We Is Got Him

by Carrie Hagen

  Reporters reminded the City Council that they had less than two years to transform Philadelphia’s reputation for ineffective policing. “Foreigners will judge the nation by what they see in Philadelphia.” But instead of giving stronger punishments to violent offenders, the city fathers ignored the papers’ warnings and focused their efforts on patching the town’s aesthetic flaws. As workers built and street cleaners tidied, foreign ministers across the globe received invitations beckoning them to visit Philadelphia and reminding them to reserve exhibition space for their own countries. When potential investors continued to withhold pledges, the city planners decided to recruit more aggressively and widely. A fund-raising delegation traveled to Massachusetts hoping to capture Boston’s interest with the council’s grand plans. If successful, they could count on the rest of New England and a jaded New York City to follow Boston’s lead.

  your substitute

  MARY WESTERVELT, WILLIAM’S WIFE, WAS GROWING INCREASingly frustrated with her husband’s unemployment. Not only were she, her husband, and their two children renting two rooms in a tenement, but throughout the fall, her husband’s sister Martha Mosher and her four children had been sharing the space. Mary Westervelt had not realized her sister-in-law’s family would be moving into her home until they showed up at her doorstep before 7:00 A.M. on August 20, two days after they had left Philadelphia. Mary resented their presence. Although the Moshers had accommodated her own family earlier in the year when her husband had lost his job, their home had been larger, and Mary and her children had had their own room.

  Two months after her in-laws moved in, Mary and her family had to leave their two-room apartment and move into a cheaper tenement where they could afford an extra bedroom. Mary grumbled about the location. To help make rent, which was one dollar more a week, she worked as a seamstress.

  Meanwhile, Westervelt indirectly directed the NYPD force of 2,500 men where to look for Mosher and Douglas. Westervelt advised Walling to keep an eye on Smith and McNeal’s, a restaurant the kidnappers frequented. He directed him to investigate the Astoria ferry, where the men could fish for food. He told him about a boating trip he had recently taken with the kidnappers; after they had traveled upriver to a venue called Rondout, Westervelt said, Mosher had asked him to accompany them on future burglaries. He described the kidnappers’ clothes, their fishing poles, and the type of bag they carried. Following Westervelt’s directions, one officer replicated the journey to Rondout in search of the kidnappers.

  Westervelt also accompanied his sister Martha Mosher on trips to Five Points. There, she often visited Madame Morrow on Houston Street, where her husband sometimes met her. Sometimes Westervelt and/or Joseph Douglas joined their brief meetings. Westervelt continued to frequent the usual haunts, neighborhoods, and shops he had come to know well as a police officer. One day in late October, Joseph Douglas entered a store on Broome Street and asked for Westervelt. A young man in the building mistook Douglas for an plainclothes police officer.

  “What does Walling want with him?” he asked.

  The question startled Douglas. He ran out of the store and told Westervelt about the encounter.

  For the first time, William Westervelt realized the police were following him. He threatened to cease contact with Walling and blamed the superintendent for his financial frustrations. He reminded Walling that he was betraying his own sister’s husband and his own sense of loyalty, and that despite several weeks of working as an informant, he had received neither Mayor Stokley’s reward nor his job back on the force. Walling told him that despite his best efforts, he didn’t think the police commissioners would let him back on the force. Privately, the superintendent feared losing his contact. Police officers, detectives, and neighbors across America and Europe had failed to find Charley Ross, and he, George W. Walling, had contact with the only lead in the investigation. He tried to assuage Westervelt by finding him a temporary job as a streetcar conductor.

  Walling placed great hope in the specific details Westervelt offered. He was confident that any day, his officers would, through these leads, find and arrest the kidnappers and deliver Charley Ross in heroic fashion to his grieving parents in Germantown. If this were to happen, Walling would have begun his career as superintendent by cracking one of the nation’s toughest cases. Unless Sarah Ross’s brothers were to pay the ransom. Then, the child would be returned on the kidnappers’ terms, and he would have no glory. On October 22, Walling warned Heins against negotiating.

  Dear Sir:—I saw my informant last night he says that we are surely on the right track, but they [the kidnappers] have hopes of getting the child redeemed, and he has not been able to find where it is. I think any arrangements made with the kidnappers for the restoration of the child would be a public calamity; no child would be safe hereafter if it had parents or friends who could raise money. I am confident that I shall get the guilty parties and the child at some time not far distant, provided no compromise is made with them.

  Very respectfully yours, etc

  GEO. W. WALLING, Superintendent

  Again, Heins cooperated with Walling while suspecting Westervelt’s intentions. Through Walling, Heins learned that the kidnappers had resumed their criminal habits in order to support their lives on the run. He knew they were steering a green skiff around New York’s harbor at night, sometimes mere feet from police boats searching for them.

  The deep, sheltered New York Harbor provided numerous hiding places. Fishermen and traders navigated hundreds of miles of inlets, streams, and channels near the city by day; burglars such as Mosher knew how to steer the maze of waterways in the dark. Using a small boat, thieves would sneak onto the shores of communities in New Jersey, Long Island, or Westchester, rob stores or homes, put their goods in the boat, and take off. If they couldn’t reach their “fencing” destinations by daybreak, they would hide the stolen property somewhere along the water until they could return for it another night. That way, if eyewitnesses had spied their boat at the scene of the crime, the police would find nothing when they later searched it. Mosher had grown up playing hide-and-seek with the police. It would make sense for him to move Charley, one more stolen good, among his best hideaways.

  Walling rented a steam tug, and Heins sent Detective Wood from Philadelphia to join New York’s Detective Silleck, Gil Mosher, and another officer on a twelve-day reconnaissance of this territory. Detective Silleck was known among his peers as a former “sea-faring man” who “knew all about coasting.” The group deferred to his judgment as a navigator. The foursome traveled up the Hudson River to Poughkeepsie, moving ashore to interview squatters and to scout islands, woods, small towns, and little houses. They looked around Newburg, where the last letter had been posted. They poked around the East River, observing the wharves near the entrance to Long Island Sound. In a report he gave at the end of the trip, Detective Wood said they had “searched thirty or forty islands in the Sound, containing from four to five acres to a hundred acres each.” He also said that Gil Mosher had uncovered many potential hiding places.

  Heins continued to wonder why William Westervelt, a man who made no pretense of hiding his grudge against the police, would cooperate in an investigation against his own brother-in-law. Westervelt’s details were entertaining, but they had not yet been instrumental in providing the police with any concrete evidence—certainly no more than Walling’s men had learned through their undercover work in Five Points. Heins agreed to keep contributing time, money, and resources to Walling’s theories, but he didn’t trust Westervelt enough to fully interfere with the Ross family’s decisions.

  Walling recognized Heins’s hesitation, and as he had done before, shared enough information about Westervelt’s statements to keep the captain involved in his plans. He sent a telegram to Philadelphia on October 28.

  —Yours of yesterday received. On Monday night Clark alias Douglas went to where they used to meet, but found the lager beer saloon closed. He inquired for Westervelt. I heard it yester
day morning, and about an hour afterwards Westervelt came and told me Clark had been inquiring for him. Of course I did not tell him I knew it; so I think Westervelt has kept faith with me.

  Yours, etc.

  Heins agreed with Christian Ross’s earlier position on Douglas. The kidnappers’ letters revealed insecurities that could trigger their threats against Charley’s life at any moment, so in Charley’s best interest, Douglas should be left free until the police could arrest Mosher as well. Walling’s continued confidence, however, made enough of an impression on Heins for him to encourage the Ross/Lewis family to postpone negotiations. He told them that he believed the New York Police would soon catch the kidnappers.

  The family disagreed. Dismissing the better judgment of the authorities, the Ross camp decided to make the exchange as quickly as possible, regardless of the kidnappers’ refusal to simultaneously trade Charley for the money. Only there was another problem. The kidnappers had said they would only deal with Christian, and he could not get out of bed.

  New York Herald. Oct. 28.

  “John, too sick to take journey. Will relative answer?”

  PHILA Oct 31 Mr Ros if you have any relation or friend that you can delegate to this important bisines then we are ready to deal with him we care not who he may be if it be mr hines or the states attorney—we are willing to negociate with him but mr Ros we want you not to deceive yourself in this bisines for we tell you plainly his acts will involve the life or death of your child we shall regard him as your substitute in every particular and hold the life of your child responsible for his actions. send your substitute to New York tuesday 3rd november with the means to settle this bisines. your substitute on arriving in new York must put a personal in herald. say. John i am stoping at ____ hotel with his name in full.

  New York Herald. November 3.

  “John, change address of personals. Relative will not sign his name in full.”

  NEW BRUNSWICK, November 3—Mr. Ros. it looks very strange to us that you should quible about the name to address us. is your object to keep the detectives informed of our whereabouts by having us writing you so often. by the by we could tell you much about them but our place is to keep mum and yours to investigate before you give more money out. it makes us jealous to see you pay out your mony foolishly when they can give you nothing in return but a parcel of fabricated lies. —and if you want your child safe and sound this is the final day of salvation. this address will do (John Johnathan is stopping at so and so. Johnathan or who he may be must not leave the hotel till he hears from us. if you mean square bisiness have your personal in Friday’s Herald (N.Y.) and be in New York on Saturday morning.

  a parcel of fabricated lies

  WILLIAM STOKLEY ANTICIPATED A WIN ON ELECTION DAY, Tuesday, November 3, 1874. The mayor’s run for a second term didn’t get much press, even though victory would mean a raise for him when many of his constituents were out of work. In spite of recent articles reminding the public that the Republican advisers kept Stokley on a tight leash, the mayor had remained popular enough to keep his reelection bid from becoming a contest. This didn’t mean that he or the machine had nothing to worry about.

  The Republican party was changing. Under Grant’s watch, Lincoln’s messages of liberty were overshadowed by motives of industry. The Democrats, while still unfriendly to freed slaves, identified themselves more with the working man. During the next two decades, both parties become allied with those interests that would define them for generations.

  In 1874, America was entering the sixth year of Grant’s presidency, and while ambitious supporters predicted a third term, others were not so sure. People weren’t happy. The Civil War death toll hung over the middle and lower classes. Unemployment numbers were high. Racial and ethnic tensions ignited riots. Critics spoke of the president’s inability to reunite the country.

  Of Philadelphia’s Republican ticket running that fall, only the district attorney faced early, strong opposition from the Democrats. Stokley and his advisers knew the people would speak through this high-profile contest. By overthrowing the incumbent, voters could more immediately show their frustration with city government and threaten tighter municipal competitions for the spring. Throughout the country, the machine anticipated the results of races like that of Philadelphia’s district attorney, aware the verdicts would be harbingers of things to come.

  Pennsylvania Republicans pushed every member to vote for every party candidate, regardless of one’s personal frustration with any incumbent. Capitalizing on unemployment fears and industry investments, they emphasized the Democrats as “a movement against American industry” that did not acknowledge “the doctrine of protection.” If Democrats had their way, the Republican papers said, they would repeal tariff laws, allowing foreign products to enter the country—just as easily as feared foreigners. “If the wall is broken down so that British goods can enter free, the industries of this State will be paralyzed, the mills will be closed, hundreds of thousands of workmen will be permanently unemployed, the merchants among whom these men spend their earnings will be ruined, the capital which gives them work will be locked up and made unprofitable, and incalculable injury will be done to business in all its departments.”

  Philadelphia Police expected political tensions to escalate into fights at voting locations, just as they had on election days past. Chief Jones prepared two omnibuses full of officers ready to respond to any distress signals.

  No such messages arrived. In addition to cracking down on fraudulent votes, the election reform of 1874 had led to more voting locations—which meant less people at each station—and to different tallying procedures, which meant delayed results and the potential for fewer angry mobs.

  By 7:00 P.M., bonfires flickered into the darkening sky. Hundreds gathered in the news district, waiting around Independence Hall for the returns. Telegraph lines communicated results between state offices in Harrisburg, the Mayor’s office, and the Union League. Hours passed, and when people walked home around 11:00 P.M., at least one Democratic parade partied through the streets. Paperboys grabbed their stacks later than usual the next day and began reciting the headlines. The district attorney had lost.

  Nationally, Democrats had gained control of the House of Representatives, denying Republicans their long-held Congressional rule. The New York Herald attributed all blame to the President and his failed Reconstruction plans. “General Grant … has surrendered a precious political inheritance.”

  The New York Evening Post refused to acknowledge the results as a Democratic victory. “The Democrats, as a national party, offered the people only one thing. They had no policy to submit. They had no record on which they could ask the people to trust them. They had no carefully matured or coherent measures for the future better than or materially different from Republican measurers. They did offer one thing—a change. The people took the change; they did not take the Democrats. Whether they will take them remains an open question.”

  Back in Philadelphia, Mayor Stokley read the signs of the changing political tide. They wouldn’t affect his promised raise, but they did threaten his political advancement beyond a second term as mayor. Stokley needed to assure the machine of his political capital; at the same time, he needed to convince the press and the voters that he wasn’t a pawn. If he was not savvy enough, these goals would contradict each other, and he would look weaker.

  What the mayor needed was to become a character in a high-profile story. Something that he could control—better yet, save from possible disaster. Something that would accent his strengths and ensure his legacy.

  The year 1874 gave Stokley two such stories: the Charley Ross case and the rapid approach of the Centennial. Both had given him some merit of success, but his police had botched the search for Charley. As a result, they had defaulted the now-famous investigation to the New York Police, rendering themselves impotent in the press. The mayor had earned some praise for offering a reward, but that was only after public pressure—and
it too had led to nothing; if anything, it would probably end up in the hands of the New York authorities. Stokley needed to do what he could to maintain a professional presence in the case, yet simultaneously distance himself from it. Otherwise, any blame for its eventual failure—especially if it rendered a dead child—could very well fall on him. The Centennial offered him the perfect distraction.

  The celebration’s finances were in trouble, but the engineers were good and the grounds had been attracting positive attention. In their coverage of early July events, the press had portrayed Stokley as the overseer of Centennial plans, allying his image with the upcoming party. By throwing himself into preparations, the mayor could work the machine’s political connections and fight for the financial recognition of New York and New England. He could stake his reputation on this. For such an image campaign to work, however, the press needed to concentrate more on the successful Centennial plans than on the flawed Charley Ross investigation.

  Luckily, the mayor had the connections to make this happen.

  New York Herald. November 6.

  “John, you must change the name of John for personals. It has become too well known.”

  PHILA., Nov. 6.—Mr. Ros: we told you in the last positively we would not write you any more. this dozing about puts us to no small amount of trouble we had left phila for New York thinking you were ready to close up the business. we told you positively procrastination is dangerous. had we accomplished what we have been fishing for the last three months your child would now have been dead but we have not yet caught the fish we wanted. yours is but a small item compared with something else. Walter said you owned the two new houses right opposite you or we should never troubled you. Mr. Ros you have asked to keep this negotiation a secret between ourselves it is a wise policy in your doings not that we fear being traped in our own game. This is positively the last from us. if you are sincere you would be anxious to settle this business if you regard the life of your child. we mean to fulfil every promise we made you in good faith. the result depends entirely with yourself whom you appoint to transact this business for yu we want at least two days notice before you come to New York for we may be 500 miles off and we ask for time to get there yu can say tuesday no 10. Saul of Tarsus. (choose your own name say i will be stoping so and so all day. do not leave the hotel wherever you may be stoping for one minute during the day). this thing must come and shall come to a close in a few days.