The General Slocum Families Trees collaborative project is documenting the 700+ families impacted by the 1904 excursion steamer disaster in New York, when over a thousand German-American women and children died. In this multipart series, we are telling the stories of some of these families.
Read about the General Slocum disaster here and here and visit the tree here. A direct link to the Crager family is here.
Winifred Frances Crager was born on October 29, 1891, in Glasgow, Scotland — an exotic birthplace for a girl who grew up in Kleindeutschland, New York’s Little Germany on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. But even more exotic was where in Glasgow she was born: her parents’ tent on the grounds of the Buffalo Bill Cody Wild West Show!
Winifred was the sixth child of George Carlton Crager, an American soldier, scout, Native American interpreter, journalist, special agent of the US government for Indian affairs, performing arts manager, and international sales representative. George was brilliant, courageous, charming, compassionate, attractive, fun, and competent, but unfortunately also dishonest and irresponsible — a larger-than-life character who began his adventures when barely in his teens, but who disappeared from his daughter’s life five years before she drowned in the General Slocum disaster, not yet 13 years old.
Winifred’s mother, Julia Frankenstein, was a German-American born in Hamelin, Lower Saxony (of Pied Piper fame) who arrived in New York City as a toddler with her parents and sisters in 1867 and who divorced her first husband in 1888 for reason of insanity… with legal expenses paid (or rather, promised to be paid) by widower George. She was George’s third wife and became stepmother to George’s two surviving children from his second marriage, and had two children with him including Winifred.
George C. Crager was born in New York City in 1859 in a German Jewish family. It was said his father Abraham Adolph, a tailor with a shop on the Bowery, had been in military service as a bodyguard to the king of Prussia in his youth before emigrating. George was the third of nine children and at age 13, his father sent him to West Point, the US military’s academy up the Hudson River, to continue the military tradition. But something happened: George disappeared from the academy and headed West. He had a knack for languages, and was friendly and well-spoken; on the Plains, he was somehow accepted into the Brûlé Sioux (Sicangu Lakota) tribe and adopted by chief Two Strike (Numpkahapa, c.1831–1915), spending several years living among the Sioux.
George joins the Army
By 1876, when George was 17, he was back in New York City. He joined the Army, at first as a recruiting orderly for the US Cavalry in his hometown (when he notably disarmed a teenage knife murderer in the street), then as Troop M’s trumpeter out West. Action came quickly: George participated in the Battle of the Rosebud (Where the Girl Saved Her Brother) in Montana Territory and during a ferocious attack by the Natives dragged the badly wounded Captain Guy Vernor Henry to safety, an act of bravery the scarred officer (later a brigadier general and military governor of Puerto Rico) never forgot. Officers took note of George’s knowledge of the West, his intelligence and his fluency in languages.
Discharged from the Army in March of 1878, George was aboard a westbound train one day when he met Mary Catherine Chesbro, on her way to the San Francisco area for a stint as a schoolteacher. The two hit it off and began a correspondence. By 1880, George was working as an interpreter at the Spotted Tail (Rosebud) Agency, a familiar face and trusted friend of the Lakota Sioux. He returned East long enough to get arrested in NYC for impersonating a police officer (claiming he was a “stranger in the city”) before arranging a meeting of Sioux chiefs in Washington. George re-enlisted in St. Louis and was posted to Wyoming (telling a census enumerator that year his parents were from “Spain” and “England”), but was soon discharged due to a disability. In January 1881 he married a teenager from Missouri, Mary Elizabeth Lee Willoughby (called Mollie), and tried to settle into a job in Cheyenne as a grocery clerk. Mollie became pregnant but in late December, something snapped and George up and left, making a beeline to Mary in upstate New York. Three weeks later, the two were married, and George accepted a position at his brother-in-law’s Singer sewing machine dealership in Camden, NY. Mollie gave birth to a daughter, Bessie, in Cheyenne on the last day of May 1882 and it took a bit over a year for the abandoned wife and mother to find her wayward husband, but find him she did (with help from the editor of the Cheyenne newspaper and the reverend who had married them), and George (despite his claims the marriage wasn’t real) was tried and convicted for bigamy and sentenced to two years in prison while Mary gave birth to George Jr. Sadly, baby George died in infancy; Mary who remained loyal to George petitioned for a pardon in time for the funeral, which was granted as he had been an exemplary prisoner, working in the horse harness shop. Two more children followed: daughter Minna in 1885 and son Cuno in 1886. But then in 1887, aged only 32, Mary passed away.
George returns to NYC and meets Julia
George returned to New York City and there met Julia Seligman née Frankenstein, married to a salesman 20 years her senior who it turned out had mental illness (and was subsequently institutionalized). George swept her off her feet, the divorce went through and the couple were happily married at the bride’s parents’ Manhattan home. Julia became stepmother to George’s two small children and a daughter, Edna, was born to them in 1889, but died the year after — it’s worth recalling that infant mortality was far higher in the 19th century than today.
Although living in his hometown of New York, George remained a reliable contact of visiting Native Americans and in 1890, served as an interpreter for Native members of the Buffalo Bill Wild West show returning from a European tour. The people had been treated poorly and been underpaid and George assisted them as he could, and used his journalist contacts to get their stories in the paper.
Wounded Knee and an offer from Buffalo Bill Cody
Later that year, George was working as a special correspondent for The NY World newspaper and reported on the Wounded Knee massacre in South Dakota. Then, in the following weeks, George — disguised as a Native — slipped into the Sioux camp at Pine Ridge and interviewed the chiefs, who outlined their grievances with the government’s broken promises. Buffalo Bill Cody who had met George previously offered him a position: official interpreter for the 1891-1892 European tour, and assistance recruiting Native warriors as showmen. Cody believed that showing Europe to the Natives would convince them of the futility of war against the US government. And of course, the public was fascinated by re-enactments of battles with fierce First Nations people. George and “Major” John M. Burke of Buffalo Bill’s organization accompanied the Natives to Washington DC for talks with the government, then boarded a train to NYC to rehearse the show on Staten Island and subsequently set sail for Europe. Julia agreed to bring the children and the family set off: the entourage visited Belgium and Germany before starting a 14-city tour of England, Wales, and Scotland. Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show was a smash hit, particularly in Cardiff where despite rainy weather tens of thousands of spectators came to see the show. Coincidentally, the brother of George’s first wife Mollie, James “Jim Kid” (or Kidd) Willoughby, had been a participant in earlier tours of the Wild West show and famously rode an unbroken horse in Paris which had killed two men.
Julia was more and more pregnant and just after the show with its horses, Natives, cowboys, Mexicans, and vast baggage (three express trains totaling 72 cars!) had arrived in its winter base of Glasgow, Winifred was born.
Julia returns to New York with the children
Perhaps Julia wanted a roof over her head for Minna, Cuno, and Winifred, instead of a tent; perhaps she was concerned about the childrens’ education; perhaps she was homesick (she had missed her father’s funeral in September); perhaps the constant touring (despite a longish layover in Birmingham) had just worn her out. In January 1892 she decided to return to NYC with the children in tow, and four of the Natives wanted to go home too, so they took ship and returned together to New York in February 1892. George sold and donated Native artifacts to the Kelvington museum in Glasgow (some of these artifacts have since been returned to the tribe), and after the last Glasgow performance on February 27 the remaining Lakotas and other Wild West show participants sailed home too (George sailed a few days later from Liverpool instead). George’s Native dialect skills were of course of limited use in New York City; by October of 1893, George was named by President Grover Cleveland to be special agent in charge of allotments of land to the Sioux Nation, and throughout the early to mid 1890s, he divided his time between his family in New York, government officials in Washington DC, and the Sioux reservations. 1895 found George in Valentine, Nebraska, as guide to journalist Nellie Bly reporting on the famine there. Omnipresent whenever Natives passed through NYC, George often caught up with Buffalo Bill when he passed through, helping with translations or logistical arrangements; they even rode horses together in a parade in Boston in 1898. By then however, George was gone from the family home and, when not advising the Army in the West or in Cuba, he directed his energy to a different scene: management in the performing arts — theatre, opera, dance, or circus, with stars of the day such as Alice Nielsen and Loie Fuller. His two older children meanwhile grew up and moved out; as George sent little to no money to Julia (she had him arrested and hauled into court every time she heard he was in town, and claimed he had taken up with an actress), she worked at home as a dressmaker and told Winifred to concentrate on her studies.
Disaster on the East River
In June of 1904, Winifred like every other youngster in Kleindeutschland wanted to go on the General Slocum excursion. Although it was organized by St Marks Lutheran Church to celebrate the end of Sunday school, everyone in the neighborhood was welcome. Winifred’s best friend Magdalene Bruning from across the street was going, with her older sister Grace, taken by their parents John and Annie Bruning. Winifred had just graduated Grammar School N° 50 and looked forward to a fun day aboard the Slocum and the picnic in Ocean Grove, Long Island. The Brunings and Winifred set out early for the East 3rd St pier to be sure not to miss the boat. Of the group, only 15-year-old Grace survived, treated in Lincoln Hospital…
Julia was distraught, now finding herself completely alone. But her stepchildren and sisters were with her during this difficult time. Winifred was buried with her mother’s people in Brooklyn’s Jewish Washington Cemetery, her tombstone a stylized cracked log sculpture.
Minna and Cuno resolved to never forget their little sister and when both had daughters in 1909, the girls were both named Winifred.
In the following years, George worked in London, Paris, and New York, avoiding all contact with Julia lest he be required to pay the alimony arrears. He obtained a passport with his English “wife” Louise Kathleen Hale (we have found no trace of a marriage) and became an international sales representative for Perrier. Hauled into court again by Julia in 1917, she didn’t even recognize him! As in previous times, he paid part of what was due, was ordered to pay more, then disappeared again. He died in New York City in 1920 of gastric cancer (the arrangements made by “Mrs. Crager”, no other information as the coroner noted) and was buried in Woodlawn Cemetery; daughter Minna later had a military tombstone made. Julia successfully obtained military pension benefits; she died aged 74 in 1939 and stepdaughter Minna traveled from Pennsylvania for the arrangements.
Today, the descendants of Bessie, Minna and Cuno proudly recall the achievements of George C. Crager and keep the memory alive of their great aunt Winifred who didn’t get to live out her life due to the greed and incompetence of the General Slocum owners and crew.
View the General Slocum Families Tree
We wish to thank Philip Sheldon, great-grandson of George C. Crager, for assistance while researching this article.
