The Blackest Bird

by Joel Rose

  The curtain stirred. A beautiful barefoot girl in the familiar calico dress of a hot corn girl, no older than Tommy, seventeen or eighteen maybe, carrying a cedar bucket suspended from around her neck, entered. A two-year-old in similar garb trailed her. Seeing Hays, the hot corn girl abruptly halted and shrank back against the wall.

  The little girl murmured, “Mama.”

  Hays studied mother and daughter, noticed something of Tommy in the tot. His auburn-colored hair. His freckled nose. He turned back to Tommy. “The copper sheathing off the steeple is gone.”

  Again Tommy shook his head. He grinned, showing prominent white teeth outlined by dull brown. “I do’nah do metal,” he shrugged. “Them native gangs, the Butcher Boys, the True-Blue Americans, they are more likely participants.”

  “Not you?”

  “Not me. Not mine.”

  The little girl murmured, “Da.”

  Tommy turned and scooped his daughter off the floor. When he returned his gaze to Hays, the high constable asked, “What about the Hudson shoreline at Weehawken, Tommy? Have you and your tribe done outrage there?”

  7

  News of Murder Breaks

  in the Public Prints

  Not 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:

  BODY FOUND FLOATING IN NORTH RIVER

  but beyond that nothing.

  It wasn’t until the morning of August 1, 1841, that news broke in James Gordon Bennett’s Herald.

  MURDER!

  cried the headline.

  BODY OF SEGAR STORE GIRL FOUND

  “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 CALL TO ALL CITIZENS!

  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.

  FINALLY, 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.

  Hays accepted the change in charge with accustomed grace. He dispatched Sergeant McArdel, who quickly secured a police rowboat and six oarsmen. On board with Hays was Acting Mayor Purdy (exclusively at his own insistence) and the New York medical examiner, Dr. Archibald Archer.

  Dr. Cook and Hudson County justice of the peace Gilbert Merritt awaited Hays and the New York contingent at the Hoboken Bull’s Head Ferry dock. From there they proceeded to the location where Mary’s body had been sepulchred three feet deep in a double-lined lead coffin. The heavy tomb was unearthed and then transported by flatbed wagon back to the rowboat, propelled across river, not without considerable effort (a terrific thunderstorm erupted, with howling winds and driving rain), to be deposited on scrubbed pine boards at the Dead House behind City Hall.

  Phebe Rogers was sent for from her home to make final determining identification. The old lady staggered into the cavernous Dead House, supported under either arm by the two ex-roomers, Arthur Crommelin and Archibald Padley, but, despite Acting Mayor Purdy’s insistence, was unable to bring herself to gaze upon the body. Decomposition had already taken place to such an extent that no trace of the once-beautiful girl could be recognized in the black and swollen features, and Hays reiterated to the acting mayor for the third time his conviction that it was unwise to insist the old woman perform this hellacious duty.

  Instead, through an anguished veil of tears, the grieving mother, with Hays at her side, eventually identified her daughter’s body by articles of clothing stripped from the corpse.

  That evening when Hays returned home from the Tombs, Olga already had dinner laid out on the table. She also had a newspaper tucked underneath her arm. “Annie Lynch brought this to my attention,” she explained, referring to her dear friend from the Brooklyn Female Academy. “It is an admonishing tract from the New York Advocate of Moral Reform. Papa, the editors have taken this opportunity to voice their moral repugnance with the state of affairs in our society,” she snorted. “Mightn’t I read you what they opine?”

  “Most assuredly, my dear, if you don’t mind me having a seat first.” At this late hour, after a day such as this, it was comfort he sought.

  She began:

  “One word to the young ladies who may read this, from a voice from the grave, speaking to you in tones of warning and entreaty,

  Had Mary Cecilia Rogers loved the house of God, had she reverenced the Sabbath, had she refused to associate with unprincipled and profligate men, how different might her fate have been!”

  8

  The Investigation

  Begins in Earnest

  Later that night, having returned to his office at the Tombs, High Constable Jacob Hays officially registered the death of Mary Cecilia Rogers as murder, whereupon New York coroner Dr. Archibald Archer confirmed in the Dead House the results of the autopsy performed by Hoboke
n medical examiner Cook, with the exception of listing cause of death as “drowned,” whereas Coroner Cook had it listed as “strangulation.”

  Hays fumed. Over the years, the more he had grown to depend on them in his investigations, the more skeptical he had grown of doctors, their acuity and theory. He had asked this specific question of Dr. Cook: Had Mary Rogers been drowned? To which said medical man had responded unequivocally that she had not been drowned, citing the absence of frothy blood in her mouth as proof.

  “Dr. Archer,” Hays now pressed the New York man, “according to your colleague Dr. Cook, Mary Cecilia Rogers was dead before she went into the water. How say you to this?”

  Archer relented without a fight. He said it might indeed be so. “Consider Dr. Cook kerrect,” he said. To which Hays knew he could rely on neither of these men, but would have to pick and choose what was valuable and what would prove less than gospel.

  In spite of the hour, Hays trekked back across Chambers Street and up Centre to his office to consider the facts he had at hand. Once seated in his hard chair, two or three of the prison’s ubiquitous mousers began to gather about him with their annoying mewing and pestering.

  Hays was no pussyite. He made no bones about that. He could not stand the felines. Yet, perversely, the prison cats seemed to take particular delight in him. Hays took that as testament to their misconceived character.

  He considered the possibilities of the crime as they presented themselves to him:

  Mary Rogers died at the hands of a gang of ruffians.

  Mary Rogers died at the hands of a beau, or ex-beau, in the murderer’s misplaced estimation, somehow wronged by her.

  Mary Rogers died at the hands of a stranger: until the day of her death, someone she did not know.

  Mary Rogers died by her own hand. (Unlikely, considering the manner in which she was found trussed.)

  Mary Rogers had not died. She was in hiding, and the body was not the body of Mary at all, but of another, as yet unidentified.