DIR Return Create A Forum - Home
---------------------------------------------------------
Carrie Brown : Murder In The East River Hotel
HTML https://carriebrown.createaforum.com
---------------------------------------------------------
*****************************************************
DIR Return to: Editorials & Essays
*****************************************************
#Post#: 6937--------------------------------------------------
The Most Maligned Murder Victim In The 19th Century (U.S.A) ?
DIR By: HowBrown1953
Date: May 31, 2026, 3:38 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
I've been reading newspaper reports of crimes and murders that
took place during the 19th Century
for 25 years. Over the past 6 years, I've devoted all of that
time to American crimes that took
place during the 1880s up until the first four or five years of
the 20th Century.
It wouldn't take quite that much time to observe when those
newspaper reports were about women living on
the margins of society, specifically prostitutes, without fail
the reports would inform the reader that
these were fallen women, outcasts, and the dregs of society.
These terms, perhaps not intentionally but
nevertheless effectively, highlighted their past and thereby
minimalized the fact that they were murder victims.
Of all the women murdered during the 1880s up until the first 5
years of the 20th Century, there does not
appear to have been a woman more maligned than Carrie Brown, and
not just in the newspapers.
This thread will serve as a repository for the insults and other
pejoratives hurled her way, just for having the
misfortune of being murdered. I'll also add commentary from two
20th century 'authorities' on the Brown Murder,
who embellished Carrie's experience on the stage to the point of
absurdity.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Pre-Trial
* The Police: Inspector Byrnes' refers to all the women
involved as being 'low women', including Carrie.
New York Evening World May 1, 1891
"We had learned that on the Wednesday night previous Frenchy and
this old woman Shakespeare had occupied
the room where the murder was committed, and we learned that he
was about with her and with other low
women the following day—the day on the night of which the
murder was committed."
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
* The Press: The disparagements run into the thousands from
newspapers all across the country.
An out-of-town paper puts their two cents in.
Kansas City(Mo) Times, April 25, 1891:
"....a typical specimen of the drunken old harridan of the
slums".
From what may be the most informative of all newspaper articles
written about Carrie:
Boston Globe: April 27, 1891
************************
"After some 10 years of matrimony, the wife took to strong
drink, and, although urged by relatives and
friends to abstain from such a habit, she heeded no advice, and
went from bad to worse until she became a
notorious drunkard, and a very cruel wife and mother."
Here's what may be the worst of all the negative remarks ever
made about her.
New York Evening World July 3, 1891
"Carrie Brown—"old Shakespeare"—was a dissolute, worthless
wretch, who had passed her sixtieth birthday
in shame. Her life was taken while she was groveling in her
debauchery, but the whole community was
instantly aroused, and demanded in the name of justice that
her slayer be ferreted out and be made to pay the penalty."
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
* As Public Entertainment: Both advertisements from the New
York Evening World.
One was published on April 25th, the day after her body was
discovered in room 31. The other ad appeared on the day of her
burial in
Salem, May 1st.
"DORIS' BIG 8TH AVE. MUSEE.
That horrible murder reproduced in wax. The very room furniture.
Life-like figure of Carrie Brown, known
as "Shakespeare;" also Frenchy, the supposed murderer, in the
act.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
* The defense and prosecution both referred to those in the area
as 'low women', with the defense ( Fred House) being even more
caustic.
Judge Smyth also referred to the female witnesses in the
negative.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Post-Trial
* Letters written by Ali's fellow prisoners in Matteawan State
Prison Asylum in his behalf for a pardon or release.
To Governor Roswell P. Flower
September 30, 1894
*****************
Dear Sir:
You will I hope in your kindness read and investigate my case.
on the 24th of April 1891.
I was charged with the murder of a disreputable woman named
Shakespeare,
And being as I could not speak English and had no friends I was
convicted in March 1891.
To Governor Levi Morton
May 4, 1895
**********
Dear Sir:
Many thousands intelligent New Yorkers believe that Amer Ben
Ali, alias Frenchy No. 1,
sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of an old trollop
named Shakespeare has a
better right to freedom than many a man now walking in God's
glad sunshine.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
* French Ambassador to The United States, Jules Cambon, writing
to U.S. Secretary of
State, John Hay. Note that Cambon refers to Ali as 'the
unfortunate man'.....
Embassy Of The French Republic
In The United States
Washington D.C. June 27, 1901
Mr. Secretary of State:
Referring to the conversation which I had the honor to have with
you, I think proper to
give you the following information relative to the case of
Amer-ben-Ali, commonly known
as "Frenchy", who was sentenced July 10th, 1891, in New York,
to imprisonment for life,
for murder in the second degree, he being charged with killing
a woman of bad reputation,
who bore the sobriquet of "Shakespeare".
The unfortunate man had always protested his innocence, and I
have twice addressed the
Governor of the State of New York, though unsuccessfully, with
a view to securing his pardon.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
* Ali's attorney, Ovide Robillard to Governor Benjamin Odell,
the official who would sign the
commutation papers, which released Ali from Dannemora Prison,
on April 16, 1902.
IN THE MATTER OF APPLICATION FOR THE PARDON OF "AMER BEN ALI"
ALIAS FRENCHY.
- FACTS -
On April 24th, 1891, an old dissolute woman, about sixty years
of age, known as "Shakespeare" was found
murdered in room 31 of the East River Hotel, New York City.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
* Segment of the front page of a Petition in the 1901 Pardon
Campaign led by Ovide Robillard, submitted to Governor Odell
Robillard mentioned she was a 'dissolute' woman twice.
To His Excellency BENJAMIN B. ODELL, Jr.,
Governor of the State of New York,
Albany, New York.
The undersigned respectfully petition, that in the exercise of
the power vested in
you by the Constitution of the State of New York, pray you to
extend Your Executive
clemency to George Frank, alias Frenchy, alias Amer Ben Ali, who
was found guilty and
sentenced to State Prison for life in the Court of General
Sessions, on the 10th day of July,
1891, for the murder, in the second degree, of one Caroline
Brown, alias “Shakespearr,”
an old and notably dissolute woman.
It appears that the accused was a citizen of the French
Republic, having served
his country during eight years as a soldier in the French Army,
from 1870 to 1878, and
who subsequently came to the City of New York to live.
That on or about the 24th day of April, 1891, a certain Caroline
Brown, alias
“Shakespeare,” a notorious dissolute woman, was found murdered
in a certain hotel where
the accused was lodging.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
* Plea for clemency presented to Governor Odell in early
December 1901.
Submitted by attorney Paul Fuller, of Coudert Brothers Law Firm
Manhattan
New York December 2, 1901
Before His Excellency Benjamin B. Odell, Jr.
Governor of the State of New York.
Application For The Pardon Of George Frank
Otherwise Known As Amer Ben Ali
Executive clemency is invoked on behalf of Amer Ben Ali,
convicted in 1891 of murder in the second degree.
The prisoner who was indicted under the name of George Frank was
generally designated as 'Frenchy'; he is an
Algerian with no knowledge of English, and whose French was
imperfect and difficult to understand.
The murder for which he was indicted was peculiarly atrocious
and revolting; it was the strangling of a
drunken, besotted, dissolute old woman of sixty years, followed
by the horrible mutilation of limbs and trunk;
the record disclosed no shadow of any excuse, no intimation
either of drunken fury, of self-defense, of provocation
of any sort. Neither did it disclose any motive.
* A section of Governor Odell's commutation paper, April 1902.
This application is based solely upon the ground that the
prisoner is innocent. It is insisted that the evidence upon
which he was convicted was exceedingly weak and unconvincing so
as scarcely to be legally sufficient and that
the doubt arising upon the evidence alone is such as to render
the case a proper one for Executive intervention;
and further, that evidence recently discovered and now adduced
is of such a character as practically demonstrate
his innocence.
The murder of which he was convicted was peculiarly atrocious
and revolting.
The victim was a dissolute woman about sixty years of age.
Post-1902
*Two authors whose input was remarkably bad.
Herbert Asbury
Gangs of New York
1927
*****
Sailors were frequently murdered as they slept in the old Fourth
Ward Hotel at Catherine and Water
streets, and their bodies disposed of through trapdoors opening
into underground passages which led
to the docks. The first Jack-the-Ripper murder in New York is
said to have occurred in this house,
when an old hag known as Shakespeare was cut to pieces by a
half-witted bar fly commonly called
Frenchy. Shakespeare always claimed that she had come from an
aristocratic family, and that in her
youth she had been a celebrated actress in England. She
supported her contention by reciting, in
return for a bottle of swan gin, every female role in Hamlet,
Macbeth and The Merchant of Venice,
and throughout the Ward she was regarded as an authority on the
drama. Through the agency of
Thomas Byrnes, Chief of Police, Frenchy was released after a few
years' imprisonment. He always
maintained his innocence, and the belief was widespread that he
had been framed, and that Shakespeare
had been murdered by the original Jack the Ripper, who was then
operating in London. For several
years there had been much professional jealousy between
Scotland Yard and the New York police,
and Chief Byrnes had publicly boasted that the Ripper would have
been caught had he committed his
crimes in New York. He defied the English criminal to come to
the United States, and soon afterward
Shakespeare was killed. Many investigators believed that Jack
the Ripper had accepted the challenge,
and that the police had arrested Frenchy to save their
professional honor. In the London killings there
were various indications that Jack the Ripper was a seafarer.
Charles Edward Russell
The Coming Nation
1913
****
“Old Shakespeare” was one of a horde of dissolute women that in
those days infested the region between
Chatham Square and the East River, where she had been for years
a familiar figure in the lowest strata
of the underworld. She might have been deemed to be about
sixty, though much of her aged appearance
was due to years and how much to dissipation no one could
guess; but her hair, at least, was quite gone
gray. She was rather undersized, thin, badly dressed, marred
and scarred with drink, and with the
relentless hardships of a life which traveled one round between
the work house and the streets. Her real
name we were never able to learn; “Old Shakespeare” she was
dubbed because whenever she reached a
certain stage in her intoxication she would stand at a street
corner or in the back room of a boozing den
and by the hour recite passages from Shakespeare’s works; a fact
that led imaginative reporters to create
for her a story that she had been well educated and of a
wealthy family. But the truth is that she had long
been a wardrobe woman in a theatrical company and had picked up
most of her Shakespearean lore while
standing in the wings.
Charles Edward Russell
Was It Jack The Ripper?
Illustrated Detective Magazine
October 1931
************
.......At a quarter before twelve o'clock on the night of
Thursday, April 23, 1891, Fitzgerald was drawing beer
for two customers in his dingy, dirty, boozing den when the
bell rang.
"Open the door while I get this beer," says he to Mamie Minetor
(sic), sister of the streets, who was one
of the customers. She opened the door and in walked a young man
with a gray-haired woman, prematurely
old and wrinkled.
"It's old Shakespeare," says Mamie. "No less, and no other of
the fallen sisterhood better known around
Cherry Hill. She had been an account. According to her own
account, told nightly in her cups, and probably
lies, she had been rich and in Philadelphia she had lived in
state. For years, at a certain well-known stage
in her intoxication, she was wont to climb upon the saloon
table and recite passages from the legitimate
and from comic opera. To most who heard her she might as well
have spoken Cherokee. Sometimes she
entertained herself at the stage. But somebody else recognized
the balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet
—in the midst of this muck and degradation. And so she comes by
her name and has no other.
*****************************************************
Page 1 of 1