A victorian tragedy: The strange deaths of Mayor Carter H. Harrison and Patrick Eugene Prendergast

Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society, Spring 2003 by Morton, Richard Allen

(ProQuest Information and Learning: ... denotes text stops here in original.)

In late 1893, at the moment of the city's and his own greatest triumph, Chicago Mayor Carter Henry Harrison was murdered in his own front hall. The event shocked the country, as had the assassination of President James Garfield just twelve years before. His killer, it emerged, was motivated by a combination of delusion, ambition, and political idealism. His trials, the second of which was dominated by a young Clarence Darrow, raised issues of justice, sanity, responsibility, and punishment that spoke not just of their time and place, but remain unresolved. Largely forgotten today, this episode was for decades seen as a major event in American history, and it stands yet as an important chapter in the chronicle of Chicago and the nation during the late nineteenth century.

When he arrived home at 5:00 PM on the afternoon of 28 Saturday October 1893, Carter H. Harrison had every reason to be content and happy. He was a man who had extracted from life virtually every possible reward. The most successful political figure in the city's history, he was serving his fifth term as chief executive (1879, 1881, 1883, 1885, 1893). His stature was such that the local political culture could be reasonably defined purely in terms of his supporters and opponents, and there were those who saw in him a future president.1 Besides his unprecedented achievements as a political figure, Harrison was also an affluent businessman, and he owned a number of enterprises including The Chicago Times. He was now a millionaire, a fact confirmed by the opulence of his Italianate mansion at 231 Ashland Boulevard (on the corner of Jackson Boulevard) into which he entered. Moreover, he was a man in love. In the course of the last year he had met, wooed, and become engaged to Annie Hall, a close friend of the wife of his youngest son, William Preston Harrison. Originally from New Orleans, Miss Hall was said to have "a charming disposition," and to be "brilliant, unselfish, and of an amiable manner." The twenty-five-year-old young woman also had a personal fortune estimated to be over three million dollars. The sixty-two-year-old Harrison was understandably enamored, and had just that week purchased for his fiancee a necklace worth four thousand dollars (in an era when a workingman's yearly salary was less than a quarter of that). The wedding was set for 16 November, and it was to have been his third marriage.2 On this day, Harrison also had had the special gratification of being the "world's fair mayor." Since the first of May, one of the greatest fairs in history, the World's Columbian Exposition, had been drawing millions of visitors and international attention to the Windy City and its triumphal closing was just a day away. The mayor had begun his morning with a speech there extolling the virtues of Chicago to visiting city officials from all over the United States. Afterwards he spent his time touring the exhibits and doing a little politicking among the crowds.3

The mayor came home tired from being on his feet for so long, but also according to William Preston Harrison, who arrived shortly after his father for dinner and to discuss a potential article for The Times, "in rare good spirits." At about 6:00 PM, the two, together with Miss Sophie Harrison, the mayor's youngest daughter, sat down to a hearty dinner. The atmosphere was convivial and Harrison continued after the meal to regale his children with amusing stories of the day's experiences, and to discuss newspaper business with William. Somewhere near 7:45 PM the conversation petered out and the mayor dozed off in his chair. Preston and Sophie went upstairs to their respective rooms, while the elder Harrison napped.4

Meanwhile at the Kinzie Street branch of the Young Men's Christian Association, a pale figure for whom life had been far less rewarding prepared to leave his room. His day so far had been rather ordinary and had been largely given over to his job as a newspaper distributor. However, he was a man with a mission and it was shortly to become the most significant of his life. When he stepped out into the street, he had a five-shot 38-caliber pistol in his pocket that he had purchased (for four dollars in mostly borrowed money) the day before from a shoemaker on Milwaukee Avenue.5

At about 8:00 PM, a knock was heard on the front door of the Harrison mansion. Answering was the parlor maid, Mary Hanson. On the doorstep stood the young man, later confirmed to be twenty-five years old, of slight build, and of reasonably respectable manner and dress. He asked to see the mayor. Mary, who "fancied" she recognized him, inquired after his identity. He replied: "A city official." There were standing orders in the house that no one was to be turned away so the young man was admitted and Harrison was informed. He rose and moved through a door in the dining room that led directly into the front hall.6

As he entered, the visitor without a word opened fire four times in quick succession with his pistol.7 Each bullet struck the mayor. The first entered the top of his left hand, exiting through the palm. The second pierced Harrison's abdomen "about five inches above the navel" to lodge in his intestine. The third created a wound about three inches to the right and below his right nipple, and the fourth, fired while the mayor was apparently on the ground and writhing, was found to be just below the rear of the right shoulder with the bullet moving down four inches beneath the skin.8