brawler
Hello Trade. Thanks for posting this. He looks even more like a barroom brawler and general blackguard.
Have you found any links to Hurlbert?
Cheers.
LC
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McDermott's testimony from 1880 in the case of Kenward Philp, who was accused of forging a letter allegedly written by General Garfield, who was then a candidate for President:
Brooklyn Daily Eagle, October 29, 1880, Page 2
EXCITING
Dramatic Scenes in Court in the Philp Case
[…]
James McDermott Called.
The next witness called to the stand was Mr. James McDermott. He testified as follows in answer to Mr. Bell’s questions.
Q. What is your name? A. James McDermott.
Q. Mr. McDermott where do you reside? Brooklyn.
Q. Where do you live? A. Brooklyn; 71 Third avenue.
Q. How long a period of time have you lived in Brooklyn? A. On and off for twenty years.
Q. Do you know Mr. Philp? A. Yes, sir.
Q. How long have you known him? A. Eight or nine years.
Q. Have you known him intimately? A. Very
Q. Seen him frequently? A. Yes, sir.
Q. What have been your relations, social, business, or both? A. Both.
Q. Have you seen him write? A. Yes, sir.
Q. Often? A. Yes, sir.
Q. How often? A. A good many times.
Q. Are you familiar with his handwriting? A. I think I am.
Q. Look at these exhibits, beginning at “A” and running down to “K,” and state in whose handwriting these papers appear to be? A. “A” and “B” and part of “C” are in Mr. Philp’s handwriting. The latter portion of C is, in my opinion, in the handwriting of William H. Muldoon, of the New York Star.
Mr. Brooke—Mr. Daggett swore it was all Philp’s,
Witness—I am not responsible for what he swore.
Mr. Bell—Exhibit D is an editorial. In whose handwriting is that, sir?
Mr. McDermott—General Garfield’s. I mean—
This slip of the tongue caused an uproar through the Court that the officers could not succeed in suppressing for several minutes.
Witness—I mean in the handwriting of Mr. Philp.
Mr. Stoughton—Are these yellow pages in the handwriting of Mr. Philp? A. Yes, sir.
Mr. Bell—Mr. McDermott, do you know what Philp’s employment is? A. He is, I believe, one of the editors of Truth.
Mr. Brooke—You were asked if you knew[,] witness. A. Yes, I know it.
Mr. Bell—Well, your Honor, allow the witness to look at the Morey letter and state in whose handwriting it is?
Mr. Brooke—Which paper?
Mr. Bell—The Morey letter.
The letter was shown, and after looking at it Mr. McDermott said. “If that was shown to me without the signature I should say that it was Mr. Philp’s handwriting.”
Mr. Brooke—Do you believe on your honor and on your oath that it is in Mr. Philp’s handwriting? Do you believe on your conscience and your honor, knowing Mr. Philp, that it is in his handwriting? Do you believe it on your conscience, on your honor and on your oath? A. The only answer I can give is that it resembles his handwriting.
Q. Do you believe that he wrote that letter? A. Well, it looks to me as if he did.
Q. Do you believe that? A. I never saw it before, but I believe it now more than ever I did.
Q. Well then you did believe it before you saw it? A. I suspected; when I saw the publication in Truth; I said at once that it resembled Philp’s hand writing, and I thought it was one of his practical jokes; I so said in Brooklyn, and I compared it with his hand writing in Brooklyn.
Mr. Brooke—You assert that fact, do you, that you believe that it is in the hand writing of Philp. A. I have not said so.
Q. Well I want you to say so.
Witness—I will say it if you want me to do so; I say that it resembles Mr. Philp’s hand writing, and that is as near as I can go.
Mr. Brooke—Do you on your honor and conscience believe that Mr. Philp wrote that letter?
A. I cannot answer that question; I say on my honor and conscience it is as near Philp’s hand writing as anything could be possibly, except the handwriting itself if I were looking at it; I won’t swear that it is in the handwriting of Philp, but I believe it.
Q. Do you know how that editorial came into the possession of the prosecution? A. I have not the remotest idea.
Q. Have you seen it before? A. Not till I saw it lately. I recognize the manuscript here as having seen it.
Mr. Brooke—There is a personal letter addressed to you attached to the papers in this case. How did it come into the possession of the District Attorney. Do you know? A. I do not know.
Q. To whom did you give it? A. I gave it to nobody.
Q. It was received by you, was it? A. Yes, sir.
Q. When? A. I should judge some time in November a year ago.
Q. To whom did you give it? A. I gave it to nobody. I exhibited it with the publication in Truth.
Q. When? A. I did not know that it was out of my possession until now when I see [sic] here. Q. Do you mean to say that you did not know that letter was out of your possession until you saw it now, on this occasion?
Mr. Ball—He was surprised when he saw me with it.
Mr. Brooke—Oh, yes, we know Mr. McDermott as well as you do, if not better.
Q. Now, Mr. McDermott, have you ever said to anybody that it was absurd to charge Mr. Philp with anything of the sort. A. No, sir.
Q. Did you ever assert to Mr. Daggett or anybody else, that the handwriting of this fac simile in Truth was more like yours than Mr. Philp’s? A. No, sir; for it isn’t.
Q. Did you ever say that? A. No, sir.
Q. Did you ever assert assert [sic] that you knew more about that letter than Mr. Philp did? A. No, sir.
Q. Did you ever assert that you knew from private sources that it was a genuine letter from General Garfield? A. I never suspected that it was a genuine letter.
Q. You were a member of a Republican club in the City of Brooklyn? A. Yes, sir.
Q. The Third Ward association? A. Yes, sir.
Q. Why did you leave it? A. They put me out of it. (Laughter.)
Q. You were expelled? A. Yes, sir.
Q. For what? A. For offering a place to a man in the Custom House for a vote.
Q. For bribery? A. That is, perhaps, what you would call it. (Laughter.)
Q. Was there any money in connection with it? A. I think there was a hundred dollars; they said—(Laughter.)
Q. You have been the subject of prosecution for libel? A. I believe it was.
Q. Have you any doubt about it? A. I think I have not.
Q. You have been indicted, too? A. Yes, sir.
Q. What for? A. For assault.
Q. Felonious assault? A. Yes, sir.
Q. Felonious assault on whom? A. I don’t recollect his name. (Laughter.)
Q. Were you indicted in New York, too? A. Yes, sir.
Q. What for? A. Assault.
Q. Felonious assault? A. Yes, sir.
Q. With a pistol? A. Yes, sir; with a pistol.
Q. How many shots did the indictment say were fired? A. Only one.
Q. You were arrested for stabbing a man, in Brooklyn? A. That is the same one you have just referred to.
Q. Have you ever had any indictable experience in Oneida County, in this State? A. I was never in Oneida County.
Q. Did you ever so state yourself? A. Never; that is a jest in Brooklyn.
Q. Indictment in Oneida County is a jest? Did you ever say you were indicted there? A. I may have jocularly stated it.
Q. Were you ever a fugitive from Brooklyn in connection with any matter? A. (Loftily) Never. (Laughter.)
Q. Not even in jest? (Laughter.) A. Never.
Q. What is your business? A. I am superintendent of the New York Life Insurance Company in Brooklyn, L. I.
Q. Isn’t Mr. Daggett the superintendent? A. His is the manager.
Q. Who superintends, the manager or the superintendent? (Laughter.) A. I guess I do most of the work. He does all the heavy looking on. (Laughter.)
Q. You are an active Republican? A. I do my duty simply as a citizen ought to.
Q. Not by shooting or stabbing or by getting expelled? A. Yes, sir; even by that. It is my duty as a citizen to protect myself, and I will do it if necessary.
Q. In the multitude of your duties and the infinitude of your employment as an insurance agent (laughter) have you overlooked any little indictments against you anywhere? A. No, sir, I have not. I wish to state that I never was indicted for libel. Mr. Henry C. Bowen sued me for $50,000 and he never got it. (Laughter.) That was in connection with the Beecher scandal. I was a reporter of the EAGLE, and he sued me, and that is the sum and substance of it. As to the other things, I simply say that the jury acquitted me, and they did right. (Laughter.)
Q. Did the jury in New York acquit you? A. Yes, sir; without leaving their seats, and Recorder Hackett directed them to do it.
Q. You served as reporter on the BROOKLYN EAGLE? A. Yes, sir?
Q. When? A. Up to and including the time of the Beecher trial.
Q. Employed as a reporter on the BROOKLYN EAGLE? A. Yes, sir.
Mr. Brooke—That is all.
Witness—May I keep this letter (holding up the original Morey letter)? (Laughter.)
Judge Davis—Oh, no. (Laughter.)
[...]
---end
From http://eagle.brooklynpubliclibrary.org
This article indicates that Philp was ultimately cleared.
New York Times, March 30, 1881, link
MOREY LETTER CONSPIRATORS.; O'BRIEN TO BE PUNISHED FOR PERJURY-- THE OTHERS TO BE DISCHARGED.
Article about the stabbing incident:
New York Times, November 28, 1877, link
SERIOUS STABBING AFFRAY
"JIM" M'DERMOTT IN TROUBLE AGAIN--DISCUSSING POLITICS IN A BAR-ROOM--"JIM"COMMITTED TO RAYMOND-STREET JAIL.Leave a comment:
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Blotchy
Hello Trade. Thanks for posting that.
Looks like this places Red Jim in London within a month of the MJK event. So he could still be "Blotchy Man."
Cheers.
LCLeave a comment:
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Hi Bridewell,Originally posted by Bridewell View Post
He certainly used lying as a tool of the trade. The above article has Mr. Mitchell witnessing, which we can probably have more faith in.
Uploading a photo: Click on the paperclip and when the small window appears click on the brouse. Once you found the photo, hit upload. I then exit, followed by clicking on the paperclip again and the photo will show. Then just click on the photo and it will appear in your message where your cursor is.
MikeLeave a comment:
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He appears to have had a reputation for lying about his whereabouts, so claims that he was at any particular location in the autumn of 1888 should perhaps be viewed with that in mind.
[IMG]http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F3091FFC3A5515738DDDAD0994D1405B 8485F0D3
(If anyone can show me how to attach images properly I'll be happy to do that)Leave a comment:
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Excellent find TradeName. Sounds like he had time on his hands while in London during the murders. Idle hands are the Devil's workshop!
Sincerely,
MikeLeave a comment:
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hair lipped
Hello Mike. Thanks for posting that. Yes, he narrowly escaped being shot at one point.
My understanding is that "red" referred to his "carrotty moustache." Frankly, his description sounds a good bit like Blotchy's.
Perhaps some were aware of his links to Sir Ed, even back in 1888?
Cheers.
LCLeave a comment:
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Greetings,
The following 1889 article gives a good idea of what they knew of Red Jim.
According to what Chris has researched, it looks like Red Jim was in England during the time of the murders, but I am still at a loss as to how he was a JTR suspect.
Sincerely,
MikeLeave a comment:
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och!
Hello Chris.
"And according to Campbell one of his aliases was "Mr Wilson" ..."
Good heavens lad, you are right!
What does it all mean?
Cheers.
LCLeave a comment:
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O'Brien
Hello (again) Chris. One of Jenkinson's agents was Matthew O'Brien. O'Brien claimed to have a couple of letters that would bring Sir Edward down. Hence, he, too, had a blackmail scheme involving Jenkinson.
O'Brien, according to Campbell, was involved with "Red" Jim McDermott on some entrapment operations. He later opened up a private investigation firm in London. He was involved in the Parnell Commission investigations as an agent for BOTH sides (!).
I say, was this the O'Brien mentioned as a JTR suspect in the Special Branch ledgers?
Cheers.
LCLeave a comment:
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blackmail
Hello Chris. It might be added to his biography that "Red" Jim was also involved in a blackmail scheme against Sir Edward Jenkinson. (Campbell, "Fenian Fire" p. 366)
Cheers.
LCLeave a comment:
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I have been trying to piece together some biographical notes on "Red Jim" McDermott. It's not easy, because while his activities in late 1882 and in 1883 are well documented, the evidence for the periods before and after that is very scanty, and much of what there is comes out of his own mouth - which isn't the most reliable of sources - or else from those who considered him a despicable traitor. So this should be treated with some caution, as an account of what was reported about McDermott at various times, rather than as a reliable narrative confirmed by contemporary sources. But the following is what I have so far.
On his own account he was born around 1835 (he was quoted as saying he was 54 in 1889 [1]), presumably in Ireland (though Patrick McIntyre [2] seems to have thought he was American by birth).
He was said to have joined the old Fenian organisation in Cork as early as 1862, but to have been dropped because of his fondness for the society of detectives. Soon afterwards he went to America and settled in Brooklyn. He became the private secretary of John O'Mahony, the leader of the Fenian Brotherhood, but was said to have been openly accused of betraying to the British O'Mahony's plan to seize the Canadian island of Campobello in April 1866 [1].
I have seen little information on his activities in the next decade and a half. He is said to have been a freelance journalist in Brooklyn, contributing small items of information, mainly to the Eagle, which were written up by others [3].
He also dabbled in politics, speaking in saloons [2] - McGroarty's saloon on Montague Street was said to have been his favourite [1] - and being paid by both political parties, though ostensibly a Democrat [3]. But he seems to have had a precarious existence, being described as notorious for fights with tailors seeking payment [1] - he was described as "a cheap bar-room brawler who was constantly before the police courts through the use sometimes of his fist, but more frequently of knife and bludgeon" [3].
He was said to have excited suspicion by the way in which he followed the delegation that accompanied O'Mahoney's remains to Ireland (in February 1877) [5].
He was later said to have perjured himself by giving evidence intended to incriminate a journalist, Kenward Philp, who was accused of having forged the Morey letter (to discredit James Garfield in the presidential election of 1880) but who was later shown to be innocent [3].
After the Phoenix Park murders in May 1882, he was said to have offered to lead a movement to "remove" Gladstone and Harcourt (the prime minister and home secretary) [1].
In October 1882, McDermott was recruited (or reactivated) as a spy by the British consul-general in New York, Sir Edward Archibald, after Matt O'Brien had overheard him plotting to kill Earl Spencer (lord lieutenant of Ireland) in J. P. Ryan's Liquor Saloon in Chambers Street, and followed him to the adjacent office of Jeremiah O'Donovan Rossa's United Irishman [4].
In January 1883, McDermott told Rossa that he was going to Europe to trace George A. W. Stewart, the secretary of the Brooklyn Board of Education, who had absconded, and obtained from him credentials as a correspondent of the United Irishman (apparently he was already authorised to represent the Brooklyn Union) [5]. He sailed to Liverpool under the name Peter Quigley and put up at the Birkenhead Railway Hotel to await the arrival of Edward Jenkinson, the Dublin Castle "spymaster." After meeting Jenkinson, he went to London to confer with O'Brien [4]. According to McIntyre, O'Brien referred to McDermott as his "foster-brother," and at this time they lived "in the gayest fashion" at the Grand Hotel, Charing Cross [2].
In late February 1883 McDermott was in Dublin, and visited Michael Davitt in Richmond Prison, posing as a correspondent for the Brooklyn Daily Argus. He saw Davitt and his fellow prisoner, T. M. Healy, M.P., in the presence of the chief warder (at Davitt's request), praising the Phoenix Park assassins and saying that Earl Spencer deserved to be shot, but Davitt cut him short and he and Healy instructed the chief warder that he was not to be admitted to see either of them again [4, 5, 6].
Afterwards he was seen visiting Dublin Castle under the pretence of interviewing Jenkinson. He was later arrested following a drunken brawl with a cab-driver, and his letters of introduction from Rossa were shown by a desk-sergeant to a journalist, who passed copies of them to Davitt. McDermott was released without charge [4].
Apparently at about the same time he visited a Mrs Cody, who supplied the Phoenix Park prisoners with food. In the guise of a "friend of Ireland" he obtained from her the names of the people who paid her to feed the prisoners, and they were subsequently arrested [5].
Afterwards (in mid-March 1883) he went to Cork, where he posed as an organiser of dynamite societies in order to incriminate nationalists. An account of his activities there by James O'Malley was published in August 1883 [5]. O'Malley was deputed to meet him at the Imperial Hotel, where McDermott produced a letter from Rossa. He attempted to induce O'Malley to write to Rossa at an address he supplied, and to copy a recipe for explosives. According to O'Malley's own account, he was suspicious of McDermott and alerted his colleagues, but at a meeting at the Imperial Hotel on 18 March McDermott convinced Timothy Featherstone of his good faith. He then left, ostensibly on a trip to Killarney (but actually to Dublin) and after his return on 21 March he attended a meeting and proposed to poison Captain Plunkett, the resident magistrate for Cork.
On 22 March he went to London and met John O'Connor, alias Dalton, who showed him the public buildings [5]. McIntyre described how he and Littlechild had observed the meeting of the two men outside the Charing Cross Hotel and shadowed them as they visited various places, including Westminster Bridge, where they surveyed the House of Commons. Their instructions were to follow Dalton and find out where he lived, which they did [7]. Dalton was arrested in early April.
After his return, he arranged for Denis Deasy to take a box of nitro-glycerine to Patrick Flannigan in Liverpool, and gave him an incriminating note addressed to Flannigan and signed with Featherstone's name. Deasy was arrested on his arrival on 28 March, and the note led to Flannigan's arrest. On 29 March Featherstone and others were arrested in Cork, and the following day McDermott went to Dublin, registering under the name St Sylvester. In early May he went on to Liverpool, where he appeared as a witness at a secret inquiry into the Cork conspiracy, and then travelled via Le Havre to Paris [5]. There he made contact with the nationalists Joseph and Patrick Casey; he also supplied Jenkinson with information about a former Foreign Office spy, General Charles Carrol-Tevis, and his Parisian mistress [4].
On 6 June McDermott arrived back in New York. He apparently allayed Rossa's suspicions by persuading him that someone else had betrayed the plot, but two days later he was warned through William Hoare, the new acting consul, that two men were on their way from Cork to kill him, and he escaped to Montreal [4]. There he appears to have again used as a cover story the claim that he was in pursuit of Stewart, the missing secretary of the Brooklyn Board of Education; it was reported on 9 July that he had been in Montreal for some time negotiating with Stewart [9]. But it was later alleged that he had again acted as an agent provocateur in trying to organise "dynamite clubs" there on Hoare's orders [4, 5, 10].
After being assured by Rossa that the accusations against him were not believed, he returned to New York [4]. Soon afterwards, on 21 July, two men unsuccessfully attempted to assassinate him while he was having lunch with Rossa at Ryan's Saloon in Chambers Street. A "calling card" found on one of them accused him of being an English spy [1, 4].
McDermott fled to England, sailing for Liverpool on 25 July under the name Peter Quigley, in "semi-disguise" and wearing gold spectacles. On his arrival on 8 August, he was arrested, Jenkinson's plan being to stage a phony trial in order to deflect suspicion from him. But the plan was dropped and he was released on 17 (or 19) September, and disguised as a coal porter he was escorted across the North Sea to Hamburg by Jenkinson's colleague Gosselin [1, 2, 4].
After this point, McDermott seems to have been sighted only sporadically. Campbell referred to him "living it up" on the Continent, apparently in the Spring of 1884, but gave no more details [12]. In June 1885 it was claimed that his wife had been seen in deep mourning in New York, and had said he had died a couple of months before; he was said then to have last been seen near London [13]. One Samuel Maclean, described as a Brooklyn millionaire, said he had met McDermott in Princes Street, Edinburgh, and had lunch with him, apparently in August or September 1888 when he was socialising with the grouse-shooting set [14, 15].
In 1889 when the Parnell Commission was sitting, Henry Labouchere offered a reward of £50 for information on McDermott's whereabouts so that he could be forced to give evidence. McDermott later claimed that he had been in London at the time and made no attempt to conceal himself [1, 16]. Later it was even claimed that he had written a letter offering to meet Labouchere in company with a newspaper reporter [17].
McDermott was interviewed by the New York Herald in August 1889, during a week's stay in London. Two months later the same newspaper reported that he had just returned from a trip to Sweden. He gave an account of a lavish lifestyle, which shared some details with the reports of his meeting with Samuel McLean the previous year [1, 14, 15]. He claimed to have married a French countess whom he had met on his voyage to Liverpool in July-August 1883, and to have taken her name, being known as the "Count de Neonlier." He claimed to own a chateau and an estate of 56 acres and 200 tenants in France, unprofitable "owing to the ravages of the phylloxera" (a species of louse that devastated French vineyards in the late 19th century). In one article he said his wife had brought him this estate, but according to another he had inherited his French property from an aunt. His other claims included the ownership of a castle at Helsinki (described as being in Norway), a house in Stockholm, a house and grounds in Colombo, Ceylon (inherited from an uncle who had died intestate and whose son was presumed to have been eaten by "wild beasts") and a 40-ton yacht. He claimed to have travelled also in Australia, to have spent time at Monte Carlo and the German spas, and to have lived in Berlin and Copenhagen (where he taught in a school, as he had done in Norway according to a different report). Not surprisingly, these claims were treated with some scepticism [1, 14, 15, 17].
In April 1891 McDermott was reported to have written from the Victoria Hotel, London, denying that he was the "Missing Murray" in the Evelyn-Hurlbert case [18]. This was a scandalous breach of promise case, in which a "soi disant actress" in London, Gladys Evelyn, claimed that an American journalist, William Henry Hurlbert, had written her a number of compromising letters. Hurlbert claimed that the letters had been written by an acquaintance of his named Wilfred Murray, who had unaccountably vanished; Hurlbert later fled when a warrant was issued for his arrest for perjury. Why McDermott should have involved himself in the case - if his letter was genuine - is a mystery.
McDermott surfaced again in 1894, when he wrote (on 23 August, from the Hotel Victoria, Northumberland Avenue, London) to Freeman's Journal (Dublin), claiming to have just returned from America on his way home to the South of France. He recalled that when a writer in a Dublin publication made allegations against him a few weeks earlier, he had offered £1000 if they could produce proof, which he said was unclaimed in the hands of his friend Sir Charles Rich. In response to new allegations by Michael Davitt that he had plotted to deliver Gallagher and others into the clutches of Scotland Yard, he offered £2000 for proof. In his response, Davitt challenged McDermott to sue him for libel, suggested that his letter had been written on stolen notepaper, and that he had sent a letter to New York to be posted there, in order to substantiate his story of having visited America [19].
The final alleged sighting of McDermott was by Patrick McIntyre, who wrote in his serialised memoirs that around late March 1895 "a well-dressed gentleman, tall silk hat, and Newmarket ulster," called at the pub he kept in Southwark and despite the fact that his appearance was "greatly altered," according to McIntyre he recognised the customer as "Red Jim." The following week a correspondent calling himself "Vindex" claimed that a despatch published in the press on 24 April showed that McDermott was in fact in India, but apparently this related to a different McDermott who had offered to supply arms to the Pashtun chief Umra Khan two years earlier, and had subsequently gone to Egypt [20, 21].
References.
[1] New York Herald, 2 September 1889.
[2] Reynold's Newspaper, 10 March 1895.
[3] Philadelphia Inquirer, 28 September 1890.
[4] Christy Campbell, Fenian Fire (2002), pp. 130-135.
[5] Irish World, 18 October 1890.
[6] James O'Malley places this incident later, after the arrests in Cork.
[7] Reynold's Newspaper, 10 February 1895.
[8] Campbell, pp. 152, 214.
[9] Muskegon Chronicle, 9 July 1883.
[10] New York Times, 14 October 1890.
[11] Lindsay Clutterbuck, An Accident of History?, p. 206 (Ph. D. thesis, Portsmouth, 2002).
[12] Campbell, pp. 145.
[13] New York Herald, 13 June 1885.
[14] New York Herald-Tribune, 15 September 1888.
[15] New York Times, 15 Sept 1888.
[16] Campbell, p. 357, footnote.
[17] New York Herald, 2 November 1889.
[18] Philadelphia Inquirer, 26 April 1891.
[19] New York Times, 14 September 1894.
[20] Reynold's Newspaper, 28 April and 5 May 1895.
[21] Glasgow Herald, 24 April 1895; Western Mail 24 April 1895.Leave a comment:
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