J. North Conway - Bag of Bones: The Sensational Grave Robbery of the Merchant Prince of Manhattan

BAG OF BONES

Also by J. North Conway

Nonfiction

The Big Policeman: The Rise and Fall of Americas First, Most Ruthless, and Greatest Detective

King of Heists: The Sensational Bank Robbery of 1878 That Shocked America

The Cape Cod Canal: Breaking Through the Bared and Bended Arm

Head Above Water

Shipwrecks of New England

New England Visionaries

New England Women of Substance

American Literacy: Fifty Books That Define Our Culture and Ourselves

From Coup to Nuts: A Revolutionary Cookbook

Fiction

The Road to Ruin

Zig Zag Man

Poetry

Life Sentences

My Picnic With Lolita and Other Poems

Copyright 2012 by J. North Conway

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, except as may be expressly permitted in writing from the publisher. Requests for permission should be addressed to Globe Pequot Press, Attn: Rights and Permissions Department, P.O. Box 480, Guilford, CT 06437.

Lyons Press is an imprint of Globe Pequot Press.

Text design: Sheryl Kober

Layout artist: Justin Marciano

Project editor: Kristen Mellitt

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.

ISBN 978-0-7627-7812-6

Printed in the United States of America

E-ISBN 978-0-7627-8513-1

This book is dedicated to my mother and father.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction

BONES OF CONTENTION

T he tale surrounding the theft and ransom of department store magnate A. T. Stewarts bodytold here in Bag of Bones would be magnificent fodder for todays cold case entertainment industry were the remains those of a contemporary man of Stewarts astounding wealth. But this crime took place long before co-ed detective units and lab-coat forensics. It remains one of Americas great and enduring mysteries.

Bag of Bones is the third and final installment of my trilogy about New York City during the Gilded Age. King of Heists (2009) told the story of the greatest bank robbery in American history, carried out in 1878 by George L. Leslie, dubbed King of the Bank Robbers. The Big Policeman (2010) details the career of Thomas Byrnes, a colorful, sometimes ruthless police officer who rose through the ranks to become superintendent of the New York City Police Department and who is credited as the father of American detective work.

Byrnes is a key player in the A. T. Stewart drama. He is the head cop in the investigation of the gruesome, sensational crime at the heart of the story. I think of the Stewart case as a classic whodunit, yet it weaves together elements of true crime, biography, and Manhattan history and culture, all set against New York Citys decadent social orderthe Gilded Age.

Running parallel to the grave-robbing narrative is the story of the Stewart familys rise and fall, and how the family fortune fared under the questionable stewardship of one of Stewarts most trusted friends, Judge Henry Hilton. Any reader will be quick to conclude that Bernie Madoff had nothing on Judge Hilton. The tragedy of A. T. and Cornelia Stewart serves as a cautionary tale, one that reinforces how vital study of the Gilded Age is to our understanding of contemporary American society. The Gilded Age was a term coined by Mark Twain and used as the title of a book he wrote with Charles Dudley Warner in 1873, The Gilded Age: A Tale of To-Day . It encapsulates a period in American history (18701890) of enormous greed, the accumulation of great wealth by the so-called robber baronspeople who made their great fortunes through ruthless and uncontrolled business practicesand the vulgar display of that wealth.

Gilded Age figures occupy the top tier of the list of the richest Americans in history according to both Forbes and the New York Times . Among them are John D. Rockefeller (18391937) , Americas first billionaire, ranked number one with approximately $190 billion by early twenty-first century currency standards, followed by Cornelius Vanderbilt (17941877), who was estimated to be worth about $140 billion, and John Jacob Astor in the number three spot at nearly $115 billion. Andrew Carnegie (18351919) reached sixth place, and A.T. Stewart (18031876), who is considered the father of the American department store, was in the seventh position. The Gilded Age yielded five of the top ten richest men in American history. During this period it was estimated that the richest 2 percent of the people owned one-third of the nations wealth, while the richest 10 percent owned three-quarters. If, as stated in the Sermon on the Mount, the meek shall inherit the earth, then the celestial courts will surely be clogged with litigation. According to Robert Frank of the New York Times , during the New Gilded Age of the 1990s and the early 2000s, todays rich barely hold a candle to the Gilded Age titans. This is partly a measure of the astounding wealth accumulated by Rockefeller, Vanderbilt, Astor, and Carnegie. Count A. T. Stewart among these notable Gilded Age billionaires.

At the time of his death in 1876, before Rockefeller had completed his ascent, Alexander Turney Stewart was considered the third richest man in America behind only Vanderbilt and Astor. He left his wife, Cornelia, an estate estimated at more than forty million dollars, a vast fortune that he had made in the retail sales business and that had earned him the title of the Merchant Prince of Manhattan.

An Irish immigrant, Stewart began his career in New York City in 1823, selling linens from the old country. By 1862, he had built the largest department store in the world, the Cast Iron Palace. Stewarts store was six floors tall and located on the corner of Broadway and Ninth Street. It had a cast-iron front and a glass dome skylight. The immense store employed more than two thousand people and had nearly twenty departments, selling everything from burlap bags to womens calf gloves. He later established department stores overseas, including in London and Paris.

In 1869, Stewart completed his ornate mansion on the corner of Fifth Avenue and Thirty-fourth Street in New York City. Unlike the other luxurious brownstone mansions owned by the Astors and Vanderbilts, all located along what was referred to as Millionaires Row, Stewarts was made entirely out of Italian marble, cut exclusively for him and shipped to the United States. Costing approximately two million dollars, it took seven years to build. Constructed in Parisian Empire design, the building had three main floors, an attic with a mansard roof, and a ballroom that ran the full length of its Fifth Avenue frontage. A lighted moat separated the residence from the sidewalks. Stewart filled the mansion with expensive furniture and antiques and a large and valuable art collection. There was no home like it in America.

Stewarts attempt to outdo his multimillionaire neighbors, like William and Caroline Astor, did not endear him to New York Citys powerful and affluent society. He and his wife found themselves ostracized by high class circles, viewed as millionaire upstarts. Still, their exclusion did nothing to damage his retail empire. Following the death of Cornelia Stewart in 1886, the Marble Mansion was sold, and in 1901 it was torn down.