6

THE BEST DETECTIVE TALENT

In which the theft of A. T. Stewart’s remains causes a national media sensation and expends the resources of the entire New York City Police Department, as well as private detectives hired by Henry Hilton. While several suspects are apprehended and then released, new clues in the case are uncovered and followed but only lead to a series of dead-ends. Hilton receives hundreds of letters from unnamed sources claiming to be in possession of the body and demanding ransom payment for its return.

Given the state of A. T. Stewart’s decaying corpse, reporters asked Henry Hilton if he could, beyond a shadow of a doubt, recognize the remains of his late friend if they were returned. He told reporters that it would be absolutely impossible for anyone to deceive him. According to Hilton, he had two casts of Mr. Stewart’s head taken before he was buried and dental records could be used to verify the identity. The dental records Hilton spoke of were a far cry from the intricate records maintained today. What Hilton was referring to was the particular operations Stewart had done on his teeth that the dentist who had performed them could easily identify.

Michael Bruton was the night watchman hired by Hilton to watch the grave following the first theft attempt back in October. Bruton was questioned by the police and explained that he had been hired on or about October 7 or 8 that Sexton Hamill did not point out any particular place in the churchyard that he was supposed to guard, and that Hamill didn’t say anything to him about the attempted grave robbery. His orders were to watch over the cemetery and to keep people out after the churchyard was closed. If he came across anyone in the yard after dark, he was ordered to throw the person out himself. Bruton explained that he inspected the cemetery at half-hour intervals and that he felt uneasy about his duties. He had no reason other than the location of the job for feeling uneasy. The idea that someone would try to rob a grave never crossed his mind, he said. He checked all the gates every time he made his rounds and never found them unlocked. He never encountered anyone in, or trying to get in, the churchyard after it was closed, and his entire employment was uneventful. He told the police he was employed for about a month and had only been recently discharged. Bruton said he was never told why he was hired or why he was let go. The police found nothing suspicious about Bruton’s testimony, and he was not considered a person of interest in the case.

Police detectives reported that the bottom of Stewart’s casket was covered with a foul-smelling slime, thought to be remnants of Stewart’s decomposing body. The slime was also on the cover of the casket, where police surmised that the robbers had placed the body before transferring it to some type of rubber or sealed bag to transport it.

Hilton, still certain that Hamill and Parker were somehow involved, asked the police to scour all the church buildings. Since no trace of the body had been found in the churchyard, Hilton suspected that whoever stole it might be hiding the remains somewhere inside the church or its adjacent buildings. Police officers and detectives thoroughly examined the church from the cellar to the steeple, and not a single sign of the remains was discovered.

G.W. Dilks, Acting Superintendent:

Sir: Under orders received from you, we, the undersigned, proceeded to St. Mark’s Church and burying grounds, corner of Stuyvesant-place and Second-avenue, for the purpose of making a thorough search of the building and grounds. We examined the grounds carefully and found no trace of their having been disturbed. We also examined two receiving vaults, one containing two and the other thirteen bodies. We then searched the entire basement, tower and several other places in the building without obtaining any evidence of the whereabouts of A.T. Stewart. Respectfully submitted.

F.F. ADAMS

GEORGE G. RADFORD

THOMAS FERRIS

GEORGE H. DILKS

—letter submitted to superintendent of police on November 8, 1878

Police Captain Henry McCullagh stumbled on what he thought was a break in the Stewart case when he interviewed twenty-two-year-old George Brown. Brown worked at a saloon on Third Avenue and claimed that he had been returning home around 2:15 a.m. the morning of the grave robbery when he ran into a group of six men carrying a wooden box on their shoulders. The men were dressed in long dark coats and tall silk top hats. According to Brown, the men were joking and laughing among themselves and when they saw him, they asked if he wanted to give them a hand. McCullagh discounted the absurd story. Those involved in such a ghastly deed would have taken great pains to conceal their activity and would not have broadcast it by hauling around what appeared to be a wooden casket on their shoulders and marching down the street. Brown’s information was disregarded as the police continued their search for the culprits and the missing corpse.

The question of how the grave robbers were able to locate Stewart’s vault in the dark during a rainstorm without any distinguishing marker remained a mystery to the police. Some, like Hilton, continued to believe it was an inside job with either Hamill or Parker or both providing the robbers with the information and a set of keys to unlock the churchyard gate. Although the police initially considered the idea, it was ultimately dismissed. There was no hard evidence to link either of the sextons to the crime, and the nature of their characters had been wholly supported by the Rev. Dr. Rylance, rector of St. Mark’s, and nearly all the members of the church.

Besides that, the police slowly began to uncover evidence that supported another theory, thanks in no small part to the reporting of the New York Times. An unnamed enterprising New York Times reporter pointed out to the police and readers alike that “an examination of the fence shows that at the extreme western end there is a spot which can be scaled with the greatest ease.”

According to a front-page article in the November 9 Times, “Outside there are two low railings, either extremely convenient for stepping on, and the iron balcony of the adjoining house and the large latticed iron end-post of the fence afford just what is needed in the way of support in getting in or out.”

The next day, police investigators began a further examination of the western end of the churchyard and soon enough uncovered evidence showing the way the grave robbers had entered and fled the crime scene.

The detectives say that on Thursday morning they found a blue penciled letter ‘B’ on one of the iron fence posts on the Second-avenue side and two posters bearing the name ‘Augustus Sebell’ crossed on a post on the Eleventh-street side. These have since been removed, but the detectives say that by drawing imaginary lines from the two marked posts to two opposite trees the spot where the lines cross would be directly over the hole that was dug.

—New York Times
November 9, 1878

The police soon discounted the theory that the robbers must have had a set of keys to unlock the churchyard gates. Based on the New York Times story the previous day, an examination of the iron fence on the western end of the churchyard confirmed the theory that there were several places along the far western end where the iron fence surrounding the yard could have been easily scaled. Outside the spots were two low railings that could have been used to climb on and a conveniently located iron balcony nearby that could have helped the robbers enter and exit.

Although the police had scoured the churchyard looking for clues, finding nothing, upon reexamination they discovered two large, greasy, dark stains near the western gate that emitted a nauseating smell—the same odor that permeated the Stewart vault. Similar greasy, foul-smelling stains were discovered on the sidewalk and street outside the gate leading from the churchyard. The police surmised that the liquefying body of Stewart caused the stains as it was being carried away. Bloodhounds were brought in to follow the stench. The trail led past the church to the western gate and out onto the street. Mud was found caked on several of the iron fence braces and on several spikes at the top of the fence, leading the police to believe that the robbers had hauled Stewart’s body up and over the fence at that exact spot. They followed the trail of stains up East Tenth Street to the courtyard of a nearby boardinghouse. There in the courtyard the stains disappeared. The police believed that in this courtyard the body of A. T. Stewart was loaded into the back of a wagon or carriage and spirited away under the cloak of darkness.

The boardinghouse stood back from the sidewalk. The iron fence surrounding the churchyard ran back toward it. At one particular point along the fence, there was a tree with low-hanging limbs. One limb forked out over the fence and into the street, making it a convenient stepping stone for the robbers to scale the fence in and out. More importantly, the police discovered an iron balcony that ran along the length of the boardinghouse at 129 East Tenth Street. According to the police, the low iron fence at the western side of the churchyard along Tenth Street, the forked tree limb leading over the fence, and the adjacent iron balcony on the boardinghouse gave the grave robbers perfect access in and out of St. Mark’s.

The courtyard of the boardinghouse was hidden from the road, giving the robbers concealment from prying eyes to carry out their ghoulish business. And there was more. The police also discovered several small patches of clay caked on the fork of the tree, indicating that someone had climbed onto it. Further examination revealed that the balcony on the boardinghouse was also caked with similar mud, showing a distinct mark of a boot heel in it. Several iron spikes on top of the fence had a greasy, foul-smelling substance stuck to them. It became evident to the police that the robbers had entered the churchyard using the western side of the fence, done their business, and exited with Stewart’s remains using the same location. The existence of the stains led the police to discount the theory that the robbers had placed Stewart’s remains in a rubber or airtight bag since neither would have allowed the substance to leak or leave behind such a foul-smelling trail. The police began to surmise that the robbers carried the remains out in a blanket or cloth and that they had a box or casket waiting for them in the wagon or carriage parked in the boardinghouse courtyard. There the robbers transferred the body to some airtight container for transportation and subsequent storage.

No one could have been more ecstatic over the new developments than Sexton George Hamill, who maintained that the new evidence cleared him of any complicity in the case.

THE GRAVE DESECRATORS

TRACING THE ROBBERS OF

MR. STEWART’S GRAVE

The Manner Of Their Entrance To And

Exit From The Yard—Route Taken

In Removing The Body—The Police

Working On Several Clues—

The Suspicions Against The Sexton

Late on Friday afternoon Capt. McCullagh, of the Seventeenth Precinct, strolled over to St. Mark’s church-yard and began another careful examination of the premises. … The Captain noticed on the flags directly behind the two screens large stains, looking at first glance like dried tobacco spittle, but proving on closer examination to be of a greasy nature. He knelt down and smelled them. They gave out a sickening odor. He took out his penknife and scraped the spot, and then smelled the scrapings. He immediately became sick to the stomach. … The officials all bent down and smelled of these spots. The odor was horrible and satisfied them that the stains had been caused by oozings from the body through some kind of cloth. On the side of the western screen above the two blotches were many clayey marks, as though someone had wiped his soiled fingers on it in a downward direction. … In yesterday’s TIMES it was pointed out that at the extreme westerly corner of the cemetery the fence might be readily scaled with the assistance of a forked tree, the balcony of the adjacent house and the top of the courtyard railing. The Police officials went there and saw in an instant that the TIMES’ suggestion was a correct one. The house, which is No. 129 East tenth-street, and is a boarding house kept by a Miss Newton, stands back several feet from the sidewalk and the cemetery fence runs back toward it being joined to its side wall at the top by a strip of iron let in to the bricks.

—New York Times
November 10, 1878

When news of the police findings hit the front pages of New York City’s newspapers, numerous stories about wagons being seen in the vicinity of the churchyard on the night of the robbery began to flood into police headquarters. One witness reported seeing a rickety open wagon along Eleventh Street near the cemetery fence around 11 p.m. According to the witness, the single horse drawing the wagon appeared to be in a heated condition, steaming with sweat. He told the police that he saw no one around the horse and wagon but that it stayed parked at the rear of the church unattended for the entire time it took him to walk home that evening.

Another unidentified man reported to the police that he saw a black painted wagon parked along Eleventh Street near the rear of the church around 3 a.m. on Thursday, the morning after the grave robbery reportedly took place. He too reported seeing no one in the immediate vicinity of the dark wagon but made no mention of the condition of the single horse that was attached to it.

A third report stated that a covered wagon, with side gates similar to those on delivery wagons, was seen parked on Stuyvesant Street near the front of the church. Although the reported wagon sightings tied into the theory of how Stewart’s body had been spirited away, the police were no closer to identifying the robbers than they had been before.

Other curious incidents were also reported to the police. A well-dressed gentleman asked for a meeting with Police Superintendent George Walling claiming that foreign phrenologists had stolen the body so that they could dissect Stewart’s brain for the purpose of obtaining information about how Stewart became such a wealthy man. The secrets to his success, the gentleman maintained, were hidden deep within Stewart’s brain. He said that the body had been shipped overseas on a cargo ship and told Walling that if he wanted to locate it, he should wire overseas to several ports to have the cargoes of ships searched on arrival. Walling found the man’s claim absurd and politely refused the meeting request. When the gentleman became angry at Walling’s refusal, the superintendent had him escorted from police headquarters.

Captain Thomas Byrnes of the Fifteenth Precinct brought a boy into police headquarters for questioning, claiming that the boy had evidence that would break the case wide open. Byrnes, who had a penchant for generating publicity for himself, also told newspaper reporters that the boy’s testimony would prove to be important in solving the case. When asked by the press what the boy had to say, Byrnes refused to divulge the information, claiming that revealing the boy’s testimony might jeopardize the ongoing investigation.

Walling and Commissioner Nichols told reporters that the entire police department was working on the case and that they hoped to be able to apprehend the criminals shortly. They were both noncommittal on what evidence they had gathered that would prompt them to make their claim. Like Captain Byrnes, they suggested that divulging any information might harm the investigation.

What was clear was that the police had begun to focus their investigation on the boardinghouse courtyard at 129 East Tenth Street. Detectives questioned Erasmus Garnsey and his wife, tenants at the boardinghouse. They occupied the bedroom closest to the courtyard. Garnsey reported that sometime between 1 and 2 a.m. on Thursday morning, he and his wife were both awakened by a loud thud that sounded as if a heavy body had fallen against their window shutters. According to Garnsey, immediately after they heard the noise, they heard a man’s voice say, “Come. It’s about time for us to be out of here.”

Garnsey said he paid no attention to it thinking it was simply some young lovers in a secret early morning rendezvous.

The police questioned Mary Newton, the owner of the boardinghouse, who reported that her sister and brother-in-law, who lived at the house, came home around 10:30 on Wednesday night and didn’t report seeing anything unusual about the church, churchyard, or along the street.

The greasy, foul-smelling droplets that had been left behind at the crime scene were analyzed and were identified as decomposing flesh. The stains clearly marked the trail. The grave robbers carried Stewart’s rotting remains from St. Mark’s Churchyard over the iron fence on the far western end of the cemetery, across East Tenth Street and into the boardinghouse courtyard, where they placed it in a waiting wagon to transport it.

The New York Herald was quick to dispute the police theory about the stains. According to a Herald reporter, the stains more likely came from the chemical Allekton, a liquid used to preserve decomposing bodies. The chemical, which had previously been written about in the Herald, was a new discovery being sold to undertakers by the company of Middleton and Warner, located on Bond Street. Detectives, following up on the Herald’s lead, questioned C. N. Middleton, one of the business’s owners, who told the police that in October 1878, around the time of the first attempted grave robbery at St. Mark’s, an unidentified man came to his Bond Street address asking to buy a supply of Allekton and all the apparatus needed to inject it into a body. Since he only sold the new chemical to professional undertakers and since the man could not produce any professional credentials, he refused to sell him the body preservative. According to Middleton, the man left and never returned to his business again.

After reading about the grave robbery, Middleton immediately contacted Judge Hilton and William Libbey, informing them of the incident and suggesting that the man who had tried to buy the Allekton might somehow be mixed up in the robbery. Middleton agreed to go to police headquarters and look at the police department’s “rogue’s gallery”—a collection of photographs of known criminals—to see if he could identify the man who came in to buy the chemical. Middleton carefully went through all the photographs and finally identified twenty-two-year-old Thomas McCarty, a petty criminal known for being a pickpocket. More damning than that, when the police showed the photograph of McCarty to the clerk at Seymour’s Hardware, where the police had traced the shovel and lantern found at the crime scene, the store clerk also identified McCarty as the man who purchased both items. McCarty was picked up for questioning, and after a lengthy interrogation, the police concluded that he knew nothing about the case and that Middleton and the hardware store clerk had been mistaken in their identification. McCarty, as far as the police were concerned, was a simple-minded petty thief and nothing more.

Perhaps angered by the police department’s refusal to pursue the two sextons or with their lack of success in uncovering any leads, Hilton hired his own Pinkerton private detectives to conduct an investigation. He didn’t bother to consult with the police about the Pinkertons’ findings. Hilton had his private detectives follow up on every lead, no matter how absurd. They too remained stymied.

Letters began to pour into Hilton’s office ranging from missives penned by spiritualists who claimed to have been in touch with the ghost of A. T. Stewart and knew the whereabouts of the missing remains, to angry letters saying that Stewart got what he deserved. Some claimed the “Jews” had committed the crime as retribution for Hilton’s prejudice against them.

An anonymous letter sent from Rutland, Vermont, on November 13, 1878, to police headquarters stated: “In one hour I will be in Canada with A.T. Stewart’s body. A woman has his remains.”

The letter was composed from letters and words cut from newspapers.

Another message sent directly to Judge Hilton on November 9, 1878, stated:

Proper and honorable negotiations will be made with yourself and the widow of the late A.T. Stewart, Esq., and in the meantime, let me assure you that the remains of this gentleman are safe beyond the possibility of detection and have been for some time. We will require the most substantial reward before you can hope to obtain the return of the body. … To be brief, when a reward of $1,000,000 shall be paid and perfect immunity from prosecution be most thoroughly guaranteed, then, and not till then, shall we for the instant entertain any idea of opening negotiations with yourself or any of the friends of the deceased.

The letter was signed by “Oswald Baxter.”

Another letter dated November 8, 1878, written decidedly in the handwriting of a woman, was sent directly to Mrs. Stewart (although intercepted by Hilton).

Mrs. Cornelia Stewart:

Dear Madam: Your terms are unsatisfactory. Whenever you wish to make the sum $100,000, you will place a personal in the Herald as follows:

Agreed to —S.H.H.C.

Until then you will not hear again from us.

The letter was unsigned.

Another letter complete with a hand-drawn skull and crossbones and the words DEATH written in huge letters was addressed to Mrs. A. T. Stewart, Judge Hilton, and Mr. Libbey. The letter stated: “If this reward is not given in 5 days it shall be lost” and was signed SAM, Pres., WILL, Vice-Pres., MICH, Tres. And CONNERS, Sec.

Yet another among the glut of missives sent to Hilton stated: “Dear Sir: If you will promise not to lock me up, and give me $10,000, I will tell you where the body and robbers of the late A.T. Stewart is.” It was signed: ONE OF THE ROBBERS. At the end of the letter, the author wrote: “This is private.”

A letter sent to the New York Herald from a source identifying itself as “A Company” advised: “If the executors of the late A. T. Stewart will donate $500,000 for some needed public charity in the city of New York the whereabouts of his remains will be immediately divulged and not one penny will be asked for the expense we have incurred.”

A brief, small, enigmatic ad appearing in the Herald stated: “NICHOLS & HILTON.—CALL OFF BLOODHOUNDS and discipline the Police. P. X. Y-$100,000.00.”

In yet another unsigned letter sent to Judge Hilton, the author advised: “Privately offer the Roman Catholic Bishop from $1,000 to $5,000 for the return of A.T. Stewart’s body and I think it will be returned without the thieves being rewarded for their labors.”

The police and Hilton considered none of the letters to be reliable, or, in fact, the true ransom note for which they had been waiting. Still, the correspondences flooded into the hands of the authorities, Hilton, and newspapers from places as far away as Canada and London, England.

Anything more depraved in the way of journalism than the behavior of the press during the past few days on the subject of the Stewart grave-robbery it would be difficult to conceive. The facts which have been published do not concern the public in any way. The thieves, having made away with the body, appear to have opened negotiations, as everybody knew they would do, with the Stewart family, through ‘counsel,’ and, the family having refused their terms, the matter was dropped. Is this any reason why we should now have column after column of the body-snatchers’ letters, the replies of their ‘counsel’ through the Herald ‘Personal’ column, accompanied by details as to the condition of the corpse, followed by an acrimonious controversy as to whether Judge Hilton did or did not deceive Mrs. Stewart about the return of her husband’s body, and persuade her that it had been returned while it had not? Some of the newspapers, while publishing all the details of the negotiations, dwell feelingly on the agony that the whole affair must have caused Mrs. Stewart, and the consequent heartless brutality of the thieves. What sort of work is this.

—Nation, July–December, 1879

It appeared to most that the Stewart case was at a standstill, but then suddenly, five days after the grave robbery and despite an endless stream of dead-ends, the New York Times erroneously reported on November 12, 1878, that the hiding place of Stewart’s remains had been discovered. Where the body was, how it arrived there, and who stole it remained a mystery, and neither the police nor Judge Hilton would provide any answers.

Superintendent Walling released no new information to reporters. With the news of Stewart’s body being located, police officials maintained that the culprits would now be in a race to turn state’s evidence to avoid prosecution.

Hilton said, “I have nothing to say,” when asked by reporters if indeed Stewart’s body had been located.

The unfounded and sensational rumors abounded. According to the police, they had followed up on more than 150 leads, all of them leading nowhere. It had been rumored that Stewart’s body had been found in Newark, New Jersey, in the home of a man named J. B. Hayes. An investigation by Newark police turned up nothing.

SEEKING FOR THE GHOULS.

MR. STEWART’S BODY LIKELY TO

BE RECOVERED

Indications That The Robbers Have Been

Traced—Extreme Reticence On The

Part Of The Police—A Promising

Trail Struck—An Explanation By The

Sexton

Yesterday was a day of mysteries in the Stewart body-snatching case. The surface indications were all corroborative of the information drawn from Judge Hilton’s manner and language on Sunday night that the hiding place of the body had been discovered. The Police were busier than ever and went briskly about with countenances aglow with suppressed exultation. Judge Hilton was in unusually good spirits all day.

—New York Times
November 12, 1878

In a development that may or may not have been a ploy to get the robbers to tip their hand to authorities, it was reported that Cornelia Stewart had become bedridden because of the shocking news of the theft of her husband’s body and that her health was failing rapidly. According to the New York Times, “Should she die, the probabilities are, it is said, that Judge Hilton will immediately withdraw his offered reward, and refuse to entertain any propositions for the return of the body except in connection with the arrest and conviction of the perpetrators.”

It was clear to most that the twenty-five thousand-dollar reward initially offered by Hilton had been done to appease Mrs. Stewart and was not a reflection of his own sentiments. In the five days since the robbery, no credible ransom note had been sent to either Hilton or the police.

The reports on November 12, 1878, that the police had located Stewart’s body were short-lived. In the next day’s edition of the New York Times, Captain McCullagh said that, despite all the investigative work done on the case, the police “had not succeeded in tracing the body beyond the curbstone of 129 East Tenth-street.”

Without any resolution in the case, the New York City Police Department came under fire from publications inside and outside the city. An editorial in the New York Evening Telegram called the police good at locating crimes but not criminals. It referred to the police as “dogberries” and hailed the force as a collection of poorly educated incompetents. The New York Evening Express wrote: “That the body of the merchant millionaire should have been carried away from a teeming center in this populous city set every soul agog.” It urged the police to solve the case quickly to put the city’s mind at ease. The Herald berated the authorities for moving too slowly on the case. An editorial in the Chicago Tribune called the police investigation incompetent and the work of the grave robbers a radical political trend aimed at striking back at the wealthy with its roots in the principles of Communism. The Tribune editorial called on citizens to resort to vigilantism if the police were unable to protect them from these radicalized grave robbers.

Despite the criticism from the papers, in public Judge Hilton steadfastly maintained his faith in the police investigation.

I have the best detective talent of all kinds that I could find engaged to assist me, but I am really depending largely on the regular Police force. I have every reason for the greatest faith and confidence in the earnestness and zeal of their efforts. They could not possibly do more than they have done and I am entirely satisfied with them.

—Judge Henry Hilton, —New York Times
November 14, 1878