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A Ripperologist Article
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This article originally appeared in Ripperologist No. 64, February 2006. Ripperologist is the most respected Ripper periodical on the market and has garnered our highest recommendation for serious students of the case. For more information, view our Ripperologist page. Our thanks to the editor of Ripperologist for permission to reprint this article.
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The Canterbury Encore: The Further Adventures of Dr. Tumblety
JOE CHETCUTI
Before Ellis Island opened in 1892, Castle Garden was
New York’s processing center for international
travelers. Located on the southern tip of Manhattan,
this active port would become part of the Ripper World
on 2 December 1888. Detectives Crowley and Hickey were occupying their assigned posts at a Castle Garden dock on this late autumn Sunday.
Chief Inspector Thomas Byrnes had stationed the duo
there and instructed them to await the docking of a
French vessel. As the steamship’s 1:30pm arrival time
drew near, a crowd of New Yorkers gathered alongside
the two detectives in anticipation of a successful transatlantic journey by the La Bretagne. Amongst the crowd were New York World and New York Herald reporters who were just as determined as Crowley and Hickey were to observe a particular passenger make his walk down the gangplank.
This fugitive not only disowned his name when he
boarded at Le Havre, France, but he also hid inside
his cabin throughout the eight-night voyage to
America. For the previous two weeks many news stories
were printed about him in American papers, and it was
widely known that his return to the United States was
imminent. Those who waited to witness his
disembarkment needed only to have brought the morning
paper to read of the man’s odd behavior. The New York
World had printed a large story about Dr Francis
Tumblety that day. As the crowd viewed the approach of
the French steamship, one would imagine that the
dockside chatter must have been quite lively. The
reporters certainly had numerous questions that needed
to be addressed to Tumblety, and the subject wouldn’t
have been confined to the Whitechapel murders. There
were many items in the morning paper which surely
deserved a response from the bail jumping doctor.
The article had portrayed him as a former teen peddler
of porn material; a misogynist who had once owned a
collection of uteri; a former publicity-seeker who had purposely brought upon his own 1865 arrest for a germ warfare plot; and an impostor who tried to pass himself off as a surgeon in the Union Army. Yet, there was still one other matter that appeared in that article which has received very little attention. It concerned Dr Tumblety’s theatrical performance in Washington DC. I’ll attempt to shed more light on this 1862 exhibition and relate it to the memorable activities which occurred shortly after the 2 December 1888 arrival of the La Bretagne in New York.
The Canterbury Music Hall was initially named the
Washington Assembly Rooms. During the 1861 Christmas
season and throughout that upcoming winter, it was
called the Canterbury Music Hall. When this photograph
was taken in 1865, the place was known as the
Canterbury Theater. Its location was always Louisiana
Avenue, near the corner of 6th Street, in close
proximity to the National Hotel.
The proprietor of the Canterbury Music Hall was Mr
George Percival, a man who wanted the doors of his
theater opened to the public every night. He developed
his building into a concert saloon that embraced
music, dances, and farces in the traditional burlesque
fashion. Though he billed his performers as being
amongst ‘the first talent in America’, his theater
could not be considered a first class venue. Admission
into his music hall was no more than a dime, and the
saloon atmosphere attracted Union Army personnel who
were in need of some alcoholic relief from the Civil
War.It appeared that Dr Tumblety was associated with
as many as three different theatrical performances
during this period. A Tony Pastor song entitled The Carte-de-Visite Album had briefly mentioned the doctor in its lyrics. It’s unknown what Tumblety’s reaction was to this, but the song portrayed him in unison with an illegal abortion matter. George Percival had advertised a performance of ‘Tumblety Undone’ in the 4 December 1861 Washington DC Evening Star. Unlike in the Tony Pastor song, Tumblety’s name received solitary billing for this act.
Our attention, though, will be focused on a Tumblety
skit that was performed on the Canterbury Music Hall’s
stage in March 1862: Dr Tumblety’s First Patient. The
St Thomas Weekly Dispatch of Ontario, Canada, labeled
it a hilarious farce. At 10pm, a character that looked
exactly like Tumblety would strut around the
Canterbury stage followed by an obedient dog. A singer
would comically bellow out a ridiculous song to
embellish the performance. This act was repeated on
numerous occasions, so it seemed to be well received
by the audiences. The 20 March 1862 St Thomas Weekly
Dispatch reported that Dr Tumblety had been doing a
thriving business in Washington DC for ‘the past six
to eight months,’ so the quack was well-known to the
locals. Tumblety’s medical office on Pennsylvania
Avenue was not far at all from here, and the Haymarket
pictured next to the Canterbury Theater - was one of
the more active places in the city. Dr Tumblety’s
First Patient took advantage of the doctor’s notoriety
and was performed in an ideal location.The story was
told that during the first week of March 1862 Tumblety approached Union military officers to complain that he was being impersonated at the Canterbury Music Hall. The doctor accused Mr Percival of being responsible for this shameful burlesque. The military officers would view the performance for themselves on Friday night, 7 March, and upon witnessing the event they were unanimously convinced that the quack was up to one of his ploys. They felt it was Tumblety who was oddly impersonating himself during the bit, and they reported this to their Lieutenant-Colonel who in turn approached Tumblety the very next day. The charlatan appeared hurt by the Lieutenant-Colonel’s allegation and promptly filed a lawsuit against Percival. A local newspaper reported:
On Saturday afternoon (8 March) a charge of libel was
preferred before Justice Johnson, by Dr Francis
Tumblety, against Mr George Percival the proprietor of
the Canterbury Music Hall. Dr Tumblety charges that
George Percival did on the 7th instant, and on divers
other occasions, utter and publish a false and
malicious libel, to the great injury and detriment to
his reputation as an authorized physician.
The military officers considered this a bogus lawsuit
and assumed Tumblety was only seeking more notoriety.
The St Thomas Weekly Dispatch was in agreement with
this assessment for they assuredly reported:It will be
strange if the present lawsuit does not result in its
being, as the slang phrase has it, ‘played out.’ It
looked like Tumblety tried to pull a fast one and got
detected. Regardless, this was a cunning doctor who
had injected himself into military matters inside the
nation’s capital during a major war. He was a person
to be leery of, and he penetrated many military
boundaries. He wore military attire and circulated
lies that he was affiliated with General McClellan.
Tumblety had even been spotted daringly following
McClellan’s staff on horseback. The quack intruded
upon the New York Infantry’s 13th Regiment at Fort
Corcoran, Virginia, and was later accused of selling
fraudulent military discharge papers to young Union
soldiers. The military officers had enough of an
interest in him to view another performance of Dr
Tumblety’s First Patient during the second week of
March 1862.
They were in a position to expose Tumblety and really
ruin his reputation that evening. The New York World’s
2 December 1888 story was building up towards a very interesting crescendo.The scene was set that night in the Canterbury Music Hall as the 10pm hour approached and the audience waited in anticipation of an amusement. Newspapers had publicized the filing of the libel lawsuit, and the boozed up crowd was going to determine for themselves if they were viewing an impostor or a sly crank. Tumblety had initiated contact with the military officers, but these men were determined to call his bluff and trap this annoying pest on his own stage. The music played, the dog was released, and Tumblety strutted forth in front of the watchful patrons at the appointed time. Within seconds, Tumblety’s trump card would be played. From the crowd sprung Tumblety’s paid lackey. The angry, well-built young man instantly recited the lines which the quack probably had rehearsed him on:Dr Tumblety is my friend! I won’t see him insulted by an effigy such as you are!After a few more moments of this treatment, the effigy ran away, never to return to a stage again. No further word was heard about the ‘lawsuit’ either.The disrespectful ‘impostor’ was vanquished, and all that remained was Tumblety’s saved reputation. The clever shyster had beaten the military officers to the punch and left them holding the bag.
The trickster had drawn these men inside the theater
just so he could teasingly slip away and burn them.
The triumphant protection of his name was all that
Tumblety left behind. The conniving doctor must have
been in cahoots with Percival who probably enjoyed the publicity his theater received. It was an elaborate scheme which involved news articles and a court appearance. It’s hard to define a motive for all of this other than Tumblety fulfilling his desire to antagonize the military while having his persona publicly defended. Just when you think you’ve got the scoundrel trapped, he turns the tables on you as he planned all along.That was the story that Sandford Conover told to the New York World. Was it real? Conover had a reputation for tinkering with the truth.
There are a number of facts from this story that can
be verified, but the climactic scene can’t be
confirmed by anyone other than Conover himself. Just
like in his ‘uteri jars’ account, Conover suspiciously
failed to reveal the names of the military associates
who witnessed these events with him. The final scene
in the music hall deserves to be doubted, yet the
moral of the story strangely held its own weight.
Tumblety’s manipulative behavior was accurately
depicted.The French steamship anchored at her pier and permission was granted for the travelers to go ashore. Byrnes’s two best men scrutinized the passengers as they walked by. Finally, they spotted their prey scurrying across the deck of the La Bretagne. Tumblety was attired in a blue Ulster as he abruptly descended the gangplank right past the two detectives and the news reporters. If a question was asked of him, it received no reply. Despite checking in four bags at Le Havre, Tumblety had just one small steamer trunk placed into a horse-drawn cab. He may never have separated himself from this trunk during the eight-night confinement inside his cabin.Crowley and Hickey along with the news reporters tailed Tumblety to 79 East 10th Street. At 2:20pm, Tumblety entered into the residence and wouldn’t come out.
The New York World’s headlines spoke of the commotion
that was created outside the place:
TUMBLETY IS IN THIS CITY. HE ARRIVED SUNDAY UNDER A
FALSE NAME FROM FRANCE. A Big English Detective Is
Watching Him Closely, and a Crowd of Curious People
Gaze at the House He Lives In. - Inspector Byrnes’s
Men Have Been On His Track Since He Landed.
Mrs McNamara, who owned the property, found it
difficult to defend her tenant. On Monday, 3 December,
she told the press that Tumblety had spent Sunday
night in his room but deceived them by claiming he had
now gone out to retrieve his other luggage. She told
the New York Herald that Tumblety ‘would not harm a
child’, but this was getting her nowhere.
The New York World reported that the bells on her
front door were merrily jingling all day with people
asking for Tumblety. McNamara’s fibs worsened when she
claimed that the doctor had not returned from Europe
and then consistently clung to her final lie by
declaring that she didn’t even know who Tumblety was.
The only role she would now play would be similar to
Mr Percival’s role: A quiet owner of a property that
had gotten publicity due to the antics of a mysterious physician.An English detective was stationed outside McNamara’s property late on Monday evening and was stirred into excitement when a man entered the basement at No. 79. Why this got reported in the New York World is unclear, but I feel that Tumblety got word out from his East 10th Street nest sometime on 3 December. The inventive quack would put his plan into action the next day.
The scene was intensifying on Tuesday, 4 December, as
more New Yorkers were informed of the happenings at
East 10th Street by the New York World. To fuel the
flames, the English detective had talked freely about
Tumblety being Jack the Ripper at the corner bar, and
the news reporters were questioning the neighborhood’s merchants. Just like the Canterbury audience had waited for Tumblety to exit his dressing room and appear before them 26 years prior, the crowd outside the McNamara house was anxious to view a Tumblety-event as well. Both those audiences had been filled with gossip talk, and they each contained men amongst them who could have made life miserable for the much publicized doctor. There was no subtlety when Tumblety’s plan went into effect. Arriving on the scene was an athletic-looking young man who called upon No. 79. After announcing his arrival to McNamara, he turned toward the press and crowd. His rehearsed lines were peculiarly familiar: ‘All I have I owe to the doctor, and I think he is the best friend I ever had.’
Instantly, Conover’s Canterbury account went from
being doubtfully reminiscent to eerily foretelling.
The young man, Martin McGarry, would paint a good
picture of Tumblety. He told how the doctor provided
him with employment in the past and spoke of
Tumblety’s letters of commendation from General Grant.
He announced how Tumblety had taken him to the Morton
Theater House and described all about their wide range
travels together. McGarry’s words of praise would get printed.All that remained now was for Tumblety to exit the stage as he was said to have done a quarter of a century before. He accomplished this the very next morning, Wednesday, 5 December. The escape artist was detected leaving his dwelling just before boarding a nearby trolley car which took him uptown. The persistent New York World reporter would soon slip through McNamara’s front door and get inside Tumblety’s room, but all the phantom had left behind were a pair of boots and his defended reputation.
The Canterbury Encore was completed. The press, the authorities, and the crowd were left short changed again. Tumblety played them like a fiddle just as he had done in 1862.Martin McGarry was a bit of a shady one himself. He revealed his business address to the press during his Tumblety-speech and purposely referred to the doctor as ‘Thomas.’ I believe the New York World reporter went to McGarry’s business address on East Broadway sometime during Wednesday, 5 December. At this point, McGarry may have provided a false lead.
The Thursday, 6 December New York World had referred
to Tumblety as ‘Thomas’ and declared that they had
contacted ‘people who had known Tumblety best.’ The
tip which the reporter ascertained from this enquiry
was that Tumblety had gone off to live in a quiet
country town. It sure appeared that the New York World swallowed all of the bait McGarry had dangled in front of them. McGarry may have protected Tumblety by intentionally steering people in the wrong direction with this ‘quiet country town’ tip. The truth was that the doctor would eventually be detected hiding out in Brooklyn.East 10th Street and the Canterbury Music Hall.
Two stories with similar patterns. One we know was
real, while the other seemed partly apparitional. Yet,
the Canterbury’s final scene almost materialized into
something legitimate when it stood beside the East
10th Street account. What can be learned from this? I
think there are lessons to be remembered which are
common to both stories.
Dr Tumblety was at his best when the pressure was
turned on. He didn’t lose his head, and his well
planned schemes usually freed him from danger while
his enemies suffered embarrassing defeats. He didn’t
put himself into situations he didn’t know how to get
out of. We can see by these two accounts how crowds
were lured to a venue and dispersed after listening to
a verbal Tumblety-tribute. So the doctor seemed to
achieve his vain goals regardless of how strange they
were. He was a man who would boldly interact with his
enemies and victims and know the precise time to
depart from the scene with a victory. Elusive, daring,
and deceptive.
Whether he instigated trouble or was forced to face
trouble, the trickster didn’t fear being targeted
because he knew how to win.
Acknowledgements
I thank Timothy Riordan for information on Tumblety’s
four bags at Le Havre and Mr Riordan and Jeff
Bloomfield for Tony Pastor song research.
Sources
Chetcuti, Joe: The Price of False Freedom: Dr Tumblety
and the American Civil War, Ripperologist 57, January
2005; Evans, Stewart P and Paul Gainey: Jack the
Ripper: First American Serial Killer, New York:
Kodansha, 1996; New York Herald, 4 December 1888; New
York Times, 4 December 1888; New York World, 2, 4, 5,
6 December 1888; Rochester Daily Union, 5 April 1881;
St Thomas Weekly Dispatch, 20 March 1862; Washington
Evening Star, 4 December 1861.
