The Murder of Jim Fisk for the Love of Josie Mansfield

by H. W. Brands

  Josie turns to Judge Bixby. “Am I obliged to answer that question?”

  The judge responds that she is not required to say anything that will incriminate or disgrace her.

  “Did he, directly or indirectly, furnish means for you while you were at the clubhouse?” Spencer repeats.

  “He did not personally contribute to my support, but it was through him I made some money, through some speculations. I don’t, of course, think that he supported me. I did not understand it so. It was not done with that intention at all.”

  The audience listens closely and, by the dubious looks on many faces, disbelievingly as the kept woman denies her keeping.

  Spencer articulates the room’s doubts. “Do I understand you to say that when you were at this clubhouse you were supported through money received from stock operations conducted on your behalf by Colonel Fisk?”

  “Yes, it was to that effect.”

  “What were these stock operations?”

  “They were some entered into by a mutual friend of ours—Mr. Marston.”

  “Who furnished Marston money for the operation?”

  “I don’t know who furnished him with the money. I suppose it was his own.”

  “Did you ever receive money from Marston or Fisk as the proceeds of that stock operation?”

  “Yes, sir, two or three hundred dollars a month.”

  Heads in the audience wag.

  Spencer pursues the narrative. “Where did I understand you to say you moved from the clubhouse?”

  “To Jersey City.”

  The audience stirs with anticipation at this reference to the notorious flight of the Erie directors.

  “And you mentioned you were there with Fisk for nine weeks?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did he not support and maintain you during that time?”

  “I don’t think so, directly. The money, I suppose, came from the Erie Railway. I went to Jersey on that occasion with the officers of the Erie company, and the railroad paid all the expense.”

  “Where were you staying in Jersey City?”

  “Taylor’s Hotel, where I occupied a suite of rooms.”

  “Did anybody occupy them with you?”

  “All the time, do you mean?”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “Mr. Fisk did, sometimes.”

  “Anybody else?”

  “During the day it was used as a sort of rendezvous by the officers.”

  “During the night only by yourself and Colonel Fisk?”

  “Yes.”

  Spencer lets this picture—of Josie and Fisk on the lam in Taylor’s Hotel—sink in. He then asks for details about the stock operations from which Josie received her income. “Did you see any of them?”

  “It was not necessary for me to see them personally.”

  “Then the money you supposed came from these operations came to you from Fisk personally?”

  “Yes.”

  Spencer asks about Josie’s house. “You changed your residence to your present dwelling at what time?”

  “1868, I think.”

  “Where did you get the means to purchase the house?”

  “Out of my stock speculations.”

  “And through the same process and in the same way you describe?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “What was the difference?”

  “From the money I made out of the stock speculations I bought government bonds and held these some time.”

  “Who got these bonds?”

  “I think Mr. Fisk’s clerk bought them for me.”

  “Who furnished money to buy these bonds?”

  “It was furnished out of these stock speculations.”

  “Did you get the money personally and give it for these bonds, or did not Mr. Fisk furnish all these moneys?”

  “He did not. I held the money given for the bonds in my hands before the bonds were bought.”

  “Where did you get that money?”

  “From Fisk.”

  Spencer nods as if to underline these words: “From Fisk.” He consults his papers. He walks across the courtroom and back.

  He asks about the letters Fisk has written her. Did she ever give the letters to anyone else?

  “I never did.”

  “Did you supply them to Mr. Stokes?”

  The audience buzzes. Josie realizes she has stumbled. She answers slowly: “I gave them to him, to the number of about seventy-five.”

  “They were the original letters that Colonel Fisk had written to you during your intimacy with him?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you gave them to Mr. Stokes for what purpose?”

  “Because he told me it would benefit him in the case that was pending between him and Mr. Fisk at the time.”

  “You furnished these letters to Mr. Stokes at his request, he saying to you that they would be a benefit to him in this litigation?”

  “I did.” She doesn’t like how this sounds. “I did not mean it would be a benefit so much as an explanation.”

  “Did he ever return them to you?”

  “No, to my surprise.”

  “Have you seen any of these letters since?”

  “Never.”

  “You don’t personally know what became of them?”

  “Not personally.”

  “Did you furnish these letters to any person in the employ of the Herald office?”

  “Never.”

  “You furnished them to Mr. Stokes?”

  “Yes.”

  “To be used against Fisk?”

  “Yes.”

  Another pause from Spencer, to let the court, the jury, and the audience appreciate the implications for blackmail of this admission.

  Spencer brings Bill Tweed and Tammany Hall into the conversation. “Did you go to Albany about the matter?” he asks Josie.

  “Yes.”

  “To whom?”

  “To Mr. Tweed.”

  For what purpose?

  “I thought there would be a good deal of publicity about this matter, and I wanted to avoid it.”

  It has been a long session, but the injection of Tweed into the tale ends it with a wicked twist, one that is potentially damning to Josie. Spencer sits down and lets all present ponder Josie’s shameless treachery in working her feminine wiles on Tweed to further her blackmail scheme against Tweed’s friend and ally and her erstwhile lover, Jim Fisk.

  Josie’s testimony in the libel trial is carried in all the papers; from Thanksgiving Day till Christmas it drives the gossip mills of New York City and across the state. The personal aspect of the scandal is reason enough for New Yorkers to pay attention; rarely do the rich and powerful find themselves so exposed as Fisk has become in this messy love triangle. “On the one side is Colonel Fisk, Prince of Erie, owner of the Grand Opera House, Lord of the Isles, famed in love and war,” the Herald mocks. “On the other the Cleopatra of the period, who has worked as much mischief in her own way with the unfortunate Fisk as did the Egyptian goddess of love and sensuality on the luckless Antony.”

  But the political potential of the scandal is equally enticing. The involvement of Tweed makes the Fisk-Mansfield-Stokes affair politically explosive. Tweed’s cumulative missteps have weakened him; bettors lay odds that new sins discovered in the libel case will bring him and Tammany down.

  Judge Bixby promises that justice will be swift in his Yorkville court. “If the lawyers in this case think they are going to make a long winter’s job of it, they are mistaken,” he declares in early December. “I will take up the case and carry it on day after day until it is concluded. I will not allow myself to be checkmated by the lawyers in carrying out this resolve.”

  But he can’t control the calendar completely, and the new year arrives before the court resumes its hearings. January 6, 1872, is bitterly cold in Manhattan, and the courtroom is hardly warmer. The custodians have taken this Saturday morning off, and the coal stove in the center of the room
has not been lit. The judge allows the counsel and witnesses to keep their coats on and does so himself.

  Marietta Williams again accompanies Josie. This time Ned Stokes appears, too, although he arrives separately from Josie. Every eye in the courtroom follows him as he walks to his seat, for this is the man who has stolen Josie from Fisk and set the entire sordid spectacle in motion. Fisk has learned at the last minute that Stokes is coming; he can’t bring himself to be in the same room as his rival and stays away.

  Josie enters the witness stand again. Fisk’s counsel Beach inquires how she met Fisk. “Are you acquainted with Miss Annie Wood?” he asks.

  “Yes, I formed her acquaintance about six years ago in Washington.”

  “Did you have a conversation with her in relation to Mr. Fisk?”

  “No.”

  “Did you ask Miss Wood to introduce you to Mr. Fisk after she had given you a description of him and of his character?”

  “No. I met him accidentally at her house.”

  “Do you recollect on that occasion pointing to your dress and saying in substance that was the best you had in the world, and you had not money enough to pay your week’s rent?”

  “I don’t remember anything of the kind.”

  “Did you say to her that you wanted to know him, as you had no way of earning your living?”

  “I have no recollection of anything of the kind. I never said to Miss Wood, before or after my introduction to Fisk, that I was poor and needy, because I was not in such a condition.”

  “Did you later tell Miss Wood that Mr. Fisk had taken a fancy to you, but that he had not done much for you yet?”

  “I never told her so.”

  Referring to a subsequent incident, Beach demands: “Did you show Miss Wood some costly diamonds and elegant dresses which you said were given you by Fisk?”

  “No.”

  Josie’s attorney McKeon objects that these questions have been fed to Beach by someone with a “wicked heart” and an intent to “insult the witness.”

  Beach responds: “I am not able to judge of the character and heart of the gentleman who furnished me these questions. But I may be permitted to say they don’t come from Mr. Fisk.”

  “I suppose they come from someone who is ready to do his dirty work,” McKeon answers.

  Judge Bixby sustains the objection.

  Beach pushes forward nonetheless. “Did you say, ‘There, Annie, look at these compared with my stock when I got acquainted with Fisk. Then I had nothing but that black and white silk dress, and no money in my purse and owing some rent’?”

  McKeon objects again. Judge Bixby again excludes the question.

  “Did Miss Wood reply to that, ‘You have been with him long enough to have got more than that if you were smart’? And did you answer you did not mean to beat him too fast?”

  Another objection, again sustained.

  “Did Miss Wood ask you upon that occasion if you esteemed or loved Mr. Fisk, and did you reply: ‘No, I don’t love him, only his money. He is not the style of man I like. I will get all the money I can out of him and then he may go’?”

  McKeon jumps to his feet. This interrogation is all for the newspapers, he declares: to create a sensation and distract from the case at hand. Judge Bixby sustains the objection.

  Beach alters his course. “Do you know Nelly Peris?”

  “Yes, I did. I sent for her to my house in Twenty-third Street. She might have been there when Mr. Stokes was present.”

  “Do you recollect that you three were talking upon any occasion when you had a conversation in regard to making money out of Fisk?”

  “Never. I did not say in words or substance that I intended to blackmail him.”

  Josie has been calm until now, but suddenly she struggles with her emotions and breaks down. She apologizes to the court and says she feels ill.

  Judge Bixby comes to her aid. He comforts her verbally and glowers at Beach, who terminates the questioning.

  Josie steps down and, still crying, leaves the courtroom.

  The spectators in the Yorkville court appreciate what the rest of New York will learn when the next day’s papers hit the newsstands: that the Fisk team has impeached Josie Mansfield’s testimony, impugned her motives, and caused her to flee the courtroom—but not caused her to recant her story.

  It is now her alleged accomplice’s turn to enter the witness box. Stokes’s debonair nonchalance contrasts utterly with the sobbing disconcertion of Josie; he treats his testimony as a mildly amusing diversion from what a handsome young man ought to be doing on a Saturday.

  The hostile tone of Beach’s questions affects Stokes not at all. He recounts his background and his relationship to Josie. “I am thirty years of age,” he says, “and have resided at the Hoffman House since last July. I am married and have a family. I first formed the acquaintance of Miss Mansfield in Philadelphia some three years ago; I was there on business and met her accidentally. I had a friend with me at the time, but I had rather not answer his name. I first visited Miss Mansfield at her house in this city when Mr. Fisk took me there to dine. I don’t remember the date, but I think it was about two years ago. She then resided in the house she now occupies. I have called on her, but how frequently I cannot say. I cannot form a correct idea how often I visited her in the last six months—probably eight or ten times a month. It may be more or less, but to the best of my judgment that is about the average. I had no stated times for calling on her, and had not been in the habit of doing so. I might have, sometimes, called upon her three or four times a week, but other weeks I did not see her at all. I cannot locate a single week when I did not see her. I have gone in there and dined, but that is the only meal I have taken there. I did not go to dinner by appointment, but I very well knew the dinner hour.”

  The courtroom laughter that follows this final statement throws Beach off. But after letting the good humor fade he resumes the attack. “Have you threatened unless Fisk settled that you would pursue and crush him?”

  “In a legal way I have said so, but not in a physical manner.”

  “Have you threatened to make publications in the newspapers against him again and again?”

  “Yes, to expose this case and the manner in which he has swindled me.”

  “Have you not made propositions to settle with him?”

  “I have made some propositions in the way of arbitration, but not in any other form, to my knowledge. I said I would take the papers to the legislature and lay them before it in order to injure him.”

  “When you first visited the house of Miss Mansfield, was Mr. Fisk an habitué of that house?”

  “Oh, yes. Mr. Fisk lived there, and Miss Mansfield lived there at the same time. He remained there a year after I commenced to visit her. I do not remember exactly when he was displaced by her. I had nothing to do with it. I took no hand in the direction of the affairs of the house.”

  “Have you been in the habit of sleeping in that house?”

  “Probably not more than three or four times in two years. I have frequently stayed there until ten o’clock in the evening. I hardly ever was in the room alone with Miss Mansfield. Mrs. Williams was generally there.”

  “You never stayed with Miss Mansfield alone in the room?”

  “No, sir.”

  “You understand the full force of this declaration?”

  “Yes. I have no recollection of staying with her alone in the room late in the evening.”

  “I want you to make the declaration understandingly: I ask you if you have repeatedly and often spent the late hours of the evening alone with Miss Mansfield, alone in the room.”

  “No, positively. When I remained as late as ten o’clock Mrs. Williams was generally with me.”

  “Your acquaintance with Miss Mansfield was simply the ordinary acquaintance of a gentleman and a lady?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And there was not more familiarity in that house and between you and Miss Mansfield than w
ould be proper and becoming between a married head of a family and Miss Mansfield?”

  “There was nothing improper between her and me.”

  The spectators don’t know what to make of this assertion. Many display disbelief that anything not improper could have triggered the storm of emotions that led to the current welter of lawsuits and, just now, to Josie Mansfield’s sobbing departure from the courtroom. Of course Stokes would lie, to protect his family if not himself. All eagerly await the testimony of Marietta Williams, to hear if she will confirm Stokes’s improbable tale.

  But they will have to wait. Judge Bixby keeps his Saturday sessions short. The court adjourns promptly at two o’clock, and the participants and spectators are turned out into the cold.

  Pleased with his performance, Stokes repairs to nearby Delmonico’s for a late lunch. He then visits one of his lawyers, Rufus Andrews, who has been monitoring the proceedings of a grand jury Fisk has managed to have convened to consider criminal charges against Stokes for blackmail. Andrews advises Stokes that he has nothing to fear on this front; Fisk’s evidence is flimsy, and the grand jury has declined an indictment several times already. Stokes has been contemplating a trip to Providence to defend himself in yet another court action, but he wants to hear from the grand jury before making a final decision about leaving town. Andrews tells him to go to Providence; there will be no indictment. Stokes still worries and so consults Judge Bixby, who likewise dismisses the prospect of an indictment.

  Stokes hails a cab and rides downtown to the Hoffman House. He walks up to his room to collect some papers he will need in Providence. He descends to the lobby and discovers a message waiting for him. He reads the message and learns that the grand jury has in fact returned an indictment against him.

  This news shatters the good feeling he has carried from the Yorkville court. The tentacles of Fisk, it seems, are everywhere; there is no escaping his malign influence. Perhaps Stokes wonders whether Josie is worth the troubles she has caused him, troubles that will multiply crushingly if the new indictment leads to conviction and prison. Perhaps he wonders if Josie will love him if he is behind bars. Quite possibly he thinks nothing so coherent; in his agitation his thoughts fly this way and that.