“Midnight prowlers and back-fence howlers enjoyed a lacteal orgy yesterday morning at the expense of William Evans, 250 Herkimer Street, whose milk wagon was struck by a Bergen Street trolley car.” New York Sun, June 30, 1907
When I discovered this Brooklyn cat story while doing research for my story about political cats Lem and Tiger, I couldn’t stop smiling. The story was so colorfully written! And the history of the old Bedford Corners is fascinating, too.
I realized I would have to share most of the old news article word-for-word so that my readers could enjoy it as much as I did. I could not do it justice by paraphrasing the Brooklyn Daily Eagle reporter.
The story is rather long (almost two full columns of newsprint), so I’m going to break it up into two parts. I’ll incorporate a brief history of Bedford Corners into both sections to set the scene and provide additional information for those who are interested in exploring the history of the neighborhood in which this fabulous feline story took place.
The tiger was the symbol of the Tammany Hall political machine in New York City
On October 20, 1898–the day the Republican candidate for Congress in New York City’s Fourteenth District opened his headquarters at 263 West 125th Street–many of his supporters thought it was a foregone conclusion that he would defeat the Tammany Hall candidate in the November election. The reason they thought the Republican incumbent had the election in the bag? A large black cat had walked in and taken possession of the Republican headquarters as soon as it opened to the public.
The night before the police had to break down the door to his room at 139 Forsysth Street and shoo about two dozen cats off his bed, 63-year-old Adolph F. Armreid said to his landlord, “I think I am going to die tonight.”
A few hours after the police chased the cats away, the neighbors began spreading rumors that the felines had been eating the flesh of the dead man when the police arrived. The rumors spread faster than a funny cat video goes viral on the Internet today.
The New York Times ran with the story. The New York Sun and the Evening Telegram sent a reporter to interview the landlord of 139 Forsyth Street, who told a very different story.
Cozey Bell was the beloved Skye terrier of Mrs. Mary A. Bell (this is not actually Cozey). His much publicized burial at Woodlawn Cemetery resulted in tremendous public outcry.
On September 26, 2016, Governor Andrew Cuomo signed legislation giving non-for-profit cemeteries the option to honor the last wishes of New Yorkers who want to be buried with their pets. The law allows pet owners to inter the cremated remains of their pets alongside them—provided they obtain the cemetery’s written consent (religious cemeteries are exempt). The legislation also gives New York residents an alternative to pet cemeteries or backyard burial grounds.
No Proper Burial Options for Pets
Now step back in time to the 19th century and earlier, when the only option for New York City pet owners without the means to pay for a country burial was to toss their deceased pets into the rivers or street gutters. Horse-cart drivers employed with the New York Rendering Company would take the dead animals to the city’s offal dock on the Hudson River at the foot of 38th Street.
There, along with the carcasses of horses, cows, hogs, and other livestock, pet dogs and cats would be skinned and boiled into minced meat and fertilizer, or simply carted off with the city refuse to Barren Island.
Dead animals were taken to the city’s offal dock, at the foot of West 38th Street. The dock was located at Pier 78 of the Pennsylvania Railroad, pictured here in 1931 with a flock of sheep. New York Public Library Digital Collections
For those New Yorkers who owned country estates outside of the city confines, private backyard burials were common. Some prominent residents also buried the family pet in the family plot, much to the dismay of the other plot owners.
For example, Gypsie, a black and white Newfoundland owned by Brooklyn artist Lemuel Wilmarth, was buried in Brooklyn’s Green-Wood Cemetery in 1879. Fannie, a pure-bred Pug of nondescript color owned by Elias Howe, inventor of the sewing machine (no, it wasn’t Singer), was also interred at Green-Wood Cemetery in 1881.
Fannie Howe’s monument at Green-Wood Cemetery is engraved with a few lines of the poem Flight, written by Miss M.A. Collins, a 19th-century author and tobacco plantation owner from Tennessee. The poem first appeared in the Saturday Evening Post around 1876.
Then there was Mary A. Lawrence Bell, who tried to bury Cozey Bell, a female Skye terrier, at Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx in 1888. This is their story.
Fanny Jane McAdam–aka Jane McAdam, Mary Jane McAdam, and Henrietta Snowden–had a reputation on the Lower East Side. Her neighbors in the three-story brick boarding house at 101 East Broadway called her a witch for her angry outbursts and physical attacks on them. The police knew the slender, tall lady (she was over six feet tall) as a problematic woman with a long rap sheet for disorderly conduct.
Her two dogs—Spitz and Flora—and nine cats knew her as the lady who took care of them and bejeweled them with coin-laden leather collars. They trusted her to feed them and provide water every day. That’s why she was determined to ensure their care when she was sentenced to prison for six months in February 1879.
Jane McAdam’s neighbors at 101 East Broadway called her a witch for her long, dirty nails and jet-black hair; her angry outbursts; and her physical assaults against anyone who disagreed with her or tried to harm her pets. New York Times, February 27, 1879 Read the rest of this entry »
