The Peekskill Murder, Part Two: "The Story Of An Unhappy Home"

The Betts case is so full of details and statements from various people, that it is difficult (though necessary) to try and compress the relevant information as much as possible. In Part Two, I will give you an overview of the Betts marriage and Delia's relationship with Charles Blish: the prelude to that terrible day in the Eagle Hotel in November 1891.

Benjamin T. Carman, Mrs. Betts' father, was an oil merchant who had lived at 40 New York Avenue, Brooklyn for many years. He had plenty to say about his son-in-law Henry, and about his daughter Cordelia, too. Carman thought they had been married in 1873 (he wasn't sure) when Delia was only 16 years old (according to her passport application, she was born in 1855, and was 18).

They were indeed married in that year, on September 23rd in Brooklyn. After nine children and several moves (three in Brooklyn, then a move upstate and a move back to Manhattan), their "final breakup" was in 1886. Benjamin Carman remarked, a little coarsely perhaps, that "a woman could not be doing very wrong who bore her husband nine children in nine years."

Carman was quite candid with the Eagle reporter and told him just about every detail that he knew about the Betts' married life, including their various addresses, money issues, and marital problems. I will spare you most of this, but here are a few highlights:

- Betts was the spouse who was unfaithful, not Delia. Delia and Henry were merely friends with Blish and nothing more, "though [Blish was] in social position far below my daughter." (Not below Henry, though!)

- Betts never paid for his children's education and upbringing; Delia did.

- Betts abandoned the family in Manhattan, leaving Delia stuck with a year's lease on a house.

- Henry was violent. "He would rave and break the chairs" when he did not get his own way. Delia "was obliged to have a policeman in the house three nights."

- He spent all his money on races and women. "Betts was an extravagant fellow. The best was not too good for him."

But Benjamin did not know that his daughter was travelling with Charles Blish in the spring of 1889. She had taken her five children abroad, ostensibly to regain her "broken health" after a difficult time with Henry. But Charles Blish was not only staying in the same London hotel as the Betts party, but he and Delia applied for passports on the same day.

The emergency passports were issued on April 16, 1889 in London, England. Application #782 was Charles, and #783 was Delia. They were both staying at the Midland Grand Hotel; Charles was alone, Delia was travelling with her five children. They were listed in her application as Charles C. (age 13), Viola C. (age 12), Willie L. (age 11), Edith (age 10) and Mabel (age 6). (We will be meeting Charles C. again in Part Three, once when he attempts to visit his father in jail, and then ten years after that, in 1901, when the tragedy in question will be all his own).

The Betts and Blish parties were planning to travel "on the Continent" for "a few months," and that is indeed what they did. Upon their return to the U.S., Charles purchased the Eagle Hotel in Peekskill, a town in Westchester County, New York. Delia frequently joined him there, and they drove out together openly. This upset the women lodging at the hotel very much. The townspeople were also taking note of Mrs. Betts' comings and goings - and the load of fancy furniture she had sent up from New York. They didn't much like the furniture, or Mr. Blish and his paramour either.

By 1891, at the time of the murder, Mrs. Betts was not in Peekskill - but in Yankton, South Dakota seeking a divorce. Yankton was something like Reno, Nevada was in the 1940s and 1950s - a "divorce colony," as the former was called in the 1890s.

* * * * *

Henry Betts, for his part, was described as both the nicest of gentlemen, and a peculiar, erratic person apt to turn violent at any time. His friend, the splendidly-named Slates D. Tompkins said that Henry

was one of the most straightforward and honest men I ever met. I know that he has the sympathy of the best people in his neighborhood. He was always quiet [and] gentlemanly in manner...He had spells when he was greatly depressed and worried...and perhaps brusque and rather gruff at times. [But] he adored his wife, and was never tired of praising her virtues...He was not a man who in his right mind would have committed murder. On the contrary, he was rather timid and used often, after reading accounts of murders, to say he did not see how men could do such things.

It is curious though that he was reading so many accounts of murders. And indeed, every description of Henry, whether negative or positive, does not fail to include at least hints of a truly dark and unsettling side.

On Monday, in Part Three, the conclusion of the story: the murder, the aftermath, and what happened to the Betts' eldest son, Charles.

[Note, of tangential, genealogical interest: In Part One, I mentioned a mystery concerning Cordelia (Carman) Betts' true identity. Her father, while speaking to the Eagle, vehemently denied the rumor that she was not his daughter. However, she declares in her passport application that she was born in Philadelphia on February 1, 1855. And she is not listed in the Benjamin T. Carman household in the 1860 census. Benjamin was age 35, had an "Oil Store," and was living in Brooklyn with his wife "Adelia" age 26, and his parents Benjamin and Melinda Carman (aged 70 and 65 respectively). "Adelia" is called "Caroline" in the 1870 census, and "Cordelia" in the 1900 census.

Cordelia Betts is recorded in various records (census, birth records of her children, and the newspapers) as: Dell, Carrie, Delia, Cornelia, Cordelia E., Cordelia Ella, and Ella. My tentative working theory is that she was the daughter of Adelia/Cordelia, but not of Benjamin. She may have been illegitimate. She was possibly living with relatives in Pennsylvania - or even in New York - in 1860. I have a possible lead on her identity through a will in which her mother, the elder Cordelia, is named as a cousin of the testator.]

Image from NYPL Digital Gallery.