11

THE CYPRESS HILLS CEMETERY INCIDENT

In which J. M. Fuller begins excavation of a section of Cypress Hills Cemetery in his quest to locate the remains of A. T. Stewart. As word leaks out of Fuller’s search, hundreds of curiosity seekers converge on the excavation site, hampering the investigation. Despite digging up a huge section of the cemetery, Fuller and his men uncover nothing. The excavation is abandoned.

Although J. M. Fuller remained skeptical, he was determined to see the case through to the end. Not known as a frivolous man or as a gold digger, Fuller wasn’t looking to make a fast buck from Mrs. Stewart or Judge Hilton. He also knew that in order to pursue the matter to its fullest, he needed Hilton’s approval. On August 16, 1881, he sent Hilton a letter explaining the details of the case, knowing full well that it would be an uphill battle. Hilton maintained publicly and to Cornelia Stewart that the body had been recovered long ago and was safely interred in the vault at Garden City. Agreeing to take part in Fuller’s investigation would require Hilton to admit the body had not been recovered. If Hilton didn’t respond to his letter, Fuller knew the note and letter would be considered just another hoax. However, if Hilton did reply, Fuller would be safe to proceed with the investigation. He did not have to wait long. A day after he sent the letter, Hilton responded. Although he was not able to join Fuller, Hilton agreed to send Edward Harris to represent his interests.

Superintendent J.M. Fuller, New-York:

Telegram received. Edward D. Harris leaves here this afternoon and will be at my store tomorrow morning. You may confer with him on the subject and he will act as I would.

HENRY HILTON

—telegram sent August 19, 1881

On August 20, Fuller and five other people, including Hilton’s surrogate, Edward Harris, descended on Cypress Hills Cemetery. Their goal was to find the various locations depicted in the painting sent to Fuller’s offices. Along with Fuller and Harris came a Times reporter, two detectives from Fuller’s staff, and a young woman. To throw off any suspicion and to keep crowds of curiosity seekers off guard, the group strolled casually through the cemetery, acting nonchalant and giving no impression to the outside world that indeed they were on a mission.

Established in 1849, Cypress Hills Cemetery was located along the Brooklyn and Queens border. Cypress Hills offered inexpensive burial plots. Serene and charming, it looked more like a park than a cemetery, and people often went there to stroll aimlessly around, admiring the stone markers and trying to ascertain the names and dates on the gravestones. Some settled onto the rolling hills to sit peacefully and contemplate, while still others brought pads and pens to sketch one or another of the idyllic landscape scenes. Fuller and his group were positive that they could blend into this everyday scene without raising suspicion.

The attractive young woman in the group, who was clothed in a colorful dress, caught the eye of many of the cemetery workers on the grounds that day. They nodded and tipped their work caps at her as the group walked leisurely along the winding walkways. The young woman was all part of Fuller’s planned diversion. No one would suspect that such a beautiful young woman, dressed in her finest, was doing anything other than wandering the peaceful grounds in the company of family and friends—a typical and accepted custom.

Following a well-thought-out plan, Fuller and his group traipsed along the winding roads, stopping here and there to chat and pretend to examine a gravestone or sculpture. If anyone was watching, they would not have been the least suspicious as the team made its way through the main part of the cemetery and then turned up Lake Road, following along an old, whitewashed picket fence.

Fuller was following the exact route depicted in the oil painting. Finally the group came to Section 18 of the cemetery, the precise location the artist had indicated. In front of them stood the old stable and a crumbling stone building that Fuller identified as the conservatory illustrated in the painting. Both structures were situated as they had been portrayed, right beside the picket fence. Halfway be­tween the two structures was a large weeping willow growing out of a double-tiered trunk, and nearby stood an old oak tree with a stack of flat stones aligned along its trunk. They had found the spot. Upon further investigation of the area, they discovered a secluded roadway that entered into the cemetery. Neither the roadway nor the spot were in public view. Fuller was certain this was the place where the culprits had done their dirty work. A coach or a wagon could have been hidden from public view along the roadway, and Stewart’s bones, if hidden inside a coffin, could have been easily transported into the cemetery and the coffin buried without anyone ever knowing. The spot was overgrown with brush, and several mounds of dirt had been dumped there. It was a perfect site for the crime.

“A body would be safer here than in a Garden City crypt,” Fuller told his colleagues.

Although Fuller proclaimed he was a man who only dealt in facts, he did have an affinity to one superstition regarding the number thirteen—the same number that had aroused fearful superstition in A. T. Stewart.

During the investigation into Cypress Hills Cemetery, Fuller admitted to reporters that the number thirteen had always been lucky for him, and he was sure the number, with its odd connection to the investigation, would prove lucky again.

Fuller was born on the thirteenth of the month. His detective agency was begun on February 13, 1876. The digits in his office building address, 841 Broadway, totaled the number thirteen when added together. The mysterious package containing the note and the painting arrived at his offices on the thirteenth of the month on a day when thirteen of his officers were in the office. There was more, especially as it related to the Cypress Hills investigation. The number on the train car that he and his cohorts had occupied en route was thirteen, and the conductor on that train had the number sewn onto his uniform. Based on the maps of Cypress Hills Cemetery, the section of the graveyard depicted in the mysterious oil painting fell within cemetery lot number 175—once again, individual numbers that added up to thirteen. Was Fuller’s notion of success heightened by these numeric coincidences? Absolutely, he claimed, but it would only be the cold, hard facts—the discovery of Stewart’s remains—that would actually provide a successful conclusion to the case.

SOME CURIOUS FACTS

FOR SUPERSTITIOUS PEOPLE

“In contrast with Detective Fuller’s faith in the virtue of 13 was the superstition of Mr. Stewart as to the ill-fortune attending the same number. He would break up a dinner party rather than make one of a company of 13; the prominence of the number in a business transaction he never construed favorably, and more than one instance is remembered by his friends wherein he chose to be made the subject of ridicule rather than to suppress his convictions in this one matter.”

—New York TimesAugust 22, 1881

As Fuller and his party made their way along the picket fence by the hidden roadway, they were being watched. A cemetery worker had taken notice of the group, and as the man busied himself raking, he kept an eye on Fuller’s contingency. For all intents and purposes, the cemetery worker looked like every other worker they had passed while perusing the Cypress Hills grounds. He wore a wide-brim straw hat that shaded much of his face, a denim frock coat, and work gloves. Yet when the man was brought to Fuller’s attention—Fuller was a stickler for details—Fuller noticed something unusual. The groundskeeper was wearing a pair of expensive shoes, not the kind any worker going about his duties would wear. The other workers they had passed, although dressed in similar attire, all wore “Wellies”—high, green Wellington garden boots, but not this man. The finely polished dress shoes were a dead giveaway.

Fuller approached the man casually enough. Although he tried to engage him in small talk about the weather and the beauty of the grounds, the man was reticent. Fuller even offered the man a cigar, which he refused. The man offered to show Fuller and the others another area of the grounds that they might find interesting, trying his best to lure the group away from the spot. Fuller pretended to fall for the man’s entreaty and urged his companions to follow the man. They did, but only until they were satisfied that the worker with the expensive shoes thought they were gone from the area for good. Finally, the worker, seemingly convinced he had led them off the track, wandered away, leaving Fuller and his group to their own devices.

Fuller was certain that whoever had stolen Stewart’s body had chosen this particular spot at Cypress Hills Cemetery to hide the body because it was so secluded. Who stole the body remained a mystery, but Fuller was sure that whoever had sent him the painting knew the whereabouts of it. Certain that he was onto something, Fuller immediately wired Hilton after he and his party returned from the cemetery. He told Hilton that they had found the exact spot depicted in the mysterious painting and that he was sure that excavation of the area would prove successful. He asked Hilton to join him, but Hilton still refused. Fuller wired Hilton back that he was prepared to begin digging up the area. Hilton, again without completely lending his approval to the operation, advised Fuller to keep Harris, his envoy, informed and to proceed apace as he planned.

Fuller next contacted John Runice, the seventy-year-old controller of the Cypress Hills grounds and asked for permission to excavate a portion of the cemetery. Fuller did not mention that the request had anything to do with the prospect of A. T. Stewart’s body being buried there, for fear of another media circus erupting. Instead, he told Runice that he was investigating a case and that several valuable clues to the undisclosed crime were buried in that section of the cemetery. In the ensuing release of misinformation, the New York Herald reported that Fuller had apprised Runice of all the details surrounding the case, explaining that he was looking “for the body of A. T. Stewart.” Fuller denied having ever told Runice anything of the sort. Regardless of who leaked the information about Fuller’s extraordinary undertaking, word of it spread quickly to the press, the public, and the New York City Police Department. The search was on again for the missing body of A. T. Stewart.

A PERMIT FOR AN EXCAVATION

The Controller Of The Cypress Hills

Cemetery Astonished.

FULLER: We have called to ask a favor. We desire that you will give us your support in a matter of more than ordinary moment. The Cypress Hills Cemetery has been imposed upon. A crime has been committed, and the proof of it, we believe, lies buried beneath a certain part of your cemetery’s surface, a part we are able to locate.RUNICE: You can’t mean it. A Crime committed; Cypress Hills in it. Well, well, this is strange. Now gentlemen I will do anything in the world that I can do. Of course I will. Ask whatever you want, gentlemen.

FULLER: We want a permit to make an excavation.

RUNICE: But can you tell me in what part of the cemetery, in public or private ground?

FULLER: In ground that has not been graded: in ground that probably has not been sold into lots.

RUNICE: In what part of the cemetery?

FULLER: I am willing to treat with you in confidence; the spot to which we refer I can readily point out upon a map of the cemetery. We want to make our excavations in section 18, near the conjunction of West Dolorosa with the Lake Road.

RUNICE: Section 18. Well, now, that is strange. Why, do you know, I myself own that part of the section where the avenues cross? Somebody buried there, eh? Well, that is news. You see, section 18 at that point has not been improved; in fact the men have used it for a place to dump their extra dirt … you’re right, anything buried in that ground could be depended upon to stay buried.

FULLER: Then can we have the permit?

RUNICE: Have the permit? Well, I should say you could. When do you want to begin your operations?

FULLER: To-morrow afternoon at 1 o’clock.

RUNICE: All right gentlemen, I will meet you then and you shall have any number of my men necessary to do the work you desire.

—New York Times
August 21, 1881

The next day, Fuller and his staff, as well as Harris and Runice, began the operation. Runice ordered all his cemetery workers to concentrate their day’s workload on the far end of the cemetery, out of view of the secluded area where the excavation was to begin. Runice brought with him three men he trusted. Using a long, pointed iron rod, Runice poked at the ground. The deep punctures—soundings—were made to determine if the soil below the surface had been recently disturbed or if something might have been recently buried there. Soundings were made throughout the area, but the depth of the soundings was limited because the ground was too rocky. What had been an operation planned in deep secrecy was suddenly laid bare when curiosity seekers—about a dozen people: men, women, several newspaper reporters, and even several New York City police officers—converged on the scene.

Edward Harris, Judge Hilton’s representative at the excavation site, was aghast. Under orders from Hilton, the excavation was supposed to be a secret undertaking and in no way linked to either his approval or the case of Stewart’s missing body. If word got out, as it surely had, Hilton would be made to look the fool, since he had publicly announced that Stewart’s body had been recovered and was safe and sound in a Garden City crypt. Harris demanded that the digging stop. Fuller agreed. Yet, Runice remained adamant about continuing the operation. It was, after all, his cemetery, and Fuller realized that with or without him, Runice could continue the excavation. If Runice alone made the discovery of Stewart’s remains, then all the fame, not to mention any reward, would go to him, regardless of any legwork Fuller had done. In no uncertain terms, Fuller made it clear to the crowd of onlookers who had descended on the scene, and especially to members of the police department, that the excavation was being conducted under his direct auspices and that any discovery made would be his and his alone. In other words, the crowd could stay but would not share in any of the fame, glory, or proceeds connected with the operation.

As the day wore on, more and more people gathered to watch. Fuller’s secret was now out in the open, and there was nothing he could do to stop it. It then spread like wildfire across the city.

The soundings went on for several hours, and finally Runice, on Fuller’s orders, began digging. Workers dug a trench several feet long and about six feet deep near the entrance of the secluded roadway. All they discovered was a pile of buried cobblestones, most likely put there for drainage. The digging continued for much of the day and by twilight, despite its best efforts, the team had turned up nothing. As word spread about the excavation, more and more people began to arrive at the scene until a crowd of about one hundred people had gathered, requiring Fuller’s men to set up a barricade to keep the onlookers at a comfortable distance. Although the day ended without any satisfactory discovery, Fuller remained upbeat, determined to continue the excavation the next day. He had some of his detectives guard the site overnight. By the next day, the city was abuzz again with speculation about the A. T. Stewart case, and even more people came to watch the undertaking at Cypress Hills Cemetery.

THE SEARCH BEGUN

Unexpected Parties Appear On The

Scene, But The Work Goes On

Promptly at 1 o’clock yesterday afternoon Controller Runice was at the cemetery grounds, and he found there Detective Fuller, surrounded by members of his staff, and with them Mr. Edward D. Harris, representing Judge Hilton. … The men who were ordered to obey Mr. Fuller were kept busy for several hours. The digging for the most part was confined to one special locality, no effort being made to cover all of the territory which the clues in hand embrace. … Hundreds of people walking and driving through the cemetery during the afternoon looked on in wonderment upon the strange work in progress, but the innumerable questions propounded received anything but thoroughly satisfactory replies. When Detective Fuller left the cemetery last night he placed Section No. 18 under guard. … Superintendent Fuller declared that he was not discouraged, and proposed to prosecute his investigations much more fully than he had yet attempted. The digging will be resumed at an early hour to-morrow morning.

—New York Times
August 21, 1881

Not everyone was enamored of Fuller’s work. The Brooklyn Eagle mocked the private detective.

Detective Fuller, who is in energetic search of the remains of A.T. Stewart at Cypress Hills Cemetery, yesterday succeeded in digging a trench nearly one hundred feet long by four feet deep and three feet wide. This was a noble day’s work, but the industrious detective has mistaken his true field of labor. Nothing could prevent a man of his phenomenal powers with the spade and pickax from making a fortune in the mining regions.

Still, the news of Fuller’s excavation at Cypress Hills had rejuvenated the public’s interest in the Stewart grave robbery. The New York Times, the Herald, and almost every other New York City newspaper ran front-page stories. As fast as the news spread, people from Brooklyn, New York, and other points of interest flocked to the cemetery to watch. Whole families turned out, bringing picnic baskets with them. Wandering around the cemetery in wide-eyed astonishment, many of them engaged in conjecture over the exact location of Stewart’s body. Some set up camps on the outskirts of the Section 18 excavation, laying down blankets, popping open bottles of beer, and uncorking wine, settling in comfortably to watch and often provide running commentary on the proceedings. Some wandered the grounds, women sporting parasols, men in derbies, smoking cigars, children toddling along behind them carrying balloons. The whole enterprise took on a macabre gaiety that did little to assist the excavation or endear itself to the single-mindedness of Fuller.

A. T. STEWART’S REMAINS

THE NEWLY AROUSED INTEREST

IN CYPRESS HILLS CEMETERY

A Large Number Of People Visit The

Place Yesterday—The Search To Be

Resumed To-Day—

The passenger railway lines from New-York and Brooklyn to the Cypress Hills Cemetery received an unusually large patronage yesterday. Hundreds of people went in quest of the alleged site of the burial place of the body of A.T. Stewart and the trench dug in section 18 of the cemetery was closely scanned by the crowds. The story of the recent moves made by the Fuller Detective Bureau, as told yesterday in THE TIMES was on every lip, and argumentative visitors discussed the case in every aspect, few agreeing upon any essential point. There were those present who energetically scoffed at the idea of any importance attaching to the newly declared clues, many maintaining that the dead millionaire’s remains were safely sealed in the crypt at Garden City. Others as earnestly contended that Detective Fuller’s clues were worthy of the most thorough investigation.

—New York Times
August 22, 1881

Fuller had brought with him a tintype (a metal photograph) of the mysterious painting that had been sent to him. It was plainly discernable in the tintype copy that Section 18, where the excavation was being undertaken, was indeed the place depicted in the painting. The low picket fence near the deserted road, the ramshackle buildings, the double trunk willow tree were all clearly visible. The words written on the painting were still legible in the copy Fuller brought with him—“Cypress Hills. Stewart is buried here.” There could be no doubt about it, Fuller had located the exact spot even though they were unable to turn up anything, not even the slightest clue to the whereabouts of Stewart’s remains.

Now that word was out about Fuller’s endeavor, he was repeatedly asked about Judge Hilton’s involvement. Fuller tried to dispel such notions.

“I am conducting this investigation, though, on my own account purely. Judge Hilton does not bear a single penny of the expenses. Every move of importance in this case has been my own,” Fuller told reporters.

The New York City Police Department stationed three men at the excavation site in case Fuller did find Stewart’s remains. Having been soundly ridiculed for its ineptness in the case, the police weren’t about to be shut out of an opportunity, no matter how far-fetched, to regain some modicum of respectability. No one in the police department was optimistic about the potential outcome, but still, their presence was deemed necessary should Fuller’s work be successful.

Fuller was brimming with confidence. He would excavate every foot of ground in Section 18 if that’s what it took. Fuller’s detectives and Cypress Hills Cemetery workers were enthusiastically engaged in the digging. Off and on there could be heard the excited shouts of these men claiming to have struck something of importance, but further digging only turned up more rock and dirt. The original trench was dug deeper and wider, extending in all directions. The mysterious man that Fuller had run into on his first excursion to the cemetery—the man wearing expertly polished shoes along with cemetery worker’s garb—was ultimately identified. James Dagner lived in a house not far from the deserted road leading out of the cemetery. He turned out to be just a well-soled cemetery employee and was solicited to help with the digging. Fuller remained dubious of him and went so far as to question Runice about the possibility that Dagner might have been involved in the case. Runice dispelled such theories, explaining that Dagner had only tried to lead Fuller’s group away from Section 18 because it was private property, belonging to Runice, and supposedly not accessible to the general public. Still, Fuller kept a watchful eye on Dagner, just in case.

After two days of digging, on August 20 and 21, not a single clue or anything of any conse­quence was found. By the end of the second day, Section 18, once bustling with spectators and a cadre of enthusiastic and relentless diggers, was reduced to a paltry three workers and only a dozen or so onlookers. Every shovelful of dirt brought Fuller’s excavation closer to an end. Fuller himself abandoned the site on the 23rd. The next day, he officially abandoned the search for A. T. Stewart’s body, faced the newspaper reporters, and admitted he had been fooled. The painting had been, after all, a hoax. Fuller made a public apology.

“I do not hesitate to say that I believe I have been fooled,” Fuller said.

Still, the question remained: “Why try to fool this particular detective?”

Fuller concluded that the hoax had been designed by culprits intent on embarrassing Hilton and Mrs. Stewart and creating some sensational journalism at his expense.

THE CYPRESS HILLS SEARCH ABANDONED

Detective J. M. Fuller announced yesterday afternoon, at an early hour, that he was satisfied that no good results would follow a further prosecution of his excavation work in the Cypress Hills Cemetery, and the digging was thereupon abandoned, the workmen receiving orders to refill the long, deep trenches which had been made.

—New York Times
August 24, 1881