05 Dec 2016

History:

Lost Capitol Hill: Mary Ann Hall, Revisited

tn-gessfordOne of the more… ahem, colorful people inhumed at Congressional Cemetery is Miss Mary Ann Hall, a noted Madam. I wrote about about her in my scandal book. Recently, I was contacted about a Mary Ann Hall who apparently ran a house of ill repute in New York in 1866, with the question as to whether or not this was the same one.

This caused me to go re-research her life, and discovered that a “new” episode of her life had appeared in a newspaper online – an account of her trial in 1864 on charges of “keeping a bawdy house.” The trial occurred on February 19 of that year, and the Washington Evening Star reported on it later that day. The article, while quite long and filled with detail, is remarkable in that it actually gives no direct evidence of any wrongdoing on Hall’s part.

It starts with Officer James W. Gessford’s (pic) evidence. He had “seen hacks frequently in front of the house, from which he had seen males mostly get out. He had seldom seen females alight.” There was no attempt to explain how this was different than, say, at the Capitol. He also said that the “front door had a ball and chain on it, so that it could be opened about six inches that persons might be seen before being admitted.” Again, no evidence of any wrong-doing.

Further witness included Charles Walter, who is introduced as a former Justice of the Peace. He had been to the house three times in the last year and a half and had, on several occasions, seen eight to ten women, including two that he had previously seen at the police station and of whom he had “heard that these two were prostitutes.”

John A. Clarvoe, another policeman, testified that he had been called there several times to remove undesired elements, including once when he came to “take away a couple of disorderly soldiers who were in front of the door,” and another time when he was “called about 12 o’clock by Miss Hall from a window to take away a colonel.”

Clarvoe was also called there once “on business,” though it appears to have been police business, not that for which Hall was being prosecuted. He described the parlor to be “very handsomely furnished – first-class furniture, very showy.” He also “saw on this occasion three girls, who were said to be prostitutes,” though in this case, they were simply witnesses, and, in fact, Clarvoe had no reason to believe they were anything but innocent, for he did “not see any implements of industry about the house,” whatever that might mean.

Mary Ann Hall's gravestone in Congressional Cemetery (Otto Pohl)

Mary Ann Hall’s gravestone in Congressional Cemetery (Otto Pohl)

Two further detectives, W. M. Kelly and Michael Barry, also had cause to go there (are you starting to see a pattern here?) and Barry recognized some of the women there from New York, where he had been a detective before, and others from “the avenue” – i.e., Pennsylvania Avenue. How this makes them possible prostitutes is left as an exercise to the reader.

The final witness was a Robert Magee, who had previously been a policeman. His evidence was that he “looked upon them as lewd women, for he had been a hackman, and had frequently hacked them.”

One would have thought that Hall’s attorney, one Joseph H. Bradley, Sr, would have shredded the prosecution’s case, in particular its reliance on hearsay, and left Mary Ann Hall a free woman, but one would have thought wrong. Instead, the newspapers the following day simply stated “Mary Ann Hall, indicted for keeping a bawdy and disorderly house, was returned of guilty on the first count and not guilty on the second.” Which presumably means she was running a bawdy, but not a disorderly, house. Two days later, the newspapers reported that she had not yet been sentenced, and then a “bill of exceptions” was taken, which indicates that the case was referred to an appellate court. The final disposition is unclear. Maybe Bradley was able to work his magic, after all.

Either way, it doesn’t seem to have affected her work in any way, and she eventually retired a wealthy woman.

And that Mary Ann Hall in New York? Sadly, thus far there is no evidence that this is anything but a strange coincidence.

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