Section 54, Lot 13.

From Cincinnati Curiosities by Greg Hand

Charles Greve’s massive 2,000-page Centennial History of Cincinnati and Representative Citizens, published in 1904. Tucked away on Page 884 of this ponderously detailed history of the Queen City is a 25-year-old cold case, the unsolved murder of Harry Baldwin.

image
The Baldwin Murder Case began on Saturday, March 15, with a group of five men on a spree. The quintet included William Schaller, son of the owner of Schaller & Gerke brewers; Joseph L. Hahn, Newport agent of the brewers; Jacob Dorse, employed as a collector by the brewery; Fidel Bader, proprietor of the Washington Platform saloon at the corner of Court and Elm streets; and William Schmudde, a Court Street seed merchant. The men had been drinking at several locations including “Italian Joe’s” saloon on the west side of Elm between Eighth and Ninth, and at Kittie Bennett’s whorehouse next-door.

At some point during the carouse, Schaller took a pistol away from Hahn and, as the crew walked up Elm Street, fired the gun into the air. The shot brought two night watchmen, Lawrence Doran and Harry Hurtig, running out of Brown’s Saloon to investigate, followed by two regular Cincinnati police officers, Andrew Schmidt and James Young.

After some tough questions yielded unsatisfactory answers, Schmidt opted to round the whole group up and take them to the Ninth Street police station to sort things out. Along the way, Schaller’s identity came out and the officers of the law brightened considerably. Apologies were offered all around and the merry quintet, now escorted by a quartet of peace officers, repaired to the Washington Platform for drinks all around. Schmidt and Young, being “abstinence men,” remained outside but enjoyed some free cigars. Schaller’s gang then went to their separate homes and the officers returned to patrol.

Doran, back on Elm Street, found a man reclining against a house. The night watchman saw that he was covered in blood and assumed he was drunk and had hit his head in a fall. The man had a considerable amount of heavy gold jewelry. Doran found Hurtig and, as they discussed what to do with the man, they saw Police Sergeant George Jenifer walk by. Sergeant Jenifer whistled for assistance, bringing Officers Schmidt and Young back to the scene. With Jenifer leading, the four patrolmen carried the unconscious man to the Ninth Street Station where he was placed in a cell for safekeeping. Checking his clothing, the police determined the he had probably been robbed while lying unconscious on the ground because there was no money or wallet in his pockets.

image
Although breathing, the man did not speak more than a few mumbled words. A jailer cleaned up most of the blood and checked in on him occasionally. By early morning the man’s breathing had become so labored that the jailer called for assistance. The Lieutenant on duty sent for Dr. Charles S. Muscroft Jr.

Doctor Muscroft instantly recognized two things. First, this man was Harry Baldwin, newlywed son of Ammi Baldwin, cashier at the Third National Bank. Second, Baldwin was dying from a gunshot that had pierced his left temple. Baldwin was rushed to the City Hospital a few blocks away, but was dead on arrival. Harry Baldwin, not quite 24 when he died, left a pregnant widow, Harriet Wiswell Baldwin, and a host of questions.

Baldwin had returned to Cincinnati that evening after a week of sales calls in Connersville and Rushville, Indiana, on behalf of his employer, the Michigan Life Insurance Company. Witnesses saw him on the train, at the station, and walking homeward just blocks from his Ninth Street residence. He was found, bloodied and barely conscious, just around the corner from home.

Who killed Harry Baldwin? Theories abound.

At first attention focused on William Schaller and his rowdy gunshot. Hahn’s pistol, however, was a .32 caliber revolver and Baldwin’s wound was from a .22 caliber bullet. Nevertheless, Schaller would be hauled into court several times until finally cleared two years later.
Witnesses appeared who placed the six-foot, 200-pound Baldwin in an alley arguing with a “little man”. It was not clear if the “little man” was trying to get Baldwin to go home, or if Baldwin was trying to send the little man away. In any event, the “little man” was never found.
Days after Baldwin’s death, a four-barrel pepperbox pistol was found in a nearby alley. Suspicion fell on this unusual weapon even after it was found to take .25 caliber bullets. One theory was that Night Watchmen Doran and Hurtig had used this pistol to shoot Baldwin while robbing him.
Rumors circulated about an African American man who accosted Baldwin after he got off the train, and who may have followed him into an alley. No suspect was ever located or identified.
Several sources contorted themselves physically and intellectually in attempting to prove that Baldwin had, in fact, committed suicide. A swarm of physical evidence and factual inconsistencies sank this hypothesis.
Word got around that Baldwin, before he was married, had kept a mistress, perhaps named “Lillie” in Kittie Bennett’s house of pleasure and that this mistress had enacted her revenge on Baldwin for abandoning her.
Madam Bennett herself, a couple of her “girls” and household servants were all hauled in for questioning on reports that a gunshot emanated from that brothel. The house was thoroughly searched, but Kittie and company were freed when suspicious stains in the house proved to be glycerin and when a few “gentleman callers” testified nothing untoward had happened in the house that night.
These and a half-dozen other theories were chased to exhaustion and not one shed any light on the mysterious death of Harry Baldwin.

Perhaps the most bizarre aspect of the murder came from sources in Connersville, Indiana, where Baldwin boarded the train for Cincinnati. Witnesses heard him say, as he waited at the station:

“I hope I will miss the train; I don’t feel as though I ought to go to Cincinnati tonight.”