A few days ago there died in the Women’s Hospital in this city a Mrs. Henry Smith. The name was as unromantic as could well be conceived, hardly a degree more poetical than Mrs. John Smith, but the woman’s life history was one of the strangest and saddest on record. Strange in the vicissitudes and contrasts of fortune which it presents, and sad in its gradual downward progress from prosperity and affluence to penury and affliction.
Some thirty years ago a beautiful girl graced the circles of the American colony in Paris, and for a season was considered the belle thereof. She was a Parisian by birth, but knew all the prominent Americans in Paris and move chiefly in their society.
Among other prominent American visitors to Paris she met with Mr. Henry Smith, a once leadin’ politician of the Tweed era, who held various positions in New York at various times and was the brother of a man still more prominent in New York politics, Hugh Smith, once deputy chamberlain of New York, etc., one of the original owners of the Broadway omnibus line, and at present the principal owner of the nearly completed Murray Hill Hotel on Park avenue.
Mr. Henry Smith and the fair young Parisian soon became warm friends, and their friendship in time deepened into a warmer sentiment. Henry Smith, for a wonder, spoke French fluently and well, not like a student of Ollendorf, but like a native of France, like a born Parisian, in fact. He fell in love with the lady’s person and accomplishments; she was a fine talker, and a superb musician. She fell in love with his French and his fortune, which was then large, and the two married.
Mr. and Mrs. Henry Smith came to New York and for several years lived very happily together. The lady, at the head of a luxuriously furnished home, entertainin’ lavishly, givin’ large parties, while her diamonds were the talk of the town.
As for her husband, Mr. Henry Smith, he was in great demand as a shrewd judge of city real estate.
It was by his advice that Peter B. Sweeny bought that valuable plot of land on the east side of Broadway, extendin’ from Thirty-third to Thirty-fourth street, which was afterwards sold to Jay Gould and others. A good deal of Tweed and Sweeny’s real estate was held in his name, and altogether Henry Smith was properly regarded as a person of importance.
But the ring troubles came and Henry Smith, like many others, disappeared. His disappearance, however, was much more mysterious than that of the others. Everybody who was in their confidence knew where to find the rest; but Henry Smith actually “disappeared” and has never turned up to this day.
Some said he “disappeared” for reasons not unconnected with the Tammany ring. This was the general belief; but his wife always held that he disappeared with a woman. She had her own reasons for this belief, and they were sufficient for her to base a suit for divorce from the vanished man. This suit caused quite a local social political stir and dragged its slow and slimy length along through our courts for years. Several processes of arrest and decrees of alimony, etc., were issued against Henry Smith, but up to date the papers have never yet been served.
Once Smith was heard from in Jersey. Sometimes through a lawyer, and his plea was a general denial of any marriage. But this plea was not sustained, and Smith himself was never afterwards heard from.
At the time of her husband’s disappearance Mrs. Smith was “well fixed,” with a house and lot, diamonds, horses, and about one hundred thousand dollars’ worth of stocks and bonds, but within five years she was almost destitute. Her bonds were wheedled away and talked away from her; her house and lot was sold for the incumbrances on it; her horses were sold, and her wardrobe and diamonds had been pledged and have never yet been redeemed.
Every now and then a mysterious man would call upon the distracted lady and hand her a few hundred dollars. This man threatened, if bothered with unpleasant inquiries, to vanish, like Smith himself, altogether, and so, for the sake of the money he brought with him, the lady repressed her natural curiosity and contented herself with takin’ his money, though she always held firmly to the belief that this was “conscience money” extorted from the still livin’ Smith, who was still livin’ with another woman. But at last this mysterious visitor vanished and returned no more; either her husband was really dead or “his conscience fund” was exhausted. He paid no more.
Bein’ without any income, and havin’ an adopted daughter on her hands, the wife, or widow of Henry Smith tried to support herself by keepin’ a little store on upper Sixth avenue, where she sold candies, papers, stationary, etc.
Here one day she was called upon by a second mysterious stranger, who, while refusin’ like the first one to answer any questions in regard to himself, offered to furnish the money for a first-class newsstand in addition to the store if she would adopt her maiden name and, relinquishin’ her married name, hang up only her maiden or French name over the stand.
But Mrs. S. indignantly refused to do this, so mysterious stranger No. 2 refused to supply the funds for the newsstand; whereupon, like a true woman, Mrs. S. put up a newsstand of her own, and on top of it placed a sign, bearin’ in big letters the three words: “Mrs. Henry Smith.”
But spite her pluck and Industry the poor lady went downhill, getting poorer as she got older. At last the Broadway railroad people hearin’ of her case, granted her permission to erect a newsstand known as “the little stand around the corner,” at the rear of their uptown stables, and there it stands to-day, tended by the adopted daughter of the poor old lady whose sorrows have just been terminated by death in the hospital.
She was taken sick two years ago of a tumor, and although Dr. Sayre, at the solicitation of a prominent lawyer cognizant of the facts of the case, offered to perform an operation for its removal gratuitously, she refused to permit the operation till it was too late. The operation was performed recently, but the sufferer died three days after.
Death was more merciful to her than life. Kind hands soothed her last moments, and she was buried by sorrowin’ hearts in Calvary Cemetery. A strange endin’ for the life of one of the queens of New York in the Ring days.
One fact must be noted. In the hour of death she insisted upon bein’ called and treated as the wife, not the widow, of Henry Smith, and as the wife of Henry Smith she made a will. Will it ever have any value? Time alone can show.
[Editor’s notes: For the benefit of the sanity of those researching the Tweed Ring (New York City corruption scandal of the 1870s), I can now point out that there were three “Henry Smiths” deeply involved in the Ring. Henry “Hank” Smith (1820-1874) was better known to the public, as a NYPD Police Commissioner and as Guardian Bank and Bowling Green Bank president. He passed away just as the Ring was being exposed. He was originally from the Mohawk Valley region of New York, and was married for decades to a local woman, Caroline Chapman (who lived to 1911).
The Henry Smith that this column refers to was Henry A. Smith (1837-?), brother of Ring member Hugh Smith and son of real estate dealer Peter Smith. Henry A. Smith was appointed as a New York City Docks Commissioner. He married Zoe Aurelia Fournel, of France, in 1865. This Henry Smith did flee from Tweed Ring prosecution; and was named in divorce proceedings by Zoe A. F. Smith, who died Dec. 12, 1883. The Smith Brothers were related by marriage to another set of brothers deeply involved in the Tweed Ring, Peter B. Sweeny and James M. Sweeny.
The third Henry Smith was Henry N. Smith (Abt. 1840-), a Wall Street gold and stock broker, who worked with Jay Gould and Bill Tweed to manipulate the money market by using the city’s finances. When Smith’s manipulations were exposed, he provided evidence against Jay Gould, which threatened to place Gould behind bars.]
