game of wills with your superiors. Both hang on the other, awaiting the other’s lead, and as result nothing is done.”
In the rising tide of old age, Hays was finding his patience wearing thinner and thinner. “You said Mary was chaste at the time of her death, Doctor. Do you stick to that assertion?”
Cook blinked. “Again I would have to reexamine the remains.”
“Why would you allege this if it was not true?” Hays asked.
Dr. Cook looked away. “To save the young lady’s reputation,” he admitted softly.
“I see.” This much Hays understood. “May she have been with baby?” he asked gently.
“There was no indication of any such thing.”
“But you examined her fully on this point?”
“I did, and found that there was not the slightest trace of pregnancy.”
“You are sure of that?” Hays pressed on.
“Yes, I am sure.”
Studying Dr. Cook, Hays felt strongly otherwise.
F
INALLY, TWO DAYS LATER
, on Wednesday, August 11, more than a week and a half after the first news had reached the public, Hays received word in his Tombs office that a group of well-known and influential citizens, all of whom had known Mary Rogers from standing her position behind the counter at Anderson’s, were to meet at 29 Ann Street, at the home of townsman James Stoneall, to form a Committee of Safety, and to offer monetary reward sufficient to elicit from the public information leading to the arrest once and for all of the murderer or murderers.
At 7 p.m. Mr. Stoneall called the meeting to order in his parlor and introduced ex-mayor Philip Hone to address those gathered.
Hone, a very tall, slender man, bowed before beginning. “The youth and beauty of the victim,” he said solemnly. “The idea that such a young and beautiful girl could be seduced and murdered within hailing distance of this our great metropolis. Each, the former and latter, having quickly conspired to produce intense excitement in the minds of we, the city’s most prestigious populace!”
In conclusion of this thought, the ex-mayor exclaimed: “We must do something!
We must
.”
He turned to Hays and addressed him directly. “High Constable Hays, sir, our unfortunate, our innocent, our sweet Mary has clearly and unfairly, to her, fallen victim to the brutal lust of some of the gang of banditti that walk unscathed and violate the laws with impunity in this moral and religious city. I presume, as of yet, no discoveries have been made, and so I must implore you, we all do, you must persevere and you must be successful.”
Taking his cue, Hays answered he would like nothing more, but he first need have mandate to begin. “Acting Mayor Purdy, unfortunately, prevents my investigation,” Hays told them all.
Something will be done about that, it was sworn in response.
To the good, but notwithstanding, to stimulate immediate action, while the mayor’s office was dually dealt with and made right, $300 was pledged for reward on the spot.
This sum offered quickly grew to $748, eventually to reach the grand total of $1,073, including public money pledged from Albany by Governor Seward. The biggest individual contributors ($50 each) proved to be Bennett, the newspaper publisher, and Anderson, the segar shop owner.
It was hoped a premium of such proportion would assure a swift solution to the crime, but it did not. With several of the public prints, including the
Herald
and
Mercury
, demanding culmination to the horror, not to mention the fact that High Constable Hays had made plain his frustration with Acting Mayor Purdy, a citizens’ group representing the Committee for Safety, was sent straightaway to his office to demand immediate attention.
Unable to resist such pressure, Purdy sent a card for Hays’ appearance, and upon arriving at City Hall, the high constable received direct orders, matter-of-factly delivered, to travel with all speed to Hoboken, and once there to disinter the corpse of Mary Cecilia Rogers from her temporary crypt and bring her back home to New York, whereupon he would commence his investigation to all of his skill and ability, to hopefully solve the crime with utmost alacrity.