During the past week local social, business and base ball circles were shocked by the publication of a story to the effect that the late President Thomas O. Noyes, of the Washington Club was not a victim of pneumonia, as had been stated, but that his death was due to violence, either by way of accident or assault according to whether the Negro valet of the dead man or a plain policeman is to be believed.
Charles Simbley, for 13 years valet to the dead publisher and base ball magnate, has made affidavit that Mr. Noyes came to his death through having been struck down on the night of August 17, in front of the fashionable Farragut Apartments by policeman Charles M. Mundie. His story is backed up by two of the Farragut’s elevator boys, who claimed to have witnessed an assault upon the deceased base ball magnate.
Valet Simbley gives the following details in his affidavit of what happened to Mr. Noyes after the latter left his apartment at 10 o’clock on the night of his mishap: “Mr. Noyes walked one block and stood whistling when he was approached by policeman Mundie, who protested against the noise. Mr. Noyes had a lifelong habit, known to all his friends, of raising his hand before speaking, and generally placing it on the arm of the person addressed. When addressed by the policeman, he raised his hand, and was immediately felled by a blow from Mundie’s fist.
When Noyes fell he received a gash on the right side of his head. The valet, who had accompanied Noyes, protested, and said he would take the injured man home. The policeman, however, ordered the valet from the spot under threat of arrest, and summoned a patrol wagon. When the patrol wagon reached the Third Precinct Police Station Noyes was recognized by the desk sergeant and no charge was placed against him. After having washed the blood from his face Noyes gave the last five baseball passes he had issued to the policemen and was then taken home. He went to bed immediately, and was never on his feet again.
Sunday the attending physician made a minute examination. Discovering a large red bruise on the sick man’s back, the physician exclaimed: “Why, this man has been struck.” The valet, thinking at that time that Mr. Noyes wished to conceal the circumstances of his injury, declared he had not been hurt, but the doctor insisted on his diagnosis, and ordered Noyes sent to a hospital. At the hospital Monday, Noyes said to the valet: “I am going to look into this, because that policeman should not have struck me.” These were practically the last words of the dead publisher.
Policeman Mundie denied the story and says Mr. Noyes was injured in falling from a street car that hoary alibi for many cases of mysterious injury or death from violence. In his report of the accident, policeman Mundie said: “My attention was called by a woman to a man who had fallen from a street car. I did not see the accident, and therefore I did not get the number of the car. I picked up the man, carrying him to the side-walk, where I laid him on the grass of Farragut Square. The woman came with me, and after wiping Mr. Noyes’ head, gave me her card, saying she would testify at any time in my behalf. I asked him who He was and he said he was Mr. Noyes. I then asked him where he lived, which he told me was none of my business. I told him then I would have to take him to the station house. In the meantime, an unknown negro came up, declared he was Mr. Noyes’ valet and said he would take Mr. Noyes to his home, but I told him I would not turn him over to anyone, and I called the wagon.”
Pending investigation of the case by the authorities Policeman Mundie has departed from Washington on leave of absence. Meantime some of the accused policeman’s friends, unmindful of the conflicting statements of that person and the valet, are seeking to intimate that the dead man, who cannot now defend himself or explain anything, was really hurt in a scuffle in a road-house. Notwithstanding the stories of the late Mr. Noyes’ valet and the statement of policeman Mundie, there is no doubt in the mind of one man, qualified to know whereof he speaks, that Mr. Noyes died a natural death from pneumonia, and not from the effect of a blow or a fall from a trolley car. That man is Dr. Henry Krogstad, the physician who attended Mr. Noyes in his last illness. The basis for the rumor that Mr. Noyes died as a result of a blow from a policeman’s club is the tale told by Charles Simbley, valet to the dead publisher and magnate. Dr. Krogstad admits there was a bruise on the back of Mr. Noyes’ head, evidently from a blow, but he says positively that this bruise had no relation to the pneumonia that caused the end.
As reported in Sporting Life 31 August 1912
