The Strange Case of the Umbria (1903)

Sometimes, an object from the past contains the power to summon, like a séance, a long-forgotten event. In the case of the steamship Umbria, the spiritual medium is a postcard from New York, which conjures the memory of a ship that almost fell-victim to an early twentieth-century terrorist attack in a story so bizarre, unanswered questions remain over a century later. It is the saga of a plot that wasn’t really a plot hatched by a man who in a way never really existed.

Writing to her son in Chicago on May 12—just three days after the plot surfaced—“Mother” cynically discusses the wreck that almost was.

“My dear—Did you see that dreadful attempt to wreck the Umbria? It don’t seem safe to go in a British ship—it is the worst thing that even happened in this country. To wish to destroy 2000 people and not one would have survived. To tell what happened doesn’t it seem like a warning to people that are to cross[?] It still keeps hot and very dry—so much hot wind—I hope you will look carefully into the merits of ships—and captains.”

“Mother’s” warning came after the Umbria incident made headlines across the nation. A British steamship of the Cunard line (of later Titanic infamy), the fast liner Umbria made trans-Atlantic treks from New York to England.

The strange case began with a short letter addressed to the New York City Police. The note warned of “an infernal machine” on the docks ready to be loaded and designed to detonate when the Umbria was twenty-four hours into her voyage.

“Dear Sir,” the note began, “The Mafia greets you and wishes you well. At the Cunard dock is a box containing 100 pounds of dynamite. Inside also is a machine that, properly set, can explode the stuff at any time within thirty-six hours.”

The note went on to explain that “The society has declared war against England and ordered the destruction of every steamer flying the British flag sailing out of New York harbor.” The bomb, according to the note, was intended as a warning to show the “Society’s” intentions.

“The society asks and gives no quarter, so, lay on, lay on, Macduff, and damned be he that cries hold, enough.” It was signed “PIETRO DE MARTINI,” although the penmanship appeared to be the work of a woman.

Inspector George McClusky didn’t believe the Mafia sent the note. Thugs from organized crime syndicates, he knew, weren’t prone to quoting Shakespeare. “I am satisfied,” McClusky later explained in a public comment, “that this is not the work of the Mafia, or any other secret society.”

New York investigators realized that they had to work fast to foil the plot. The Umbria was scheduled to leave dock in under two hours.

A squad of investigators, led by Inspector Murray from the Bureau of Combustibles, raced to the wharf where they found the pier loaded with passengers about to board. When they ordered everyone off of the pier, a near panic ensued.

The box allegedly containing the “infernal machine” was exactly where the letter indicated: along the gangplank. Murray ordered the box thrown into the Hudson to saturate any powder inside the “machine.”

After a good soak, the box was removed and opened. It contained 200 eight-ounce sticks of dynamite connected to three clock mechanisms and two dry-cell batteries. Murray dubbed the box an “infernal machine,” and declared that it would have blown the Umbria right out of the water.

Yet, curiously, it appeared unlikely that the bomb would have, or was even intended to be, placed on board the Umbria. It was sent, via express service, to the pier, where it would have remained until someone claimed it. And there didn’t appear to be a claimant.

The Umbria departed New York without further incident. While the ship steamed across the Atlantic, a full-scale investigation got underway. Detectives followed dozens of leads but were unable to find the culprit.

Meanwhile, the Umbria carried a passenger who had hatched another, unrelated plot. Mrs. Helen Bedford, widow of the recently-deceased Gunning S. Bedford, was traveling with her baby and a maid. Her husband, who lived in London, had recently passed away in Paris at the age of thirty-two.

When Gunning’s father Frederick passed away in 1891, he left Gunning the princely sum of $500,000 with the stipulation that if Gunning died without an heir, the money would be divided among Frederick’s other heirs. That same year—1891—Gunning married Helen Middleton. They newlyweds moved to Paris, where they lived on the generous bequeath. But they didn’t have a child…until Gunning fell ill.

Then Helen told Gunning of her pregnancy. She gave birth to a child, which she presented to her husband as his daughter.

Bedford’s relatives, however, insisted Gunning’s heir apparent was bogus. They alleged Helen acquired one simply for the purposes of keeping her hands on her husband’s plutocratic estate.

On May 16, the Umbria pulled into port, where Mrs. Gunning Bedford found a detective waiting of her. Under arrest and ensconced in the Holloway jail, the widow Bedford spilled the story of her plot.

The previous December, she left Paris for London, where she placed an advertisement under the name “Madam B.” who wanted to adopt a female child. From a poor, working girl, Mrs. Bedford acquired a baby, which she registered in London and brought to Paris and presented to her husband as her legitimate child.

The court fined her $50 for making a false declaration and released her. She kept the baby as her adopted daughter.

Back in New York, detectives pounded the pavement running down clues as the mysterious progenitor of the Umbria plot. The case went unsolved for eighteen months.

Then a break came from Philadelphia. On October 25, 1904, a wealthy Philadelphian named Owen Kelly vanished without a trace. In January 1905, a mysterious man calling himself Gessler Rosseau, who spoke with an Irish accent, approached Kelly’s brother Patrick. He said he could produce Owen Kelly for a fee of $500.

Friends of relatives of Owen Kelly doubted Rosseau’s story and believed that what he really wanted was an easy $500 payday. Instead, Patrick Kelly called the police.

Rosseau was arrested and interrogated. Under questioning, he conjured up the lame explanation that he and Owen Kelly belonged to the same Irish society, which he said had kidnapped and held Kelly against his will. This society, Rosseau claimed, was involved with the sabotage of British ships in American ports.

Philadelphia detectives notified McClusky, who now had a suspect in the Umbria affair.

McClusky had little problem identifying Rosseau as the man who planted the “infernal machine.” A series of witnesses, including the express man who transported the ship to the pier, provided investigators with a virtual step-by-step glimpse at his movements in New York from checking into a boarding house to sending the bomb.

When arrested, Rosseau carried a valise containing timing mechanisms wrapped in a Washington, D.C., newspaper. This led to speculation that Rosseau was the man who placed a suitcase containing an explosive device next the statue of Frederick the Great in Washington, D.C., in an apparent attempt to destroy it.

Faced with no alternative but to deny the undeniable, Rosseau confessed. He said he assembled the bomb in Chicago and brought it to New York, where he sent the “infernal machine” to the Umbria. He also admitted to attempting to destroy the statue of Frederick the Great. He did these things, he explained, because “there are too many foreign affairs in this country” He also admitted to sending the note that began the investigation, although he didn’t explain why he would provide police with the clue that would foil his plot. McClusky began to wonder about Rosseau’s sanity.

As for the missing Kelly, Rosseau remained silent, but detectives believed that he had seen the wanted posters offering a $500 reward for information leading to the missing man’s location and attempted to get the money when in reality he knew nothing about Kelly’s whereabouts.

Two unanswered questions remained: why would he send an explosive device to the pier since it had no chance of getting aboard the ship, and who was “Gessler Rosseau,” who had a French surname but spoke in an Irish brogue.

Rosseau admitted his name was a pseudonym patched together from a Swiss dictator killed by William Tell (Gessler) and the French philosopher (Rousseau—he had apparently misspelled the surname).

In fact, his real name was Gessner Russell, a troublemaker known to the Chicago Police, who informed McClusky that he had first come under notice in 1886.

It was a strange story that grew stranger with each discovery.

The key theme of the trial, which took place in March 1905, was the strangeness of the plot’s author. While alienists weighed the defendant’s sanity, Rosseau’s / Russell’s lawyer successfully purged the official record of his client’s confession on the basis that the Philadelphia authorities did not see him write it.

“Combustibles” expert Inspector Murray fascinated the jury by reconstructing the device in court, and then he entertained them with one particular response. When asked by Rosseau’s lawyer how he knew the sticks were in fact dynamite, Murray responded, “I touched it with my finger and it gave me a headache.”

The jury found Rosseau / Russell guilty, and the judge ordered further psychiatric testing before he passed sentence.

The New York Times summarized their findings: “While by nature tender and averse to violence, and always I nsisting that it was never his intention to harm or take human life, Russell has developed his Anglophobia into acute mania and has thus been led to employ the results of a lifelong study of explosives for the purpose of rendering what he terms ‘object lessons’ to the hated race.”

As crazy as this may have sounded, the judge sentenced Russell to between three and four years in prison. He went to Sing Sing, as “Gessner Russell,” to serve his time.