A Brooklyn Juliet, Part 2: "A Dark Secret"

It was Tuesday, December 13, 1887. The Boston Symphony Orchestra had played the night before, for the first time ever, at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. An English melodrama entitled "A Dark Secret" was playing at the Brooklyn Theatre. It was billed as a "Great Aquatic Spectacle," complete with a real river, real boats and live swans and geese on stage: admission, five cents.

There were advertisements for Christmas presents in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle: Colgate's Cashmere Bouquet perfume, Kennedy's Hats, and silver mounted umbrellas.

Mrs. Lewis Brower of East Meadows was still unconscious: her husband had tried to kill her for not agreeing to remortgage their land (she did not want him to spend the money on his mistress).

There were deaths reported in the newspaper as well, the casualties of old age, accidents, too much anguish to bear. Mrs. John Jacob Astor had just died in Manhattan. A young Quaker named Powell committed suicide at Harvard, because he felt that he could not keep up with his class. There was a diphtheria outbreak in Brooklyn, and over 300 people had died that week alone.

And in the first week of December, Sarah Hicks saw a new doctor, a Dr. Gray, for a consultation. She had been under the care of Dr. William A. Little and "Dr." Rudolph Mielke in the fall of that year; the latter was actually a druggist. Dr. Gray was unable to help her much; her melancholia remained strong, and her family conflict was still unresolved. It must have seemed to her that she could bear it no longer. She would be due back at work in a few weeks; she was to resume her acting career in the middle of the month.

On December 12, she went to the druggist and bought something that - given the prominence of news stories about its dangers - she should not have been able to purchase so easily. It was a poison called Rough On Rats, easily found at drugstores for 15 cents a box; it was rough on any living creature, as it was found to be 90% arsenic. The New York Times reported in 1888 that

...there have been so many suicides from swallowing Rough On Rats lately, that the Kings County Board of Pharmacy made a careful analysis of the compound...[and] notified the 350 druggists in Brooklyn, yesterday, that the preparation must be properly labelled and registered as a poison before it is sold, and the name of every purchaser recorded.

There had been at least 7 cases of suicide by this poison in Brooklyn alone in the first half of 1887; in Manhattan in that year, the lover of Mary Jane Cox was put on trial for her murder, because he had suggested the method of suicide to her, and helped her to obtain the Rough On Rats. In future posts, I will discuss arsenic in more detail, and a few of the cases that I researched in order to put Sarah Hicks in context.

Sarah purchased the Rough on Rats, and divided the box into two portions. She left one portion at her father's house at 298 Raymond Street - a message to him, no doubt. The rest she brought to the Masterson house, 108 Vernon Avenue, and took it. She became very ill, and died during the night.

The following morning, December 13, her body was conveyed to Hopper's, The same morning the inquest was held by Coroner Lindsay. The death was not reported to the police. The first they heard of the matter was when a reporter told them the news that afternoon - after the inquest.

Marion Hicks Masterson testified at the inquest, saying that

[Sarah] had been suffering from melancholia since September last, and was almost insane at times. She was subject to crying spells and was always very sad. During the last three months she often expressed the wish that she was dead and looked about the house for the laudanum...About 3:30 yesterday afternoon she and I were alone in the house. She ran away from me and locked herself in the bathroom. I was not alarmed because I knew she could not harm herself. [How could Marion possibly have known this?] I thought that she had run away in order to frighten me.

This was precisely when Sarah had taken the poison. Marion said she asked if Sarah had taken anything and she said no, but soon started to vomit and show the effects of poisoning; she was dead by 9 pm.

Dr. William A. Little stated that he had attended Sadie Hicks on the night of her death and that she had died of "arsenical poisoning."

Ada Masterson, Marion's mother in law, who lived in the household, said she had known Sarah "for years" and that she had been melancholic for 3 months, "was insane at times and expressed a wish to die."

This was not how Andrew Hicks, Frank Masterson, and John Masterson (his father) wished the inquest to go. They engaged the help of Frederick R. Lee, president of the Young Men's Democratic Club, whose brother Frank was married to Sarah's sister Lina. John Masterson "stated emphatically" that Sarah had died of heart failure, even though she had clearly taken poison; they said that there would be no inquest, though one had already been held. The Eagle added helpfully that Andrew Hicks, Masterson and Lee were trying "to have the matter suppressed...but failed."

The Eagle reported on the same day (the 13th) that Mr. Daniel Kelly, assistant to James M. Hopper, the undertaker, had told the Eagle reporter about Sarah's dividing the box of poison and taking half with her to the Mastersons', where she died. Mr. Hopper, a friend of the family, said that she had threatened suicide "for some months" and had been "a victim of melancholia."

The reporter called upon Sarah's principal at School No. 5 and then went off to interview the Mastersons, at whose house "Mr. Hopper's wagon had just driven up." Frank Masterson met the reporter and said that it was a lie that Sarah had committed suicide, she had died "of heart trouble." He began to argue with the reporter, saying that "somebody has made a great blunder," and that Dr. Little would corroborate this. The Eagle reporter was not impressed with Frank:

Mr. Masterson was still expatiating on the folly of the actions of coroner, clerks and others who made misstatements, when he was called away by an elderly woman [his mother Ada, probably] who had already given him several hints that he was talking too much.

In the end, everyone in Brooklyn knew exactly what had happened, and knew also how hard Andrew and the Mastersons had tried to cover up how poor Sarah Hicks had died. Suicide is so often a dark secret in a family, it is no wonder that they wished for privacy and the means to veil the terrible circumstances of her death. Still, I think it is very telling that Sarah left some of the poison at her father's house in Raymond Street. I think that she wanted people to feel in some subliminal sense that she was like Mary Jane Cox - that a man's malignant influence upon her life had led her from potential happiness in work and with the man she loved, down to the druggist and his deadly, easily procured little boxes.

Sarah Hicks was buried in the family plot at Greenwood Cemetery in Brooklyn on December 15, 1887.

NEWSPAPER SOURCES

"Almost All Arsenic," New York Times, May 26, 1888, p. 8.

"Sought Relief In Death," New York Times, Dec. 14, 1887, p. 2.

"Two Versions of the Death of School Teacher Sarah Hicks," Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Dec. 13, 1887, p. 4.

"Rough On Rats Was What Killed School Teacher Sarah Hicks," Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Dec. 14, 1887, p. 6.

CENSUS

1880 US Federal Census (Population Schedule), Brooklyn, Kings County, New York, dwelling #207, family #315, Andrew J. Hicks household, Roll T9_846, FHL #1254846, p. 449.1000.

1880 US Federal Census (Population Schedule), Brooklyn, Kings County, New York, Dwelling #182, family #270, John A. Masterson household, Roll T9_854, FHL #1254854, p. 409.3000.

Image from the NYPL Digital Gallery, of the northern entrance to Greenwood Cemetery, taken sometime between 1860 and 1885.

Collection Guide:United States in Stereo: In the Robert N. Dennis Collection of Stereoscopic Views; Digital Image ID:G91F176_003F; Digital Record ID:756830; Digital Record Published:4-27-2006; updated 10-3-2007
NYPL Call Number:MFY Dennis Coll 91-F176