The New York Sunday Mercury, on June 22, 1862, headlines a story “A Wolf in Sheep's Clothing,” claiming that Ellen Eyre's blackmailing had gone on for eight years and compromised 300 men, including 100 New Yorkers.[1]

“Billy” Kinney

Speaking of the arrestee, the paper is the first to assert his name: “This individual is the notorious Billy Kinney, alias California Bill, alias Dr. Coffin, alias Miss Ellen Fay, alias Mrs. Ellen Eyre.” Was William Kinney or Billy Kinney the imposter's birth name? We don't know. The loosely edited paper also several times spells his last name “Kenney.” The paper also refers to “the offending ‘Bill’, or the ‘dear Nellie.’” Could this “Nellie” be early documentation of an effeminate man being called “a Nelly”?[2]

“In personal appearance,” the paper says, “Kenney is calculated to deceive almost any superficial observer in regard to his sex: and when made up...there were few who could detect in him aught else beside the charming creature which his epistles to his victims...led them to suppose him to be.”[3]

The paper details the large collection of female clothes found in Eyre's house, including underwear, and makeup, including “rouge and lily white, and balm of a thousand flowers.”[4]

According to this report, “a miniature specimen of Ethiopian extraction” had appeared at the post office to pick up Eyre's mail. This apparently characterizes the height of the “black man” who, an earlier paper had reported, picked up Eyre's mail.[5]

The Letters

The paper claims to provide many “true samples” of the letters to and from Eyre, saying that these revealed that Eyre “had been in their arms, they had fondled with the gracefully arranged curls..., and left him [Eyre] at last with the passion-kiss upon the burning lip, believing him to be one of the dearest specimens of the dearer sex.” This raises the question of whether one of Eyre's customers understood him to be a biological male dressed as a woman? Or was this person, perhaps, intersexed? How did they conceive themselves?[6]

A carpet bag found in Eyre's house contained, the paper alleges, “about one thousand letters” from more than three hundred men, including “merchants, ministers, lawyers and lecturers,” along with “editors of independent religious journals.” The paper continues by asserting that “some of the most brilliant minds of the country” have paid homage to Eyre, inspired by their “ardent longings for illicit love.”[7]

“To give the names of these, would carry desolation into many a family, now reposing in the bliss of ignorance,” the paper says. The letter writers are “men whom the world regards as the most chaste and upright in the country, denizens of the Fifth avenue and the Astor [Hotel], and habitues of up-town palatial homes.” They include “proprietors of extensive and fashionable hotels on Broadway, and one editor at least of a leading independent religious journal.”[8]

Without revealing Eyre's victims' names, the Sunday Mercury reprints copies of nine letters, some of which, it says, included daguerreotypes. Most of the writers, it concludes, expressed a desire for an “agreeable” assignation.[9]

One helpful correspondent who did not understand Eyre's intention says they know a “young man given to romancing” to whom Eyre could write and “thou cannot do better than to invite him to a ‘twilight entertainment.’ He is a perfect gentleman, therefore thou needest not fear any unpleasant consequences.”[10]

The paper declares, “Think of the following being written from man to man,” and then presents the following missive from one: “SWEET--I dropped you a note from Albany.... My arrival in the city will probably be late on the coming Monday. May I be permitted the request, dearest, that on Tuesday next, at 6, P.M., we meet at the place where, at our last interview, we enjoyed the delights reserved only to the loving.”[11]

Another writer asked to know more of “my mysterious and amorous friend” and recalled: “The adventure of the first night in which I met Ellen Eyre will never be forgotten.”[12]

In one letter, Eyre tries for a rematch: “The recollection of that sweet kiss I stole from you in the doorway still haunts my lips.” She asked: “Does it not seem hard that a woman should thus feel impelled to cry aloud her passion?” (Was Eyre a proto-feminist?) She called, “Come because I so ardently long to embrace you and call you mine, if it be only for the few brief moments during which I shall be physically yours.”[13]

In one letter, Eyre asks for money: “I approach with reluctance, if not with aversion, the subject upon which circumstances compel me to address you; but my cheerful and prompt sympathy with your inclinations, during three-quarters of a year will, I feel sure, justify my course in your eyes.... ‘Man lives not by bread alone,’ nor woman by love alone. She has other claims, and those that call for money. I have never imagined it was your intention to leave the tender offices of so many months unrequited, and I have little hesitation in frankly expressing my need of $50.” It was, she wrote, “repugnant in the highest degree to my delicacy and dignity, to be obliged to make this appeal.”[14]

In reply, the recipient of Eyre's request wrote that he was “surprised” by it for he had never regarded their “tender relations” in “the light of a financial operation, but presumed that my visits contributed as much gratification as was imparted by you.” He “considered the favors received at your hands as canceled thereby--as an even thing.” He found her request of “too mercenary a character.” He “bid adieu to one whose character I have so grossly misapprehended.”[15]

The paper stresses that Kinney/Kenney is “the extraordinary character with whom these unfortunates had to deal” and ends: “The entire history of his imposter's life, if printed, would be the most graphic...view of the weak side of human nature ever given to the world. Who will be his biographer?”[16]

Our Conclusion

We conclude after reading and analyzing these bits of quoted letters that they sound authentic and may well be actual letters confiscated by the police, not letters invented by a scandal-mongering paper to sell more copies.

If these letters are inventions of the newspaper, some writer or writers worked hard to make them sound authentic. If authentic, these letters represent a small sample of all the other letters destroyed because they document intimate, sometimes sexual encounters.

Notes

[1] “A Wolf in Sheep's Clothing,” New York Sunday Mercury, June 22, 1862, 7.

[2] “Wolf in Sheep's Clothing.”

[3] “Wolf in Sheep's Clothing.”

[4] “Wolf in Sheep's Clothing.”

[5] “Wolf in Sheep's Clothing.”

[6] “Wolf in Sheep's Clothing.”

[7] “Wolf in Sheep's Clothing.”

[8] “Wolf in Sheep's Clothing.”

[9] “Wolf in Sheep's Clothing.”

[10] “Wolf in Sheep's Clothing.”

[11] “Wolf in Sheep's Clothing.”

[12] “Wolf in Sheep's Clothing.”

[13] “Wolf in Sheep's Clothing.”

[14] “Wolf in Sheep's Clothing.”

[15] “Wolf in Sheep's Clothing.”

[16] “Wolf in Sheep's Clothing.”