November 24, 2017

Artifact #56: Edwin B. Smith writes to Soapy's son, 1908.


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he reason I did not answer your letter
was because it failed to reach me.
Artifact #56

     Another letter from Edwin Bobo Smith to his first cousin, once removed, Jefferson Randolph Smith III, Soapy Smith's son. Born February 8, 1887 means that at the date of the letter son Jeff was 21 years old, and Edwin Bobo Smith, born May 10, 1859 was 49 years old. Edwin writes,

Mar 23, 1908

Dear Jeff:

The reason I did not answer your letter was because it failed to reach me. I have been living in Baltimore since last August working on the Balt. American. Sooner or later I expect to go back to Washington where the rest of the family are. I trust you are doing well and I will always be glad to hear from you. I have a very close friend in St. Louis, by the name of Dennis J. Canty. Some day I wish you would look him up and give him my best wishes. He is I think in the brokerage business with a man named Price or Prince can tell you where to find him.

How is your mother and sisters? I suppose the sister is married by this time. Give them my love.
Sincerely Yours,
Ed B. Smith—



 
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     The stationary comes from the Hotel Rennert in Baltimore, Maryland. It was common in the 19th-20th century for people to utilize "free to customers" stationary from hotels, saloons, and other businesses stationary. Edwin may have obtained some, or even possibly lived in the hotel.
     The Rennert, located at the southwest corner Saratoga and Liberty streets, was built by Robert Rennert in 1885.


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Hotel Rennert postcard

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     The hotel contained 128 "chambers," all of which had fireplaces and 40 of which had private baths. The building was illuminated by both gas and electricity. Hydraulic elevators whisked guests and staff between floors and to the roof, which contained a garden and offered splendid views of the city, especially at night. The Rennert closed in 1939 and was torn down in 1941.

Where the Hotel Rennert once stood
now a parking lot
 courtesy of Google maps

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     In 1951, a five-story parking garage was built on the site and aptly named the Rennert Garage. It was torn down in 1996 and replaced by a parking lot. A fence of steel and brick that follows the outline of the long-gone hotel is the only reminder of its existence on the site.



























Jefferson Randolph Smith III (Soapy's son): pages 7, 107-08, 167, 417-18, 546, 584, 587-89.

Edwin Bobo Smith: pages 20, 22-30, 35, 32, 36, 333, 425, 428, 444-49, 589.






"Brooks took my freight out a mile along the trail and dumped it there for a better offer to haul whisky. There was a clause in the contract that if he didn’t deliver, the pack train was mine. He just laughed at me and said, “What are you going to do about it?” He was fond of drink and had so much money he didn’t know what to do with it.
     I went back to Skagway and I was boiling mad. Soapy Smith was clean and he was intelligent looking. I thought he was the most perfect gentleman there. He looked like a minister and had this soft southern drawl. Soapy was my hero, and I went to him for advice. I told him what had happened and how I owed $8,000 and had to get this gear to Dawson.
     “I’ll see what I can do for you, Belinda,” he said.
     He picked up a good tough bunch of men and we lit out with his crew and took possession of the pack train, unloaded the whisky and packed my freight. Brooks had a pinto he rode all the time and I took that for myself. That’s what Soapy did for me and I liked him."
—Belinda Mulrooney
—Alias Soapy Smith, p. 591.



NOVEMBER 24


1853: Famed Buffalo hunter, lawman, gambler, newspaper writer, and friend of bad man Soapy Smith, William Barclay "Bat" Masterson is born in Quebec, Canada.
1859: Denver Rocky Mountain Brewery makes the first batch of beer in Denver, Colorado. William Byers of the Rocky Mountain News writes that it is “a drink not deadly in its effects,” and would “decrease the present consumption of strychnine whiskey and Taos Lightning.”
1860: Denver, Colorado gambler Charley Harrison shoots and kills rancher James Hill during an altercation in the Criterion saloon. Details of the shooting vary and in the end charges of murder were dropped.
1863: The battle for Lookout Mountain begins in Tennessee, during the Civil War.
1864: Colonel John Chivington assumes command of an expedition against Indians living at Sand Creek, Colorado Territory.
1864: Kit Carson and his 1st Cavalry, New Mexico Volunteers, attack a camp of Kiowa Indians in the First Battle of Adobe Walls.
1869: Captain Edward Heyl and a detachment of Companies L and M, 9th Cavalry, skirmish with Apache Indians near the Llano River in Texas. Heyl is wounded and one Indian killed. Six horses are captured.
1870: Against outlaw Jesse James's wishes, his sister, Susan James, marries former Quantrill raider Allen Palmer.
1871: The National Rifle Association is incorporated in the U.S.
1874: Joseph F. Glidden is granted a patent for a barbed fencing material.
1882: Charles Earl “Black Bart” Bowles robs the Lakeport-Cloverdale stagecoach, six miles outside of Cloverdale, California.
1889: Famed con man John L. “Reverend” Bowers marries Bella Banning in Denver, Colorado.
1891: The Amethyst (Creede, Colorado) Creede’s first newspaper, is published.) Creede is where bad man Soapy Smith operated his second criminal empire.
1903: Clyde J. Coleman receives the patent for an electric self-starter for an automobile.
1924: Famed lawman Bill Tilghman is killed in the line of duty in Cromwell, Oklahoma. He was 71-years-old.




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