A Strange Disappearance

EDMUND PEARSON

Being the Case of a Prominent Jurist Who Vanished Mysteriously in the Early Days of the Republic

AT dusk, on a stormy December afternoon, a gentleman of venerable appearance descended into the lobby of the old City Hotel in New York. He was strongly built, rather tall, and dressed in black, with a tight-bodied coat in the style affected by the Quakers. His hair was powdered, and he carried a huge umbrella.

The old gentleman was an honoured patron of the hotel, and the hall-boy carefully brushed his coat, before opening the door for his departure. He walked out into the twilight, and vanished from human sight.

On the twelfth of December, 1929, precisely one hundred years will have elapsed since Chancellor Lansing left the City Hotel, and to this day nobody knows what happened to him. Of all the mysterious disappearances, this alone concerned a man really distinguished,—familiar by name to the whole community, and by sight to most of it.

John Lansing, then aged seventy-six, was as widely known to his day as Mr. Elihu Root or Mr. Charles Evans Hughes is to ours. He had served in the Revolution, as military secretary to General Philip Schuyler; had been elected again and again to the Assembly, and had been Speaker. He was once Mayor of Albany. With Alexander Hamilton and Robert Yates, he went to the Constitutional Convention at Philadelphia. His course there was not his most useful service, for then and thereafter he nearly kept New York out of the Union. John Fiske calls Lansing and Yates "the two irreconcilables", but a more friendly view credits them with helping to secure the first amendments to the Constitution, known as the Bill of Rights.

Lansing was once nominated for Governor, but declined to run. His most valuable work was done in his twenty-four years as judge. He occupied the posts of Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of New York, and Chancellor. He presided at the extraordinary trial of Levi Weeks for the murder of Miss Sands, in 1800. For fifteen years he had been retired from public office, and was living in his native city of Albany.

THE Chancellor came to New York the morning of Saturday, December 12, 1829, and stayed at the City Hotel, on Broadway, near Trinity Church. He had breakfast there, and also dinner,—the latter meal probably at about two in the afternoon. After dinner, he went to his room, and wrote some letters.

It has sometimes been supposed that when he left the hotel he was going to take the five o'clock boat back to Albany. This is improbable, because he left his luggage in his room, and also because he had an engagement for tea, at six o'clock, with Mr. Robert Ray, at 29 Marketfield Street, near the Battery. It is reasonable to guess, however, that he may have intended to go first to the boat, in order to mail the letters he had been writing. At all events, he was never seen at the boat, or at Mr. Ray's house.

If such an eminent man vanished today, we can imagine what the newspapers would do about it. There was the greatest concern and excitement over the Chancellor's disappearance, but for more than two weeks the New York papers utterly ignored the event. This may have been because local news was supposed to be known by everyone, and therefore was not worth printing; or it may have been for considerations of good taste. At last, on December 29th, the Evening Post, the Spectator and the Commercial Advertiser, alluded to the mystery, in notices of about three lines in length. This was done almost apologetically, and merely to call attention to an inconspicuous advertisement, offering the modest reward of $100. for information concerning the missing man's whereabouts.

The advertisers, Jacob Sutherland and Edward Livingstone, suggested, as a possibility, that the Chancellor might have mistaken his way in the storm, and fallen into the river at the foot of Marketfield Street. They described his appearance, and added that he carried an old-fashioned English gold watch, of which the outer case had been lost. A large white carnelian seal was attached to the watch chain or ribbon. He also carried a large magnifying glass, to be used instead of spectacles in reading. He was in good health, and had never suffered from any mental infirmity. The reward, however, was unclaimed, and the Chancellor, living or dead, remained undiscovered.

Now, there are two events which provoke even more interest than a notorious murder. One is the abduction of a child for ransom, —a crime often more cruel than murder, and more certain to cause public wrath. The other is the unexplained disappearance of an adult person, who has no apparent motive for flight or self-destruction.

One reason for the perpetual interest in disappearances, is that the possible causes are so many: the field is open for such a variety of guesses. There is abduction, murder, accident or suicide. To some owlish people there is only one explanation: a scandal. They nod their heads with the profound wisdom of the Complete Cynic.

"Oh, it's perfectly well known what happened to him—or her!"

If it is a man, there are difficulties about money; if a woman, surely a shameful love affair. The Complete Cynic is always in style, but, since we all are permitted a surmise, I should like to offer a guess that some of the disappearances are, on the part of the missing person, quite innocent. The forcible abduction of an adult person, who comes from the ordinary, respectable class of society, is a very rare thing. But an undetected murder, or an unexplained accident is not an impossibility. Nor, if the body of a missing person is never found, is there proof that the police, or the relatives, are concealing knowledge. Because the bodies of suicides are usually discovered, and the bodies of murdered persons are very hard to conceal, it does not follow that concealment is not occasionally successful.

There was something of a panic in New York in the winter of 1829-30, following the disappearance of the old Chancellor. The terrible stories of Burke and Hare, the Edinburgh murderers, had recently come across the ocean. Doctors were supposed to be snatching not only dead bodies from the grave, but living people from the streets. One tale, which went about, was that children had been found in houses, seated in chairs, their feet immersed in warm water, an artery cut, and the poor creatures left slowly to bleed to death.

WOMEN and children were not allowed to go out at night, even to walk a few steps to church, without a male protector armed with a cudgel. Mr. George Halsey remembered coming out from an evening service with his father, and observing that his parent was only one of a number of men who carried big hickory clubs. The negroes were especially alarmed, and some of them recalled for years thereafter, the sensation of terror which often kept them indoors altogether after night had fallen.

More than half a century after all attempts to find Mr. Lansing had been given up, the curtain was half raised, and then let fall again in an exasperating fashion. The story recalls one or two books by English police officials, in which the authors hint that they knew who Jack the Ripper really was!

In the early 8o's, there were published the memoirs of the journalist and politician, Thurlow Weed. The author, Mr. Weed's grandson, says that his grandfather was the confidant for many secrets, and that one day there came to him "a gentleman of high position", with some documents. These papers proved, not only that Chancellor Lansing had been murdered, but showed the motives for the murder, described the circumstances, and even named the guilty person or persons.

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This gentleman instructed Mr. Weed to make all this known, when those who were implicated should be dead. They were "men who had lived useful lives, and died with unblemished reputations." In the year 1870, the conditions were fulfilled, and it might have been possible to publish the information. Mr. Weed's informant, as well as the men implicated, had all passed from the earth. The journalist, however, found that the news would strike elsewhere, and do harm to the innocent. The murderers, or the conspirators, were beyond the law's reach, but others, immediately associated with them, and "sharing the strong inducement which prompted the crime" still survived. They "occupied high positions and enjoyed public confidence". Any stone thrown at their predecessors might bring them down in ruin.

Mr. Weed, in great doubt, consulted two friends, R. M. Blatchford and Hugh Maxwell. They considered the question from all viewpoints, and decided that if the original informant were alive he would change his mind. Mr. Weed never spoke to anybody else of the matter. He survived these two friends, and with him, in 1882, perished the secret of Chancellor Lansing's disappearance.

Was Mr. Weed contriving to darken the mystery, or was he dropping some hints? There are possible clews in his story, as the astute Sherlockian has already perceived. What profits accrued to the murderers of the judge? Something more, evidently, than the old watch, the white carnelian, and the magnifying glass! Something which could be transmitted to descendants. Who followed the Chancellor as he plodded down Broadway, under his big umbrella? Had they tracked him all the way from Albany, waiting for this opportunity?

Did he take a carriage, which was already waiting for him, or was he decoyed into a house? The speculations are as interesting, now, as they were in that long-past winter—and they have exactly the same end.