One of the old time famous resorts for sports and men-about-town was a place called the “Hermitage,” located in Bayard street. There were a lot of odds and ends and curiosities in this “Hermitage,” and especially a white owl, which was regarded as a great attraction, bringin’ people from far and near.
Mike Walsh (who used to visit the Hermitage very often) and this white owl were particularly friendly, and seemed to know and understand each other very well. But one day the owl died–even owls die occasionally–and this one died very suddenly. It was never exactly explained what he died of, but he was a dead owl.
Mike Walsh mourned his loss very sincerely, and determined to give him a regular funeral, just as if he was a Christian, and from his idea of a funeral arose a good deal of fun, which resulted in one of his many practical jokes.
McAden was then a “popular” undertaker, doin’ business in Pearl street. Mike sent for him and ordered a splendid casket, the best that money could buy. He told the undertaker to get some flowers, too, to strew on the coffin–to make every arrangement first class.
Havin’ taken all these steps and contracted all this expense, Mike Walsh went round among the boys, hat in hand, and took up a collection to defray the funeral expenses of “a worthy member of society who had recently and suddenly died, leavin’ not a cent behind him.”
The boys responded liberally to Mike’s demand, and in a little while he had money enough to pay the undertaker’s bill, and the flowers, and a little over–for drinks for the mourners.
None of the boys knew who or what was really dead, nor did the undertaker, either, who thought it very strange he hadn’t been asked yet to lay out the corpse; but Mike told him that he didn’t want anybody to touch the body till it had been seen by the coroner.
Archer was coroner then, and Isaac Cockefair was his deputy. So Walsh went around to the coroner’s office, and left word in due form, that a person had died in the Hermitage on Bayard street, and wouldn’t the coroner at once take the necessary steps in the matter, as the deceased party’s friends “wished to give him a good send off–a decent burial.”
The coroner was a man of “red tape,” full of the dignity and the forms of his office. And he forthwith set two policemen, John Elder and Dowling, afterward Judge Dowling, to work to empanel a coroner’s jury.
People didn’t like to serve on any kind of jury then, any more than they do now, but Dowling and Elder managed to get together a sufficient number of men, among ‘em an eccentric chap named Martin Dunn, who always made it a point to differ on everythin’ from everybody he happened to be with.
Without waitin’ for the coroner’s jury, however, Mike Walsh ordered three carriages to be at the door of the Hermitage, and told the Undertaker to have his hearse at the entrance.
It was the oddest kind of an arrangement, this. The funeral train already in waitin’ before the coroner had viewed the remains or granted his burial permit, and the hearse in waitin’ before the undertaker had ever seen the corpse.
But it was Mike’s plan to keep all parties–coroner, undertaker and mourners–in darkness and mystery, till he burst the “sell” upon ‘em all at once.
He had asked several personal friends of his own to come round to the funeral at the Hermitage as a personal favor to himself, assurin’ ‘em that the late lamented was worthy of every token of respect. So, out of compliment to Mike, some of the boys who came had brought mornin’ gloves, and looked as solemn as could be.
Well, there was the coroner, and the coroner’s jury, and the undertaker and his assistants, with the lovely casket and some fine flowers, almost as if it was a weddin’, and there were the mourners tryin’ their best to look mournful, and there was Mike Walsh, with the most woe-begone face on, and his handkerchief to his eyes every now and then.
All these gathered together in one room, right over the barroom; but not one sign of any dead body yet. Till it last, everybody gettin’ impatient and curious at this queer kind of a funeral, Mike opened solemnly, reverently, the door of the little room adjoinin’, and there on a table, stretched out stiff and stark was a dead–owl.
Everybody looked at everybody. The coroner at the jury, the jury at the undertake, the undertaker at his assistants, the assistants at the mourners, the mourners at the coroner, and all of ‘em looked first at the dead owl, and then at the very much alive and lively Walsh.
And then with one accord, coroner and coroner’s jury, and undertaker and assistants, and mourners all went for Mike, who tried to scoot out the side door passage.
But in vain. They caught Mike, and made him open more bottles of wine that day than the Hermitage had ever seen opened on any occasion. And then, just to finish up the lark, the crowd proceeded in regular order to bury the owl, just as if he hadn’t been in an owl.
They held an inquest over him, got a doctor to testify that he died of apoplexy (to which Martin Dunn demurred, holdin’ that he had died of indigestion), then they deliberated over his remains, and brought in a verdict of “died by the visitation of God.” Then the undertaker took the owl, laid him out, put him in the little casket, bade his assistants to carry the casket downstairs, which they did, put it in the hearse, which they did, and drive off with the carriages, which they did, with the mourners inside of ‘em.
It was “goin’ an owlin’,” sure enough. No bird that ever lived or died in New York, ever had such a funeral as the old white owl of “the Hermitage.”
Another prank was played in old New York about the same time which likewise caused “an era of good feelin’” around the Tombs, which was then quite a “new” and “peculiar institution.” Malachi Fallon was the first keeper of the Tombs, and was very proud of his position. Malachi was a fine lookin’ fellow, tall and stately, and thought very well of himself, indeed. He was quite a ladies’ man, too, and very neat and natty in his style of dress. He went to balls a great deal, and altogether was a good fellow when off of duty, though very dignified durin’ duty hours, and very unbendin’ towards strangers.
One night there was goin’ to be a great Fourth ward ball at Tammany Hall, where the Sun buildin’ stands now. Everybody who was anybody was goin’ to that ball, and, of course, Malachi Fallon was to be there in all his glory.
To do full justice to himself and the occasion Malachi got a bran’ new suit of clothes, and had ‘em sent to his quarters in the Tombs. Very comfortable quarters they were, too, and a very showy suit of clothes It was to be sure: a long-tailed blue coat, with brass buttons, a cutaway vest, and pants a la mode. Arrayed in these, and with his ruffled shirt on, and his silk stockings and pumps, Malachi Fallon would be the beau of the ball–whoever might be the belle.
The suit was sent to the Tombs several days before the ball, and Dowling, afterwards the Judge, then on the police force attached to the Tombs, got a good look at it, and conceived, as he looked, the idea of a stupendous practical joke. Along with John Elder he carried the joke out, arranged all its details, and waited for developments.
The city was lit with oil lamps in those days lamps–which only served to make darkness visible–and there was one of these lamps right at the corner of Franklin and Elm streets.
A policeman called Patrick Rafferty, who was then on duty, and whose beat took in Franklin street, passin’ the corner of Elm saw by the light of the lamp a startlin’ spectacle. An elegantly dressed man, tall, rather portly, lay stretched on the pavement right under the lamp. He seemed exhausted, or drunk. Rafferty, who happened to be just the least bit in the world not himself, but under the influence of soda water, (?) rapped with his club on the lamp post, but the noise didn’t disturb the gentleman on the sidewalk at all. He kept on lyin’ still in the most provoking manner.
This got policeman Rafferty’s mad up, and stoopin’ down he shook the gentleman lyin’ on the sidewalk. But the gentleman stood the shakin’, or rather lay down to it, and never said a word.
Then policeman Rafferty got very mad indeed, and began, in the style of policemen in all ages in New York, to beat the well-dressed individual lyin’ on the sidewalk. But the gentleman on the sidewalk took the clubbin’ in the most Christian spirit.
He didn’t raise hand or foot to protect himself; he didn’t yell or swear; he was a model citizen and let the policeman beat him as became a policeman, without a murmur as became a citizen.
Just in the middle of his great clubbin’ act, policeman Rafferty was interrupted by the noise, as of a row around the corner. Leavin’ his clubbed man on the sidewalk, all ready to be clubbed again, Rafferty rushed around the corner, but the roysterers had run away before he could arrest ‘em. So he returned to re-club his gentleman on the sidewalk.
But the gentleman was on the sidewalk no longer. He was gone, altogether gone, was not to be found anywhere around. Rafferty searched him up and down Franklin street, up and down Elm street, but he had disappeared; but how?
This was the question which for the life of him policeman Rafferty could not answer. The gentleman on the sidewalk had been either dead drunk or half dead, a minute ago, unable to move or defend himself, and now he had vanished like an office-seeker’s dream, or an Alderman’s promise. It was a mystery of mysteries. But there were to be more mysteries that night.
An Irishman named Flaherty, Barney Williams’s father, I believe, or some near relative any way, was then doorkeeper at the Sixth Ward station house. While on duty that night a well-dressed man was brought in so drunk as to be unable to give any account of himself. He was entered on the station house book as John Doe, and put into a cell till mornin’.
But during the night the well-dressed man vanished, although he had entered there unable even so much as to put one foot before another. This was as great a mystery almost as Rafferty’s case. In fact, when Rafferty got the description of the well-dressed man who had disappeared from the station house he felt certain he was the same man who had so mysteriously disappeared from the corner of Elm and Franklin streets.
Of course the police got talkin’ over these two queer cases, or this one very clear case, and the next mornin’ Malachi Fallon was hoppin’ mad because somebody had secretly used and openly spoiled his new suit for the Fourth Ward ball.
That day, Matsell, chief of police, whose office was then at one end of the old alms house, where the New Court House stands to-day, heard about these two mysterious disappearances, and went round inquirin’ about ‘em. The more he asked, though, the less he found out.
For everybody from Gardner, who was then Sergeant in the Sixth Ward, down to Flaherty, had a different story to tell about the mysterious man.
It was a nine days’ wonder, perhaps it might have been a nine months’; but one night jolly old Flaherty let the cat out of the bag–gave the thing away.
Dowling had stuffed a figure into Malachi Fallon’s new suit, with the aid of some actors, and had made it look life-like. Then Dowling and Elder had laid the figure down where policeman Rafferty had found it, at the corner of Franklin and Elm streets. Then some of the actors hidin’ around had made a noise so as to divert Rafferty’s attention, during which time Elder and Dowling had snatched away the stuffed figure and gone off with it.
Then with the aid of Flaherty, who, with two or three others were in on the secret, the stuffed figure had been taken into and taken from the station house, and finally the clothes, minus the stuffed figure, had been left at the Ivy Green, a public house kept by Malachi in the neighborhood.
Thus the “murder out”-ed, and there was laughin’ and guyin’ and drinkin’ all round.
Dowling paid for the cleanin’ and fixin’ up Malachi’s suit, and on the night of the great Fourth Ward ball, Malachi Fallon was there, lookin’ as well in his clothes as if no stuffing but his own had ever been in them.
[Editor’s notes: Mike Walsh was a crusading political activist and publisher, as well as a rousing speaker with a love of practical jokes. With popular support, he was elected to the U.S. Congress. Though he fought corruption (to the point of entering Dorr’s Rebellion in Rhode Island, which sought to broaden election laws), Walsh’s reputation is marred by his anti-Catholic and anti-abolitionist views.
Malachi Fallon left New York in 1849 to follow the California Gold Rush. He became San Francisco’s first chef of police.]
