Red Jim and the Lady

[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

[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

[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

[lynn cates]

capacity

Hello Mike. Indeed.

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

Cheers.
LC

[lynn cates]

pining for the fjords

Hello Phil. Thanks.

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

Cheers.
LC

[lynn cates]

the man himself

Hello Chris. Thanks.

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

Cheers.
LC

[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

[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

[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

[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.

[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

[lynn cates]

Take that!

Hello (again) Jeff. Thanks for that.

I'm sure you have heard about the time when the Clan-na-Gael figured out that Red Jim was a spy and shot at him (in a pub, I think). The gun misfired and he lived.

Sir Ed became alarmed and had him arrested on a trumped up charge. (This to make him look like a dangerous Irish terrorist.) The judge smelled a rat and dropped the charges.

Cheers.
LC

[lynn cates]

card game

Hello Jeff. Thanks.

There was one story that O'Donnell shot Carey over a card game and found out, only later, who he was.

Know anything about that one?

Cheers.
LC

[Mayerling]

Samuel McLean and Red Jim McDermott

Hi all,

I spent the last two hours looking at the Brooklyn Eagle for articles on both the gentlemen from Brooklyn. I have done some background for you on McLean (who was a wealthy dry goods merchant and supporter of the Republican Party - more important in Brooklyn than in the then seperate New York City of Manhattan, Staten Island, and the Bronx).

First there is a report of McLean seeing McDermott in London in the September 15, 1888 Eagle on page 6. I'd advise you reading it and comparing it with the one earlier on this thread - some details are slightly different but the story is basically the same.

However, in an article in the Eagle, dated on September 17, 1888 page 4,
McLean went to some pains to explain his connection with Red Jim. He never fully trusted McDermott (he had heard things about how the man seemed to be devious) and McDermott sought of insisted on giving his side of the story to McLean, and was only accepted by McLean (partially) when he learned that McDermott had substantial proberty and social successes.

There is an article in the Eagle regarding Red Jim dated May 14, 1889 (page 7) giving a rather black view of the man by one who would be fully against the traitor/spy: Editor Jeremiah O'Donovan Rossa. He fully shows the activities of Red Jim against the Irish cause.

In the Eagle of July 14, 1891 (page 6) a Scotland Yard Detective named O'Brien (who worked with Red Jim in Broolyn) states that neither of them would be safe if they went back to that city. He mentions the meeting of McLean and McDermott three years earlier, and another meeting by Brooklyn District Attorney Ridgway and McDermott in London. This article brings up (as did the Rossa article above) that McDermott had been married earlier, but his wife died. There was a son who was alive but in poverty in the then upper Manhattan enclave of Harlem. O'Brien said he would see that McDermott (now happily and wealthily married to the second lady - a countess whose name he was using) would do the right thing for his son.

One last item in Eagle of August 4, 1887 (page 4) mentioned how Red Jim cheated an Irish priest out of $50.00.

Samuel McLean was an interesting man too. He was married until 1875, when his wife died (Eagle, November 1, 1875, page 4 - she died on October 29 after a long illness). They had two children (not mentioned in this obit. notice) named Thomas and the daughter was later Mrs. John A. Buckingham of Watertown, Connecticut.

McLean was not Irish! He was from Scotland. He frequently travelled between the U.S. and the British Isles, but each time he came back enjoying the freedom and opportunity of the U.S. more and more. Although not Irish he did contribute $100.00 in 1880 to an Irish Relief Fund (Eagle, Feb. 11, 1880, page 4). In 1871 he bought a house at Hicks and Pierrepont streets that had been the home of a brewer named Hezekiah Pierrepont. He added a "French Roof" to the house, making it a showplace in the area and the city of Brooklyn. It was sold to one William Langley in February 1891 (Eagle, Feb. 5, 1891, p. 6). The actual price was not released until an article in the Eagle on May 1, 1891 (p.7), and it was $65,000. That was an immense sum in the 1890s. Samuel McLean moved to the Campse, Watertown, Conn.

Basically he made his fortune in dry goods, and occupied his time with politics (he was a Republican - one of the first). An editorial in the Eagle on the time of his death (January 11, 1893, p.4) stated that he moved conservatively until he was certain to give full support to a political movement. "He waited till reform took the shape and held out the promise of a political movement. Then he was immediate and earnest in profession and action." This explains certain switches he made that may seem odd to us.

You would have to follow the crazy split in the Republican Party in 1876-1881 between the followers of the moderates (James Blaine and friends), reformers (Rutherford Hayes, John Sherman, Carl Schurtz), and the "spoilsmen" (led by Roscoe Conkling of New York). The obituary for McLean mentions that he was a warm admirer of General/President Ulysses Grant, and an "appreciative constituent" of Roscoe Conkling, and intimate of Senator (former Treasury Secretary) John Sherman (Eagle, Jan. 11, 1893, p.1), but he and fellow Brooklyn Republican leader Benjamin Tracy (future Secretary of the Navy - "Father of the Modern Navy" - under President Benjamin Harrison) rallied the Brooklyn Republicans to support the Garfield Administration in it's struggle with Senator Conkling over control of the New York City Customs House in March 1881 (Eagle, March 24, 1881, p. 2). When Conkling and Platt (his junior Senator) resigned to try to get the reelection of both by the state legislature (state legislatures elected Senators at that time) McLean supported Garfield against Conkling. Conkling and Platt lost, and only years later did Platt get elected U. S. Senator again (Eagle, Jan. 11, 1893, p.1).

While in his prime, McLean used his home for important entertaining, and for meetings with other Republican leaders (Eagle, Feb. 5, 1891, page 6). Tracy and Congressman (former General) Henry W. Slocum were at the funeral of McLean in 1893 (Eagle, Jan. 15, 1893).

In September 1887 McLean was embarrased in an incident involving the four year old, "modern wonder" the Brooklyn Bridge. He was arrested by an overzealous policeman assigned to watch the bridge for being disorderly. McLean was able to prove the charges were false, and his reputation was restored.

At least one incident involving his business did not seem to go correctly. The Eagle reported that a firm, William Turnbull & Co., apparently failed. It was a dry goods business, and McLean was a backer or it (Eagle, November 3, 1889, p. 1).

His death was quite tragic. In the details of the funeral in the Eagle of January 15, 1893, the exact details of his fatal accident were given. He had attended a friend's funeral in Brooklyn, and was returning home. At Bridgeport his bag was resting on the platform, and being nearsighted he felt it was too near the edge. McLean bent down to pull it back, and his head was forced down by the locomotive's cylinder box, pushing it into his chest, and snapping his spine. He was able to ask the people to contact his daughter in Watertown. He died four hours later.

The funeral ws handled at Christ Church, Watertown, Connecticut, by Bishop Williams of Connecticut. He was buried at Watertown (Eagle, January 12, 1893, p. 12).

Jeff

[Mayerling]

Can't tell you who the French lady was who Red Jim shadowed in Paris, but I recognized what they are referring to regarding Sir Charles Russell's defense of O'Donnell. It was a big news murder in 1883. The Irish informer James Carey (who was the chief witness against the Phoenix Park assassins of Lord Frederick Cavendish and Mr. Thomas Burke) had to be spirited away from real threats to his life. He was shipped by boat to South Africa, and then by a second boat further up the east coast of Africa, when O'Donnell, an Irish Fenian, discovered who he was and shot and killed him. O'Donnell was taken back to England for trial. Despite a spirited defense by Russell, he was found guilty and hanged.

O'Donnell had connections with some of the Molly Maguires in the Pennsylvania Coal Fields of the 1860s-1870s. When Conan Doyle writes THE VALLEY OF FEAR in 1914, he has Jack Douglas (the James McParland character who exposes the villains) flee England by boat to Africa, only to seem to have fallen overboard off St. Helena. Holmes deduces that an ally of the "Scowrers" (the name given the Mollies in the book) is Professor Moriarty, who made it his business to get Douglas and erase an earlier failure.

Jeff