by Carrie Hagen
Pennsylvania’s Republicans needed this good publicity. After the November elections, when Republican incumbents had lost more seats than they had in eleven years, the two thousand members of Philadelphia’s Union League met to discuss February’s local elections, evaluate open positions, nominate candidates, and plan yet another implementation of Simon Cameron’s weakening campaign strategy. Ulysses S. Grant’s second term would expire in 1877. If his party did not reestablish itself as a political power strong enough to control the Northern states, the Democrats could very well return the whipping Grant gave them in 1872. The president had received his party’s nomination in Philadelphia that year, an occasion that acquainted him with the city’s newly crowned mayor.
Upon his reelection, Stokley’s approval ratings appeared to be at an all-time high. Voters, however, had begrudgingly reelected him. They didn’t like their higher debts and taxes, and they didn’t like the way the city cut costs as it awaited the government’s Centennial money. One disgruntled laborer mailed a threat to the mayor’s office, warning him of hiring non-union labor.
Mr. Stokley—SIR: The workingmen of this city that are almost starving to Death have formed an association to either have work or to have satisfaction out of such men as you that is robbing the city of every cent that it is worth. You have got one chance for your life that chance is this use your influence in Council and try and do something to alleviate our sufferings. Beware, for we are in earnest.
BY ORDER OF THE SECRET SIX
P.S. On our Centennial buildings instead of Putting citizens to work they pile in the italians because they can make them work for almost nothing.
Frustrated with political rhetoric, people wondered why their president and their civic leaders maintained ambivalent attitudes toward those displaced by the Civil War and victimized by the depression. The world knew it was coming to visit a nation still very much divided, and if Philadelphia were to embarrass America at the Centennial celebration, the Democrats could gain even more momentum—and they would have a scapegoat, a presidential acquaintance, to flaunt as the one who weakened under the international spotlight.
So as Mayor Stokley declared Philadelphia’s streets safer than ever in 1875, he wasn’t exactly ignoring social tensions and the unresolved Charley Ross kidnapping. On the contrary, he was “handling” them. Like any good politician, Stokley had learned how to live with uncomfortable stories: by issuing positive public statements and waiting. Only time could turn current events into memories, figments that could never be changed but always reconstructed.
Of course, if the mayor’s police force could somehow initiate Charley’s return, or at least uncover new evidence, Stokley would look more like the hero that the papers described.
A man from Kingston, New York, gave the mayor such hope soon after his second inauguration.
I write to you this in regard to Charley Ross. I have not been interested, nor have I the time to bother about it. I am sure I know where he is. Now, Mr. Stokley, if you want to recover the lost boy, as I think you do, you will send somebody who knows him. You will find me in a store where I am employed, and will go with the person you send.
Stokley contacted Captain Heins and telegraphed Kingston. “Letter received. Please give grounds for your belief. Answer immediately.”
“A woman is here, going to take him away,” the response read. “What must I do?”
“See a justice of the peace and your district attorney, and be guided by their advice,” Stokley answered. He did not forward Pinkerton’s questions. “Telegraph the result.”
“Send detectives at once,” the Kingston office replied.
Captain Heins sent a telegram to Walling. “A man at Kingston, Ulster County, New York, professes to have important information as to the whereabouts of the boy. He has been in correspondence with our Mayor. Send an officer in Kingston in the early train tomorrow. Let your man say Mayor Stokley sent him.”
Walling acted quickly.
Captain H. C. Heins, Philadelphia:—Your telegram received. Sent an officer (Selick) forthwith to Kingston to investigate. The child supposed to be Charley was a boy about 7 years of age, named Franklin P. Downer. It had been stolen from its father at New Hamburg by the mother, October 30, 1873.
George W. Walling, Superintendent
By the end of January, Stokley did have breaking news to announce. The state senate would soon approve a bill that identified kidnapping as a felony, not just a misdemeanor. Under the old law of March 1860, convicted kidnappers had faced a maximum fine of $2,000 and a maximum prison sentence of seven years at solitary confinement. The new law, which would be ratified on February 25, 1875, fined kidnappers a maximum of $10,000 and sentenced them to a maximum of twenty-five years at solitary confinement. It also provided a maximum fine of $5,000 and a maximum sentence of fifteen years for convicted accomplices.
Mayor Stokley used the impending bill to launch another public search effort. He reissued circulars listing the details of the kidnapping and the descriptions of Charley, the kidnappers, their horses, buggy, and boat. The new announcement also published the supposed route of the kidnappers, marking the first time that the mayor’s office released details from the ransom letters:
After leaving Palmer and Richmond Streets, Philadelphia, about six o’clock PM, July 1, the abductors drove toward the city of Trenton, New Jersey, through which they said they passed on the night of July 2d, and on Bridge Street dropped the boy’s hat—a broad-trimmed unbleached Panama, with black ribbon and without binding.
The statement continued, “After this they may have driven toward some one of the streams of water emptying into Raritan or Newark bay, or possibly as far as Newark, but this is very uncertain. The abductors returned to Philadelphia July 3d, where they mailed letters during the month.”
Stokley challenged every citizen to empathize with Christian and Sarah Ross and again gather their neighbors together for a hunt. As an incentive, his office released another $5,000 reward for new information. It advised informants to contact either Stokley at Independence Hall or Superintendent Walling at New York’s police headquarters on Mulberry Street.
this is very uncertain
WHEN CHRISTIAN RETURNED HOME FROM HIS MOTHER’S HOUSE in January, he received a second ransom note from the Christmas Day blackmailer, a Missouri man identified as James Cannon. Christian and his brothers-in-law contacted the St. Louis Police with what they knew about Cannon from his letters: the man claimed he was a former associate of the kidnappers, his handwriting resembled Bill Mosher’s, and he said to contact him through a friend named “Wylie.” Although the police had not yet released the ransom letters, newspapers had learned enough to describe them. Were Cannon not connected with Mosher, he could have read enough to imitate his penmanship.
After the kidnappers’ deaths, America showed rejuvenated interest in the case by sending another surge of mail to the Ross home. Once again, writers alluded to Charley’s whereabouts, offering to share secret information for the right price. The police and the family dismissed most claims as bogus. Cannon’s, they accepted. His handwriting appeared suspect and his story also spoke to the authorities’ latest hunch: whoever had Charley was an acquaintance of the kidnappers and kept the boy in a remote area.
Daniel O’Connor, chief of detectives in St. Louis, attempted to locate James Cannon. Failing to find a lead on that name, he and his associates traced “Wylie” to a riverboat. Officers arrested men on board and searched the premises. Inside of a desk, detectives found a stack of letters addressed to a Wylie. O’Connor shuffled through the papers and came across a note written in code.
Lgn Sxg ra abme jb yrun kmoo keber w jmroonrvb yw jm an lgxcpqo Knab bx vxdn gry r anum qze bquan mr & nib rx wa ax lgyb gxdljw owm gw l jamb Knix vua whion aajg bn & noxdr grv ab rw losn sv jwg jih mnb bx ca en ny g Kn Scppwe rn Oxqxe ethn qzdn bx lztu egy & pn xv qw Keb Xw gx&n uron dxwb ojru ca j&vm mxwh uxan lqnan mr & jl brxwa lgw qxrnnj dn bqn h xth x bxbqn qubun bgun bgn lrbqb qj
rvm & xym lnah Xv tqc dxvax rb wx &bg bruw qxc lxyn bx bqn G &enw bxm lvtn bqn G&& nw exjm jwm oxuaxe rb exx jKxcb hennen rwna be&w wurbqub & rpbb x& uncb brun xxc lxyn bx bqu on&& g G c & w bx bqu nacb bgn on & & g jwm cuny xw cy bqu ab & nyb bbnw qxe yg aa vex bsj ma bytn bqn bqr &m Xun jam oxunxe rb Xun Vxvn bnur gxc Qron j & crmnm lj krw ljin bon y j bg Kg bqn ij kum rb y ny ma r w b x bqn a g y v jwn eruw bjin gxc bx hen ixcon eqn & n bqu X xg va Keb v w wx ijan j & n gxc bx x cwyna a a venbquvpqj y n j v a la ca bq n w qxc e new mx bqu Knaqb uxe Gwerbq bqu k x g.
K. M X C P V J A
O’Connor knew that in Cannon’s letters to Christian, he had said the clue to Charley’s location was hidden in such a code. The detective handed the letter to a handwriting expert, who found a way to interpret the cipher: it listed a set of directions leading potential searchers on a goose chase.
The boy is still at Pine Bluff, but in a different place. We thought best to move him. I send you these directions so that you can find him in case it becomes necessary to remove him, or in case of any accident to us. We may be jugged. If so, you will have to take charge of him; but on your life don’t fail us, and don’t lose these directions. When you leave the boat go to the hotel; take the right-hand road west of the hotel; follow it north till you come to the Warren road; take the Warren road and follow it for about twelve miles; turn neither right or left till you come to the ferry; turn to the left at the ferry, and keep on the straight road till you pass two roads, take the third one and follow it one mile till you come to a ruined cabin; take the path by the cabin, it leads into the swamp, and will take you to the house where the boy is. But in no case are you to go unless something happens to us; then you will do the best you can with the boy.
O’Connor’s final report summarized the St. Louis mystery. “By comparing the writing in the letters A and B and in the cipher letter with the ordinary chirography of the man Wylie,” he wrote, “little doubt can exist that Cannon and Wylie are one and the same person; that Wylie is the inventor and engineer of the whole thing, which is nothing less than an outrageous attempt to perpetrate a swindle upon Mr. Ross.”
Detectives began wondering aloud whether Charley was even alive. More than a month had passed since Mosher and Douglas’s deaths, and nobody had stepped forward to claim any of the various rewards—including the one offering both $5,000 and immunity to whoever returned Charley to his uncles, the Lewis brothers.
If Charley were still alive, the detectives asked, why wouldn’t he have been returned? What more could captors—particularly ones taken aback by the kidnappers’ deaths—want besides money and liberty?
Their questions could have been red herrings, attempts to discourage their competition from pursuing the mayor’s reward and tracking the boy. Nevertheless, once detectives verbalized what many had feared, the public allowed themselves to admit a horrible truth: their hunt could very well lead to a dead child.
Searchers slowed down. Journalists focused less on stories of lost little boys. Charley’s uncles followed fewer leads to far-off places.
The Inquirer interpreted a quieter public as the city’s collective, cynical response to the Ross family. It was wrong. Many felt just as much compassion as they had over the past several months, only they had internalized it more. Americans were still recovering from the post-traumatic stress brought on by the Civil War. When confronted with the prospect of another tragic reality, they protected themselves by turning their optimism into familiar grief. Some buried their fears under distractions. Some consciously fell silent, choosing not to further false hope. Some refused to admit failure and continued to look, accuse, and demand information. Others turned to spiritual comfort.
“Up to this hour all earthly attempts to solve the mystery have proved abortive, notwithstanding the large rewards offered,” wrote one Philadelphia man. “Permit me to suggest another mode to recover Charley Ross. Our people are eminently a Christian people. Let them call their several denominations together and unitedly set apart a day or a week for prayer to Almighty God for the restoration of this dear boy to his parents.”
Such an effort wasn’t publicized, but perhaps it worked. A New Jersey man came forward with the most important physical clue thus far.
Back in July, he said, his little girl had found Charley’s hat. She had been playing with her friends on the side of a road in Trenton when she spotted it on the ground. The girl showed it to her father when she went home, but he said he didn’t make the connection between it and the description of Charley Ross’s clothes until he saw Mayor Stokley’s latest reward.
Sarah Ross identified the hat, and the children’s nurses confirmed that it was the one Charley had been wearing when the kidnappers took him. The Trenton find was the closest that Charley’s family had been to their four-year-old since he had disappeared several months before. Amid hundreds of false leads, the hat refreshed their hope. It also confirmed the theory that the kidnappers had driven through Trenton with Charley in the wagon.
Unless they had planted the hat to make it look that way.
INTERVIEW WITH MARTHA MOSHER, NEW YORK HERALD
September 2, 1875
“When your husband lay in his boat at Newark Bay, evading the police, whom he knew to be after him, where were you? Were you with him?”
“I decline to answer.”
“Did you ever see Charley Ross?”
“I never did.”
“Did your brother Westervelt, now testifying in Philadelphia, ever see Charley Ross?”
“No, he did not. He knows nothing at all about the case. He was just the same as kidnapped from New York to go [to Philadelphia]. He can tell nothing.”
“Have you not read his testimony, given in the court today, published in the evening papers?”
“It is a lie—a base lie. He knows nothing about the case. I don’t know what he testified today. He never saw the child. He can’t tell where he is. I don’t care what the evening papers say.”
“Well, we will pass over the testimony. Are you willing to go to Philadelphia and testify to the case?”
“No, sir; there is no power on earth can make me go to Philadelphia. They tried to get me to go to my brother, telling me I could come back the next day, but I saw through their game. I have consulted with the best lawyers in New York, and I know my rights. I know that I cannot be forced to go to Philadelphia, and I won’t go and they cannot make me go. I might go on my own option, but I cannot be driven there.”
what have you got now?
THROUGHOUT JANUARY AND FEBRUARY, SUPERINTENDENT Walling reviewed what few reliable facts existed of the kidnapping act on July 1, 1874. The police had descriptions of Charley, the kidnappers, and the horse and buggy. Charley was missing and the kidnappers were dead, but for all Walling knew, the horse and buggy could be in plain sight. In their excitement over the chase and demise of Mosher and Douglas, the police hadn’t dedicated much time to finding the getaway transportation. If he could find a caretaker for the horse, Walling thought he could learn more about the kidnappers’ location in the hours following their crime.
Walling published more flyers detailing the case and instructed his men to spread them throughout New York and New Jersey. The superintendent personally asked ten newspapers in the region to carry his newest reorganization of the facts.
Within days of the reprinting, a stable keeper in Newark named Van Fleet contacted Walling’s office.
Van Fleet said that in October 1874, a well-dressed young man about eighteen years old had led a scrawny-looking horse to his stables. Burs stuck to the animal’s mane, its back looked sore, and its hair had turned red, a sign of poor health and bad grooming. Assuming the horse was a castoff that the boy had found roaming in the woods, Van Fleet agreed to take care of it through the weekend. The young man did return, but later than he had promised. He was accompanied by a man resembling the description of Bill Mosher. The older stranger told a black stable hand that if he could “take good care of the animal” for a while longer, he
would repay him generously. He also instructed the hostler to clean reddish hairs off of the horse’s black tail by washing it in salt water. One week later, a different, angrier man came to take the horse. When Van Fleet asked him for the promised money, the man swore and walked away.
New York Police Detective Titus went to New Jersey to examine the horse and interview Van Fleet. He reported back to Walling. Once he determined the story was accurate, Walling telegraphed Heins in Philadelphia and asked him to send his “best resource” to identify the horse. Heins contacted Christian, telling him to take Walter immediately to Newark. Unlike the trip he had gone on to identify the kidnappers’ bodies a month before, Walter understood this particular mission.
“I shall know the horse, sure,” the boy said to the press. “He has a white star upon his forehead, a white hind leg, a sore back, and there is a wind gall or wen on one of his hind legs. But I shall know him best because when the horse started he turned around and laughed.” Heins and Christian both remembered Walter’s giving them this last detail six months before. Because it had seemed too imaginative, they had kept it from published descriptions.
As soon as Christian escorted Walter into Van Fleet’s stables, a stable hand led the horse out for Walter’s inspection. The six-year-old recognized and pointed to a white patch on the horse’s forehead and one on its left hind leg. He said the horse had more hair on one side than he remembered. Van Fleet told Christian that when he first saw the horse, it had a thin patch of hair on one side, but that it had grown in the past few months.