HE KNOWS HIS JEWELS ARE SAFE (1892)
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The story you are about to read was composed from research conducted in the course of one of those investigations.
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When the daughter of a Tammany Hall “boss” is married, how does the new son-in-law protect their wedding gifts?
By installing a jewel vault in the cellar of his brownstone, of course!
THE JEWEL VAULT ON WASHINGTON PARK
When Dr. Alexander F. Carroll married the eldest daughter of Brooklyn Democratic Boss, Hugh McLaughlin, in 1890, the New York Times reported that the “wedding gifts were of the most costly and elaborate nature.”
“So valuable were they,” New York’s paper of record continued, “that when Mr. and Mrs. Carroll moved to their Washington Park home they had a great burglar-proof vault built under the sidewalk.”
Apparently, all of the Boss’s numerous friends and supporters “remembered the happy couple substantially” which presented them with a good problem to have – how to safeguard their extreme amount of new-found jewel wealth.
A list of the bridal presents “covered three columns in the Eagle,” noted The New York Sun, the presenters of which included then-President Cleveland. The value of the gifts were variously estimated at “from $100,000 to $200,000.”
Mrs. Carroll was “very much worried because she has had to keep the mass of gold and silver received at the time of her marriage in the house and has had private detectives watching the premises.”
Poor gal.
CONSTRUCTING THE JEWEL VAULT
The vault was situated in the cellar of 165 Washington Park (itself a wedding gift to the young couple from the Tammany Hall Boss), and it had a 3′ x 4′ door, which opened into a brick cavern five feet square, finished with cement. The vault was lined with iron plate, and the whole business was covered with polished cherry.
Two doors of the interior were locked and bolted with apparatus that would “cause insanity” on the part of the burglar attempting to solve the “open sesame.”
After its completion, Dr. Carroll told The New York Evening World that “neither moth nor rust will corrupt, nor thieves break through and steal” the valuable wedding gifts he and his wife had received at their wedding.
Although there were a number of reports concerning attempts at obtaining access to the contents of the vault, it apparently was never “cracked.”
It is not known whether this vault still exists within the brownstone’s cellar.
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