Joe Bruno's Mobsters - Six Volume Set (42 page)

As White pushed Johnson out his front door, he told Johnson, “Girls, if you are poor, stay in the safe factory, or in the kitchen.”

Johnson lasted eight years hustling on the streets, before she died at the age of 23. She was buried in a pauper’s grave.

In order to influence the New York City potential jury pool, Mother Thaw hired a playwright to write a play almost identical to the circumstances surrounding Harry Thaw, Stanford White, and Evelyn Nesbit. The play featured three characters named Harold
Daw, Emeline Daw, and Stanford Black.

In the final scene of the play, Harold
Daw proclaimed from his cell in The Tombs prison, “No jury on earth will send me to the chair, no matter what I have done, or what I have been, for killing the man who defamed my wife. That is the unwritten law made by men themselves, and upon its virtue I will stake my life.”

Mother Thaw’s money even made it into the hands of Rev. Charles A. Eaton, who had John D. Rockefeller as one of his parishioners. Rev. Eaton made an impassioned speech to his congregation defending Thaw’s actions.

Rev. Eaton said, “It would be a good thing if there was a little more shooting in cases like this.”

While Thaw was in prison, his mother spread around enough money so that Thaw could enjoy extravagances no other prisoners in The Tombs were allowed. Instead of eating the standard prison grub, Thaw had all his meals delivered from Delmonico’s, a downtown restaurant which was considered the finest eatery of its time. While other prisoners dressed in standard prison garb, Thaw was allowed to wear the finest clothes, including silk shirts and silk ties.

Thaw’s first trial for the murder of Stanford White commenced on January 21, 1907. Mother Thaw hired the illustrious California trial lawyer, Delpin Delmas, to represent her son. District Attorney William Travers Jerome, the uncle of Winston Churchill, prosecuted the case for the state.

Jerome told the jury in his opening statement, “With all his millions, Thaw is a fiend. In the conduct of this trial, I shall prove that no matter how rich a man is, he can’t get away with murder in New York County!”

The sensationalism of the trial was so extreme, tickets to the trial were scalped at $100. More than 80 world-famous artists and writers flocked to the courtroom to see if maybe they could benefit, from either writing a book or making a movie about the sordid affair.

The defense’s shining hour was when Evelyn Nesbit took the stand in defense of her husband. Rumors had it that Mother Thaw had enticed Nesbit to testify by promising Nesbit that her son would agree to a divorce. Mother Thaw also promised Ne
sbit $1,000,000 after the trial. But Nesbit never received a penny of that money.

On the witness stand, Nesbit told of the bizarre sexual behavior of Stanford White. Nesbit said that White made her wear little girl’s dresses when she came to his apartment. Nesbit also told the jury the manner in which
she lost her virginity to White and that White had plied her with champagne in order to render her unconscious so that he could have his way with her.

The prosecution countered Nesbit’s words by eliciting testimony from a leading toxicologist, Dr. Rudolph
Witthaus. Dr. Witthaus said that Nesbit’s story about how White had gotten her drunk in order to take advantage of her did not hold water, because no drug known to science would have worked as rapidly as Nesbitt said the champagne did to render her unconscious.

Although a group of psychiatrists declared Thaw to be totally sane, during t
he trial Thaw acted erratically; constantly crying like a baby and flying into rages, in which his eyes bugged out and his face nearly turned purple.

In his final summation, Delmas told the jury that his client, when he shot Stanford White, had been
consumed by “Dementia Americana, a form of insanity which makes every home sacred, makes a man believe that his wife is sacred. Whoever strains the virtual life has forfeited the protection of human laws, and must look to the internal justice and mercy of God.”

Attorney Delmas had done such a remarkable job, the jury was not able to come to a unanimous verdict. It was revealed later that seven jurors had wanted to convict Thaw on a first-degree murder charge, while five jurors decided on a verdict of not guilty by reason of insanity.
However, at Thaw’s second trial, in January of 1908, the jury unanimously voted Thaw not guilty by reason of insanity.

Still, the verdict of not guilty did not set Thaw free from prison. Thaw was declared criminally insane and imprisoned for life at Mattawan, New York. In August 17, 1913, Thaw escaped, and with a limousine waiting for him outside
the asylum, Thaw fled to Canada where he took refuge.

While Thaw was on the run, Nesbit, obviously angry at the fact she had not been paid the $1,000,000 she had been promised by Mother Thaw, made an announcement to the press.

She said, “Harry Thaw has turned out to be a degenerate scoundrel. He hid behind my skirts through two trials and I won’t stand for it again. I won’t let lawyers throw any more mud at me.”

Soon afterwards, Nesbit signed a contract to appear in a vaudeville show at a salary of $3,500 a week.

In September of 1913, the United States government forced the Canadian Minister of Justice to return Thaw to the United States. Thaw faced a third trial in 1915. Bolstered by a cadre of the best lawyers money could buy, Thaw was found to be sane, and the jury found him not guilty of all charges.

Back on the streets, Thaw went back to his old, evil ways.

Eighteen months after he was released from prison, Thaw was arrested for kidnapping and whipping Frederick Gump. At his trial, Thaw was again declared insane. Yet, before Thaw went back into the asylum, he gave Nesbit her promised divorce. Nesbit spent the next decade appearing in vaudeville, occasional movies, and as a dancer in nightclubs throughout New York City.

In 1924, after seven years in the asylum, Thaw was finally declared sane
, and he was released from prison. Thaw spent the rest of his life in and out of lucidity. Thaw died on February 22, 1947, at the age of 76, of a heart attack in Miami, Florida. Thaw left a mere $10,000 of his vast fortune to Evelyn Nesbit.

Nesbitt, beset by alcohol addiction, morphine addiction, and several suicide attempts, somehow lasted until January 17, 1967, when she died at the age of 82. Nesbit served as a techn
ical advisor on the 1955 movie
The Girl In the Red Velvet Swing
, which was loosely based on her life story.

Marilyn Monroe was originally scheduled to play Evelyn Nesbit, but ultimately, she refused to play the part, which then went to Joan Collins. Ray
Milland played Stanford White and Farley Granger played Henry Thaw.

T
he Sawing off of Manhattan Island

It was a hoax
to end all hoaxes, perpetrated by a man known only as Lozier.

Lozier was neither a mobster, nor did he belong to a gang. And certainly, by all historical accounts, Lozier was not a crook. However, considering the havoc he caused in New York City in 1824, Lozier was certainly, by all definitions, a creep.

In 1824, the population of Manhattan Island was approximately 150,000 people. Centre Market, an area at the junction of Baxter, Grand, and Centre streets, was where the townspeople congregated daily, to buy and sell goods, and to shoot the breeze about anything and everything that had an impact on their lives.

The most vocal person who came to Centre Market daily was a charismatic man named Lozier. Lozier had traveled the world, and was considered to possess the highest intellectual
capacity. When Lozier spoke, people listened. Lozier, a carpenter by trade, was tight pals with a man with the dubious name of Uncle John Devoe.

In early 1824, for some unexplained reason, Lozier remained absent from his bench in
the Centre Market for several days. When he returned, the usually loquacious Lozier was suddenly and inexplicably mute. Lozier spoke to no one except Uncle John Devoe. The rest of the people, who congregated daily at Centre Market, were curious as to why Lozier's temperament had changed so drastically.

Finally, Lozier broke down and told the assemblage that for the past few weeks he had been huddled with the mayor of New York City, Stephen Allen. The reason for those serious discussions was that Manhattan Island, as a result of the many large downtown buildings that
had recently been built, was so heavy at the Battery end, the southmost point of the island was in danger of breaking off and falling into the water.

Some people doubted Lozier's conclusions. So he led them to the middle of Centre Street
, and he asked them to look for themselves. It was obvious that the street was tilted extremely downhill, as Lozier pointed out to them, “from all the weight of the southmost buildings.”

The crowd was aghast.

“What can we do?” they implored Lozier.

Lozier said not to worry. He and the mayor had come to the conclusion that the only way they could save the s
outhern end of Manhattan Island was to cut off the island at its north end, in the Kingsbridge region, and then turn the island completely around. Then they would need to anchor the sagging end to the northern mainland. So in effect, when the task was completed, north would be south, and south would be north, thereby averting the terrible loss of lives and property.

The only problem was that Mayor Allen maintained there was no way Manhattan Island could be turned completely around without smashing into Long Island. Mayor Allen said it was necessary to detach Long Island from its moorings, tow it out of the way, and after Manhattan Island was properly rotated and re-attached to the mainland, Long Island then could be returned to its proper place.

Lozier finally convinced the mayor that there was enough space in the harbor to rotate Manhattan Island, without dislodging Long Island. Lozier said all they had to do was saw off Manhattan Island at Kingsbridge, tow it past Governors Island and Ellis Island, spin it around, then tow it back to its new position and anchor it.

After much consultation, the mayor reluctantly a
greed to doing it Lozier's way. Being the political animal that he was, Mayor Allen thought it best to keep the government (meaning him) completely out of the picture. The mayor thought this should be a private endeavor, and he appointed Lozier to handle the entire project, including the hiring of labor and the supervising of the work.

Initially, not everyone in Manhattan bought into the convoluted idea that the southern tip of Manhattan Island was in any danger. However, because of Lozier's fine reputation as a thinking man's thinker, those who did not believe Lozier was right in his assumption
s, either were quickly silenced, or were finally convinced by the believers that Lozier’s premise was indeed correct.

To make matters more conclusive, Lozier came to his own defense. He cited the recent building of the famous Erie Canal, as proof that his project could indeed be done. Lozier said that when the building of the Erie Canal was proposed, even the best engineers in the world thought to run a river through the middle of a mountain was an impossible task. This dubious analogy convinced even the most ardent doubters that not only could it be done, but that Lozier
was indeed the man to supervise the operation.

For Lozier, his first task was to hire hundreds of people needed for such a monumental project. Lozier appeared in Centre Market, with a large
ledger on which he tediously began the task of jotting down applicants for all types of employment needed to sever, turn around Manhattan Island, and then attach the southern part to the Kingsbridge section.

While his attention was diverted elsewhere, Lozier entrusted his pal
, Uncle John Devoe, to complete this task. Devoe personally wrote on the ledger the names, ages, and places of residence of all who applied, most of whom were the newly-arrived Irish peasants with very little education.

While Devoe was compiling a list of workers, Lozier was busy huddling with butchers to assemble herds of cattle, hogs, and chickens, which were necessary to feed the hundreds of workers on the proposed project. Lozier was especially concerned with getting enough chickens, because he had promised all workers would have chicken dinners twice a week. One poor butcher was so anxious to please Lozier, he took 50 fat hogs that were ready for slaughter and herded them north near Kingsbridge, where he fed them for a month; the feed money coming out of his own pocket, not Lozier's.

Getting his food-supply-system for the workers out of the way, Lozier now turned his attention to building a barracks for the workers to sleep in at night after they had finished working during the day. Lozier gathered 20-something carpenters and contractors to furnish the lumber and the expertise needed to build the barracks. Several of these contractors and carpenters jumped the gun. They hauled a few dozen loads of lumber to the northern end of the island, and they deposited it near Kingsbridge, so it would be right there when they needed it.

This was done at the carpenter's and contractor's expense, of course. Not Lozier's.

Lozier said he also needed at least 20 saws, each being 100 feet long, and each needing 50 men to manipulate them. In addition, Lozier said he required 24 huge oars, each 250 feet long, and 24 cast-iron oarlocks, in which the gigantic oars would be mounted. Lozier said that at least 100 men would be needed to tow Manhattan Island, after it had been sawed off from the mainland. Lozier provided scores of blacksmiths, carpenters, and mechanics, with the plans to provide the oars and the oarlocks.