A Crime of 1836

The Case of Helen Jewett Contained All the Elements of a Tabloid Sensation of Today

EDMUND PEARSON

TOMAS STREET, in New York, is a short and obscure thoroughfare, in the down-town district, and it is lined with uninteresting stone buildings. The usual excavation is always in progress there. Yet, if one may believe the newspapers of i836, this was once a region of romance and intrigue. Here were houses with large gardens and high fences, and over these fences, at night, clambered mysterious men in black cloaks. It was alleged that they left blood-stained weapons behind them. And, at least one of the gardens boasted an arbour "filled with syrens and champagne, pineapples and pretty filles de joie".

This curious mixture,—in any garden— would attract one's interest; but if you look about, to wonder where it could have been located, and, if you remain in too great an abstraction, you will he hit by a steam-shovel, and then, provided you are a follower of the Prophet, you may awake in a Paradise where syrens and pineapples are included in the contract.

THE present Number 41 Thomas Street can A hardly be on the same site of that number in the 1830's. It certainly is extremely difficult to imagine in its vicinity, a pair of lovers reading Byron together under an arbour. And I suspect that in those Spring days, ninety-two years ago, when the New York newspaper reporters, with their tall hats and side-whiskers, flocked to the place, they were doing exactly what the gentlemen from the tabloids do today: making two romances grow where not even one flourished before.

Number 41 "Was the house of Rosina Townsend, and over her career and occupation it becomes us, as strict moralists, to groan. The reporters of her day, exactly as in ours, managed to print a great deal of perilous stuff by the method of inserting words of solemn condemnation. The central figure of the event was invariably referred to as "the beautiful but erring Helen Jewett". Sometimes she was "accomplished but wayward". One writer achieved a triumph by calling her the "Queen of the Pave" who "shone resplendent nightly at the theatres". Another spoke of her as "the beautiful Augustan"; while such terms as "fair inamorata" and "lovely unfortunate" were within the reach of the youngest reporters. There was much indignation aroused against Rosina Townsend and her "house of sinful luxury", but this phrase was thought tame, compared with its happier characterization as "this Palace of the Passions".

Clergymen became wrathful about "dens of infamy", inhabited by "soiled doves", and, as usual at that period, dragged up for public inspection the pretty ladies of Greece and Rome. Laïs, Phryne and Aspasia were all under subpoena to testify about Mrs. Townsend, Miss Jewett, and their friends.

The real name of Helen Jewett was Dorcas Dyon, or Doyen. I suggest that, for the "movies", the actual name was better than the assumed one. She was beautiful,—everyone agrees on that. Her hair was black, and (according to one authority) she chose to dress in green. Alfred Henry Lewis represents her as setting agog the grave and reverend, the gay and distinguished men of New York (all of them are there together, in his story) as she walked slowly up quiet, tree-lined Broadway of a summer afternoon. She was "one of the most splendidly dressed women that went to the third tier of the theatre",— whatever that means. She is described as attending the Park Theatre one night, when the bill included the opera The Maid of Judah and a farce The Dumb Belle, —a performance which occupied four hours. She had fine gowns and handsome rings: two with emeralds. She was fond of needle-work, and not unwilling to sew and even make shirts for one or two of her lovers.

If some of her letters were really written by the gentlemen of the press, there seem to have been genuine notes by her, which got into print. They were well-written, although stilted and—according to our ideas—formal. And we have it on the authority of James Gordon Bennett (whose New York Herald was then one year old) from a personal inspection which he made of Helen's writing desk and library, that the latter included books by Scott, Dryden, Bulwer, Pope, Homer, Virgil (in translation), Plutarch, Shakespeare and Ben Jonson. Evidently there was a slight excuse for comparing her with Aspasia.

Helen Jewett was twenty-three, and she had been born in Maine. Scandals clustered around her career. She was credited—or charged— with a love affair at the age of eleven, with a boy named Sumner. I suspect that this was merely a childhood friendship, but the incident is described, by one censor of her conduct, as an "unholy intimacy".

Soon afterwards, however, the girl chose the primrose path in earnest. It led through Portland and Boston, and, at last, to New York. After two or three years in that city she arrived at Rosina Townsend's. And here someone took upon himself rights of vengeance which have been expressly reserved elsewhere than on earth. For, whatever Helen Jewett had done, nobody—except one savage clergyman, who preached about it—felt that she merited her fate.

Before daylight, one Sunday morning, Mrs. Townsend smelled smoke coming from Miss Jewett's room. She opened the door, and with the help of others, put out a fire that was smouldering within. The girl was lying on the floor, her body slightly burned. The cause of death, however, was plainly shown by three wounds in her head, as from an axe. The police were called—they were known then as "the watch—and various persons scrambled around in the dark and attempted to escape from the house. The newspapers delicately described them as en deshabillé.

WATCHMEN found an axe and a man's cloak in a neighboring yard—in the grounds of a house on Hudson Street—and on the evidence of these, and still more on information from Mrs. Townsend, went to 42 Dey Street, and there arrested one of two young clerks who roomed together at that house. This was Mr. Richard P. Robinson. He was only nineteen years old; he was originally from Connecticut; and he worked for Mr. Hoxie, the jeweller, of Maiden Lane.

Robinson was tried in June, in the aldermanic chamber at City Hall. It was New York's first great sensational, scandalous murder trial, and everyone made the most of it. Crowds jammed the City Hall and the courtroom, or stood in the space outside, where Mayor Walker now welcomes distinguished guests. The crowds hooted and yelled and behaved so uproariously that the trial was interrupted, delayed, and nearly broken up altogether. Young men cheered Robinson at every opportunity. The sympathy of the mob was with the prisoner, although the evidence against him was black.

The axe was identified as from Mr. Hoxie's shop. The cloak was sworn to as Robinson's. A miniature portrait found in his room, was identified as one in Helen Jewett's possession shortly before the murder. And finally, Rosina Townsend testified that she let Robinson into her house early that evening to keep an appointment with Miss Jewett. She did not know him by his own name, but by one which he adopted for purposes of nocturnal adventure: Frank Rivers. Mrs. Townsend had been requested by Helen to admit "Frank Rivers", but by no means to let in another gay dog who called himself "Bill Easy".

Later, at about eleven, Miss Jewett ordered a bottle of champagne, and the obliging Mrs. Townsend carried it to the girl's room, on a salver, with two glasses. She was even asked inside, to have some of the champagne, but she declined. Through the door, however, she saw Frank Rivers lying on the bed, reading a book. She recognized him, particularly by a bald spot on the crown of his head. And this partly Laid young man, she impressively stated to the Court, was the prisoner at the bar, Mr. Robinson, lie now, for some reason, was wearing a wig, over a shaven head. The wig was blonde and curled.

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This looked like hanging evidence. It was the theory of Mr. Phoenix, the district attorney, that, at about three in the morning, Mr. Robinson had murdered Helen Jewett; set her room on lire, and departed by the back way. A girl who lived in the house saw him go. lie climbed the back fence, carelessly losing the axe and his cloak, lie then went to Dey Street, —and so to bed. What his motive may have been, Mr. Phoenix does not appear to have staled. It might have been robbery; or a quarrel; or jealousy; but what it was, has never been suggested with plausibility. A theory has been advanced that the young man was about to marry Miss Hoxie, the daughter of his employer, and that Helen Jewett was trying to block that plan, since she herself loved Robinson. The "romance" between them was nearly a year old: they were reported to have read poetry together in the garden at 41 Thomas Street and they had met at that house more than once.

The famous lawyer, Ogden IIofTman, who defended Robinson, had some cards up his sleeve, worth more than till the witnesses from Mrs. Townsend's dubious household. Mr. Hoffman referred to Mrs. Townsend's credibility in severe terms, and the judge seemed to agree with him. He described his client, in tones of heart-rending pathos, as "this poor boy". And, best of all, lie produced a man named Furlong who kept a grocery on Nassau Street. This citizen swore solemnly that Robinson was smoking "segars" in his shop, more than a mile from Mrs. Townsend's, on the night of the murder. And that he stayed there up to an hour which proved that eminent lady either a very poor observer or else a most vicious perjurer.

The jury acquitted Robinson in ten minutes, and all the young men who were within cheering distance, cheered loud and long. They had become very fond of him, and had adopted cloaks like his. They also wore caps with glazed vizors, like the one he wore. These were known as "Frank Rivers caps". It appeared at the trial, by the way, that there were two gentlemen known at 41 Thomas Street as "Frank Rivers". Who the other one was, remained a problem, until Mr. Robinson's roommate, Mr. Janies Tew, came and deposed that it was lie. Like some impecunious young men who share an evening suit, they had only one stage-door name between them. "Bill Easy" also appeared—in person—his name was George B. Marston, and he seems to have had a copyright on his pleasing nom de guerre.

There were many curious incidents connected with the trial. There was the testimony of a clerk from the shop of Mr. Chabert, "the Fire King" (324 Broadway) who said that Robinson had tried to buy arsenic at the Fire King's pharmacy. There was the suicide, two weeks after the trial, of Furlong, the Nassau Street grocer, whose testimony was so useful to the prisoner; and also the sudden—and so it is said, the suspicious—deaths of one or two other witnesses in the case, before the trial. There were stories of a juror who received a gift of money from a mysterious bearded man, directly after the verdict; and there was the yarn of the wealthy lady of Washington Square, who loved Robinson, and supplied the funds for his expenses, legitimate and otherwise. These are but a few of the facts and legends of the case.

Robinson did not marry Miss Hoxie. He moved, very soon, to Texas. And there he married, and, in less than two years died. In spite of his alibi, and in spite of his friends who, like the guinea pigs at the trial of the Knave of Hearts, cheered so often, I think he cheated the gallows and died in debt.