“It Was Born in Me,” But Who Was He?

Can we have more detail here?

When Henry Dorwart was arrested for sodomy in May 1889, the word “homosexual” was still three years away from being introduced into English. Yet, it seems that there were some people who were already getting the idea that sexuality was something innate. Even the (now outmoded) term “sexual invert” was only a few years old (and probably hadn’t come to the attention of those who were not in medicine), but still, Henry Dorwart was able to explain what he had done by saying “it was born in me.”

Dorwart was preceded in this by Joseph Carp of St. Paul, Minnesota. In 1883, Carp stated that his “excessive passions were unlike those of other men.” Unlike Dorwart, Carp was given the column inches to make this clear: “He loved his own sex with strong passions” (to quote the St. Paul Daily Globe). The Lancaster Daily Intelligencer didn’t give Dorwart more than the five words, so we don’t even know what happened (but given only one arrest mentioned, we can make a guess or two).

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Sodomy Counts — How do 19 people vote 17 to 4?

Did math work differently in 1885?

An item in the Perrysburg Journal of May 8, 1885 covers the recent activity in the state senate. The bill in question, set the penalty for sodomy for twenty years. This bill was introduced in the Ohio Senate by George H. Ely. One online biography of Ely notes (approvingly) that his service as a state senator was largely expended the interest of the iron ore industry, which was not only a concern of his district, but also a personal concern, as his brother had made “large investments in iron ore lands.”

I’m a little late on this, because while the Journal didn’t pick up on this story until May 8, 1885, the Wellington Enterprise reported on the passage of the bill on May 6, and the bill itself was passed on April 27. (The Springfield Globe-Republic reported on May 5 that the House had also passed the bill.) There’s something odd about the reports of the Senate vote.

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Minister Neither Socialist Nor Sodomite

Very serious

On January 23, 1903, the Daily Ardmoreite, of Ardmore, Oklahoma, reported that Reverend J. K. Smith had been arrested on a charge of sodomy. Reverend Smith was a twenty-eight-year old unmarried Baptist preacher, whose family had moved from Georgia to the Indian Territory (now eastern Oklahoma) some years before. (His brother, Joseph, had been born in Georgia in about 1893, so clearly the family was still there at the time.)

This would seem to be something of a family business, since his father, John A. Smith, was also a minister (in the 1910 Census under “Industry,” the elder Smith’s entry reads “church,” while his son’s reads “Baptist church”). The Daily Ardmoreite described the matter as “a serious charge,” which is putting things mildly.

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The Gay Blackmail Confession

Scandal!

The Cleveland Street Scandal, in which a male brothel was found to have been operating on Cleveland Street in London (hence the name) was the one of the precursors to the Oscar Wilde trial. The scandal in 1889 allegedly involved aristocrats who had had sex with male prostitutes, much of this was hushed up. Things were much more explicit (though tame by our standards) when in 1895, Oscar Wilde was tried on a charges of having sex with other men.

As Wikipedia points out,[1] Charles Hammond, the brothel keeper, managed to flee the country. Wikipedia doesn’t say where, but on January 8, 1891, two years after the scandal, the Los Angeles Herald reported that Hammond was arrested in Seattle. He had been accompanied by one of the young men, Herbert John Ames, who had been working at the house from June of 1888 until its closure in 1889. To make it clear, he was about sixteen when he started turning tricks.[2]

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The Cabin Boys and the Sodomite Master

Mr. Sowle was not the
cabin boys' favorite

Sure, we know the jokes about the function of cabin boys on nineteenth-century ships. Their official function was to wait on the officers of the ship, but it’s clear from eighteenth-century and nineteetn-century records that some cabin boys were expected to provide sexual favors, willing or no. All in all, I’d rather look at documents that hint at early gay love, but this is one case where the situation is a clear case of a young men being raped. Jonathan Ned Katz does mention this case in his book Love Stories; Sex Between Men before Homosexuality, but he makes it clear this is not a love story.

The law cases of Manuel Enos vs. N. W. Sowle and Manuel Viera vs. N. W. Sowle came up as a question of admiralty law in the Hawaii Supreme Court, with the decision published in the Pacific Commercial Advertiser of December 20, 1860. At this time, Hawaii was nearly a century away from becoming the fiftieth state; it wasn’t even part of the United States at that point, since it hadn’t even been annexed by the U.S. This is a case of the Kingdom of Hawaii, and the main issue that had to be decided by the Hawaii Supreme Court was whether the court had any jurisdiction.

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William Reno Escapes Imprisonment for Sodomy — Eventually

"We charged him on the wrong thing"
isn't actually a technicality

It seems that William Reno was already known to the police when he was arrested on December 7, 1910. In 1908, he plead guilty to assault with a deadly weapon and was sentenced from six months to two years imprisonment. The East Oregonian said that Reno “shot a companion named Goodell about three weeks ago as the outcome of a drunken spree.” But he wasn’t just a fighter. Most of the articles on him, are of a quite different nature.

His 1910 arrest didn’t involve any weapons, as far as we can tell from the news reports. Instead, he was arrested for sodomy.[1] The article seems to be inaccurate on several counts, one of which is in describing the other person involved as a “boy,” which strikes me as a little inaccurate for an eighteen-year-old.[2] I don’t know if Oregon had a different age of consent in 1910, but but I think we can be certain that it was no lower than 18 (which it is now). In 1910, no one could legally consent to gay sex, still the East Oregonian’s use of the word “pederasty” seems somewhat misapplied.

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The Lawyer, the Rug Merchant, and the Sodomy Charge

With whom did Benny attempt this?

Articles about sodomy charges in early-twentieth century newspapers tend to be a bit on the opaque side, often not disclosing the name of the other individual involved. Since at the time, opposite-sex couples could be, and were, charged with sodomy, sometimes it’s not clear whether or not the report of transgressive sex is a matter of early (and somewhat hidden) gay history. In this case, I have the suspicion that there’s a bit of gay history underneath it all.

In 1910, Benjamin A. Younkers was a lawyer in Des Moines, Iowa. He was thirty-five years old, married, and though native born, the son of immigrant parents. Martin J. Loftus was a rug salesman in Des Moines, Iowa. He was thirty-five years old, married, and though native born, the son of immigrant parents. How did these two men differ? Younkers had been married for three years, and had no children. Loftus had been married for fifteen years, and had two. Younkers was Jewish, with parents from Russia and Germany. Loftus had parents from Ireland.

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Germ Warfare and Other Intimidations

Mark that one "Return to Sender," would you?

A Colorado judge received a gruesome package in the mail in November, 1909, as reported in the Spokane Press. The box contained two small strips of human flesh. I’m ready to heat sterilize my mailbox just for reading that. But it gets worse, and when you’re starting with medical waste in your mailbox, worse must be pretty bad. The title of this post isn’t “Yucky Mail.” According to a note in the box, the skin was from a smallpox victim. So the anthrax attacks of several years ago, were just kinda copycat.

Wikipedia notes that smallpox was almost completely eliminated from the United States by 1897, so it’s not actually clear that there was any smallpox-infected skin for someone to easily obtain in 1909. To do this, you have to be certain that you’re immune, and it only works if your prospective victim is not immune (flip those around and it’s suicide and annoying, disgusting mail).

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Contractor’s Claims Insufficient to Support Sodomy Charge

Was his neighbor a peeping tom?

On November 13, 1896, the Rock Island Argus reported that there was insufficient proof to sustain the allegations of sodomy that had been made against one John Matthey. The references to Mr. Matthey in the Argus form a brief span of three days, from the initial report of the charge on November 11, 1896 to the charges being dropped two days later.

Nor have the usual records been all that forthcoming. I’ve been able to establish that Rock Island didn’t publish a street directory in 1896, and Mr. Matthey doesn’t seem to show up in the others. His accuser does though. The claim that Mr. Matthey had engaged in sodomy came from one Stephen O’Connor, and I found lots about him.

I should pause here and note that our story has one character too few. We have an accused (Mr. Matthey), a witness (Mr. O’Connor), but while sodomy can be accomplished with a partner of the same or opposite sex, it is not a solitary activity. The records here is mute as to what exactly Mr. O’Connor claimed to have seen.

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Sexual Perversion in Washington

There'll be a hot time in the old town tonight.

When I look into the backgrounds for these old stories, I feel like a combination of a private detective and the town busybody. It does take some sleuthing; checking other newspaper accounts to see if I can find out more about the people involved in the story, looking at public records that might shed some light on the matter (for the record, the dead have no privacy rights). Sure, when I look into an early-twentieth century sodomy accusation there’s prurient interest involved. Look: people from a century ago having sex. Forbidden sex.

That’s an important part too. I only have to read the comment on articles about same-sex marriage. I would like to think that referring to gay men as “sodomites” was some queer linguistic habit of a century ago, but the comment still gets made in 2014.[1] It would probably be both difficult and expensive to get the court transcripts of whatever transpired on Friday, November 8, 1901, but the Sunday Morning Globe of Washington, D.C. makes it seem worthwhile, since the testimony “revealed the most indescribable details of sexual perversion,” which the Globe assured its readers were “too filthy and demoralizing to even write about.“

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Two Convicted for Sodomy, One Escapes

I'm rooting for the lad

Were they a couple? That’s one of the questions that is simply unanswerable about two young men who were charged and convicted of sodomy in Washington State in 1910. An October 26 article in the Yakima Herald refers to them as “lads,” and on November 2, the Herald supplies that one of the two, James Nichol, was twenty-one. Unfortunately, even with the biographical detail the Herald supplied, I haven’t been able to make any certain identification of the two.

The name of the other man is given as James S. Ryan, and Washington had an ample supply of men of that name, most of them of about 20 years of age. I was able to find 11 men over the age 17 and under the age of 30 in the 1910 Census. Some were married, most were single. The one James Ryan in Yakima County in 1910 has the improbable origin of “Greece,” as does everyone else in his railroad crew, a few of whom do have Greek surnames. I’ve also checked the 1920 Census to see if any of them vanish from the record, but it wasn’t all that helpful. No Greek Ryans in Yakima in 1920.

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District Attorney Declined to Prosecute Abominable Crime

The Crime-that-Cannot-Be-Named

From my point of view, when a district attorney at some time in the past declined to prosecute a sodomy charge, that was a good thing. It's a good thing that consensual sodomy can no longer be prosecuted. In October 1869, the Washington, D.C. District Attorney declined to prosecute two charges of sodomy.[1] My cursory research turned up that the accused were both well known to the authorities, with charge for various acts of assault or theft attributed to each of them. Further, the news reports made it clear that the two charged were black, and it seems that their alleged victim was as well.

The two were charged separately, but the alleged incidents were on the same date. Each, according to the charges, committed sodomy “upon” on Roy Washington, on August 23, 1869. I am assuming that the “upon” means that Mr. Washington was the receptive partner for either oral or anal sex.[2]

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Musician Addicted to a Beastly Crime

Was it really that beastly?

This is one of those stories where I just want to find out more, but the documentary record just isn’t in a giving mood. This isn’t to say that I found nothing, but that it wasn’t enough to dig out anything other than his (likely) street address. Nor were the newspapers forthcoming with much other information.

The sentence in this case was certainly light: ninety days, suspended on condition of leaving town. Yesterday, I wrote that Elmer and Ellen Shaw were convicted to a year in prison for sodomy in 1917, but maybe North Dakota was tougher on sex in 1917 than Minnesota was in 1887.

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Naughty Pictures Bring Worse Charge then Burglary

Probably not the Shaws,
but you never know (I've cropped out
the racy bits, sorry).

A North Dakota couple, Elmer and Emma Shaw, were arrested in 1917 on suspicion of burglary and in searching through their possessions, the police found photos of the couples. Now they were really in trouble. I haven’t been able to find any information on the couple’s arrest, or for that matter much information about them in general. I might have written this up earlier were it not for an error on the part of a compositor.[1]

The earliest reference I can find to this story is in the Bismark Tribune of October 9, 1907, but I didn’t find that one due to a typographical error (which I’ll explain in detail soon, since I keep harping on it). The article which actually came to my attention was in the Ward County Independent, of Minot, North Dakota, on October 25, 1917, and was titled “A Revolting Pair,”[2] referring to the Shaws.

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Sodomy Trial Leads to Acquittal for Accused, Jail for Witness

Don't mess with the courts

There’s tantalizingly little information about the 1899 sodomy trial of one John H. Williams in Montana. The name is common enough that in looking at one newspaper, the Anaconda Standard in that year, I was able to find several men named John Williams, not all of who could be same man: the new father, the dog racer, the retired military man, the (dead) miner, the partier, the con man, the thief, the sodomite. The first two reports on the case, refer to the accused as “John X. Williams,” but in the final story, he’s listed as “John H. Williams.” The “H” is probably correct. Likewise, John Lynch, the alleged witness, could be one of several men (although there are several men of the name in the Anaconda Standard of the time who couldn’t be the witness).

Williams was arrested on June 3, 1899 on the charge of sodomy. He was arraigned on June 5, with a hearing on June 6, leading to a trial on September 13. When the case came to court, he was acquitted, due to a lack of evidence.

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Spankings for Sodomites?

The truth about those spankings

It’s clear that the Sun felt that the World deserved the blame. The lengthy (three-and-a-half columns) piece on the Elmira Reformatory, that the Sun ran on August 31, 1894, has at the beginning of its subhead “Complete Breakdown of the ‘World’s’ Charges.” An investigation into the methods used at the reformatory had started in 1983, after reports of cruel treatment at the reformatory.

The World alleged that prisoners were being maltreated. One of the methods used by Zebulon Brockway, the superintendent of the reformatory, was the paddling of prisoners as one of the means of punishing them for infractions while imprisoned, although according to testimonies, it really was more than just a paddling.

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Insisted on Trial after Sodomy Charge

Was Mr. Farrell naughty too?

In the midst of reading old newspapers today, my attention was drawn to the case of Margaret Delf, who was (repeatedly) charged with prostitution and brothel keeping in 1884 St. Paul. The search term that lead me to Margaret was “sodomy,” which was not one of the things she was charged with, but was the charge for the case described immediately after hers.

Unlike Ms. Delf, for whom this was to be the last reference in the St. Paul Daily Globe, there is a follow-up to the second story. I’ll give it all here.

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A Respectable Young Man

Then what happened?

I wasn't able to find anything else in the archives about Frank Hensley, the "respectable young man," who was arrested for sodomy, according to this article from the Dallas Weekly Herald on July 30, 1885. The Weekly Herald didn't do a follow-up where they discussed what happened after this man's arrest.

I can make one guess: the 1880 Census includes a Frank Hensley, living in Dallas. In 1880, this Frank Hensley is 22 years old, single, and working as an assistant collector in a bank. In 1885, he would have been 27 or 28 years old. On the other hand, it looks like this Frank Hensley married in October, 1885.

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Sodomy Arrest Leads to Suicide

Convicted by the paper though he
didn't survive to be tried

A somewhat grim story from the news archives, but I felt that this story, with all its gray areas needed to be told. I ran into a total brick wall on researching anything, although there are some errors in the article (which makes things tough). Here are the particulars: a man was arrested on a charge of sodomy on July 15, 1915. When he learned that several complaints were being made against him, he attempted suicide, being successful on the second attempt.

Other details are less clear. The Ward County Independent gives the man’s name as E. O. Edwards (not helpful in finding additional details), and his age as 21. The North Dakota death indexes give his age as 36. So was he born in 1894 or 1879? Which record do you believe? The article also notes that the officials notified the dead man’s brother, “a locomotive engineer, at Lance, Nebr.” There’s no such place. Nor does it show up on a list of Nebraska ghost towns. There is a town called Alliance, and when I checked the census records, I found a John W. Edwards, who worked as a railroad engineer, probably the brother mentioned in the article.

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Justice, Not Lynching, after Sodomy Charge

Another point on the
arc of the moral universe

In late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century newspapers, there's a depressing regularity to the stories of black men raping white boys. Look for "sodomy," and they keep coming up. I haven't found anything of particular interest in them, even though they are the stories that get a little fleshed out (most of the items simply name a person who has been charged or convicted of sodomy).

But The Appeal, of Saint Paul, Minnesota, which described itself as "A National Afro-American Newspaper" had an article in its July 13, 1901 edition that helps put these stories into context. Okay, we have these horrible stories of black men raping white boys (it's either black men or "hoboes"), but that doesn't mean that they're true.

Here's what The Appeal reported:

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