Abraham Lincoln quarterly. [Vol. 5, no. 3]

IS THE CABIN AUTHENTIC?

143

and his partner, "Skip" Dundy made a deal with Dennett
to rent them. The logs were still stored in Dennett's place
at 39 Bowery, New York, and when the partners went to get
them, in April, 1901, they had a surprise. The establishment
was in the hands of the District Attorney. An unemployed
laborer, Charles Gale, had gone into the combination restaurant and mission on March 2, 1901, and ordered a lunch
consisting of a cup of coffee and doughnuts. Gale was unable
to pay the check of six cents and the cashier, two waiters, and
the cook-all ex-convicts-promptly set upon the hapless
Gale and beat him to death. They dragged the corpse out on
the sidewalk and placed it in such a position that it would
appear that Gale had fallen down the steps of an upstairs
hotel next door. There were sufficient witnesses to this bloodthirsty affair and within half an hour police had the participants in custody and a thorough investigation was under
way.
A placard stated Dennett's "Surpassing Coffee" was served
in the mission and the fact that the establishment was a Dennett enterprise was brought out, together with the information that Dennett had decamped owing the owner "thousands of dollars in rents." The New York papers gave the
murder full coverage, and the Court elicited some criticism
by reason of the comparatively slight penalty placed against
the four defendants.
After some delay, however, Thompson and Dundy removed the logs of the two cabins and sent them to Buffalo.
This appears to have been about the last of April, as Dennett
received word in California on May 6, 1901, from his friend,
E. G. Selchow, of New York, that "the cabins had started
west." 32
At the Buffalo Exposition, Thompson and Dundy blossomed out as the operators of a great many midway features,
32Bankruptcy File, Dennett to Bigham, May 7, 1901.