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The following pages are written under peculiar circumstances, perhaps the most peculiar that ever attended the birth of a literary work. Incarcerated in prison and awaiting trial for the most serious offense known to the law, it has been written only after mature deliberation, against the advice of my friends, and in direct opposition to the positive instructions of my counsel, who have attempted in every way to dissuade me from its publication; but the circumstances under which I am placed, in my judgment, make it imperative that I should disregard all of these considerations.

For months I have been vilified by the public press, held up to the world as the most atrocious criminal of the age, directly and indirectly accused of the murder of at least a score of victims, many of whom have been my closest personal friends.

The object of this extended and continuous enumeration of alleged crimes has been apparently to create a public sentiment so prejudiced against me as to make a fair and impartial trial impossible. My friends have been alienated, my nearest kindred plunged in grief, and the world horrified by the bloody recital of imaginary crimes.

I feel therefore justified in the course I am now pursuing, and am impelled by an imperative sense of duty to publicly deny these atrocious calumnies. The following pages will therefore be found to contain a simple and complete narrative of my entire life, and a full history of my associations and dealings with Mr. and Mrs. B. F. Pitezel and their children, the alleged disappearance of Minnie Williams and the tragic death of her sister Nannie.

My sole object in this publication is to vindicate my name from the horrible aspersions cast upon it, and to appeal to a fair-minded American public for a suspension of judgment, and for that free and fair trial which is the birthright of every American citizen, and the pride and bulwark of our American Constitution.

H. H. M.

OME with me, if you will, to a tiny, quiet New England village, nestling among the picturesquely rugged hills of New Hampshire. This little hamlet has for over a century been known as Gilmanton Academy. So called in honor of an institution of learning of that name, founded there by a few sturdy, self-denying and God-fearing men, over a hundred years ago, who, could they now leave their silent resting places in the church-yard near by, and again wander for an hour through these quiet streets, would, with the exception of new faces, see little change.

Here, in the year 1861, I, Herman W. Mudgett, the author of these pages, was born. That the first years of my life were different from those of any other ordinary country-bred boy, I have no reason to think. That I was well trained by loving and religious parents, I know, and any deviations in my after life from the straight and narrow way of rectitude are not attributable to the want of a tender mother’s prayers or a father’s control, emphasized, when necessary, by the liberal use of the rod wielded by no sparing hand.

On my fifth birthday I was given my first suit of boy’s clothing, and soon after was sent to the village school-house where the school was “kept.” I had daily to pass the office of one village doctor, the door of which was seldom if ever barred. Partly from its being associated in my mind as the source of all the nauseous mixtures that had been my childish terror (for this was before the day of children’s medicines), and partly because of vague rumors I had heard regarding its contents, this place was one of peculiar abhorrence to me, and this becoming known to two of my older schoolmates, they one day bore me struggling and shrieking beyond its awful portals; nor did they desist until I had been brought face to face with one of its grinning skeletons, which, with arms outstretched, seemed ready in its turn to seize me. It was a wicked and dangerous thing to do to a child of tender years and health, but it proved an heroic method of treatment, destined ultimately to cure me of my fears, and to inculcate in me, first, a strong feeling of curiosity, and, later, a desire to learn, which resulted years afterwards in my adopting medicine as a profession.

When I was about eight years old, an unusual occurrence took place in our village—the arrival of an itinerant photographer. He was a man apparently suffering from some slight lameness, and gladly accepted my offer to act as his errand boy, and in payment for my services he was to execute for me a likeness of myself. One morning upon going to his office I found the door still locked. It was immediately opened, however, by the artist, sufficiently for him to hand to me a small wooden block broken in two pieces. He instructed me to take them to our village wagon maker and have him make a new one, which I was to return to him. I did this, and upon entering the office again, I found the artist partially clothed and sitting near the door, which he at once locked. He then proceeded to remove the greater portion of one of his legs, and not having known until then what was the cause of his lameness, in fact, not ever having seen or even known that such a thing as artificial limbs existed, my consternation can better be imagined than described. Had he next proceeded to remove his head in the same mysterious way I should not have been further surprised. He must have noticed my discomfiture, for as soon as his mending process had sufficiently progressed, he quickly placed me in a dim light, and standing upon his whole leg, and meantime waving the other at me, he took my picture, which in a few days he gave to me. I kept it for many years, and the thin terror-stricken face of that bare footed, home-spun clad boy I can yet see.

In those days in our quiet village, so remote from the outside world, that even a locomotive whistle could scarcely be heard, daily newspapers were rare and almost unknown, our usual source of information being the weekly papers and a few periodicals; and in one of these I saw a glowing offer, emphasized by a fine illustration of a gold watch and chain, a few of which would be sold at a comparatively trifling sum. Surely this was for me the one opportunity of my life, and although my entire wealth at that time consisted mostly of pennies and other small coins, almost every one having for me its own peculiar history, all of which I converted into more transferable shape by exchanging them with our shoemaker, who was also my confidant in the matter, was hardly more than sufficient to buy the watch.

I was far more concerned lest, before my order should reach the distant city, all would be sold, than troubled over the depleted condition of my purse. Then came anxious days of waiting and later the arrival of the watch, and after going alone to my room to wind it and deciding which pocket was most suitable for its reception, and still later going to the several stores and some houses, bargaining beforehand with a little friend that, in consideration of his accompanying me and at each place asking in an unconcerned manner what time it was, that he should wear it the greater part of the day, although I was to be present that no harm befell my treasure; but before it came time for him to wear it the wheels had ceased to turn, the gold had lost its lustre, and the whole affair had turned into an occasion of ridicule for my companions and of self-reproach to myself.

My first falsehood and my first imprisonment occurred synchronously, and were occasioned as follows:—

One morning as I was driving our small herd of cows, which had a few days previously been increased by the addition of several others belonging to a neighbor, to their usual feeding ground, outside the limits of the village, an inquisitive neighbor met me and asked, “Whose be they?” I replied very proudly, “Ours.” “What, all of them?” “Yes, all, everyone, and that best one is mine, my own.” An hour later upon returning to my home I found father waiting to receive me. He demanded why I had told Richard the lie about the cows, but before I could answer him my mind was most effectually taken up by the production of an implement, to which I was no stranger, and by its vigorous use. After this I was consigned to an upper room and strictly enjoined to speak to no one, and for the ensuing day I should have no food. My absence was soon noticed by my playmates and the cause ascertained, and not long after upon looking out of the window I saw my little friend perched upon the fence nearby, looking almost as disconsolate as I, and later in the day, after sundry pantomime communications he came with a liberal supply of food, which, with the aid of the ever present ball of cord, which you can find in almost every boy’s pocket, I was soon enjoying. Accompanying the food was a note written in his scrawly hand encouraging me to “never mind,” and that upon the following Saturday we would go down and let Richard’s cows into his cornfield.

But this was not done, for late at night when the shadows in my room had assumed strange and fearful shapes, my mother came and taking me into her own room, knelt down and earnestly plead with me and for me, and it was many days before I forgot that lesson. This little note, however, with two others form a unique collection. The second was a joint production of my friend and myself, addressed to an unpopular school teacher one vacation upon our hearing that some slight financial calamity had overtaken him. This was done with the belief that a new teacher was to take his place during the coming year, but in this we were mistaken. I had abundant evidence during the first day of the following term that he had received our letter, when he changed my seat from one I had long occupied, and which was very favorably located for looking into the street, to the opposite side of the room. My seatmate was a very disagreeable and unpopular girl.

The third note was also a joint production, written upon brown paper and tacked upon the barn door of a village farmer, who had, as we thought, misused us. It was not a lengthy note, the words being “Who will pull your weeds next year?” This note was occasioned by the farmer engaging us for a stipulated price to rid a field of a large weed that is common there, and a great hindrance to the healthy growth of other products. The weeds were tall and strong, and the pittance we were to receive was ridiculously small for the amount of work. But when we had finished and held out our tiny, blistered hands for our pay, it was not forthcoming. We went again and again for it, and being convinced it was useless to go more, we returned quietly with two large baskets to where we had piled the weeds, to be dried preparatory to their being burned, and very soon thereafter the seeds from all that we had pulled were sown broadcast over the field again. It is, perhaps, a small matter to speak of here, but it so well illustrates the principle that many times in my after life influenced me to make my conscience become blind, that I thought well to write of it.

My first business ventures consisted of a pair of twin calves that I raised, and later to bring home, on a stormy winter day, a tiny lamb given to me by a farmer, which, in time, together with a few others purchased later, expanded into a flock of about forty sheep. Both ventures were failures, however, from a financial point of view, but the failures were nothing compared with the collapse of the innumerable air castles which had depended upon the result of these speculations.

One day I found a purse containing about $40; an immense sum at that time to me. In the purse were other papers showing me plainly who the owner was. I know that I hesitated, but only for a moment; and having made up my mind could not too soon return it to its owner, and because I had hesitated was adverse to receiving the reward offered me.

When I was about nineteen years of age (the preceding years having been filled in for the most part with six to nine months each year of preparatory studies and the balance of the time devoted to work and teaching) I was prepared to enter the Dartmouth College, but instead of doing so, I decided to commence a medical course at once, and, with this object in view, I matriculated at the University of Vermont, at Burlington, where I remained one college year, deciding, before it had expired, to complete my course at some larger college, and the following September found me at Ann Arbor, Mich. After having paid my college fees, bought my books and other articles necessary for my second year in college, I found myself hundreds of miles away from friends and relatives, and with about $60 in money with nine months of hard study before me, allowing but little time for outside work if I wished to keep up in my studies with the other members of my class.

About this time I first became acquainted with a Canadian, a fellow-student, and from then until the time of his death he was one of the very few intimate friends I have ever allowed myself.

The limits of this book will not allow me to write the many quaint and some ghastly experiences of our medical education were I otherwise disposed to do so. Suffice it to say, that they stopped far short of desecration of country graveyards, as has been repeatedly charged, as it is a well-known fact that in the State of Michigan all the material necessary for dissection work is legitimately supplied by the State. At the end of my junior year I entered into an agreement with a fluent representative of a Chicago firm to spend my vacation in the northwest portion of Illinois representing his firm as a book agent. In this venture I committed the first really dishonest act of my life.

The firm as well as the book itself, from the sale of which I had been assured I could earn hundreds of dollars during my vacation, was a fraud, and after the most strenuous efforts, having succeeding in selling a sufficient number to defray my expenses and pay my return fare to Ann Arbor, I came back without making a settlement with the firm there, and for the remainder of my vacation earned what money I could in and about the college city.

I could hardly count my Western trip a failure, however, for I had seen Chicago.

The remainder of my medical course differed very little from the first two years; filled perhaps more completely with hard work and study, and almost wholly devoid of pleasure and recreation. At last, however, in June, 1884, our examinations were passed, our suspense was ended and I left Ann Arbor with my diploma, a good theoretical knowledge of medicine, but with no practical knowledge of life and of business. After taking a vacation of less than one week in my old New Hampshire home, I went to Portland, Maine, and engaged with a large business firm of that city to represent them in Northern New York in the sale of their products; my prime object being to find some favorable location in this way where I could become a practitioner. Such an opening was not easily found, however, and I accepted a winter school to teach at Mooers Forks, N. J., and later opened an office in that village. Here I stayed for one year doing good and conscientious work, for which I received plenty of gratitude but little or no money, and in the fall of 1885 starvation was staring me in the face, and finally I was forced to sell first one and then the last of my two horses, and having done this I resolved to go elsewhere before all of my means were again exhausted.

During my long years there in New York I had abundant time to work out the details of a scheme that my University friend, before referred to, and myself had talked over during our hungry college days as a possible last resort in case our medical practice proved a failure; and from certain letters I had received from him, I judged that he, too, had not found all his hardships at an end upon receiving his diploma. I therefore went to where he was located, and found that though his experience had been less disheartening than my own, it had from a pecuniary standpoint been far from successful. During this visit we carefully planned the following method of obtaining money:—

At some future date a man whom my friend knew and could trust, who then carried considerable life insurance, was to increase the same so that the total amount carried should be $40,000; and as he was a man of moderate circumstances he was to have it understood that some sudden danger he had escaped (a runaway accident) had impelled him to more fully protect his family in the future. Later he should become addicted to drink, and while temporarily insane from its use should, as it would appear afterwards, kill his wife and child.

In reality they were to go to the extreme West and await his arrival there at a later date. Suddenly the husband was to disappear, and some months later a body badly decomposed and dressed in the clothing he was known to wear was to be found, and with it a statement to the effect that while in a drunken rage he had killed his family and had shipped their dismembered bodies to two separate and distant warehouses to conceal the crime, first having partially preserved the remains by placing them in strong brine. That he did not care to live longer, and that his property and insurance should pass to a relative whom he was to designate in this letter.

At the proper time he was to join his family in the West, and remain there permanently, the relative collecting the insurance, a part of which was to be sent to him, a part to be retained by the relative, and the remainder to be divided between us. This scheme called for a considerable amount of material, no less than three bodies in fact. This difficulty was easily overcome, however, so long as it was supposed that they were needed for experimental purposes, but no doctor could call for three bodies at one time without exciting suspicion, and so it was arranged that I was to go to Chicago for the winter, and some time during the intervening months we should both contribute toward the necessary supply. I reached Chicago in November, 1885, but finding it difficult to obtain satisfactory employment, I went to Minneapolis, where I spent the winter in a drug store as a clerk. Meantime, my friend had promptly obtained his portion and placed it in the storage in Delaware, from which place it was shipped to me later in Chicago. I remained in Minneapolis until May, 1886, when I returned to Chicago. My own life I had insured meantime for $20,000, which, at a later date, I intended to realize upon. I had prior to this time made arrangements to furnish my portion of the material. After reaching Chicago, certain sudden changes in my plans called me hastily to New York City, and I decided to take a part of the material there and leave the balance in a Chicago warehouse. This necessitated the repacking of the same, and to accomplish this I went to a hotel (May, 1886), where I registered under an assumed name, and occupied a room and had the package, which had been shipped from Detroit, taken there, and carefully removing the carpet from one portion of the room I divided the material into two packages. In doing this the floor became discolored.

Later, one of these packages was placed in the Fidelity Storage Warehouse in Chicago, and the other I took with me to New York and placed it in a safe place. Upon my trip from Chicago to New York I read two accounts of the detection of crime connected with this class of work, and for the first time I realized how well organized and well prepared the leading insurance companies were to detect and punish this kind of fraud, and this, together with a letter I received upon reaching my destination, and the sudden death of my friend, caused all to be abandoned.

Soon after leaving New York I came to Philadelphia, where I sought employment in some drug store where I could hope to become either a partner or an owner. Not finding such an opportunity at once I took a situation as a keeper in the Norristown Asylum. This was my first experience with insane persons, and so terrible was it that for years afterwards, even now sometimes, I see their faces in my sleep. Fortunately within a few days after entering the Asylum I received word that I could obtain different employment in a drug store on Columbia avenue, which I at once accepted. About July 1st, one afternoon, a child entered the store and exclaimed, “I want a doctor! The medicine we got here this morning has killed my brother (or sister).” I could remember of no sale that morning corresponding to the one she hastily described, but I made sure that a physician was at once sent to the house, and having done this I hastily wrote a note to my employer, stating the nature of the trouble, and left the city immediately for Chicago, and it was not until nine years later that I knew the result of the case.

Later, when it became necessary to disprove the alarming statements that were made relative to various persons having been killed at 701 Sixty-third street, I placed in the proper authorities’ hands a full collection of documentary evidence, consisting of railroad and storage warehouse receipts, letters, references and dates sufficient to show the truthfulness of my statements.

Upon reaching Chicago I found I could obtain no employment as a druggist until I had passed an examination at Springfield, Ill., and when I went there for that purpose I gave my name as H. H. Holmes, and under this name I have since done most of my business. Later, in July, 1886, I went to 701 Sixty-third street, Chicago, where I found a small store owned by a physician, who, owing to ill-health, wished to sell badly. A little later I bought it, paying for it for the most part with money secured by mortgaging the stock and fixtures, agreeing to repay this loan at the rate of $100 per month. My trade was good, and for the first time in my life I was established in a business that was satisfactory to me.

But very soon my landlord, seeing that I was prospering well, made me aware that my rent would be increased, and to protect myself I was forced to purchase at a great expense the vacant property opposite the location I then occupied, and to erect a building thereon. Here my real troubles commenced. The expense incurred was wholly beyond the earning capacity of my business, and for the next few years I was obliged to plunge deeply in debt in every direction; and, worse than this, when these debts became due, if unable to meet them to resort to all means of procuring a stay or evading them altogether. At last there came a day when Thomas Fallon, a constable, together with a lawyer named Sanforth, both of Chicago, came to my store to attach the same to satisfy the claim of some impatient creditor. And during the appraisal of the goods they came and asked me the contents of two small barrels.

I gave them some misleading answer, and bringing out other goods to attract their attention, they were passed for the time being. They were the two packages I had arranged more than a year before at a certain hotel, and which had been removed from the storehouses in Chicago and New York, first to my former store, and later to the new one.

As soon as possible after this attachment took place, I resolved to permanently dispose of both these packages, and to do so, I opened the smaller of them and commenced its destruction by burning in a large furnace, then in the basement. The experience was so unpleasant, owing to the terrible odor produced, that I did not think it safe to destroy more of it in the same way, and therefore buried the remainder of that package, as well as the fragments that were partially burned, in the places where they have lately been found.

The other package was removed, unopened, from the building, and so disposed of that it is hardly probable it will ever be found, and I do not feel called upon to bring it forth, as it would only serve to add more newspaper notoriety to the case.

If, however, my life is ever jeopardized, or my other statements discredited owing to want of additional proof in this matter, I shall at once cause it to be produced, and my so doing will result in showing that the portions therein contained are parts of the two bodies already found, and more important still that the package thus brought to light has necessarily occupied its present location for nearly seven years.

This will be corroborated by documentary evidence, freight, express and warehouse receipts, letters, etc., already in the hands of the authorities, together with evidence from workmen, if still alive and to be found.

Early in 1888, needing some extra carpenters, there came to me, in response to an advertisement, a tall, thin, muscular man, whom, at the time, I took to be a farmer from the Western plains.

BENJAMIN F. PITEZEL.

He assured me, however, that he was a carpenter, able to do as much and as good work as anyone else, that his name was Benjamin F. Pitezel, that he had a large family, was badly in need of work for their support and begged me to give him a trial. This I did, but soon found him to be a dreamer.

Coming to him at his work I would find him with a set of figures and perhaps a diagram illustrative of their use, or busy making a model of some complicated contrivance. This proceeded so far that for my own protection I had to cause him to work by contract instead of by the day, although I found him fully as improvident of his own time as he had been of mine. Little by little I grew to like his quiet ways, and to depend upon him to take charge of the work at times when I was obliged to be absent, and one day I said to him, “Ben, with all your mechanical ingenuity you should have been a rich man before now. How is it?” His answer was that heretofore the world had not seemed to be inclined to be kind to him. This seemed so aptly to describe my own case, that I talked with him further from time to time, and a summary of what I learned was as follows:—

He, like myself, had been a country-bred boy, knowing few pleasures, but, unfortunately, receiving few school advantages. At a comparatively early age he had married and commenced life as a farmer in Illinois or Indiana. Later he had moved to Kansas, and, later still, had been forced to leave that State owing to some legal trouble with a bank there, to which he had given a worthless mortgage to secure a loan in money. After leaving Kansas he had wandered through the Western States, principally in the gold regions, and finally had settled in Chicago with his family, which, while he traveled, had remained in Kansas. Very soon after reaching Chicago he had commenced working for me, and from that time until September 2, 1894, when he died, he was continually in my employ, working as a carpenter and builder, and as a real estate dealer and as a wholesale lumber merchant, buying and shipping lumber from the South and West to Chicago and St. Louis, where I also sold the same products.

I think it was in 1889 that I was one day waited upon by two gentlemen who wished to sell me a gas machine, by using which I could be forever independent of the regular city gas company. So great were the inducements held out that I later met them at their office in La Salle street, and before leaving them had bought one of the machines, which a few days later was arranged in the basement of my building, and I had notified the city company that thereafter I should cease to be one of their patrons. For two days the new machine performed wonders, and I recommended it to many of my customers and friends. The third evening when I was very busy my store was suddenly enveloped in darkness. I was obliged to turn away my customers and close for the want of light, and from then until morning I wrestled with my gas machine; and when Pitezel came to his day’s work he found me still perspiring, and, I fear, swearing over it.

The machine was to him as a new toy to a child, although he soon assured me that as a gas producer it was an absolute failure. That afternoon I instructed him to temporarily connect it with the city gas to provide light for the evening, and next day I would go to the company and make a new application to again become a permanent customer. As he finished making the connection he remarked that he thought that it would be a good permanent arrangement without going to the gas company. His quiet remark resulted in my having him, next day, lead the gas from the city main to the machine underground in such a way that it would not be known without a close inspection, and this I did, not to defraud the city, but “to get even” with the company who had defrauded me. A few evenings thereafter the president of this company called upon me, and, after quietly studying my new light for a time, spoke to me of it.

I then told him that I had bought his machine for the purpose of trying a new gas that for years I had been experimenting with. Several other visits followed, and although I was apparently averse to disposing of my new discovery, I finally did so, taking in return first a contract so skillfully worded that there could later be no claims brought against me, and, second, a check for a large sum of money. Had matters stopped here as I had at first intended, all would have been well, but I neglected disconnecting from the city supply from day to day, until finally an inspector, more energetic than his fellow-workers, became aware of it, and this resulted in my very willingly choosing to pay a five hundred dollar gas bill in preference to being openly written up and perhaps prosecuted.

There have occurred other deals of a somewhat similar nature, and generally inspired by the same motive, but this one suffices as an example of those that occurred later. Sometime previous to this I had had occasion to employ an attorney to transact some business in which certain papers had to be signed in my New Hampshire name, and to do this work I employed one I did not know in order that my real name should not be confounded with the name of Holmes, under which I had been known and had done all my work since commencing business in Chicago.

About a year after consulting this attorney, I was called into court as a witness on some trivial case, and while giving my testimony under the name of Holmes, I saw him sitting in the court room apparently much mystified. Instead of denouncing me to the court, as he might easily have done, he spoke to me alone, and, later, feeling he had done me a most kind favor I gave to him the greater part of my legal work; but though he attended to this conscientiously for me as an attorney, he at no time encouraged me to acts that were wrong, nor was he a party to them, and the late newspaper comments reflecting upon his integrity are most unjust and uncalled for.

Aside from this one incident I know of no time during the nine years prior to my arrest that my two names conflicted the one with the other, or caused me trouble or annoyance.

In 1890 I added a jewelry store to my business, and placed Julius L. Connor in charge of that and my drug business, his wife, Julia Connor, assisting him as cashier for a time, who, after the sale of the store, lived in the building and supported herself and child by taking boarders. That she is a woman of quick temper and perhaps not always of a good disposition may be true, but that any of her friends and relatives will believe her to be an immoral woman, or one who would be a party to a criminal act, I do not think. She lived for her child, and her one fear was that she should lose her, and as soon as the daughter is of sufficient age to protect herself, I feel that her whereabouts will be made known. I last saw her about January 1, 1892, when a settlement of her rent was made. At this time she had announced not only to me, but to her neighbors and friends, that she was going away.

At this interview she told me that, while she had given her destination as Iowa, she was going elsewhere to avoid the chance of her daughter being taken from her, giving the Iowa destination to mislead her husband. I corresponded with her upon business matters later, and the so-called secreted letters lately found could only have been obtained from my Chicago letter files, in which hundreds of my business letters were stored away in alphabetical order.

In 1890 I opened an office on Dearborn street, Chicago, and organized “The Warner Glass-Bending Co.,” the principal value of which consisted in certain not very clearly-defined ideas I possessed upon the subject of bending glass for mechanical purposes. This was a stock company, in which I had interested, among others, Osmer W. Fay, a most reputable and honest man (a retired minister), of whom I will speak later in this history. Suffice it to say here that, when I found that he had invested the principal part of his savings in my company, knowing that it would not be a successful business venture to others, save myself, I returned to him his investment with interest. At this time Pitezel was in the same office with me, selling an invention he had lately patented, known as “Pitezel’s Automatic Coal Bin.” I later established him in an office by himself, where he opened a patent exchange similar to the one he was conducting in Philadelphia at the time of his death.

At about this time, Patrick Quinlan, a whole-souled Irishman, had left his farm in Michigan to come to the city to work during the winter months, and commenced his service with me. He soon became almost indispensable, owing to his careful management and supervision of help and general faithfulness, and for several years he worked for me continually, though during that time he did no illegal act nor committed any wrong so far as I know.

Early in 1891 I became interested in one of the most seductive and misleading inventions that has ever been placed before the American public; a device known as the “A B C Copier,” which had been brought to this country from Europe by a prominent official of the World’s Fair.

He had been swindled in its purchase, and, knowing this, was very willing to dispose of one-half interest in the invention to me for $9,000 worth of “securities.” A company was immediately formed, and by using his name freely as the president of same, we were able to make over $50,000 worth of contracts for future delivery before our offices had been open sixty days, numbering among our customers many large insurance companies and prominent wholesale houses.

However, I was glad to sell my interests, clearing about $22,000 in cash upon the entire deal. It was at this time, while employing quite a large office force, that Mr. J. L. Connor asked me to give his sister Gertrude some work to do. Instead of doing so at once I told him I would aid him in furnishing her with the means to take a short course in a business college, and if later she proved proficient, I would give her employment. Shortly after her commencing to attend this business college, she received an offer of marriage from a young clerk in Chicago. She spoke to us of it, and asked us to learn, if we could, of the antecedents of the young man and of his prospects. Our investigation resulted in learning that he had a wife living in Chicago. Gertrude was inclined to disbelieve this statement, and not expressing herself as being willing to break the engagement, Mr. Connor thought best to send her to her home in Iowa. A statement from the physician who attended her at the time of her death, long after this, speaks for itself, effectually disproving one of the most persistent and disagreeable charges that have been brought against me. I have had many young ladies in my employ, most of whom are still living in and about Chicago, whose parents and friends know only too well that far from being their seducer I have done much to materially help them in their narrow lives, owing to the enormous competitions in Chicago for positions.

At about this time I sent Pitezel South upon an extended lumber purchasing trip, and upon his return to Chicago he encountered some severe domestic troubles, the full details of which he did not tell me until long afterwards. But at the time they resulted in a neighborhood quarrel and some arrests, and thereafter he grew more morose, and drank more freely than he had done heretofore, but managed to do so during my absence or after working hours, as he knew me to be wholly intolerant of drunkenness in my employees.

It was about January 1, 1893, when I first met Minnie R. Williams at the intelligence office of Mr. William Campbell on Dearborn street, Chicago, whom she had engaged to provide her with a position as stenographer.

EMELINE CIGRAND.

I found her to be a bright, intelligent woman, an interesting conversationalist and one who I could see had seen much of the world. When she had been working in my office for a few weeks, knowing that she had a history, I asked her one stormy winter afternoon to tell it to me. After considerable hesitation she did so, in nearly the following words:—

“My earliest remembrance is of a poor home in the South. My father was a drunkard and my poor mother was not strong. One terrible day my father was brought to us dead, and very soon after this mother’s strength seemed to leave her utterly, and she soon followed him, leaving me, a tiny child, together with a still younger sister and a baby brother, to the tender mercies of the world. An aunt in Mississippi took my sister to live with her, and another relative cared for brother, and an uncle, a physician, adopted me.

“During the short time he lived he was a loving and tender father to me, and at his death willed to me all of his possessions. A guardian was appointed to care for me, but I was not again happy until years later, when Mr. Massie was appointed to take his place, and since then I have looked upon him and his wife as my parents.

“When I was 17 years old I was sent to Boston to finish my education at the Conservatory of Music. At first, after leaving my warm Southern home, I nearly died from homesickness, and you will not wonder that having met at some place of entertainment in Boston a young gentleman, and having found that he was an honest clerk, occupying a position where he could hope for advancement, I allowed him to address me, and later became engaged to him.

“Soon after the engagement he introduced me to a gentleman who is prominently known throughout the New England States. He is much older than myself.

“From the first time I met him he seemed to exert a powerful influence over me. I loved his wife, and my visits to her made a pleasant break in the tedium of my school work, but as soon as he came home, or I was in his company, I was ill at ease, my mind being filled with an indefinable presentiment of evil. I avoided meeting him alone upon all occasions when it was possible for me to do so, but he would often insist upon accompanying me to my home, and this, owing to their continued courtesies to me, I could not well refuse. All too soon there came a day when I could no longer look into the eyes of either my lover or of those of my betrayer, and for more than a year thereafter I was wholly under the influence of my seducer; so much so, that any and all good resolutions I would make during his absence would vanish upon meeting him again, and my life became one of mental torture to me, for by nature I was a pure-minded girl.

“Our meetings for the most part took place at a hotel near his place of business, a portion of which was available for meetings of this kind, so long as the parties were known to the manager.

“During the year I broke my engagement with my lover, and by so doing apparently deserved his reproaches for heartlessness, although if he could have known it my motive was of an entirely different nature. As though my burden had not at this time been sufficiently heavy for me to bear, about the end of this year I became aware that another and still more terrible calamity was in store for me.

“For days I sat in my room until it seemed I should go mad, and fearing lest I should utterly lose my reason I decided to kill myself, but no one realizes how dear life is until, thinking it worthless, they have tried to destroy it.

“I could not do it, and there was nothing left for me to do but to go quietly away in a strange place, under a different name, and bear my shame.

“I went to New York, engaged board under the name of Adele Covell, in a quiet portion of the city.

“Physically, I had never been strong, and now followed days and weeks of serious illness until, to save my reason, the life of my unborn child was sacrificed. As soon as I was able I returned to my Texas home, accounting as best I could for my terribly haggard appearance.

“Later, feeling that there was left little that I could do, and being wholly reckless of my future, I prepared for the stage, and for three years I was almost continually before the public. Becoming somewhat ambitious I organized a company, and for a time traveled through the New England towns and small cities under the name of Geraldine Wande.

“This venture cost me between five and ten thousand dollars, and in 1891 I went to Denver, Colorado, as a member of a theatrical company then playing a prominent engagement. There I staid until the burning of the theatre, which caused my engagement to end, and not being able to find another suitable opening, I decided to prepare myself for office work.

“Unfortunately, while in Denver, I attracted the attention of a young man engaged to be married to a lady whom I knew and liked, and rather than to cause them trouble I decided to go elsewhere, though against the wishes of the young man, who, if I had allowed it, would have married me. At about this time my brother, whom I had never seen much of, was killed, or rather died, as the result of a railroad accident at Leadville, Colorado, leaving sister Nannie, who is now teaching in Nudlothean, Texas, and to me, about $400 each, payable about one year after his death.

“I went to Leadville to attend his funeral, and later came here to Chicago, where, until I obtained my position with you, I have been at times really in need of money, as owing to my unfortunate theatrical venture all my ready money has been used, and I now have left only one piece of good real estate in Fort Worth, Texas, valued at $6,000 but encumbered for $1,700.

“A piece of land adjoining my property, of which Mr. Massey has recently written me, can be sold by him for $2,500, besides paying a heavy mortgage standing against it.

“I have also one small, unimproved lot near Dallas, Texas, worth about $200.”

During the spring of 1893 I was, if possible, more busy than ever before.

Among other work, preparing my building to rent to a prospective tenant, who would use the entire five stories and forty rooms, at a good rental, if I could get it completed in time for World’s Fair purposes.

This left me with little time to attend to my office duties, which gradually Miss Williams took more and more into her own hands, showing a remarkable aptitude for the work. During the first weeks she boarded at a distance, but later, from about the 1st of March until the 15th of May, 1893, she occupied rooms in the same building and adjoining my offices.

Here occasionally meals were served from the restaurant near at hand, and if any bones have really been found in the stove there I think it will later be learned, by microscopical examination, that they are the remnants of such meals. Certain it is that no human being was ever cremated there during my occupancy of the room, my own experience years ago being quite sufficient to show me the danger of such proceedings on account of the awful odor, if I had no other motive to deter me from such a course.

About the first of April I dictated quite a number of urgent letters to parties who were owing me, requesting them to make immediate settlement of their accounts, as I was much in need of the money at this time. Some days later Minnie brought me a draft for about $2,500 and asked me to use it until she should need it, explaining that this was the proceeds of the Texas sale she had previously spoken to me about. I could make good use of the money at that time, but declined to take it until I had explained to her, at some length, more of my business affairs than she had before known. And, finally, I caused to be transferred to her, by warranty deed, a house and lot at Wilmette, Ill., valued at about $7,500, in order that she should be well protected against loss in case of my death.

This money was returned to her about May 10, 1893, from money obtained for this purpose from Isaac R. Hitt & Co., Chicago, who paid it to Miss Williams personally. At about this time she expressed a wish that I should aid her in converting her remaining Southern property into either cash or improved Northern property. This was hard to do, and I finally advised her to execute a worthless deed (by having some one other than herself sign same) to a fictitious person and offer the property for sale at a very low cash figure, and years later, if she chose to do so, to demand an additional sum in exchange for the good deed.

This was done, forging the name upon the deed so made, which deeds are still in existence. When matters had progressed thus far in our various transactions, Miss Williams was taken seriously ill for several days at the house where we were stopping at the time. She suffered from the same form of acute mania that she had been troubled with in New York years before. She was under restraint at this hotel a few days about May 22d, but owing to careful nursing and good medical attendance, she soon became so much better that she could plan intelligently with me what steps were best to be taken for her safety.

It was decided that she should go to the Presbyterian Hospital, near the Clybourne avenue car limits in Chicago, to stay until I could determine if she were in further danger. She entered this institution about May 23, 1893, as a private patient, and her ailment being such that it was prudent for her to pass for a married woman, she was enrolled upon the records there as Mrs. Williams.

The greatest drawback to her improvement here was the fact that she knew she was in an asylum with other insane persons, and she soon begged me to take her to some private apartments where she could receive special attention. To accomplish this, I hired a house at 1220 Wrightwood avenue, and early in June accompanied Miss Williams there, and during my absences she was in care of a young woman hired for this purpose.

Here she rapidly improved, and during the following months exhibited only once any maniacal symptoms, when, owing to some trivial disagreement with her attendants, she so frightened her that she left at once. At this time Miss Williams first spoke of inviting her sister to spend the summer and fall months with us, and in response to a letter Nannie came from Texas. I met her at the train and found her to be a remarkably quiet and gentle woman—apparently not very strong—certainly of a most kindly disposition. The sisters had never lived together for any considerable length of time, and they anticipated much pleasure in the society of each other. Minnie had asked that it should appear to her sister that we were married, and also that nothing should be said of her recent illness, which she now, day by day, seemed to be overcoming.