CHRISTIAN LEFT POLICE HEADQUARTERS ON THE AFTERNOON of July 4. He directed his horse-drawn carriage past businesses on Market Street and piers along the Delaware River. Much of the city’s working class lived in row homes constructed around shipyards, textile mills, and railroads; less fortunate workers lived in shacks and slums near woodworking houses and clothing sweatshops in the south of the city. Although standardized development had chafed the town’s colonial charm, it had earned Philadelphia a reputation among urban planners as a model of affordable housing.
Christian turned onto Germantown Avenue. He knew he could not keep a ransom note from his wife, and he wanted Walter to go with him to Atlantic City.
On a normal weekday, shoppers strolled along Main Street. Storekeepers pampered their rich patrons, at times taking merchandise outside for those too busy, privileged, or lazy to leave their carriages. Jimmy Jones, a short man with a small, pointed beard and half-lens glasses, whisked fabrics under the noses of such women, and Mr. Jabez, the grocery-store proprietor, delivered and recorded their food orders in an account book. While they waited for their mothers and grandmothers to shop, children ran to buy doughnuts from Mrs. Fox, paper dolls from Mr. Betchel’s stationery shop, and jacks or lemon candy from Mr. Lutz’s general store. Customers had to enter Old Mrs. Potterton’s shop if they wanted to search for favorite china patterns. Plates, saucers and teacups in a variety of shapes covered her store from floor to ceiling.
But as Christian drove toward home, storekeepers celebrated the holiday away from work. Families picnicked next to large tubs of ice water and lemonade on wooded hillsides next to the rivers. Weeping willows cast shade over old Indian trails that led walkers past vine-covered arbors and patches of daffodils. Even though parents had heard of Charley Ross’s disappearance, they still agreed with the initial opinion of the police: whoever took the little boy would eventually return him. In their minds, the kidnapping was an unfortunate incident. They told their children to stay closer to home, but siblings continued to chase each other east of Germantown Avenue, down the hills leading to the Wingohocking Creek, and west of the Avenue, through the valley that rolled along the Wissahickon River.
Because the police had respected Christian’s wish to withhold details, the press had not demanded statements from him or the police. Christian’s cooperation helped the police withhold news of the ransom letter, but his silence kept the public from realizing the new threat to its children at a time when nobody knew if the kidnappers intended to take more victims. Germantown’s children were used to treating the whole town as their backyard. Boys and girls played tricks on their neighbors by putting on old clothes and begging for food at back doors. They attached twine to doorbells and hid in the tall grass between residences, stifling giggles when bewildered neighbors opened doors to phantom callers. They chased one another down bridle paths, hid from one another underneath bridges, and tried to catch bullfrogs in the small water runs that connected rivers, creeks, ponds, dams, and hollows. Daredevils climbed high rocks in the quarry and jumped into the Wingohocking, fearless of sharp rocks hidden in the deep waters. Sometimes the children encountered strangers. Beggars often walked through the fields, and so did an eccentric musician who played a small wooden instrument. Once a wandering artist sat with a group of siblings and entertained them with stories of the Indians. At the end of their afternoon together, he told the children where they could meet him again, as long as they didn’t mention the conversation to their parents.
Germantown’s urban legends played a part in the children’s games. In the seventeenth century, monks had awaited the second coming of Christ in caves along the Wissahickon, and according to folklore, two men with bushy beards still roamed the area; children who feared the apparitions made sure not to run through the woods alone. They also stayed together when they passed a group of black oak trees next to an old mill—a pile of bones had been unearthed under the trees, prompting boys and girls to shriek, “See the ghost! See the ghost!” when they ran by. Some believed another ghost in a white robe haunted the Civil War memorial on Main Street, and others suspected Old Lady Fox of having secret contact with the dead, even though she sent her butler to give the children lemonade and cakes with white icing. The children’s stories were harmless enough, but on Washington Lane, one little boy was haunted by visions of real spooks who had visited his front yard.
Christian told his maids that he and Walter would spend at least one night with Sarah in Atlantic City. They quickly made preparations, and soon the five-year-old sat alone in the passenger’s seat as the wagon pulled out of the Ross property.
Sarah Lewis Ross had given birth to eight children in the eleven years that she had been married to Christian. She had met him at church when she was eighteen. He was almost ten years her senior, a friend of her four older brothers. The two didn’t marry for nearly a decade—perhaps because Christian needed the time to build his business and his income; Sarah came from a wealthy family. After settling down the street from Sarah’s older brother, they had their first child. The baby, a boy, died in infancy. Now, three days after her youngest son had been taken, Sarah had no idea of his disappearance. Christian told the police that he had withheld Charley’s name from the advertisements because, on the off chance that his wife read a Philadelphia paper in Atlantic City, he didn’t want to worry her. Although people would later criticize this choice, it is more puzzling that Sarah was away from her Germantown home in the first place.
Nineteenth-century society valued a woman foremost as a mother. Most women identified themselves according to their role in their households. A mother’s work, then, was to take pride in protecting the morality of her family, to bring up her children as Christians, and to foster a safe, welcoming home. It was not normal for a woman to leave her children, even under the care of nurses and her husband, for weeks on end. Unless, of course, she was ill. Christian had given illness as the reason for Sarah’s trip to Atlantic City with their daughter Sophia. Both parents, though, had planned for Charley and Walter to change places with Sophia in mid-July, and the presence of a four and a five-year-old would have made it difficult for Sarah to recover from whatever illness required her departure from her family. Christian’s neighbors suspected that marital stress—provoked by Christian’s business losses—had led to the separation. But regardless of Sarah’s reasons for being in Atlantic City, Victorian society would attribute whatever harm came to Charley to the absence of her motherly virtue.
Christian and Walter drove through heavy rains. They arrived in Atlantic City at 8:00 P.M. Sarah welcomed them along with Sophia.
“Why did you not bring Charley with you?” Sarah asked. “Is he well?”
Christian led his wife into her room.
“Charley is missing,” he said.
Christian told Sarah that the situation could be much worse. He gave her an account of the past three days and promised they would soon have their son back.
Two days later, Sarah, Sophia, and Walter took the train back to Germantown.
Christian drove directly to his office from Atlantic City. The streets were crowded after the holiday weekend. As Christian made his way through traffic, he passed dozens of handbills that informed the public of Charley’s kidnapping. Detectives had printed the flyers in his absence; officers were busy attaching them to every public place in Philadelphia and its surrounding towns and mailing them to police stations in New York and northern New Jersey. The police had also begun to more actively pursue suspects: they arrested another entire gypsy tribe for questioning, and after one officer said the kidnappers’ handwriting looked Italian, they took an innocent immigrant into custody.
Christian’s nephew Frank Lewis and Captain Heins had continued to investigate the kidnapping route. They covered a radius of at least ten miles around the kidnapping site, repeatedly driving through Kensington and other villages to the north of the city, searching for more eyewitnesses at taverns, blacksmith shops, and watering holes. Frank Lewis had also helped an officer write a third newspaper ad in Christian’s absence. It appeared on July 5 in the Sunday Public Ledger and once again offered $300 for Charley’s return. Other papers would print it throughout the week.
When Christian arrived at his office on July 6, he didn’t have to wait long to ask for developments in the case. His brother Joseph Ross hurried toward him with another envelope. He had already opened and read it. “No harm has come to Charley,” he said, “but $20,000 is demanded for his ransom.”
“Surely you have not heard rightly,” Christian replied. He scanned the letter and saw the number himself. The kidnappers had mailed it from Philadelphia that day. Christian took the note and walked out of his office.
PHILADELPHIA, July 6—Mr. Ros: We supos you got the other leter that teld yu we had yu child all saf and sond.
Yu mite ofer one $100,000 it woud avale yu nothing. to be plaen with yu yu mite invok al the powers of the universe and that cold not get yu child from us. we set god—man and devel at defiance to rest him ot of our hands. This is the lever that moved the rock that hides him from yu $20,000. not one doler les—impossible—impossible— you cannot get him without it. if yu love money more than child yu be its murderer not us for the money we will have if we dont from yu we be sure to git it from some one els for we will mak examples of yure child that others may be wiser. We give yu al the time yu want to consider wel wat yu be duing. Yu money or his lif we wil hav— dont flater yu self yu wil trap us under pretens of paying the ransom that be imposible—d’ont let the detectives mislede yu thay tel yu thay can git him and arest us to—if yu set the detectives in search for him as we teld yu befor they only serch for his lif. for if any aproch be made to his hidin place by detective his lif wil be instant sacrificed. you wil see yu child dead or alive if we get yu money yu get him live if no money yu get him ded. wen you get ready to bisnes with us advertise the folering in Ledger personals (Ros. we be ready to negociate). we look for yu answer in Ledger.