Jim Fisk

Born the son of a traveling kitchenware salesman in Vermont, Jim Fisk ran away from home at age 15 to join the circus. After a few years he returned home and joined his father as a peddler. The world might not remember Jim Fisk had not the Civil War come along, providing golden opportunities for unscrupulous men. A Boston department store hired him as a salesman and sent him to Washington D.C. with instructions to procure government contracts. Fisk took a room in a Washington hotel and set up a bar there, where he liberally entertained Congressmen. Soon lucrative government contracts were pouring in, and Fisk was on his way to earning a fortune.

Not content with mere run-of-the-mill war profiteering, Fisk increased his take by bribing government officials, smuggling southern cotton through the Federal blockade, and trading Confederate bonds with the benefit of inside information. By the end of the war, the former peddler was a millionaire.

From that humble start, Fisk proceeded to manipulation of the stock and gold markets. Allying with criminals and corrupt politicians, his fortune continued to swell, particularly after he joined with Jay Gould to steal control of the Erie Railroad and fleece Cornelius Vanderbilt out of millions of dollars.

Ever the showman, Fisk wore flashy jewelry, waxed his mustache, and dressed in flamboyant military uniforms, despite never having served. He threw outrageous parties and paid heavenly bills. By doling out favors and small gifts he won the admiration and loyalty of the New York Irish working class, to whom he was “Diamond Jim.”

Back when he was a humble 19-year-old peddler Fisk had married Lucy Moore, a 15-year-old orphan from Massachusetts. Once he was Diamond Jim the robber baron, Fisk had a series of high-profile unconcealed mistresses, but Lucy didn’t seem to mind. Fisk continued to be friendly, and to provide for her, and she was happily living with a paramour of her own, a woman named Fanny Harrod.

So, things were going swimmingly for Jim Fisk. He was living large. Then, in a New York bordello, he met Josie Mansfield.

Nineteen years old when she met Fisk, as a child Mansfield had been neglected by an alcoholic mother and abused by her stepfather, who was selling her to men by the time she was 15. At age 16 she married a San Francisco actor. The couple moved to New York and promptly divorced.

Mansfield was considered a ravishing beauty, at a time when plump figures such as hers were the ideal. Fisk was smitten immediately, and she became his mistress. He lavished money and expensive gifts on her—a four-story brownstone staffed with four servants, diamonds, emeralds, a high-fashion wardrobe, piles of cash, and anything else her heart desired. But less than two years after their relationship began, Fisk made what would be a fatal mistake—he introduced Mansfield to Ned Stokes.

Stokes was one of Fisk’s shady business partners, was regarded as devilishly handsome, and had a reputation as a ladies’ man (notwithstanding his wife and child). When he and Mansfield saw each other, sparks flew and soon their relationship was intimate. Together they began to extort money from Fisk, who was still so entranced by Mansfield that he paid it—most of which Stokes promptly lost at the racetrack. Eventually Fisk demanded that Mansfield choose between him and Stokes. She refused, saying she saw no reason why they couldn’t all remain friends. Finally at the end of his rope, Fisk stopped paying Mansfield. She responded by giving Fisk’s love letters to Stokes, who demanded $200,000 from Fisk in exchange for not delivering them to the press. Fisk refused, going to court instead, and obtaining a judgment that stripped Stokes of his interest in their partnership and required him to return the love letters to Fisk.

Already infuriated by his defeat in court, when Stokes learned that Fisk was about to file criminal blackmail charges against him, he was further enraged. On January 6, 1872, knowing that Fisk was going to the Grand Hotel, Stokes lay in wait for him there. When Fisk arrived at the hotel, Stokes stepped out of the shadows, and shot him twice. Fisk lived long enough to identify his murderer, before dying the following day.

James “Diamond Jim” Fisk died at age 36 on January 7, 1872, one hundred fifty one years ago today.

Fisk’s death was just another chapter in a long-running media sensation. Stokes stood trial for the murder three times. The first trial resulted in a hung jury. He was convicted and sentenced to death in the second trial, but an appellate court threw out the conviction and ordered a new trial. In the third and final trial, Stokes was found guilty of manslaughter and sentenced to six years in prison. Said to have been a model prisoner, he was released after serving only four years. He died in New York at age 61.

Shortly after the murder, Josie Mansfield moved to Paris with Vaudeville actress Ella Wesner, best known as a male impersonator, but the relationship ended after a couple of years. At age 44 she married an American lawyer living in London, but the couple divorced four years later. She died in Paris at age 83 and was buried in Montparnasse cemetery.

Fisk left nearly his entire estate to his wife Lucy, who declined offers of professional financial advice and instead lost it all in bad investments and improvident loans. At the end of her life, she was living with her sister, getting by on $50/month, and drinking too much.

The photos are (left to right): Jim Fisk, Josie Mansfield, and Ned Stokes.