A Christmas Mystery Ch. 01-02

"Good morning, Dr. Marcuse."

"Morning, Mark."

"Look, I just came over to tell you that my roommate and I are going to try to track down the family painting. I think that it is important for everyone to know, without a doubt, who wrote that famous poem even if the family never knew for sure."

"Mark, I won't have much time to help you with the search. but please let me know what the two of you find. Give me your phone and I will add my name and number to your contacts."

"Thanks professor. I'm just going to get a coffee now. I have an early class."

Coffee in hand, I walked to my class while thinking about how I was going to try to locate the painting. It might be as difficult as solving the puzzle since the people that I would love to talk to about it are all dead. The good news is that I now have someone else to help me.

When my classes were over I returned to my dorm room. Jake was already there working on what I assumed was a class assignment. After all, we were in college to get an education, not to solve a puzzle.

"Hi, Mark, you were out early this morning."

"Yeah, an early class but to quote Sherlock Holmes, "Come Watson, the game's afoot." Jake, do you have any idea where we should start our search for the painting?"

"Well, it was a family painting so it was probably hung on a wall in Clement Clarke Moore's house. I guess we should check out where he lived."

"Good idea. Let me get out my laptop."

The internet had a lot of information about where Clement Clarke Moore lived but like everything else about this story there were unexpected problems.

"Jake, it seems Clement Clarke Moore came from a pretty rich family and inherited a huge estate in Manhattan, about 100 acres. The land came with a mansion on it. One of his British ancestors named it Chelsea after a London Hospital that took care of war veterans. Back then, Manhattan was mostly countryside, not the streets and avenues that we see today and that house doesn't exist anymore. I am going to have to do some research about what happened to the house."

"Mark, would you let me do that? It's really something I want to do."

"Sure. Just don't let the research interfere with your studies. I would hate it if your grades suffered because of the puzzle."

"Got it. It will be difficult to stop but I promise that I won't spend more than 30 minutes a day trying to locate the painting."

A few days went by before I asked Jake if he had made any progress. I tried to let him work without bothering him too much but my curiosity was killing me.

"Mark. I've made a little progress but I wanted to wait until I had some big news before I said anything. It seems that the city planners in Manhattan decided in 1825 that they wanted to change Manhattan by creating the streets and avenues that we see today. The bad news was that the Chelsey Mansion property was in the way. After a big argument with the Moore family, the city planners eventually got what they wanted. Clement Clarke Moore subdivided his land into small lots and actually made a lot of money renting those lots but he was so upset that he moved. I haven't found out yet where he moved to, but I did find out that he left the mansion to his mother and daughter and ultimately it was inherited by his grandson Clement. In honor of the property, that Manhattan neighborhood is now called Chelsea."

"Jake, I think you are going to be a great investigative reporter."

"Mark, when this is over do I have your permission to write about this whole story?"

"If it's okay with the professor, it's okay with me."

While Jake continued his investigation, I decided to concentrate on my schoolwork. There were times I felt a little guilty about not helping more but Jake seemed very happy doing the research alone. I think he was really born to do this.

Progress on locating the painting was slow although Jake had found out some information. Clement Clarke Moore had moved from his mansion to a townhouse at 444 West 22 St in his Chelsey neighborhood and also bought a summer house in Newport, Rhode Island. The summer house was where he died. Both places still exist but they are in private hands now and no mention was ever made of finding a family portrait of Clement Clarke Moore. Somebody surely would have said something. The Chelsey mansion was eventually destroyed when construction was done on water mains in the neighborhood.

"Jake, what about checking auction websites to see if our missing painting ever came up for auction?"

"Good idea, Mark. I was trying to think of other ways to search for it."

"You only have to check the major auction houses since that painting would command a high price, especially when they found what was behind it."

It was now approaching spring recess and I never thought it would take so long to finish what was started last year. A day later I got the bad news from Jake.

"No luck with any of the auction sites, Mark. Is it time to give up?"

"Not yet, but it's close."

"Mark, I found something strange when I was investigating the Chelsey mansion. There is a place with that same name on Long Island in New York that caters weddings and events. Think it might be related?"

"I don't know. Check it out."

The next day, when I returned to my dorm room after my last class, I was shocked at what I saw. Jake was throwing papers in the air and dancing like he was possessed.

"Tell me you found the painting."

"Better."

"What could be better?"

"I found living members of the Moore family."

"You are amazing. How did you find them?"

"I was checking out the Chelsey mansion on Long Island, you know, the one that does weddings? The website for the business says that it used to be the home of Benjamin Moore, the great, great grandson of Clement Clarke Moore. It was built as a wedding present to his wife. The website says he died in 1935 and there is no mention of any children but on a hunch, I googled his wife's name and an article in the New York Times dated October 13, 1983 showed up in the search. It said that Benjamin had two sons, Alexander and Alfred Moore, who I later found out are both dead now but it also said that he had grandchildren and when I googled the obituaries of both men, the names of the grandchildren were listed. Mark, they are in Cincinnati. We did it, Mark we did it."

To say I was happy would be the understatement of the century. The first person I had to call was Dr. Marcuse. After the third ring he picked up.

"I hope that this is good news, Mark."

"It is, professor. Jake found descendants of Clement Clarke Moore living in Cincinnati. I guess the internet lost track of one of the many people named Benjamin Moore in the family tree. It's a long story but Jake turned out to be one hell of a researcher. The only thing left to do is a people search to get the addresses and phone numbers of the relatives in Cincinnati."

Compared to all the other things that we had to research, that was by far the easiest. And two days later Jake and I were greeted by a knock on our dorm room. Standing at the door was Dr. Marcuse.

"What do you boys think about a field trip to Cincinnati during spring recess?"

"Yes!", I yelled. "I can't believe I will actually get to meet members of the Moore family." But then, after that initial reaction, reality set in when I thought about the trip.

"Professor, we only have two weeks before spring recess to make all the necessary arrangements."

"We can do it Mark. Two weeks should be enough time. Now, Cincinnati is over 2000 miles away so we'll have to plan on taking a plane. Spring recess is too short to drive there and back. See what you can do to make it happen. You have my cell number if you need my help."

After the professor left, I turned to Jake who was strangely silent during this conversation.

"Jake, what's wrong?"

"I can't go."

"Look, if it's just about money, I can lend it to you and you can pay me back whenever you're able. This adventure is too important to miss."

"It's not about money. I just can't go."

"Talk to me, Jake, I don't understand."

"Remember when I told you that my name was Jacob but everyone calls me Jake and I'm from a small town in Pennsylvania?"

"Yeah, so?"

"Mark, think about it for a minute."

"I'm sorry, I still don't get it."

"Mark, my family is traditional Pennsylvania Dutch. I'm a Quaker. My parents live on a farm and follow many of the old ways. As for college, if you think it was difficult convincing your family to let you go to a college in California, try to imagine how hard it was for me. Before I came here I was barely allowed to socialize outside of the community. When I told my dad that I wanted to go to college, we had a big argument. In the end, he said that the only way he would let me go to college was if I agreed to certain conditions and then, when I chose a college so far away he almost changed his mind to let me go. I had to make all sorts of promises."

"What kind of promises?"

"Both of my parents are very concerned about the influence of people who are not Quaker. I had to promise to limit my use of television and the internet to certain types of shows and websites and I had to promise not to leave the college except to come home. So, now you can see why I can't go to Cincinnati even though I want to."

"Jake, I really wanted you on this trip but I understand. Would you feel a part of it by helping to plan and coordinate it?"

"Yes. After all these months investigating the Moore family, I want to continue to be involved even if I can't be there at the end of the story."

"Okay, Jake, you have a lot to do. Start by contacting the family to let them know who we are and why we want to talk to them. Hopefully they'll be able to meet with the professor and me during spring recess."

Jake had the names of the surviving Moore descendants. Alfred Moore had a daughter named Alexandra and a son named Jeremiah. Alexander Moore had a daughter named Rosita and two sons, Robert and Benjamin. Jake wrote a simple letter to each of them saying that he and two other people had discovered important information about their famous ancestor, Clement Clarke Moore and that we wanted to share it with them. He then asked if there was a convenient day and time that we could meet during the college's spring recess since we were in California. The last step was to mail all of the letters to the last known addresses we had for them in Cincinnati. Now all we could do was wait for replies.

They say nothing worthwhile comes easy. Well our journey was a good example of that. Three of the letters came back to us. Each one was stamped "Address Unknown". We had miscalculated. We forgot that children grow up and move away. We needed a change of plan and we were running out of time. I dialed Dr Marcuse to tell him our problem.

"Hi, Mark. How are we doing on our trip to Cincinnati?"

"Not so good, professor. We are having trouble locating three of the descendants. Jake wrote to our last known addresses for them but the letters were returned."

"Mark, have you tried using Facebook to locate them"

" Damn, why didn't I think of that? Thanks, professor. Bye."

It turns out that Alfred's children were still in Cincinnati but Rosita lived in Pownal, Maine, Robert lived in Freeport, Maine and Benjamin lived in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The original plan was to meet all of them together but that wasn't going to work now. I had a new idea but I wanted to surprise Jake with it, so he had to be kept in the dark.

The next day I met with Dr. Marcuse to discuss my plan. I hoped he could get the college to arrange what I was suggesting. He said he would talk to one of the deans to see if it was possible. Two days later I got a call.

"Mark, the college says they'll do it."

"That's great news. Now I just have to coordinate my plan when Jake is not around."

The next part of the plan was to make Jake think that our adventure was over.

"Jake, the trip to Cincinnati has been scrubbed. There is no way to meet the five descendants all together. They live in different states. The best we can do is to write to them about what we discovered. You are the writer in the group. Would you be willing to do that?"

"I'd be glad to do that, Mark."

And so our adventure ended, or so Jake thought. Spring recess arrived and I stayed on campus with Jake. It was a Tuesday evening when we got a phone call from Dr. Marcuse. He asked if we could come down to the computer center in the administration building.

When we arrived, Dr. Marcuse was already there and he was smiling when he saw us. He pointed to the giant screen on the side wall that was used for presentations. It was lit up with five faces taking up parts of the screen.

"Hi, you must be Mark and Jake, I'm Robert Moore."

"I'm Benjamin."

"I'm Jeremiah."

"I'm Alexandra."

"And I'm Rosita. You couldn't come to us so Dr. Marcuse set up this conference meeting using Zoom so we could come to you."

"Hi everyone, I'm Mark. The three of us worked together on this. You already know Dr. Marcuse. My roommate Jake did a great deal of research on the family. We didn't even know any of you existed until he found you."

I looked over at Jake. He was just staring at the screen and seemed to be on the verge of tears. Jake reached into his pocket and took out a handkerchief to dry his eyes.

"Guys, I'm not usually this emotional but right now I'm overwhelmed. I never expected to meet any of you."

The next 90 minutes were filled with stories about the Moore family's history and promises from the five people on the screen that this story would be shared with all of their extended family and friends. It was almost time for the conference call to end but not before Mark asked one last question.

"Do any of you know where that family painting might be?"

Robert answered. "I have it, but I never checked the back until Jake sent us the message. Thanks to the three of you, now when we read the poem at Christmas each year it will be even more special."

With that, everyone said their goodbyes and, even though Christmas had passed almost four months earlier, I thought of the last line of Clement Clarke Moore's original poem.

"Happy Christmas to all and to all a good night."