Surging Through The Building—
The Magnificient Appointments
Inspected In Detail—Mrs. Stewart
Congratulated By Thousands.
The great Women’s Hotel, projected by, and finished according to the expressed wishes of the late Alexander T. Stewart, was formally opened last night. The occasion was probably the most brilliant of the kind in the history of the country. … The hotel was brilliantly illuminated from cellar to the topmost floor, and the tiers of light were visible for blocks in every direction. … Every apartment was found to be complete, comfortable, even luxurious. … It is estimated that nearly 20,000 persons visited the new hotel last night. … Mrs. Stewart was abundantly congratulated upon the consumption of the plans of her husband and Judge Hilton was overwhelmed with compliments as it was well known that many of the details were directed by his taste and carried out under his personal supervision.
—New York Times
April 3, 1878
It took Judge Henry Hilton less than sixty days to close the hotel. On May 26, 1878, Hilton announced that as a charity for working women, the hotel was a failure. Hilton also announced that it would be remodeled and reopened on June 8, 1878, as a commercial hotel called the Park Avenue Hotel. Although Hilton had claimed that more than one thousand applications for admission to the hotel had been filed and that nearly seventy-five women had moved into the hotel on the first day, he then claimed, at the announcement of its closing, that the hotel had never had more than fifty registered guests and that the enterprise had lost five hundred dollars a day over the fifty-three days it had been in operation.
Hilton told the press that Cornelia Stewart was heartbroken by the failure of her late husband’s pet project. “The women for whom the hotel was built have not patronized it liberally, and it has been run at a loss,” Hilton said. “Mrs. Stewart has therefore determined to end the experiment at once.”
He went on to say, “A hotel on an extensive scale for women is an impossibility. Women want to associate with the other sex and the restrictions imposed upon them in this house were so severe that many who would gladly have taken advantage of its benefits declined for that reason.”
NOT ONLY FOR THE WOMEN
A WHITE ELEPHANT TO BE MADE
PROFITABLE
Mr. Stewart’s Woman’s Hotel To Be
Thrown Open For All—The Original Plan Unsuccessful—What Judge Hilton Says
Mrs. A. T. Stewart, bitterly disappointed, has made up her mind, after two months’ experience, that the Woman’s Hotel experiment is a complete failure. She has, therefore, concluded to abandon it. … Mrs. Stewart was very much grieved at the failure. She had expected grand results from the enterprise, had taken a room in the hotel for her own exclusive use … and had hoped to spend the remainder of her days in the midst of those of her sex whom her husband’s philanthropy had surrounded with all the comforts of life. But after all that had been done and after the enormous expenditures that had been made, the women could not be brought to appreciate the hotel and patronize it in sufficient numbers to warrant running it any longer for the exclusive benefit of women.
—New York Times
May 26, 1878
According to Hilton, as the manager of the Stewart estate, it fell upon him to save the estate from the financial burden of the Working Women’s Hotel and to find some profitable use for it. He concluded that structural changes would allow him to open it as a commercial hotel.
“The richest woman in this country have not better parlors or bedrooms and no place in the world can produce better cooking or service. But it is a failure,” Hilton said.
“Women will not be kept from the other sex,” he said. “You can run a hotel for men exclusively—but for women you can’t. I am not greatly surprised at the failure. But I have done my full duty in the face of a conviction of inevitable failure.”
A WOMAN’S HOTEL NO MORE
The Park-Avenue Opened
Its Formal Opening By The Managers Of
The Stewart Estate
Owing to its lack of patronage and its consequent failure as a hotel for women exclusively, the late Woman’s Hotel was thrown open to the general public yesterday at noon, under the name of the Park-Avenue Hotel. … $50,000 have since been expended upon it in making such alterations as the change in its character necessitated. … The store room on the ground floor, on the corner of Thirty-second-street and Fourth-avenue, has been converted into a large and elegantly fitted up bar-room, with a 38-foot bar backed by tall, broad plate mirrors. … On the Fourth-avenue side it is adjoined by three large lounging and smoking rooms. … On the Thirty-second-street side the bar adjoins the cigar stand and two large billiard rooms.
—New York Times
June 9, 1878
The firestorm of protest caused by Hilton’s closing of the Working Women’s Hotel only added to his already damaged reputation. Far worse than the damage to his reputation was the damage heaped on the Stewart business. A flood of public denunciation rolled in from feminist groups, working women, and the press.
It is said that those ladies who took board while the establishment was the Women’s Hotel will be welcome to remain as long as they please at the rates on which they entered.
—New York Times
June 9, 1878
Hundreds of women gathered at Cooper Institute on the evening of June 4, 1878, to protest Hilton’s closing of the hotel. One speaker after another condemned Hilton’s actions and comments. Again Hilton managed to offend an enormous percentage of his patrons. And, similar to the protests of the Jewish community, Hilton refused to accept blame or apologize.
JUDGE HILTON AND THE LADIES
A Public Meeting Of Women To Be Held
To Protest Against Alleged Wrongs
On Friday afternoon a number of prominent ladies who feel aggrieved at the statements given to the press by Judge Hilton in reference to the failure of the Woman’s Hotel, met at the residence of Mrs. C.S. Lozier, M.D. for the purpose of protesting against the position taken by Judge Hilton. The ladies, after debating as to the best course to pursue in the matter, determined to hold a public meeting at the Cooper Institute.
—New York Times
June 2, 1878
We the undersigned appeal to the honest, noble-hearted working women, to all true women who sympathize with them, and to all fathers and brothers who possess a sense of justice to unite with us at Cooper Institute, Tuesday, June 4, in a public protest against the insult Judge Hilton has put upon all womanhood by insinuations which he permits to be circulated as an excuse for the wrong he has perpetrated in appropriating to mercenary and selfish purposes what he has extensively advertised as a noble charity.
—public notice, —New York Times
June 2, 1878
The women at the Cooper Institute meeting read and approved a series of resolutions. Among the resolutions was an affirmation that the intentions of the late A. T. Stewart to provide safe and comfortable living accommodations for working women had been “effectually and shamefully thwarted.”
They called upon Mrs. Stewart to intervene on the closing of the hotel, entreating her to remain steadfast to her late husband’s plan, and to ensure that “what was intended for working women shall not be taken from them.”
Further resolutions exonerated Mrs. Stewart from any blame for the closing of the hotel. But more explicit was a resolution that would have a dramatic and immediate impact on Hilton and the A. T. Stewart business enterprise. It read: “Resolved, That until the evil genius of sordid gain that presides over Stewart’s vast commercial enterprise shows signs of true reform, every self-respecting woman should withdraw her patronage therefrom and that that which was built up by women chiefly, be taken away by women.”
The Woman’s Hotel had never been open to women. It was not ope
n to those who earned their living by manual labor, as they did not receive wages enough. Among this class were Judge Hilton’s own employees. Lady physicians or students were not allowed to have libraries or working desks in their rooms. Lady artists were not allowed to have easels. No sewing machines were permitted in rooms. The management turned pale when musical instruments were mentioned. Literary women were not allowed to take books from the library and that was closed at 10 P.M. The inmates were thus presided over as though they were schoolgirls. … Judge Hilton ought to know that he does not rule this country, that it is not a kingdom and that if it was, he would not be selected King.
—Mrs. Matilda Fletcher, —New York Times June 5, 1878
Printed cards were distributed for women and men to sign, pledging that they would no longer shop at Stewart’s store.
The card read: “Until five years after the date, we shall not buy anything at Stewart’s store, in consequence of the unmanly insinuations regarding the management and failure of the Woman’s Hotel, hoping that in that time the managers thereof may better learn the characteristics of American women.”
Thousands of these pledge cards were signed in Manhattan and Brooklyn. The boycott by the women took effect immediately. Thousands of women transferred their patronage from Stewart’s to other merchants.
SCOLDING JUDGE HILTON
THE WOMEN’S GREAT MASS-MEETING
Cooper Institute Packed—An Evening Of Uproarious Merriment—A Code Of Rules Provided For The Reconstructed Hotel—Resolutions That Delighted The Audience—Speeches On All Sorts Of Subjects, Music, Recitations, And A Collection
Fun was evidently anticipated at the mass meeting called to protest against Judge Hilton’s action in diverting the Women’s Hotel from its original purpose and his published reasons therefore. At 7:30 last evening the great hall of Cooper Institute was full. At 7:45 it was jammed in every part. … Until five years after date, we shall not buy anything at Stewart’s store, in consequence of the unmanly insinuations regarding the management and failure of the Women’s Hotel, hoping that in that time the managers thereof may better learn the characteristics of American women.
—New York TimesJune 5, 1878
“Thus ends in bigotry and cant
Stewart’s divinest dream.”
—poem by Matilda Fletcher, Cooper Institute, —New York Times June 4, 1878
The condemnation of Hilton for abandoning Alexander Stewart’s dream of a hotel for working women, and the subsequent feminist-led boycott of the Stewart retail store, coupled with the Jewish boycott, irrefutably damaged the Stewart brand. Hilton was forced to liquidate the business four short years later in 1882 because of the boycott-led atrophy of the enterprise. Considering the enormity of the retail empire Alexander Stewart left behind in 1876, its liquidation six years later represented one of the fastest mercantile declines in American business—all at the hands of the incompetent Judge Henry Hilton.
Despite the controversy surrounding the closing of the Working Women’s Hotel, Hilton’s newly reincarnated Park Avenue Hotel became a successful enterprise and one of the most popular hotels in New York City.
Hilton’s public relations blunders with the Jewish community and the feminist movement and his failed foray into the Chicago retail marketplace paled in comparison, however, to Hilton’s handling of the next gruesome debacle—the theft of the remains of Alexander Turney Stewart between midnight and sunrise on November 7, 1878, from St. Mark’s Churchyard in the Bowery. In this ghoulish matter, Hilton once again displayed his inimitable ineptness and recklessness.
5
THE GHOULS STRIKE
In which ghouls steal the body of A. T. Stewart from its grave at St. Mark’s Cemetery in November 1878. Despite several clues, a twenty-five-thousand-dollar reward offered by Henry Hilton, and an extensive investigation by the New York City Police Department, no leads are found in the mystifying case. Hilton does not immediately inform Mrs. Stewart of the ghastly deed for fear that it might send her into shock. He subsequently accuses the church sextons of the appalling crime in an effort to close the unnerving case.
An hour before dawn on November 7, 1878, Frank Parker, the assistant sexton of St. Mark’s Church in the Bowery, stumbled on a gruesome sight—a mound of freshly dug dirt at the opening to A. T. Stewart’s family vault.
According to George Washington Walling, the superintendent of the New York City Police Department, Parker cried out, “My God. They’ve done it at last!” Exactly who “they” were was unclear.
In his book, Recollections of a New York Chief of Police, published in 1887, Walling wrote that Parker was one of only two or three people who knew the exact location of Stewart’s grave. Stewart’s burial site had been shrouded in mystery since his elaborate funeral held two years previously. According to Walling, Parker knew “the horrible crime would convulse the city; and that he would be suspected of participating in it by those who did not know him.”
Parker briefly examined the pile of fresh earth and then raced out of the graveyard to find the church sexton, George Hamill, who lived nearby on Tenth Street. Parker and Hamill returned to the churchyard where they opened the door to Stewart’s tomb and climbed down the twelve steep stairs to the vault below. There, according to Walling’s account, “Surrounded by the foulest stench imaginable, they saw for themselves that the tomb had been violated and Stewart’s body removed.”
GHOULS IN NEW YORK CITY
A.T. STEWART’S BODY STOLEN.
Removed From The Family Vault In
St. Mark’s Graveyard And Successfully
Carried Away—An Unprecedented
And Ghastly Crime—No Positive
Clue To The Identity Of The Grave
Robbers—The Corpse Probably
Stolen To Obtain A Reward—What
Judge Hilton Broadly Hints.
The grave of the late Alexander T. Stewart was successfully robbed between midnight and sunrise yesterday morning, and his remains carried off, evidently in the hope of obtaining a large ransom for their return. The scene of the outrage was in the old St. Mark’s churchyard, which occupies the irregular end of the block bounded by Second-avenue, Stuyvesant and East Eleventh streets. The church edifice facing on Stuyvesant-street, divides the yard into two strips of green turf, dotted with small square marble slabs. These slabs indicate the vaults, which form a perfect honeycomb underneath the ground. The Stewart family vault is situated about the centre of that portion of the yard which lies on the eastern side of the church.
—New York Times
November 8, 1878
The front of St. Mark’s Church stood about twenty-five feet from Stuyvesant Street. A ten-foot spiked iron fence surrounded the churchyard, and two iron gates on either side of the church led into the graveyard. There were no paths leading through the yard and no monuments aside from the tablet bearing the inscription:
In this vault lies buried
PETRUS STUYVESANT
Late Captain-General and Governor in Chief
Of Amsterdam in New Netherlands,
Now called New-York,
And the Dutch West India Islands.
Died in A.D. 167–, =
Aged, 80 years.
171
The number 171 identified Stuyvesant’s vault. The other small slabs marking burial vaults were sunken into the grass. The names and numbers of the vaults were barely visible to the naked eye in daylight, much less in the dark, when it was surmised the grave robbery took place. Stewart’s vault was no different from the rest.
Stewart’s underground crypt was made of arched brick about ten feet wide, fifteen feet long, and twelve feet high. The top of the tomb was covered with three feet of grass and sod. Three stone slabs covered the opening. Beneath the slabs was a flight of a dozen stone stairs leading do
wn into the burial chamber. A series of pedestals ran along the rear of the chamber where the coffins rested.
The grave robbers dug the dirt from the stone slabs covering the opening to Stewart’s vault, removed the stone slabs, descended the staircase, and headed straight for the cedar box that encased his coffin. The other coffins were not disturbed. Two of the coffins in the chamber contained the remains of the Stewarts’ infant children and other Stewart family members. The robbers unscrewed the cover of the cedar box, cut through the lead top of the encasement within the cedar box, and forced open Stewart’s coffin by breaking the locks and hinges. Inside the coffin lay the unembalmed body of Stewart. It was surmised that the robbers slipped Stewart’s remains into a bag and left. They also took a silver nameplate that had been inside the lid of the coffin, several screws, and a strip of velvet lining cut from inside the casket. They left behind a small shovel, a lantern, some rope, and a copy of the September 24, 1878, issue of the New York Herald. After exiting the vault the thieves replaced the slabs covering its opening and left behind a mound of freshly upturned earth that Parker stumbled upon the next morning. They made their escape without leaving a single footprint to follow.
After examining the defiled vault himself, George Hamill told Parker to wait at the churchyard. There are varying accounts of exactly what happened next. According to Wayne Fanebust’s account of the gruesome robbery, The Missing Corpse, “Instead of immediately informing the police, Hamill returned to his office and remained there until he was visited by a real estate agent, who convinced him the awful event should be reported.”
Bag of Bones Page 10