The Patriots' Club

48

The reference room on the fourth floor of the Hall of Records was strictly government-issue from the cracked linoleum floor to the yellowing “No Smoking” signs that predated the surgeon general’s warning about the danger of cigarettes. A fleet of upright wooden card catalogues stood on the left side of the room. To the right, two dozen microfilm readers were arranged in neat rows like desks in a classroom. Only two were occupied. Behind them, receding into an infinite fluorescent glare, ran row after row of floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, packed to overflowing with ledgers, registers, and the dense memorabilia that testified to patient and meticulous recording of the births, deaths, marriages, and divorces over the three-hundred-year history of NewYork City.

Jenny crossed the room, her footsteps echoing. On this snowy Wednesday, the room had the eerie, deserted feel of a museum after hours. “Hello,” she called, approaching the service counter and seeing no one.

“One second.”

A lone clerk sat at his desk in the bullpen behind the counter. He was a drab, chubby man with sleepy black eyes and frizzy black hair that surrounded his head like a swarm of flies. A copy of the New York Post sat open in front of him. Peering over the counter, Jenny saw that it was turned to “Page Six.” The gossip column. Jenny waited patiently, her public-works smile pasted in place. Finally, he closed the paper and dragged himself out of his chair. “Yeah?”

“I’m trying to help a friend trace his family tree,” said Jenny.

“That right?” The clerk not only looked the professional cynic, but sounded it. “Got a name?”

“James J. Jacklin.”

“And you’re trying to find what? Grandfather? Great-grandfather?”

“As far back as I can go.”

“Date of birth, please?”

“Excuse me?”

“Give me Mr. Jacklin’s date of birth and we’ll get this train a-movin’.” He moved his hands like an old steam train and made the appropriate chugging noises.

“I’m not sure. I thought you might be able to look him up on the Net. He’s kind of famous.”

The man shook his head sharply. Clearly, it was a frequently asked question and he had the response down cold. “No Internet access for private use.”

“Do you know where I might get on the Net around here?”

“Public library. The office. Your home. The usual.”

“It’s kind of an emergency. I don’t have time to go home.”

The clerk shrugged. Not his problem.

Jenny leaned closer. “It’s for the James J. Jacklin who used to be the secretary of defense.”

“The billionaire?”

Jenny checked over her shoulder before answering, as if concerned that others might hear her speak. “He’s my uncle.”

“Your uncle?”

“Yes.”

“So, it’s kind of your family tree, too.”

“I suppose so,” Jenny agreed, feeling like she was finally getting through to this jerk.

“Then you won’t mind paying the twenty-dollar fee.”

“What twenty-dollar-” Jenny asked sharply, stopping herself before it was too late. “No,” she said, with exaggerated goodwill. “I wouldn’t mind at all.” She fished in her purse and handed over a twenty.

The clerk snapped it cleanly out of her palm, then turned and disappeared into the maze of aisles. He came back after a minute. “Jacklin was born on September 3, 1938. Your birth indexes for all boroughs years 1898-1940 are going to be in cabinet four. Just to the left of the entrance. Start there. The birth certificate will give his parents’ names. If Mr. Jacklin was born in New York, you should be able to find them. Our records are indexed back to 1847. Prior to that date, you’ll have to check the irregulars.”

“The irregulars?” Jenny asked.

“Mostly handwritten census data. Some old address books, hospital records, stuff like that. That’ll take time. A long time. A very long time. You’ll never get that far back tonight.”

Jenny looked around the room. Only one of the microfilm readers was in use now. She spotted a few ghostly figures flitting among the stacks. The place was as quiet as the graves she was investigating. “What about you?”

“What about me?” the clerk asked.

“Do you think you can give me a hand?”

“If I helped you, I’d hardly be able to do my work.”

Jenny eyed the newspaper. “You look busy.”

“I’m swamped.”

“I’d consider it a favor.”

“A favor?” The clerk chuckled, as if he hadn’t heard that word in a long time.

Jenny handed over another twenty.

“Maybe I can get away from pressing affairs for a few minutes.” The clerk put a hand on the counter and bounded over it. Jenny thought he’d probably been waiting a long time to use that trick. He extended his hand. “Stanley Hotchkiss.”

“Jenny Pendleton”

“Hi, Jenny. Welcome to my world.”

They found James Jacklin without a problem. Born at Lenox Hill Hospital at 7:35 A.M. on September 3, 1938, to Harold and Eve Jacklin. “What do you know about the father?”

“Not much,” said Jenny. “I think he was from New York. He was a big shot during the Second World War. “

“Back to the Web.” Hotchkiss disappeared behind the counter. He returned a few minutes later. “Born 1901. Congressman from the Third District of New York. Assistant secretary of war. Served on House Un-American Activities Committee, as an aide to the un-American Joseph McCarthy. Harold Jacklin was a regular Nazi.”

Hotchkiss kneeled and pulled out the bottom drawer of the same cabinet-number four. Finding the proper microfilm, he quickly had it up and on the screen of the nearest reader. “Let’s see here: 1901. Nope. Not here. You sure he’s a native New Yorker?”

“His family was a member of the Four Hundred along with the Morgans, the Astors, and the Vanderbilts. They were as New York as New York gets.”

“A regular Knickerbocker, eh? Let’s check out up through 1905.”

Ten minutes and several runs to the microfilm cabinet later, they were no better off.

“Don’t worry,” said Hotchkiss. “We’re just warming up.”

Jenny took a seat at the machine next to him. “Where else might we find records on him?”

Hotchkiss considered the question. “Police census of 1915,” he said after a minute.

“Well?” Jenny asked, smiling now with excitement, rather than duty.

Hotchkiss stood rooted to the spot.

“Come on. Let’s find it,” she said. “I thought we were just warming up.”

“Sorry, lady, meter’s run out.”

Jenny handed over her last twenty. “This is it,” she said, keeping ahold of the bill as Hotchkiss tried to wrest it from her. “This takes me to the end of the line.”

Hotchkiss snatched the bill. “Deal.”

Bolting to his feet, he marched off like a man on a mission, disappearing into the stacks. He returned carrying a pile of moth-eaten leather ledgers. “Here we go,” he said, plopping them down on a table nearby. “These here are the census books. Remember, back in 1915, they didn’t have computers or database software. Everything was done by hand.”

Jenny opened the top book. Each page was divided into several columns. Name farthest on the left, followed by street, occupation, sex, age, and citizenship status. “Return of Inhabitants” was written across the top of the page in swirling Edwardian script. “We’ll be here all night.”

“Not necessarily,” said Hotchkiss. “We know where Harold Jacklin lived when his son was born. If we’re in luck, his father lived at the same address.”

With Hotchkiss’s help, Jenny found the ledger containing the names of those people who had lived on Park Avenue in 1915. The list ran to three pages. There, at 55 Park Avenue, the address listed as Harold Jacklin’s residence on his son, James’s, birth certificate, was written a different name in neat but faded script. Edmund Pendleton Jacklin, born April 19, 1845, occupation noted as banker. And below it, that of his wife, Eunice, and their children: Harold, fourteen, Edmund Jr., twelve, and Catherine, eight.

“Pendleton… that you?” asked Hotchkiss.

Jenny nodded.

“Eighteen forty-five,” said Hotchkiss, chewing on his lip. “Now things get interesting.”

“I don’t like the sound of that.”

Stanley Hotchkiss shot her an offended look. “I never renege on a deal. Besides, you’ve got me caught up in this stuff, too. Okay, 1845. It was the Dark Ages back when it came to record keeping. They didn’t have regular hospitals. We can’t check there. Everybody was born at home.”

“What about birth certificates? We know when Edmund Jacklin was born.”

“No go. The city’s index of birth certificates only goes back as far as 1847. We just missed the boat.”

“Are there other censuses?”

“There’s the jury census that was conducted in 1816, 1819, and 1821, but that won’t help. We know they couldn’t be in the same house at 55 Park Avenue, because no one was living that far up Park back then. New York only had about thirty thousand inhabitants.” Hotchkiss tilted his head and stared into the blinding maw of the fluorescent lights. “Newspapers,” he said. “If your family was as hotsie-totsie as you say, there would have been a birth announcement.”

“What was the paper back then?”

“Our best bet would be the New York American. Besides, it’s the only one we have on file.”

More microfilms were dredged up. Hotchkiss scrolled to the days following April 19, 1845. “I don’t see a thing,” he said. “We better move upstairs.”

Jenny stood, anxious to get wherever they needed to go quickly.

“No,” protested Hotchkiss. “I mean upstairs like going to Washington. The federal census. The government conducted a census every ten years. We’ll try 1850. Don’t get your hopes up. It’s a crapshoot whether the information we need was ever transferred from their papers to the database. The upside is that it’s alphabetized.”

Hotchkiss led the way behind the counter and pulled up a chair for Jenny to join him at the computer terminal. Hotchkiss logged on to Ancestors.com, accessed the federal census of 1850, New York State, Manhattan, then entered the name of Edmund Jacklin. There were two of them, but only one was five years old. Edmund P. Jacklin, son of Josiah Jacklin, age thirty-two, Rose Pendleton, age twenty. Address: 24 Wall Street.

“Do you have city directories here?” asked Jenny. City directories were the phone books of the age, listing the names, addresses, and occupations of the citizens, likewise by street.

Hotchkiss looked surprised that she knew about them. “Sure thing. What year do you need?”

“Seventeen ninety-six.”

“Don’t you want to look at the year he was born? Eighteen eighteen?”

“No,” said Jenny. “Humor me.”

A woman called out Hotchkiss’s name and shouted something about his finishing up whatever he was doing, and getting the place ready to close up. Hotchkiss didn’t answer. Instead, he went off to retrieve an original city directory. He returned with Annum 1796. The leather-bound volume was in brittle condition, and barely half an inch thick. “You do the honors,” he said.

Jenny handled the book with due care. She turned each page gingerly, noting the paper’s thickness and quality, the gold leafing on the edge. Quickly, she found Wall Street. There, living at number 24, was Nathaniel Pendleton, alias Scotch Nat.

And living next door, at number 25, was Alexander Hamilton, his best friend.

Thick as thieves, Simon Bonny had said.

Jenny lowered her eyes. It was real. Bobby Stillman’s club was real.