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Summary
Summary
From renowned true-crime historian Harold Schechter, whom The Boston Book Review hails as "America's principal chronicler of its greatest psychopathic killers," comes the riveting exploration of a notorious, sensational New York City murder in the 1890s, the fascinating forensic science of an earlier age, and the explosively dramatic trial that became a tabloid sensation at the turn of the century.
Death was by poison and came in the mail: A package of Bromo Seltzer had been anonymously sent to Harry Cornish, the popular athletic director of Manhattan's elite Knickerbocker Athletic Club. Cornish barely survived swallowing a small dose; his cousin Mrs. Katherine Adams died in agony after ingesting the toxic brew. Scandal sheets owned by Hearst and Pulitzer eagerly jumped on this story of fatal high-society intrigue, speculating that the devious killer was a chemist, a woman, or "an effeminate man." Forensic studies suggested cyanide as the cause of death; handwriting on the deadly package and the vestige of a label glued to the bottle pointed to a handsome, athletic society scamp, Roland Molineux.
The wayward son of a revered Civil War general, Molineux had clashed bitterly with Cornish before. He had even furiously denounced Cornish when penning his resignation from the Knickerbocker Club, a letter that later proved a major clue. Bon vivant Molineux had recently wed the sensuous Blanche Chesebrough, an opera singer whose former lover, Henry Barnet, had also recently died . . . after taking medicine sent to him through the mail. Molineux's subsequent indictment for murder led to two explosive trials, a sex-infused scandal that shocked the nation, and a lurid print-media circus that ended in madness and a proud family's disgrace.
In bold, brilliant strokes, Schechter captures all the colors of the tumultuous legal case, gathering his own evidence and tackling subjects no one dared address at the time--all in hopes of answering the tantalizing question: What powerfully dark motives could drive the wealthy scion of an eminent New York family to foul murder?
Schechter vividly portrays the case's fascinating cast of characters, including Julian Hawthorne, son of Nathaniel Hawthorne, a prolific yellow journalist who covered the story, and proud General Edward Leslie Molineux, whose son's ignoble deeds besmirched a dignified national hero's final years. All the while Schechter brings alive Manhattan's Gilded Age: a gaslit world of elegant town houses and hidden bordellos, chic restaurants and shabby opium dens, a city peopled by men and women fighting and losing the battle against urges an upright era had ordered suppressed.
Superbly researched and powerfully written, The Devil's Gentleman is an insightful, gripping work, a true-crime historian's crowning achievement.
Reviews (3)
Publisher's Weekly Review
True-crime historian Schechter (co-author, The A-Z Encyclopedia of Serial Killers) delivers a thrilling account of a murder case that rocked Manhattan at the turn of the 20th century. Roland Molineux, a socially ambitious chemist,was a proud member of the Knickerbocker Athletic Club, where he was considered a talented but snooty sportsman, repeatedly instigating spats with the club's athletic director, Harry Cornish. Pursuing women with the same determination he brought to sports, Roland doggedly wooed Blanche Chesebrough, an equally ambitious young woman with operatic aspirations. But when one of Molineux's romantic competitors, Henry Barnet, died, Cornish was poisoned (he survived) and his landlady died, Roland topped the list of suspects. The ensuing investigation and sensational trial became one of the costliest in New York State history. Schechter expertly weaves a rich historical tapestry-exploring everything from the birth of "yellow" journalism to the history of poison as a murder weapon-without sacrificing a novelistic sense of character, pacing and suspense. The result is a riveting tale of murder, seduction and tabloid journalism run rampant in a New York not so different from today's. B&w photos. (Oct) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Kirkus Review
A terrifically overwrought buildup eventually leads to the turn-of-the-century murder trial and eventual acquittal of New Jersey chemist Roland Burnham Molineux. Schechter (English/Queens College; The Tell-Tale Corpse, 2006, etc.) delights in setting the scene for this sensational American crime story, avidly and vulgarly publicized by the era's yellow journalists. Molineux, profligate middle son of beloved Civil War hero General Edward Leslie Molineux, became superintendent and chief chemist in his father's paint factory in Newark. Good-looking and athletic, Roland was a distinguished gymnast and insinuated himself as an officer at the gentlemanly Knickerbocker Athletic Club. There he ran afoul of club director Harry Cornish. Schechter suggests possible latent homosexual hostility between the two, a thesis supported by Molineux's evident issues with impotency. He wanted to marry a young upstart singer, Blanche Chesebrough, but she preferred his more virile friend from the club, Henry Barnet. In a grisly turn of events, both Barnet and Cornish were poisoned in late 1898. Barnet died after taking a supposed hangover remedy mailed to him anonymously; Cornish escaped with his life after drinking from a bottle labeled Bromo-Seltzer, also sent by an unknown hand, that killed the cousin he boarded with. Clues gradually began to point to Molineux. The author excitedly notes the lurid coverage of lowbrow newspapers like Joseph Pulitzer's New York World and William Randolph Hearst's Examiner as a key factor in spreading mass hysteria about the case, which underscored America's obsession with moral breakdown, sex and the vulnerability of the human body. Schechter describes such new crime-solving techniques as fingerprinting and forensics, and he takes a harrowing look inside Sing Sing's Death House. Though he rehashes the evidence rather repetitively, crime buffs will relish the extra details. Skillfully captures a colorful mishmash of New York characters caught up in a moment of extreme public anxiety. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
New York Review of Books Review
The true story of a social climber accused of murder. HAROLD SCHECHTER seems an average sort. He teaches American literature at Queens College in New York City. His author's bio mentions a home in Brooklyn and a wife. His face, which stares out from the photo on his Web site, radiates middle-aged respectability. Beneath this placid exterior, however, thuds a dark and savage heart. Schechter, as it happens, uses the downtime afforded him by the academic calendar to wallow in blood, pain and gore. Besides scholarly writings and cultural criticism, he's turned out a fictional mystery series starring Edgar Allan Poe, and a string of true-crime thrillers whose titles, including "Depraved," "Fiend," Deranged," "Deviant" and "Bestial," create a ghoulish haiku. His latest nonfiction horror, "The Devil's Gentleman," is longer in name and shorter on blood-shed. A paltry two murders occur - hardly Jeffrey Dahmer stats - and these by the dry expedient of poisoned medicine sent via mail. The chief suspect is no flesh-ripping freak either, but a dapper chap with impeccable manners. Yet this is a quietly riveting book. Without straying too much from the narrow confines imposed by the practice of good history and aided by a trove of unpublished memoirs and journals, Schechter has created satisfying, nuanced portraits of his main characters and set them in a late 19th-century New York that fairly throbs with exotic, specific life. At the book's core are two strivers. Roland Molineux was a semiimpotent, emotionally repressed paint-factory chemist and social climber from Brooklyn, who parlayed gymnastic talent and the name of his Civil-War-hero father into admission to Manhattan's snooty athletic-club scene. Blanche Chesebrough was a would-be singer in search of sexual fulfillment and financial security. Sounds like a match made in Hades, which it was. Roland wooed Blanche. She spurned him for a member of the Knickerbocker Athletic Club. A few weeks later, Roland's rival received a packet of stomach medicine by post. He took some and died in agony. A week later, Roland and Blanche were married. Shortly thereafter, the Knickerbocker's athletic director (another Roland enemy) received a similar package. He gave some of the medicine to a cousin, and she also died. It turns out the contents of both packages had been laced with an unusual form of cyanide that was found in Roland's office at the Newark factory where he worked. For various reasons, Roland was tried for the second murder. The proceedings lasted from November 1899 to February 1900, making the People v. Molineux the longest and one of the most expensive trials in New York history to that date. The press offered wall-to-wall coverage, especially Pulitzer's New York World and Hearst's New York Journal, then locked in the epic circulation struggle that began yellow journalism. Without giving away the ending, I will say that "The Devil's Gentleman" isn't much of a page turner. The drama level sags when the story hits the courts, and Schechter misses various opportunities to create suspense out of what might have been quite suspenseful material. ("Get me Hitchcock on Line One!") Where Schechter does succeed, however, perhaps as well as any of the numerous writers who've trod this turf before, is in marrying a historian's understanding of the 19th century to a literature professor's insight into how people felt and thought at the time. His book is full of quirky surprises. Who knew, for example, that the 19th century had a very different crime obsession than we do now? At a time of rampant industrialism, but before national safety standards, when people had little idea what they were ingesting, Schechter writes, "the knife-wielding psycho wasn't the boogeyman that haunted the imagination of the American public. It was the poisoner." Edward Lewine is a frequent contributor to The Times Magazine. His book, "Death and the Sun: A Matador's Season in the Heart of Spain," was published in May.
Excerpts
Excerpts
1 On July 15, 1852, Edward Leslie Molineux--still three months shy of his nineteenth birthday--began what he called his "scrapbook." It was not a pasted-in collection of newspaper and magazine clippings (though in later years, when his own name began to appear regularly in the press, he would assemble several of those, too). Rather, this ledger-sized volume was a handwritten miscellany of striking facts, inspirational sayings, and practical information on everything from military tactics to medicinal recipes. There is nothing remotely confessional to be found in this journal. His book has all the introspective quality of the official Boy Scout Manual, which it resembles in its single-minded emphasis on self-improvement and the cultivation of the higher civic virtues: industry, tolerance, charity, and a keen sense of duty to one's country. The very look of the pages--inscribed in a flawless hand, perfectly free of blots or corrections, and meticulously labeled with solemn headlines ("The Importance of Physical Exercise," "Useful Rules," "Maxims for the Wise")--speaks vividly of the young writer's capacity for self-discipline, concentrated effort, and high moral seriousness. "Be virtuous in mind & body & let your thoughts be pure," he counsels himself in an early entry labeled "Rules for Living." This injunction is followed by a score of precepts designed to promote physical, mental, and moral soundness: Use dumbbells twice a day. Bathe every morning. Always get up when you first awake, no matter what time it is. One hour in the morning is worth two at night! Do everything in a cool, active, and energetic manner. In times of danger or trouble, first think--then act coolly and decisively. Never be idle--always have something to do. Never shrink from an unpleasant duty. Persevere--never give up a thing until you have tried it every possible way. Perseverance is the best school for every manly virtue. Never be prejudiced nor allow yourself to be led by others. If you are in the wrong, acknowledge it frankly. Harden in every possible way your body but not your conscience. Give up all bad habits. Use no slang language. Speak kindly. Be truthful. Be truly polite. In studying, concentrate your thoughts solely upon the subject before you. Be charitable in thought as well as action. Love your God & read his doctrines & fail not to address him night & morning.1 Elsewhere in the journal, he transcribes the rules laid down by Benjamin Franklin as a prescription for happiness and success: "Eat not to dullness," "Avoid trifling conversation," "Waste nothing," "Let all things have their place," "Use no hurtful deceit," "Tolerate no uncleanness in body, clothes, or habitation," and so on. Fascinated by every aspect of warfare, he fills his journal with extensive notes--often accompanied by his own diagrams and hand-drawn maps--on a sweeping array of military matters: the proper construction of field fortifications, the organization of the Hungarian army, the strategic deployment of troops in the battle of Waterloo. At the same time, he had a lifelong love of poetry. He read Chaucer and Milton for pleasure and had a boundless admiration for the writings of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. He came honestly by his love of reading. His father, William, was a printer; his mother, Maria Leslie, a "remarkably intelligent woman [who] took great delight in reading French and German and was also a close student of English and American literature."2 Young Edward's enthusiasm for all things military was also a family legacy. His ancestors included soldiers who had taken part in the Norman invasion, fought alongside King Henry V at Agincourt, been slain on the battlefield during the War of the Roses, and received personal commendations for bravery from Henry VIII. It was (and is) a proud and ancient line, whose origins can be traced to one Robert de Moulin--the son (according to family legend) of Abelard and Heloise.3 At the time of Edward's birth in October 1833, his father still retained the traditional spelling of his last name--Molyneux. It was only two years later--when William brought his wife and eight surviving children to the United States--that he adopted the somewhat less exotic-looking spelling. Though the historical record is hazy, indications are that they settled in Manhattan, where William opened a print shop on the corner of Ann and Nassau streets, and where, two years later, the Molineuxs' youngest child, Arthur--just twenty-two months old--died and was laid to rest in the vault of the Methodist Church on First Street. William himself died in 1857 at the age of sixty-eight. By then, he was no longer living with his wife and children. Exactly what caused this estrangement is a mystery, though given the stigma attached to broken marriages in those days, the reasons could not have been trivial. What is known is that by 1851 William was separated from his family and living on Staten Island. Maria and the children, in the meantime, had moved to the Fort Greene neighborhood of Brooklyn, where Edward Leslie Molineux would reside for the remainder of his long and eventful life. At seventeen, Edward was a handsome youth--brown-haired, blue-eyed--whose erect, aristocratic carriage made him seem taller than his five feet three inches. He had been educated at the Mechanics School on Broadway and Park Place. (Despite its name, the Mechanics School was not a vocational institution. Run by the General Society of Mechanics and Tradesmen, it provided a tuition-free general education to the children of its members at a time before New York City had a municipal public school system. As the son of a printer, Edward was eligible for admission.) That year, 1851, seventeen-year-old Edward found a job at the paint-manufacturing firm of Daniel F. Tiemann & Company, whose owner was active in New York City politics and would eventually serve a two-year term as mayor.4 Within this bustling concern, young Edward--with his brains, ambition, and indefatigable energy--thrived. In the manner of a Horatio Alger hero, he quickly rose to a position of responsibility, handling all of the firm's voluminous correspondence and occupying the front office with several other clerks. In 1854, even as Edward continued to establish himself in business and (partly through his association with Daniel F. Tiemann) involve himself in city politics, the twenty-year-old Molineux commenced what would be a long and illustrious military career. On June 15 of that year, he enlisted in the New York State Militia as a member of the Brooklyn City Guard, a celebrated light-artillery company whose smartly executed drills and dress parades had inspired a popular parlor tune, "The Brooklyn City Guard Quick Step." The few extant records from this period in Edward's life show how quickly he advanced through the noncommissioned ranks--no surprise, given his ferocious drive and exceptional abilities. In 1858, when the U.S. government needed a courier for an important diplomatic mission to Venezuela, the Department of State chose Edward, who discharged his duties with his usual professional grace. It was not long after his return in January 1859 that he was introduced to Hattie Davis Clark of East Hartford, Connecticut. Exactly where and under what circumstances they met is unknown, as are all details of their courtship. By the following December, however, they were betrothed. That Christmas, Edward gave her an illustrated volume of Schiller's poetry, inscribed "To Hattie from Ned." For the emotionally reserved, unremittingly proper Molineux, his use of his pet name--employed only by his family and closest friends--was a mark of the intimacy that had developed between them. In the meantime, he continued to make himself indispensable to his employers--so much so that in 1860, he was made a partner in the firm. Business was bad for the Tiemanns, however. Most of their customers were Southern merchants, and sales fell off dramatically as tensions rose between the North and South following the election of Abraham Lincoln in November. In late December of that year, Edward began a new journal, this one composed of his own philosophical musings. One of the earliest entries is dated January 1861. Titled "The First Day of the New-Year," it is written in Molineux's loftiest style, full of high-minded sentiments about the opportunities afforded by the coming year "to correct past errors, to cultivate new virtues, to accomplish greater things." It is not until the end of the essay that the twenty-seven-year-old deals directly with the momentous events of the day and their immediate implications for his own happiness and well-being. Here, the tone becomes deeply affecting as he contemplates two radically different futures, and girds himself to face the worst with his usual courage, honor, and gallantry: And for myself, how far in this year of 1861 I may proceed, God alone knows; for who can tell what this eventful year may bring forth! If to happiness and peace, all thanks to the Almighty! But if plain visible duty points to the other path--where men's passions rage & where patriotism demands us to defend principles & secure future happiness at the bitter price of present suffering, danger & if needs be life itself--then let me rise superior to all considerations in defense of the right & let me recollect that "His Hand is above me" & let my foot be firm to do His Will. It didn't take long for Edward Molineux to learn what the future held. On April 12, 1861--less than four months after he penned his New Year's essay--Confederate forces under General Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard opened fire on Fort Sumter. The Civil War had begun. On July 18, 1861, Edward Molineux and Hattie Davis Clark were married in her hometown of East Hartford. Three days later, Union forces were routed by the Confederate Army at Manassas, ending the fond hopes of Northerners that the war would be over in a matter of months. With his army shattered, Lincoln signed bills calling for the enlistment of 500,000 additional troops and extending the term of service from ninety days to three years. By then, Edward Molineux himself was back in uniform, as a major of the Eleventh Brigade of the New York National Guard. A few months later, he was authorized to organize a regiment, designated as the 159th.5 After several weeks of training at a camp on Staten Island, Edward and his men set out from New York City aboard the United States steamer Northern Light. On December 14, they joined a large fleet of transports at Ship Island, Mississippi, before proceeding up the river into enemy country. During his three years of active duty, Edward would participate in campaigns from the Louisiana bayous to the Shenandoah Valley and take part in more than a dozen battles.6 Following the fall of Savannah, he would be placed in charge of the city's fortifications and, after Lee's surrender, be appointed military commander of the District of Northern Georgia with his headquarters in Augusta. All of these duties and more he performed with grace, valor, and an unswerving sense of decency that won him the gratitude of his government, the love of his men, and even the respect of his adversaries. His energies seemed inexhaustible. At the height of the war, it was nothing for him to spend nearly twenty-four hours in the saddle, return to his tent for three hours of sleep, then rise at dawn and conduct drills for another twelve hours before attending to regimental paperwork. Stern as he could be when circumstances warranted it, Molineux was beloved by his troops for the fatherly care he demonstrated. His letters home are filled with requests for small gifts for his men--everything from candy and tobacco to stockings and sewing kits. At other times, he does what he can to relieve their anxieties about their loved ones back home. But it wasn't just Edward's concern for their welfare that endeared him to his men. It was his gallantry as a warrior. And nowhere was that courage--or the devotion it inspired--more dramatically in evidence than in the bloody engagement known as the Battle of Irish Bend. On the morning of April 14, 1863, the 159th, along with several other regiments, was ordered to make a bayonet charge across a muddy sugar field to drive a force of Rebel soldiers from a dense strip of woods. Edward, on horseback, was in the lead. The field was so heavily plowed, however, that his horse kept stumbling in the furrows, and he quickly dismounted. Charging ahead on foot, Edward and his troops came under a ferocious crossfire from the Confederates, who were entirely concealed behind fences, canebrakes, and trees. As he turned to shout encouragement to his men, Edward saw that they were being cut down by the score. Calling a halt, he ordered them to take cover in the ditchlike furrows and open fire. Under this fusillade, the enemy gunfire slackened a bit. Edward saw a chance to cover the remaining ground. Leaping to his feet, he called out, "Forward, New York!" No sooner had he shouted the words than his face exploded in pain and he was hurled to the ground. A rifle ball had torn through his mouth, blasting away the gums and teeth on the left side and exiting his cheek. Edward struggled to his feet and tried to urge his men forward, but--as he reported in a letter to his family--"I could not make myself understood and some stupid fool gave an order to retreat." At that moment, the Rebels on their flank came charging upon them. Edward told his men to save themselves, but they would not leave him. "Such self-sacrificing fellows I never knew of," he declared. Four of them were struck by musket balls--one through the forehead--while carrying him to safety. Within days, Edward hastened to assure his family that his wound was "nothing. It is ugly and painful, but not dangerous," he wrote. For the rest of the war, Edward suffered from severe, at times incapacitating, headaches, which he attempted to treat with homeopathic remedies supplied by his mother. Despite these bouts of illness, he carried on as steadfastly as ever, sustained by his absolute belief in the righteousness of the Northern cause. His military service came to an end on July 29, 1865, when he tendered his resignation. When he departed for home three days later, he did so with the rank of major general by brevet "for gallant and meritorious service during the war." After three grueling years, during which he had conducted himself with unwavering dignity and courage, Edward Leslie Molineux was returning to his family to enjoy a life of peace, prosperity, and enduring honor. Or so he had every reason to expect. General Edward Leslie Molineux was not a man to rest on his laurels. Possessed of "superabundant energies" (in the words of one awestruck observer),7 he lost no time in throwing himself into a wide range of activities, from business and politics to military affairs and civic enterprises. Shortly after his return to Brooklyn, he had a falling-out with his employer and patron, Daniel Tiemann, and left to join a rival firm, C. T. Raynolds, which he soon helped transform into the largest paint-making concern in the country. Excerpted from The Devil's Gentleman: Privilege, Poison, and the Trial That Ushered in the Twentieth Century by Harold Schechter All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
