The Singing Preacher

He got his nickname from a group of loud, drunken sailors in a flophouse in downtown New York. It was early 1872, and a young man named Fred Bell, who was working for the Water Street Mission, came upon the sailors singing and drinking. Bell knew the song. He'd been a sailor once as a teenager - like many of his exploits, it hadn't worked out - and Bell adored singing. He always had, since he was a boy in Yorkshire, England.

One of the sailors said Bell had a "singing face," and asked for a song. Bell said he would but only if they promised to be totally quiet. They were, and Bell moved them all to tears, singing hymn after hymn.

And from then on, Frederick Bell was known as the Singing Preacher.

By the mid 1870s thousands were cramming the Brooklyn Academy of Music to hear Bell preach and sing hymns in his rousing voice. He was entertaining, theatrical, dramatic. Hundreds were turned away at the door. Bell, by then minister of a Brooklyn Methodist church, said that he wanted to raise money for his very own church - a church big enough for all that wanted to hear him. It would need to hold about 5000 people, he said.

Charles Frederick Jackson Bell was born about 1846 in Sheffield, West Yorkshire, England. His father James was a confectioner. Fred grew up mainly in the nearby town of Rotherham, with his parents James and Emma, and siblings Thomas, Betsy and Emmeline. Fred first ran away from home at the age of 15. Until his conversion at age 23, he led a troubled and peripatetic life, as a sailor, a soldier and a boxer. He drank to excess and was often away from his wife Sarah, whom he had married about 1866 (they would have two children together: Annie born about 1870, and Frank born about 1874 in New York City).

Early in 1869, Fred converted to Primitive Methodism, a branch of the mainstream (Wesleyan) Methodist Church that had developed about 1810 in Staffordshire, England. They were known for their love of Camp Meetings, open-air festivals of prayer and song which were banned in the Wesleyan church by 1807. The Primitives tended also to be working-class and more evangelistic in nature, and their branch of the Methodist Church translated well in America from about the 1840s on, in the wake of the Second Great Awakening. And a man like Fred Bell - rebellious, charismatic, and musically inclined - was ideally suited to make his name in America. He says in his 1881 book, Midnight in the Slums of New York, that he wanted to experience the freedom and openness of the United States.

And so in October 1871, the little family emigrated to the United States. Fred had been working as a confectioner in Rotherham, and he sought this work in New York. But soon he was working for the Rev. W.H. Boole of the Water Street Mission. By late 1872, Bell was in charge of the Home For Women run by the Mission. The Home, at 273 Water Street, was housed in the former "rat-pit" (fighting arena) of a notorious character named Kit Burns.

By 1874 Bell was in Williamsburgh, Brooklyn, as the minister of the First Primitive Methodist Church. He also preached at a Camp Meeting in Sing Sing, NY that summer, and was said to be very popular there; the "reformed European pugilist" was a "powerful speaker" indeed. He was a powerful singer, too: as Bell put it, "the best way to a man's heart is through his throat."

By the fall of 1875 and into 1876, he was drawing crowds at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. But by February 1876, there was a scandal brewing - even as Rev. Bell sang hymns for the adoring crowds. By that spring, he would be discharged from his pulpit in disgrace. And no one was happier to see Bell packing his bags than a woman in his parish named Mary Morris...

[to be continued...]

SELECTED SOURCES*

"The Mission at Kit Burns' Rat-Pit," New York Times, Dec. 19, 1872, p. 5.
"New-York and Suburban News," New York Times, Feb. 24, 1873, p. 8.
"Sing Sing," New York Times, Aug. 23, 1874, p. 5.
"New-York and Suburban News," New York Times, April 13, 1875, p. 8.
"The Revival Movement," New York Times, Oct. 28, 1875, p. 8.
"Brooklyn's Singing Preacher," New York Times, Nov. 22, 1875, p. 8.

[The Brooklyn Eagle coverage picks up during the Morris scandal of early 1876, and will be listed later]

Bell, Reverend Frederick. Midnight in the Slums of New York (Nottingham, 1881).

Freedman's Bank [NYC] Records: #3636 (Nov. 20,1871); #4533 (May 25, 1872); #6734 (Jul. 26, 1874); all under name Charles Frederick Jackson Bell.

British Census records:

James Bell household, 1851 UK Census, Rotherham, YKS; ED 5d, Household # 114; Class H0107, Piece 2343, Folio 294, p. 30.

James Bell household, 1861 UK Census, Rotherham, YKS; ED 8, Household # 119; Class RG 9, Piece 3504, Folio 49, p. 21.

Frederick Bell household, 1871 UK Census, All Saints Rotherham, YKS; ED12; Household # 186, Class RG 10, Piece 4703, Folio 122, p. 26. [Frederick Bell 25y Grocer and Confectioner, b Sheffield; Sarah Bell 25y b Rotherham; Annie E. Bell 8 months b Rotherham] Census taken April 2, 1871; the Bells left for America that October.

IMAGES:

Sights and Sensations of New York frontispiece (1872) from NYPL Digital Gallery.
Picture of Fred Bell from frontispiece of his book, Midnight in the Slums of New York.
Picture of Water Street at Dover (roughly the location of the Home for Women at 273 Water St), from NYPL Digital Gallery.
Picture of the Concert Hall, the Brooklyn Academy of Music, from NYPL Digital Gallery.

*NOTE: The source materials for Bell are massive: hundreds of mentions in the Times and the Eagle, his own book, and mentions of him in various other books and publications. In addition, there are census records both in the US and Britain, as well as other records (such as the Freedman's Bank records which were quite helpful in confirming places, date and the names of immediate family members). I am also looking into coverage of his exploits in the newspapers of (at least) San Francisco; Buffalo, NY; Columbus, Ohio; Detroit, Michigan; and several towns in England. Therefore to list every source I have looked at would take up enormous amounts of space, as well as patience (yours and mine both!).

Furthermore, at every turn, people and topics crop up who demand time: the fascinating history of Primitive Methodism, for example, and people like Kit Burns and W.H. Boole. I hope that I will someday be able to publish a treatment of Bell - and other people in my long posts - that does him, and them, justice.

A Startling History, In Mid-Air

This is one of the many terrific old circus posters I've been looking at as a little break from playing detective in the hunt for Fred Bell.

Fred Bell, for those of you who missed the Eastern Mystic post last week, is the Dickensian fellow who was supposed to be the secondary interest in a post about a female detective in Brooklyn in the 1890s.

Well, I searched for him in the Brooklyn Eagle archive, as a matter of course - and was stopped short by what I found.

Fred Bell was an English-born minister (born about 1846) who was famous in the 1870s as the "Singing Preacher." Thousands packed the Brooklyn Academy of Music to hear him preach and sing - and hundreds were turned away at the door.

There were at least four legal cases and mysterious goings-on that Bell was at the center of. They include:

1. Trouble in Brooklyn with a Mrs. Morris (one of Bell's parishioners);
2. Trouble in England with regards to his church, and to women, which included a law suit;
3. The suspicious death of Emily Hall in Michigan in 1895;
4. Bell and another minister's fistfight in Ohio.

Fred Bell also wrote a book about his experiences as a missionary in the slums of New York City in the early 1870s. He had a complicated marital history, and possibly had trouble in California, too. He traveled restlessly between the US and England for more than 20 years, between 1871 and the mid-1890s - and as a Brooklyn Eagle reporter noted in one of the dozens of articles I found (and am reading and taking notes on), Bell seemed to get into difficult situations in every place he landed.

I've also been reading his book, Midnight in the Slums of New York, and tracking him and the other people in his life through the British and American census records.

I'll edit all the information down into a few posts that will take you on a journey through the life of one of the strangest and most fascinating Victorian people I've come across yet. I hope you will enjoy them as much as I am enjoying the research.

I do need to hunt up a few more people, including a mysterious brother-in-law in St. Clair, Michigan, though. That's what I'm doing just now. The research sometimes feels a bit like being in mid-air in the circus poster above - confusing, colorful and hard to believe, but absolutely true.

Stay tuned!

Barnum poster from the Library of Congress.

Brooklyn Caps and Mad Hatters

The modern baseball cap was first worn by the Brooklyn Excelsiors baseball team about 1860, and by the end of the century it was called "the Brooklyn Cap." As you can see in this 1872 advertising card, the cap was very similar to what is worn today.

The National Baseball Hall of Fame site notes that in 1849, the New York Knickerbockers, the first team to adopt uniforms, wore straw hats. By the 1860s they were sporting merino wool caps that looked more like newsboy caps; there is a photo of a Knickerbocker wearing one of these on the National Baseball Hall of Fame site.

In the 1880s there were many styles of baseball cap to choose from, including pillbox hats with visors (one of which was called the "Chicago" style). The Philadelphia style of the early 1900s looked like the Brooklyn, but the crown was stitched in several pieces. The NBHF site is very detailed and has great pictures if you want to delve into this further.

The Peck and Snyder cap as shown at left was also made of wool and would have cost between $1.25 and $2.00, a reasonable amount of money at that time.

I was amused by the cartoon style of the Peck and Snyder card, reminiscent of Sir John Tenniel's drawing of Lewis Carroll's Mad Hatter from Alice In Wonderland.

Advertising card from New York Public Library Digital Gallery. Sir John Tenniel's drawing of the Mad Hatter from John Tenniel site, link here.

Fletcher's Dress Reform

Mrs. A. Fletcher was the person to go to if you wanted reasonably comfortable undergarments for women or girls in the late 19th century in New York City. This advertisement dates from 1885.

The Equipoise Waist was a modified corset built into a blouse. It was invented by Emeline W. Philbrook of Boston, who patented it in 1876.

The Union Suits were long underwear made specially for women - which was indeed revolutionary. The Union Suits were made in merino and cashmere, which must have been nice in the winter!

Mrs. Fletcher also sold Emancipation Waists, Shoulder Braces, Abdominal Supporters, Obstetric Bandages, Shoulder Stocking Supporters and Sanitary Napkins. The book For Girls (1887) by Mrs. E.R. Shepherd has a whole chapter about how girls should dress; the illustrations were all taken from Mrs. Fletcher's catalogue, Shepherd says.

Advertisement from the back pages of Thompson's Guide to Coney Island (1885), over at Internet Archive.

Next time: some odds and ends, including Fred Bell: The Story So Far (the story of my detective work, that is). I can't wait to tell you what's in store!

"A Mere Spectacular Affair"

The back of this cigarette card (ca 1905-10) explains about the Fish Balloon:

This balloon was in shape like a huge sword-fish, and was worked by feather-shaped oars. It was a mere spectacular affair and rendered no particular service to aeronautics. Patinno accompanied by two others made a trip with it from Plazentia to Goria in Spain on 19th Sept. 1784.


Cigarette card picture of Patinno's Fish Balloon from the New York Public Library Digital Gallery. I wasn't able to find out anything about Patinno on the internet but it's a safe bet to assume he was an early Spanish aeronaut - who liked fish.

Trask's Magnetic Ointment

Dr. George Trask (b ca 1796) of Fitchburg, Massachusetts was a crusader against tobacco - and a man who clearly was not afraid to speak his mind. Kate Sanborn relates the following anecdote about Trask, in My Favorite Lectures of Long Ago (1888, p. 334): soon after he was married he told his "petite wife" that he was disappointed in her height. To which she responded "No more than I am in your depth."

Trask found the wide-spread use of tobacco in 19th century America to be even more disappointing than Mrs. Trask's height - and he crusaded against the former all his life. He was impassioned about his cause and was the author of the 1852 book Thoughts and Stories on Tobacco for American Lads. It had chapter titles like "James Dixey, the Boy who was made a Manic by Using Tobacco." An illustration from Trask's book is at the right, showing a young man (perhaps James Dixey) Some Way Along the Road to Ruin. The Mountain Dew in that barrel was clearly not the modern lime-green soda of the same name.

Dr. Trask also made patent medicines on the side. He was best known for Trask's Magnetic Ointment, a topical cure for rheumatic and "nervous" afflictions.

At the left is an advertisement for it, from Ransom's Family Receipt Book (1885). The Dr. A. Trask, who is attributed with inventing the ointment, was probably George under another name, or a relative. Soon you will see why George Trask might have wanted to conceal his involvement in creating this particular medicine.

Rev. George Trask was definitely the one selling the ointment: Charles Wilmot Oleson, in Secret Nostrums and Systems of Medicine (1891, p. 181), refers to "'Dr' Trask, the famous anti-tobacconist of Massachusetts" whose ointment contained - well, a most ironic substance:

Trask's Magnetic Ointment was made of chopped-up raisins, lard and - of all things - nicotine. Oleson mentions that there were several cases of nicotine poisoning reported after the use of Trask's ointment. And the recipe seems to have been well known; it was published in several books, including Dr. Alvin Chase's Dr. Chase's Recipes, or Information For Everybody (1866):

Lard, raisins, cut in pieces, and fine-cut tobacco, equal weights; simmer well together, then press and strain out all from the dregs.

Trask never explained what was magnetic about his ointment - and neither did anyone else.

The 1885 ad is at Emergence of Advertising in America, where you can see the rest of Ransom's Family Receipt Book, too. And there is a picture of a Magnetic Ointment bottle here.

Fred Bell, Eastern Mystic

Today I want to introduce you to a remarkable man called Frederick Bell - also known, from the late 1870s on, as the Singing Preacher.

Bell was a British ex-pugilist, ladies' man and fortune-telling psychic as well as a Methodist minister. He was wanted in several states (and in England) for various reasons (which we'll be taking a look at next time). He got into physical altercations with other ministers. He was thrown out of his Brooklyn church for his relationship with a parishioner named Mrs. Morris. Bell was also involved in a possible murder case in Ohio in 1895. He didn't get charged with anything in Ohio though, because two years later he was back in Brooklyn and up to something else.

An Eagle reporter wrote of Bell: "There has been a scandal in connection with his name wherever he has been."

I have plenty of my own detective work to do in order to tell you all about him. But today we're going to go along with a young detective named Hilda Almgren, who in 1897 worked for the police and the District Attorney's office in Brooklyn, New York. She was very good at catching shoplifters and quack doctors and "had ambitions to be a great detective." Her mission on this particular day in mid-June 1897 was to catch Mr. Bell in an illegal fortune-telling business that he was running out of his home at 166 State Street.

Miss Almgren arrived at 166 State Street, where a sign above the door read "Fred Bell, Eastern Mystic." He greeted Almgren and said that he could tell her fortune either through palmistry or "by the planets," only he needed three dollars first. She handed over the money and was given a letter that he said came from "Fred Bell's Spirit Band" - though "the writing was remarkably like that of Bell, which is bold and angular."

The letter was addressed to a Miss Ida Smith (no explanation given for this by anyone) and tells her that she will be very happy in her future marriage, though her gentleman friend had another lady on the side. The Spirit Band said that Fred, "our medium," could tell her how to oust the rival (possibly through a boxing match, given Bell's past record). Oh, and her mother would get that money that was owed to her. And a dark-haired young man would be coming into Ida/Hilda's life in Spetember. Also, she would be sick in 1907 but she'd pull through and live to be 81 years old - exactly.

Bell then added that if Hilda gave him $20 more he could get her some property. He said he usually charged $50-100 for people "in better social circumstances," which sounds insulting. Hilda Almgren went off with her Spirit Band letter and promptly turned it (and Bell) over to the police.

Bell was arrested on June 15, 1897 on a charge of being "a disorderly person." He was released the next day on a $1000 bond provided by one of his admirers, a man named Warren Treadwell. Bell pleaded not guilty. He was not a fortune-teller, he said; he was "a lecturer of occultism and an electric medical healer." He lectured on Sundays and the rest of the week he taught occultism and "gave scientific psychic sessions." Had he ever been arrested? Well, yes - but never imprisoned. Judge Brenner was unimpressed, and fined him $200 and warned him to stay out of trouble for a year. Bell said he was leaving Brooklyn anyway as he no longer "found the atmosphere of the city congenial."

Next week, the amazing life of Frederick Bell - and believe me, from what I've been reading this morning, amazing doesn't even begin to describe his story. In between then and now, I'll post a few interesting ads and oddities - just to keep things going.

"Ex-Pastor Bell Arrested," Brooklyn Daily Eagle, June 15, 1897, p. 1.
"Bell's Case Goes Over," Brooklyn Daily Eagle, June 16, 1897, p. 1.
"Bell Talks Of Occultism," Brooklyn Daily Eagle, June 18, 1897, p. 16.

Palmistry cartoon (1887) from the New York Public Library Digital Collection.

Bah Humbug Oil

The FDA or Food and Drugs Adminstration was established in 1906, the same year that President Theodore Roosevelt signed the Pure Food and Drug Act. Also known as the Wiley Act, after pioneering food chemist Harvey Washington Wiley, it allowed the government to inspect and ban adulterated foods and patent medicines.

They had plenty of work to do, as you can see just by glancing through the American Medical Association's 1912 opus Nostrums and Quackery. This book is a cornucopia of strange potions and conniving salespeople, lavishly illustrated with ads and written with a mixture of sarcasm and outrage. Just my cup of unadulterated tea, in other words.

Take, for example, the offering of one Mrs. J.F. Marshall Smith - whom I had hoped to present to you through census records, but cannot find (yet - there is always a 'yet'). The combination of a devastatingly common surname, the fact that none of the Smiths in Minnesota in 1900-1920 used this combination of initials and extra name, and no hometown mentioned - resulted in...absolutely nothing. A couple of possible Mrs. Smiths, but nothing certain.

At any rate, imagine for a moment that you are that mysterious Mrs. Smith living somewhere in Minnesota in the early 1900s. And imagine that you have decided to make a little extra pin money by manufacturing a patent medicine. First you need a recipe of sorts, of course. And bottles. And perhaps a marketing plan. But above all you need a really good name for your amazing miracle cure which "relieved diphtheria of the most malignant type."

Well, that is the position that Mrs. J.F. Marshall Smith found herself in. And the name she came up with for her medicine was - Humbug Oil. Not in a spirit of irony, either. It is not clear what sort of spirit she had in mind. Perhaps she was inspired by Ebenezer Scrooge. The Oil consisted of turpentine, linseed oil and what the government chemists called "a watery-alcoholic solution of ammonia water, ammonium salts and a voltile alkaloid, probably coniin." [Nostrums and Quackery, Chicago, 1912, p. 506]. The last ingredient mentioned, better known as coniine, is a derivative of hemlock - not at all the sort of thing you'd want to be taking as medicine.

Humbug, indeed.

The FDA fined Mrs. Smith $5 in 1911 for shipping her Humbug Oil from Minnesota to Utah. As one of the anonymous authors of Nostrums and Quackery writes: "If no other claim than that denoted by its name had been made, Mrs. Smith could doubtless continued to sell her nostrum unmolested."

[The word 'humbug' can be traced to the mid-18th century in Britain and was originally student slang for a hoax. By the 19th century it became synonymous with nonsense or with an outright fraud. It was especially associated with Dickens' Ebenezer Scrooge (who used the word in the first sense) and with the showman P.T. Barnum, whose sensational exhibits were referred to as humbugs in the second sense of the word. Humbugs are also a British mint-molasses hard candy, striped brown and white or black and white. And you can still find mint humbugs today - though there are no medicinal advantages (or disadvantages) to them.]

Unfortunately there was no Humbug Oil ad pictured in Nostrums and Quackery, so the image is of another nostrum called Wolcott's Instant Pain Annihilator (which one might have needed after a dose of Humbug Oil), from the Library of Congress.

Samuel Hopkins Adams mentions Mrs. Smith and her Humbug Oil in The Great American Fraud (AMA: Chicago, 1912), p. 130.

Crinoline to the Rescue

Here is an anecdote from - serendipitously enough - May 11, 1867, showing that despite the hazards of wearing an enormous circular steel structure under your dress, it could on occasion be just exactly what you needed.

The Fulton Ferry was leaving the Manhattan slip for Fulton Street, Brooklyn 142 years ago today, and it was very crowded. A woman fell off the deck, but was saved by her enormous, buoyant crinoline - a life preserver as well as a fashion statement.

The perfect illustration, drawn in 1859, is from the New York Public Library Digital Gallery.

Coming up: Humbug Oil and the woman who invented it.

The Queen Of Bell(e)s

Crinolines were the frequent target of jokes and cartoons. Originally crinoline was a horsehair/cotton or horsehair/linen blend fabric, in the 1830s, but by about 1850 the term was used to describe a stiffened petticoat which supported the increasing large and circular skirts of women's dresses. In the 1850s this petticoat was superseded by a steel hoop structure which, though lighter than the petticoat, was both dangerous and hard to manage. If one did not sit down carefully, the hoops would fly up. They were also the cause of many serious accidents, since they easily caught on machinery, made leaving streetcars perilous, and caught fire easily due to both their size and their airiness.

More on crinolines and their perils in the next post.

Cartoon, circa 1857, from the NYPL Digital Gallery.

Prince Albert: On The Card and In The Can

Here is a rather artistic trade card for Prince Albert Cigarettes and Tobacco, which the new York Public Library dates from the last quarter of the 19th century.

The later and more famous Prince Albert tobacco was first manufactured in the US in 1907 by R.J. Reynolds. It was named for Victoria and Albert's son, Albert Edward, who became Edward VII on Victoria's death in 1901. The Reynolds ads show a man with a full beard, which Victoria's Albert never had.

But this earlier ad definitely shows Edward's father. Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha (1819-62) was the dignified and abstemious spouse of Queen Victoria (1819-1901), who is glowering to herself up at the top of the circle.

The future King Edward VII is on the left, labelled "Prince of Wales," and sports a full beard. Below him is Princess Alexandra of Denmark (Edward's wife, later Queen, 1844-1925). Opposite her is the Princess Royal, Victoria and Albert's eldest daughter Victoria (briefly the Empress of Germany, 1840-1901). And above her is the Duke of Connaught, Victoria and Albert's son Arthur (1850-1942).

The R.J. Reynolds' Prince Albert tobacco is famous, of course, for figuring in the old telephone prank in which one phones someone and asks if they have Prince Albert in a can.

Ideally you have phoned up one of your friends who owns a drugstore, or smokes a pipe, or collects tobacco tins - perhaps all three. Because you want them to say, yes they do.

And then you can cry triumphantly, "Better let him out, then!" and hang up giggling.

I wrote about Prince Albert Pudding a long time ago on my other blog, in case you prefer pudding to tobacco ads. I must warn you that I used the tiresome old joke over there, as well. I'm done with it from now on, though. That's a promise.

Advertisement (ca 1875-90) from the NYPL Digital Gallery. The brilliant photos of Prince Albert (and Velvet tobacco, too) in various cans is from Phlora over at Flickr, in the Creative Commons.

The U.S. Bureau Of Advice (And Other Helpful Ads From 1909)

Here are three intriguing little classified ads, from Popular Mechanics, February 1909:

1. Joseph Goulet would like us all to know that he can cure malaria, fever and ague in only one day! But he isn't telling any more than that. You will just have to write to him - when you're feeling better. By which time you won't really need his help.

2. My favorite of the three: help from the splendidly-named U.S. Bureau of Advice! Well, speak up! What's on your mind today? Any doubts about anything at all? The mysterious pundits of the Bureau can advise you.

3. Wiley Sanderson doesn't need any advice. He has some of his own, in the form of 3,000 formulas. And he's put them all in a book that is exactly 368 pages long. That fact alone will make you want to buy it. It is only 40 cents to buy a copy, though it is "worth dollars." How many dollars? Don't ask, because satisfaction is guaranteed. You can have extra fun working out how many formulas you get for each penny, and how many on average fit on one page.

If you get stuck with the math, you know where to go for help.

We All Shine On

Never fear, ladies! Help is on the way - prize-winning, peerless, potash-free help. Potash, or potassium carbonate, is used in making soap, glass and fertilizer. Not boot-polish, thank goodness.

You will never again be caught sneaking out of the house with matte-finish, miserable-looking baby carriages, dingy boots, soiled rubbers or rusty satchels.

That is quite an image Mr. Hauthaway manages to conjure up in a few lines. I am imagining some poor lackluster, exhausted mother struggling along the street sporting all of these non-shiny items. And while I never hauled a leather satchel, and umbrella strollers don't really take to boot-blacking - I do remember those days when I could have used a little Peerless Gloss.

From The Housekeepers' Friend (Cobb, Bates and Yerxa, 1880), no page number listed [at front with other advertisements].

"Important to the Party Interested": A Victorian Personal Ad

I found this little personal ad while digging around in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle last week. It ran on October 29, 1869 (p. 3) and I wondered about the man who had written it, and whether he ever did meet Mary again - and why he wasn't certain of her last name. I am not sure why Lawler put the ad in the Eagle, since none of the parties appear to have any obvious connections with New York or Brooklyn.

Montello, which was not incorporated as a town until 1904, is in Elko County, Nevada. It was a division point for the Southern Pacific Railroad. It has about a population of about 200 now, and never had more than about 800 residents at most (that was in the 1920s). Pat Lawler worked for the Central Pacific Railroad, the part of the Transcontinental Railroad which ran from Caliornia to Utah.

J.F. Lawler, Agent for the Central Pacific Railroad, was living in Carlin, Elko County, Nevada in 1870 and is most likely the "Pat" Lawler of the ad. J.F. Lawler was age 23 in 1870, and was born in Ireland [1870 US Census, Carlin, Elko, NV; #93/32, Series M593, Roll 834, p. 29].

I didn't find any Mary Brown/Coffey or Mr. Berry who could be identified as the right individuals. There were 27 male heads of household named Berry in San Francisco, in the 1870 census, but none had a Mary Brown or Coffey in their household. She may well have been a domestic servant who was no longer with the Berry family in 1870.

18 First Street was the home of Jackson House General Liquors in the early 1850s; this was listed in the 1852-3 city directory, at the wonderful San Francisco Genealogy site.

Do you think that Mary ever saw this? If so, do you think she ever wrote to Pat Lawler? It seems strange to post this in a Brooklyn newspaper, unless he had reason to believe she was in Brooklyn (which does not seem to be the case). So it seems unlikely to have brought a response. In addition, I don't know whether she would have cared for the description of her heavy eyebrows and the scar on her face, so perhaps not.

A Boon For Brain Workers

After I write up a ghost story or historic true crime case, I like to take a break - just like my readers, I'm sure! - and do some short posts. They will be about advertisements, patent medicines, Victorian classified ads, and maybe a little bit of vaudeville and circus history.

I am also going to look into the lives and secrets of a couple of peripheral characters who I encountered when writing up the Gravesend Poisoning Case. And there's a possible copycat case from October 1878 in New Utrecht which looks interesting.

But for now, here's something else that is both interesting and more fashionable than a bottle of Advil (which is difficult to wear, unless you make it into a necklace): Hill's Genuine Magnetic Anti-Headache Cap.

You may emit lightning bolts from your forehead when you wear it, but it is a boon and a sure cure for all Brain Workers!

The caps were made of silk, ran on Hill's Grand Medal Magnetic Storage Batteries and cost $3. Hill says that he has "bushels of testimonials," even though he doesn't share any of them in this advertisement.

Not only will it cure headaches but the cap will also supply you with "Brain-food," make you see better and possibly cure motion sickness when you are traveling by train. A remarkable hat, indeed.

The inventor was probably Edwin A. Hill of Reading, Massachusetts, who also invented a magnetic pen-holder in 1890. He had an electric brush company in 1889, when he wrote Hill's researches in magnetism. The headache cap probably dates from the 1890s, as Hill would have expanded his repertoire from electric brushes (which were being made by other such as Dr. George A. Scott) to more original products. And this cap is certainly original - if nothing else.

For a look at some other historic wacky hats, you can go and have a look over here at the Vacuum Fez and the Traveller's Cap.

Image is from the Library of Congress.