Roxy Druse, Female Fiend or a Woman Wronged?

 Roxy Druse in her cell at the Herkimer County Jail

Roxy Druse was not just the only woman ever to be hung in Herkimer County. She was also, in the long history of the county’s murders up to 1885, the only person to suffer capital punishment.  In an era when a national mass media had only begun, her trial and death were the subject of sensationalized  attention  across the country in America’s first national newsmagazine, The Saturday Globe.

 Hops pickers in the 1880s.  Roxy met her husband 
while picking hops in Schoharie County,

Like so many of the murders that have attracted the public’s morbid attention in the subsequent 125 years, Roxy’s case was a domestic one. She was accused of killing her husband Bill with an axe and a revolver as the poor old farmer sat down one cold winter morning to enjoy his breakfast.  Even worse, she was said to have chopped up his body, burning some of it and feeding the remainder to the family’s pigs. And she was accused of coercing her teenage daughter Mary and her young nephew Frank to participate in both the murder and the dismemberment of the farmer’s body.  

 The old Herkimer County Jail, where Roxy and 

Mary Druse were held for two years

Although the  neighbors had noticed dark, foul-smelling smoke pouring from the chimney of the family’s isolated  farmhouse just before Christmas, 1884, folks over near Jordanville tended to mind their own business. Still, people did find it odd that Roxy had covered  the windows with newspaper and seemed  very nervous. About a month later, officials at the county seat in Herkimer  took notice of the unexplained disappearance of William Druse.  When county prosecutor A.B. Steele finally came out to speak with Roxy and the children, it didn’t take long for  him to make up his  mind about Roxy’s guilt.  She spent the next two years in the old limestone jail,  through  her trial and series of appeals, until the state’s itinerant hangman arrived in early 1887 with his portable gallows. Her daughter was given a life sentence, later commuted to ten years, and the twelve year old nephew and was set free in return for providing damning testimony against his aunt. Her son George, only ten at the time of the murder, was adjudged too feeble-minded to be of much help in either the murder or the trial.

 Artist's depiction of  Mary Druse being cross-examined

I have been familiar with Roxy’s story since childhood and long believed that her true story, was very different from the court’s judgment.  Old tales of  boyhood meetings between my grandfather and the Druses had been passed down in our family, preserving among us a sympathy for a woman once universally reviled and then quickly forgotten.  And a distrust of her prosecutors was also a family tradition.  “Let’s just say Roxy was a woman more sinned against than  sinning” was the most my father would say. And this, of course, suggested to my youthful imagination some deep and dark sexual secret which I was too young to understand.

 The Herkimer County Courthouse, where Roxy  Druse

was sentenced to death in  1885. 

A modern defense attorney would immediately consider the possibility of abuse in Roxy’s case. He  or she would seek evidence that  Mrs. Druse had acted out of fear for her own life. And the eager participation of  young Mary in her father’s murder would certainly  raise the question that he had been abusing her sexually.  (She allegedly threw a noose around his neck just as her mother gave Pa the first whack of the axe.) And young Frank’s willingness to fire three bullets into his uncle after the revolver misfired in Roxy’s hands raises the possibility that he, too, was being molested by the old farmer. But this trial was in 1885 when such questions were far too indecent to be asked in open court. Or perhaps even considered.

The courtroom where Roxy Druse was tried still has some features

from 1885, including the railing and entrance to judge's chamber

No one will ever really know if  Roxy Druse was the heartless murderess depicted in the newspapers of the 1880s, but I found proof of her innocence three years ago when a long forgotten  sheaf of papers came mysteriously into my hands. Some will doubt that this manuscript even exists, but the book that I subsequently wrote about Roxy Druse is presented as the  unpublished manuscript of a certain W.H.Tippetts. 

While Roxy and Mary languished in the county jail, the young journalist Tippetts came from Syracuse to interview the pair. W.H. Tippetts  in his own time expressed in print no sympathy for the murderess, characterizing her as a “female fiend.” Her daughter Mary he saw as the listless pawn of an evil mother. Capitalizing on the frenzied public appetite for details of this murder, and wishing to place the Druse murder in the context of many such gory occurrences in the rural county, Tippetts quickly produced a small volume entitled Herkimer County Murders, which was soon out of print. And Tippetts himself vanished after this one appearance in history.

 The mansion of Dr. Suiter, whose forensic testimony

helped to convict Roxy. The property was left in his will 

to the Herkimer County Historical Society

I first saw a copy of Tippets’ one published book many decades ago when I accompanied my father to the historical society’s museum in Herkimer, across from the old  jail and courthouse. At the same time, decades ago, I heard the old legends surrounding Dr. Suitor, whose former home is occupied by the historical society. 

 The State Lunatic Asylum in Utica. Roxy's lawyers sought to

have her sanity evaluated, but their appeals were rejected.

Reading Tippetts' first-hand report, I formed the idea that Roxy was the most loving of mothers. In an age when  words such as incest and child rape could not be spoken aloud, she very possibly took the only course of action possible to her.  and what of Tippetts? Who was he, really, and what role did he play at the end of Roxy's life. He mentions Mary Druse, but only in passing, but she came to exert her own fascination as I constructed the tale.

Of course, there had to be a long-lost manuscript to prove the innocence of a woman who could never tell the world of how a mother’s love made her commit the most unthinkable and unnatural of crimes in the history of Herkimer County. Some readers might call me a liar for claiming that this is a true story. But as Kurt Vonnegut once said, writers are champion liars, aren't they?

It will be up to the reader to judge the credibility of this version of the tragic events that took place at the isolated Druse farm in the winter of 1884.

My novel inspired by the Roxy Druse case is available at $19.95 in print and $9.95 as a download. The volume also contains the complete text of Tippetts' The Murders of Herkimer County, the only work which  published in his lifetime  (A preview of selected chapters from the book can be read at this site.)

Roxy Druse & The Murders of Herkimer County is also available for $2.99 on Kindle.

Roxy Druse was executed in the courtyard behind
the Herkimer County Jail on February 28, 1887

 Sources and suggestions for further reading:

The Herkimer County Historical Society maintains extensive files on the Druse case, as well as on the even more notorious case of Chester Gillette, who was executed for the murder of Grace Brown in 1908. The Society also owns the old jail which is occasionally opened for public visits. It is a grim place and after Roxy’s death her spirit was said to haunt its dark corridors.

The Little Falls Historical Society holds a vast scrapbook collection compiled by my grandfather,  which includes numerous articles on the Druse case.

The Murder by Gaslight blog has a recent description of the Druse case. 

The March 2011 newsletter of the Marshall Historical Society in Deansboro, NY featured an article on Roxy Druse, containing interesting details of Roxy’s early life before she went to work in Schoharie County as a hops picker and her fateful meeting there with William Druse. Her personality and intelligence as described in this article correspond to Tippett’s purported manuscript.

The author of  The Forgotten Central New York Murder Case maintains  that the botched nature of Roxy's hanging led to the invention of the electric as a more "humane" method for taking a life. That instrument made its debut at the state prison in Auburn, NY in 1889, and Chester Gillette was one of its most famous occupants. Gillette was tried at Herkimer for the murder of Grace Brown  and held in the same jail occupied by Roxy a few years earlier.

A search of the New York Times archive under Roxalana Druse will yield several articles from the period of the trial.

The New York State Library has a comprehensive collection of local newspapers from the years of the trail and  appeals.The case attracted many opponents of capital punishment.

"Ultimate Hope of Humanity" returns to Amsterdam, NY

 Neighbors report no WPHO presence at the 

former St. Michael's Church during the winter months

The World Peace and Health Organization is returning to Amsterdam, as of this week, after some drama over the winter. In January there was another break-in, this time at 10 Leonard Street, an old warehouse purchased by the WPHO.  Although the theft only involved "an undetermined amount of wire and piping," the sect's holy master, Ziguang Shang Shi, declared: "We want to find a better place to invest." 

But Amsterdam Police Detective Owen Fuchs said that "the burglary is not consistent with a hate crime. Suspects in hate crimes typically leave behind derogatory messages or destroy other property." And the Amsterdam Fire Department  found the building unsecured on December 28, as were many other WPHO properties I saw last October.

Despite the overwhelming evidence that this was simply a garden-variety crime, due as much to WPHO careless as to anything else,  the group backed out of a deal to buy the vacant Clara S. Bacon elementary school for $460,000. On Jan 24 the group’s lawyer, Jason Brott of Johnstown, demanded a refund of the WPHO’s deposit, claiming that his clients have been “the targets of vandalism and hate crimes since their quest to invest over a billion dollars in Amsterdam began.” He also asserted that “many members of the group have recently received threatening phone calls.”  The investors who are supposedly providing the billion dollars are, according to Mr. Brott, are “concerned about their own health and safety, as well as the health and safety of the may(sic) students who are expected to reside in the 48 properties recently purchased by the group, who would be learning in the school building.”

As to the 48 empty houses and stores  purchased at auction last year,  Pete Iorizzo of the Albany Times Union said on January 22 that Ziguang ‘is threatening to sell his properties for $1 each.’

The mayor and other elected officials were certainly not happy with Ziguang’s sudden turnaround.  Mayor Ann Thane said, "They can't give the properties back. I don't know what their intention is. They called me and requested a meeting." But then they vanished, perhaps returning to Asia. Art Popp, whose property in Ephrata is near the WPHO-owned Adirondack Center Camp, told me there had been zero activity all winter, and that the entrance way had not even been plowed. Last week, the mayor’s office reported the same: no sign and no word from the WPHO people in months.

Rumored WPHO bid to buy former YWCA in Gloversville has fallen

through, according to local realtors. Current asking price $125,000.

However, the WPHO was reaching out to local media to announce their return. Jessica Maher of the Amsterdam Recorder, reported on  March 31:

… WPHO spokeswoman Jennie Wong said this week the extent of Shi's declaration and what it means for the 48 properties purchased at a citywide auction, as well as the two city churches purchased from the Albany Roman Catholic Diocese, is still unclear. Members of the Chinese group have been traveling internationally in a scheduled annual hiatus from the region during the winter months, said Wong, and not all members have returned.

"I don't think we have come to a conclusion yet," Wong said of the group's future in the city. "It may not be until we are getting together that we can have some ideas, so everything is pending right now."

And then this week, the following announcement from the WPHO was forwarded to us:

Ultimate Hope of Humanity

Holy Ziguang Shang Shi reveals Maha Meditation for the first time

The Secret Dharma beyond the Three Vehicles of Buddhism

During this era of continuous natural disasters, wars and epidemics, people have experienced immeasurable suffering. Holy Ziguang Shang Shi has deeply felt the pain of the people and for their benefit will, for the first time reveal Maha Meditation, the secret dharma beyond the three vehicles of Buddhism. This is the ultimate hope for all human beings and all nations to overcome disasters and achieve peace and health.

The wish of Holy Ziguang Shang Shi is to teach all people this Dharma, kept secret for thousands of years, so that everyone can have a better chance of living and adapting to the rapidly changing world. This secret Dharma can increase the quality of human genes and eliminate most diseases; it can increase one’s ability to resist radiation and viruses. The devoted practitioners can experience advanced spiritual development, change their karma, allowing them to develop their virtues and ultimately enter the bliss of Heaven on Earth.

For all of those who want to achieve happiness and escape the suffering of disease and pain, Holy Ziguang Shang Shi has set up the "Holy Mercy Altar" as a place to give empowerment to the attendees. The first opportunity will be the Blessing Empowerment Convention held from April 16th through April 18th at the Five World Buddha Temple in Amsterdam, NY.

 Anteroom at Five Buddhas Temple where the devotees leave their shoes 

 Rather than offer my own view of  this program, here is a response to one of my earlier articles from a correspondent who uses the screen name Tjampel:

(Gautama Buddha) was part of a group of ascetics who would starve themselves, stand in the sun for hours (in India...try it sometime) and engage in other austerities in order to gain wisdom. Once he realized that he was only making himself very ill, he decided to take proper nourishment and meditate on the nature of his own mind; shortly thereafter he achieved the direct/nondual perception of reality and ultimately transformed into what we call the Buddha.

He considered "divine beings" to be suffering just like the rest of us, since they wrongly believed in their own self-existent divinity; they too would have to give it up at some point as it's impermanent---yeah, in Buddhism, at least, all gods fall down.

Additionally, Buddhism teaches us that we must "work out [our] own salvation"; it's not going to come from some dude(ette) showing miraculous powers who's going to heal us all and remove our negativity and erroneous cognition. After all, if any enlightened being dedicates her/his entire existence to helping all other sentient beings, and they can just rapture us off to some paradise, where we'll be eternally blissed-out, they would have done so already. If some Master claims he can literally change the quality of our mind through his/her efforts they're not teaching Buddhism as I know it.

This kind of focus on the perceived divine qualities of the leader and cult-like attention paid to her or him is not healthy, IMO. I remember that Chogyam Trungpa, one of the early (and most idolized) Tibetan teachers in the US once said that he'd never seen any lama flying around and that one should just work on their practice instead of thinking about miraculous powers; after all, step one is hard enough. Just being able to meditate properly is pretty miraculous, actually.

It strikes me as very curious is that, the Master for this group/cult/whatever appears to be hurt or upset that the community isn't totally embracing his and his group and may be pulling out on that basis. That strikes me as very strange from a Buddhist perspective. The Buddhist concept of love is that one gives to others to bring them true happiness, to the greatest degree possible, and this desire to give others what they need to be happy never depends on even slight gratitude or reciprocation by the other party. They can hate you and call you names and you should still want them to be achieve true (lasting) happiness.

If Jesus (or whomever) tells you to "get thee to this town and spread the love" then whatever resistance the town may offer is merely one of the challenges that you need to face on the path; not an excuse to pull out. Only if you come to a reasoned conclusion that remaining in the town is causing damage to the spiritual health of both groups would leaving make sense. It doesn't seem that this was the basis for the group's actions. They were not concerned with "hate crimes".

.... The love that a Buddhist gives is one which can genuinely help the other being---it can lead them to lasting happiness...

-Tjampel

The Downfall of Alfred Dolge

For over a century leading American capitalists have recognized a responsibility to give back to the public a portion of the vast wealth they have accrued. Andrew Carnegie made his fortune in steel and set the tone for subsequent philanthropists by endowing libraries and universities. His foundations, like those of the Fords and Rockefellers, have continued to be a source of good works down to the present day. In this same spirit Bill Gates and Warren Buffett launched a campaign last summer to persuade their fellow billionaires to donate half their wealth to charitable causes.

Alfred Dolge was in some ways a very early example of this philanthropic spirit, but there was a singular difference, and I suspect that this difference is what eventually set in motion the plot that destroyed his dreams for Dolgeville. His goal was never just to make money, and he did not see the distribution of his personal wealth as an act of charity, something to be reserved as a worthy retirement project. Throughout his life he was an intellectual, fascinated by political and economic ideas. He read very widely and wrote continuously and was always eager to put in place economic systems that he believed could be a model for the entire country.

 Wilhelm Liebknecht, Dolge's "preceptor" 

and founder of the German Socialist Party

He was very much his father’s son. Christian Dolge was a close friend of Wilhelm Liebknecht, the founder of the German Socialist Party, and was imprisoned for five years for his role in the uprisings of 1848. Alfred Dolge wrote of Liebknecht as his “preceptor” from whom he learned the teachings of Karl Marx.  He also refers to his youthful reading of David Ricardo, John Stuart Mill and Adam Smith, the great apostle of the free market.  From such apparently contradictory ideas, he wove the theories of a just and equitable economic system which he put in place in Dolgeville.

Eleanor Franz, in the only biography of this remarkable man,  describes Dolge’s vision very succinctly:

What Dolge built grew out of his determination that children should no longer scavenge coal, or old men end up in paupers’ graves. It was his belief that a workman should be able to retire at sixty with a pension paid for by his employer as part of the cost of production. The security of such a plan, he wrote, “would allow the laborer to live better and be more healthy, keep his wife at home and his children in school. He could live up to his income and thus develop a higher manhood and superior citizenship.” Dolge saw employees eventually becoming partners in a business, so that a capitalist would no longer be enriched at the expense of his laborers. Even though he believed in hard work as a way out of poverty, it was never his belief that the poor remained poor because of laziness. What he aimed for was, in effect, a leveling of the economy to benefit everyone rather than solely the man at the top. (Franz, p. 23)

 

This was this vision that Dolge brought with him when he first saw the hamlet of Brocketts Bridge in April, 1874.  It is true that the East Canada Creek provided both the water quality and the power that he sought for his felt-making industry, but I am sure that he also was struck by its relative emptiness. This was a place where he could bring the skilled, mostly German, workers he needed to form a new village of his own design. He may also have been influenced by the nearby area’s large German-American population, descendants of 18^th century refugees from the Palatinate, a fact to which he referred in later speeches.

 Alfred and Anna Dolge, c. 1868, from Dolge by Eleanor Franz

For 24 years Alfred Dolge pursued numerous business ventures with great success, never losing sight of his guiding vision. He bought the abandoned tannery where his great limestone factory soon rose, and began to produce high quality felt, piano hammers and sounding boards.  By 1879, he had installed Edison’s second electric turbine, the first to run on water power, and equipped the factory with automatic sprinklers and electric lighting. By 1881 he was manufacturing the first felt shoes and slippers.

 Thomas Edison, inventor of the world's first hydroelectric

turbine, installed at Dolgeville in 1879

As the need for lumber expanded, he built two sawmills and acquired 18,000 acres of the Adirondack forest. Complete pianos were being built by 1890 and a woolen factory was opened. A unique musical instrument, the autoharp, was another industry in the growing village now known as Dolgeville.

The 500 ft. Ransom Creek trestle on the Dolgeville & LF railroad 

Courtesy,Gino’s Railpage  

And in 1892 a railroad, largely financed by Dolge, linked the village with the main line at Little Falls, replacing the 50 teams of horses that had previously been the only means to move raw materials and finished products. 

Each business success led him to introduce another step in his social and economic plan. Within two years of arrival in Brocketts Bridge, Dolge had set up a pension plan, the first of its kind, for his employees. Benefits ranged from 50% of wages for disability after ten years to 100% after ten years. If disability was work-related, fifty percent would be paid even without ten years of service. He provided life insurance, also unknown for working people at that time, on a prorated scale based on years of service. Sick pay and death benefits were part of the plan. In 1890 he introduced his “Earning-Sharing” Plan under which employees received a percentage of the company’s profits, to be reinvested back into the company until retirement. Losses were also charged against employee accounts. (Franz, chapter 3)

Dolge spoke frequently on the major social and economic issues of his day. When the Knights of Labor agitated for an eight hour day in 1886, he reduced work hours from ten to nine, explaining that further reductions would be possible with increased productivity. He worked hard for the Republican party and was among the strongest voices for a protective tariff, arguing that his well-paid workers should not be expected to compete against Germans or Frenchmen earning far less. 

He was an advocate for public education, endowing a new school and later becoming deeply embroiled in controversies over such issues as the mandated teaching of German as a foreign language. At the school’s dedication in 1887, he spoke of public education as essential to democracy and the only sure bulwark against radical agitation:

The future of this great country, the inviolability of our free and liberal institutions, can be guarded only by a rising generation, which by means of an excellent education, will not only keep the unruly element in check, but raise it up, elevate it, so that it will generate good and worthy citizens able to analyze and understandingly resist the false teachings of adventurous agitators and revolutionists.

He was far ahead of his time in calling for better education of teachers, at a time when many were teenage girls only a bit ahead of their pupils:

To build school houses, equip them properly, to hire the very best teachers at such a liberal salary that it is worth their while to spend their lives in this arduous and most responsible of all professions, is the duty of every community, may it be ever so small or poor . 

Dolge was also ahead of his time in advocating physical education in the school curriculum and did much to promote a form of gymnastics popular in Germany, known as turnverein. He built a gymnasium and clubhouse for the workers and their families. Many athletic competitions and celebrations, known as turnfests, were held in High Falls Park, which Dolge developed and donated to the village. At such festivities, Dolge made sure that plenty of beer was on hand, but was against saloons and stronger drink.

Commemorative stein from a Dolgeville Turnverein

(His many writings on economic and social issues were published by him in two, somewhat overlapping collections, now available via google books: The Just Distribution of Earnings and The Practical Application of Economic Theory. The books reveal his desire to spread his ideas, evidenced by the many speeches he made in the US and in Europe, as well as by the letters he wrote to numerous newspapers.)

And yet within the space of a week, in April 1898, all of Dolge’s enterprises collapsed. He was branded as a bankrupt and a fraud, compelled to hand over his thriving industries to strangers, and to leave Dolgeville forever. 

Richard Buckley, in his history of Little Falls, describes an incident from exactly one year before his forced bankruptcy that may have made Dolge a marked man. Speaking at a meeting of the University Club, chaired by D.H. Burrell, Dolge stated that “almost every conflict between capital and labor originates in the demand of laborers for a betterment of their condition.” He said that too many manufacturers subscribed to the notion that “profits rise as wages fall,” and argued that the recession of 1892 was due to a collapse in demand caused by the failure of Congress to pass a protective tariff that would safeguard high wages for workers.  In a remarkably prescient observation, Dolge said that “Capitalists must learn that wage earners of today are of greater importance to the community as consumers than as producers.”  (Buckley, p. 114)

One can imagine the shocked countenances of the wealthy gentlemen of Little Falls as Dolge made these pronouncements. And their mouths must have dropped even further when he went on to suggest a national industrial/labor senate, which would serve to arbitrate all disputes between workers and owners.

One year later the Herkimer County Bank, on whose board D.H. Burrell sat, forced Dolge to declare insolvency and to place his assets into receivership. The factories were closed for several months, a fraud suit was initiated against Dolge, and all the contracts with his workers were declared void. The promised pensions vanished and those already being paid stopped suddenly. 

Although The Little Falls Evening Times initially described the failure as a temporary adjustment, reflecting uncertainty in the money markets due to the Spanish-American War, the key role of Judge George A. Hardin as the named plaintiff for the Herkimer County Bank against Dolge & Son points to a conspiracy to bring down the one local capitalist who seemed to be an enemy of his class.  

Judge George A. Hardin, Courtesy New York Courts, 

Appellate Division Law Library, Rochester

In a farewell address to his workers Dolge explicitly accused Hardin and Schuyler Ingham, another member of the bank’s board, of causing the bankruptcy for their own profit. The rapid selling off of the properties, including the 18,000 Adirondack acres, for pennies on the dollar and the appointment of Ingham as director of a newly constructed felt trust suggests that it was more than Dolge’s anger speaking. And the venom of Hardin’s unguarded comment to the Little Falls Journal & Courier reveals a deep personal and political motivation: “Dolge is an anarchist, an atheist and a communist.”  He also attacked Dolge personally for backing the village newspaper, the Dolgeville Herald, and for building an expensive mansion. And when Hardin died three years later, Dolge wrote from California that the man was clearly a thief since he left a fortune of $800,000 although during the last 28 years of his life he never earned more than $10,000 a year as a judge. (Buckley, chapter 7)

Dolge gave his version of the events in a self-published book, The Story of a Crime, which Eleanor Franz quotes in her biography. The book is very rare and, according to Franz, most copies were destroyed. In the book Dolge blamed himself for trusting Ingham and Hardin, with whom he had been in business since the very costly Dolgeville railroad was first proposed in 1882. He maintained that the two told him they would handle the cash flow problem, and then foreclosed on him, even though his assets were twice what he owed. He said that he soon obtained loans from New York backers that would satisfy the Herkimer County Bank and the American Exchange Bank in New York, but when he told Ingham he had the funding, Ingham told him he was too late.

Dozens of attorneys were soon handling the mass of suits and countersuits that followed the collapse. A case of fraud against Dolge was dismissed, but not before a very revealing hearing was held in March, 1899. At that hearing Schuyler Ingham was questioned about a power of attorney that Dolge’s son Rudolf had given, at the urging of Hardin and Ingham, to a mysterious figure by the name of Robinson, associated with the American Exchange Bank. It appears that the default was triggered by a joint action of the Herkimer County Bank, on whose board Ingham and Hardin sat, and the New York bank where Hardin and Ingham’s man Robinson had a major interest.

A report in the April 12, 1898 New York Times stated that that while Rudolf was in South America, “his representative made application at Utica for dissolution of the firm and the appointment of a receiver.” This was evidently the mysterious Robinson. The Times writer voiced the general surprise at the proceeding, citing Dolge’s assets which far exceeded his liabilities. 

It is not clear how the Dolge enterprises were structured but it may have been a simple partnership between Alfred and Rudolph, the oldest of his five sons, who was then 29. Why Rudolf would give Robinson the power to initiate a suit against his father’s firm is not known. Perhaps there was a falling out between Rudolf and Alfred that led the son to go to Venezuela. Or perhaps he was simply naive. Or perhaps Rudolf had some secret which allowed the two men to blackmail him. 

At the heart of the collapse is a family drama which may never really be known. Rudolf was clearly a beloved son, given major business responsibilities in his early 20s, and his wedding in 1893 was celebrated in grand style. At the wedding, grandfather Christian Dolge called Rudolf “the crown prince of Dolgeville.” Strangely, however, he left the US for Venezuela four years later, claiming poor health, yet lived in apparent good health for many years, becoming active in Venezuelan industry, science and literature. Rudolf signed the fateful power of attorney on a quick visit back to the US in 1897, at which time he met with Ingham and Hardin, probably in New York, but whether he saw his parents is unknown. 

The question of what happened was a source of intense controversy in Dolgeville for decades, and although some citizens turned against Dolge, his loyalists, such as the volunteer firemen of the Alfred Dolge Hose Co., would not hear a word against him.  Whether the plot to destroy him was motivated by greed or personal hatred, or a mix, will probably never be clear. He may well have been over-extended in terms of loans, but it was the actions of the Herkimer County and the American Express banks, both under the influence of Ingham and Hardin, that brought him down – and profited both men. 

D.H. Burrell, from Nelson Green's

History of the Mohawk Valley

There is no evidence that D.H. Burrell, the founder of Cherry-Burrell, was involved in the plot although, in fairness, he was on the bank’s board and obviously had huge influence over the bank’s decisions. He was himself a more classic philanthropist, known as a fair employer, and his choice of charities were conservative. He endowed the local YMCA, the Presbyterian Church and funded the building of the Little Falls City Hall in 1916. But he is reported to have sharply questioned Dolge during his rather radical presentation at the University Club in 1897.

As to Dolge’s immediate reaction to the plot, he had no choice but surrender his holdings Although he called Wilhlem Liebknecht his mentor, he never really shared in Marx’s revolutionary dream of placing the means of production (and defense) in the hands of the workers. On the contrary, he took pride in keeping labor agitators out of Dolgeville. Unlike Wilhelm’s son Karl, who proclaimed the 1919 communist revolution in Berlin with Rosa Luxembourg and ended up assassinated by rightist gunmen, violence was not part of Alfred Dolge’s make-up. 

For all his love for German culture and his annual trips back to Europe, he was truly an American and believed that hard work would lead to prosperity for all.  But he never had a mindless faith in the free market and knew that the raw pursuit of profit had to be restrained or it would drive the working class into poverty. Thus, he would not have fit comfortably into either of today’s political parties.

The destruction of his dream had much to do with his own faith in human nature, in that he trusted dishonest men who took advantage of him and his son.  And although he left Dolgeville in sorrow and never returned, his sunny spirit has, I am convinced, remained in the village he created. Hard-working people continued to lead productive lives and the kinds of bitter strife that afflicted Little Falls and other industrial towns never came to Dolgeville.  He did not, despite Hardin’s bitter prediction, commit suicide. He went on to California where he founded a second Dolgeville in what is now greater Los Angeles, continued to write, and made a sufficient financial recovery to live comfortably, dying in 1922 on a round-the-world trip with his beloved Anna.

 Anna and Alfred Dolge with friends, hiking in the Harz Mountains

of Germany in 1921, from Dolge by Eleanor Franz

And as for Judge Hardin?  

I grew up in Little Falls a few blocks from where Hardin had built a lavish mansion on Gansevoort Street facing the Western (now Burke) Park.  By the time I was a boy, all that remained of the mansion was a wall and a lone gazebo in a vast empty lot. And when I asked my father what was once here, he told me that a bad man used to live there but he had died in great terror over his many sins.

My novel on the later life of Alfred Dolge, Mr. Dolge's Money,  can be found on Amazon in paperback for $9.95 and on kindle for 99 cents. The story centers on Alfred and Anna's grandson Joseph, or Jose, who is imagined as a son of Rudolf's from Venezuela. At the very end of World War I. Alfred dispatches the young man on a mission across newly Bolshevik Russia into a Germany in the midst of its revolution. In the course of Joseph's attempts to recover his grandfather's hidden fortune, he narrowly escapes from Lenin's secret police and the early Nazis and their followers from the occultist circles of Munich.

 My  short factual biography of Alfred Dolge is also available on Kindle for 99 cents and as an illustrated paperback for $7.95. The Kindle version can  also be read on tablets,smartphones and PCs by downloading the free Kindle app. Amazon Prime members may also borrow the story through the Kindle Owners Lending Library.

SOURCES:

Eleanor Franz, Dolge, available from the Herkimer County Historical Society

Richard Buckley, Unique Place, Diverse People, a history of Little Falls available from the Little Falls Historical Society

Works by Alfred Dolge, available on google books

The Just Distribution of Earnings, So-called Profit Sharing (1889)

The Practical Application of Economic Theories in the Factories of Alfred Dolge & Son (1895)

Pianos and Their Makers (1911)

FOR ANOTHER PERSPECTIVE ON JUDGE HARDIN:

See my novel, Roxy Druse and The Murders of Herkimer County, in which the judge makes several appearances. Available at Wilderness Hill Books.

The enlightened capitalism of Alfred Dolge

 Bust of Alfred Dolge at the Dolgeville Village Hall

Clearly, the socialists and anarchists who led the Little Falls strike in 1912 cannot offer a model for restoring prosperity to our region.  The Russian revolution of 1917 forever branded socialism as a dangerous form of tyranny in the minds of most Americans. And even now, a century later, calling the current president’s health care policy “socialist” is a sure way to discredit it in the minds of many citizens.  Even if a more rational and cooperative organization of the economy could help us, a majority of the people will simply not accept this possibility.  

But unrestrained free market capitalism has spelled economic disaster for Upstate New York, and the current bipartisan enthusiasm for cutting taxes on the wealthy is only a recipe for ever-greater inequity. Perhaps, then, it is time to look to our past for solutions that combine a for-profit system with a reasonable concern for the well-being of working people. And that brings to mind the long forgotten Alfred Dolge.

Dolge was no socialist, but he believed that the health and well-being of his workers was the necessary foundation for his own prosperity. An industrialist and founder of the village that bears his name, he had read both Karl Marx and Adam Smith as a young man in Germany, and combined those two apparently contradictory thinkers in his own unique vision. 

 1890 view of Dolge's mill, courtesy Village website

 The same view, 120 years later

The industrialist came to New York City as a young man, having apprenticed as a piano-maker in Germany. At first specializing in the import of felts and wires for the manufacture of pianos, he decided to create his own industrial village for the production of the piano components he had been importing. After an extensive search though the north east, he settled in 1875 on what was then the tiny hamlet of   Brocketts Bridge because the East Canada Creek offered both water power for his machinery and the water quality needed for washing felt.

He kept his large shop on 13th street in Manhattan and commuted by the night train each week, walking the final six miles from the depot in Little Falls before he built his own railway in 1892. Starting operations in an old tannery, he was soon at work on the beautiful limestone factory that is still the heart of the village, drawing skilled craftsmen and their families, many from Germany. 

As his work force grew into the hundreds, Dolge initiated a profit-sharing system for his employees, providing for disability payments, life insurance and an old age pension in 1876.  Bismarck sought his advice when Germany developed the world’s first social security plan, and the Social Security Administration recognizes Dolge’s role as a forerunner of today’s system.

Intake for recently restored hydroelectric generator 

at the Dolgeville Mill

 He was an admirer of Thomas Edison and put into operation the first electric dynamo run by waterpower in 1879,  which provided electric lighting for his mills, later extending it to the entire village.  Dolge also bought land for a park which he gave to the village, and donated a school and community club house.  

 The Dolge Mansion

Alfred Dolge enjoyed his wealth and built a mansion just across the East Canada Creek from his factories. He was always a workman at heart and spent much of the day on the factory floor, but he was also a great reader and writer. He spoke widely and wrote on subjects ranging from education and physical fitness to socialism and the protective tariff. (He saw the tariff as an absolutely essential way to protect his workers from unfair competition by low wage workers overseas – a position that no modern politician is willing to take.)

 old postcard of the Dolgeville & Little Falls RR

view of the same section of the abandoned railway today

Curious about traces of the utopian society created by Dolge, we followed the wintry roads north from Little Falls to Dolgeville, roughly parallel to the route of the Little Falls & Dolgeville Railroad, which was sold for scrap in 1964.

Arriving in Dolgeville, we located the Founder’s bust in front of the Village Hall and headed for the complex of factories built by Dolge in 1882, and later home to Daniel Green Felt Shoe Company until it shifted production out of town in 1999.  There we found Charlie Soukup, hard at work sanding the floors of the old mill.

Charlie Soukup at work

Charlie came from Florida to buy the 23 mill buildings several years ago.  After experimenting with an antiques center and a furniture store at the site, Charlie is now committed to creating at least 40 very original condominium apartments in the main mill building. I couldn’t help but compare him to that other entrepreneur who came here inspired by his own unique vision 140 years ago.

 40 condos are planned for the main mill

Charlie  interrupted his work to take us on a tour of the structure. He pointed out many examples of the great craftsmanship shown in the construction of the mill as evidence of Dolge’s extreme attention to the details of quality control. He told us that Dolge kept very detailed records of every aspect of the mill’s construction and operation.

  Layout for condo apartments on the mill's third floor

 Model condo unit features original beams, flooring and limestone wall

Charlie Soukup has made major investment in this project, hiring local people to clean out the old mill and ready it for renovation. The model condo which he recently completed is a remarkable example of creative use of vintage materials. The shelving and walk-in closet is constructed from lumber used at the mill. The handcrafted furniture also makes very effective use of old machine parts. And the view of the rushing creek is impressive. Although he plans to offer the one-bedroom unit for about $200,000, it would command well over a million dollars in New York or Boston.

Charlie said that he often wonders about what Dolge saw here so many years ago. Although I was eager to explore the issue, he didn’t want to speculate about whether it was Dolge’s own misjudgment or a conspiracy by his fellow capitalists that finally brought him down.  The risks of any great venture, then or now, are always high.

However, I do think that Dolgeville may well thrive in coming years, and I have high hopes for Mr. Soukups’ ambitious project. In contrast to most of the region, this village has not suffered excessively in the current economic downturn. Much of the local economy centers on the renewable resources of the Adirondack forest, and lumberyards and woodcraft industries remain strong.  The family-owned Rawlings company continues to produce the high quality Adirondack bats favored by so many major league baseball players. And just north of the village, a $200 million wind farm has recently gone into operation generating clean energy.

Adirondack bats are still made in Dolgeville

Dolgeville native Hal Schumacher pitched 
for the New York Giants and was an executive 
for the Rawlings company.

As to the nature of the society created by Alfred Dolge, its lessons for our own time, and the mysterious events surrounding  his downfall in 1898, that  will be the subject of a future posting on this site.

My novel on the later life of Alfred Dolge, Mr. Dolge's Money,  can be found on Amazon in paperback for $9.95 and on kindle for 99 cents. The story centers on Alfred and Anna's grandson Joseph, or Jose, who is imagined as a son of Rudolf's from Venezuela. At the very end of World War I. Alfred dispatches the young man on a mission across newly Bolshevik Russia into a Germany in the midst of its revolution. In the course of Joseph's attempts to recover his grandfather's hidden fortune, he narrowly escapes from both Lenin's secret police and the early Nazis and their followers from the occultist circles of Munich.

 My  short factual biography of Alfred Dolge is also available on Kindle for 99 cents and as an illustrated paperback for $7.95. The Kindle version can  also be read on tablets,smartphones and PCs by downloading the free Kindle app. Amazon Prime members may also borrow the story through the Kindle Owners Lending Library.

Sources:

Village of Dolgeville website

 Richard Buckley, Unique Place, Diverse People

Available from Little Falls Historical Society Museum

Eleanor Franz , Dolge

Available from Herkimer County Historical Society