A Marital Entanglement, Part 2
A surprising reveal in the curious career of Eliza Brownell, aka Eliza Davenport
In Part One of this series, I looked at the start of Eliza Brownell’s unique matrimonial career. After marrying her first husband, Alexander Owens, the two quickly became separated. They lived apart until he appeared at her door one night and delivered an ultimatum that she would stay his wife or he would cut her throat. To make his point, he pulled a fifteen-inch knife from his sleeve and held it to her head. She calmly maneuvered his arrest and, after a short trial, he was sent to Blackwell’s Island for a year and charged with a $250 fine. During his incarceration she did two things: collected a tidy alimony settlement and picked out another husband, Owens’s Uncle.
The uncle in question was George Jefferson Smith, a wealthy and notable New Yorker of the time. When Smith died in 1891, he had been a soldier, messenger for Andrew Jackson, Police Captain, militia officer, tax collector, auctioneer, saloon owner, and marshal. What’s more, he was reportedly worth $200,000, or the equivalent of about $4 million today.
According to the New York World, once Owens was sent to prison, Brownell “conceived a violent attachment” to Uncle Smith. “After a short courtship,” the two married.
Unlike in Eliza’s first marriage, this couple did not enjoy a grand tour honeymoon. Smith soon found out she was his nephew’s ex-wife and was furiously separated from his new wife. Jefferson paid her a sizable sum, after which, the article reports that she “returned to her old associations.”
But what—or who—were her “old associations”?
In her court testimony after her first husband’s assault, Brownell gave her address as 238 Greene Street. City Directories have no Eliza Brownell at that address but a newspaper search for the address reveals a woman named “Eliza Davenport” engaged in…questionable activities.
A “disreputable house” is in, nineteenth-century-speak, a brothel. In fact, this was not the only time that a man entered 238 Greene Street with a woman only to accuse her of theft.
New York City directories list an Eliza Davenport, widow of Alfred, running a boardinghouse at 238 Greene from 1865-1874 .
Contrary to many people’s expectations, the sex industry operated in full view of the public. Brothel owners would regularly list their houses in City Directories. Convention dictated that they described themselves as widows, which could be used as a kind of code for strangers to identify potential brothels from readily available directories.
238 Greene Street was no ordinary brothel, but a “House of Assignation,” which was a term that meant a well-appointed house where couples could rent rooms to conduct affairs or otherwise have casual sex. In fact, in the Brownell, aka Davenport, testimony from the Owens assault, she describes her house as a “place to meet.” When asked if it is an Assignation House, she flatly pretends she has never heard of the term.
Greene Street was an upscale neighborhood in the sexual geography of New York City. In 1870, the house got a small mention in a rare surviving brothel guide:
An auction notice from 1874 gives us a clue into the wealth inside the house.
So Eliza Davenport, aka Eliza Brownell, or, as she would later be known, Lizzie Brown and Eliza Brown, had enough money to furnish a lush house and keep it running in high style.
Once again, rather than rest on her settlement from Smith, she began courting someone new. Sticking to her modus operandi, she chose another Smith family member, this time Husband #2’s twenty-two year old son. I don’t know if she was expecting easy pickings or if she knew she was pushing her luck, but this marriage would end in the most dangerous drama of her marrying career.
To Be Continued…