by Gary Krist
Carroll, Richard Louis. “The Impact of David C. Hennessey on New Orleans Society and the Consequences of the Assassination of Hennessey.” MA thesis, Notre Dame Seminary, 1957.
Collins, Philip R. “The Old Regular Democratic Organization in New Orleans.” MA thesis, Georgetown University, 1948.
Landau, Emily Epstein. “Spectacular Wickedness: New Orleans, Prostitution, and the Politics of Sex, 1897–1917.” PhD diss., Yale University, 2005.
Leathem, Karen Trahan. “A Carnival According to Their Own Desires: Gender and Mardi Gras in New Orleans, 1870–1941.” PhD diss., University of North Carolina, 1994.
Lester, Charlie. “The New Negro of Jazz: New Orleans, Chicago, New York, the First Great Migration, and the Harlem Renaissance, 1890–1930.” PhD diss., University of Cincinnati, 2012.
Levy, Russell. “Of Bards and Bawds: New Orleans Sporting Life Before and During the Storyville Era, 1897–1917.” MA thesis, Tulane University, 1967.
Mir, Jasmine. “Marketplace of Desire: Storyville and the Making of a Tourist City in New Orleans, 1890–1920.” PhD diss., New York University, 2005.
Stall, Buddy. “Buddy Stall’s Storyville.” Taped lecture, Historic New Orleans Collection.
Various. Pamphlets on the Mafia Case, Louisiana Research Collection, Tulane University.
Winston, Donald E. “News Reporting of Jazz, 1890–1907.” MA thesis, University of Oklahoma, 1966.
Notes
(Note: Newspapers of this era were notoriously cavalier about names, sometimes spelling the same name several different ways in a single article. In quotations I have silently corrected these variations to correspond with what I regard as the most accurate spelling of the name.)
Prologue
Details about the Maggio killing come principally from the police report on the homicide, dated May 23, 1918, and from contemporary news reports, in particular the May 23 and 24, 1918, issues of the NOTP, NODS, and NODI. See also Robert Tallant, Ready to Hang, 193–96.
1 “one of the most gruesome …” is from the NOTP of May 24, 1918.
2 It was a godforsaken neighborhood … The description of the Maggios’ immediate neighborhood comes from the newspaper reports, especially the NODS of May 23, 1918. A more general impression of this area, and of New Orleans’ 1918 geography overall, can be gleaned from several works: Peirce F. Lewis’s New Orleans: The Making of an Urban Landscape; Craig E. Colton’s An Unnatural Metropolis and also his “Basin Street Blues”; and especially Richard Campanella’s (highly recommendable) Bienville’s Dilemma—see in particular the section “Populating the Landscape,” and the maps.
3 Frank Mooney, forty-eight years old … Information about Frank T. Mooney comes mainly from newspaper reports at the time of his hiring as superintendent—the NODI and NODS of August 8, 1917, and the NOTP of August 9, 1917.
4 The intruder had clearly taken … Further Maggio case details from the police report and from the May 1918 articles cited above.
5 “to have a nick honed from the blade” … and the chalk message are from the NOTP of May 24, 1918. [NB: Some newspapers first transcribed the chalk scrawl as “Mrs. Joseph Maggio is going to sit up tonight. Just write Mrs. Toney,” but I’ve used the version that appears in the NOTP and in most later sources.]
6 a series of unsolved attacks … The daily papers were somewhat confused about the dates of the earlier Italian grocer murders, perhaps because they relied on the detectives’ memory of the cases rather than checking their own newspapers’ morgues. The attacks in question, some of which were not fatal, occurred in August and September of 1910 (Crutti and Resetti), June of 1911 (Davi), May of 1912 (Schiambra), August of 1913 (Chetta), and as recently as December of 1917 (Andollina). The Schiambra murder, a shooting, was actually one of the non-hatchet murders.
7 “As police superintendent, he will be judged …” The NOTP’s doubts about Mooney’s experience were expressed in an article in the August 9, 1917, edition.
8 openly speculating about a crazed serial killer … The NOTP’s speculation was in the August 16, 1918, edition.
Chapter 1: Going Respectable
The account of the events of November 29 is based principally on initial newspaper reports about the shooting (NODSs of November 29 and 30, 1890; NODPs of November 30 and December 9 and 10, 1890) and from surprisingly thorough press accounts of Phillip Lobrano’s two trials (NODI of January 29, 1892; NOTDs of January 29 and March 31, 1892; NODPs of January 29 and 30, 1892, and March 31, 1892). Little is known for sure about Lobrano, but a comparison of court testimony (which refers to his prominent family and a brother named Emile) and the obituaries of various related Lobranos indicates that he was the wayward son of Jacynthe (aka Jacinto) Lobrano, a hero of the 1815 Battle of New Orleans, to whom Andrew Jackson once presented one of his swords. Phillip was born in 1847, which would make him forty-two or forty-three in 1890, and some sixteen years Mary Deubler/Josie Lobrano’s senior. Further background for this scene and the rest of Chapter 1 comes from a variety of other sources, especially the testimony from Mary Deubler’s contested-will trial (Succession of Deubler); Alecia P. Long, The Great Southern Babylon, 148–90; Herbert Asbury, The French Quarter, 448–51; and Al Rose, Storyville, 47–49.
1 what had happened on Royal Street … The scene in Louis George’s saloon is based on testimony in the two trials by Lobrano himself, A. C. Becker (the bartender), and John T. McGreevy (a friend in the bar).
2 “flock of vultures” … as quoted in Asbury, French Quarter, 449.
3 “You bastard, come take a drink” … is quoted in the NOTD of January 29, 1892. [NB: The newspapers did not print the two expletives uttered by Peter Deubler; I don’t think I could be far wrong in assuming, in both cases, that “bastard” was the omitted word.]
4 “It looks as if you want to raise hell” and Deubler’s response are from Becker’s testimony in the second trial.
5 “I am going to kill that bastard …” is quoted in the NOTD of January 29, 1892.
6 Twenty-six years old … Josie Lobrano’s appearance as per a well-known 1890s photograph of her in the Josie Arlington Collection (Earl K. Long Library, University of New Orleans).
7 Driven into prostitution … The best sources for details about Josie’s life are Long, Babylon, and Succession of Deubler.
8 arrested for disorderly conduct several times … The Palmyra Street incident is mentioned in the NODP of November 30, 1890.
9 “staggered from the scene of combat …” The Beulah Ripley fight (with quote) is from Asbury, French Quarter, 449.
10 “too drunk to take to the parlor” … was from Josie Lobrano’s testimony in the second trial.
11 According to Phillip Lobrano … The Lobranos gave significantly conflicting testimony in the trials. I have generally given more credence to Phillip’s account, first, because his version apparently convinced all but a few members of two juries, and second, because evidence exists in the newspaper trial accounts that Josie was “anxious to have this man convicted” and had told a witness that she would “swear the accused to the gallows.” Moreover, Josie’s other brother, Henry Deubler, was alleged to have intimidated defense witnesses after the first trial.
12 “You’ve done it, Phil!” … as per Josie in the first trial.
13 “expected a tragedy to take place …” Corporal Duffy’s experience in the brothel comes mainly from the NODS and NODP of November 30, 1890, and from his court testimony.
14 he walked into the Central Police Station … Lobrano’s surrender and Peter Deubler’s “very dangerous” wound as per the NODS of November 30, 1890.
15 “sinking rapidly” … Peter Deubler’s relapse and death were reported in the NODP of December 9 and 10, 1890, and in the court reports in the same paper’s January 29 and March 31, 1892, editions.
16 she also resolved to change … For Josie Lobrano’s decision to become respectable, see especially Long, Babylon, 153–55, and Asbury, French Quarter, 449–50.
17 �
�turn over a new leaf” … as quoted in Rose, Storyville, 48.
Chapter 2: The Sodom of the South
Vice in New Orleans has been the subject of much first-class academic analysis, the very best of it to be found in Alecia P. Long’s The Great Southern Babylon: Sex, Race, and Respectability in New Orleans, 1865–1920 and Emily Epstein Landau’s 2005 dissertation, “Spectacular Wickedness: New Orleans, Prostitution, and the Politics of Sex, 1897–1917” (which has since been published as a book, though all references in these notes are to the PhD thesis). Russell Levy’s 1967 master’s thesis, “Of Bards and Bawds: New Orleans Sporting Life Before and During the Storyville Era, 1897–1917,” is also quite useful, and Levy had access to certain sources that seem to have been subsequently lost. The two best-known books on the topic are Herbert Asbury’s The French Quarter: An Informal History of the New Orleans Underworld and Al Rose’s Storyville, New Orleans: Being an Authentic, Illustrated Account of the Notorious Red-Light District. Both lack footnotes, however, and sometimes traffic in apocrypha and folklore (though Rose seems more reliable than Asbury); I have tried to use both with caution.
1 “I doubt if there is a city in the world …” is from Olmsted’s A Journey in the Seaboard States, with Remarks on Their Economy, as quoted in Campanella, Bienville’s Dilemma, 170.
2 “What a mingling of peoples! …” as quoted in Campanella, Bienville, 169, is originally from Ernst von Hesse-Wartegg’s Travels on the Lower Mississippi, 1879–80.
3 “It is no easy matter to go to heaven …” is a quote from Rev. John Chandler Gregg, Life in the Army, 156–57.
4 these goings-on had begun to spread … See especially Long, Babylon, 78ff. and 116ff., and Landau, “Spectacular Wickedness,” 66ff.
5 “concert saloons” … Long, Babylon, 64, provides the most complete description of these establishments.
6 so-called coon music … The spread of “coon music” to Canal Street was reported, with great condescension, in the Mascot of November 11, 1890.
7 brothels and assignation houses had become impossible to avoid … The danger of brothels opening up next door to decent families was a persistent theme in the press during these years; see, for example, the Mascot of June 11, 1892.
8 “The social evil is rampant …” is as quoted in Rose, Storyville, 37.
9 “At no time since the war …” is from the Mascot of March 2, 1888.
10 “Negro dives” … is from the NODP of October 20, 1888.
11 “If given our choice between the Negro …” is from the Mascot of September 7, 1889.
12 support for “the Ring” … A useful source for the local politics in New Orleans during the 1880s and ’90s is Joy Jackson’s New Orleans in the Gilded Age.
13 civil war and federal occupation … Jackson, Gilded Age, is also the source for the city’s punishing debt (p. 53) and its drop from fourth- to ninth-largest city (p. 6).
14 the city desperately needed to rebuild … Landau, “Spectacular Wickedness,” 5, 67, and 73, is best on the need to improve New Orleans’ reputation in order to attract Northern capital. See also Jackson, Gilded Age, 221.
15 “The reputation of our city …” From an illegibly signed letter to Mayor Shakspeare in the Joseph Shakspeare Collection (MSS96, Folder 3) dated April 20, 1888.
16 “Its campaign committee …” The best source for the YMDA is John S. Kendall’s History of New Orleans, Chapter 30. See also Jackson, Gilded Age, 96ff. (and p. 36 for “a blue book of the city’s commercial elite”).
17 “a ticket which is an insult …” Kendall, History, 469.
18 “if need be at the point of the bayonet” … Kendall, History, 471.
19 “countless questionable devices …” as noted in the NOTD of April 20, 1888.
Chapter 3: The First Casualty
The literature on the murder of David Hennessy (often misspelled Hennessey) and its aftermath is as extensive as it is contentious. For my retelling in the next two chapters, I have relied most heavily on newspaper accounts and on three admirably comprehensive books: Vendetta by Richard Gambino; The Crescent City Lynchings by Tom Smith; and Deep Water by Thomas Hunt and Martha Macheca Sheldon (a descendant of one of the defendants), with backup from Humbert Nelli’s much shorter account in The Business of Crime. However, given the wide range of conclusions drawn—in these and other accounts—about what role was played by anything resembling a New Orleans “Mafia,” I have used all sources with a certain amount of caution. (For a short but sensible account of the Hennessy affair and its contentious historiography, see Katz’s “The Hennessy Affair: A Centennial,” 58–62, 81.)
1 the disciplinary hearing of two police officers … Details of the Police Board meeting come principally from reports in the NODP and NOTD of October 16, 1890, and from Smith, Crescent City Lynchings, xxi–xxii, and Hunt and Sheldon, Deep Water, 230ff.
2 Virtually his first act as mayor … For Shakspeare’s early appointment of Hennessy and his intent to reorganize the police department, see Kendall, History, 469f., and Hunt and Sheldon, Deep Water, 198f.
3 tall, lean, and dourly handsome … Particulars about Hennessy’s history and appearance come principally from engravings and obituaries in the daily papers of October 16 and 17, 1890.
4 the country’s youngest police chief … as per Mike Dash, First Family, 72.
5 “You had threatened me before …” is from the NODP of October 16, 1890.
6 After the police board meeting adjourned … The scene in Hennessy’s office after the meeting was described by O’Connor (often identified as “Connors” in the literature) in a statement to the newspapers.
7 accompanying his friend on a semiofficial basis … For the city’s arrangement with the Boylan agency for the chief’s protection, see especially Hunt and Sheldon, Deep Water, 230.
8 roiled by a struggle between two rival families … The Provenzano/Matranga feud has been ubiquitously covered in the sources, with significant disagreement over whether or not the feud qualified as “Mafia-related.”
9 Inviting representatives of both clans … The NODS of October 17, 1890, is especially detailed on the meeting at the Red Light Club.
10 he launched an investigation into the Matranga organization … Hennessy’s alleged discoveries with regard to Matranga Mafia connections are based almost exclusively on undocumented statements made to the press by George Vandervoort (Hennessy’s secretary) and his friend, the famous detective Pinkerton, after the chief’s murder.
11 on this rainy Wednesday night in October … Details about the walk back to Girod Street come mainly from the daily newspapers, as told by O’Connor. The quotes are as reported in the NODP of October 16, 1890.
12 Shortly before the chief reached the end of the first block … The shooting scene on Girod Street as per newspaper reports of the next day and testimony from the subsequent trial, as reported in the newspapers. [NB: As an example of how careless the daily newspapers could be with names, the Boylan’s man encountered by O’Connor is variously spelled as Carter, Cotter, Kolter, and one or two other ways.]
13 “Which way did they run?…” This and all quotations in this scene as per the NODP of October 16, 1890.
14 Several men helped carry the wounded Hennessy … The scene at the Gillis House is best described in the NOTD of October 16, 1890.
15 “No! For God’s sake …” is from Smith, Crescent City Lynchings, xiv.
16 “Scour the whole neighborhood …” For the scene at the Central Station, and Shakspeare’s quote, see especially the NODP of October 16, 1890.
17 Chief Hennessy was now lying on the table … Details of events at Charity Hospital are culled from various newspaper accounts, with priority given to the NODP report of October 17, 1890.
18 “Now go home, Mother …” The conversation with Mrs. Hennessy as reported in the NODS of October 16, 1890.
19 “Chief, you know who I am …” and Hennessy’s reply is from the NODP of the same date.
20 “C
aptain, I tell you …” The conversation with Beanham (ending with “These people can’t kill me”) was in the next day’s NODP. [NB: Gambino makes much of the fact that one newspaper, the NOTD, reported that Hennessy at one point shook his head when asked whether he had recognized the shooters. Since no other reporter mentioned this, however, I suspect the chief may just have been refusing to answer rather than denying that he knew his assailants.]
21 “a class of foreigners …” was in the NODS of October 16, 1890.
22 “to assist the officers of the law …” For the newspaper notices, see William E. Burrows, Vigilante!, 201.
23 Forty-two Italians had already been arrested … as per the NOTD of October 17, 1890.
24 Makeshift memorials to the chief … as cited by the daily papers.
25 police assembled at Francis Johnson & Sons undertakers … Details of the wake at the Girod Street house come principally from the NODP of October 17, 1890.
26 A detail of police arrived at the Girod Street cottage … All of the papers of October 18, 1890, carried extensive reports on the chief’s funeral. I have relied mainly on that in the NODP.
27 “bosom friend” … Anderson is described as such in the NODP of October 16.
28 short but powerfully built figure … Description of Anderson as per Rose, Storyville, 42.
29 “David Hennessy, died Oct. 16, 1890” … Anderson’s role in placing the temporary marker as per the NODP of October 18.
30 “by the hands of despicable assassins” … The special council meeting of Saturday was covered by all of the newspapers. This and all quotes are from the NOPD report of October 19, 1890.
Chapter 4: Retribution
Official records for the Hennessy murder trial were either lost or conveniently destroyed, so I have depended principally, as have the authors of the four books on the subject mentioned in the previous chapter, on the understandably detailed newspaper reports.
