by Carrie Hagen
The police asked a worker to hitch the horse to a wagon so Walter could see it move as he may have on the day he was kidnapped. Once Walter sat behind the horse, somebody pulled the reins. As soon as it heard “Get up!,” the horse turned its head to one side and showed its teeth.
“Look, Papa, look!” said Walter. “See, the horse is laughing at us.”
Walling ordered his men to locate the young man who had first taken the horse to Van Fleet. He told the stable keeper, the Newark Police, and the local press not to intimidate the young man if he came forward. Regardless of the information the boy provided, Walling said, he would grant him immunity from any wrongdoing and “heavily” reward his cooperation.
Walling’s discovery of Van Fleet’s stables did not reverse the damage caused by his earlier self-aggrandizing behavior. When the superintendent took credit for tracing Mosher and Douglas, he had indirectly encouraged the press to hold him solely responsible for finding Charley. Like the millionaire Arthur Purcell, whose ransom offer the kidnappers rejected, Walling had become a failed hero when Charley didn’t quickly appear.
Not only had the superintendent been unable to claim any of Philadelphia’s reward money, but he also faced losing professional pay in February, when a known burglar accused Walling of arresting and detaining him without evidence for a crime he didn’t commit. He was guilty, the prisoner said, only by association—the police had caught two of his acquaintances at the scene of the crime. In addition, two women registered a complaint against Superintendent Walling for using “violent language” and denying them visitation rights when they went to see the prisoners.
Walling disputed both charges, claiming he had the right to detain a thief while his officers looked for evidence and he searched for the stolen property. As for the women, Walling said, he had no way of knowing if the accused would tell them where to relocate the stolen goods, and at no time did he use inappropriate language. The press expected the Board of Commissioners to agree with Walling’s justification. If it did not, then he faced a fine equal to ten days’ pay or a dismissal.
The superintendent did have at least one thing working in his favor: his relationship with William Westervelt. The closest man to the kidnappers still reported solely to him. Between August 1874 and February 1875, the two men had met more than fifty times. To Walling’s knowledge, Westervelt didn’t communicate with anyone else in authority—even Pinkerton; the private detectives had tried to build a confidence with the informant, but Westervelt said he rejected their offer. So if the board did the unthinkable and took up the cause of a former convict, Walling could always use Westervelt’s confidence as leverage.
Reporters had learned that Walling was in touch with a person close to William Mosher. They didn’t know William Westervelt’s name, but they knew that he had information and referred to him as one who created “renowned excitement in police circles.” Besides Captain Heins, authorities in Philadelphia didn’t know much more than the press.
The advisers had lost footing in the Ross case months before. After Christian fell ill, the Lewis brothers reclaimed the family’s leadership role in the investigation. Philadelphia’s city leaders hadn’t approved of this shift in power, but the involvement of New York’s force had already limited their participation, making it easier for the family to work directly with Captain Heins. Perhaps the most frustrated adviser was William V. McKean, the manager and editor of the Public Ledger. His paper had been the first in the world to print news of Charley’s disappearance, and he wasn’t about to become a member of the crowd awaiting bulletins outside of newspaper offices. McKean went to New York to offer Walling his consulting services, and to speak directly with his source. Walling acquiesced.
Although the superintendent continued to micromanage the investigation, he had gradually begun to place a greater distance between himself and Westervelt. Prior to the kidnappers’ deaths, he had suspected Westervelt enough to have him followed, and now that the informant couldn’t be used to track Mosher and Douglas, he was left wondering whether he had been manipulated into revealing police intelligence. Because Westervelt still believed he could earn his position back on the force, the superintendent didn’t view him as a flight risk, but he did need to increase the pressure if his informant had anything else to reveal. Plus, Walling didn’t have too many friends among newspaper writers, and appeasing a major editor in Philadelphia could only help his reputation.
McKean took Westervelt to the Fifth Avenue Hotel and ordered dinner for the two of them in a private room. While they ate, McKean asked questions he had prepared. The editor was confident that in this interview, Westervelt would reveal more to him than he had shared with New York’s superintendent. To his frustration, Westervelt gave him the same answers he had given everybody else. At some point during the private dinner, Walling became so uncomfortable with the length of McKean’s interrogation that he knocked on the door. McKean did not respond.
Eventually, McKean returned to Philadelphia—disappointed. Over the next two months, however, he would frequently visit Walling’s office.
Meanwhile, Westervelt became more frustrated with Walling. He hadn’t liked McKean, and he didn’t like the way Walling became abrasive toward him when McKean was in the room. During one hour-long meeting of the three men, McKean had called Westervelt a “thief” and accused him of wearing stolen clothes. Instead of defending his informant, Walling let McKean say what he wanted.
Westervelt told Walling to stop bullying him. He reminded Walling that his wife, Mary, was pawning their belongings to make rent at a tenement house. He asked when he was going to get his promised job on the force back. But instead of reinstating him, Walling found Westervelt a job as a driver for the Adams Express Company. He also slipped him some money occasionally.
On February 12, soon after he began work with the Adams Express, Westervelt received a summons from Walling. He returned, once again, to police headquarters on Mulberry Street.
“You need to go to Philadelphia and meet with the city authorities,” Walling said.
“No.”
“You have to.”
“Do you think this is necessary?” Westervelt asked.
“It must be, or they wouldn’t send for you.” Walling advised him to leave early in the morning.
Westervelt said he didn’t have any wages yet to use for the trip.
“That shouldn’t stop you,” said Walling. He handed him ten dollars.
When Westervelt left New York the next morning on a 7:00 A.M. train, he planned to return at 3:00 P.M.
Captain Heins met Westervelt in Philadelphia. The two men went to police headquarters at the State House on Fifth and Chestnut Streets. There, they met Christian Ross, Joseph Lewis, Detective Wood, and two other men who took notes of the conversation. For the rest of the day, the men interrogated Westervelt about his involvement with the kidnappers. They asked him to review his interactions with the Mosher family and Joseph Douglas in the summer and fall of 1874.
“Did you ever hear of any conspiracy of this kind, of any abduction, when you were [in Philadelphia]?”
“No.”
“Did [Mosher] say that Gil had given him away?” they asked.
“I guess.”
“Did either or both [Mosher and Douglas] come [to your house] a few days before Mrs. Mosher came there?”
“Yes.”
“Did you say to Walling several times where he could get these men?”
“I did not say several times.”
“You told me this afternoon that you told Walling you could take both of them, and that Walling objected,” Detective Wood said.
“If I said that I made a mistake. I meant only Douglas.”
Heins disagreed. “Walling said he would not take Douglas alone. Mosher was the brains of the concern. You repeated the word ‘them’ many times.”
“If I said that I made a mistake. I meant only Douglas.”
“Can’t you make a shrewd guess where the child is?
”
Westervelt said he thought perhaps Charley was given to somebody Mosher and Douglas had encountered after the kidnapping.
When pressed, he responded, “You are trying to insult me. I know no more about what was done with that child than a child unborn.”
The more Westervelt voiced his innocence, the more the men rephrased the same questions. Frequently after listening to Westervelt’s answers, Heins asked a gentleman taking notes, “What have you got now?” Westervelt grew more and more irritated. As he listened to his testimony repeated back, he attempted to point out reporting errors. Despite his requests at the end of the day, Westervelt never heard the full transcript of his interview. He spent that night at the State House, and questioning resumed the next morning.
Again, Heins asked why Westervelt would not admit to promising Walling an arrest of both kidnappers. “Now yesterday afternoon you said to me that you told Superintendent Walling over and over again where these men could be got.”
“I think you misunderstood me then.”
“Why is it you told me yesterday that you had told him when he could get the men?”
“I think you misunderstood me still.”
“You said to me that you wanted to make the reward of twenty thousand dollars, that you were working for the reward, and yet you know very well that you could not have made the reward by getting Douglas alone, as it could only be obtained by getting both the men and the child, and you know that as well as you are sitting in that chair.”
Westervelt was trapped.
“Well,” he answered, “I did not want to give Mosher away myself. If he could be taken in some way accidentally, I had no objection, but I did not want my sister to say to me if her children were brought to trouble that I done it by putting her husband in prison.”
Before lunch, Heins informed Westervelt that he was under arrest. Based upon his answers, a grand jury had indicted him for involvement in the kidnapping. Heins took him to a station near Tenth Street.
Five days later, when Heins, Lewis, and another man visited, Westervelt accused them of inhumane treatment. Not only did the February winds blow through the cell’s broken windows, Westervelt said, but he also had no bed or blankets, and he had to sleep with his head on a tin cup. Chief Jones transferred him to a better cell before sending the prisoner to Moyamensing, Philadelphia’s county jail.
TESTIMONY OF GEORGE W. WALLING, COURT OF QUARTER SESSIONS
Philadelphia, September 3, 1875
“I have seen Mrs. Westervelt since her husband came to this city. I gave her a letter to some parties to assist her. I have never been to see her nor do I know where she lives. I never saw her until she came to see me and told me that she and her children were in a very bad condition.”
“Did you ever tell her that you considered this prosecution an outrage and that her husband was an innocent man?”
“Objection.”
The witness said he couldn’t remember saying that.
“Had you any conversation with her as to the prosecution of her husband, and if so, what and whom?”
“Objection. Leading the witness.”
“Have you had any conversation with Mrs. Westervelt in regard to this prosecution, and if so, when?”
“Objection. Irrelevant.”
“Overruled.”
“I had a conversation with her relative to her husband and his being under arrest here. She asked me about it. I don’t remember the date. She came to headquarters and it was then that I spoke of.”
we do right to pity Charley Ross
ONCE WESTERVELT WAS BEHIND BARS, THE DISTRICT ATTORNEY wanted to wait for more police intelligence before he began preparing his prosecution. Although the new state law had increased kidnapping penalties, the state senate had complicated the Westervelt case by adding a grandfather clause to the bill. This amendment gave Charley’s kidnappers one month to present him in exchange for a lighter sentence.
The grandfather clause was necessary because less than two months before it was approved, the Lewis brothers had offered immunity to any kidnapper who returned Charley to one of seven business locations. Immediate enforcement of the new law (which sentenced perpetrators to a maximum of twenty-five years and accomplices to a maximum of fifteen) would have countered the family’s claims, sending a contradictory message to the criminal community. Therefore, the senate said, acts of kidnapping would result in the punishments stated by the new bill “[…] provided, that this shall not apply to the detaining or concealing of any child taken or carried away before the passage of this act, where the person or persons so harboring or concealing shall, within thirty days after the passage of this act, surrender up such child to the custody of the nearest magistrate or justice of the peace, or to the sheriff of any county within this Commonwealth.”
Upon Westervelt’s arrest, the police had only enough evidence to charge him as an accomplice, and because Charley was kidnapped before the new act was passed, Westervelt could only be sentenced under the old law, which had no penalty for accomplices. According to it, convicted kidnappers would serve a maximum of seven years in solitary confinement and a $2,000 fine; and if the police could not find evidence proving that Westervelt directly harbored Charley, then he would serve even less time as an accomplice. By law, police could detain a suspected felon for six months after an indictment before they had to either bring him to trial or release him. So if they wanted to bring the fullest charges allowed by the new bill against Westervelt, then they needed to gather more evidence quickly. Another hitch was the grandfather clause: if Charley was returned on or before March 25, charges against Westervelt would have to be dropped.
The police kept Westervelt’s name from the press after his arrest. No word of his incarceration reached the public for about a month, even though Westervelt told anybody who would listen that Walling had “kidnapped” him by sending him to Philadelphia on false premises. Such publicity would have benefitted the police, but in order to more fully make their case, they needed to actually find Charley and/or a kidnapper who would shoulder as much blame as Mosher and Douglas.
In the meantime, officials tried to protect Christian from any more false leads. When officers in Camden, New Jersey, arrested an Italian organ maker who was traveling with a young boy Charley’s age, two Philadelphia detectives went to identify the child. Because of Italy’s recent history of kidnappings (the Catholic church took children off the street to convert them), the American police continued to target Italian immigrants. The officers saw the Camden boy and immediately sent word to Christian—the child really did look like Charley. By 6:00 P.M., when Christian reported to the mayor’s office, the town had rushed to the police station after hearing rumors that Charley Ross waited inside for his father. Hundreds of people saw the child through the station windows and the doorway.
Christian walked past the masses.
He entered the building, looked at the child, and began to cry.
“It’s not him,” he said.
As Christian walked out of the building and back down the street, several people in the crowd wiped their eyes.
The arrested man could not properly identify the child. Even so, the police released the boy back into his custody.
Citizens of Savannah, Georgia, thought the kidnappers had resurfaced when two men approached another set of boys aged six and four. The younger of the two men, about five feet eight inches tall, had black hair. Behind glasses, his eyes held a deranged look. His partner had gray hair, a tall, skinny frame, and a small head and neck. Eyewitnesses heard the younger man speak very quickly in a German accent to the two boys, who apparently followed the men to a train station. There, more witnesses saw the group of four, later telling police that they assumed the party was headed to Europe. Detectives never found the kidnappers or the boys.
“We do right to pity Charley Ross,” the New York Tribune said, “taken from his comfortable home and loving father, but these other souls who have lost their way, belong
by right to an honest, intelligent, virtuous life, and their father is God. Have we no outcry, no money, no pity for them?” The Tribune asked why the authorities of Philadelphia and New York were more committed to Charley’s plight than those of other kidnapping victims or unfortunate children. The editorial pled the case of New York’s street children, 25 percent of the city’s adolescent population, and of the eleven thousand street children in Philadelphia, more than three thousand were “from four to eight years old … found in different manufactories kept at work, from ten to fourteen hours a day.” As Philadelphia sent new Charley circulars to police stations and railway depots throughout America, the unsolved cases of other little ones disappeared after brief mention in the press.
Christian told the press he believed that more than half a million people were involved in the search for Charley. He said detectives, searching for his son from coast-to-coast, had spent more than $25,000 and had retained an entire group of clerks whose sole job was to pursue the leads, false information, and hoaxes spread by Americans and Europeans. Christian estimated that his team had mailed more than 700,000 circulars to police stations and train depots throughout the country. According to his count, police had interrogated more than two hundred gypsy bands for information and investigated the stories of more than six hundred children who resembled his son. By their own admission, police agreed that many of these six hundred children, misplaced themselves, were returned to the custody of adults who hadn’t provided enough information to keep the children from being questioned in the first place. This number itself was only a fraction of boys and girls across America who remained on the streets or in the hands of thieves, murderers, and traffickers.
But after all of the money spent, all of the manpower exhausted, all of the circulars mailed, and all of the innocent men and women interrogated because of skin color or lifestyle choice, one lead remained overlooked. Had the advisory committee involved detectives in their initial, secretive conversations sooner, had the police and private detectives cooperated with one another, had Superintendent Walling ordered his men to arrest Joseph Douglas before tracing Bill Mosher, and had he demanded the constant surveillance of Westervelt and his family once the informant proved unreliable, authorities might have noticed important contradictions in the Mosher family’s testimonies.