We Is Got Him Read online

  Copyright

  This edition first published in the United States in 2011 by

  The Overlook Press, Peter Mayer Publishers, Inc.

  141 Wooster Street

  New York, NY 10012

  www.overlookpress.com

  For bulk and special sales, please contact [email protected]

  Copyright © 2011 by Carrie Hagen

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages in connection with a review written for inclusion in a magazine, newspaper, or broadcast.

  ISBN: 978-1-59020-896-0

  to a different Charley,

  who loved this city

  and to Jeff,

  who loves it now

  author’s note

  THIS IS A WORK OF NONFICTION. ANY DETAIL THAT IS NOT common knowledge to students of this case and culture has a corresponding endnote. Any word within quotation marks is taken from memoir, newspaper report, trial transcript, or family paper. Certain geographical locations of importance to this story have undergone name changes over the past 137 years. Unless otherwise indicated in an endnote, I use the location names known to 1874.

  Contents

  Copyright

  author’s note

  major personalities

  Part One: “we is got him”

  we is got him

  you wil have two pay us

  be not uneasy

  yu be its murderer

  his lif wil be instant sacrificed

  he is uneasy

  the danger lies intirely with yuself

  yu child shal die

  he is yet safe

  we wil send prof

  they are goin to search every house in the city

  if you want to trap

  before he intercepts yu

  Part Two: “the cheapest way”

  we think we have left no clues behind us

  we know not what to make of that

  we have heard nothing from yu

  ask him no questions

  if death it must be

  now we demand yu anser

  ask Walter if

  this thing is drawing to a final crises

  others will rely on our word

  keep faith with us

  your substitute

  a parcel of fabricated lies

  we ask for time

  Part Three: “dead men tell no tales”

  dead men tell no tales

  tell C.K.R. quietly

  the resemblance is most striking

  Detective Silleck knew that

  to vindicate themselves

  we’ll defend ourselves

  serve the public

  Part Four: “this is very uncertain”

  beyond the range of possibility

  this is very uncertain

  what have you got now?

  we do right to pity Charley Ross

  is my child dead?

  she is a city

  you need not ask more questions

  we fear being traped in our own game

  the whole gang

  East Washington Lane, Present Day

  Acknowledgments

  Illustration credits

  Appendix

  Notes

  Bibliography

  Index

  major personalities

  CHARLEY AND WALTER ROSS

  Brothers, ages 4 and 5, kidnapped from their front yard on July 1, 1874. The same evening, Walter is released and returned home.

  CHRISTIAN ROSS

  The boys’ father, a failing businessman caught between loyalty to his family and obedience to the police. After initially leading the search to find his son, Christian is targeted by the press when Philadelphia’s city leaders convince him not to pay the ransom.

  THE LEWIS BROTHERS

  Christian Ross’s neighbors, brothers-in-law, and wealthy merchants. The Lewis brothers represent the family in the investigation when Christian collapses. Frustrated with libel and police incompetence, the brothers disregard the advice of city leaders in November 1874 and negotiate an exchange with the kidnappers on their own terms.

  WILLIAM MCKEAN AND THE ADVISERS

  A powerful group of Philadelphia council and businessmen, leaders of Philadelphia’s chapter of the “Republican Ring.” Eager to promote the Centennial Exhibition and determined to retain their offices in the November 1874 election, these men do what they can to keep news of Charley’s kidnapping from the press. One well-known member is William McKean, editor of the Philadelphia Public Ledger.

  MAYOR STOKLEY

  Philadelphia mayor and figurehead of the city’s Republican Ring. Responsible to the Republican advisers, Stokley is concerned with his public approval ratings once his constituents blame him and his force for running an incompetent investigation.

  WILLIAM MOSHER

  One of the two kidnappers, a forty-something river pirate and career criminal. Raised in Brooklyn, Mosher lives in Philadelphia with his wife and three sons under the name of Henderson. While on a “peddling” trip to Germantown, Mosher and his criminal apprentice Joseph Douglas see the Ross boys. Assuming the boys’ father is a wealthy man and will immediately pay any ransom amount, they take the children.

  JOSEPH DOUGLAS

  The second kidnapper, a younger man of twenty-eight. After serving a prison sentence for burglary, Douglas works as a streetcar conductor in Manhattan until Mosher finds and entices him to move to Philadelphia. Less conspicuous and more emotionally stable than his mentor, Douglas seeks to cut ties with Mosher once newspapers print their descriptions and Christian Ross refuses to pay the ransom.

  WILLIAM WESTERVELT

  Brother-in-law of William Mosher and a former police officer. In July 1874, bartenders in New York’s Five Points neighborhood notice Westervelt meeting with two men that fit newspaper accounts of Charley Ross’s kidnappers. Westervelt becomes a police informant early in the investigation, but unbeknownst to the NYPD, he also acts as a double agent, informing the kidnappers of police activity.

  SUPERINTENDENT GEORGE WALLING

  A career officer and head of the New York Police Department. Walling assumes a main role in the case soon after Mayor Stokley announces Philadelphia’s $20,000 reward for information, when Gil Mosher, William’s brother, arrives in his office with suspicions of his brother’s involvement. When Walling realizes the connection between his former officer William Westervelt and William Mosher, he offers Westervelt his old job back in exchange for spying on his brother-inlaw’s activities.

  CAPTAIN HEINS

  One of the first Philadelphia officers put on the case. Heins’s loyalty to the Ross family irritates Mayor Stokley and the Republican advisers, who suspect Heins is withholding information from them. The captain closely communicates with Walling throughout the summer of 1874, until he suspects William Westervelt’s intentions and warns the superintendent against working with the informant. In the spring of 1875, Heins demands that Walling turn Westervelt over to the Philadelphia Police.

  THE RANSOM NOTES

  The voice of the kidnappers. Appearing in excerpts throughout the first two sections of the narrative, these notes direct Christian Ross to communicate his plans through personal advertisements; once this occurs, the chronological placement of the letters and the ads creates a conversation between the criminals and the family.

  THE NEWSPAPERS

  The voice of the public. The narrative integration of excerpts from the New York Herald, the Philadelphia Public Ledger, th
e New York Times, the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, and the Philadelphia Inquirer reflects the American temperament from July 1874 through September 1875.

  PART ONE:

  “we is got him”

  (JULY 1874)

  we is got him

  HORSES STUMBLED UP AND DOWN GERMANTOWN AVENUE IN 1874. Their shoes got caught between layers of cement and broken cobblestone and slid on uneven gravel. Travelers had complained about the road between central Philadelphia and Germantown since 1700, nearly twenty years after William Penn purchased the woods northwest of Philadelphia from the Delaware Indians. Through an agent, he offered the land to victims of religious persecution in Europe, and in 1683, thirteen families of Germans arrived. They lived in caves while they built homes along an Indian footpath, a trail leading eight miles uphill from the Schuylkill River. Settling toward the top of the ridge, the immigrants established themselves in their family trades as weavers, shoemakers, and tailors. By the turn of the century, Philadelphia’s society recognized the people of “German Town” as gifted artisans, and the community earned enough money to establish financial independence from Philadelphia earlier than other settlements. The townspeople’s pride, however, was frustrated by a common grievance: There were too many holes in the trail leading directly through town.

  Over the next two centuries, the former Indian footpath evolved from a trail into a route, a road, and then an avenue. As each generation tried and failed to fill its holes, the thoroughfare became a historical marker. During the winter of 1688, a group of Quakers and Mennonites met along it to sign the nation’s first document condemning slavery. In 1777, General Howe’s men marched Washington’s troops down it following the British victory at the Battle of Germantown. Before the Civil War, runaway slaves found their way to it, resting at the Johnson house, Philadelphia’s only documented stop on the Underground Railroad. And in July 1874, two river pirates turned onto it after kidnapping two little boys from their father’s front yard, initiating the first recorded ransom kidnapping in American history.

  Germantown’s neighborhoods branched off a two-mile stretch of the avenue called Main Street. Every weekday, hundreds of commuters passed these residential streets on their way to and from the city. After Philadelphia absorbed Germantown into its city limits in 1854, the state of Pennsylvania built a turnpike north of its boundaries, making Germantown Avenue an even more important connection between Philadelphia, its northwestern suburbs, and central Pennsylvania. Often, salesmen and charlatans turned off the avenue onto quieter streets to peddle contraband or homemade products at the doorsteps of Victorian mansions, colonial houses, and Gothic cottages—homes of the middle class and summer retreats of Philadelphia’s elite. In the early summer evenings of 1874, light winds rustled the trees and carried the scents of lilies and clover up to Main Street. Nurses bathed children, cooks prepared dinner, and groundskeepers tended symmetrical flower beds.

  Washington Lane was one of six roads connecting Germantown to other neighborhoods, and on Wednesday, July 1, Peter Callahan groomed at least one property there. Earlier that day, local churches and clubs had hosted a picnic outing for children from the city’s poorest neighborhoods. Laughter had echoed through the streets around lunchtime, but before the dinner hour, only two little children could be heard playing outdoors. Just after 5:00 P.M., a black wagon turned onto what is now East Washington Lane. It was drawn by a brown horse with a rusted harness and a white spot on its forehead. Peter Callahan noticed the two men sitting in the wagon. The driver’s face was partially hidden by oversized eyeglasses and a sandy mustache. He looked about thirty, and he was a redhead. He wore a gray coat, a gold vest chain, and a tall, dark-colored straw hat. The passenger drew more attention to himself, mainly because he held a red handkerchief over his face. His hair was dark, and he was shorter and older than the driver.

  When the wagon reached a brick wall about three feet high, the driver pulled the reins. Peter Callahan knew the children were playing on the other side of the wall that marked the front boundary of a family’s property. The passenger jumped from the wagon and dropped his red handkerchief. Callahan saw his face—a dark mustache, stray whiskers sprouting from his square jaw, a deformed nose. Callahan wasn’t sure what was wrong with it, but the tip of the man’s nose appeared to point toward his forehead. The man began talking to the two little boys, and a few minutes later, the brothers followed him into the wagon. The older boy sat between the two men. The younger sat on the passenger’s lap. As the horse began to trot up Washington Lane, the men spread a ripped, dirty lap cover with a red stripe across the children.

  Callahan went back to work on the garden. He didn’t say anything. Groundskeepers were used to seeing strangers roaming the residential streets.

  you wil have two pay us

  BEFORE THEY WENT OUT TO PLAY, FIVE-YEAR-OLD WALTER ROSS and his four-year-old brother Charley had taken a bath. Christian Ross, their father, was due home from work at six, and both boys anticipated the treat he would have for them. Walter and Charley asked their nurses if they could play outside as they waited. The women agreed. Charley had light brown hair that was parted on the left and curled in ringlets to his neck. He wore a pink ribbon around his head to keep his hair out of his eyes. Although Walter was only slightly taller than his younger brother, Charley looked up to him and put Walter in charge of his trinkets and toys. Charley loved to hug his six brothers and sisters, but he was very shy around strangers. If somebody he didn’t know approached him, Charley covered his face with his right arm.

  Neither boy shied away from the man with the odd nose when he jumped over the brick wall. They walked toward the candy in his hand, and Charley asked if the man could take him to buy some firecrackers. When the man pointed out the wagon, Peter Callahan saw the driver scan the street.

  The horse turned right once they reached Main Street. Walter asked why they weren’t turning left to buy firecrackers at a popular shop.

  “No, we will take you to Aunt Susie’s, who keeps a store, and will give you a pocketful for five cents,” the passenger said. Walter saw his nose clearly from his seat between the men. The cartilage separating his nostrils had worn away.

  Walter soon realized that the horse turned at intersections in the road frequently. He asked the men to identify features in the landscape as they passed farms, stables, and watering holes. They answered his questions. As the wagon took him farther and farther from home, Charley began to whimper. He rarely cried aloud. If somebody snapped at him or spoke in harsh tones, Charley’s eyes brimmed with tears until they spilled onto his cheeks. The men quieted him with candy and promises to buy all the firecrackers he wanted once they reached the store.

  “Faster, faster!” the passenger called as the horse climbed hills. Twice the men stopped at water pumps and told Walter to fill an empty bottle. The passenger added liquor to it from a flask as he balanced Charley on his lap. The forefinger on his left hand had shriveled to a sharp point around his nail. He wore two rings on the middle finger of his right hand; both were gold, one a plain band and the other set with a red stone.

  “Slower, slower!” the passenger called as the horse ran downhill. The wagon turned again, again, and again before reaching Kensington, a neighborhood in northern Philadelphia. At the intersection of Richmond and Palmer Streets, the men saw a tobacco store down Richmond Street with a window display of firecrackers and torpedoes. The passenger handed Walter twenty-five cents and told him to go inside and buy his brother some toys and himself some candy. Walter obeyed.

  John Hay, a young tobacconist, saw Walter at the counter and asked what he wanted.

  “Firecrackers.” Walter pointed to some large ones.

  Hay paused. Neighborhood boys usually bought as many small firecrackers as they could get for their money; it didn’t make sense that Walter asked for fewer, larger ones. He told the boy to come back when he was sure he knew what he wanted. Walter left, went back to the buggy, and soon reentered the store.

 
; A few minutes later, he walked back outside with two packs of firecrackers and one of torpedoes. He stopped. The wagon, the men, and Charley had disappeared. Walter ran to the intersection and looked back and forth. Then he screamed.

  As expected, Christian Ross rode up Main Street before 6:00 P.M. He was a tall and skinny man, fifty years old, the father of seven children, and a Sunday-school teacher at the local Methodist church. He had a receding hairline, a large nose and a full, carefully groomed red beard that almost covered his lower lip. Christian commuted ten miles from his home to his wholesale dry goods company on Third and Market streets. It was a difficult time to own a small business. The Panic of 1873 had hit Philadelphia the year before, when the Jay Cooke Bank closed. This New York-based bank had heavily financed railroad construction, but the pace of westward expansion depleted funds, and the bank folded under rising costs of labor. Philadelphia’s commercial and industrial communities were funded by local family-owned banks, so they did not suffer like others in the East. Smaller businesses like Christian’s, however, took a hit as consumers lost or conserved expendable income. Christian’s wife, Sarah, had recently taken a trip to Atlantic City, causing neighbors to wonder whether she was struggling to cope with financial stress at the Ross home. The family said she was recovering from an illness.

  Christian looked forward to seeing his two youngest sons that evening. The boys had been complaining because they were stuck at home while their older sister Sophia vacationed with their mother and their two older brothers visited their grandmother in central Pennsylvania. Walter and Charley knew they would switch places with Sophia in mid-July, but in the meantime, the household—including two nannies, a cook, groundsmen, an older and a younger sister—was quieter than they liked. With the approach of Independence Day, the boys had seen children in town playing with fireworks. Germantown and Philadelphia ordinances banned fireworks and firecrackers from residential areas, yet children could easily purchase them in corner stores. That morning, Walter and Charley had followed their father to the stables, asking him for money to buy firecrackers. Christian said they needed to wait until he came home with a cartload of sand to muffle the sound.