Harry K. Thaw

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Evelyn Nesbit, Before The Murder, Sleeping Peacefully (1901)

May 18, 2012 in Excerpts, Photography, Urban Studies | Permalink

This classic (and unintentionally prophetic) photo, taken by Rudolph Eickemeyer, profiles chorus girl Evelyn Nesbit atop a fearsome bearskin rug when she was not yet either famous or infamous. Five years later the love triangle of Nesbit, husband Harry K. Thaw and architect Stanford White came to a tragic end on the roof of Madison Square Garden. The ensuing media sensation cannot be overstated. In a 1907 New York Times article, Mrs. Evelyn Florence Nesbit Holman recalls the odd and chilly nuptuals that took place on April 4, 1905 between her daughter and the sadistic and batshit crazy Thaw:

“I was not consulted about the marriage. We did not know that a marriage had been arranged until my husband and I were asked to go to the home of the Reverend Dr. McEwan. This was one hour before the ceremony. All the arrangements had been carried out by Mr. J. Dennison Lyon, Mr. Thaw’s banker. Mr. Lyon had the marriage license clerk at the clergyman’s house. It was necessary that the mother sign an application for a license, for my daughter was a minor. This I readily and cheerfully did. I was glad that Mr. Thaw was man enough to give her his name. 

“We were shown into the drawing room. No one greeted us or spoke to us. Mrs. William Thaw came in, accompanied by her son, Josiah, and another witness. The clergyman was there. No salutations were exchanged. Florence and Mr. Thaw entered. The ceremony ended, they and the rest immediately left the room. No words of farewell were said. I went into the hall and encountered one of the witnesses, a woman. I asked to see my daughter. ‘I will see if I can find her,’ she replied. She went away and did not return.

“Mrs. William Thaw came into the hallway. I told her I wished to see Florence. ‘I don’t know where she is,’ she said, and turned away.

“The clergyman was the next to whom I appealed. ‘I don’t know anything about her,’ he responded, passing by me. I have never seen my daughter since.”

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Old Print Article: “Thaw Cuts Throat But Will Recover,” New York Times (1917)

January 22, 2012 in Old Print Articles, Urban Studies | Permalink

"He slashed his left wrist and throat with a razor this morning in a room where he was hiding in a little two-story brick boarding house."

Last week, I posted old print articles about Harry K. Thaw and Evelyn Nesbit, in the years after the murder of the third member of their twisted love triangle, architect Stanford White. In the story about Thaw, he was sought for horsewhipping a very unwilling participant in his sadomasochistic fantasies. Thaw was eventually returned to a mental asylum where he would remain until 1922–after a failed attempt at paying off his victim’s family. But first he had to be apprehended. The story of Thaw’s arrest courtesy of a couple of passages from a story in the January 12, 1917 New York Times:

“Philadelphia–Harry K. Thaw, slayer of Stanford White, added attempted suicide to his escapades today. Hunted down by detectives with a New York warrant that charged him with whipping Fred Gump Jr., the nineteen-year-old schoolboy, and depressed by the effects of heavy drinking, he slashed his left wrist and throat with a razor this morning in a room where he was hiding in a little two-story brick boarding house run by Mrs. Elizabeth Tacot at 5,200 Walnut Street, West Philadelphia.

Thaw’s wounds, while severe enough to make it probable that he actually attempted to end his life and was not simply courting sympathy because of the new ordeal he faced, will not cause death unless unexpected complications arise. He was taken to St. Mary’s Hospital in the Kensington section, seven miles from the house. There several bichloride of mercury tablets were found in one of his pockets, but there was nothing in his condition shortly before midnight to indicate that he had swallowed any of them. He was very weak from loss of blood and he was unable to make a statement. He is under arrest in the hospital, not on a charge of attempted suicide, but on the New York whipping charges. 

Landlady Discovers Thaw’s Plight

Mrs. Tacot, who said she knew Thaw only as ‘Mr. West,’ and did not realize his identity, was the first to learn what Thaw had done. At about 10:15 o’clock this morning she knocked on the door of the parlor which she had fitted up as Thaw’s bedroom and got no response. She pushed open the door a few inches and saw Thaw fully dressed, lying on the bed. He had pulled his overcoat up above his throat. He was moaning and blood was running from his left hand, which was extended over the side of the bed. The landlady phoned to the local branch of the O’Farrell Detective Agency to Maloney, a former policeman, Harbor Master and Republican boss of the Fifth Ward, who is in charge of the branch. Dr. E.A. Bateman, who lives near the house, was notified, and he summoned in turn Dr. A.F. Shiezle.

"Several bichloride of mercury tablets were found in one of his pockets."

While this was going on at the Tacot house Maloney was telling Chief Tate that he was prepared to surrender Thaw. The chief sent Lieutenant Theodore Wood and two detectives to the house in a taxicab, with instructions to call Dr. John Wanamaker 3d, the police surgeon. Magistrate George A. Persch also went into the house. Thaw seemed to be in a daze.

‘Have you anything you want to say?’ the Magistrate asked him. ‘Do you know that you may die? Will you make a statement of any kind?’ Thaw’s body shook but he made no response.

At the hospital Thaw was placed in comfortable quarters. He was arrested on the charges made in New York and not for the attempt upon his own life. As soon as his condition permits, the police plan to return him to New York.”

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Old Print Articles: Harry K. Thaw And Evelyn Nesbit, After Stanford White’s Murder, New York Times (1917, 1926)

January 18, 2012 in Old Print Articles, Urban Studies | Permalink

Everyone is familiar with the crime. On a June day in 1906, Harry K. Thaw fired three bullets at close range at architect Stanford White, on the roof of Madison Square Garden, wounding him fatally atop a building the victim had designed. The gunfire was apparently provoked by jealousy Thaw felt over his wife, the comely chorus girl, Evelyn Nesbit, who had previously been White’s mistress. After a couple of trials, Thaw spent some time in a mental asylum, but not long after a failed escape to Canada, he was declared sane and set free. But neither Thaw nor Nesbit were ever free of themselves, liberated from their destructive impulses. Excerpts from two New York Times articles about their lives after the most shocking murder.

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"The terrified lad saw Thaw, armed with a short, stocky whip rushing for him."

“Whipping of Boy Starts Hunt for Harry K. Thaw” (January 10, 1917): “The police of every city last night sought Harry Thaw. Accused in the Stanford White trial of having used a silver-capped dog whip on girls, Thaw was indicted here yesterday charged with having whipped a nineteen-year-old boy.

In a room high up in the Hotel McAlpin Thaw on Christmas Eve is alleged to have lashed Frederick Gump, Jr., a Kansas City schoolboy, almost to unconsciousness, after having enticed the lad to this city on pretenses of educating him.

‘Thaw’s acquaintance with young Gump goes back to December, 1915,’ said Mr. Walsh at the Holland House yesterday. ‘The elder Mr. Gump is one of the leading citizens of Kansas City, and I have known his only child, Fred, since infancy. The boy’s father became ill about two years ago, and when Fred was graduated from the Kansas City High School the family moved to Long Beach, Cal. Fred enrolled in the Berkeley Polytechnic Institute, but spent the week-ends with his parents in Long Beach, and it was on one of these occasions that Thaw met the lad in an ice cream pavillion.

‘Fred, a fine-looking chap, appeared to interest Thaw, who told the boy he would like to have him go back to Pittsburgh with him, where a fine job could be had. Gump declined the offer and they parted. This was early in December, and the next Gump heard of Thaw was when a postal came wishing the young student a merry Christmas. Letter after letter came to Mrs. Gump addressed to her son, and in nearly all of them Thaw repeated his offer. Finally on December 20 last he wrote, offering Gump $50 a month and expenses either to take a job in his plant or to enroll for a course in the Carnegie Institute. Thaw inclosed a certified check for $50, and urged Gump to accept the offer.

After thinking the matter over, Mr. Gump advised his son to take the chance at the Carnegie School and Thaw was advised of the decision. In a wire, he directed Gump to come to New York and put up at the McAlpin, where further instructions would be wired to him.

‘At the hotel Thaw had reserved a big suite on the eighteenth floor and had even rented two adjoining rooms which, I think, he did to prevent strangers from hearing the cries which later came from his apartments. It was Gump’s first trip away from home. The splendor of his bedroom rather bewildered him, and it was some time before he retired.

‘Soon Gump heard his door opened cautiously. Almost immediately the lights were switched on and the terrified lad saw Thaw, armed with a short, stocky whip rushing for him.

‘The boy leaped to his feet, and dodging Thaw, tried to get out of the door, and even to jump out of a window. All were locked. From that time until Gump was almost insensible his captor drove the young lad around the room, raising great welts upon the boys’s unprotected back. When he had beaten the lad so that his back and legs were covered with blood, Thaw quit the room as suddenly as he had entered it. Young Gump lay on the floor all night, and in the morning Thaw again came in, this time accompanied by his body guard. Thaw instructed the guard to keep the boy a prisoner, and then left.'”

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"An examination of her throat revealed that there is hope of saving her voice."

“Thaw to Visit Chicago Reconciliation Rumor” (Jan 8, 1926): “Chicago–Harry K. Thaw, whose former wife, Evelyn Nesbit Thaw, attempted to kill herself Tuesday morning during a fit of despondency, will arrive in Chicago early next week to confer with his attorney, Charles S. Wharton, it was learned today.

The appearance of her former husband at this time, coupled with the interest he has shown in her behalf over a long period of years and which was climaxed by a personal inquiry sent to the hospital the other day, has caused rumors that a reconciliation might be effected between the two.

Thaw has been paying $10 every day to her through a Pittsburgh attorney for a number of years. He did this, it was said, as a ‘token of pleasant memories of the past when we were happy.’

It is also known that William C. Dannenberg, private detective, with headquarters in Chicago, has been receiving large fees annually from Thaw for ‘keeping tabs’ on Evelyn during her frequent stays in Chicago. It was through Dannenberg that Thaw made inquiry as to her condition a few hours after Evelyn was taken to the hospital.

Thaw telephoned to Dannenberg on Thursday, asking him to go to the hospital and deliver a message to Evelyn only in the event she were dying. The detective denied this later by saying he had been sent over to get a personal report on her condition, but had no message to deliver.

At the hospital it was announced that Miss Nesbit had rallied from the sinking spell which made her physician apprehensive during the crisis of her illness, and she was pronounced out of danger. An examination of her throat revealed that there is hope of saving her voice. The burns from the disinfectant she swallowed were at first believed to have damaged her throat so seriously she might never sing again.”

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Listeria: Top 10 NYC Events Of 1906

February 23, 2010 in Books, Urban Studies | Permalink

Irving Berlin's first published song was "Marie from Sunny Italy." He would improve. (Photo by Al Aumuller.)

With the aid of the very fun book, New York Year by Year: A Chronology of the Great Metropolis by Jeffrey A. Kroessler, I previously presented you with the ten most amazing historical moments in NYC in 1967. Today, I use the same volume to look at the most significant moments of 1906:

Read other Listeria lists.

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