[Warning: The following newspaper column, written in 1882, contains racist slurs and a double dose of misogyny.]
About the time I came to New York there was a boom in “hot corn.” Everybody bought it, and pretty hot corn girls were as much in demand as at one time were pretty cigar girls. Solon Robinson, a great friend of Horace Greeley’s, wrote a book, “Hot Corn,” which sold like hot cakes, and Kate, the hot corn girl, was known to half New York.
But just before the hot corn book came out there was a hot corn murder, or the murder of a hot corn girl, which caused a great deal of excitement.
Right on Park Row, in front of where the Herald building stands now, or a little below, a pretty mulatto girl called Spanish Ann used to sell hot corn. This Spanish Ann was one of the finest lookin’ women in New York. Tall, splendidly-formed, with a most magnificent eye, black and oval, she used to dress coquettishly, and altogether made a stunnin’ appearance.
The young bloods about town used to patronize Spanish Ann, and newspaper men published paragraphs about her in the papers. This made her quite conceited, and she put on any amount of frills. As for people of her class, she wouldn’t have anything to do with ‘em.
This was for a while; then all of a sudden, woman-like, she went back on her own record, by tumbling head over ears in love with a negro called Coleman. This Coleman was a smart fellow, and could talk French very well, and Spanish Ann could talk French, too, having been raised down in the West Indies. Coleman was the only “educated” negro Spanish Ann knew, and she began to think he was as good as if he was white, pretty nearly, especially as he wanted to marry her, while of course all the white young men, though they made love to her fast enough, didn’t mean anythin’ serious.
Coleman had a little money, too, and he invested it in hot corn, and Spanish Ann made double and triple on his investment for her. Then Coleman was a good dancer and a pretty glib talker, and took her to darkey balls and picnics. So altogether Spanish Ann thought she couldn’t do better than marry Coleman, and she married him.
For a while they got along first-rate. Coleman made mats for a livin’, and made ‘em well, worked hard, didn’t drink, was an A No. 1 husband. But unfortunately this state of things didn’t last. Mrs. Coleman got tired of domestic life and took to flirtin’ and gaddin’ about, and then Coleman got jealous and drank. When she was flirtin’, Mrs. Coleman was pretty bad, but when he was drinkin’ her husband was worse. Mrs. C. still kept up her hot corn business, and Coleman got in the habit of followin’ her when she was workin’ her route, and comin’ between her and her customers.
One day, near the site of the old Park Theatre, Coleman and his wife came to blows, and the woman was frightfully beaten. Her yells attracted a big crowd of people, but as Coleman was burly and strong and looked desperate, nobody interfered, not even a policeman. But after the beatin’, perhaps because of it, the pretty Mrs. Coleman went on flirtin’ worse than ever.
At this time there was a negro dance-house, quite the rage, kept by a fancy darkey called Fraser, of whom this Coleman was particularly jealous. This place was in Baxter street, or Orange street, as it was then called, and was quite as popular with the white bloods as had been Pete William’s dance house–just as a curiosity, one of the sights.
Now Mrs. Coleman had been most particularly ordered by her husband not to go to Fraser’s, and of course she went to Fraser’s all the more.
One Saturday night Coleman started off on a spree on his own account. He “took in” several drinkin’ and dance-houses on his way, and wound up at last by sayin’ he was going to clean out Fraser’s. He dropped in at Fraser’s nearly wild with drink, and the first person he saw in the dance house was his own wife. There was a scene, of course, which resulted in his wife’s goin’ home with him, and his givin’ her another terrible beatin’.
For a week, right straight along, the two quarreled day and night. Then on the next Saturday mornin’, seemingly reconciled, they walked down Broadway together.
It was a fine mornin’, and Mrs. Coleman was dressed in her best. There were no Saturday matinees in those days. Still there was a little more stir on Broadway on Saturday than any other day.
Coleman and his attractive wife strolled along, talkin’, and apparently on good terms. By this time they had come to the corner of Broadway and White street.
Just then Coleman suddenly stopped, and laid his hand on his wife’s arm, graspin’ it like a vise. With his other hand he fumbled under his vest. The woman was seized with a nervous dread, and did not dare resist. She only gazed at her husband like a bird fascinated by a snake. People were passin’ all the time to and fro, but nobody paid any special attention to anybody else.
The grip of Coleman tightened on his wife’s arm, his fingers pierced into her delicate flesh. “You hurt me,” she said.
“Yes, d–n you, and I’ll hurt you worse before I am through with you!” cried Coleman.
And then pulling out of his dress pocket a razor, he seized her by the head, and threw her head back violently. Then, as he held it back with one hand he drew the keen edge of the razor across her throat with the other. The blood spurted forth and the woman’s head hung loosely on her body, nearly severed from it. The poor creature fell on her knees, leaped into the air convulsively, and then fell down lifeless.
The pretty hot corn girl of Park Row was dead!
It was one of the most brutal and boldest of murders. Right in the face of day, right in the heart of a crowded thoroughfare.
Havin’ done his cursed work, Coleman threw away the razor, and leanin’ against the wall of one of the Broadway stores, watched with folded arms and devilish satisfaction, his wife’s dyin’ agonies.
There were plenty of people to arrest him, of course, though there had been nobody to prevent the deed. He was surrounded by enraged men, who roughly led him in the direction of the Tombs.
Even then, while the mob were haulin’ at him, he managed to get at the prostate form of his bleedin’ victim, and kicked it scornfully with his foot.
“Any of you,” he cried, glarin’ at the men around him, “would have done just what I did if she had done to you what she has done to me.”
Coleman had no chance to plead insanity, or any other modern dodge. He had a speedy trial, was convicted, of course, and was shortly afterward hung for murder, being the first man hung in the Tombs yard.
Wife-murders thirty years ago made a much deeper sensation than they seem to do nowadays. Not long after this Coleman murder there was quite a commotion, growin’ out of the trial and conviction of a German wife-murderer named Grunzwig. This Grunzwig, who lived on the Bowery, was a well-meaning chap, industrious and quiet, but he had married a woman who had a tongue long enough for a giraffe. Mrs. Grunzwig was a scold of the first water. Day and night she was tongue-lashin’ her lord and master. Everybody pitied Grunzwig, and at last he pitied himself so that he went for consolation to a very pretty woman, who had a very soft voice, and didn’t use her tongue any more than necessary–a woman called Margaret Lawrence.
Of course Mrs G., whose eyes were almost as sharp as her tongue, soon found out about this other woman, and then the husband was scolded out of his house altogether, and sought refuge at the residence of his mistress, where Mrs. G. followed him and raised Cain.
This sort of thing soon soured Grunzwig completely. He took to drinkin’ and stopped workin’, and went down hill rapidly; became morose too and gloomy, and ugly in his disposition.
And one day Mrs. Grunzwig was taken sick, got sicker and sicker, and at last died and was buried. Grunzwig didn’t pretend to be sorry, and didn’t even go to the funeral.
Now the dead wife had a livin’ brother, a brother who hadn’t bothered himself at all about her while livin’, but now that his sister was dead came to the front, and wanted to know by what means she had gone from this world, plainly hintin’ that he suspected foul play.
Grunzwig acted queerly, seemed to have lost his head, and so the brother made application to the authorities to exhume his sister’s body and examine it. The doctors held an autopsy and found traces of arsenic in it.
Hereupon the brother had Grunzwig arrested and tried for the murder of his wife. Although of course, the evidence against him was chiefly circumstantial, Grunzwig was found guilty and sentenced to be hung.
This affair caused a great stir among the Germans of New York. Grunzwig belonged to several popular societies and these societies all took his part; that is, the male members and especially the unmarried male members did, and enough pressure was brought to bear in favor of Grunzwig for mass meetin’s to be held, and appeals to the Governor at Albany in his behalf.
Grunzwig’s mistress, Margaret Lawrence, who really loved Grunzwig dearly, was very earnest in her endeavors to save her lover. She worked day and night in his behalf.
At last one day she went to Albany and procured an interview with the Governor. Throwing herself at his feet, she confessed that she herself was the murderous of the dead Mrs. Grunzwig.
She had poisoned, so she said, the soup at the table one day, and Mrs. Grunzwig had partaken of that soup and died. Grunzwig had known nothin’ of the poisoned soup. She, Margaret Lawrence, alone was the guilty party. She alone merited death, but Grunzwig should go free.
She said all this, and swore to all this, with tears in her eyes, on her bended knees, claspin’ the Governor’s hand. But still the Governor did not believe her story. He felt that she was lyin’ to save her lover, as she really was.
Investigation proved that her confession was all a trumped-up story. It only proved how strong was her love for Grunzwig, only this and nothin’ more. If anythin’, it rather told against Grunzwig, showin’ how dear was the tie that must have united him to the woman who was the natural enemy of his poisoned wife.
Grunzwig was hung, and then the woman, Margaret Lawrence, was tried as his accomplice, But it was now too late to bring her to trial, for she had gone mad. The shock of her lover’s violent death had been too much for her. The day he had left the earth, her senses left her. She was placed in an insane asylum.
If Grunzwig had only met this Margaret Lawrence and married her before he came across that scoldin’ woman, what misery might have been spared three lives.
[Editor’s notes: The Coleman murder took place in November, 1838–a full sixteen years before Solon Robinson published Hot Corn. The Harry Hill’s Gotham writer’s account, despite the racism and misogyny, is far more accurate that Herbert Asbury’s version in Gangs of New York, which identified Coleman as Irish and a gang leader.
In my (the editor’s) online project annotating Gangs of New York, I covered Asbury’s errors.
In the column above there are fascinating references to Fraser’s [aka Frazer’s] dance hall, of which only a few mentions exist, but which was a significant part of the city’s nightlife in the 1830s, operated by an African-American, and served an integrated clientele.
In the second murder described, the mistress’s name was Margaretha Lohrens. The relationships between the principals were quite different than those the column describes, as seen in a contemporary account:]
