by Kevin Murphy
On May 21, 1900, the appraisers—Fred Holt and Joseph Buths—announced that Jennie Hollister’s estate amounted to 37,996.92. (In 2014 dollars, that would be more than $3.4 million.)[317]
The most obvious problem with Jennie’s 1893 will was that events on the ground had changed. By the time Jennie Hollister passed away, three of her beneficiaries were already dead. Tom Hollister died in 1894; Anna Mahon passed away in 1898; and now Frank McGuire had expired. If Frank McGuire had not drawn up a will just after Jennie’s death, the only two people left to inherit Jennie’s estate, were her two first cousins—Bridget Mahon Luckingham of Hartford and Mary Mahon Dalton of Waterbury.
When Frank McGuire’s will was probated in Waterbury, there were no surprises. Frank simply divided the money equally between Jennie Hollister’s cousins—the two women mentioned above. A good guess is that Frank honored the $150 request to maintain the gravesite of Catherine “Katie” McQueeney at St. Francis Catholic Cemetery in North Providence because he was eventually buried there too![318]
While Frank lived, the administrator, J. Gilbert Calhoun, gave McGuire $50 a month just to make his last days comfortable. After the bills were paid, all monies received for the house, land holdings, furniture, personal items, bank accounts, and bonds went to the beneficiaries of Frank McGuire’s estate.
At this point, two legal dramas took wing. The first was a claim brought against the estate by the Main Street undertaker, Charles Dillon, who was denied payment for services rendered, on the grounds that his bill was exorbitant. The second matter was a suit brought against the estate by Jennie’s old friend, Angeline Start, of Warwick, Rhode Island.
On June 13, 1900, about two weeks after Jennie Hollister’s remains traveled to Cedar Hill Cemetery, undertaker Charles Dillon presented a bill for $1,116 to administrator J. Gilbert Calhoun. The amount of the bill— and the fact that Mr. Calhoun had flat-out told Dillon that he was trying to get rich off one funeral—practically sent both parties in search of dueling pistols. Calhoun refused to pay the bill and told Dillon that if he insisted on receiving $1,116, he would have to sue the estate.[319]
In fairness to Charles Dillon, Jennie Hollister asked to be buried in the best possible manner, and her relatives gave Jennie a funeral rivaling that of European royalty. The undertaker’s bill reflected this. For example, the casket—white oak, hand carved, full trim, silk lined, pillow to match, plate and engraving, with . . . hand-carved handles to match—cost almost as much as the ordinary working man’s cottage.[320] So said, everyone has a little larceny in their hearts and the manner in which Jennie Hollister made her money may have played havoc with Charles Dillon’s sense of fairness. Whatever the case, Dillon wanted exactly what he had billed.
One sanguine note emerges from Dillon’s bill. The undertaker had to engage a hearse, plus fourteen carriages, to transport the casket and mourners to and from Cedar Hill. Not to present this as a historical fact, but the number of carriages suggests that there were more than fifty people at Jennie Hollister’s funeral, when one would expect just a few curiosity seekers. Then again, Jennie always showed great generosity—paying the bonds of Ada Leffingwell, Carolyn Webster, and some of the other young prostitutes who needed her help. She may indeed have had more friends than circumstances suggest.[321]
The undertaker, Charles Dillon, was a fighter, while J. Gilbert Calhoun had a reputation as a conscientious lawyer. The Courant noted, “a case of this type—whereby an undertaker had to sue for payment of his bill—was so rare, the outcome might indeed be interesting.”[322]
Eight months later, in the middle of February 1901, the dust-up between Dillon and Calhoun was resolved. Just before the trial was to begin in superior court on Tuesday, February 12, 1901, Charles Dillon dropped his suit for a settlement of $750. Between the reduced settlement and the legal expenses, Charles Dillon was probably the only one who didn’t make a killing when Jennie Hollister passed away. [323]
Before Frank McGuire breathed his last, Jennie Hollister’s old friend, Angeline Start, hired Hartford Attorney Sidney E. Clarke to lodge a claim against the estate. “For assistance, counsel, and advice rendered Mrs. Hollister in the conduct of her business by Mrs. Start, from October 1894 down to the time Mrs. Hollister died, April 29, 1900, Mrs. Angeline Start wanted $15,000.” This struck one newspaper as spurious because [Jennie Hollister] never needed any advice or counsel.”[324]
The Courant felt obliged to mention, “Mrs. Start formerly conducted the Cedar Mountain House on the New Britain road in this city. She now conducts the Hillside Hotel near Providence.”[325] (Once again, the Courant’s Editor in Chief Charles Hopkins Clark, a Yale-educated Republican of irritating righteousness, couldn’t resist the opportunity to tell his readers that Mrs. Start was involved in prostitution.)[326]
The administrator, J. Gilbert Calhoun, received the suit on December 27, 1900. Angeline Start’s lawyers were a distinguished pair. Sidney Clarke was an 1881 Yale Law School graduate and former chairman of the Hartford Democratic Town Committee, while Attorney Charles Wilson was not only a member of the Rhode Island bar for twenty-five years, but was Judge Advocate General of Rhode Island from 1887 to 1898. At present, he was a senior partner with Wilson, Gardner & Churchill of Providence. [327]
Judge Arthur Eggleston and Attorney Hugh O’Flaherty represented Attorney J. Gilbert Calhoun, the administrator of Jennie Hollister’s estate.
The trial got underway in superior court on Tuesday, May 21, 1901, with Judge Alberto T. Roraback on the bench. Angeline’s first motion seemed the weightiest. She made a claim against the estate for $15,000 owing to a promise allegedly made to her by Jennie and Tom Hollister. Angeline Start, upon taking the witness stand, was asked by her attorney, Charles Wilson, to detail the promise. Angeline said that during one of her visits to 76 Wells Street, about three weeks before Tom Hollister’s death, he said to her, “Angie, should I die, I want you to give up your business, and come here and live with Jennie, and care for her, and I will have her promise to give you this house and furniture should she die before you.” Angeline claimed that Tom Hollister then called Jennie into the room and asked her to promise to carry out this request. Angeline averred that Jennie said, “I will promise.” Thomas Hollister died on December 27, 1894, and at least in Angeline Start’s mind, the promise had value even though Angeline did not sell her business and move in to care for Jennie.
To bolster her claim, Angeline proceeded to characterize the many services that she had rendered to Jennie in the years after Tom Hollister’s death. Firstly, she accompanied Jennie on trips to New York, Boston, Old Point Comfort, and other places—for a total cost of $750. Secondly, she rendered care and nursing advice in the conduct of Mrs. Hollister’s business.
Angeline said that in 1898, she received from Mrs. Hollister, by mail, a demand note for $20,000 in which the consideration mentioned was “love and sympathy.” On her next trip to Hartford, Angeline asked Jennie Hollister why she sent the note. Jennie said simply that she wanted Angeline to have it. But Angeline claimed she told Jennie that she did not want the note, as she (Angeline) might die and Mrs. Hollister might then be annoyed and inconvenienced by it. Apparently, Angeline tore up the note in Jennie’s presence. Jennie then told Angeline that a will would be executed, bequeathing to Angeline the house and furnishings at 76 Wells Street.
Judge Eggleston, on behalf of the administrator, began the cross-examination. Angeline said that she got acquainted with Mrs. Hollister about 1861 and with Tom Hollister about 1863. She admitted having run a disreputable house in association with Bill Prentice, then her husband. When Prentice died in 1873, Angeline continued to run the house. Angeline said that she and her new husband (Joe Start) now kept a hotel in Warwick, Rhode Island. Asked if it was a roadhouse, Angeline maintained that she did not know what a roadhouse was.
Attorney Charles Wilson made a number of objections at different times during Angeline Start’s testimony. Wilson claimed that the questions had drifted too far afield
and had nothing to do with the claim at hand. Judge Roraback saw it differently. Since he had allowed the plaintiff’s lawyers considerable latitude on the direct examination, now he wanted to find out all he could about the parties involved and the nature of the service, as $3,000 a year for five years seemed a large sum. Eggleston continued.
In answer to Judge Eggleston’s next line of questioning, Angeline admitted that when Tom Hollister died, his horses, blankets, bridles, snaffle bits and other stable equipment were given to her husband (Joe Start). Angeline admitted quietly that Jennie had been kind to her.
“She clothed you, didn’t she” asked Judge Eggleston? Angeline began to split hairs, saying that Jennie had not clothed her, but that she (Angeline) had received some old clothes at different times from Jennie.
While Angeline Start gave testimony on the direct, Attorney Wilson put in evidence an envelope, in which it was claimed the “demand note” was sent to Angeline in Rhode Island.
On the cross-examination, Judge Eggleston drew from Angeline the fact that she found the envelope in Jennie Hollister’s desk just recently. Angeline was also forced to admit that her bill of particulars wasn’t accurate. She claimed in the bill that she sold a house in Providence to be in a position to care for the deceased, when in fact she did not own a house at the time. She sold only some secondhand furniture.
Angeline’s other attorney, Sidney Clarke, called Fred P. Holt, the superintendent of the safety vault department of the Hartford Trust Company on Main Street in Hartford. Holt admitted that Jennie Hollister talked to him about preparing a will. Holt admitted that Angeline Start’s name appeared among the proposed beneficiaries, but that the will had never been prepared.
Annie Wilson, a black domestic servant in the Wells Street house, said that Mrs. Hollister was sick a great deal after Mr. Hollister died and Mrs. Start visited the house often. The witness told Judge Eggleston that Jennie Hollister often gave things to Angeline Start.
Jessie Lansing, who for more than seven years was housekeeper for Jennie Hollister, told Attorney Clarke that Angeline Start visited at the house a great deal after Mr. Hollister died. Mrs. Lansing also said that she thought when Angeline Start came to the house, the visits were solely of a social nature. Mrs. Hollister often gave Mrs. Start clothing, and when they went on trips together, Mrs. Hollister told her (Jessie Lansing) that she (Jennie) always paid Angeline Start’s expenses.
The last witness, Mrs. William Goodrich of Hartford, said that she was acquainted with Jennie Hollister. She had visited her home and saw Angeline Start at the home as well. Annie Goodrich lived on Kingsley Street—in the tenderloin—with her husband, William, a clerk with the post office. The Hollisters may have known William and Annie Goodrich from the days when Jennie and Tom Hollister ran the Bange mansion.
At 10 o’clock the next morning, Judge Eggleston said he had nothing more and the proceedings were closed. [328]
About a week later, on May 27, 1901, Judge Roraback awarded Angeline Start $800 with costs.[329] Roraback wrote “As Mrs. Start had left her bed and board at least eight times a year for three years or more to wait on Jennie, and that if the latter had promised to leave Angeline the house and furniture at 76 Wells Street, then Mrs. Start was entitled to secure monetary consideration.”[330]
Since Angeline promised her lawyers one half of whatever the court allowed, she was about $400 ahead of the game. This paid the attorneys well for coming to Hartford and fighting the case for the effervescent, little Angeline Start. Jennie Hollister’s friends considered Angeline mean- spirited for suing the estate of a dead woman. As a result, Angie Start lost face with many folks who were usually friendly toward her. People believed that Angeline did not sue for the money, but for the satisfaction, and to get under the skin of the rightful heirs. Without question, Jennie intended Angeline Start to be one of the beneficiaries of her estate. Unfortunately, Jennie died unexpectedly, which in part accounts for all the lawsuits. That said, litigation over Jennie Hollister’s estate had finally come to an end.[331]
Jennie’s housekeeper, Jessie Lansing, teamed up with Grace Howard in the management of the Bange mansion and never missed a beat. Grace Howard once said famously, “I run the most reputable house of ill-repute in the city.” Grace bought out Jessie Lansing, before the latter woman’s death, but when the winnowing out process had run its course, and the sporting houses in town were closed for good, Grace Howard lost everything.
Probably the most exciting episode in the life of the Bange mansion happened after Billy West moved to Norwich and Grace Howard had control of the old place again. On December 27, 1902, a couple of young gunmen—William Rudolph, a.k.a. “The Missouri Kid,” and George Collins, a Hartford Dutch Point terror—used nitroglycerine to blow a safe at the Bank of Union, Missouri, and absconded with $14,500 in cash. Almost immediately, the bank’s proprietors hired the Pinkerton Detective Agency to bring the outlaws to justice. Sometime during the next couple of days, in an ugly shootout, the bank robbers killed Detective Charles J. Schumacher. At length, a piece of paper surfaced, linking George Collins with Hartford, Connecticut. The Pinkertons contacted Hartford’s Chief of Police Cornelius Ryan and an around-the-clock surveillance of the Capitol City was organized. Sure enough, Rudolph and Collins showed up at a boardinghouse near the corner of Asylum and Trumbull Streets. For a little excitement, during the evening hours, the two went to Grace Howard’s pleasure palace.
Chief Ryan and the Pinkerton detectives were well in command of the situation, but were determined to apprehend the robbers on the street instead of risking a shootout inside a bordello. They managed to grab Collins on State Street, but had to go into Grace Howard’s place to get William Rudolph. The police jumped Rudolph before he could pull his gun, but he still put up a vicious fight. Rudolph was in his early twenties and looked like a stripling, but he was deceptively strong. Detective John Butler, a heavyweight boxer, described “the Kid’s” physique as something on the order of cast iron. Detective Garrett Farrell later said that he did everything in his power, but couldn’t control Rudolph. With his very last ounce of strength, Detective Butler got a half Nelson hold on Rudolph’s head and neck, finally subduing him. When the dust settled, Rudolph and Collins were in cells at the Hartford police station. Ten days later, they began the long train ride back to Missouri.
The two murderers were tried and convicted in separate trials. Collins was hanged on March 24, 1904. Rudolph’s hanging was postponed a number of times—once because the execution date was too close to St. Patrick’s Day—but, eventually, he met his maker on May 8, 1905. The hanging did not break Rudolph’s neck, so he flopped around on the end of the rope for thirteen minutes before his body came to rest. One has to wonder if these malfunctions happened by design when a lawman was murdered.
Grace Howard surely saw the climax of the case in the newspapers, but the constant movement in the tenderloin occupied her time almost to the exclusion of all else. After all the sturm und drang of Jennie Hollister’s death, and the lawsuits that followed, a local saloonkeeper, Edward McKernan, purchased 76 Wells Street for $14,000, aided by a $6,500 mortgage from Society for Savings. Faster than a madame could say “straw man,” the property plopped into the hands of J. Gilbert Calhoun, administrator of Jennie Hollister’s estate. Calhoun, in turn, sold it to Ada Leffingwell for $14,000 cash. This chicanery was designed to keep the public wondering who bought the property and whether or not 76 Wells Street would continue as a parlor house. Of course, the legal gymnastics fooled no one.[332]
In the middle of 1900, Ada Leffingwell was wooing Grace Howard to take over her Arch Street property, but eventually sold it to Grace Morton for $12,000. Ada Leffingwell moved her furniture in broad daylight from Arch Street to Wells Street, but the newspapers wondered— “Did Ada pay $14,000 for a place—specifically built as a house of ill fame—without speaking with Chief of Police George Bill? Did Ada give Chief Bill the impression that she intended to use a 6,000-square-foot brothel as her own priv
ate residence? How could Ada simply ignore the Saint Patrick’s Day raid of 1899?” All great questions, but no good answers were forthcoming.
Whatever behind-the-scenes drama transpired, Ada Leffingwell’s most heart-felt dream became a reality. By owning 76 Wells Street, Broken-nosed Ada became Jennie Hollister—albeit for just eighteen months until her own passing.
On November 16, 1901, forty-year-old Adella E. Curtis Alvord Leffingwell died at 76 Wells Street of pelvic peritonitis. The local papers were loathe to waste ink on Ada, but finally relented and printed obituary snippets that were almost the same size as those of Jennie Hollister. Besides her $10 fine in the 1895 faux-raid for selling liquor, the police raided Ada’s place at 5 Arch Street only twice in fifteen years. In August 1892, Judge McConville fined Mrs. A. E. Alvord (Ada E. Leffingwell) $100 for keeping a house of ill fame, and she was fined the same in the 1899 St. Patrick’s Day bloodbath.
In Massachusetts, Ada had a mother and sister, so without even a feeble wave of the hand to her many friends and admirers in Hartford, a hearse whisked her remains off to the Oak Grove Cemetery in Springfield. Ada may not have been much, but she was a profound inspiration to the millions of “also-rans” throughout the land.[333]
The glory days at 76 Wells Street were clearly over when a small article appeared in the classified section of the Courant on December 9, 1901—
Auction. Central Real Estate.
76 Wells St. Saturday, December 14, 1901.
By order of the probate court, to settle the estate of Adella E. Leffingwell, deceased. The premises, 76 Wells Street, 17 rooms, steam heat, excellent repair, brick barn. . . 108 feet on Wells Street and 200 feet deep.
