Aftermath: Questions, but Few Answers
Did Edward J. Stevens ever really intend to walk out into some sunny Hicksville field, pistol or sword (whether long or short) in hand? It's hard to say. The spirit of his early letters suggests that at the time, he was in a manic, quasi-rational state of mind. It is doubtful that Madame Rosa welcomed the consequent publicity. Stevens himself, swashbuckling down her clothes line, may not have thought through the prospect of facing a calmer man, one who - though frail - had a pistol equal to his own.
The challenge may have been only a ploy, a bluff that Stevens intended to use in order to extort money from George's father, as compensation for his bearing the perceived insult without retaliating. As the press of the day was extremely gossipy, it is hard to know what, if anything, de Languillette may have said to whom about whom else. The news reports were inconsistent. At first, Stevens is described by one newspaper as a quack whom someone suspected of inducing abortions. Months later, it is Madame Rosa who is described, without question, as an abortionist - an allegation which does not seem to have been made by any other newspaper.
*
George de Languillette did not remain at the soap works very long. His health declined further, and with his family he moved to Los Angeles, hoping that the southern California climate would make a difference. It did not. Discouraged, he made plans to return home - likely thinking he would soon die in comforting surroundings, with his extended family nearby.
He was not quite able to do that, for in the summer of 1888, almost at the end of the long journey back, George died in Woodhaven, at the age of 39. He was buried in the de Languillette family plot in Plain Lawn. His wife and their three children would ultimately decide to continue to reside in Los Angeles.
De Languillette grave marker at Plain Lawn Cemetery, Hicksville, NY
Findagrave.com
*
Ernst would survive another five years. He continued to place advertisements in New York newspapers, as he had for years since George left for Los Angeles, seeking a buyer for the soap works which he no longer wanted to think about. Unlike some of his contemporaries, such as Messrs. Herzog and Heitz, he left no street behind to carry on his family name (thereby saving the good people of Hicksville from a lifetime of spelling errors). Regardless, he left his mark. For example, older firemen recalled that the first chemical apparatus in Hicksville's department had been constructed in the yard behind Ernst's house. Townspeople worried if there would be an agricultural fair now that old Ernst had passed away.
*
It is likely that Hicksville no longer cared, but accused murderer Sarah Merrigan resurfaced in the news from time to time because of the 1873 killing. She did get a second trial - which also ended in a hung jury. What with her giving birth, legal delays, witnesses' having moved abroad, illness or other unavailability of jurists and lawyers, court calendar issues, etc., things dragged on as if Charles Dickens had scripted them.
As the year 1878 began, she awaited a third trial, for which the prosecution was to call fifty-two witnesses. The defense's chief witness was in Ireland, and not inclined to return in order to testify. At one point, the defendant had spent twenty-one consecutive months in jail while waiting for a trial to commence.
Finally, as February began, all parties concerned agreed that a third trial would be pointless. The court moved to not prosecute, and Mrs. Merrigan was set free.
*
I suspect that the pseudonym "Madame Rosa" was laid to rest once the aftermath of the "duel that never was" subsided. This is not to say, however, that Amy Stevens, as she called herself on the 1880 U.S. Census, had retired. As opposed to labeling herself a "Clairvoyant," as she had on the prior census, this time the woman in question said that she was a "Doctress." I have yet to find evidence of the name under which she continued to do business.
In the long letter to her which Stevens wrote before attempting to kill himself, he had noted her misgivings concerning a man named Harper. The letter suggested that she regretted having ended an intimate relationship with this man after she met Edward Stevens. Curiously, the name Harper did not appear when, for the newspaper that published the letter, she listed all her husbands by name. And yet, on the 1880 Census, she is listed as residing near the northwest shore of Staten Island, living with one person, a daughter, born about 1863 - Amy Harper.
That's All!
***
