Jessica W.

Letter from Mary Mason Jones to her cousin in Paris, dated June 4, 1857.

My dearest cousin:--How I wish I could be in Paris with you again, but I am afraid I will not be able to visit any time soon. I have been spending every available minute when I am not busy entertaining our friends with our architect Robert Mook. I selected him to design a new residence for us on the property we inherited from my father, the land between 57th and 58th Streets on Fifth Avenue. Mr. Mook has presented me with the first set of drawings, and they are quite breathtaking. He has designed a structure of quiet beauty, grace and taste. Faced in marble and finished with a mansard roof, it looks quite Parisian�I think it would meet with your approval. I�ve already shown the sketches to niece Edith�she has a marvelous sense of design, you know�and she agrees that the plans are striking.

Of course, it all seems a bit unreal, for at the at the present moment the land north of 50th Street is little more than a muddy dirt road running alongside a bog. No other houses are there yet�only a few churches, St. Luke�s Hospital, The New York Institute for the Instruction of the Deaf and Dumb, the Catholic Orphan Asylum, and the public pound for stray animals. But soon, I am sure of it, many of our friends will follow me and build new homes on this section of Fifth Avenue, particularly after they see how magnificent and healthful an attraction Central Park will be. I think upper Fifth Avenue will soon contain a concentration of some of the most magnificent mansions in the world. It will be a fulfillment of my lifelong vision.

Letter from Mary Mason Jones to her cousin in Paris, dated November 2, 1857.

Dear Cousin:--I fear I have news of a most upsetting nature. Do you remember my writing to you about one of the most evil women in New York City, the abortionist who calls herself �Madame� Caroline Restell? She and her husband Charles Lohman have just bought ten lots of land between 51st and 53rd Streets on the east side of Fifth Avenue, only four blocks from where my new home shall be! This spring, Madame Restell (who is no more French than our chambermaid Molly Maguire) must have decided that her 145 Chambers Street address was no longer good enough for her. Chambers Street is, of course, much too far downtown to be fashionable any longer�and how that woman wants to be fashionable! She must also have decided that she was living inconveniently close to the police station�and we know how she has cause to hate any enforcers of the law. It is generally well known that Madame�s husband Charles Lohman (who also fancies himself French�he uses the name �Dr. Mariceau� as his nom de plume for those scandalous health books he writes for women) is a clever businessman and speculator in real estate. When the Roman Catholic archdiocese bought the land on Fifth Avenue between 50th and 51st Streets for the building of St. Patrick�s Cathedral, Mr. Lohman and his wife, shrewd and calculating as they are, seized the moment and bid on the adjacent property.

Charles Lohman outbid Archbishop Hughes at auction, paying $36,500 for ten lots, a price only slightly beyond what the Archbishop�s representative had been authorized to pay. As daughter of the founder of Chemical Bank and wife of its current president, I was designated by our friends to head a group to offer Mr. Lohman a price for the lots substantially higher than what he had paid. But, in spite of what must have been painfully apparent to him�that we would shun him and his wife from our society�he refused to sell.

Dear cousin, that couple did not by the land for financial reasons alone. The Madame wants to build on that block to prove that no matter where she comes from, no matter who her parents are, no matter how she earns her fortune, she can buy her way into our social circle. Does she not care how she offends us by practicing her �profession� so close to us? Does she take secret delight in moving directly across the street from the very Cathedral whose Reverend has denounced her from the pulpit? Just imagine, only nine years after her release from Blackwell�s Island for killing the killing Mary Bodine�s baby, that murderess is going to live a short four blocks away. Her money, dear cousin, derives from the blood of unborn babies. She is a social climber with neither shame nor taste. She is not the least embarrassed by her blatantly sinful behavior, and she flaunts her money as if she had nothing to hide. How audacious she is. I fear for the worst.

Letter From Mary Mason Jones to her cousin in Paris, dated June 4, 1864.

Dearest Cousin:� I have been so consumed with writing you the news about the War that I have neglected to keep you up to date on other matters. I regret to have to tell you that the nightmare surrounding Madame Restell has, indeed, gotten worse. Although I have long observed that a newly wealthy person often will spend money garishly out of ignorance and insecurity, I have never witnessed such a sickening display of extravagance as the house that Madame Restell has finally constructed.

After she and her husband bought their land, my friends and I waited breathlessly to see when the shameless and scandalous couple would begin construction. Then, in 1862, it happened: workers broke ground on the corner of Fifth Avenue and 52nd Street and the walls of a huge mansion began to rise. Once again, my friends donated a total of $100,000 to try to buy the lots, but Madame Restell and her husband again spurned our offer. The die had been cast. Nothing could keep that couple from living in our midst.

It has taken two years for the mansion to be completed. It is a brownstone of enormous proportions, five stories high and a half a block wide, with stables and gardens adjoining it. A gaudy balustrade separates it from the sidewalk and an equally ostentatious balustrade tops the entire building. At each of its 35 windows hang curtains of tawdry satin and lace and hand -stenciled window shades of vulgar floral design. Each window has a low balcony in front of it. This monstrosity cost $200,000 to build and is obviously designed to catch the eye of every passer-by. Yet to anyone with even a shred of taste, the Madame�s house is a disgusting and distasteful display, a pitiful attempt to trumpet its owners� new wealth. But money never disguises lack of taste, and money will never buy acceptance into our circle.

Waves of nausea overcome me every time my carriage passes the house. And so, irony of ironies, a block from the unfinished cathedral and just across the street from the Catholic Orphan Asylum, the Madame has installed herself.

She staged a grand ball and reception for her �housewarming.� Though we were well aware of her motives�at least I was� many guests came anyway out of sheer curiosity. The night of the ball, I drove by the house and saw carriages flocking to the mansion, its windows ablaze with gaslight. Indeed, a crowd of respectable gentlemen of my acquaintance (I will omit their names in writing but will tell you when next you come to New York) thronged up the steep front stoop. Merchants, brokers, railroad men, physicians, lawyers, and even a few magistrates and legislators had been lured there by Madame�s wealth, charm (some say she can be charming) and notoriety. I noted that some gentlemen even brought their wives!

One acquaintance of mine obliged me with a detailed description of the evening. Madame arrayed herself in a Paris gown of silver brocade. A crown of diamonds topped her dark brown hair, and more diamonds flashed on her fingers and wrists. Brilliants adorned her throat, and heavy clusters of blue-white gems tugged at her earlobes. She received her guests in three sumptuous vast parlors decorated in shades of bronze and gold with yellow satin lining the walls. Beyond these parlors extends a grand marble hall lined with mirrors. Medallions, cornices and Italian frescoes that are rumored to have cost $20,000 apiece adorn the ceilings. The upper floors contain a billiard room and ballroom. The whole house is crammed with paintings, curios, bronzes and statuettes, as well as two life-sized white marble busts of Washington and Franklin, each surmounted by a silken Stars and Stripes!

Madame must have thought her party a relative success. After all, for the immigrant daughter of a poor laborer, for a seamstress turned abortionist, she had managed to obtain a showing of many gentlemen. But, to be honest, relatively few of our set were there�most of the guests belonged to the Tammany Hall crowd.

The Madame now spends every afternoon riding in her carriage, publicly parading her decadence. Heads turn to watch her showy carriage with its four thoroughbred horses�two bays, a chestnut, and a gray--and its liveried coachman. From the inside of our own carriages, we can easily view the Madame, with her dark complexion, dark brown hair, and eyes as black as Satan�s. She appears oblivious to the sensation she provokes by her passing (though we all knew she secretly basks in the attention). Every afternoon the Madame churns the dust of Fifth Avenue in her extended promenade.

Our crowd is in complete agreement: behind the luxurious fa�ade of the mansion there lurks a horror built on horrors. The house seems to cast a deeper shadow than any other house, and its grim doorways and windows exude a sense of chilliness such as comes from opened vaults in graveyards. The showy curtains shut in what I dare not believe nor care to see. I have heard that guests turn pale at the sight of the pure white marble lining the floors of the hallway because the marble reminds them of tombstones. I am sure, dear cousin, that you tremble also at the thought.

Letter from Molly Maguire to her sister in Boston, dated March 10, 1875.

I know you must be wondering why I have not written you in so long. It is because�I am sorry, sister, but I have been keeping a secret from you for several months now� Madame Restell performed an abortion on me. I know you have read about her in the Boston Daily Times and seen her advertisements for Female Monthly pills.

It happened last year, while I was working as a housemaid on Fifth Avenue near 57th Street for Mr._______. One night Mr._______ had his way with me. I couldn�t refuse. If I had, I would have been fired and out on the streets the next morning. But oh! How unlucky I was. Mr.______ had gotten me with child.

When I realized my condition, I wept for a week. What was I going to do? I couldn�t possibly give birth to this child�I would lose my job and we would starve. I thought I would rather die than bring a child into this world, only to have to watch it lead a life as wretched as mine. And you know the shame and embarrassment I would have to face for being pregnant out of wedlock, and the disgrace any poor innocent bastard child must bear. What�s more, I knew I could expect no support from Mr._______ . He had a wife and two children of his own. He is a born and bred Fifth Avenue �gentleman.� He is even the president of Chemical Bank. He fills his dinner parties with the likes of himself who gossip, smoke cigars, play billiards and barely glance at the hired housemaid.

I had to do something about the pregnancy, and soon, before I felt the fetus quicken inside me. Remember when our cousin had her abortion�it was around the time of the Draft Riots, wasn�t it?�she told us that if she had the surgery performed before she felt the baby move, then the abortion would be perfectly legal. Since no one could prove that she was actually pregnant before quickening, she could simply claim that she needed a procedure to remove an obstruction that was blocking her monthlies. I feared the law might have changed since then, but nonetheless I knew I had little time and had to act quickly. So I approached Mr._________ for help. He reacted as I expected: with fear and anger. He told me I had to do something about this or leave his household. He gave me a newspaper clipping, somewhat yellowed with age, and $100.00. The clipping was from the New York Sun; I have it still. It reads:

Madame Restell, Female Physician, office and residence 148 Greenwich Street, between Courtlandt and Liberty St., where she can be consulted with the strictest confidence on complaints incidental to the female frame. Madame Restell�s experience and knowledge in the treatment of cases of female irregularity is such as to require but a few days to effect a perfect cure. Ladies desiring proper medical attendance will be accommodated during such time with private and respectable board.

Mr.______ told me that the entrance to Madame�s office was now just a few blocks south of us at 1 East 52nd Street, but that since the Madame had moved uptown many years ago, abortion laws had become much more restrictive and Madame could no longer advertise her services openly. I had already heard about the Madame before my present circumstances. She is pretty famous around New York City. Many women both rich and poor go to her, though I imagine there are few who admit to it openly. I think rich women go to see her mostly because they do not wish to have large families; and poor women go because they cannot afford to support a child or because they find themselves in situations like mine. I had heard so many ghastly stories about the Madame that I couldn�t help but quiver with fear when I realized that I too had to see this woman. But somehow, I found myself at the doorstep of her office on 1 East 52nd Street with an envelope of money and a small satchel of clothing. I entered the iron gate with the silver sign marked �OFFICE� and descended into a basement hallway. I pulled the silken cord that hung from the ceiling, and almost immediately an attractive young lady opened the door. She introduced herself as Madame�s granddaughter Caroline.

I felt myself still shaking a little as I asked, �Is Madame Restell in?�

�Yes, walk in,� she replied. I noted how carefully she locked the door behind me. She led me into a small, darkened room in the furthest front corner of the basement. I groped my way to the sofa and had just sat down when the Madame herself entered. I thought her appearance handsome though her features were somewhat coarse.

�Well, what can I do for you?� she asked me.

�I hear you help women who are in difficult situations. Can you relieve a lady of a physical difficulty?� I recall asking her.

�That depends upon circumstances,� the Madame answered. I told her my story, trying not to cry but failing. The Madame appeared kind, attentive, and reassuring.

�Don�t worry, my dear, you should have no difficulty. Of course such procedures are expensive now, you know�laws against abortion have become much more restrictive since our fellow New Yorker Mr. Comstock convinced our national government to turn his laughable anti-vice crusade into law. He is an absurdity�a P.T. Barnum of social purity�but much of the public supports him these days. I do not fear him, but we need be cautious. We both risk 20 years in prison �abortion is now a felony, even before quickening. I could be jailed just for keeping my pills and powders here behind my bottles of sherry and port. So lately I perform abortions only rarely. But I see your are in a desperate state�.I will help you for $1,000.00 to cover the danger to me, a low fee considering my risks.� I felt utterly defeated.

�I only have $100.00,� I replied, handing her my crumpled envelope of money .

�This will do,� she said with a kind smile, � but only because I like you�and for forty years I have always adjusted my fee according to what a woman can pay.� Gratitude overwhelmed my entire being. What a self-sacrificing woman, I thought. What was $100.00 to a woman as rich as she; such a sum could never make up for the risk she was taking in breaking the law. She was going to help me just because she believed it was the right thing to do.

The Madame wanted to examine me first, to see how far I was advanced. We went upstairs and she directed me to lie down on the bed. I did so, and for five or ten minutes, she examined me with her hand. It hurt very much, and I groaned, but the Madame soothed me and told me it would only take another minute or two. She then handed me some pills and said that I should start with those; they contained a blend of ergot, oil of tansy, oil of savin, aloes, and black hellebore. She directed me to take one pill three times a day. I followed her instructions for that night, remaining in the upstairs bedroom in her office. Madame told me that if I had any difficulty during the night, I should ring the bell. At 7:00 a.m. she returned and asked how I was doing. I did not feel so well and told her. Madame said that was a normal reaction to the pills, for they were very strong medicine, and she slept with me that night. But I did not feel any better the next day, nor did I start to bleed. Madame told me that we would have to perform an abortion because the pills had not worked.

I will not write you the details of the abortion, for it was not a pleasant experience and I do not want to make you sick with worry or grief; but regardless of the process, Madame tried her best to keep me comfortable. She attended to me for several days after the abortion until my health was restored. On my last morning there, she gave me a kiss, warned me that I mustn�t tell anyone about what went on because we could both go to jail, told me about symptoms that might occur and said that I shouldn�t be worried because they were natural. She even gave me some extra pocket money for cab fare and refreshments. Dear sister, she reminded me of our poor compassionate mother who saved us from starvation during the famine, may she rest in peace.

People may call Madame Restell notorious and infamous, but she saved me from a lifetime of grief. She told me that no patient had ever died under her care, and I well believe her.

Diary entry, Caroline Restell Shannon, March 28, 1878.

It has been two months since Mr. Comstock entrapped and arrested Grandmother. I think his ridiculous Society for the Suppression of Vice was running out of funds and he needed a spectacular arrest to refill his coffers. He came to our office entrance at 1 East 52nd Street. I had seen photographs of him, of course, in the Gazette�an absurd figure, stocky, square-shouldered with a clean-shaven chin and ginger-colored whiskers--but I did not recognize him in his disguise. He requested medication for a friend, something that would prevent conception, and Grandmother gave him a bottle of her powders, a syringe, and instructions. Even though she is 67 years old, she is still forthright and outspoken: She gave him an eloquent lecture, which I am sure he did not expect, on the value of self-determination in matters relating to conception and on the efficacy of her medicines for all women, regardless of their social class. Four days later, Mr. Comstock came to our door once more, this time accompanied by throngs of reporters, officers and deputies. They searched our house, impounded grandmother�s medicine, pills, powders, circulars, syringes, and condoms, and arrested her. Of course Grandmother knew before her arrest that for the past six years it has been illegal in New York to sell articles for causing abortion or for preventing conception.

Almost every day we read an article in the Times about the arrest of yet another abortionist. She knew that she was taking a risk by continuing her practice, even though she had stopped advertising in the newspapers. (She loved to boast that the passage of the Comstock Law saved her $60,000 a year in advertising expenses.) But Grandmother has flaunted her beliefs and defied convention her entire life. She delights in daring the law to convict her for doing what she believes in so passionately.

It has been thirty-one years since Grandmother spent any time in prison. She was convicted then on a misdemeanor�the police had to force poor Mary Bodine into pressing charges. That experience never bothered Grandmother one iota. She still brags about how the warden provided her with a feather bed and her favorite dishes while she was there. She loved the free publicity that the arrest provided her; and when she came home, she was in more demand than ever. She even opened a branch office in Boston.

Women needed her then, and they need her still. She is good at what she does. For a long time, no one has bothered her, and she has become wealthy indeed. But since the Civil War, the tide has slowly turned against abortion and birth control. The spirit of �reform� prevails. Physicians, feminists and anti-feminists hate grandmother. I pray that her strength not abandon her now.

Letter from Mary Mason Jones to her cousin in Paris, dated April 2, 1878.

My dearest cousin:�How fortunate you are to be still living in Paris, far away from the tiresome scandals about Boss Tweed and his shoddy friends which now seem to fill our papers daily. But today I have such excellent news to write. Madame Restell is dead. This morning�s Herald reported that our notorious neighbor committed suicide last night. She slit her throat from ear to ear while in her bathtub. (Since I know how much bloody details upset you, I will save the news clippings for you to read upon your return to New York this summer.) At last, I feel as if a great burden has suddenly been lifted from my shoulders. This pestilence that has plagued our neighborhood for 21 years ago has been eradicated at last.

Madame Restell was neither a stupid nor oblivious person. But, my dearest cousin, I believe that this is just what made her so evil. She was well aware of her notoriety, but she had no sense of shame or propriety. It was almost as if she believed that her display of tasteless extravagance would win us over. She will be missed by no one.

Letter from Molly Maguire to her sister in Boston, dated April 2, 1878.

Dear Sister:�I have just heard news so tragic that I had to take up my pen and write you immediately. Madame Restell has killed herself in a way that makes my stomach churn. I can hardly bear knowing that the opinions and laws of this city today have caused a woman like the Madame to take her own life. She is perhaps one of the few people who have ever shown me genuine kindness in my sad life. I pity other girls like myself who find themselves in similar straits. Now they will have no recourse except to go to that ghoul Thomas Lookup Evans in his dingy back room on Chatham Street. Madame was a fine lady and I will be grateful to her for the rest of my poor life.

Diary entry, Caroline Restell Shannon, April 24, 1878.

Although it has been three weeks since I made the ghastly discovery, my nightmares persist as I imagine they will for the rest of my life. To add to our grief, the National Police Gazette writes that grandmother is still alive and the body I found in her bathtub was actually that of one of her patients. Our carpenter John told the Sun that the corpse in grandmother�s coffin had been stolen from the morgue, and even our old coachman Philip claims to have seen her driving a rig in Albany. Two steamship companies have published passenger lists in the Herald to prove that she was not amongst those sailing! Perhaps it will ease my agitation if I describe here what happened that night and morning of April 1st and 2nd.

On the night before Grandmother�s trial was about to start, she began to act strangely. I had noticed for weeks how tired she seemed from the months of pre-trial ordeals and from her trouble obtaining any bondsman to put up bail for her, but that night I thought she appeared almost deranged. She walked aimlessly through the rooms of her house, plucking randomly at the satin hangings and stroking her beloved statuettes and bronzes and candelabras. She spoke in broken monologues, whispered, started, and wept. On one occasion, stirring as if from sleep, she said to me, �Two o�clock tomorrow�we�ll know then.� My dear husband William heard her say, �If I could only get sick and die,� and more than once, �I wish I were dead, as it would then end all.�

She went to her bedroom two hours earlier than usual that night. I decided to go to bed with her to watch her fall asleep. She started talking to me about her fear that she might be charged with a more serious offense. I reassured her as best I could, and she finally said, �I feel better...but oh! How I dread tomorrow! How shall I ever get through that trial?� I left and dear William watched her until she seemed to find some measure of calm and fell asleep.

At 6:30 Monday morning, I awoke cold with worry about grandmother and the trial. I noticed the door to her bathroom was slightly open and I saw her nightgown lying on a chair just inside the door. Thinking hopefully that she was having her morning bath earlier than usual, I went down to the basement and told the chambermaid, Margaret, to start preparing breakfast. About an hour later, I went back up to see how grandmother was doing. I was surprised to see the clothing still undisturbed on the chair. I knocked on the bathroom door, and upon getting no response, walked in. I could not at first see inside the bathtub because it was cast in shadow by the black walnut folding doors which encased it. But as I stepped closer, I saw blood on the edge of the tub. I quickly flung the folding doors open and there in front of me I beheld the nude body of my beloved Grandmother. Her body was half immersed in water. One arm was at her side and the other, spotted with blood, emerged from the water. Her head was reclining and her throat was slit from ear to ear. I passed out.

Diary Entry, Caroline Restell Shannon, April 24, 1879.

I will give birth shortly, and for my unborn child who will never know her grandmother and who will be subjected to rumors and innuendoes, who will perhaps be asked by her friends what it feels like to live in a house built on top of the bones of a thousand dead babies, I would like to write this so she may read it someday and understand. Your great- grandmother was indeed a bold woman, whom many mistook to be wicked. She banished your grandmother from this house for marrying my stepfather because he was a �man of no pedigree,� but she was extremely kind and generous to your Uncle Charles Jr., your father and me. We lived with her of course, and she lavished much affection upon us and spoiled us greatly.

I helped you great-mother with her business, especially after your great-grandfather Charles died, but I thought the accusations that she was a �wicked woman,� a miserable wretched sinner, were absurd. Rather, I believed she was a complex person of many contradictions. Yes, she was a shrewd businesswoman but also a kind and charitable one. She became the victim of a hypocritical society gone mad with obsession with �vice.� The upper classes and �native� Americans demanded her services more and more and their birth rate consequently declined. �Regular� doctors warned that �the breeding power of the ignorant, the low-lived and the alien would mean the Puritanic blood of �76 will be but sparingly represented in the approaching centenary.� (Grandmother� favorite quote�how she laughed when she read it.)

Your great-grandmother, herself an immigrant, came to New York City with a dream in mind�to prove that a poor woman could move from poverty to affluence, and without depending on a man. She showed that in New York City that dream could become a reality. But she failed to account for the effect that New York society would have on her.

I saw how, time and again, she helped girls in desperate straits, becoming almost a mother to those who had no one to care for them. Yes, she demanded money for her services and became incredibly wealthy, but I never saw her turn any girl away. She lived her life proudly without a sign of the guilt or remorse expected of her by the society she hoped to become a part of. To that society, she must have appeared a sinner who rode her carriage through the streets unscathed by her sinfulness, blas� towards their moral certainties. To them, she represented the breakdown of those values which protected their insular society.

She insisted that if that she freed illicit lovers from the fear of pregnancy, she was glad of it; that if she charged high prices, she ran high risks; that abortion was simply another instance of humanity�s daring to intervene rationally in the processes of nature instead of submitting to them blindly; that if usually illegal, it was sought by thousands of women; that whatever the consequences, she did to her customers exactly what they desired and requested, neither more nor less.

I believe that your great-grandmother was hunted down and reviled in the end not because she broke the law but because, through her ads, her jewels, her carriage, and her brownstone, she flaunted herself until society and the reformers had to remove her. Inconspicuous, she might have survived to the end. That was not her style. Instead, bold as ever, she ignored the new moral tone of the time, her very existence a taunt to savage puritans like Mr. Comstock. Ironically, grandmother never seemed to understand that in the long run society may tolerate discreet offenders, but it strikes down the brazen. Or, perhaps she did, and she did not give a damn.