by Chris Enss
Captain J. N. Sumner visited Pinkerton at his Chicago office seeking help in late 1859. The fifty-year-old man owned a farm in Connecticut where he resided when he wasn’t at sea. Pinkerton described him as a distinguished-looking gentleman with dark, curly hair. Captain Sumner had recently announced his intention to retire from his freight enterprise and was looking forward to relaxing on his land. He’d come to see Pinkerton because he believed someone close to him wanted him dead. He began by describing his upbringing and family. His parents were loving people who always encouraged his love for the sea. He left home when he was fifteen years old to be a sailor. His parents purchased a farm while he was away on his first sea voyage. The captain had one brother, who had died at an early age, and two sisters, Lucy and Annie. When Sumner’s mother and father passed away, the sisters cared for the farm. Lucy was twenty-two years old and married, and Annie was eighteen, rambunctious and wild. Captain Sumner loved each of his sisters, but favored Annie. He told Pinkerton that the fact Annie was the youngest and so beautiful made it easy to shower her with attention.
Allan Pinkerton ca. 1861 Courtesy of the Library of Congress
One year when the captain returned home from his travels, he brought with him a shipmate named Henry Thayer. He introduced Annie to Henry, and the two were instantly smitten. Henry would return to the farm with Captain Sumner as often as he could. The couple eventually became engaged. While Henry was away on a voyage, Annie attended parties and dinners and basked in the attention paid to her by several stylish gentlemen. Captain Sumner told her that her behavior was worrisome, and advised her to curtail her flirtatious actions. Annie promised she would, but did the opposite. She’d accepted a beautiful amethyst ring from an admirer and refused to return it, even after Captain Sumner confronted her.
“If Henry knew of this,” the captain warned Annie, “it would make trouble.”
Annie flew into a rage. “Oh! So you are left here to watch me, are you?” she snapped. “Well, then just report to him [Henry] that I can get a better husband than he any day. I am not going to shut myself up like a nun in a convent for any man.”
The relationship between brother and sister was strained after the incident. Captain Sumner was scheduled to take command of a new ship, and hoped the time apart would improve things between him and Annie.
When Captain Sumner returned home once again, Annie and Henry were married and living in New York. The family farm had been sold, and the funds from the sale divided equally between the three children. Henry and Annie appeared to be devoted to one another, and Henry was thriving in his career. He had been given command of a ship and was in high spirits. Captain Sumner believed that Annie was finally content with a life of domesticity, and wanted nothing more than to make her husband happy.
Nothing could have been further from the truth.
Annie began teaching music in Brooklyn and was earning a substantial amount of money. While Henry was out to sea, she had moved into a fashionable boardinghouse, was wearing stylish clothes, and frequented popular cafes and theaters with men who were anxious to escort her to any and every event. Again, Captain Sumner approached his sister to discuss the idea of leading a more “quiet life.” Annie insisted that Henry approved of the way she was living, and to stay out of her affairs. Captain Sumner then turned to his sister Lucy in hopes that she would intervene.
A series of voyages kept him away from home, so several years passed before Captain Sumner saw either of his siblings again. Annie was thirty-two when he came home to New York on leave. “She was still teaching music,” Captain Sumner informed Pinkerton. “She dressed as elegantly as ever and seemed very complacent and contented. . . . We strolled through the park for a time and then seated ourselves in a quiet spot.” During their conversation, Annie broke the news to her brother that she and Henry had separated. She explained that Henry had become overly strict with her and demanded that she change. Heated words were exchanged and he walked out. Annie did not know where Henry was, nor had she heard from him since their argument.
When Captain Sumner pointed out to Annie that her careless actions were to blame for her marital troubles, she broke into tears. She confessed that the disagreement she and Henry had had was over the fact that she was keeping company with a particular gentleman. Henry was jealous and flew into a violent rage. Annie wanted her husband back but didn’t know how to reach him, and didn’t know if he would ever return.
“My next voyage was to the East Indies,” Captain Sumner told Pinkerton. “I made inquiries about Henry at every port and asked the crew aboard every vessel I met at sea, but no one could tell me anything about Henry. It became evident that he had not only left the service of the company he worked for, but that he had disappeared from all localities where he was known.”
Annie was happy to see her brother when he returned to her home after months of searching, but she wasn’t alone. She was entertaining a man named Alonzo Pattmore. The two had been spending a great deal of time together. He was a politician and the owner of a hotel in Greenville, Ohio. He made frequent trips to the New York area where he had met Annie. He often accompanied her to the opera and various soirees. She had even traveled to see him in Ohio a time or two. Captain Sumner reported to Pinkerton that Pattmore was roughly forty-five years of age, well-mannered, and well-dressed. “His eyes were large and black but rather snaky,” he added. Annie declined to listen to anything about Captain Sumner’s quest to acquire information about Henry’s whereabouts. She excused herself and went to the theater with Pattmore.
Appalled at her behavior, the captain determined he could not let his sister fall any further into what he perceived was a dangerous situation. He was now fifty years old and set his sights on buying a farm and living the rest of his life in the country. He believed if he had a grand home he could persuade Annie to relocate with him. She would be away from the city and temptation and could possibly abandon her impetuous ways. A letter from Lucy assured the captain that Annie needed to be saved. Lucy had learned that Pattmore was married and had three children. Further involvement with Pattmore would only lead to scandal and ruin.
By the time Captain Sumner had settled his affairs, purchased the farm, and moved, Annie had accepted a teaching position at a school in Greenville and was reasonably certain she would never leave.
Captain Sumner wrote his sister to invite her to live with him. He promised he would provide for her every need and want, and that even when he was gone from the world he would provide generously for her care. Annie didn’t want to leave in the middle of a school year, and she pleaded with him to visit with her in Ohio. The captain happily obliged. During his brief stay with his sister, Captain Sumner learned she was pregnant. He chastised her for her behavior but promised the sordid affair would be forgotten if she left Pattmore.
Annie became defensive and declared her undying love for the father of her child. She told her brother that she and Pattmore planned to marry as soon as his wife died. The fact that Mrs. Pattmore wasn’t ill or hadn’t been diagnosed with any terminal disease hadn’t stopped them from talking about the woman as though she was soon to expire, or from making wedding arrangements.
Captain Sumner was livid. He argued with Annie and was finally able to persuade her that she had made a horrible mistake. She didn’t want the humiliation of having a child outside of wedlock, and decided it would be best to end the relationship with Pattmore. The captain agreed and took his sister to his home near Chicago. She had an abortion in the city and spent time recovering at his house. She cried all the time and pleaded with her brother to find Pattmore and bring him to her. Against his better judgment the captain did as his sister asked.
While at Annie’s bedside, Pattmore shared with her the news of his political aspirations and of his wife’s sudden declining health. Pattmore predicted she would die soon. Annie made a speedy recovery and informed her brother that it was her deepest desire to mar
ry Pattmore, and “enjoy the gay life in the nation’s capital.”
Captain Sumner reminded Annie about her husband Henry, but she refused to discuss him. She wanted only to discuss wills. She told her brother that everyone who owns property should have a will, and pressed him into having one drawn up. Captain Sumner had promised all he had to Annie, but she believed that promise needed to be in writing. As he was hopelessly dedicated to making certain Annie could maintain a quality life after he was gone, the captain complied with her wishes.
A few short days after having received the signed and notarized document, Annie asked if she could read it. Captain Sumner didn’t refuse her request. “She seemed very much pleased at this,” the captain shared with Pinkerton. “She said I was a dear, good brother, but she hoped it might be a long time before she should become heir to my property.”
To reward her brother for his decision, Annie retrieved a bottle of ale from the cabinet and poured a glass for both of them. Thirty minutes after Captain Sumner drank the glass of ale, he became violently ill. The following morning he was feeling better physically, but couldn’t shake the idea that his life was in danger. The hue in the opal ring he was wearing had changed slightly. The captain, a superstitious person, took the discoloration as an omen that he would soon die. Pinkerton could see nothing strange about the ring, but there was no mistaking that Captain Sumner was shaken.
“Mr. Pinkerton, I have positive knowledge that Annie has attempted to poison me three times,” Captain Sumner confessed to the detective. “After putting poison in the ale, she afterwards gave me some in a cup of coffee, and, the third time, it was administered so secretly that I do not know when I took it. The third time, I nearly died, and it was only by the prompt attendance of a physician that I was saved. He said it was a metal poison which probably came off a copper kettle.”
The captain bravely confronted his sister about his suspicions. She denied the charge at first, but after her brother told her about the change in his ring, she confessed. She, too, was incredibly superstitious. Annie begged her brother to forgive her. She was so remorseful and upset over what she’d done that she collapsed and had to be taken to her bed. Before Annie fainted she told the captain that Pattmore had convinced her to try to kill him. “He reiterated to Annie that he would marry her when his wife was dead,” Captain Sumner explained to Pinkerton. She wouldn’t say if Pattmore was poisoning his wife. Captain Sumner needed Pinkerton’s help to catch Pattmore and save his sister. Pinkerton agreed to take the unusual case.
It seemed unlikely to Pinkerton that Annie would say anything that might incriminate Pattmore, and Captain Sumner would object to any attempt to force her to do so. Although Annie had admitted to being weak, vain, and thoughtless, and that she’d been unfaithful to her husband, the captain would not allow her to be arrested for infidelity. Pinkerton’s first order of business was to prevent any harm from coming to Mrs. Pattmore. Before Pinkerton could send an agent to protect Pattmore’s wife, he received word that the woman had died.
Pinkerton was sure Annie knew more than she had told her brother about the attempts made on the captain’s life, and what had caused Mrs. Pattmore’s death. “She could tell all of Pattmore’s secrets,” Pinkerton wrote in the case file. “It would be easier to get the truth out of Annie than Pattmore,” he surmised. Calling upon the information the captain had given him about Annie’s superstitious streak, Pinkerton decided to take advantage of that trait to get her to confess. “I should entrust the case to one of my female detectives,” he noted in his report. “She would be posted upon all points of Annie’s history; she would be required to learn enough of astrology, clairvoyance, and mesmerism to pass for one of the genuine tribe.”
The plan was for Annie to visit Kate, who would portray a fortune-teller. Kate would gain the woman’s complete trust by revealing what she knew of her background. Annie would then tell all she knew about Pattmore as a means of helping Kate to read her future.
Pinkerton asked Captain Sumner to help him set the trap. With his assistance they could show Annie how vile a person Pattmore was, and the hold he had on her might loosen forever. The captain was to have a quarrel with Annie and, during the argument, burn the will he had drafted while she watched. He was to tell her that he had made a new will, leaving everything to Lucy. Pinkerton reasoned that Annie would be so furious with the captain’s decision that she would try to harm him again.
In addition to assigning Kate to the case, Pinkerton used an operative Kate had trained, named Miss Seaton, to assist. Miss Seaton’s job was to meet and befriend Annie and ultimately persuade her to visit fortune-teller L. L. Lucille. Miss Seaton made Annie’s acquaintance at the post office after noticing Annie retrieving a letter from the postmaster. Annie was crumpling the letter in her hand when Miss Seaton introduced herself. She seemed upset by what she’d read. Word was sent to an operative named Miller, who was shadowing Pattmore, to pay attention to the mail Pattmore received, and from where it was sent. In a week’s time, Pattmore received four letters from Chicago.
While Miss Seaton and Annie were becoming friends and the operative was keeping tabs on Pattmore, Pinkerton traveled to Greenville, Ohio, to speak with the coroner and persuade him to exhume Mrs. Pattmore’s body to determine if she had been poisoned. With the help of two additional agents, Pinkerton was able to get Mrs. Pattmore’s remains disinterred and arrange for an inquest.
Pattmore was nervous and annoyed when he heard the news about what was to be done to his deceased wife’s remains. Miller followed the widower to the hotel he owned and witnessed him write out a quick note, place it in an envelope, and deliver it to the post office. Once Pattmore was out of sight, the agent pulled the letter from the drop box. The letter was addressed to Mrs. Annie Thayer in Chicago, Illinois. The agent opened and read the letter. In it, Pattmore warned Annie that a rumor had been started by his political enemies, that he had poisoned his wife. He wanted to let her know there was to be an inquest, and not to worry about what she might read in the newspapers. Pattmore signed the correspondence, “Ever Your Loving and Devoted Husband.” The way Pattmore closed the letter made Pinkerton curious as to whether or not Pattmore and Annie had committed bigamy. Pinkerton decided to investigate that particular matter further.
Pattmore was uneasy and agitated the day the results of the examination of his late wife were revealed at the courthouse. According to the Pinkerton operative, Pattmore frequently tugged at his collar and fidgeted in his chair while waiting. He seemed to breathe a sigh of relief when the coroner and physician announced that Mrs. Pattmore’s death was the result of dysentery. Pinkerton and his team were not satisfied that those conducting the autopsy had not been bribed by Pattmore. Unbeknownst to Pattmore, Pinkerton operatives then hired a doctor of their own to extract contents from Mrs. Pattmore’s stomach and test it for poison.
Meanwhile, back in Chicago, Miss Seaton and Annie had become fast friends, but Annie still had not taken Miss Seaton into her confidence. Miss Seaton reported to Kate Warne that apart from two trips a day to the post office, Annie rarely went anywhere. Miss Seaton had been able to examine the contents of Annie’s trunks, and had found numerous letters from Pattmore dating back several years. Kate made a mental note of everything Miss Seaton learned about Annie, from the woman’s visits to the drugstore to her trouble sleeping. The information proved to be useful at the right time.
One afternoon Miss Seaton met Annie to go on a walk and found her looking over tarot cards spread out in front of her. She asked Annie what her fortune looked like, and Annie shared that she didn’t really know how to read the cards, but did so want to know what the future held for her. Miss Seaton told her about L. L. Lucille and suggested they plan to stop at the soothsayer’s studio.
When Miss Seaton and Annie arrived at the mystic’s place of business, they found her standing beside a table under a peculiar light. Annie was taken aback at first, but when Lucille stretched ou
t her hand and bid the woman to step forward, she became more at ease. Lucille directed Annie to a massive, cushioned chair and invited her to have a seat.
According to Pinkerton’s notes on the case, Lucille took a seat opposite Annie.
“What would you like to know, my child?” Lucille asked. “State your errand quickly, as my time is short to unfold the mysteries of the future. Like the wandering Jew, I must forever advance upon my mission. What do you seek to know?”
Annie told her, “I’ve come to learn my future.”
The performance Kate Warne delivered as L. L. Lucille was inspired. She asked leading questions that Annie would answer politely. Lucille then responded with lengthy soliloquies that included pertinent information about Annie’s past, family, and close friends. The details, times, places, and circumstances were so exact that Annie was at a loss as to what to say. She sincerely believed that Lucille had acquired all the specifics telepathically.
Lucille spoke of Annie’s upbringing, parents, siblings, lover, and husband. She told Annie that the husband she thought was gone forever would soon return. If that prediction wasn’t enough, she shared with the shaken woman what she knew about her troubles with an older woman. The woman she was referring to was Mrs. Pattmore.
“She constantly crosses paths with you,” Lucille said, slipping in and out of a trance. “Why does she act so? What is the matter with her? She is often interfering with you, but is always followed by that man; he must be her enemy. See! A shadow falls over her! What does it mean? She fades away and vanishes. It must be death!”
