CHRISTIAN ROSS DISAGREED WITH POLICE SUSPICIONS THAT Charley was in Philadelphia or New York. He thought his son had been taken to a place in the Midwest, not a day’s journey away as the kidnappers had insisted. Christian did join investigators in sorting through the suspicions and fragmented visions of mediums and con artists who would incorporate published details about the Ross family’s life into their stories. He tried to limit the number of false reports by formulating a list of questions for the police to ask Charley look-alikes. It asked the children to state Charley’s full name, his hometown, a toy he and Walter played with, and a certain prayer. When potential Charleys passed the interview, inquirers alerted the police, who along with family members decided which possibilities were worthy of a visit. Crowds of hopeful helpers greeted Ross family representatives at railroad stations across the Midwest, down the East Coast, and in Canada and Scotland.
Desiring to help somehow, hundreds of people wrote letters to Christian and Sarah. One came from a former business associate of Christian’s in Boston:
MR. C. K. ROSS—Dear Sir:—I believe years ago I did business with you. Since then I have retired from active business life, and you have my heartfelt sympathy in your deep affliction. I think your case the hardest I ever heard of, and if I can be of any help to you, I will be glad to aid in any way in my power. If you should issue an appeal to the press of the United States, I think there would hardly be a newspaper that would refuse to copy your card, and give it a prominent place, without charge. There are hundreds of families that do not know yet, that you have had a boy stolen, and CHARLEY ROSS may be living next door to some of them and they not know it. My wife and I take such an interest in the case that I feel that with as much leisure as I have, that I ought in the cause of humanity spend some of it in helping you. If you have anything in the way of guidance, let me know, and you can have my gratuitous services.
Yours truly,
SAMUEL T. HOLMES
Even though correspondence brought false reports and bizarre advice, it offered Christian his greatest support system. Ten years before, it wouldn’t have been as accessible an option.
Up until the middle of the nineteenth century, it cost seventeen times as much to send a letter as it did to mail a newspaper to a friend. People avoided high postage costs by jotting notes between articles, rolling up a paper and mailing it instead of a proper letter. The practice became so popular that the government, wanting the money generated by postage, made communication by “transient newspaper” illegal. It took two other acts for writers to change their habits, however: in 1845, the postal service lowered costs somewhat, and newspapers encouraged readers to pay a small fee to post messages in personal columns. The idea was a success. But people still didn’t receive messages at home. They had to either buy a paper on the street or go to the post office to claim messages. Before long, the post office was a community meeting place—and the perfect spot to kindle an affair.
Like so many other institutions, the postal service changed dramatically during the Civil War. Officials thought it more appropriate for women to learn of family deaths in the privacy of their homes rather than the public sphere of the post office. In 1864, sixty-six American cities instituted home delivery. For the first time, it was possible to anonymously place a letter in a container at a post office, hotel, bar, or letter box, and know it would reach a designated person exactly where he or she lived.
It made sense then, that people scanned the personals so often that they could find and keep track of the Ross camp’s answers to the kidnappers. It also made sense that the kidnappers chose the mail to communicate an anonymous ransom. And as their threats intensified, they knew the words would terrorize the Ross family alone in their home before the authorities could read anything.