"I Knew My Fortune Already": Annie Hillis and the Fortune Teller

In the summer of 1884, Phebe Boulanger* was a fortune teller living at 373 Gold Street in Brooklyn. She was doing well, advertising heavily in the Brooklyn Eagle and making enough money to rent the entire house at 373 Gold for herself, her out-of-work husband, and her six children. She was French originally, or perhaps Indian - it depended on what ad or newspaper story you believed. In any case, she was not a native New Yorker.

She was active as a fortune teller in Brooklyn (with a brief sojourn in Manhattan in 1890) from about 1883-1894. She would, according to her advertisements: Cause Speedy Marriage, Unite [the] Separated, Give Luck and Remove Evil Influences.**  Her fees ranged from 25 cents to a dollar, unless you wanted a tea leaf reading, which was a bargain at 15 cents. Most of Phebe's ads ended by urging the reader, in capital letters, to "CUT THIS OUT."

Annie Hillis did just that, as she was in need of some luck.

Annie, like Phebe Boulanger, was not a native New Yorker. She and her family had emigrated from Armagh, Ireland in 1880. They must have been fairly well-to-do, since they were listed in a short article, "Passengers Arrived," on the State of Georgia, from Glasgow, in the New York Times on August 4 1880 (p. 2, see here). Annie and her husband Robert, a coffee and tea broker, and their eight children (six of whom were girls) lived at 178 Monroe Street.

In January 1884, Mrs. Hillis cut out Madame Phebe's ad, and went to 373 Gold Street to ask for some advice. She brought her eldest daughter, 16 year old Annie, along with her. The younger Annie stayed in the front parlor, while Mrs. Hillis and Madame Phebe repaired to the back parlor for a consultation.

Madame Phebe recalled this visit in court: "This woman - this Hillis - came to see me six months ago...She said '[Mr. Hillis] comes home at one, two, three, four o'clock in the morning. I and my family are in bed; he finds the door locked.; and he breaks open the window and kicks in the door and abuses me terribly. This she tells me and said, 'Madame, can you tell me the cause of this?'" Madame Phebe said she read the cards, and told Mrs. Hillis that there was another woman involved, "and that is all." Mrs.Hillis returned three days later, Phebe added; she said she had told Robert. Phebe added that the daughter confirmed the abuse. Phebe suggested that she get a lawyer, which sounds like sensible advice.

Mrs. Hillis, instead of quietly retaining legal counsel, went home and accused Robert of having a mistress, which lead to a "very serious domestic rupture" in the family. She also said that she had consulted Madame Phebe, at which news he "was exceedingly indignant." Robert Hillis had Madame Phebe arrested on the charge of being a "disorderly person." She could not be accused of receiving mony under false pretenses, so this was the only charge he could make. He  forced his wife to swear out the warrant; she testified later that she had not wanted Mme Phebe arrested at all.

The trial was in June 1884. Phebe arrived at court all in black - black silk dress, black shawl and hat, that matched her dark hair and "piercing dark eyes" with which she glared at Robert Hillis. "The idea of my being called a disorderly person, indeed," she told a reporter. "I have lived here in Brooklyn and in that neighborhood for over two years and I defy anyone to say of me that I have done anything wrong." Robert Hillis told the Eagle, in response to this, that Madame Phebe's "trashy nonsense" had caused a great deal of trouble between himself and his wife, who was "weak minded"; and that it was all "balderdash."

Daughter Annie was the first to testify. She said she and her mother went to Phebe's on January 17th; she knew that was the date "because that was the day my mother and I watched my father." Annie waited in the parlor, and did not hear the session, which had cost 50 cents.

Mrs. Annie Hillis, a tall blond with a stern mouth, "gave her evidence with great reluctance." This was not surprising; she confirmed that she had gone to see Madame Phebe twice, of her own volition, about the problems she was having with her husband. Phebe read the cards for her and said that Robert was "in the habit of remaining out at night and of treating me badly." Mrs. Hillis said yes, that was exactly right. Phebe then told her that she saw "a woman that was giving trouble...[who] lived convenient to the water." Mrs. Hillis thought that seemed likely, for she had found a "draft for 50 dollars" in Robert's pocket which she believed had been sent to this other woman.

Mrs. Hillis said she returned to Madame Phebe's three days later with another daughter, Minnie. She asked if "a gentleman" had been around asking about her (Robert, presumably); and if he did show up, not to tell him anything. She said she'd told Phebe's lawyer "that I wanted my husband to withdraw the charge; and if he did not, he would be sorry for it; this woman is not to blame for our trouble, and she should not have been arrested." She hadn't wanted to come to court, nor to testify. Mrs. Hillis added that Phebe had not told her fortune, for "I knew my fortune already."

Robert Hillis*** next took the stand. He was short and stout with "English cut whiskers." He said he knew Madame Phebe and had seen her ads in the paper. He did not say much more than this, though.

After the case was dismissed, Mrs. Hillis said that she was going to divorce Robert; Robert said he was suing Madame Phebe for "defamation of character," though nothing seems to have come of this threat. Nor of hers: in the 1900 census, Robert and Anna Hillis are still married, still living together. All eight adult children still were living at home with them. Not one of them, ranging in age from 18 to 33, was married.

Notes 

* She was probably French in origins; her name may or may not have been Boulanger. The Eagle states that Phebe did not wish to give a surname, though she calls herself "Phebe Boulanger" in several 1890s ads. Interestingly, there is an 1885 obituary for a suspiciously grandly-named Frenchman living at 373 Gold Street, one Magloire Clement Dubourg, listing his father and grandfather (and their military glory). There was a fictional hero named Magloire Dubourg, in Roland Dorgeles' Saint Magloire - however, Dorgeles was not even born until 1886. The search goes on, and I'll let you know in a follow-up post or in the future Encyclopedia of Victorian NYC Fortune Tellers (I am starting a database now, on notecards) - if I find out anything more.

**In 1885, Phebe also advertised "Nails manicured." By 1891, she added that she was "Seventh daughter of a seventh daughter, born with vail [sic]" to her advertised list of merits; in addition, she foretold things "without asking questions," possibly because of the fallout from the Hillis case.

*** Mistakenly called George in the "Unlucky Star" article. 

Sources

"Mme. Phebe; A Clairvoyant's Experience With Mrs. Robert Hillis," Brooklyn Daily Eagle, June 18, 1884, p. 4.
"Unlucky Star," Brooklyn Daily Eagle, June 23 1884, p. 4.
Robert Hillis household, 1900 US Census, Brooklyn Ward 23, Kings, NY; #257/393, Roll T623_1062, Pg 19B, ED 413.

Illustration, "The Doubtful Fortune," from NYPL. The postcard (ca 1910) is from Vintage Postcards.