Published by The History Press
Charleston, SC
www.historypress.com
Copyright 2019 by Kelly Pucci
All rights reserved
First published 2019
e-book edition 2019
Cover images courtesy of the Chicago History Museum.
ISBN 978.1.43966.672.2
Library of Congress Control Number: 2018966326
print edition ISBN 978.1.46714.055.3
Notice: The information in this book is true and complete to the best of our knowledge. It is offered without guarantee on the part of the author or The History Press. The author and The History Press disclaim all liability in connection with the use of this book.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form whatsoever without prior written permission from the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
To Joe Pucci, for suggesting that I write a book about Michael Cassius McDonald.
CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Angela Hoover, rights and reproductions manager, was a tremendous help getting images from the massive collection of historic images at the Chicago History Museum, which Ive visited often to gaze at the dioramas that introduced me to Chicagos rich history and which I will always refer to as the Chicago Historical Society.
Rick Kogan of the Chicago Tribune for his supportive e-mails.
Joseph Pucci for sticking with me throughout the project.
Richard Rott and the gang of database enhancers who worked nights, weekends and holidays putting the Chicago Tribune online.
INTRODUCTION
On a mild morning in August 1907, hundreds of criminals, politicians and businessmen squeezed into a Catholic church on Chicagos West Side, sitting beside a group of pallbearers that included Chicago fire chief James Horan and a notorious gambler named Charley Winship. The men sat quietly, lost in their own thoughts, as four priests celebrated a solemn mass before an altar crammed with outlandishly large floral arrangements. Perhaps disgraced police superintendent William McGarigle remembered when McDonald used to pay him to overlook certain goings-on in McDonalds illegal gambling parlor. Perhaps Oyster Joe Chesterfield Mackin (inventor of the free luncha fork and an oyster, devised to entice customers to linger at his saloon) remembered rounding up drunken voters on election day and delivering them to McDonalds very own polling place in full view of McDonalds neighbor, Mayor Carter Harrison. Perhaps James Henry Farrell, leader of the Cook County Democratic Marching Club, remembered when Mike McDonald treated him and two hundred other Democrats to an all-expenses-paid excursion to Niagara Falls, a trip to celebrate the acquittal of an elected official charged with bribery.
Outside the church, police officers struggled to prevent throngs of onlookers from entering. Some of those same policemen would work overtime that day investigating an explosion at a gambling parlor owned by James OLeary, an up-and-coming protg of McDonalds and son of the famous Mrs. OLeary, whose cow allegedly kicked over a lantern that started the Great Fire of 1871.
As Father Dorney prepared to deliver his eulogy, he nodded at members of McDonalds family assembled in the front row: his brother, his sister, his sons and his first wife, Mary. McDonalds current wife, Dora, was not among the mourners. The priest cleared his throat and began:
Ask Lyman J. Gage, great factor in one of the largest financial institutions in Chicagohe may be here, for aught I knowfor his estimate of Mike McDonald. Doubtless he will tell you that Mikes paper and his word were good. Who was instrumental in placing Murray F. Tuley in the common council of the City of Chicago? Mike McDonald! Who subsequently had a great share in placing Murray F. Tuley on the bench? Who placed the other great jurist, McAllister, on the bench? Mike McDonald. [In exchange for securing the position, Judge McAllister declared a raid on Mikes gambling parlor illegal.]
Who was it that gave to the City of Chicago one of its best health commissioners and at a time when Chicago needed a big man for the position? I refer to Dr. Wickersham. Mike McDonald! [During the Civil War, Wickersham was accused of plotting to disrupt the 1864 Democratic Convention and free eight thousand Confederate prisoners from Camp Douglas on Chicagos South Side.]
Who was it they called the king of the politicians and the gamblers, but who was it whose shrewdness enabled him to exercise such a power? Mike McDonald!
He associated with gamblers and others without the pale of the church and gave scandal in various ways, but before his death he was heartily sorry for it, and he died a true Christian.
THE KID AND THE CANDY
Thirteen-year-old Michael Cassius McDonald ran away from home aboard a train headed to Chicago, tagging along with a gang of young ruffians from Upstate New York; one boy died under mysterious circumstances and was buried in Chicago by McDonald and the others. Such was the inauspicious start to McDonalds life in gritty Chicago.
McDonalds immigrant parents, Edward and Mary, worked hard and remained poor in one of the worlds most impressive natural settings, Niagara Falls, celebrated for its fierce beauty as early as the seventeenth century. A nice place to visit, but Michael didnt want to live there. In 1683, European explorer Father Louis Hennepin published the first written description of Niagara Falls in his book Nouvelle Decouverte dun Tres Grand Pays Situ Dans lAmerique:
Betwixt the Lake Ontario and Erie, there is a vast and prodigious Cadence of Water which falls down after a surprising and astonishing manner, insomuch that the Universe does not afford its parallelfour leagues from Lake Frontenac there is an incredible Cataract of water-fall which has no equal. At the foot of this horrible Precipice, we meet with the River Niagara.It is so rapid above this Descent, that it violently hurries down the wild Beasts while endeavouring to pass it to feed on the other side, they not being able to withstand the force of its Current, which inevitably casts them above Six hundred foot high.
Michael Cassius McDonald was born in an Irish enclave near Niagara Falls. Library of Congress, cph3a21641//hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp.chp3a21641.
As the site was a thriving tourist destination, one tourist claimed that he could hardly consent to leave this seemingly dangerous and enchanting spot. In December 1803, Niagara Falls welcomed its first honeymoon couple: Napoleon Bonapartes younger brother Jerome and his bride, Betsy. Madly in love with each other despite warnings from both families that the marriage wouldnt last, the future king of Westphalia and the Baltimore socialite honeymooned in Niagara Falls. Perhaps Betsy Patterson Bonaparte packed sensibly for the chilly trip north, stuffing a few furs in her suitcases with her favorite dressa dress so small that an acquaintance observed it would easily fit into a gentlemans pocket. By all accounts, the honeymoon was a success, as a child was conceived, but the marriage was a failure. Jerome Bonaparte abandoned his American-born wife and child to marry Catharina of Wurttemberg.
