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Carrie Brown : Murder In The East River Hotel
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DIR Return to: 1892 Through 1900
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#Post#: 3394--------------------------------------------------
1892 Through 1900
DIR By: HowBrown1953
Date: October 9, 2024, 4:23 pm
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1892 through 1900
The year 1891 rolled into 1892 with very little published in
newspapers about Ali other than him being mentioned in articles
about Henry Dowd, New York's Jack The Slasher. It was suggested
that Dowd, not Ali, had murdered Carrie Brown, despite the fact
all of Dowd's slashing victims were men.
'Crazy Mary' Phillips, one of the other women known as
Shakespeare in the Lower East Side, was killed in August when
she fell out of a window in 'Blindman's Alley' ( Cherry Street)
and was found impaled on the spikes of an iron fence below a
window either through an act of defenestration or accident while
intoxicated. A third woman nicknamed Shakespeare, Annie
Campbell, also died during 1892.
Almost one year to the day of Brown's death, an Algerian who it
was said greatly resembled Ameer Ben Ali was sentenced to ten
years in prison for nearly murdering Rabbi H.P. Mendes. Like
Ali, the guilty party, Jose Mizrachee, was sentenced by Judge
Smyth. One reference in the Evening World suggested Frederick
Deeming may have been Jack The Ripper and then asked 'How about
Frenchy #1?", which must have been an attempt at humor. Other
than these snippets nothing is found related to planned pardon
campaigns or anything else of note.
1893 was a rough one for America. The 'Panic of 1893' saw states
such as New York, which suffered a 35% unemployment rate, having
other concerns than pardon campaigns. Ali would meet Governor
Flower when Flower visited Auburn Prison in 1892. Ali would
write six letters in total to the Governor, the first on June
25th, 1893 and sent from Matteawan State Asylum For The Insane.
Three letters are found in the Ali chapter. Ali was transferred
to Matteawan State Asylum on January 21st from Auburn Prison.
In the middle of July 1893, D.A. Nicoll received word from
Governor Flower that someone made an application for pardon on
Ali's behalf. At first, no one could determine who had sent it.
The Evening World correspondent in Albany reported that the
letter sent to the Governor was not accompanied by a petition
and was simply a letter from Ali to Flower, the one Ali sent
Flower on June 25th. True to form, the Evening World distorted a
comment Fred House made when he found out that this 'pardon'
effort was sent to the capital. The Evening World reported House
saying that Ali was undoubtedly insane and should be kept in
Matteawan. House actually said that since Ali had been
determined by medical doctors to be insane, it would be in his
best interest to remain there, out of concern.
On July 30th, a New York Tribune article about longshoremen
featured a man known as Frenchy No. 2 working down on Greenwich
Street. Unfortunately, his real name was not brought up in the
article.
On December 18th, the NY World featured a large article on Lower
East Side squalor. A man named John Smith is mentioned in the
article as being known as Frenchy #2 and he was Ali's cousin.
This man, also an Algerian, lived in Double Alley on Cherry
Street. Ali had no family in the United States but John Smith
might have been Frenchy # 2.
In 1894, the only development in this post-trial year was a
9-page letter sent from current New York City DA John Fellows to
Governor Roswel Flowerl. Sent on November 14th, the letter was
Fellows's opinion about the recent pardon plea.
He was against it and as DA Philbin would with Governor Odell
seven years later, Fellows replied to Flower and left the matter
up to him, saying he found nothing to warrant Ali's release.
Flower didn't release Ali.
In 1895, Ali wrote a letter to the then-Governor Levi Morton
requesting a pardon from him. Morton didn't respond.
In 1896, the attorney for the recently executed Carl Feigenbaum
told a gathering of press reporters that his now-deceased client
was actually Jack The Ripper and had murdered Carrie Brown. The
press scoffed at the idea and suggested that many more murders
would now be attributed to him since he had no way to defend
himself.
In 1897, Edmund Bruewart, French Consul, asked Ovide Robillard
to take charge of petitioning and pardon campaigns in Manhattan
halfway through the year. Robillard went to work and organized a
good-sized petition which he sent off to Governor Frank Black.
Instead of a letter with only Ali's name on it reaching Albany,
Robillard was able to obtain support from many prominent members
of society, one report suggesting that Joe Barttels, the jury
foreman back in 1891, had signed the petition too.
By November, this, the first organized campaign, waited for a
response from the Governor.
However, two months later on January 16th, 1898, Ali nearly
killed a fellow inmate in Matteawan and in doing so, definitely
killed any chance of the clemency plea being heard. The
petitions and work had gone for naught. Despite this outburst of
violence by Ali, this did not stymie the people behind the
pardon effort. They would bide their time and wait for until
time passed and they could pursue their objective.
In April 1899, a little over a year after the assault in
Matteawan, Robillard prepared a 2,000 name-petition for the new
Governor, Theodore Roosevelt. Nothing became of it. Ali even
sent Gov. Roosevelt a letter asking him to consider the latest
plea but to no avail. The 1890s ended with the death of Adam
Lang, the officer who arrested Ali back on April 24th, 1891. He
was 41 years old.
In 1900, on March 8th, eleven months after the last plea for
clemency was sent to Gov. Roosevelt, the French Consul in New
York took steps towards presenting the Governor with another
request for pardon. On March 31st, newspapers announced that
Roosevelt rejected the request specifically because nothing had
yet had materialized that would lead him to consider his release
and that it was not advisable to release him at that time.
The 19th Century would end in terms of case-related news with an
announcement in November that some Matteawan inmates were to be
transferred to Dannemora prison. Ali was sent there in January
1901.
Among the letters Ali had sent to Governor Flower, three were
pleas for pardon and all were turned down one each in July 1893,
January 1894, and October 1894. DA Fellows turns in a report to
Gov. Flower containing his negative opinion of any pardon.
In early 1898, the efforts of the first organized effort to free
Ali in late 1897 went all to hell with Ali's attack on a fellow
inmate in Mattewan.
Governor Black probably just dismissed that pardon request after
learning of the attack in the asylum
without spending any time on the matter.
In 1899 we never learned whether Governor Roosevelt refused that
year's petition or even looked at it. No official file or
newspaper article refers to any actions regarding this pardon
effort.
In 1900, we know Roosevelt rejected that year's organized
effort.
Several men were suggested as having been the murderer of Carrie
Brown in Manhattan newspapers during the decade. None of them
had anything to do with the crime.
Henry Dowd and Frederick Deeming in 1892. Frank Castellano, a
seaman who stabbed a woman in Manhattan in 1893. Carl
Feigenbaum, whose name would be mentioned in 1894 and 1896, was
another.
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