Attridge, now content that all of his passengers were provided for, made his slow way back across an icy ocean.
• • •
John Gaynor was one of the Jeanie’s passengers enticed by the railroad’s offer to stay in St. Andrews. He had married late in life and found himself widowed after the birth of his second son. Now forty-seven and with two young children, he was more committed than ever to providing them with a stable life. Everything the railroad offered seemed directed at just that: regular work that, though dangerous and taxing, would nevertheless keep food on the table and provide a house in which to live and a chance for the boys to become part of a community.
But life in the St. Andrews railroad shanty soon proved anything but stable. The house he was given was as hastily constructed as any other in the railroad districts across North America. The cold Canadian wind whipped through the clapboards. Heat, Gaynor soon learned, was not included in his room and board; neither was bedding nor food and clothing for the kids. Work too was in short supply.
The brutal winter that year made progress on the railroad difficult. Further complicating matters was a lawsuit over where the tracks would run. With a surfeit of employees, the railroad company had no qualms about establishing restrictions for those who wanted to earn a paycheck. Immigrants who did not speak English were too much bother. Those who were aging or sick were ineffective. A single father was a liability: What did Gaynor intend to do if one of his sons needed him? Drop everything and race home? Each time he reported for work, Gaynor found that he wasn’t needed that day. Neither, it seemed, was anyone else who had sailed with him aboard the Jeanie Johnston.
Christmas came and went. Gaynor began skipping meals so that his sons could eat. He grew gaunt and weak. The lack of heat continued to take its toll on his children. The winter refused to relent. By February the situation had become life-threatening.
As a blizzard squalled through the region, the Gaynors, along with the other Jeanie passengers, convened for an emergency meeting. They would die if they remained in the railroad camp. The only person they knew who could help was Thomas Jones, the customs official who had helped them to secure the jobs in the first place. St. Andrews was twenty miles away and the snowstorm was growing more fierce by the minute. Even so, thirty of the passengers donned every article of clothing they owned and set out.
They arrived at Jones’s home well after midnight. Later he would admit he thought their desperate knocking was a loose shutter rapping in the storm; surely no human would be out in such weather. But the pounding continued, and so, donning his robe, Jones went to investigate. He opened his front door to a blast of cold air and over two dozen “wretchedly-clad” Irish immigrants, all starving and suffering from exposure.1
Jones was a British civil servant well-schooled in Whig policies, and assisting immigrants was clearly not one of those policies. He resisted the pleas of those wet and hungry refugees for as long as he could, but then humanity interceded, and he allowed them inside.
They were a miserable group. A man named Doyle had made the walk with a serious injury sustained on the railroad; Jones could not fathom how he had managed to survive the trek. The same was true for a man named Sullivan, whose hypothermia now appeared life-threatening. They were both sent immediately to a hospital. So too were John Gaynor’s sons, both of whom were gravely ill and suffering from severe frostbite—so severe, in fact, that Jones doubted whether their feet could be saved. Somehow they survived—and even kept their feet.
But despite Jones’s pleas and grave assessment of the situation, his supervisor in St. John’s refused to lend assistance. The railroad contractors, who Jones saw as the real culprits, could not be bothered either. And so Thomas Jones learned the same truth Daniel Reilly had learned in Liberty. “The constructing of this railroad,” he wrote, “will never benefit the Irish immigrant.” It seemed there was nothing he could do.2
While John Gaynor remained to watch over his sons and the other immigrants who went to the hospital, those well enough to continue on determined to do just that. Penniless and without proper clothing, they left St. Andrews that February on foot, following the Maine coast for 250 miles before arriving in Portland. They were exhausted, cold, and very, very hungry. But they were alive.
MINNEAPOLIS, MINNESOTA
DECEMBER 1886
Detective Mike Hoy knew a lot about dogged patience. Born in Philipstown, Ireland, he and his family survived the famine not much the worse for wear. It was a decade later, in 1858, that his family emigrated to the United States. They landed in New York, where Hoy quickly found a job working as a stonecutter, an apt occupation for what would be a lifetime of Sisyphean toil. Breaking stone took him to Louisiana, where he worked on the levee for days that never seemed to end. It then took him to Minnesota, where he laid the foundation for the State University and then for the East Side Irish Catholic Church. He might have made a life of this kind of back-breaking labor had the Civil War not erupted, compelling Hoy to enlist. He rose in the ranks during the Sibley expedition against the Sioux in the Great Plains, and by the Battle of Nashville he had been named the commander of his own company. During the fighting there, he was shot, the bullet entering just above the wrist, severing arteries, shredding tendons, and rendering his arm all but useless.
That’s why it was easy to pick out Mike Hoy in a crowd. Even a heavy overcoat couldn’t mask the fact that the detective’s arm, which had all but atrophied in the years since the war, hung limply at his side. He shook hands with his left and had devised his own left-handed system for jotting notes on a pad of paper and navigating doorways and equipment. In everything he did, he applied the dogged persistence of a stonecutter and relied on his mind’s incredible clarity.
He was now one of Minnesota’s most celebrated detectives. The Hennepin County’s jail was known affectionately as “Hoy’s little brown jug.” Officials bragged that more than a few criminals moved their operations elsewhere rather than risk Hoy’s inevitable discovery.1 When the mayor of Minneapolis realized that he and the Great Northern Railroad had been swindled out of tens of thousands of dollars by a man posing as an English lord, he sent Hoy to Winnipeg to fetch the suspect. Hoy managed to capture the man and travel a fair distance back toward Minneapolis before he was detained by Canadian officials in what quickly became an international debate over extradition. It was months before Hoy was allowed to return to Minnesota, which he did with the same measured calm for which he had become known.
It was that measured calm that Mayor Brackett was banking on when he called Hoy into his office once again. Brackett had received a visit from a pair of private detectives from Chicago who meant business. And their business was tracking down James K. O’Brien.
Hoy already knew O’Brien. He had served him papers for debts, and he had detained him for petty assault—hardly noteworthy offenses for an officer charged with overseeing law enforcement for an entire county. But now it seemed that O’Brien had gone too far, attempting to deposit $10,000 in the National Union Bank. The bankers got nervous and called in the private detectives, who knew enough to enlist Hoy.
Hoy slipped unseen through Minneapolis’s Bridge Square, where the streets were clogged with construction workers, trolleys, and dozens of carriages. But when he stepped into Nicholas Reilly’s Bar just before closing time, everyone noticed. Hoy was no stranger to Reilly: he walked the beat surrounding the bar when Nicholas first purchased it a few years prior. And even though Hoy was no longer a street cop, he knew Bridge Square was already becoming a little scruffy around the edges. There were plenty of reasons for an investigating officer to make an appearance in these parts and to wonder if a witness or suspect might be stopping for a pint. That particular afternoon, Nicholas Reilly had few doubts as to the nature of Hoy’s visit. He was looking for Jim O’Brien, who had disappeared—this time maybe for good.
Nicholas wasn’t all that surprised that Jim had left, but he was disappointed. Mostly, of course, because of Harrie
t and her six kids, who were now staying in the Reillys’ small home across town. Harriet spent her days with Cecilia and confided in her sister that she was convinced Jim had gone out west to make his fortune; she even had letters he had sent along the way. They all promised the same thing: that he loved her and would soon send for her. But even with the letters, Nicholas was skeptical. And he was worried. Jim was deeper in debt than ever; not even he, with all his smooth talk, could explain why he was walking around with $10,000 in bank checks from the biggest bank in Fergus Falls—not a penny of which he left with his wife before departing.
Then the rumors started. It was said that Jim had been seen leaving in the company of a woman. Harriet went from assured to distraught, and Cecilia slid right down with her. It wasn’t long after that Mike Hoy stopped wandering into the bar, and regulars remarked they hadn’t seen the usually omnipresent detective in days. There were rumors he wasn’t even in Minneapolis any longer. That could mean only one thing: Hoy was in pursuit. If Nicholas noticed the sudden absence of Mike Hoy, he didn’t say as much. Nevertheless, it was indisputable and surely not a coincidence that Hoy’s departure from town aligned nearly perfectly with Jim’s. But until newspapers across the country carried the story, most people in Minneapolis would not learn of the pursuit that ensued. The truth, it soon appeared, was much stranger—and more fantastic—than even Nicholas thought possible.
The thing was, Jim never had any intention of going west, particularly not when the influence of Chicago could be felt there. He was in trouble in that city, and there were far too many creditors looking for him. So instead he went north, to Toronto, where he staked his fortune on a thoroughbred horse. Little did he know that he was being followed by a team of detectives, some hired by the Chicago whiskey bonders, others by bank presidents who got nervous when they considered just how much money they had agreed to lend to the smooth-talking Irishman. Hoy knew his subject well enough to know he was an easy mark for easy money, so he sent out the same two Chicago detectives, disguised as wealthy men about town, to woo Jim with the promise of opportunity. Meanwhile Hoy obtained a bench warrant from the chief justice of Ontario, authorizing Jim’s arrest and imprisonment.
Something about their plan raised Jim’s suspicions enough to force him back south, across the border, this time to Buffalo, New York. There, under a variety of assumed names, he worked feverishly to sell his fake bonds, moving from hotel to hotel, barely staying a night before skulking on to his next destination. But no matter how many names he employed, his handwriting was always the same, and a daily roundup of hotel registers was all it took to confirm where he had been and who he had said he was.
Jim must have been nervous the day he returned to one of the banks to collect his bond proceeds—nervous or just plain short-sighted. He never noticed the dogged way Will Watts, a junior detective from Buffalo, followed him from his hotel to a saloon. He certainly didn’t notice that Watts and another detective watched with interest as he won $35 throwing dice. Maybe it was the easy winning that made Jim careless, made him oblivious walking to the bank, never realizing that the two men for whom he held open the door matched his every step as he approached the teller. He certainly didn’t notice the third man, dressed in a wool suit, who stood with one arm dangling useless at his side. But Hoy noticed Jim. And he waited until Watts, who by then was nonchalantly leaning against the teller’s counter, asked the man with the fake bonds if his name was O’Brien.
Hoy couldn’t help but smile when Jim responded, “Yes, sir.” He paused. “I mean, no sir.” And then it was all over.
Hoy stepped forward, placing his one good hand on Jim’s shoulder.
“How are you, Jim?”
Jim’s face turned ashen. “Great God! Are you in this part of the country?”2
In all his arrogant desperation, it had never occurred to Jim that he had been tailed all the way from Minnesota. He gave himself up easily to Hoy, who, in an act of compassion, made it known to all of the papers back home that Jim O’Brien had traveled alone and was faithful to Harriet. Hoy would later say that Jim wanted to do the right thing—he just needed to be given a chance.
Out on bail and as full of brazen indignation as ever, Jim returned to Minnesota. He promptly took up residence above Nicholas’s saloon Minneapolis, Minnesota, December 1886 at 253 Hennepin Street. He thanked the local papers for their kind interest in his business proceedings and their anxious concern about his well-being. He reminded the readers that he had been a loyal and law-abiding citizen of Minnesota for twenty-one years. It didn’t matter that neither was true, nor was it the case that, as he insisted, he “had always paid 100 cents on the dollar.” He was floundering and trying hard to save face. And Nicholas took pity, hoping he could save Jim from himself.
29
That Deadly Angel
1854
CHOLERA WAS AGAIN sweeping across the globe. For the better part of the summer, it seemed as if the disease’s mortality rates would mirror those of 1849. Then, suddenly and without warning, contagion rates skyrocketed. By August it was clear that this epidemic would be even deadlier. British health officials were visibly concerned: this iteration of the disease was plotting a wide course across the globe.
Hospitals in the United States were reporting mortality rates as high as 54 percent, particularly in immigrant towns like Pittsburgh. From there, the disease followed the railroad to Indiana, where it killed an entire family living just yards from the tracks. By the end of the summer, the state had reported sixty cases, twenty-two of which had ended in death.
Out on Grosse Île, George Douglas and his employees were inundated with more immigrant ships than the island had ever seen at one time. Still grieving the loss of Charlotte, Douglas had been taking longer and longer trips to England with the children whenever his schedule allowed. No doubt concerned about the fortitude of their chief quarantine doctor, officials in Quebec appointed a second physician. Dr. Anthony Von Iffland was given the title of assistant medical chief, but it seemed clear to everyone that he had been summoned at least in part to keep an eye on Douglas. With expertise in cholera and other infectious diseases, Von Iffland seemed just the man to keep Grosse Île under control.
But even Von Iffland was soon bested by the disease. As it took hold of Grosse Île, the island degenerated into chaos. The volume of waste excreted by the victims was almost inconceivable. Laundresses worked throughout the day and night in an effort to manage the mountains of soiled bedding. Douglas ordered that large wooden cages be constructed at the low-tide line. There, as the tide rose and fell, the women could fill them with wheelbarrows full of sheets and mattresses and allow the river to rinse away much of the waste before they boiled the bedding. It never occurred to anyone that they were flushing the microorganism into a habitat where it could grow and spread.
On the other side of the island, Douglas and Von Iffland struggled to maintain protocols among the thousands of passengers arriving there. On June 13, the German vessel Glenmanna, an enormous ship with three decks and 674 passengers, arrived at the island and promptly raised its contagion flag. During its Atlantic voyage, the Glenmanna had lost forty-five of its passengers to the disease, and although everyone still on board appeared healthy, Douglas wasn’t about to take any chances. He ordered the entire lot of them to a sick bay quarantine. Somehow, however, Douglas’s orders were never received. Once on Grosse Île, passengers from the Glenmanna were allowed to mingle and share space with a group of immigrants cleared for steamer transport to Quebec City. Within days of arriving, nine of them died of a severe onset of cholera—but not before they had spread the disease throughout the city. By August, 724 people would die there. Despite their best efforts, the staff at Grosse Île had failed. They were not alone.
This sort of predicament occurred in communities across the globe, and it created terror. The epidemic stormed through neighborhoods, pushing mortality rates over 50 percent in England, twice that of the deadly 1847 typhus outbreak, and taking
entire families in a matter of hours. Black flags flew at street corners, alerting passersby to the scourge’s presence on those blocks. Streets were thick with lime and flanked by hearses and mourning coaches, which shuttled to and from the dead-house from morning to night.1
Meanwhile baffled officials continued to search for reasons behind the uncontrollable spread of the disease. At this point, they were open to just about anything. An unnamed man appeared before the Board of Health and then the Fraternity of Millers, insisting that he had traced the root of the disease to stale grain. His discovery, he explained, came after a bout of diarrhea that occurred shortly after he consumed outdated flour. Upon further investigation, he discovered that disease was more rampant around rivers and bodies of water—no doubt, he surmised, because of the grain vessels there. It was enough to encourage the disposal of huge loads of grain thought to be stale—a bitter pill to swallow for those still famished in Ireland.2
Then the rains came, pelting all of Britain and forming the kind of deadly pools in which cholera, a water-borne illness, loves to live. In Tralee, streets overflowed to a height not seen since the 1849 deluge. Outside Donovan & Sons, the center of town had become a swamp, which slowly drained toward the post office, leaving behind “pestiferous odors” and questions concerning the safety of the town’s infrastructure.3
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