Lost and Found in Victorian Brooklyn

I like the little ads and classified in old newspapers very much. They are full of things that you cannot find anywhere else, about the odd little things in people's everyday lives long ago. I will post any extremely odd ones that I find (I'm saving one about a missing man that sounds like the beginning of a mystery novel) - but for today, here are some interesting items from the Lost and Found column of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle. First, two of the many animals that went missing in 19th century Brooklyn - a group which includes cows and farm animals (hinting at the many still-rural places in Brooklyn) and many, many dogs (especially black and tan dogs, with names like Winkie or Zou Zou):

$25 REWARD - Stolen from the premises of the subscriber, a GRAY SQUIRREL and CAGE; $10 will be paid for the recovery of the same or $25 for information leading to the conviction of the thief -- J.R. UNDERWOOD, 147 Franklin Avenue. [April 12, 1867, p. 3]

LOST OR STOLEN - A WHITE GOAT, long horns, from 389 Van Brunt street, next house to railroad depot, on Feb. 1. The finder will be rewarded by returning it to William Murray or John Cunningham. [Feb. 3, 1865, p. 3]

Jewelry and pocketbooks were also commonly advertised as being lost on streetcars or in stores. Sometimes the ad was vague, merely mentioning a "sum of money" (I don't know how you were supposed to figure out whether it was yours) - and sometimes the description was very specific and personal. I tried to identify Winnie (but didn't, obviously) because there is a story attached to this bracelet, and I was curious:

LOST - On the 27th, Narrow Chain Bracelet with lock engraved ("Auf Wiedersehen, Winnie"); reward. Please return to 477 Thirteenth St., Brooklyn. [Dec. 29, 1898, p. 10]

Mrs. Schafel, on the other hand, does not want us to know what is in her valuable papers:

$5 REWARD will be paid to anybody and no questions asked by returning those valuable PAPERS which were taken last Monday from MRS. JOHN SCHRAFEL, 190 Harrison av. [Oct. 17, 1885, p. 5]

And finally, a dentist who is incredibly understanding when it comes to thieves:

A GOOD OFFER - The individuals that took two coats (one overcoat and one frock) from HILL & SCOTT's Dental office, at 263 Fulton street, Brooklyn, will oblige the said Hill by returning the Diary and papers that were in the pockets of said coats. They are welcome to the coats, and if they are hungry let them call and be filled, or if they want a tooth extracted call and I will do it without pain or charge. [June 10, 1859, p. 2]

Hill and Scott advertised as "Surgeon Dentists [who] are the authorised Dentists in this city for the use of Francis' Patent Galvanic and Electro Magnetic process of Extracting Teeth without pain," [advertisement in the Eagle, May 12, 1859, p. 1]. The link will take you to the patent, complete with horrifying drawing of the tooth-extracting device, which may not have encouraged the thief to return.

Goat and squirrel pictures from NYPL Digital Gallery.

David Barnett and the Landseer Lion

This is the story of two matched sketches, drawn by one of England's greatest artists, and of two art-loving friends in late 19th century Brooklyn, New York. The friends were a man named Henry Beam and my 3rd great uncle*, an English-born lawyer named David Barnett.

Sir Edwin Landseer (1802-73) was one of the most famous and highly regarded artists in Victorian England. He is especially famous for his paintings and sketches of animals; in addition, he sculpted the bronze lions that surround Nelson's Column in Trafalgar Square, London. Queen Victoria commissioned him to paint her and her family - and their pets - at Windsor Castle in the 1840s. The Landseer dog, a kind of Newfoundland, was named in his honor.

David Barnett was English like Landseer, but had little in common with him otherwise. He was a self-made man, born in poverty in London's East End, who became, through hard work and talent, a highly regarded, socially and politically prominent Brooklyn lawyer. He was also, from what I have read about him, a kind and amiable man.

Barnett's friend Henry Beam, the Deputy Commissioner for the Brooklyn Bridge told the story to the Brooklyn Eagle just after David's death at age 60 in 1899.

Many years before, Beam had lent money to an English friend; the friend, in return, gave Beam two Landseer crayon sketches entitled "The Lion" and "The Lioness." The friend was killed in the Civil War, so the sketches remained with Beam. "They are spelndid specimens of Landseer's skill," Beam said, "and I prized them more highly that they were the last mementos of my friend, who was killed after rising to the rank of a captain."

A few years later (in 1871, according to my research) David Barnett had been Beam's counsel for "a real estate difficulty," but refused payment for his services. He said that Beam had done him a lot of favors, and this would make things even. Beam did not know what to do; he even asked the court what a proper fee would be; they said $250 would be about right. But Barnett would not even submit a bill to his old friend.

Then, on a visit to Beam's house, David saw the Landseer sketches and "fell in love" with them. Beam did not know what to do, since he "thought more of those pictures than anything I had then. I would not have given them to any one else in the world." Beam pondered the matter for awhile, then finally said to his friend:

Say, Dave, I would not give one of those pictures to my father, but hang it, I owe you one and I want you to have it....You take the lion and keep it. If you die before I do, bequeath it to me. If I die, you get the lioness. Dave shook hands right there. Well, Dave went first, so the old lion will come back to his dame now, and Dave has kept his word. No money could buy those pictures now.

I wonder where the lion and lioness are now, and whether they are still together. I hope that they are.

[The image is of a Landseer sketch of a lion which, if it is not the exact picture in the story, is probably very close to it. It comes from Academy for the Love of Learning. I could not find a lioness sketch, though. The other Landseers - the bronze lion and the painting Windsor Castle in Modern Times - are both from Wikipedia.]

*That is to say, the brother of my great great grandmother, Mary Ann (Barnett) Hicks.

Additional Sources

Landseer Gallery at Museum Syndicate
Landseer Online
"Beam Gets Back His Picture," Brooklyn Daily Eagle, August 29, 1899, p. 14.
"Got Back His Picture," New York Times, September 2, 1899, p. 7.

Some Victorian Drinking Fountains

Here is a little bit of Victorian trivia to start off the week It is really just a sampling of what I was able to find out. I have restrained myself from writing a whole essay, since you and I both have other things to do!

In any case...I found this stereograph of a lady using a drinking fountain in Brooklyn's Prospect Park and was intrigued, because I had never imagined that they had existed in the 1870s. The fountain was certainly there by 1876, when someone advertised in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle's Lost and Found column that they had lost three rings "at the drinking fountain near the children's arbor."

The first drinking fountain seems to have been in London, England. It was funded by Quaker Samuel Gurney, who set up the Metropolitan Free Drinking Fountain Association in 1859. It was set into the wall of St. Sepulchre's Church and came complete with attached cups. On the right, you can see the great opening celebration for Gurney's fountain.

By 1867 the Association was also providing cattle troughs for horses to drink from; and in 1893 Brooklyn had a horses' drinking fountain, too (photo here), installed under the aegis of Miss Emma Toedteberg and the ASPCA.

In New York, the earliest drinking fountain seems to have been opened, as in London, in 1859; it was located in what appears to be Bryant Park, near the Croton Reservoir at Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street. The New York Sabbath Committee remarked that:

It was placed there under the direction of the Croton Aqueduct Board, and is simply a large hydrant, to the mouth of which is attached a patent spout, invented by F.H. Bartholomew, No. 84 Marion Street, the peculiarity of which is such that you have only to touch the cup to it to get the water to flow freely. Attached to the hydrant by long chains are drinking-cups of cast iron.

 By 1869 there was also a drinking fountain in Central Park, when Clarence Cook mentions it in his A description of the New York Central Park (1869, p. 138). It was set into the "bridge of red and yellow brick near the Seventh Avenue."

The Prospect Park fountain picture is from NYPL, as is the picture of the opening of the first drinking fountain in London in 1859.

Cook, Clarence, A description of the New York Central Park (1869), p. 138.
The Drinking Fountain Association
Duncan, Andrew. Secret London (2006), p. 79.
"Lost and Found," Brooklyn Daily Eagle, May 29, 1876, p. 3.
New York City Fountains (not just for drinking!) at Wired New York
New York Sabbath Committee, "Drinking Fountains," Document No 7 (1859), p. 32.
Younger, William Lee. Old Brooklyn in Early Photographs (1978), p. 67.

Franconi's Hippodrome: New York's Roman Coliseum

Did you know that in for a few years in the 1850s, you could go see a Roman circus and Roman chariot races right in the middle of New York? 

Welcome to Franconi's Hippodrome, which opened in May 1853 at Madison Square, at the intersection of 23rd Street, Broadway and Fifth Avenue. Franconi's was built by 8 American showmen including Avery Smith, Richard Sands and Seth B. Howe.

Franconi's was named for the famous Italian equestrian Antonio Franconi (1738-1836) who, with his sons and grandsons, rode in the Cirque Olympique in Paris; the last Franconi, Laurent, lived until 1849, only 4 years before the opening of the Hippodrome (the journalist quoted below indicates that Laurent or another Franconi was at the opening performance here). A hippodrome was a horse and chariot racing arena, from the Greek words hippos (horse) plus dromos (course).

According to Moses King in King's Handbook of New York (1892, p. 538) the site had originally been occupied by Madison Cottage, "a famous road-house...kept by Corporal Thompson, which was very popular with horsemen." Madison Cottage was also a stagecoach stop. By the 1840s, the site was also being used as a parade ground.

The Hippodrome was a brick structure two stories high, measuring 700' around, and could accommodate 6000 people. There was an enclosed auditorium, but the main attraction was the open-air course, which was 1/6 mile around. C,S, Francis wrote in his 1854 guidebook to New York that

The middle of [the arena] is laid out in green parterres, ornamented with illuminated fountains and flower-vases. The course itself is about forty feet wide, and is covered over with loose earth. The interior is illuminated by a thousand gas-lights, and the spectacle it presents is very brilliant. The roof is formed by a canvas covering 90,000 feet square, supported by five poles or masts, eighty feet in height...The exterior of the building is a plain wall of brick about twenty feet high, with two rather fantastic wooden towers at the side facing Broadway.

Francis added that in addition to the horse and chariot races, one could see "surprising gymnastic exercises," ostrich races and performing monkeys, deer, camels and elephants.

Four thousand people attended the opening, and for two or so years, the place was very popular. A journalist who attended the opening night performance in 1853 wrote in Musical World that

The affair came off in very elegant and resplendent style despite...the frisky humors of many of the blooded horses, after the excitement of their late sea-voyage. We are not very used to the turf and its belongings, and therefore the racing of lady riders on madcap steeds and in flying chariots, the leaping of hedges, the shrieks of dismayed monkeys 'tearing round' on demented horses, the irregular flight of gaunt and lean-shank'd ostriches - most uncertain and scary of bipeds - the magnificent bounds of Monsieur Franconi on his leaper, and his admirable feats upon his dancer - all this made our blood tingle (which is a good deal to accomplish in a city like New York)...

Unfortunately, this exotic amusement palace did not stand for long. By September 1859, the Hippodrome had been torn down, and the Fifth Avenue Hotel stood in its place. The latter was a six story white marble structure remarkable as the first building in New York to boast a successful "vertical railway" or elevator (the very first one was built in 1857, but lacked adequate safety features). During the Civil War, the site also served as an army camp.

Interior view and exterior view of Franconi's Hippodrome, both from NYPL. The picture of Franconi from Britannica Online Encyclopedia.

Sources

Booth, Mary Louise. History of the City of New York (1859), p. 753.
Fisher, Harriet Fletcher. The Darlings of Vermont's Northeast Kingdom (2008), p. 37 [more on the Fifth Avenue Hotel]
Francis, C.S. Francis's New Guide to the cities of New-York and Brooklyn and the vicinity (New York, 1854), p. 83.
"Franconi's Hippodrome," Musical World (vol. 6, 1853), p. 3.
King, Moses. King's Handbook of New York (1892), p. 538.
Maurice, Arthur Bartlett. Fifth Avenue (2008), p. 74.
Robertson-Lorant, Laurie. Melville: A Biography (1998). p. 458.

******
I have decided not to post the story of the clairvoyant I am using in Frozen Charlotte, because I am using some of the key events in her life as an integral part of the mystery plot. And if I tell you about them, I will be giving away clues right and left, which will never do...

Also, on a similar note: I will try to visit and comment on blogs as much as possible, but am marking out more time to work on the mystery novel. Same goes for Twitter. I will drop in when I can, though.

Scouting Out the Brooklyn Bridge

This photograph amused me, because my father was a Boy Scout in Brooklyn in the 1940s, when this photo was taken. He's not in this picture, by the way. These Scouts are on the Brooklyn Bridge, with Milton Ferguson, the Director of the Brooklyn Public Library. I don't know why they are there. Mr. Ferguson seems to be showing them that Manhattan is across the river, but I think they probably knew where it was already. They are, after all, Boy Scouts, always prepared.

Although with those short pants, they are not quite so prepared for cold weather. The hats are wonderful, though. And even the leaders have to wear them! But notice how the boy who is putting on his best movie-star smile for the camera has taken his hat off, because it will make for a better shot.

Thank you to the Brooklyn Public Library for this and all the other terrific photos that they have online.

And thank you also to Tina at The Clean White Page for the Lemonade award!

An Aerial View of Brooklyn In 1893

There are some interesting posts coming, I promise - I've been busy plotting and thinking about my mystery, and have found a few eccentric NYC characters to wrote about here, with an eye to basing characters on some of them. Or maybe I ought to write a book about Victorian New York eccentrics, as someone recently suggested!

Today I want to share some incredible maps with you, from a book on Internet Archive called The Citizen Guide to Brooklyn. It was published in 1893 (by the newspaper The Brooklyn Citizen), so is perfect for me writing about Brooklyn in the mid-1890s.

There is plenty in it about everyday life, clubs and social activities, as well as the usual guidebook-type stuff. But the maps! They are incredible, aerial-views of streets with the buildings all carefully drawn and labeled. You can imagine how great this is for imagining characters moving around and - well, doing the sort of things I need them to do. Imagining Brooklyn ancestors, too. And since I don't have access to the Sanborn Insurance Maps via ProQuest, these are a good substitute.

This map shows part of Williamsburgh. My great great grandparents lived on South 6th Street, which is at the far left, though you can't see their house on this map. They lived fairly near this area, though. Several hotels are labeled, as is the Dime Savings Bank, the Kings County Milling Co.,something called Minden House (something for me to look up that I didn't even know was there!) and the Elevated line going to the various ferry entry points.

Sadly they did not map all of Brooklyn, but they did most of the area I'm interested in, the old central area of Brooklyn Heights and surroundings, and the Navy Yard and the downtown. The Navy Yard map is especially good; I'll share that one with a Navy Yard story one of these days - in connection with the Gold Street Murder.

The next long post will be about the incredible life of a clairvoyant who was known for her accuracy, caused riots in Connecticut and in Czarist Russia (yes, really!), spent several years in Brooklyn, and ended her days in an asylum. I might post a few ads first, because I am going to base a character on her and I need to do some more research on her first.

The full-size version is over here; you can see how great this map is when you can see the big version.

New York's Floating Chapels

In 1844, a Floating Chapel for sailors was built at the foot of Pike Street in Manhattan's East River. It was built by the Young Men's Missionary Society, constructed on a 76" long dock and was the size of two 80-ton boats. The chapel building was 70" long and 30" wide, accommodating about 350 people inside. The services were Episcopal.

There was, in the 1840s, a second Floating Chapel in New York, docked in the North River at the foot of Rector Street. It had been opened in June 1845 in an old ship weighing 300 tons, and had a Swedish pastor, O.E. Hedstrom, who gave services in both Swedish and English.

The Pike Street Floating Chapel lasted until 1866. For three years Bethel services were held on land "in a room near the dock," according to The Sailor's Magazine and Seaman's Friend. By 1869 a new Floating Chapel had been built at a cost of $23,000, "a plain Gothic structure" that would last until 1910.

The Floating Chapel illustration is from Francis's Stranger's Handbook for the City of New York (1854), facing p. 114.

Sources

American Seaman's Friend Society, The Sailor's Magazine and Seaman's Friend (vols. 41-2), p. 57.

Francis, C.S. The Stranger's Handbook for the City of New York (New York, 1854), pp. 114, 122, 127.

Johnson, Harry and Frederick S. Lightfoot, Maritime New York and nineteenth-century photographs (1980), p. 80.

Ruggles, Edward, A Picture of New-York in 1846 (New York, 1846), pp 137-8.

See also The Hedstroms and the Bethel Ship Saga (1992) by Henry C. Whyman, for more on the North River Floating Church.

The map detail is from an 1879 NYC map at Wikimedia Commons; the purple dot (at lower left) shows the Swedish Floating Bethel at Rector Street; the orange dot (at upper right) shows the Floating Chapel at Pike Street; bigger version here.

The Pasta Pompadour

Pasta Pompadour was a skin preparation, but it sounds (at first) like a kind of false hair involving a great many macaroni-like curls (something akin to what the lady in the picture is sporting). Of course "pasta," meaning paste in Italian, can refer to the skin cream as well as to noodles made of an edible paste.

Not "paint or powder," Pasta Pompadour was a mixture of powdered bitter almonds and cold cream, according to Virgil Coblentz writing in The Newer Remedies (1908, p. 96). It had been invented by a Madame Rix, who was Austrian.* The cream would make wrinkles vanish and give the user  clear, perfect, youthful skin.

However, in 1876, The British Journal of Homeopathy (vol. 34,p. 625) featured an article entitled "Production of Nervous Affections By Cosmetics." One case history in the article concerns a lady complaining of headache, pain in her arms and legs and heart palpitations (among other things). She was fond of using a great deal of makeup, especially Pasta Pompadour, which "is composed of white precipitate, nitrate of bismuth, and lard."

The ad at the left boasts a Certificate of Analysis by a Dr. A.H. Von Bauer which states that it is "free from injurious substances." It was "endorsed by physicians" and by the "great German actress, Madame Geistinger," as well as other actresses and singers. The cream was sold in New York City by Dr. Leo Sommer and Company at 39 Bond Street.**

*According to a reference in "Materia Medica," Congressional Serial Set (1876, p. 13).

**Dr. Sommer was a "Hungarian investigator" who in 1887 obtained permission from the Mayor of New York to experiment on dogs at the City Pound; he wanted to give them his "hydrophobic inoculations" based upon the Pasteur method. However, the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, under Henry Bergh, put a stop to this (see Weekly Medical Review vol. 16, 1887, p. 203); see here for more details on this. According to the Times, he was not a physician but a chemist (see "His Experiments Stopped," NYT, August 4, 1887, p. 8). Sommer seems to have given up science altogether by 1890, when the Times announced a performance by "Dr. Leo Sommer's Hungarian Orchestra" at the Lenox Lycaeum ("Attractions at the Lenox Lycaeum," NYT, April 28, 1890, p. 4). In 1899, an item about his falling off a streetcar and braking his leg mentions that he "owns a dozen or more Hungarian bands." ("Theatrical Gossip," NYT, January 7, 1899, p. 7). He also owned the Orpheum Music Hall in the early 1900s ("Notes of Theatricals," NYT, July 12,1903, p. 21).

Advertisement at top right, from The Cosmopolitan, volume 4, 1888; second advertisement, at left, from the Brooklyn Magazine, volume 5, 1886.

Visible Writing

I am very honored that my friend Tina Lonergan, an enormously talented writer who blogs over at The Clean White Page, has nominated The Virtual Dime Museum for a Weblog Award (in the Writing and Best Kept Secret categories). I'm overcoming my customary reticence in order to let you know and invite you to vote for VDM over there at the link, for which I thank you enormously, in advance.

The Pittsburg Visible-Writing Machine advertisement is from the NYPL Digital Gallery, and dates from about 1900, give or take a few years. The lady in her fancy mutton sleeves is looking mighty happy and serene, so I suppose she is not suffering from writer's block. Although the table is at such a peculiar angle, she is in danger of having the Visible-Writing Machine slip right onto her lap (or the floor). Simplicity may indeed be Superiority, but a flat work surface is a good thing, too.

"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.

The East River Swimming Baths, 1870

Imagine wanting to swim in Manhattan's East River. Imagine so many people wanting to do this that a big bath house was built right at the docks. Hard to picture, isn't it? Yet here is proof that such a thing existed, back in 1870.

These baths, at the foot of 5th Street, were opened in 1870 along with North River baths at the foot of Charles Street, also in Manhattan. The Times noted that several thousand people came to swim every day, including on opening day several hundred street urchins, who tormented passersby with taunts and "insulting language."

There were public swimming baths at several points in Manhattan, including a grand Natatorium at 66th Street and the East River. There, in 1874, a great "swimming entertainment" was held - mens' and ladies' races from 66th Street to Blackwell's Island. This was followed by one of the male racers, Mr. J.B. Johnson, putting on a show in one of the "floating baths" (a sort of enclosed pool, I suppose) in which he smoked a cigar and drank milk underwater.

There were separate swimming times for ladies and gentlemen, and these river baths were packed throughout the hot summer months. Races were held often, and the details of these are so amusing and interesting that I will come back to this topic in the summer and share some of the best of them.

Both the East and North River bathhouses were condemned soon after 1912, by which year the Board of Health was extremely worried about the water pollution. Yet people did not want to see the end of the bathhouses, because they were the only places where the poor and working classes could swim and cool off for free. Fortunately, by 1911, public swimming pools were beginning to appear in the city's working class neighborhoods, such as the Asser Levy Baths at 23rd Street and Recreation Center 59 at West 60th Street.

[Image from NYPL.]

And next at the Dime Museum: Madame Phebe's Unlucky Star, the story of a Brooklyn fortune teller and the client she wished she had never met...

"The Baths On Sunday," New York Times, July 11, 1870, p. 3.
"Swimming Extraordinary," New York Times, September 25, 1874, p. 2.
"River Bathhouse Soon to be Ended," New York Times, June 29, 1912, p. 13.

The Marvel Of The Age

The Marvel of the Age and the Wonder of the World - nice to know that Ephraim S. Wells of Jersey City, New Jersey was not shy about extolling his Leaurelle (Laurel?) Oil, in this ad (ca 1890-1900). I was not able to ascertain what was in it, exactly; but it seems to have been the Oil of Olay of its day, marketed to ladies who wanted to look youthful and wrinkle-free. It is a shame that Wells made it sound like such a Herculean task to correct wrinkles and lines. Not very flattering to the customers to think that they require some sort of incredible miracle to look lovely!

Ephraim S. Wells was not only known for his beauty preparations - he was actually better known for the pesticides that he produced. Rough On Rats (which was essentially arsenic) was the most widely known of these. I recognized the name E.S. Wells from the posts I wrote about the tragic death of my great-grandfather's first cousin, Sarah Hicks, in December 1887. You can read about her here:

A Brooklyn Juliet, Part 1
A Brooklyn Juliet, Part 2

Wells was prosecuted by the American Medical Association in the early 1900s, with reference to the Wells Hair Balsam. It was marketed as being "a vivifying tonic," neither a dye nor "harmful to the hair or scalp" in any way. However, it contained perfumed sulphur mixed with what the AMA called "a watery solution of lead acetate (sugar of lead) and glycerin." The AMA noted in its 1912 Nostrums and Quackery (p. 574) that the Hair Balsam was not a balsam, but was in fact a dye, and a poisonous one at that.

You can read more about Rough On Rats here:

Rough On Rats advertising and sheet music
The Premature Death Notice: Matthew Low, Part 1
A Dog and Cat Life: Matthew Low, Part 2 [not really about Rough On Rats per se, but the aftermath of his having taken it]

Image of Leaurelle Oil ad from IHM (Images from the History of Medicine at National Museum of Medicine). Advertisement from New York, 1890.

Image of ads for various E.S. Wells products from The Pharmaceutical Age, July 1, 1893, p. n27. Larger version is here. In this ad, the Hair Balsam is called a Color Restorer, which seems to imply pretty strongly that it was a dye. I assume that the hyperbole got stronger in the later ads, which would have been the ones that the AMA saw in the 1910s.

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Thank you so much to EcoMeg for the Over the Top award!

Fox's Reversible Cap

Clearly, New York City in the 19th century was a veritable hotbed of invention with reference to men's hats: Stephen Martine of Staten Island had perfected the Sunshade Hat, and there was the East Williamsburgh Head Muff as well. A third, and very worthy, contender for Most Innovative Men's Headgear in Victorian New York is shown at the left: Fox's Reversible Cap.

A Morris Fox was listed in Goulding's New York Directory (New York, 1877, p. 469) as a hatmaker, whose store was at 158 S. Fifth Avenue; he lived at 202 East Broadway. However, the Reversible Hat patent seems to be this one, patent date June 27, 1882 (filed April 3, 1882), in which the inventor is listed as David Fox of New York City. David Fox was a hat manufacturer; here are David and Carrie Fox and family in the 1880 US Census.

In March 1883, a hatmaker named David Fox, of New York was taken to court by Chester A. Arthur, former Collector of the Port of New York (from 1871-78; he was later 21st President of the United States). There was a disagreement about how much tax the Foxes had to pay for importing imitation sealskin from Liverpool. For a somewhat convoluted discussion of the taxation of wool, cotton, velour and imitation sealskin, you may go and look here at the case of Chester A. Arthur, Late Collectior of the Port of New York v. David Fox et al., in Reports of Cases Argued and Decided by the Supreme Court of the United States in the October Terms 1881, 1882, 1883 (Rochester, NY: 1885), p. 675-77.

And that is more than enough about Fox and his hats, reversible and otherwise.

[Illustration from NYPL.]