I first covered the harrowing ordeal of Ernest and Mary Ackerly in these pages back in 2013 with “The Battle of Whiskey Hills,” an account of a series of attacks along White Rock Creek which occurred in the spring of 1869. The piece concluded with news about the death of Mr. Ackerly many years after the newlywed couple had returned to the relative safety of New York.
According to a story appearing in several local newspapers, Ackerly took his own life in 1896 by closing all of the windows in his new home at White Plains before turning on gas jets without lighting them and then lay down to await the inevitable. There was talk that he had not been in his right mind recently, opened a rooming house for fellow alcoholics, went back on the bottle, and had sent a money order signed “Grover Cleveland.”
I recently stumbled upon an alternative version of Ernest Ackerly’s death penned by his brother, insisting that the cause was completely accidental. If I had paid close attention to the original death notice and realized the date of Ackerly’s death, I might have investigated further. Of course the windows were closed. He died in New York in January.
Ernest did lie down before falling asleep, though not in his bed. According to his brother he apparently succumbed to fumes while perched in his bathtub where he was using two gas jets and two kerosene heaters to thaw frozen pipes.
Most members of the Excelsior Colony who staked out claims in Kansas were carpenters and mechanics from Brooklyn who had attended organizational meetings for several months as they planned their migration to the Plains. Ernest Ackerly, a carpenter who specialized in building stairways, already appeared to have a lucrative business, judging from the number of rather costly personal belongings he and Mary had lugged with them and were forced to abandon as they fled on foot.
Many of their garments, including silk, cashmere and camel’s hair dresses, would later adorn the Cheyenne Dog Soldiers and their war ponies as they paraded boldly around the walls of the makeshift fort protecting the remaining Excelsior Colonists who cowered inside.
After returning to Brooklyn Ernest formed a partnership with another builder, a business which apparently prospered. When he and Mary renewed their vows at their fifteenth wedding anniversary in 1884 the celebration was a lavish affair attended by the upper crust of Brooklyn.
An unvarnished account of Ackerly’s death closed with the following statement:
The sensational stories in the New York dailies and in the Mt. Vernon Argus that Mr. Ackerly committed suicide have no foundation whatsoever and are absolutely false.
The bogus “sensational stories” may have included that business about running a rooming house for alcoholics and pretending to be Grover Cleveland. It did all sound too juicy to be true. Drat.
The topic is also covered in “First Person Singular” and “The Out of Towners."