A old scrapbook kept by Frenchtown hotel owner William C. Apgar contains the following item clipped from an unspecified newspaper. It is undated, but by checking the ages of the subjects with Census reports, it seems to be from 1911.
It concerns a co-owner of the doll-carriage factory at the foot of Sixth Street.
FIND FRENCHTOWN GIRL AND EMPLOYER
Hyde Park, Mass., March 3 – Mary Pfeiffer, 17 years old, and John Crosby, aged 65 years, the latter wealthy and the girl's employer, both of Frenchtown, were located here this week after weeks of search by the girl's parents and the police of many cities.
Following the disappearance of the girl, her parents sold their farm to get money to prosecute a search for her. The police of many cities were notified and the father gave practically his whole time to the search. The girl was traced to Philadelphia and then to Massachusetts. Photographs and a description of the couple were sent broadcast.
When located here, the girl consented to return home if she be allowed to marry her former employer. The father agreed to this and took the girl back to New Jersey, announcing that the wedding would take place today.
The 1910 Frenchtown Census lists a Mam V. Pfeiffer, 17, as a “reed worker” in a toy factory, who was apparently the girl in question. Other Censuses reveal that John M. Crosby had been single by way of a divorce, and in 1905 was living with the William Rogers family. The geography of the elopement may be related to the facts that he'd been born in Vermont and that the Crosby factory had previously been in Philadelphia.
So far, my research leaves several questions unanswered:
Did they marry as planned?
Did Crosby buy his in-laws a new farm?
What was Thanksgiving dinner like at the Pfeiffer household, which consisted of parents William and Annie, both in their 40s, and their four sons, three of whom worked at the toy factory?
And did William and Annie allow their superannuated son-in-law to call them “Dad” and “Mom”?
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In any case, the lesson here is that the human heart can suffer an industrial accident just as damaging as those involving saws and lathes.
From "Rick's Frenchtown Encyclopedia"
Please note: The factory where this affair began burned down in 1912, but I don't have a photo of that one. The factory shown here was built on the ashes of the older one.
Rick - my sister who lives in Hyde Park, MA reports that a school was named after Williams Rodgers who is mentioned in your piece as the host of John Crosby. It has been closed for a long time and now the City of Boston is working to turn it into elder LGBTQ housing.