Matrimony Or Else

Marriage Proposal Gone Wrong On New York’s Upper East Side

If you imagine that in the good old days courtship always involved proper etiquette, courtesy and social mores you would be mistaken.

While combing through the archives of the New York Tribune we came across this article from the December 10, 1915 newspaper, 109 years ago today:

Somewhere near Fifty-sixth Street and Second Avenue there Is a landlord who is ahead of the game by a $5 deposit, a kitchen table, two chairs and a bed and out a tenant.

The flat with the skeleton furnishings is one into which eighteen-year old Willie Brennan expected to move to with a bride yesterday afternoon. But, Willie slept in the Tombs instead, and Mabel Haibt, who would have been Mrs. William Brennan if things had gone according to schedule, spent a night of repentance in the Reception Hospital with a bullet wound In her
back.

It was a case of love at first sight with Willie when he met Mabel in a “movie” theatre at Eighty-sixth Street and First Avenue a couple of months ago. Mabel was twenty one, but that didn’t make any difference. She admitted herself that Willie looked older than she, and when Willie framed the most important question of his life she came back quick.

“Sure,” she said. “Me for you!”One of the first things Willie did after that was to get him a “gat,” with a view to using it to discourage whatever informal admirers might aspire to Mabel’s attention. It seemed a reasonable precaution, too, for Mabel too had a decided case for the white lights of Yorkville.

After Willie had told his mother with who he lived with at 1501 First Avenue, he rented the flat in East Fifty-sixth Street. He didn’t tell any one the exact address. Mabel,  who had noted with alarm that Willie had a jealous disposition, which would be likely to interfere with her penchant for “rackets.” began to hedge on the proposition of becoming Mrs. Brennan.

She put Willie off from time to time. A couple of weeks ago she moved from her father’s home, at 539 East Eighty-sixth Street, and Willie began to worry,

“We’ll gel married the morning of December 9.” he said. “I’ve got an extra day off coming then, and I’ll have the whole $13.50 of my pay to start us with.”

That was how Willie and Mabel happened to be walking together yesterday morning on East Seventy-eighth Street. Willie thought they were bound for the marriage license bureau. Mabel knew different.

“Let’s wait another couple of weeks,” she coaxed. “We’re getting along swell as plain pals.”
Willie’s powers of persuasion weren’t equal to the occasion. Every word he said seemed to put the license further off.

“Let’s go upstairs and visit my mother,” he suggested suddenly, wheeling the girl into the entrance corridor of No. 531  – one of the City and Suburban Homes Company’s model tenements.

“You go first. Second floor.” When Willie readied the second floor his revolver was in his hand.

“We’re going to get married to-day, ain’t we?” he demanded.

“I said no,” said the girl.

“Bang!” added the revolver.

Willie gave himself up to the Janitor of the building.

“1 just couldn’t stand her fooling any longer,” he explained. In the Yorkville court later Willie
was bound over for a hearing tomorrow.  The girl’s  condition is not believed to he serious.

An earlier report of the shooting in the December 9 New York Evening World told a very different story. Among the typical journalistic discrepancies of the time when immediate reporting, rather than facts were necessary, Brennan’s shooting of Mabel was per-meditated. And it was expected that Mabel would die.

SHOT HIS FIANCEE WHEN SHE BALKED AT THEIR WEDDING
Brennan Chased Mabel Haibt as Crowd Looked On, Then Fired on Her in Hallway.
GIRL RAN FOR LIFE
Crowd Saw Youth With Pistol and Girl .Screaming But None Interfere.

Angered by her refusal to marry him after they had been engaged for several months, William Brennan,eighteen years old, of No. 1501 First Avenue, shot Miss Mabel Haibt twenty-one year old, of ‘No. 530 East  Eighty-sixth. street, in’ a hallway on East Seventy-eighth Street, where
she ran to escape him this morning.

The young woman is In the Reception Hospital and will probably die.
Brennan surrendered. Immediately after the shooting. Brennan had planned tho shooting of the young woman ‘two weeks ago, when he first suspected she did not want to marry him. At that time he met her to go to tho City Clerk’s office for a marriage license and she told him they would have to get a witness, He understood that a, witness .wasn’t required and believed the girl was deceiving him.

Broodlng over It he went to Jersey City and bought a revolver with the apparent Intention of killing her If she again refused to accompany him to the Marriage License Bureau.

Ho arranged an appointment for her to meet him at Fifty-fourth Street and First Avenue at 9.30 this morning. He was there for a half hour before she arrived, and when she came along he Impatiently asked her where was the witness she had promised to bring along.

“Will, I don’t want to got married yet,” the girl said. “I’m young and so are you. Let us forget about It for a time at least.”

Brennan threatened her and raised his voice until she started to walk hurriedly away. He followed her up First Avenue pleading with her. She turned east on Seventy-eighty Street
and Avenue A. Brennan suddenly drew the revolver. She heard him threaten, turned, and when she .saw the revolver started to run.

Screaming for help, the young woman turned Into the hallway of a tenement at No. S01 East Seventy-eighth Street. In a half swoon she fell upon tho stairs In the hallway, A second later Brennan entered and fired at her. The bullet pierced her right lung and lodged In her abdomen,

When witnesses of the shooting followed Patrolman Gamble Into the hall a moment later they saw Brennan kneeling at the side of the girl. The revolver was on the floor at her side.
She was unconscious.

“Here I am,” Brennan said to Gamble. “I did It, and I am ready to go with you.”

There was no follow-up in any newspaper account after December 10. But from the archives we searched, Mabel Haibt did not die from the gunshot wound. According to  family trees on Family Search and Ancestry.com,  Mabel recovered and married Joseph Hogan a couple of years after the attack and the couple would go on to have four children.

With as common a name as William Brennan, it was impossible to find what happened to him after the shooting and his fate will remain a mystery.