The Hanging Women

by John Mead

  “She had been doing a good job,” Pinky acknowledged. “She had mapped out the hierarchy of the Knights of Labour, though that was widely known and no secret. However, against each name she listed those with whom they had links, such as significant supporters, other groups, men and women like Reverend Blackstaff who helps indirectly and the O’Brione’s who give active and direct support, those who are successful recruiters, and so on. She also had lists of the extremists whom the Knights are in communication with but do not entirely trust. It is from these groups we believe we have identified six men who have bought guns and sticks of dynamite from Mannheim over the past weeks and months.”

  “They have been stock piling weapons?’ O’Leary, despite his exhaustion, felt he should be stirring to action at such worrying news.

  “So it seems,” Pinky stated, taking another sip of his drink. “And, we have traced four of the men and are having them watched. All six are part of two or three different organisations, though they seem to interlink and their memberships overlap and are fluid.”

  “Anarchists to a man,” Pug told them disdainfully, he had no truck with such men whose ideologies, unlike those of the Knights of Labour, seemed to do nothing for the ordinary man.

  “We should have them brought in,” O’Leary told them, sitting up as if ready to go that moment, “and sweat them for information. I find such men quickly give up their fellows when faced with the stark reality of prison. We could have all concerned in the cells in no time.”

  “I would happily break a few heads to get at the knowledge they hold inside,” Pug agreed. “But we have have passed on everything we have found to our bosses and they have met with your chief and the deputy mayor. We have been told to keep watch only and not tip our hand whilst they decide on a strategy.”

  “When will we hear?” the sergeant asked, scowling at the delay, like the others he wanted to continue what they had started, even though they had not originally known how far things would go.

  “Early next week,” Pinky snorted. “Let us hope these extremists have nothing planned before hand.”

  “I will drink to that,” O’Leary told them, raising his glass.

  “And to the work done by a fine female detective,” Pinky added.

  “We paid our condolences to Mrs Stevens this morning,” Magnuson informed the Pinkertons, “she seems quite stoic, almost as if she doubts the reality of it.”

  “It is the second time I have had to tell her that her husband is dead,” Pug explained, his face troubled and sorrowful at the remembrance of knocking at her door, he could barely remember what he had said, but there could have been no doubt this time as to the truth of what he told Martha. The look on her face, as if something in her died, was an expression he would remember until he went to his own grave, “I think there is no doubt of it in her mind on this occasion.”

  “A stronger-willed woman you could not find,” Pinky pointed out, he would dearly have loved to take some of the pain he had seen in the grieving wife’s eyes onto himself but he had not been able to do or say anything except breathe, ‘I’m sorry’. Pathetically shallow words that covered a deep well of his own grief, an emotion he never thought he would feel for the likes of Jack Stevens. “She is the sort of woman you take to help you conquer some new frontier.”

  “Here is to the strength and devotion of a good woman!” Pug raised his glass and clinked it with the others as they acknowledged his toast.

  “You have obviously not seen the late editions,” O’Leary postulated, nodding to the newspaper on top of the pile. “My sergeant here has had himself named the man who has brought the murderer of Miss Blackstaff and Miss Walsh to justice.”

  “Under your instructions, Inspector,” the sergeant stated, somewhat bashfully, “before the legal representatives of Mr Jaunty Tipwell could get his side of things out.”

  “He has confessed then?” Pug guessed.

  “We have had a hard time stopping him from doing so,” if it wasn’t for the mournful circumstances and his tiredness Magnuson might have been gleeful, even danced a jig, but all he could manage was a shrug and shaking of his head. “He finally admitted the crime but ever since has said his actions were justified. Can you believe it, he says he killed as a matter of morality and acted as any christian thinking man would have.”

  “Has he lost his mind and gone insane?” Pinky was dumfounded at hearing Jaunty’s defence.

  “Not in the least of it,” O’Leary informed them with a scowl, “his lawyer has taken up the theme and has all but demanded his client’s release and a reward for his actions.”

  “The world has gone mad,” Pug could not refrain from laughing, thinking there must be punch line to this joke as he could not take what he was hearing seriously.

  “He says,” Cage pointed out, his deepening scowl showing this was far from a joke as any matter could be, “that when he first met the pair he had nothing to doubt that they were whores. Degenerate whores, at that, who shunned men and engaged in the most abnormal acts of depraved lust that would be abhorrent to any christian woman.”

  “I would have thought him more knowledgeable of the ways of the world to believe his own deluded thinking,” Pinky discounted Jaunty’s plea as fabrication.

  “What he thinks does not matter,” Magnuson pointed out, “if he can convince the judge and jury he believed the women debased and prostitutes he is unlikely to hang, he may even get off. He says they went willingly with him and Mannheim, and it was only afterwards that Jaunty became angry with them and what they had led him and Joseph to. He is quite full of how they were willing to do any lewd act yet afterwards scoffed that nothing a man could do could bring them to the heights of ecstasy their touching and kissing each other brought.”

  “And, as they are not here to deny it and staff from Ruby’s to attest to their performance, it gives credence to his words,” O’Leary heatedly pointed out. “He even has the gall to say that in his anger and shame he determined to punish them for their immoral behaviour and make them an example as a warning to others.”

  “He was most calm when he told me,” the sergeant went on, “how Joseph slept off the effects of the rum he had drunk in the carriage, whilst he took the pair into the derelict warehouse and using the rope and tackle he had picked up on the way, hung them by their ankles and beat their buttocks. And, when they failed to repent,” Magnuson’s anger boiled over at the word and he banged his fist on the table making the other three jump though they could not fault his anger. “Repent, mark you, their wrongs he strangled the defiled air from their lungs. You see how he turns the crime, like his victims, upside down,” Magnuson shook his head in disbelief, drawing breath to calm himself. “Forgive my anger at this but you can see how, with a God fearing jury they might just forget the nature of his crime and acquit him.”

  “Which is why, we called in some reporters and gave them the facts and that Mr J Tipwell, gang leader, criminal and member of the Dead Hands had confessed the murder. We made no mention of his plea but much of the heinous way in which he had committed the murder, having first violated the pair with the aid of an accomplice, now dead. We also spoke of the good works Miss Blacksmith had done for her father’s, the Reverend Blacksmith’s, foundation and how many ordinary men and women of the city would attest to this. I also explained that Miss Mary Walsh had only gone to Rubys to discover more about the criminal activities there. And, that she had already passed on much information to the police which led to our recent raid on the place. In the light of this our chief has instructed that we should now take action to shut Ruby’s down for good.”

  “To the power of the press,” the sergeant raised his glass again, the others clinking theirs in approval. “Let us hope that on this occasion it works on behalf of justice rather than perverting it.”

  “At least Jaunty will not have any friends to call on,” Pinky went on, shaking his empty glass before
Cage to indicate a refill was in order, thinking that Jack would have been on his fourth or fifth glass by now. “Rumour has it that Mr Henry Tipwell and family leave for an extended vacation on the west coast. This has left his clan and the Dead Hands in disarray and fighting each other to take control.”

  “The Kings are all but spent,” Pug went on. “Our raid on their house and the killing of Joe Mannheim has seen to that. Nor will the Black Hawks ever recover from their losses.”

  “At least there is some good that has come out of this,” Magnuson said, trying to think of another toast but failing, simply taking another drop in consolation. “I had wondered if Black Rube really existed, until I saw him dead.”

  “Our bosses were less than happy to read,” Pinky told the two policemen, “that Mrs O’Shea had been killed by her abductors, members of the Black Rube gang, whilst a lone, unnamed Pinkerton attempted her release.”

  “The reports did go on to say the Pinkerton had acted heroically, having chanced upon the gang, he took what action he could and gave his life in trying to protect Mrs O’Shea.” O’Leary said in way of apology, adding, “Besides all the papers seemed interested in was the recovery of the diamonds and their great value; which was only a fraction of what we had been led to believe, though a grand enough amount, about $100,000. I still think there was an insurance scam behind all this and a falling out amongst thieves which resulted in Ibrahim Minsky and Brandon O’Shea being killed.”

  “I do not understand why Jack acted as he did,” Sergeant Magnuson stared hard at the drink in his hand, his brow furrowed trying to solve the conundrum, “he had but to wait for reinforcements to arrive. Yet all the evidence shows that he went forward and killed both Mrs O’Shea and Black Rube. The shotgun in her hand showed she was partner in the crime and not victim as put out in the papers.”

  “Better for the public to believe the woman was abducted and died innocent, there would be too many questions if it were known she orchestrated the robbery and her maid’s murder,” Pug pointed out.

  “Even so,” the sergeant worried at the question that gnawed at his brain, “why did he go forward on his own, why kill them at the cost of his own life?”

  “Once Jack got on the trail he never gave up,” Pug explained, “never gave heed to anything else until he had seen his task through. When we worked together in the Black Hills it was often said that the only way to avoid being shot when Jack Stevens had you in his sights was to dig your own grave and pull the earth in over your own head.”

  “Here’s to Jack Stevens,” Cage said, filling each glass to the brim, then lifting his own.

  “To a true and sure aim,” Pinky stated, lifting his glass.

  “To a full glass of whiskey,” Pug toasted.

  “May he rest in peace,” Magnus clinked his glass to the other three and they all downed theirs in one.

  From the Chicago Tribune Monday 5th May 1886:

  ‘A HELLISH DEED

  A dynamite bomb thrown inot a crowd of policemen. It explodes and covers the street with dead and mutilated officers – a storm of bullets follows – the police return the fire and wound a number of rioters – harrowing scenes at the desplaines street station – a night of terror.

  A dynamite bomb thrown into a squad of policemen sent to disperse a mob at the corner of Desplaines and Randolph streets last night exploded with terrific force, killing and injuring nearly fifty men…’

  Obituaries

  November 20th 1886: Reverend OM Blackstaff, much loved Husband of Mrs Essey Blackstaff and Father of Mr JW Blackstaff, died at his home after a long illness. Reverend Blackstaff, noted writer on social, moral and theological philosophy was the founder of a charitable organisation aimed at improving the minds and physical wellbeing of less fortunate working men and women. Reverend Blackstaff had been an active man, tirelessly working for the community in which he had grown up. The son of an ex-slave, who went on to found a prosperous business, the good reverend understood the value of education and faith in God as being the basis for prosperity and a contented life.

  It is with sadness we must relate that Reverend Blackstaff did not fully recover from the shock brought on by the murder of his talented, young daughter, Philomena, last April. Following the execution two days ago of the man convicted of his daughter’s murder Reverend Blackstaff suffered a stroke and died in the early hours. His family, friends, congregation and this city mourn his passing.

  May 12th 1905: It is with great sorrow we report the death of Mrs Martha Fellows, who passed away yesterday afternoon, from pneumonia. She leaves behind and is greatly mourned by her second husband, Mr S Fellows, her daughter and son-in-law, Mr and Mrs C DeWert (Mr DeWert is our much admired Governor), and son, Mr A Stevens, wealthy Chicagoan businessman. The grieving family offer their heartfelt thanks for the many condolences they have already received at this tragic news.

  Mrs Fellows remarried after the death of her first husband, many years previous, who is reputed to have been the man responsible for the recovery of the O’Shea diamonds. On remarrying and moving to Springfield she soon became an integral part of its upper social echelons, regularly entertaining our most noted citizens whilst also engaging in and supporting many charitable works. She frequently spoke of her own humble origins in Albany, the daughter of a carter, her days as a pioneer in Nebraska and Iowa before the family made its fortune in railroad stock and moved to Chicago. Her strength of character and determination is a lesson to us all, she will be sorely missed by the many that knew and admired her.

  August 12th 1909: citizens of Fort Simpson, North West Territories, Canada, were shocked yesterday to hear of the demise of a local trapper and ‘man of character’. However, following the local doctor’s examination of the deceased, they were even more surprised to learn that Christopher ‘Kit’ Jackson Stevens was actually a woman! The hard living, drinking, cussing individual spent a great deal of time in solitude, hunting and trapping for furs. When in town ‘Kit’ told stories of his past to anyone that would stand him a drink; of his time as a prospector in the Black Hills, Indian fighter and army scout in Dakota. It is believed, this unique character died as a result of injuries sustained whilst hunting.

  Acknowledgments

  I do not pretend to be an expert on the midwest states of America of the 1880s. However, research on any topic has never been easier and the internet, with the likes of Google and Wikipedia for example, is a great source of information on almost any topic under the sun, including details related in this story. Research from original newspaper articles and reports from the 1880’s helped give flavour to this work. Details of period clothing, food stuffs, guns and the everyday conditions of life abound in a wide variety of articles, autobiographies and biographies of those who lived at the time.

  So many and varied are these reports, scattered across the internet in small snippets, that it is impossible to list them all. Though I would recommend to anyone that an interesting afternoon can be spent following a theme and its many side-shoots through a long trail of websites. However, I would like to offer particular acknowledgement to the following online works which proved to be a regular source of information:-

  •‘Berdan’s Sharpshooters’

  •‘Chicago Public Library’

  •‘Encyclopaedia of Chicago’

  •‘History.com’ – ‘History in the Headlines’

  •‘Legends of America’

  •‘Library of Congress – American Memories’

  •‘Lone Hand Western – Reliving History’

  •‘Military Factory’

  •‘Maps Quest.com’

  •‘New Perspectives on The West’

  •Black Hawk was a native American war band leader of the Sacs (Sauks) and Fox Indians who led an unsuccessful ‘invasion’ of Illinois in I832, to take back lands the tribe had lost.

  •The American Civil war, 1861–65, wa
s the first modern war, with the industrial might of the north giving it an advantage in the production of: iron clad gun boats, high explosive shells, trench warfare, gatling guns, the railroads used to move men and provisions, etc. And, perhaps most characteristic of the two world wars to come, senior officers such as Grant and Sherman believed in the concept of total war and thought that only the annihilation of Confederate forces and shattering the South’s economic base would end the war. More than 1,800 African Americans from Illinois fought in the United States Colored regiments, USCT, most notably in the battle of the Crater.

  •1833 Chicago was incorporated as a town and in 1837 it was incorporated as a city.

  •1847 saw the first publication of the Chicago Tribune.

  •1871 witnessed the destruction a nearly 3.5 square miles of Chicago in the great fire; leaving 300 people dead and more than 100,000 homeless.

  •1876 saw the election of the first African American to the Illinois General Assembly, representing a south side district.

  •1885 the Home Insurance Building on La Salle and Adams was the world’s first ever ‘skyscraper’, ten storeys high with a steel frame.

  •Chicago Joe was a woman, Mary Walsh, an Irish prostitute born 1844, who moved from Chicago to Helena, Montana and became the ‘Queen of the Red Light District’ and owner of the Red Light Saloon. She married Mr JT Hensley, aka Black Hawk Hensley. Then, in 1885, the Montana legislature passed a law closing the Hurdy Gurdy Houses but Chicago Joe managed to retain a number of businesses until her death in 1899. She is the arch-typical ‘whore with a heart of gold’ and is reputed to have done many good deeds in her life.

  •In 1881 the Chicago Police Patrol and Signal System was introduced by installing booths equipped with telegraph and telephone units from which officers could contact the closest police station. Thereby, along with the introduction of the first Patrol Wagon service, Chicago implemented the first modern law enforcement communication system. The Chicago police have, at times in their history, been riddled with corruption. However, many of their number have died in the line of duty and the eight officers killed and fifty nine wounded in the Haymarket riot and bombings of 1886 still mark its darkest hour.