The home of the Victoria Woodhull and Tennessee Claflin
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In this episode of Someone Lived Here, we follow the life of Victoria Woodhull. We start at her mansion at 15 East 38th Street in Murray Hill, which is no longer standing. Then trace her life back from the small Ohio town where she was born. Victoria started her life as a psychic, became a stockbroker, and then a women’s rights activist and the first female presidential nominee.
This season, host Kendra Gaylord, is exploring homes that are no longer standing by learning their stories, all while staying self-isolated in her apartment in Brooklyn.
If you’d like to read more about Victoria Woodhull I would recommend Notorious Victoria: The Uncensored Life of Victoria Woodhull and Other Powers: The Age of Suffrage, Spiritualism, and the Scandalous Victoria Woodhull.
Below is a transcript for season 2, episode 5 of Someone Lived Here and the story of Victoria Woodhull. If you have any questions about the show or suggestions on how to make it more accessible please reach out at someonelivedhere@gmail.com.
The 4-story brownstone mansion in Murray Hill is no longer there. It’s an office building with a parking garage. But in the 1870s it hosted some of the most influential people. Their hostess was Victoria Woodhull, a psychic from Ohio, turned stockbroker, turned presidential candidate.
Welcome to Someone Lived Here, a podcast about the places cool people called home. I’m your host Kendra Gaylord. This season we are learning the stories of homes that are no longer standing from the self isolation of my apartment.
Victoria Woodhull was 33 when she rented the Manhattan mansion at 15 East 38th Street. But she didn’t live there alone. There was her younger sister and business partner, Tenessee Claflin. Her second husband, her two children from her first marriage, her first husband. Her parents and her siblings and their spouses and their children. In a later court proceeding Victoria would state that she supported 20 family members and 10 children in that house. We’ll explain why she was at court later, but first I want to describe this home.
We don’t have any photos of the house, it was demolished before 1940 when many NYC buildings were photographed. But we do know what it looked like and this is a podcast so you weren’t going to see it anyway. It had a stone facade, but was built mostly of brick. A staircase led up to the big black walnut front door. It had 10 foot tall windows and was 4 stories and taller than all the other buildings on the block. The parlor had windows that opened up to a balcony, supported by Corinthian columns.
This property was rented off of her own income. Victoria started by advising the rich and powerful like Cornelius Vanderbilt. She got a cut of the profits and began making deals from her carriage outside of the gold exchange. From there, she and her sister, Tennessee, who went by Tennie would open their office Woodhull, Claflin and Co and they were announced on the stock and gold exchange.
Before she was a stock advisor, she was a spiritualist, who claimed to communicate with the dead and see the future. It was an unusual ascent to fortune, but in the world of Wall Street at the time it wasn’t that far off from other stock brokers who had previously been dairy sales men and circus barkers. But the truly unusual thing was that they were women and that was one of the reasons Victoria was on Wall Street in the first place.
Victoria wanted to change the prospects for women and she knew that the best way to do that was with money and press. Her main belief was seen as radical called “Free Love” and just as a reminder we are still talking about the 1870s. Free lovers believed that marriage should result from mutual attraction, instead of obligation and that marriage laws endangered women as they were bound to sexual relationships with their husbands. And she had her own experience to see how marriage could be a prison.
We’re going to go back to the Ohio town where Victoria and Tennie grew up. Victoria’s life in Manhattan and her life in Homer, Ohio couldn’t be more different. She was the sixth of ten children. They lived in a 25 foot long unpainted 1 story woo den shack. The town had less than 300 residents and 1 intersection. And the Claflin’s had a reputation. Victoria’s mother Roxy was extremely religious. Every night she would go to a nearby orchard and pray for the sins of the people of Homer. Victoria’s father on the other hand was Buck. He was the local criminal, which included stealing money from people’s mail, counterfeiting and arson. That last one would be the reason Victoria and her family would have to leave town. She was 11 and her 3 years of elementary school would be her last.
In a new town in Ohio, Victoria at age 14 and Tennie, age 7 became mediums. Victoria believed she could communicate with her dead sisters and Tennie had predicted a fire. Their father Buck would charge $1 per visit. Buck wrote a short rhyme to Victoria, “Girl your worth has never yet been known, but to the world it shall be shown”
It was in that town where Victoria met Canning Woodhull. He was 28 and establishing a medical practice. He had treated the 14 year old for a fever. He said he was the son of a judge and the nephew of the mayor of New York. The two were married 5 months later and Victoria assumed she was beginning a new more stable life, but that was not the case. They moved away from her family. She found out her new husband was not in fact the son of a judge or the nephew of a mayor. He didn’t have a functioning medical practice and was addicted to alcohol and morphine and was often having affairs.
At 16, Victoria had a son, Byron. As he got older, she noticed that he was intellectually disabled. He would never be able to speak but would be by her side for the rest of her life. The Woodhull’s then moved to San Francisco, where Victoria became an actress and earned income for the family. She sad that when performing a scene she had a vision of her sister Tennie telling her to come home. She packed her bags, and her family headed to Ohio.
In Victoria’s years away, Tennie had been busy. She had been working for years as a medium and often as a magnetic healer, the idea was that her hands could heal a person. Victoria was frustrated that her father had been exploiting her younger sisters gifts, but soon she was back at it too. Not only was she earning an income, but it also offered freedom from her gender. By being the “conduit for a message” she was able to offer advice and opinions and guide people through hardship.
Six years after the birth of her first child, she was pregnant again, this time at 22 with family in her life. She had her daughter Zulu, who would later go by Zula.
A few years later, Tennie at age 19 would be charged with manslaughter. Their father, Buck had renamed himself Dr. R.B. Claflin calling himself the King of Cancers and had opened an infirmary in a hotel in Illinois. There Tennie was expected to heal patients with cancer. When one patient died, Tennie was charged. The family fled and soon after Victoria would take Tennie (along with her children and husband) to Cincinnati where the two would open shop as clairvoyants, like they had when they were kids. But they were no longer perceived as kids. Neighbors assumed any male client was not there to talk with the spirits, but instead sex. A year later the city asked the women to leave. Tennie was named in civil suit for adultery.
The sisters moved from city to city and met up with the rest of their family who were touring Tennessee and Arkansas. The civil war was just ending and people were looking for comfort and cures. Victoria would communicate with dead spirits and solve domestic problems. And what Victoria found when talking to women was the extreme hardships from their marriages: abuse, rape, abandonment, and financial ruin.
After Victoria would land in St Louis where she again set up a practice. There she met Colonel James Blood. He was a Commander in the Union Army and came to her for a spiritual consult. While he was there in a trance she announced that his future would be linked with hers and that they would be married. He immediately proposed, despite both of them already being married. Their divorces were later finalized. She was 26, and he was 29.
I try not to comment on people’s names but Colonel Blood sounds very good name, like it belongs in a gory version of Clue. Colonel Blood unlike her first husband, was ambitious and intellectual. Victoria had found her belief system based on her life experience, but now she was able the pre existing movements about women’s rights and social equality. In the teachings she studied, marriage was supposed to be a union of equals and in meeting Colonel Blood she had now met hers.
Many decisions made by Victoria were the results of her visions, like the one that she had when she was an actress to rejoin her family. Now she had another vision, an Ancient Greek statesmen gave her an address in New York where she would “find a house swept and garnished for the commencement of the work she had to do”
That address was 17 Great Jones street, the building is no lo nger there, it was taken down to make Lafayette Street connect down to lower Manhattan. There she was joined by her parents along with Tennie, and her other sisters and their families. Their father Buck set out to find them work and the person he found was Cornelius Vanderbilt. He was 73, had recently lost his wife and not long after had a big business loss thanks to Jay Gould (who you might remember from last season when we bowled at his estate, Lyndhurst). Vanderbilt was open to spiritualism and Buck recommended his daughters. Saying that Tennie would heal his physical ailments with magnetism and Victoria would be his spiritual adviser. After he met the sisters, he agreed.
The Vanderbilt family worried he would marry Tennie, who he brought everywhere and called “my little sparrow”. The 50 year age difference didn’t appear to bother him. Victoria on the other hand became more than a spiritual advisor, but instead a financial one: predicting trends and recommending when to buy and sell. He in turn gave her a percentage as well as stock tips. When asked how he made such good financial decisions Vanderbilt responded, “Do as I do. Consult the spirits.”
I now want to bring you back to Victoria Woodhull’s e38th mansion in Murray Hill. When I describe it now, you will understand why this time period was called the Gilded Age. The walls were lined with marble, the ceilings painted gold, the curtains were velvet, there were chandeliers, carpets, and mirrors everywhere. In the mahogany paneled library, there were even mirrors on the ceiling. Off of the main parlor was a greenhouse filled with birds. At the top of the grand staircase was a large painted dome, a reporter would say, “a flood of light beaming through a circular sheet of glass painted in the most exquisite colors [depicting] the loves of Venus in delicate lines.”
Further upstairs where the sister’s separate rooms. Tennie was filled with purple velvet and lilac patterned silk. Victoria’s walls were lined with green velvet with a matching bed spread and gilded chairs.
Victoria now had the money, and the press, but it wasn’t political focused. So a paper was started called Woodhull & Claflin’s Weekly. Victoria assumed the role of publisher and her husband the editorial chair. This paper would elevate their philosophies on free love, equality, and labor unions, but it would also lead to her future arrest.
But before we get there, I want to tell you about the day that Victoria Woodhull was the first woman to address a congressional committee. It was a surprise to the women’s suffrage leaders in when they read it in the paper, but they attended. In total only 8 lawmakers attended, but the press account was detailed and in one report especially focused on their clothing.. and not just the two sisters.
This is from The Press of Philadelphia “At the head of the class was Mrs. Beecher Hooker – her soft fleecy curls tied down in orthodox precision; the curling feathers of blue harmonizing with her peachy complexion. Susan B Anthony snuggled close beside her, clad in a smart new dress of black silk, with velveteen overskirt and fancy Basque. Her spectacles clung to her nose and she had that longing, hope-deferred look, which humanity always wears when it has been centered for a half century on a single idea.” “The firm of Woodhull and Claflin are clad precisely alike, and call each other sister. Their costume consists of a business suit, because they are strictly business. These costumes are made of blue naval cloth, skimp in the skirt. The jacket has masculine coat-tails behind but the steeple-crowned hats are the towering triumph of this most picturesque outfit.“
But what I would argue was the towering triumph was Victoria’s speech. She argued that the constitution already stated that women had the right to vote. The 15th amendment declared that the “rights of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged” and in the 14th amendment said that “all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction theory are citizens.” To Victoria and Massachusetts Representative Benjamin Butler it seemed clear that this would include women.
After her speech the suffragist saw her as a shining possibility. She joined the National Committee of Women and contributed $10,000.
She continued on in Washington, and when Congress refused to give her a public meeting with the House of Representatives, she instead went to Lincoln Hall. There she had a large audience, “It is not the women who are happily situated, whose husbands hold positions of honor and trust, who are blessed by the bestowal of wealth, comforts and ease that I plead for. But for the toiling female millions who have human rights which should be respected.”
This was a direct hit to a petition signed by the wives of politicians and prominent businessmen who said they represented the majority of women in the country. In the closing of her speech she said, “If Congress refuse to listen to and grant what women ask, there is but one course left to pursue. Women have no government. We are plotting a revolution; we will over slough this bogus republic and plant a government of righteousness in its stead.”
Victoria would return to New York and more articles would be written about the woman who suggested a revolution. Gossip and stories of her past began to unravel.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton responded “In regard to the gossip about Mrs. Woodhull I have one answer to give all my gentlemen friends. When the men who make laws for us in Washington can stand forth and declare themselves pure and unspotted from all the sins… then we will demand that every woman who makes a constitutional argument on our platform shall be as chaste as Diana.”
“We have had women enough sacrificed to this sentimental, hypocritical prating about purity. This is one of man’s most effective engines for our division and subjugation. He creates the public sentiment, builds the gallows, and then makes us hangmen for our sex. If Victoria Woodhull must be crucified, let men drive the spikes.”
In very little time, Victoria would be in the midst of many scandals. Her first court appearance was because of her mother, who accused Colonel Blood of trying to kill her. The inciting incident seemed to revolve less around Victoria’s husband but instead the lack of sway in her daughters lives. Nothing came of the trial, but a lot was publicly revealed, including the details of her living situation. She lived with Colonel Blood and her ex-husband. In reality Victoria appeared to welcome all of her family into her home and her morphine addicted ex-husband and father of her children was family.
The next scandal is messy and confusing and revolves around three Beecher siblings. Catherine Beecher, Harriet Beecher Stowe and the youngest brother Reverend Henry Ward Beeche, an extremely famous preacher. Victoria had heard that the Reverend was known to have affairs. Victoria and the eldest sister would later meet and Victoria would speak of Free Love, suggesting it was more common she brought up her brother’s rumored affair with his parishioner. Victoria would later say that Catherine left her with a threat “Remember Victoria Woodhull, that I shall strike you dead.”
The parishioner the reverend had an affair with was Elizabeth Tilton. She was married to Theodore Tilton. After his wife told him of the affair with a man he had seen as a friend his philosophy on religion and his work began to fall apart. Victoria and Theodore became allies and would write positive stories about each other in their papers. They also began an affair and over a summer he would write her biography as she recounted her past. When it was published his reputation was damaged. One paper wrote a fake obituary, saying he had been replaced with a pseudo Tilton.
But there were other more positive things at play. A unknown group announced their nomination of Victoria Woodhull for president under the Equal Rights Party. There were rumors that group had Vanderbilt’s backing. Victoria would accept the nomination. Frederick Douglass was nominated for VP by the Equal Rights Party without his knowledge, he did not acknowledge the nomination.
Her opposition grew stronger, but so did her opinions. At Steinway Hall she gave a 2 hour speech which discussed women’s rights. When republished all words related to sex were removed, including pregnancy, rape, and abortion.
Money was not coming in as it used to and her reputation was tough. Her daughter could no longer go to private school because the other parents objected to the child’s mother. The family had to leave their home and hotels would not accept her. She was running out of options. She saw the success of Theodore Tilton as he had rolled back his opinions on Free Love. She saw Henry Ward Beecher had escaped criticism.
In an act of frustration and defiance she went to Boston, got an audience and told the entire Beecher and Tilton affair. She would later say, “They tell me I used some naughty words upon that occasion. All that I know is, that if I swore, I did not swear profanely.”
Her paper which had gone out of business, published again telling the story again with more details and called out the hypocrisy she saw. Four days after its publication there was a warrant out for Victoria’s arrest.
Anthony Comstock opposed obscene literature and dedicated his life to upholding what he saw as morality. He first brought it to New York courts who refused his application for an arrest warrant. Next he went to the federal courts, who had recently passed a law making it illegal to send obscene material through the mail. Woodhull & Claflin’s Weekly was mailed to some subscribers. The words were token and virginity.
Victoria and Tennie were arrested. After 4 weeks they were released with a bail of $8,000 each, but where brought back for trials and then arrested again, each time with a higher bail. In total they would pay $60,000 each. The constant battle with the courts was heavily reported and people began to be upset by the prolonged harassment. Money was tight and despite being sick, Victoria began a lecture tour returning to be in court. A year and a half later a jury would reach the verdict of not guilty. But there were other civil cases against her. Once they had concluded, at the age of 37, Colonel Blood and Victoria would divorce.
She and Tennie and her children would move to London. Victoria after a lecture met John Martin, an heir of Britain’s oldest banks. He was a few years younger, and their courtship was slow, often interrupted by new parts to the Beecher scandal or concern and doubt from John’s family. But after much back and forth the two were married on Halloween. He was 42 and she was 45, although her age was crossed out and 42 was written. Victoria now found herself in a marriage where she was not responsible for their income. And she lived a much more quiet life than she ever had before. John would write her love notes before he went to his office down the street.
After 13 years of marriage, John would die while traveling. His death was just preceded by his father’s which meant that Victoria was bequeathed a family property Norton Park. The yellow stone Tudor style mansion with high gables is still standing. It was here that she would spend the next 30 years of her son and daughter by her side.
Victoria died in her sleep at the age of 88. She wanted to be remembered by a line from Kant. “You cannot understand a man’s work by what he has accomplished but by what he has overcome in accomplishing it.”
She had spent her 30s campaigning in the United States for women’s right to vote, she was 81 when the 19th amendment was ratified.
Thank you for listening to Someone Lived Here. The book Notorious Victoria and Other Powers were used to research this episode. You can find the links to those books on our website. Tim Cahill created the musicfor our show.
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Sources:
Notorious Victoria: The Uncensored Life of Victoria Woodhull by Mary Gabriel
