Bag of Bones

by J. North Conway

  —New York Times

  December 4, 1878

  Reports in the New York Times following the release of Vreeland claimed that Captain Byrnes’s actions were “fully approved by his superiors, one of whom said yesterday that he would have deserved dismissal from the force if he had neglected to follow up the information given by Burke, which, however, proved utterly valueless.”

  By November 26, nearly three weeks after the A. T. Stewart grave robbery, the vast number of police officers and detectives previously assigned to the case had been withdrawn. The search for the grave robbers was assigned to Inspector William Murray and Captain James Kealy. Captain Byrnes, after his public humiliation at the hands of Burke and Vreeland, had moved on to another sensational unsolved case, the robbery of the Manhattan Savings Institution, in which thieves broke into the fortresslike bank and stole approximately three million dollars in cash and securities. Although the robbery had occurred on October 27, 1878, prior to the Stewart grave robbery, Byrnes’s superiors had immediately reassigned him to the bank-robbery case, following the Burke and Vreeland debacle.

  Despite extensive searches in New York and New Jersey, the body of A. T. Stewart had not been located, as the New York Times and other newspapers had previously reported. Burke and Vreeland could not be linked to the robbery. The notorious Washington, D.C., “resurrectionist,” Dr. George A. Christian, could not be located, and even if he was, there was nothing linking him to Stewart’s grave robbery. The mysterious letters claiming to know where the body of Stewart was and who had taken it continued to flood into police headquarters and to Judge Hilton, but they led nowhere. And the police were unable to uncover the whereabouts of William May, the New York City soda maker rumored to be somehow connected to the robbery. The search for the A. T. Stewart grave robbers and Stewart’s remains came to a dead stop.

  THE STEWART GRAVE-ROBBERY

  A Number Of Detectives Withdrawn

  From The Case—What The Police

  Found At Paterson.

  There was nothing new developed yesterday in the search for the robbers of the Stewart vault, and the detectives who have been assiduously working up the multitude of clues furnished from all sources have made no further progress in clearing up the mystery. A number of the Central office detectives who have been devoting themselves to this case have been withdrawn for the present, and are attending to their usual duties.

  —New York Times

  November 26, 1878

  9

  KEEPING UP WITH THE JONESES

  In which, by early 1879, it appears that all leads in the A. T. Stewart grave robbery have been exhausted and the story fades from the front pages until Patrick Jones, a lawyer and former New York postmaster, reports to the press that he has been in contact with Stewart’s grave robbers, who demand more than two hundred thousand dollars for the return of the body. Despite New York City police officials verifying the authenticity of the demand, Henry Hilton refuses to negotiate with the unnamed criminals and dismisses Jones’s evidence as another elaborate ploy to squeeze money from the Stewart estate.

  Only a year and a half had passed since Judge Henry Hilton had excluded New York City banker Joseph Seligman from the Grand Union Hotel in Saratoga, causing a backlash against Hilton and the Stewart retail empire. At the end of 1878, Hilton, perhaps in an overt effort to make amends, sent a letter to three of the principal Jewish charitable organizations in New York, announcing a financial contribution to be made on behalf of the Stewart family. Hilton contacted Mount Sinai Hospital, the Jewish Orphan Asylum, and the Home for Infirm and Aged Hebrews. The hospital and orphanage were given $500 each while the home was given $250.

  Although the contributions were needed, there were mixed feelings among the city’s Jewish community. Many prominent members of the Jewish community were strongly opposed to accepting any contributions from Hilton. Still others argued that the donations came directly from Cornelia Stewart, not Henry Hilton, and therefore should be accepted.

  DEAR SIR: Mrs. Alexander T. Stewart is desirous to donate $500 to the Mount Sinai Hospital. Your Treasurer can get the money by calling with this letter any afternoon after 2 o’clock. Yours respectfully, HENRY HILTON.

  —Judge Henry Hilton, December 12, 1878

  THE HEBREWS EXCITED

  Donations By Mrs. Stewart To Jewish

  Charitable Institutions—Will They Be Rejected?

  A wide difference of opinion prevails among the Jewish people as to what is best to be done in the matter, on account of the ill-feeling engendered by Judge Hilton’s action in excluding Mr. Joseph Seligman and his family from the Grand Union Hotel, at Saratoga, in the Summer of 1877, an act which caused no little excitement at the time, and the memory of which is revived by Judge Hilton’s letters to the three institutions. … The question of the acceptance or rejection of Mrs. Stewart’s liberal donations will probably be left undecided until the Trustees of the different institutions have discussed it in the regular board meetings.

  —New York Times

  December 17, 1878

  Hilton became livid after reading the December 17, 1878, New York Times article on the charitable donations. He insisted to the papers that charity was a private matter and should not be dragged into a public forum such as the newspaper.

  Hilton refused to speak to reporters about the matter and conveyed his distaste for the article through his private secretary, who told reporters, “It has been the custom of Mrs. Stewart and Judge Hilton every year about this time, to select a list of charitable institutions deserving of help and send them gifts.”

  The private secretary went on to inform newspaper reporters that Mrs. Stewart had made a list of some fifty organizations to which she intended to make substantial donations and Judge Hilton had added thirty more institutions. According to the secretary, the list included almost all the religious denominations. The donations were made to Mount Sinai Hospital, the Jewish Orphan Asylum, and the Home for Infirm and Aged Hebrews because those organizations were deserving, not because they belonged to or were managed by people of the Hebrew faith. The explanation provided by Hilton’s private secretary didn’t quell any of the Jewish community’s objections. If anything, it only inflamed the outwardly hostile reception of the charitable gifts.

  Mrs. Joseph Stiner, vice president of the Home for Infirm and Aged Hebrews, told reporters that the problem wasn’t with Mrs. Stewart’s gift, but with Hilton being associated with it. “Our people will not be under any obligations to him. We will not take gifts from him. We will rather contribute the amounts among ourselves,” Stiner said.

  She went on to scold Hilton, saying that if the donations were bids to try to get Jewish shoppers back in his store, it was “very poor, very shabby, and very impolitic.”

  Less than a week after Mrs. Stewart and Hilton offered their donations, the Jewish Orphan Asylum declined. Two days before Christmas, the Board of Directors of Mount Sinai Hospital voted to decline the donation. In turn, the board members voted to make up the five-hundred-dollar contribution out of their own pockets. The Home for Infirm and Aged Hebrews also declined to accept its donation. If the donations had indeed been a covert method of attempting to lure the Jewish trade back to the now-Hilton-run department store, it failed miserably.

  At the end of 1878 and into the next year, it appeared that Hilton was failing on all fronts. He was not able to lure Jewish shoppers back into his stores, and he wasn’t able to negotiate for the return of Stewart’s missing body.

  The year 1878 ended without any further developments in the Stewart case. As the new year began, a scaled-back investigation continued. Even though the case remained unsolved—no one had been indicted and Stewart’s bones were still missing— the public’s interest in the case appeared to be fully satiated. Public attention turned toward the construction of the massive, expensive Cathedral of the Inca
rnation in Garden City on Long Island. It was there that the remains of A. T. Stewart, if and when they were recovered, and those of his widow, Cornelia, would be buried. In early 1879, a noticeable change had come over Cornelia Stewart, as if her heavy burden had been lifted. She appeared more frequently in public, and she seemed healthier and in better spirits than she had been since the theft of her husband’s bones. Whether she was preoccupied with the building of the cathedral or whether her husband’s remains had been secretly recovered, no one knew for sure, and no one—neither Cornelia nor Judge Hilton—was saying.

  Hundreds of curiosity seekers turned their attention from the site of the grave robbery, St. Mark’s, to the construction site of the new cathedral. Crowds of people converged on Garden City to catch a glimpse of the building of the ornate church. Many people, including members of the New York City press, speculated that Stewart’s remains had somehow been miraculously returned and were now in safe keeping in the newly constructed burial vault in the cathedral. It was all purely speculation but fueled in part by Hilton’s placing around-the-clock guards at the white marble vault beneath the huge church. The approximately twenty-foot-tall vault was substantial and sumptuous and included nine windows and two staircases that connected it to the sanctuary of the cathedral. When finally completed, the cathedral would be a magnificent structure, befitting a “Merchant Prince.”

  From January 1879 until July, New York’s newspapers weren’t able to provide readers with any further tantalizing stories about the still unsolved case. The police too remained thwarted in their investigation. And the public, thinking it had been cheated out of some portion of the ongoing mystery, continued to maintain its opinion that Stewart’s remains had been recovered in secret and lay at rest in Garden City. It was New York City Police Superintendent George Walling who finally put that speculation to rest when he publicly stated that A. T. Stewart’s remains had not been found. To reinforce Walling’s announcement, reporters from the New York Tribune went to Garden City and inspected the Stewart vault themselves. They reported that after inspecting the mausoleum they were certain it was empty. On August 14, however, the Stewart case broke open with sensational news.

  A former New York postmaster, Patrick Jones, reported to the press that he had repeatedly been in contact with Stewart’s grave robbers, beginning on January 26, 1879. Jones revealed to reporters that he had received a letter and a mysterious package on that date at his offices on Nassau Street. Jones was then a practicing attorney in the city. Why Jones had been contacted remained a matter of great speculation, but it was readily assumed he had been chosen as the go-between in the case because the robbers might have worked for him during his tenure as postmaster. The letter, Jones told reporters, had been sent from Montreal, Canada. The author of the letter stated that Stewart’s body had been spirited to a hiding place in Canada where the robbers still had it under safe keeping. The letter was signed: “Henry G. Romaine.” According to Jones, a one hundred-dollar bill was enclosed with the letter. The mystery only deepened. Studying the letter, Jones concluded that whoever “Romaine” was, he had gone to great lengths to conceal his handwriting. Although the letter was written in the most formal business format—leading Jones to believe that whoever wrote it was well-educated —the author had taken great pains to intentionally misspell certain words and use a curious combination of capital and lowercase letters. Jones was certain the author was trying to disguise his handwriting in case either Jones or the authorities attempted to trace the letter using handwriting analysis.

  In the mysterious letter, Romaine directed Jones to inspect the package sent along with the letter. In it, Romaine claimed, were certain items that had been stolen from the Stewart crypt during the November 7 robbery. According to the letter, the robbers were now ready to negotiate for the return of Stewart’s remains. The one hundred-dollar bill enclosed with the letter was a retainer for Jones to act in his legal capacity as the negotiator for the transaction. If Jones accepted the role and the retainer, he was instructed to contact Judge Hilton to begin talks. The letter said Jones would be paid more as the negotiations progressed.

  Romaine indicated that he had great faith in Jones’s ability to act honestly on behalf of the robbers and that he would bargain in good faith. Romaine explained that the robbers had decided the time was right to open up discussions with Hilton for the return of Stewart’s body because at this point every possible avenue of investigation had seemingly been exhausted and neither Hilton nor the authorities were any closer to solving the case. Romaine was certain that at this point Hilton would be more than willing to negotiate for the safe return of Stewart’s bones. According to Romaine, the authorities had never come close to solving the crime and they never would unless they agreed to the demands.

  The letter stated that Stewart’s body was stolen from St. Mark’s Cemetery before midnight on November 6 and not in the early morning of November 7 as the police and newspapers had speculated. And, according to Romaine, the body was not transported from the cemetery in a carriage but had been carefully concealed in a grocery wagon that had gone completely undetected by the authorities. The body was never taken to a nearby house but instead was taken by the grocery wagon to a house near 116th Street.

  They were enclosed in a zinc-lined trunk, previously prepared and left on the early morning train. They went to Plattsburg, and from there to the Dominion; there they were buried. Except that the eyes have disappeared, the flesh is as firm and the features as natural as the day of internment, and can, therefore, be instantly identified.”

  —letter sent from Henry G. Romaine to Patrick Jones, January 26, 1879

  Romaine ended his letter by urging Jones to meet immediately with the Rev. Dr. Joseph Rylance, Judge Henry Hilton, and Mrs. Stewart to begin the discussions for the return of the remains. The letter and all its information, boasts, and demands could have been brushed aside by Jones had it not been for the one hundred-dollar bill inside—who would spend that much money on a practical joke? And then there was the package.

  Inside the package Jones found several screws that he assumed had been taken from Stewart’s coffin. There was no way to know if they were authentic or not. Also in the package was a piece of velvet cloth that had been cut from the casket lining on the night of the robbery. If all of the enclosed materials were not enough to convince Jones that Romaine was being truthful about his boast of having Stewart’s body, Jones was instructed to place a small personal ad in the New York Herald and the nameplate from Stewart’s coffin would be sent directly to him. Jones was convinced he was onto something but wasn’t exactly sure what. He consulted with several other attorneys before he went to New York City Police Superintendent George Walling with the letter and the contents of the package several days later.

  “A man who formerly served under me in the army claims to know something about the Stewart body. I believe that with proper encouragement I can get information that will lead to its recovery,” Jones told Walling.

  Walling was skeptical. Still, Jones was no crackpot and had an admirable reputation, so Walling, against his better judgment, went to Hilton with the news. Walling advised Jones to proceed apace with his end of the negotiations and to pursue the matter as best he could.

  Walling, who was at best doubtful of the Jones entreaty, had little luck in convincing Hilton of the authenticity of the letter. Even if he had, Hilton still refused to negotiate with anyone for the return of his mentor’s remains. “I felt and expressed my serious doubts about the correctness of the information, but Jones was persistent and wanted to work up the case and make arrangements for buying the body. He brought a letter or two, which he asserted had come from the thieves,” Walling wrote in his memoir.

  According to Walling’s memoir, Recollections of a New York City Chief of Police, Hilton said, “We must never compound a felony. It isn’t, of course, the money, but the principle. If we were to pay these infamous scoun
drels, what rich man’s or woman’s dead body would hereafter be safe? We will never pay a cent except for the conviction of the criminals.”

  But the next revelation was difficult to ignore. Jones had followed the instructions and contacted Romaine by running a small personal ad in the New York Herald. Shortly after the ad was placed, Jones received a package in the mail that was sent to him by express from Boston. In it was the original coffin plate stolen with Stewart’s remains. Jones brought the plate to Walling, who sent for the engraver of the plate to examine it. After careful examination he informed Walling and Jones that the plate was indeed authentic.

  “That’s the very one,” he told them.

  Walling immediately dispatched detectives to the Boston express office and was able to learn that an unidentified woman had mailed the package. According to express office personnel, the woman had come into the office with her face covered up to her eyes with a scarf. There was no way anyone in the office could identify her. But even with the new information—the authenticated coffin plate—Hilton remained inflexible. He refused to get involved in any negotiations regardless of the evidence, unless the talks included the apprehension and conviction of the robbers. He wouldn’t budge from his stance.