Red Jim and the Lady

[Mayerling]

Hi Lynn,

Aside from the connections of O'Donnell to the Mollies and his avenging the Phoenix Park killers, I know little about him. As for Carey, a careful reading of what happened shows he was up to his elbow in the assassination plot himself, as he gave the others the signal. He saved his own skin turning into the prosecution witness. I can't feel too sorry for him (I feel bad for his family), and somehow I can't believe Carey would have been dumb enough to get shot while trying to avoid that fate - and over a game of cards!


Actually this was the first time I came across Red Jim McDermott, and so I did not hear about the attempt to shoot him in a pub. I'll be curious to find out anything else about him that turns up.

Jeff

[Chris]

There is quite a lot of information on "Red Jim's" own thread. My attempt at a potted biography from 2010 is here:

http://forum.casebook.org/showpost.php?p=151050&postcount=13

But I think Jeff's material from the Brooklyn Eagle - a paper McDermott had worked for - is new.

[Phil Carter]

translation...haha

Hello all,

Just incase the obvious hasn't hit home for some.. "Helsingfors" is the Swedish name for Helsinki. As Simon rightly pointed out for the geographically minded, Helsinki is the capital city of Finland. Stockholm the capital city of Sweden. Norway, as John Cleese once famously said in his "dead parrott" sketch, "...don't enter into it.."

As far as castles in Norway are concerned.. there is a list of 38 or so castles in Norway.. but don't think of them in the castle sense as we know it, they are more like fortresses, manors or estates with a large building or five on.there isn't a lot of them about.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akershus_Castle

The above an example of the most famous one on the banks of the Oslo fjord, Oslo, Norway.



Finland, Finland Finland, as Monty Python once sang.....

Olavinlinna Castle and Hame Castle are two examples, neither of which lie in Helsinki.

http://www.nba.fi/en/museums/olavinlinna_castle

http://www.nba.fi/en/museums/hame_castle

Looney tunes indeed.



Phil

[mklhawley]

Hi Jeff,

Also, we had discussion about McDermott, because of the possibility that he was suspected in the Whitechapel crimes,

http://forum.casebook.org/showthread.php?t=4859

Sincerely,
Mike

[lynn cates]

sources

Hello Jeff. Thanks.

A good reference for Carey is, "The Phoenix Park Murders" by Senan Molony.

Chris Phillips has a thread on Red Jim. Also, Spiro has a section for him in his book.

Cheers.
LC

[lynn cates]

the man himself

Hello Chris. Thanks.

Speak of the devil . . . (heh-heh)

Cheers.
LC

[lynn cates]

pining for the fjords

Hello Phil. Thanks.

Actually, I'm pining right now. (heh-heh)

Cheers.
LC

[lynn cates]

capacity

Hello Mike. Indeed.

True, he turns up in nearly every investigation, but do you think him capable of "MJK"?

Cheers.
LC

[mklhawley]

Hello Mike. Indeed.

True, he turns up in nearly every investigation, but do you think him capable of "MJK"?

Cheers.
LC

Hi Lynn,

No, but he's got a nasty side to him:



Sincerely,

Mike

[Mayerling]

Hello Jeff. Thanks.

A good reference for Carey is, "The Phoenix Park Murders" by Senan Molony.

Chris Phillips has a thread on Red Jim. Also, Spiro has a section for him in his book.

Cheers.
LC

Hi Lynn,

Thanks for the citation on a good account on the Phoenix Park Assassinations. Funny thing with my memory is that occasionally it slips a cog these days. I kept forgetting that the killers were calling themselves "The Invincibles". They weren't (due to Carey).

Jeff

[Mayerling]

Hi Jeff,

Also, we had discussion about McDermott, because of the possibility that he was suspected in the Whitechapel crimes,

http://forum.casebook.org/showthread.php?t=4859

Sincerely,
Mike

Hi Mike,

Thanks for the thread - which I read with close attention. It was quite interesting, as it suddenly made this character come to life. As untrustworthy a human "dog" as I can think of (and I feel bad now for bad-mouthing dogs by calling "Red Jim" a human one!).

I had heard of the Morey Letter controversy of 1880. The election that year was the closest (in terms of popular votes) between the candidates (James Garfield - Congressman, Head of the Ways and Means Committee, and former Major General in the Civil War) and Winfield Scott Hancock (Probably the best Corps Commander of the Northern forces in the Civil War, and a hero at Gettysburg) we ever had. Less than 10,000 votes seperated the two candidates (but Garfield carried New York and the election). Hancock was the subject of a great Thomas Nast cartoon showing his ignorance of important political issues (he is shown talking to Senator William English, Chairman of the Democratic Party, asking, "Who is Tariff, and why does he want to be high?"). After Garfield won, Nast (who was really a friend and admirer of Hancock) did a follow-up showing the General after his defeat looking at his fireplace, while Nast's familiar female figure of "Columbia" (the symbol for the nation) pats him on the shoulder and says, "Don't dwell on it, General Hancock. The nation is still very proud of you and your fine war record."

As a result of the close vote and how New York State swung the electoral college for Hancock, Charles Guiteau (who delivered a speech for Garfield in the wee small hours of the morning a few days before the election), came to believe he won the election for Garfield. He would soon be demanding the post of Minister (now Ambassador) to Austria-Hungary, or Counsel to Paris. When he was rejected for both by Garfield and Secretary of State Blaine, Guiteau shot Garfield (July 2, 1881). Due really to the blundering of his doctor, poor Garfield died of infections and starvation on September 20, 1881. Guiteau was tried, and though apparently as crazy as a coot, was found guilty and hanged on June 30, 1882.

I filled all this in to show you the situation (which from another perspective involved Samuel McLean, good Republican as he was, that I mentioned yesterday). Guiteau eventually identified himself with the Conkling faction that McLean found he had to reject in it's fight over the New York Customs House with Garfield - a fight Garfield won!

The Morey Letter was one of a series of increasingly nasty tricks in Presidential politics between 1880 and 1888 that smeared both parties. It was supposedly Garfield supporting certain Chinese and Asian immigration at a time it was opposed or ignored by most politicians (especially from California, where the letter was sent from). Exposed as a forgery it hurt the Democrats badly in the election. Eight years latter the Democrats were attacked by a similar letter which was sent to Sir Lionel Sackville-West, British Ambassador to the U.S. This letter, purportedly from an English immigrant, asked Sackville-West whether the election of Cleveland or Benjamin Harrison would be better for the British. Sir Lionel stupidly said he would vote for Cleveland as a better friend than Harrison to England. The response was published, and Cleveland (furious at this action by Sir Lionel) demanded his recall. Sir Lionel was recalled (which only added ammo to the Republicans in the election) but Lord Salisbury (annoyed at Cleveland) did not replace his Ambassador until after the inauguration of Harrison in 1889.

There are fascinating issues about Red Jim that I have little time to discuss now. One is that he had red hair. If he was not so pudgy faced I thought of another international traveller with reddish hair at the time: Fred Deeming. With all their criss-crossing of the oceans I wonder if they ever met.

The involvement of Red Jim in the Tilton - Beecher adultery scandal was unexpected. But it was one of the biggest scandals of its type in the Gilded Age. Beecher managed to win acquittal from the jury, despite a confession from Mrs. Tilton they had some relations, and subsequent information regarding his relations with Mrs. Frank Moulton, and also one of the wifes of one of the elders at Beecher's Plymouth Church (still standing in Brooklyn). Many thought Beecher lied (he said his views on religion precluded him from normal swearing in on a Bible as a witness, so he held his hand aloft when sworn in - many critics felt this precluded him from telling the whole truth). The noted Kentucky newspaper owner, Col. Henry Watterson, said the entire
performance of Beecher on the stand reminded him of nothing more than a dunghill covered in flowers.

[Side issue: The Beecher Scandal affected one other party in England. Conan Doyle was fascinated with the case and had a famous sequence in the story "The Adventure of the Cardboard Box", but reused in a second story years later, in which Holmes and Watson discuss Watson's pictures of General Charles "Chinese" Gordon and Rev. Beecher. Conan Doyle also used the name of "Francis Moulton" for a character of some importance in "The Adventure of the Noble Bachelor".]

It is funny about how Red Jim gets so involved in the Beecher case, the Morey Letter, the Parnell Inquiry matters, the Clan-Na-Gaol threats. But there were plenty of troublemaking individuals around then able to do this, playing everyone off against everyone else for their own profit. It was a time of flux.

Thanks again for that thread.

Jeff

[mklhawley]

Hi Jeff,

Very interesting. To me, a man being involved with so much hints more of an effective agent provocatour than just an idiot. It reads so much like Carmin Cummings' research into Charles Dunham. On the surface he was just a selfish nut, but Cummings convincingly demonstrates that he was an agent provatour/double agent. In both cases, they seemed to have been skilled at putting themselves in the right place at the right (or seemingly wrong) time.

Sincerely,

Mike

[lynn cates]

astonished

Hello Mike. Thanks for that.

Didn't know the old bugger had it in him. (heh-heh)

Cheers.
LC

[lynn cates]

Mallon

Hello Jeff. Thanks.

They were not, indeed. Several were hanged.

Do you recall how Mallon got Carey to turn approver?

Cheers.
LC

[lynn cates]

from childhood to adultery

Hello (again) Jeff.

"The involvement of Red Jim in the Tilton - Beecher adultery scandal was unexpected."

OK. What OTHER adultery scandal did he specifically argue he was not part of?

Cheers.
LC