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#Post#: 1828--------------------------------------------------
Excuses, Excuses, Excuses....George Damon's 'Ordeal'- The Key,
The Farmhand, & A Ten Year Delay
DIR By: HowBrown1953
Date: July 5, 2023, 4:27 pm
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Excuses, Excuses, Excuses....George Damon's 'Ordeal'- The Key,
The Farmhand, & A Ten Year Delay
-How Brown- July 5, 2023
Not necessarily for newcomers to the case and in particular the
saga of George Damon, the ne plus ultra of the case after 1901.
Those wishing to know more about Damon's role are welcome to
submit questions either here on the site or to me via email at:
EastRiverEcho@hotmail.com
By all means share your opinions in a follow up post.
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A list of the five excuses he came up with in 1901, armed with a
letter of support from the Governor of New Jersey :
1- Fear for the effects upon his reputation
2. He felt Ali would be better off in an institution
3. He felt Ali deserved to be off the streets, regardless of
any complicity in the murder, and was worried about his
well-being.
4. Upon conferring with John R. Lee, Damon took Lee's advice
and steered clear of any involvement...in other words, don't get
involved.
5. A fear of some sort of violence at the hands of the
Farmhand should he turn in the key. How this knowledge would
become known to this Farmhand is unknown.
Secondly, here's what Damon should have done in late April 1891
and not sometime in the Spring of 1901 :
Let us presume his story about his house maid at the time, whose
whereabouts he has no idea of by 1901 and is vague on her
surname as well, gave him the key after the Farmhand left his
residence in Cranford. She also gave him an alleged bloody
shirt at the same time which Damon didn't present at the time he
presented the key. The Farmhand was said to have left Damon's
home 5 to 10 days after the murder. One report claimed it was
the next day. But let's just say 5 to 10.
Damon, of course, would not be expected to consider the
Farmhand, who he thought ( wasn't certain) was Danish, as being
the murderer of Carrie Brown upon his return early on the
morning of the 24th, which was a workday. The Farmhand was too
pooped to pop and didn't work that day.
However, Damon should be expected to consider that the
Farmhand's day off ( Thursday, April 23rd) was a day off for
some fun in the city. There's no way this Farmhand could expect
to get a woman in Cranford. That's completely out of the
question. Maybe Jersey City, but not in one of the rural,
suburban areas of North Jersey. Cranford rolled its sidewalks
up at 9 PM, so to speak. Cranford was considered the ideal
suburb free of the sort of urban pitfalls the Lower East Side
had in abundance. Manhattan would be the best bet for the
Farmhand to go to on the day off as NYC, then and now, is where
the action is.
When given the key and the shirt by his house maid, the next
thought he ought to entertained is whether or not the Farmhand
had anything to do with the murder. Look at the reasons why :
He came in at after 5 AM, almost 6 AM on the 24th
The key mentioned in the major New York papers resembled the
one supposedly left by the Farmhand
The Farmhand was in a surly mood when Damon went to the stable
before heading off to work in New York giving a normal person
the impression that the Farmhand had a
rough time on his day off
The bloody shirt
The departure without notification
The description of the man in the major newspapers within 24
hours of the crime.
Any idiot would have at least considered his employee had
something to do with the murder. Damon was no idiot.
Damon undoubtedly had heard of the key, knew the number on the
key, and learned of the description of the man with Brown even
before the Farmhand vacated the estate if he had stayed on for
5-10 days which now makes Damon's presumed naivete untenable.
We can't pretend that Damon lived in some sort of bubble and
wasn't concerned with a murder a mile from his Beekman Street
facility and all the newspapers plastering the name 'Jack The
Ripper' all over their front pages..... Objectivity, on
occasion, has its limits.
Damon claimed he went to the trouble of visiting the Hotel and
putz around with one of his hired hands, having a drink & cigar
in the bar, which I personally find unbelievable if you've read
descriptions of the bar and seen photographs of similar bars
from that time period in the Lower East Side and then waited
around for someone to conveniently leave a key on the bar so he
could match the tags on the key.
The following is what any normal person should have done.
Damon was used to making big decisions as a successful printing
equipment manufacturer, so this should have been a slam dunk.
He should have gone to one of his lawyers ( Damon was not shy
about sueing people, so he had an attorney or two) and set up a
meeting with the D.A. in Manhattan. At the meeting with his
lawyer or even political friend, Foster Voorhees, not yet New
Jersey Governor but a bigwig in the Garden State, he could have
explained the situation. He could request anonymity. This
would have saved the city of New York and the State a lot of
cash ( recall that the State had to pay Dr.Henry Formad $100 per
day....$3,333 dollars in 2023 dollars...for his appearance..and
a guaranteed 12 days at that...$ 40,000 in 2023 dollars), a lot
of time ( Wellman went into the case believing it was at best a
case of circumstantial evidence they would be shooting for), and
the possibility that the killer was the man who left Cranford 5
days or so after the murder. It wasn't as if President Harrison
had been shot, it was a street prostitute, in and out of
Blackwell's Island and beds all over the waterfornt area.
There was no need whatsoever for Damon to worry about any
reprecussions for reaching out to the authorities. The New York
authorities would have gladly kept his name out the mix since he
was saving the city time and money...the same time and money
Damon would soon be responsible for wasting as well as the time
and money of the people involved in the multiple pardon
campaigns. All the D.A. had to do was hold a press conference
stating that the evidence against Ali wasn't worth going to
trial for. No need to elaborate. The D.A. could have simply
said we have decided to vacate the charge against him. They
were, however, still going to work on finding her killer.
The press would be held at bay because the D.A.'s office has now
decided that they weren't going to elaborate any further than
that the charges wouldn't stick on Ali. Since some of the
reporters and newspapers were already in Ali's corner since the
very beginning, they would have been pleased to see this
outcome. If it ain't broke, don't fix it as the old saying goes.
The same handful of reporters who claimed they hadn't seen a
blood trail on the fifth floor of the Hotel were certainly not
going to question the D. A. Office's decision to drop all
charges against Ali if that situation materialized.
Meanwhile, Damon can go back to his day to day business, free of
worry. The farmhand would not be a threat to Damon, as no
newspaper articles would mention someone turning in the key and
alleged shirt . The farmhand would not know about Damon going to
the authorities. It is as simple as that.
Having the key didn't and doesn't make the Farmhand the
murderer. It does put him in the room which would have been of
equal importance to theorists in some corners to any biological
matter under Ali's nails, evidence which puts the Algerian in
the room. Trouble is, if Damon did do these things I've
suggested, might this have allowed a guilty Ali get off with a
murder in 1902 ?
Ali is very important to the study of the case beyond his
conviction & his possible culpability. You see, if he died in
Sing Sing or Auburn, Matteawan or Dannemora, George Damon would
have never come forward. No way.
John R. Lee, a major Paterson, NJ contractor , is very important
as well. Had he not been a little too loose lipped at a party
attended by one of the prosecution team and let them know his
friend had the key to Room 31, initiating Damon's emergence from
the shadows and the eventual release of Ali in 1902, we'd never
have heard from George Damon in relation to the key he retained
all those years. Damon didn't forget about the key ( had to
check with his wife for its whereabouts...it was supposedly in
her jewelry box) although he gave the impression in one 1901
interview that it had slipped his mind. This man was reminded
of that key at some point every day for the next ten years. If
not as a morbid souvenir, then for an equally unusual reason
that was behind his retention of the key for all that time.
Damon, of course, is also important in one crucial way not
limited to him surfacing in 1901. Ali would have died in jail
and all we'd be left with are questions as to whether he really
was Brown's killer and likewise what had happened to the
Farmhand, possibly the man who went to the Glenmore Hotel after
the murder......
The other crucial way he is important is this : What if George
Damon had died a year after the verdict in 1891 ? Three years
later in 1894 ? Damon died of Bright's Disease in late 1906.
We'd know nothing of his farmhand or the key and Ali would have
faded into the mists of time, either guilty or not guilty of
murdering Carrie Brown.
#Post#: 1829--------------------------------------------------
Re: Excuses, Excuses, Excuses....George Damon's 'Ordeal'- The
Key, The Farmhand, & A Ten Year Delay
DIR By: HowBrown1953
Date: July 5, 2023, 6:00 pm
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Possible Obstacles If Damon Had Appeared On The Scene Prior To
The Coroner Inquest Held In Mid-May 1891
For one and all to respond if you care to.
1. Let's assume George Damon did the right thing prior to the
Inquest. He had gone to the authorities either in New York or
through a conduit like his friend Foster Voorhees, who was or
had been a member of the New Jersey House of Representatives, a
position he held from 1888 to 1891. He may have, as I suspect,
not been in the House at the time of the Farmhand story but
still a person of influence.
2. The conduit or Damon himself go to the authorities. For the
sound reasons I mentioned earlier ( saving the State and city
time and money), it is decided to keep Damon's name out of the
newspapers and shield him from scrutiny.
3. At the same time the NYPD announced they were charging Ali
for the murder on April 30th, the NYPD continued to look for C.
Kniclo. This is indisputable as men were picked up and detained
a week after Ali had been charged. One reason they were looking
for him was to put him in front of Mary Miniter to see if she
could identify him as the man she had seen with Brown on the
night in question. They believed that the man who had gone with
Brown to Room 31 would naturally be reluctant to come forward
since the East River Hotel was a whorehouse and this fact might
prevent him from coming forward to offer his story about what he
did that night in Room 31.
This fact alone in my mind eliminates the bizarre theory of the
police framing Ali since they had no idea what C. Kniclo would
say or do when he was found, which of course, he wasn't.
4. However, the D.A.'s office may have looked upon the key Damon
introduced as not a damning piece of evidence that removed Ali
from the mix but merely as the key a man who had been in the
room on the night in question left in Cranford, NJ. The
alleged bloody shirt* would be an altogether different story.
This might have persuaded the D.A.'s office to take a dimmer
view of Ali's possible role in the murder. Remember that Dr.
Formad and Flint did not examine the material under Ali's nails
until late June, a full two months after the murder. The nail
evidence was not as heavy of a factor at that time in late April
or in May.
5. If the D.A.'s Office decided to drop the charges for the
reasons already given in the first post, the NYPD, inferior in
municipal rank to the D.A.'s Office, had no choice but to accept
it. Naturally, Byrnes and other top officials at the NYPD would
be let in on the Damon story and might question it as they felt
they had their man, but again, they had no alternative but to
accept what the D.A.'s Office decided upon.
( Foster McGowan Voorhees was born in Clinton, New Jersey on
November 5, 1856. His education was attained at Rutgers
University, where he graduated in 1876. He went on to study law,
and then established his legal career in Elizabeth, New Jersey.
Voorhees first entered politics as a member of the New Jersey
House of Representatives, a position he held from 1888 to 1891.
He also was a member of the New Jersey State Senate from 1894 to
1898, and served as senate president in 1898. On January 31,
1898 Governor John W. Griggs resigned from office, and Voorhees,
who was senate president at the time, assumed the duties of the
governorship. He served until October 18, 1898, after which
David O. Watkins succeeded him. Voorhees was elected to his own
gubernatorial term on November 8, 1898, and was sworn into
office on January 17, 1899. During his tenure, the state’s
highway system was advanced; a new armory in Trenton was
established; a state board of children’s guardians was
organized; and an anti-spring election bill was enacted. After
leaving the governorship, Voorhees retired from political life.
Governor Foster M. Voorhees passed away on June 4, 1927, and was
buried in the Clinton Presbyterian Churchyard in Clinton, New
Jersey.)
* While there may indeed have been a bloody shirt, since Damon
did not turn it in ( It didn't biodegrade and would not take up
much space wherever Damon decided to store it), I prefer to
think of it as an alleged bloody shirt.
#Post#: 1831--------------------------------------------------
Re: Excuses, Excuses, Excuses....George Damon's 'Ordeal'- The
Key, The Farmhand, & A Ten Year Delay
DIR By: Michael Banks
Date: July 6, 2023, 3:34 pm
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None of those excuses carry much (if any) weight in my opinion
How.
As you’ve said, surely anonymity could have been arranged had he
come forward with the key and the shirt? Even if that was the
case I can’t see how his reputation could have been affected?
His coming forward would have been seen as an act of
public-spiritedness from a man keen to be a respected member of
the community. Who could have blamed him just because he’d taken
on a casual labourer who turned out bad? He’d probably have
dined out on the story for years.
Damon was no fool and he’d have had to have considered what
would have happened had the farmhand been arrested and had
confessed to killing Brown. How would it have looked if they’d
asked about the key and he’d told them he’d left it at Damon’s
along with the bloodied shirt that he’d been wearing at the time
of the murder? With the story being all over the press how could
Damon have explained not connecting those items to the murder?
You’ve also shown that our Mr Damon was no shrinking violet who
would quake in his boots at an almost certainly non-existent
‘threat.’ Could anyone really have expected the farmhand to have
shown his face chez Damon simply for revenge. This guy was long
gone.
The excuses at numbers two and three on your list are just too
weak to be considered plausible and don’t stack up with the
notion of a guy concerned about his reputation. Would he want
the reputation of being the guy who let an innocent man go to
the chair or spend his life behind bars?
I’ve always thought the visit to the ERH as suspicious too How.
Why was he so keen to verify the origin of the key that he’d
spend time at such a disreputable dump surrounded by the kind of
people who might see an interesting business opportunity in
robbing the guy in the expensive looking clothes and then,
finding that the key matched, he does absolutely nothing about
it? I wouldn’t have gone to the ERH even if I had a good reason
for doing it and there were free drinks, cigars and bar snacks
all night.
I’ve also never been able to shake off the question - why keep
key but get rid of the shirt? If he wasn’t going to use the key
they why didn’t he dump it?
If George Damon told me what day it was I’d go looking for a
calendar.
#Post#: 1834--------------------------------------------------
Re: Excuses, Excuses, Excuses....George Damon's 'Ordeal'- The
Key, The Farmhand, & A Ten Year Delay
DIR By: HowBrown1953
Date: July 6, 2023, 5:25 pm
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Thanks for the follow up and other insights, Mike.
I've been aware that Damon avoided scrutiny and had been for
some time but I didn't consider that it may have been a decision
mutually agreed upon by the various newspapers.
It would also appear that all the New York periodicals just let
the issue pass by. Papers with a capital-friendly readership
could be expected to leave one of their own alone, but how about
the papers who thrived upon sensational headlines like
Pulitzer's World & Evening World....Hearst's Journal, or
liberal, people-friendly papers like the paper Charles Russell
wrote for, the Herald ?
Nothing either from Jacob Riis, whose friendship with ex-Gov.
Theodore Roosevelt who at the time of Damon's 'coming out' was
the Vice President of the United States ( March to September
1891) and President at the time Ali was released, might have
been a reason he stayed out of the matter altogether. No sense
in breaking up a friendship over a ten year old case of a lower
class person, which while understandable in a sense, ought not
to have been overlooked by the muckraking Rees since it was a
lower class person possibly wrongly convicted by a well-off,
aloof, and irresponsible individual like our printer friend from
Beekman Street.
All told, a total 'cancel culture' atmosphere in 1901 not only
from the middle but from the left and right of political issues.
I can't access The People, the socialist paper out of New York
( with offices a block from Beekman Street on William Street !
), so I don't know at the moment if they had anything to say
about 1901's events. I'll keep trying.
Newspapers usually waste no time on situations where someone
comes in from left field and voila ! the case at hand is
overturned or re-examined due to the entry of a new variable.
You might find this amazing as I do. There were only four
newspaper in Manhattan which named Damon in articles referring
to his disclosure at the time of the disclosure.
New York Sun June 2nd Page 1
New York Times June 3rd Page 2
New York Tribune June 3rd Page 4
New York Sun June 21 Page 4
Afterwards, nothing.
#Post#: 1835--------------------------------------------------
Re: Excuses, Excuses, Excuses....George Damon's 'Ordeal'- The
Key, The Farmhand, & A Ten Year Delay
DIR By: HowBrown1953
Date: July 6, 2023, 7:08 pm
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Actually, Mike, there were three more Manhattan based articles
in 1901 which mention Damon...but he's not the main focus in any
of them.
There's one in April 1902, too.
New York Times December 3, 1901 Page 2
New York Tribune December 4, 1901 Page 2
New York Times December 4, 1901 Page 5
New York Tribune April 17, 1902 Page 1
There's one article in the Cranford Chronicle...the one with the
headline, "Publicity's Pet'...which seemed to be sarcastic or
critical of Damon. But outside of Cranford, who read the
Chronicle ?
Another instance was when Damon was on the witness stand...he'd
taken someone to court for ten dollars....and the defendant's
attorney asked if he'd like to talk about his Old Shakespeare
testimony. Damon, of course, clammed up. He also lost the
case.
#Post#: 1836--------------------------------------------------
Re: Excuses, Excuses, Excuses....George Damon's 'Ordeal'- The
Key, The Farmhand, & A Ten Year Delay
DIR By: Michael Banks
Date: July 7, 2023, 12:16 pm
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I’d find it a little strange in a case where some innocent guy
had got two years for robbery and someone had come forward with
killer evidence to exonerate him. But for a case that brought
out suggestions that Jack the Ripper had crossed the pond I’d
say the I’d multiply ‘strange’ by around a hundred.
#Post#: 1838--------------------------------------------------
Re: Excuses, Excuses, Excuses....George Damon's 'Ordeal'- The
Key, The Farmhand, & A Ten Year Delay
DIR By: HowBrown1953
Date: July 7, 2023, 2:47 pm
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Ditto, Mike.
Being affluent, he may have been viewed as 'one of the boys' to
similarly affluent petitioners.
You might even wonder why none of the jurors complained. After
all, they were the ones whose names were in the papers and could
now be seen in a bad light after Damon came forward.
One juror, the foreman Barttels, signed the 2,000 name petition.
There may have been more as one report claimed there were.
#Post#: 1888--------------------------------------------------
Re: Excuses, Excuses, Excuses....George Damon's 'Ordeal'- The
Key, The Farmhand, & A Ten Year Delay
DIR By: HowBrown1953
Date: July 18, 2023, 6:13 pm
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One correction to the previous post.
I'm still looking for Barttels' name in the petitions.
He did say that if 6 other jurors from the Ali trial would sign,
he would too.
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