All of it taken together—Hilton’s egregious business ineptitude, his public relations blunders, and his cold-hearted behavior in the face of the sensational theft of his benefactor’s remains—led, within a mere six-year period, to the demise of the A. T. Stewart empire with which Hilton had been entrusted. Despite his guilt in the liquidation of A. T. Stewart & Co. and despite the low esteem with which Judge Henry Hilton was regarded in the business community and in the general public, the sale of the company netted him approximately $5.5 million.
13
BAG OF BONES
In which, in 1881, Mrs. Stewart, without Henry Hilton’s approval, makes arrangements with men claiming to be the grave robbers for the return of her husband’s remains. On a deserted road in New York’s Westchester County, two wagons cross paths, one containing an emissary from Mrs. Stewart with a twenty-thousand-dollar ransom and the other driven by unidentified men who exchange a burlap bag of bones for the ransom money and ride off. The bones are taken by train to Garden City, where they are placed in the crypt at the Cathedral of the Incarnation.
Throughout the hot August month of 1881, during J. M. Fuller’s excavation at Cypress Hills Cemetery and the ongoing pursuit of A. T. Stewart’s body, the widow Stewart remained inconspicuously silent. As far as anyone could tell, Cornelia Stewart remained secure in the knowledge that her husband’s remains were safe and sound in the crypt she had built for him in Garden City’s Cathedral of the Incarnation.
Mrs. Stewart had begun plans for building the magnificent cathedral in honor of her husband in 1877. The cornerstone of the Episcopal church was laid on June 28 of that year, and it was officially opened on April 9, 1885, in an extraordinary religious ceremony. The deed to the property and buildings was ultimately signed over to the church. The cathedral was a replica of a thirteenth-century Gothic structure, with all the elaborate and picturesque architecture associated with the European medieval period. Built of brown sandstone, the ornate structure included a more than two hundred foot spire that dominated the Garden City skyline.
Dear Sir
Having, as you are aware, begun the erection of a church edifice in Garden City, L. I., intended to be an enduring memorial of my dear deceased husband, and intending to present it when completed to the corporate body known as the Cathedral of the Incarnation in your diocese, to be held on a perpetual trust for the purposes of the corporation and for the use of the Protestant Episcopal Church, I have to request that you will perform the ceremony of laying the corner-stone.
I may here, and in this connection it seems proper I should, add what has already been stated to you personally, as the Bishop of the diocese and head of the corporation referred to, that it is also my intention, upon the consecration of the building and its occupation as the cathedral church, to provide a suitable fund by way of endowment for its permanent maintenance as such, also furnish a residence to be occupied by the Bishop, and in other ways make the edifice and its appendages in every aspect appropriate and complete for cathedral purposes.
The building has progressed already so far that it is desirable the corner-stone should be laid at an early day, and I trust you will give the subject your early consideration.
— letter from Cornelia M. Stewart to Bishop A. N. Littlejohn, June 19, 1877
An event without a parallel in the history of Christianity dawned upon the American Church last week, in the laying of the corner-stone of the cathedral of the Incarnation, at Garden City, in the Diocese of Long Island. For many months the construction of a beautiful and magnificent church edifice has been going on quietly in that favored spot. No one dreamed of the plans that were here silently working, and how far-reaching and grand they were. Indeed, now, only she whose heart is equal in the largeness of its liberality to the responsibility of her great wealth, and the confidential friend of him whose memory she thus nobly perpetuates, are aware of what is yet to be done in that place, and thence throughout the diocese, for the glory of God and the good of His Church.
If the possession of wealth is a great blessing, the ability to use it rightly is a greater blessing still. If wealth brings great enjoyment, the disposition to dispense it well must bring a greater satisfaction and delight. There were those who sneered, when Mr. Stewart died, at the fact that he had made no large charitable bequests. They little knew what were his plans, or how faithfully and wisely and industriously those to whom he entrusted them would carry them out.
—Churchman, Vol. 36, July 7, 1877
George W. Walling, the former New York City police superintendent, reported in his 1887 memoir, Recollections of a New York Chief of Police, that despite ongoing investigations, A. T. Stewart’s remains had been recovered in late 1880 or early 1881. According to Walling, they were recovered through the clandestine efforts of Cornelia Stewart, not through any investigations by the likes of private detectives like J. M. Fuller, the New York City police force, or even Judge Henry Hilton. This explained Mrs. Stewart’s calm demeanor.
Walling spent nearly forty years in the New York City Police Department involved in many of the city’s most scandalous crimes—the Stewart grave robbery among them. The police superintendent from July 1874 until June 1885, Walling had a reputation as a tough, honest law enforcement officer. There was no reason to believe he wasn’t telling the truth as he knew it in his book.
A CITY’S GREAT SENSATIONS
TOLD BY THE VETERAN CHIEF
WALLING
The Notorious Crimes Of The Past
Fifty Years Which Have Startled
The Metropolis
Recollections of a New-York Chief of Police” is the title of a somewhat voluminous publication, soon to be issued from the press by George W. Walling, the veteran ex-Superintendent of Police. The book covers 40 years of the criminal history of the metropolis, and depends for its interest upon a rehearsal of the most prominent and sensational crimes of the last four decades, together with the histories of the participants. Its aim is to be interesting, and though it assumes to be simply an unvarnished statement of facts, the facts are nevertheless eked out in places, as in the A.T. Stewart grave robbery, with the imagination necessary to form a proper literary conclusion.
—New York Times
October 30, 1887
The New York Times cast a dubious eye on Walling’s claim regarding the recovery of Stewart’s body. “The account cannot be relied on as entirely authentic because it is fragmentary at best and Walling had little to do with the case and knew not very much about it. … As to whether the remains were or were not actually returned, those in possession of the facts still refuse to say,” the Times reported.
Still, as much as there was no one to support Walling’s claim, there was also no one willing to officially dispute it. If anything, Cornelia Stewart’s own peaceful disposition through the ordeal demonstrated the fact that her beloved husband’s body had been recovered. With or without Walling’s claim, there was nothing else to go on except rumor and speculation since everyone truly connected with the case was not talking. If, as the saying goes, “Dead men tell no tales,” then in the matter of A. T. Stewart, those remotely connected to dead men told no tales, as well.
Shortly following the January 1879 in which former New York postmaster Patrick Jones reported to the press that he had been contacted by Stewart’s grave robbers, Mrs. Stewart’s public demeanor changed dramatically. Without discussing any details, Cornelia Stewart told friends and family, with great certainty, that the body of her beloved husband had been returned and placed in the family vault in the basement of the Cathedral of the Incarnation in Garden City. If it was her contention that such was the case, then who was to doubt her, with or without corroborating evidence? Walling’s book illustrated to disbelievers how the body was returned.
There is no doubt that the remains of someone were carefully placed in the crypt at the Cathedral of the In
carnation sometime in late 1880 or early 1881, but there is no complete record of whose remains or exactly when. According to two accounts, those of George Walling in his 1887 memoir and Herbert Asbury in his 1927 book, The Gangs of New York: An Informal History of the Underworld, Cornelia Stewart undertook the retrieval of her husband’s bones in late 1880 without Judge Hilton’s involvement. Each source claims she was able to get her husband’s remains back after paying a twenty thousand-dollar ransom.
“But the distracted widow and her relatives, without the consent of Judge Hilton, opened negotiations on her own account.”
—George W. Walling, Recollections of a New York Chief of Police, 1887
“Mrs. Stewart, who had been fearfully upset by the theft of her husband’s body, approached the ghouls on her own account through General Jones and Romaine wrote that he would return the corpse for one hundred thousand dollars. Mrs. Stewart favored the immediate payment of this sum, but General Jones countered with an offer of twenty thousand dollars, which Romaine accepted.”
—Herbert Asbury, The Gangs of New York: An Informal History of the Underworld, 1927
Walling maintained that the piece of velvet cloth sent to Jones as proof that the mysterious Romaine was indeed in possession of Stewart’s body was a perfect match to the missing section of velvet cut from the lid of Stewart’s coffin. The coffin plate that was also returned as proof by the robbers was also identified as authentic. Garden City resident William Blodgett claimed that he saw men carry a coffin into the crypt at the Cathedral of the Incarnation. According to Blodgett, after that, a guard was stationed outside the crypt. Why else would a guard be placed there if it wasn’t to protect the recovered remains of A. T. Stewart?
Clearly, if Mrs. Stewart, through her secret negotiations, had been able to recover her husband’s body, it would not have behooved anyone involved to have the details of the talks made public. If she did pay a handsome ransom for the return of the body, it would have opened the flood gates for other like-minded ghouls intent on making a small fortune by stealing the remains of the wealthy.
Neither Walling nor Asbury identified how Cornelia Stewart contacted the grave robbers, who they were, or the exact date that the exchange took place. Neither revealed who conducted the negotiations on Mrs. Stewart’s behalf after attorney Patrick Jones opened communications, but it was assumed that Jones acted as the go-between. According to Walling’s account, the robbers instructed Mrs. Stewart to have one man, a person of her own choosing, whom she trusted implicitly, drive a wagon out to a lonely deserted road in New York’s Westchester County.
Both Walling and Asbury opined that the wagon driver was more than likely one of Mrs. Stewart’s nephews, although he remained unnamed. The robbers provided Mrs. Stewart a map showing the route that her lone emissary had to follow. According to the grave robbers’ instructions, the emissary was to continue driving along the deserted Westchester road, being watched by the robbers. If they were satisfied that the driver was alone and not being followed, they would catch up with the wagon along the route, and the exchange would be made. Stewart’s emissary should have the agreed upon ransom, which was speculated to have been twenty thousand dollars—a far cry from the $200,000 the grave robbers had originally demanded.
“He was to leave New York City at ten o’clock at night alone, in a one-horse wagon, and drive into Westchester County along a lonely road. … If the man was acting in good faith, and was not accompanied or followed by detectives, he would be met and given further directions. … A young relative of Mrs. Stewart undertook the hazardous errand, and drove out into the country.”
—George W. Walling, Recollections of a New York Chief of Police, 1887
Around 3 a.m., Walling and Asbury claim, a masked rider approached and signaled Stewart’s emissary to drive his wagon down a dark and deserted lane. About a mile down the lane, a horse and buggy was stationed in the middle of the lane, blocking travel any farther. Two masked men climbed out of the buggy holding a burlap sack and approached the wagon. In Walling’s rendition, a verbal exchange took place.
Walling’s description of the exchange only further fueled speculation that he had taken great liberties with his story, since there was no way he could have known the extent of any conversation that took place.
According to Walling’s rendition:
“A masked man promptly appeared, and brought forward a bag to his buggy, saying, ‘Here ’tis, where’s the money?’
‘Where is the proof of identity?’ asked the messenger, as the bag containing the mortal remains of A. T. Stewart was lifted into the buggy.
‘Here!’ said the other, holding up an irregular bit of velvet, and opening a bull’s-eye lantern upon it with a click. The piece was compared with a bit of paper of the same shape which the New Yorker had brought with him to this lonely spot.
‘Come, hurry up!’ was the command.
The messenger obeyed by producing the money, and the robbers retired a few feet and counted it by the light of their lantern.”
Asbury’s account was similar, sans the dialogue:
“Two men clambered and approached him. Both were masked, and one carried a heavy gunny sack. A triangular strip of velvet was offered to the messenger as proof of the identity and the money was promptly paid over, whereupon the ghouls dumped the gunny sack into the wagon and drove northward in their own vehicle. The messenger hurried back to the city with the bones of the merchant rattling in the sack beneath his feet.”
The bag of bones was reportedly taken to a secure location, where it was loaded into a trunk and transported by train to Garden City. By the time of the alleged recovery in late 1880 or early 1881, A. T. Stewart’s remains had been relegated to a mere pile of bones. The bones were then deposited into a coffin that was placed inside the crypt beneath the foundation of the Cathedral of the Incarnation.
Asbury wrote that the bones “remain to this day and for many years were protected by a hidden spring which, if touched, would have shaken a cluster of bells in the church tower and sent an alarm throughout the village.”
Despite the possibility that Stewart’s remains had been recovered, others continued to come forward and say they had them. In 1884, Lewis Sweigels, a professional grave robber who had once been implicated in an attempt to rob the grave of Abraham Lincoln, told the Chicago police that he and two others—a man named Larry Gavin and a New York City saloon keeper named Coffee had stolen Stewart’s body. At the time of his admission, Sweigels was serving time in the Chester, Illinois, State Penitentiary for an unrelated crime. According to Chicago Police Chief William McGarigle, Sweigels promised to return Stewart’s remains in exchange for a pardon and a percentage of any reward associated with the return of the remains. He was issued a pardon and reportedly formed a partnership with McGarigle and several Chicago detectives for the expressed purpose of returning the body and cashing in. Reportedly, the group had several meetings in New York with either Hilton or one of his representatives. McGarigle confirmed that negotiations were conducted, but he denied that there was any partnership with Sweigels. In an article published in the New York Times in April 1884, McGarigle said he became disenchanted with the convict’s claim when Sweigels was unable to produce Stewart’s remains. McGarigle admitted to reporters that he had been duped.
THE STEWART GRAVE ROBBERY
A Story From Chicago About The
Restoration Of The Body
Chicago, April 6. The Inter Ocean publishes an interview with an unnamed detective, who claims that in the Summer and Fall of 1882 Chief of Police McGarigle, of Chicago, and two or three detectives held negotiations with the notorious Lewis C. Sweigels, then serving a term for robbery in the Chester (Ill.) Penitentiary under an assumed name. Sweigels, who was known to be a professional grave robber, and was concerned in the attempt to rob the grave of President Lincoln, told a very complete, circumstantial and co
nsistent story of the robbery of A.T. Stewart’s grave. … Sweigles promised to restore the body only on condition of his pardon from the penitentiary and receiving part of the reward.
—New York Times
April 7, 1884
In 1885, New York attorney Bernard Cowen revealed that he had a client named Terrence H. Forrest who spoke to him about a cemetery next to Grace Episcopal Church on Broadway, not far from where Stewart built his Cast Iron Palace. As told by Forrest, during the excavation and building of Stewart’s store, graves at the cemetery had been dug up and coffins and bones were coldheartedly hauled away with the other debris.
Forrest maintained that in 1874, two years before Stewart’s death, two unidentified Irishmen came to New York to pay a visit to their father’s grave at the church cemetery only to discover that it had been dug up during the Stewart excavation, with no word of where it had been taken. When they tried to reach Stewart for an answer, they were rebuffed. When they asked the contractor, they were told the graves had been summarily removed on Stewart’s direct orders. When they went back to confront Stewart again, they were thrown out of his offices. As the two men were leaving, they vowed revenge on Stewart.
Bag of Bones Page 23