"I am a British Subject."

[mklhawley]

This message is from Joe Chetcuti:

I am happy to say that David Barrat has come across about four dozen letters in the National Archives at Kew that involved Tumblety's incarceration in the Old Capitol Prison in May 1865. The letters also revealed the extent of Tumblety's quest to collect $100,000 worth of recompense for his imprisonment.

David also discovered five affidavits at the National Archives that provided even more information about Tumblety's 1865 arrest in St. Louis and of the lucrative business he conducted there during that time. David put in a lot of hard work in organizing the material, and shortly thereafter, he kindly sent the paperwork to me. I thank him very much for his generosity. I've mailed copies to a few other Ripperologists, and they all agree that this is a cool discovery.

Over the upcoming weeks we'll be posting some of the newly discovered letters right here on this thread. The first letter that will be shown was written by Tumblety from his cell in the Old Capitol Prison. (Tumblety referred to the jail as Carroll Prison.) The letter was mailed to Sir Frederic Bruce who was the British Minister in Washington D.C. at the time.

As for the five affidavits, two of them will appear in the upcoming December 2015 issue of the Whitechapel Society Journal. Frogg Moody is helping out with this. So as you can see, there are plenty of good things going on right now.

[jmenges]

Great news! Send along my congrats on the find, I can't wait to read them. This period of Tumblety's history has long been my personal favorite to ponder.


JM

[Howard Brown]

Mike:

A cache that size suggests the 'dossier' that Littlechild refers to in the letter to Sims.

[mklhawley]

Howard,

You and I (Jonathan, Chris, and anyone else) will be enjoying a few fine lagers in Baltimore discussing this!

Mike

[mklhawley]

Curious to your point, though, Howard, if Sir Frederick Bruce's files would make it to Scotland Yard.

Sincerely,

Mike

[lynn cates]

kudos

Hello Mike. Kudos.

Cheers.
LC

[Robert]

Carroll Prison


May 30, 1865


Sir Frederic Bruce,

I am a British Subject. I have been kidnapped in St. Louis, MO, on the fifth of this month and I have had no trial. Judge Holt sent my discharge to the Sec. of War to sign and he has neglected it.

Will you see that I get justice?

Respectfully yours,

(Signed F. Tumblety M.D.)

p.s. Before I left St. Louis the Chief of Police received a despatch from the Sec. of War stating that he had no charges against me but would like to see me. I am here three weeks and have not seen him yet.

(Signed F.T. M.D.)



The following is from Joe Chetcuti.

Tumblety was released from jail the next day, May 31st. The possibility arises that Sir Frederic Bruce received Tumblety's letter and then acted upon it.

Sir Frederic died in 1867, but the letter that had been sent to him from Tumblety's jail cell was preserved.

The letter made its way into the hands of Sir Edward Thornton. On June 7, 1873 Thornton informed Lord Granville:

"It does not appear that (Tumblety) made any communication to Her Majesty's Legation until the 30th of that month (May 1865) as shown by a letter of that date to Sir Frederic Bruce, copy of which is enclosed. It is possible that his release on the following day was due to a verbal application made to Mr. Seward by Sir F. Bruce."

[c.d.]

Interesting that Tumblety passes himself off as an M.D. in his signature.

c.d.

[mklhawley]

Interesting that Tumblety passes himself off as an M.D. in his signature.

c.d.

Hi c.d,

He always did and it's even on his family gravestone.

Mike

[Pcdunn]

Was Tumblety really a British subject, or was it some of his con-man talk?

[mklhawley]

Was Tumblety really a British subject, or was it some of his con-man talk?

He was born in Ireland and came over on a famine ship when he was a teenager, so I believe he was.

Mike

[Pcdunn]

He was born in Ireland and came over on a famine ship when he was a teenager, so I believe he was.

Mike

Very interesting. Thank you.

[mklhawley]

From Joe Chetcuti:


Once he was released from the Old Capitol Prison, Tumblety went to the Kirkwood House in Washington, D.C. From there, he wrote a letter expressing his innocence. Tumblety mailed out plenty of copies of his letter, and it was printed in various newspapers throughout the U.S.

But there were two additional letters that he wrote from Washington which were not publicly printed. They were both mailed to Sir Frederic Bruce. One was sent on June 1, 1865 and the other on June 6, 1865. In the second letter, Tumblety lamented over how his business "has been ruined". As for Tumblety's June 1st letter, he wrote:

When under arrest I was not able to defend myself against the wild storm of denunciation that was sweeping over the whole country. The Press and Telegraph, the Pulpit, and the Rostrum were ringing with denunciations. I firmly believe that all this fierce and unreasonable calumny was organized or concocted by some (directing?) of the govt. with the deliberate purpose to insult, humiliate, & ruin my character.

The following February, Tumblety wrote to Sir Frederic Bruce again. Tumblety wanted the British Minister to help him reach a financial settlement with the U.S. Government. Tumblety claimed he can "conscientiously aver a loss of $100,000" from his St. Louis arrest and from his ordeal in the Old Capitol Prison.
But Sir Frederic Bruce didn't buy into any of this, and he practically ignored the message.
Tumblety was furious over this neglect. He angrily wrote this following letter on February 25, 1866 and mailed it to T. J. H. Thurlow, who held the position of "2nd Secretary to the Legation" in Washington.



Cincinnati

February 25, 1866
Sir,
An application made three weeks ago to Sir Frederic Bruce in respect of my claim for redress for personal and pecuniary suffering at the hands of the American Secretary of War, has up to this time remained unanswered.
Am I to conclude that the personal liberty & property of a British subject are trifles unworthy of the consideration of H. M. Minister in Washington, for if it is so the sooner my fellow countrymen in the U.S. of America are fully cognizant of their protection, the better, for in that case, they may conclude that it is useless as well as inconvenient for them to cherish an allegiance so utterly worthless.
Will you please advise me, as in such case I shall take measures to present my case to the people of England and the Home Govt.
I remain sir,
(Signed Francis Tumblety)

FOREIGN OFFICE NOTE
In reply, repeated that he must submit his case thro' HM's Consul at St. Louis who alone is competent to judge whether his estimate of his sustained losses is reasonable or excessive. Add Sir Fck's belief that U.S.G. at this moment would not embrace this claim with favour.

(In a few days, we'll post the exact location in the National Archives where the documents were found by David Barrat.)

[Pcdunn]

Tumblety's inflated sense of his own importance and self-worth comes across very well in his letters.

[Robert]

The following is from Joe.







I'm sorry about the final few paragraphs in my last post. I didn't expect the sentence lines in those paragraphs to end up squished together like that. I won't use "bold type" anymore, since that probably was the cause of the problem.







The paperwork was found by David Barrat in the Foreign Office files of the National Archives. Everything was indexed with the "FO" prefix. It looks like the Foreign Office simply stored the paperwork of a civil matter involving one of its citizens and the U.S. Government. Tumblety's claim was eventually ruled upon by a Claims Commission that was set up by the 1871 Treaty of Washington.







David Barrat explains more thoroughly:







The files in which I found the letters comprise part of a series of Foreign Office files at the National Archives containing correspondence over a number of years relating to United States matters (including letters written directly by Tumblety to British foreign secretaries) and part of a series of files comprising about 24 volumes entitled "Claims Commission".





It's definitely not from a cache of Tumblety related papers and certainly has nothing to do with Jack the Ripper. All of the letters I found were in their original files up to 1876. There may even be more waiting to be found. I looked long and hard through many files but it's by no means impossible that I missed some, although the sequence seems to be mostly complete. Having said that, the correspondence certainly contains references to letters written by Tumblety to other government departments, such as the Treasury, but I wasn't able to locate them and they may be there for someone else to find.