Episode 04: For Whom The Opening Bell Tolls
In this episode, Caitlin and Francesgrace examine about the lives, deaths, graves, and reverberating impact of Charles Henry Dow and Edward Davis Jones, the creators of the Dow Jones Industrial Average.
LINK TO SHOW NOTES
Season 1. Episode 4. For Whom The Opening Bell Tolls
Caitlin: Hello, and welcome to Grave Escapes, the podcast helps those who've died tell their stories once again.
INTRO MUSIC
Caitlin: Alright. So I'm pumped for today because I learned a lot about the two people we're gonna be talking about. And, I'm pumped. Are you pumped?
Frances: I’m pumped. because I didn't learn all that much about the two people we're talking about and I'm excited to learn about the other half of this duo.
Caitlin: Yeah. So that's a great introduction. So first off, shout out: we actually had a listener suggestion for this one. I didn't know these people were actually buried in Rhode Island, which is where Frances and I are based. This is going to be an odd version of this podcast because these individuals were besties…Question mark?
Frances: Until they might have not been.
Caitlin: Yeah. So we're gonna find out more that.
Frances: Shout to John, by the way. Thanks!
Caitlin: John! John, thank you for being our listener, who suggested that we…
Frances: Dive into the Dow
Caitlin: Yeah. Dive into the Dow. Frances gave us the best introduction. So I'm actually starting today with Charles Dow. So my biggest question is this to all of our listeners: what occupation do you think would Dow—as in Dow & Jones—as the stock market have? What would his job be?
Frances: Oh, yeah, this was a big shocker for me.
Caitlin: I thought banker, loan officer
Frances: Even speculator or…I don't know.
Caitlin: Financial dude.
Frances: Hmm.
Caitlin: Financial dude is what I expected. And as it turned out, they were both journalists, but specifically Dow. Let’s…let's start with him. Journalism — least expected. Ready everyone? Born 1851 in Sterling, Connecticut. His dad's a farmer.
Frances: What?
Caitlin: He's got two older brothers and they all die.
Frances: Oh. Yuck.
Caitlin: I mean at different times, but at this point, everyone has tragedy. Let's just get out of the way his dad dies at age…when Charles is age six. His brothers don't make it to adulthood.
Frances: Aw.
Caitlin: And I mean, this isn’t…I guess it's a like while ago, but yeah, it’s the 1850s.
Frances: Seems to be a rotating theme here.
Caitlin: I can't really find much about his childhood. So we're jumping a span of time here. I do know he doesn't finish high school. I do know that he is drawn to journalism. And so he actually goes from Connecticut to Springfield, Massachusetts. Where, age 21ish, he begins to work for The Springfield Daily Republican, which—total aside—is still in circulation.
Now get ready for this one, everyone. Cuz I may have gone off on a tangent here. The Springfield Daily Republican was founded in 1824 by Samuel Bowles II. Samuel Bowles III ends up being Charles' first boss at the paper and is basically the person who teaches him everything that he knows.
Frances: Cool.
Caitlin: It's 1869 at this point. And I really do suggest researching—as a total aside here—the Bowles family. Their newspaper is responsible for a ton of major events in the United States. Including the founding of Miss Magazine.
Frances: Oh, cool.
Caitlin: So back to Charles. Okay. After working in Springfield, he comes down to a little old town called Providence Rhode Island, where he continues his career as a journalist for a number of newspapers, including the Providence Morning Star, which I had never heard of.
Frances: Yep.
Caitlin: I can't confirm the opening date, but I believe it's 1873 to 1881. All of the issues that they ever printed are on Google. And we will include them in the show notes too. They're really fun to read through.
He gets a job for the Providence Journal, which was found in 1829. And again is still being published. For you Non-Rhode Islanders out there, we actually abbreviate it to something called the ProJo.
Frances: True fact.
Caitlin: I get it, but like, ProJo always makes me feel…I don't know, dirty? I think dirty is actually the best word. It's like: yeah, you, you wanna read the projo today? You got your projo?
Frances: The ProJo at this point, didn't have any bylines. So we can't tell any of the things any of these people wrote and it's frustrating is all get out.
Caitlin: But maybe probably wrote there. I love records. They're great. So Dow works at ProJ o for a few years, but he also published some longer pieces there's speculation that he published in 1877, a history of steam navigation between Newport Providence.
Frances: Of course.
Caitlin: Super light reading. I do have a link to that. It is free on Google books. However, there is no author included. So, there are a couple of sources that I found who report that he's wrote it, but I cannot confirm it. It's out there. However, we can confirm that a few years later with the rise of commerce and building in Newport, further back to that idea of the Gilded Age again, he writes a piece called Newport, A City By The Sea. Which is a good title. It's definitely unoriginal, but it's good. Again, you can find both of those in our show notes, but so at this time he's given…the lore is that he's given a story from the editor of the Providence Journal. That basically is: Hey, to go to Colorado with all of these bankers and tradesmen.
And I don't know, I feel like everyone who goes to Colorado has like some weird epiphany about their life. Like I had mine. I suggest you go have yours. But he has this Aha! moment. And he's like: I really like writing about this. I like talking about finance. I like talking about business and writing about this is what I wanna do.
So he moved from Providence to New York. So in New York, a few things happened. He meets his wife, Lucy. They don't have any children of their own, but Lucy has a daughter from a previous marriage who Charles helps raise. And I mean, I love a good stepdad story. I'm here for that.
And then! This shows the like influence of, I don't know how to say this, like friendship. T hat sounds like that sounds too corny. True though. He had met someone in Providence named—do you wanna go ahead and spoil it for us, Frances?
Frances: Edward Davis Jones.
Caitlin: Right? So they meet at the Providence Evening Press. It reminds me a lot of like freelance life, right now. I'm a freelance journalist at times. And you have like a home publication, but you bounce around. So he's doing this. So he meets…he meets Jones. Frances, do you wanna just tell us what is their…what are their lives like right now? They're hitting their intersection. Who is Jones and why does he have to go to New York with Dow?
Frances: Jones was actually born October 7th, 1856. He's about five years younger than Dow. He was born in Worcester, Massachusetts to a Reverend John Jones and a woman named Clarissa Anne Day. Both of whom are of Welsh descent. He has at least one brother.
I don't know if he has any sisters just like Dow his early life, a little on the sketchy side. And I don't mean that as weird. I mean there's not a whole lot of material. He actually attends Worcester academy. So he does graduate from high school, a very prestigious high school, and gets into Brown.
He spends three years at Brown University until he's like: nah, peace out and leaves.
Caitlin: Cool. So we've dropped out of brown university. I mean, who hasn't at this point?
Frances: Oh my God…I didn't even get into brown university in the first place.
Caitlin: I didn't even apply. I was like, who the hell wants to go to Rhode Island?
Frances: Oh, I applied. Oops.
Caitlin: I’m gonna go back to the fact that most people that we've mentioned on this podcast have been academic failures anyway, more about Jones, please.
Frances: So he's apparently a little bit of…he’s got a little bit of a quick temper. He was known to have a little bit of a short fuse.
But excellent in a crisis, very calm, very coolheaded in a crisis. He's tall—roughly six foot, maybe a little bit taller than that—has bright red hair and a mustache. And his mustache, ladies and gentlemen.
[whistles]
It is impressive. So, yeah. So it's 1877 drops out a Brown in junior year, starts working as a journalist, just like Dow.
He works at the Providence Evening Bulletin, the Providence Evening Press, the Providence Morning Star and eventually the Providence Journal where he is…wait for it…The dramatic critic, which has less than nothing to do with finance.
Caitlin: Okay. I feel sorry, everyone, I have to give me this segue. In a past life, I worked as the theater critic Wrangler for a theater in Rhode Island. And I can assure you, I love every single one of my critics, but the Providence journal critics are always intense in the best way.
Frances: Yeah, special breed.
Caitlin: I'm getting that that is…that is Jones as well. Frances: Jones is definitely an intense kind of guy.
Caitlin: I wanna see if I can find his reviews now, because that sounds hilarious.
Frances: I'm sure there, I mean the Providence Journal keeps immaculate records. You just have to pay to see them.
Caitlin: So, but so he's being dramatic is what I'm hearing you say.
Frances: He's being dramatic. He also apparently buys and becomes part owner of the Providence Dispatch, another newspaper I have never heard of. Somewhere in this time he meets his wife, Janet Conkling. Who goes by Jenny. They get married. He meets Charles Dow, a defining person in his life. And Dow goes off to New York, but Jones stays behind in Providence for a little while, until he is summoned to New York by a letter from our friend Charles Dow. Dow is in New York, working at something called the Kieran Agency.
Caitlin: Yes!
Frances: As I'm sure you know.
Caitlin: Okay. So let's talk about this agency, the Kieran Wall Street Financial News Bureau, which wow. What a mouthful. And they seem to like start this camaraderie. This is what I found…is that they're talking about reporters and newspapers in the New York area who are reporting on business and finance.
And they're like, wow, you're all being paid or bought out or bribed to say the companies are doing really well. So their stock numbers go up and Dow and Jones were like: that's not great. I don't like that.
In my notes, Dow and Jones work there for not terribly long, a couple of years, but then a third person enters into this equation that we have to mention.
Frances: Is that a nice gentleman named Charles?
Caitlin: It is a nice gentleman named Charles and I believe his last name is Bergstresser.
Frances: That's what I found, but I was not gonna try to say it.
Caitlin: I apologize if I'm wrong. Please reach out to me, but so he is also a journalist.
Frances: Yep.
Caitlin: And he wants to remain a silent partner with Dow and Jones. So they actually create Dow Jones & Co.
Frances: Still exists. Ladies and gentlemen, and you've all probably heard of it.
Caitlin: Kind of, this is the other thing that is interesting, but let's get to that at the end. So Bergstressor. I can't verify this with more than one source. So take this as you will. I'm hoping you can actually Frances, but Berg's stressor had actually had beef with the Kiernan Wall Street Financial News Bureau. I love saying that.
Frances: I had also ran across a reference to that, but I couldn't. I didn't see why….?
Caitlin: What I saw is that he had invented some kind of machinery component. The word that I saw used with stylists that would print more pages per hour and allow for the distribution to increase.
Frances: That would explain the ticker.
Caitlin: Yeah. So he goes up to the Kiernan Wall Street Financial News Bureau and is like, Hey. I want the money from the thing that I invented and they were like, no. And so then he's like, fuck this, come with me, Dow and Jones. And they're all frustrated by the shady reporting. They're feeling like they've been ripped off and that's why the company is founded.
I don't know why Charles the doesn't want his name on it. It could be for the simple fact—obviously I'm a historian in saying this—his last name was Bergstressor. It could also be that, I mean emotionally here, I completely understand if he was just really, really pissed off at the fact that he got taken advantage of and he didn't wanna deal with that again.
Frances: Yeah. That's fair.
Caitlin: They have started this company, right? So where…Jones is just with the company. That's where we're at right now. Right?
Frances: Mm-hmm it's 1882, right? Apparently by this point, going from being a drama critic, Jones is apparently extremely adept at synthesizing numbers.
Caitlin: What?!
Frances: He’s…somehow he acquired the ability to take in large amounts of data and streamline all of it very well.
Caitlin: Is that like…he got bit by like a radioactive math spider?
Frances: I mean, it seems like it. I mean…he drops outta college. He works at a bunch of newspapers as potentially a drama critic and maybe some other stuff, but no one's a hundred percent sure because none of those newspapers have bylines and all of a sudden now he's really good at numbers like to the point where he is now referred to as a statistician.
Caitlin: Okay.
Frances: Rather than a journalists
Caitlin: I'm all about reinvention. So the three of them start writing the Customer's Afternoon Letter.
Frances: At 5 Wall Street in the basement.
Caitlin: I mean, if you're gonna write a newspaper, it should start in a basement. I'm just saying it.
Frances: It should. I agree.
Caitlin: This looks at the financial news happening on wall street specifically that day, and it gets successful very quickly with over a thousand people, reading it and included—pause for dramatic effect.
The Dow Jones stock average, which was accurate reporting on a few of the major indexes and funds, including Western union.
Frances: It had… it opened…the original stock index included 11 companies. And it was a combination of industry and transport, which would eventually in a couple of years, time split into two numbers. So there would be two the industrial average and then the transportation index. Later on. Also fun fact imagine. Okay. So it has like a thousand subscribers or what have you, it's handwritten ladies and gentlemen.
Caitlin: Mm-hmm. I mean, I'm, I'm getting carpal tunnel, just thinking about it.
Frances: Seriously. Whoof.
Caitlin: Alright. And I do wanna say at this point in 1885, Dow all starts working at his own brokerage for firm.
Frances: Oh, Hmm.
Caitlin: But. There's also a lot of drama with that. And I just don't think we have too much time to stick with him, like being dramatic, but I can tell you all this, that brokerage firm did evolve into another iteration after he lost one of his partners. And the company was actually around until 1971 when it was purchased by Merrill Lynch.
Frances: Of course it was.
Caitlin: Right. So anyway, let's go back to. What happens with the Customer’s Afternoon Letter
Frances: As a short aside in 1884, Jones, actually he and his wife actually have a child.
Caitlin: Oh!
Frances: Arthur Conklin Jones who would grow up, get married and then die without having children in 1941, a couple years before his mother.
Caitlin: I actually can't find anything about what happened to Dows stepdaughter. There was no, there was no name for her anywhere either.
Frances: Oh, that's upsetting.
Caitlin: Yeah. Sign of the times. Okay.
Frances: Yeah.
Caitlin: So we've got some good friends here. We've got transparency being demanded. We've got all of this happening on wall street.
So with that ladies and gentlemen in 1889, Dow Jones and company with 50 employees, an absolutely insane circulation amount, becomes the Wall Street Journal.
Oh my God. I had no idea. Did you know?
Frances: I did not.
Caitlin: I was like…I was doing my research and I was like, no, no, that is not right.
Frances: I actually contacted the Wall Street Journal. They have no early records.
Caitlin: Of course.
Frances: And will not talk to you about anything.
Caitlin: That makes sense.
Frances: I mean, neither will Dow Jones & Company.
Caitlin: Great.
Frances: I sent them a request for information and they wouldn't talk to me, if I wasn't like a client.
Caitlin: I will invest in one stock.
Frances: I would like one quarter of one stock, please. Now tell me the early history of your company.
Caitlin: Also, could I please sell that one stock? But, so let's talk about the Wall Street Journal, because I mean, we obviously still have the Wall Street Journal.
Frances: We do.
Caitlin: I have to talk about Dow now because I think he was actually really great about this. He would print company names who didn't include their financials publicly, which like, yes, yes, sir. We are here for that.
Frances: Call it out.
Caitlin: He was also a total Dick to anyone who he felt could be swayed to lie or bribed about a company.
Frances: Nice.
Caitlin: was flat out…like would fire people. So…
Frances: I like it.
Caitlin: Is this the beginning of journalistic integrity and journalism ethics because of Wall Street? Who would not have called that?
And, you know, they have been printing this Dow Jones industrial average with these indexes. And we still use this today. If you are not a finance person, I'm interested in it, but I'm actually taking a class on it next month. We'll see how it goes. But I find it fascinating because this is the key that I feel like even if you know, know nothing about investing, you know, what the Dow Jones is.
Frances: So I actually didn't understand what the Dow Jones was until I started researching Jones. Like…I knew that it was a number.
Caitlin: Yeah.
Frances: I knew that it reflected Wall Street or the Stock Exchange, but I had no idea what it actually was.
Caitlin: So that's, I think, that’s more what I mean, like if someone it's like, oh man, the Dow Jones is down today. You're like, oof, that's bad.
Frances: I was absolutely stunned to find out that there are only 30 companies currently listed on the Dow Jones.
Caitlin: Yeah, I was also a little shocked, but also not shocked because like, especially in the country that we're in like…capitalism, but it,
Frances: It only started with 11. It's been 120-some…40 years and it only has 30. Like, it seems, I don't know…Who decides?
Caitlin: It's not Dow and Jones. They're dead. That's why we're here.
Frances: That's true. That's true.
Caitlin: Alright. So Dow is also now known for what is called the Dow Theory. Yeah. I am not a mathematician, but I wanna try to explain this and, and I have multiple English degrees who makes good luck, everyone.
Frances: You got this.
Caitlin: What happens is Dow Theory is basically the idea that how a company's stock will perform is based on how they behave, which includes its practices and its dealings with the public. So the thought essentially is if you completely mess up something, company will probably go down in stock.
Frances: Okay. In my head, I'm just playing that scene from Iron Man where, he like, I don't know, screws up his life yet again, and that guy on TV is complaining about his stocks dropping.
Caitlin: Yeah. But that's basically it. I mean, think about like Elon Musk. I mean, he hasn't had this happen a while, but if he pops off about something weird, his stock Tesla stock tends to go down.
You know, it's not a lot. Disney, for example. Anytime Bob Chapek makes a new announcement about raising prices or something, it'll be like Disney stock is down. And the reason I know that is because I own one stock of Disney and I do get to vote in the yearly press-stock meetings that I actually don't have any idea what I'm doing. And I feel really dumb and just feel the need to have a disclaimer that I do sometimes sound like a smart person.
Frances: I also own one stock in Disney and have never actually voted, cause I just feel completely unprepared to do anything involving it. So I just look at it sometimes.
Caitlin: Yeah. But so the Dow theory is all of these factors. They influence the future movement of a stock.
Frances: And isn't part of it that the stocks, the current stock number or worth or whatever is actually based on, it's not current. It's anticipatory.
Caitlin: Yes. And the other thing is it actually also does look at its past data as well. So it's a bunch of different patterns. Like I've definitely oversimplified it, but the idea is basically to know how a stock is going to behave. You have to know about the life of the stock and you also have to know about how the company will facilitate that life of the stock.
Frances: Sounds like a lot.
Caitlin: Yes. And I love this: his complete writings on this are not available.
Frances: Cool. I read a thing that said he never actually wrote anything on it, so that's better.
Caitlin: I think it's more like scribbles and notes is the impression that I got.
Frances: He never published on it, right?
Caitlin: Yeah. Love that. One book that I did find that I wanted to just kind of mention…There is a book that's been edited by Laura Sether called Dow Theory Unplugged: Charles Dow's Original Editorials and Their Relevance Today.
Frances: Ooh.
Caitlin: Yeah. So Dow is creating mathematical theorems. Well, not theorems, but mathematical theories as a journalist. What's Mr. Jones doing?
Frances: Jones. Once basically…once he enters the company, his personal narrative almost entirely disappears. I know that he had the, he had a child in 1884 and I don't know almost anything else about his life until 1899.
I do know that the company hired their first female journalist in 1893. Shout out Louise Egan. Sounds like a cool lady.
Caitlin: Yeah, that's really cool. Did they make her write about theater?
Frances: I don't know. Although honestly, Jones might have been in the background doing that.
Caitlin: I would love that if he was, you know, that meme of the woman looking at the math equation? Like that's Jones, his nine to five.And then he like puts on his cape and goes to the theater. It's just like: I don't like how they delivered this line of Shakespeare exit pursued by a bear. That kind of thing.
Frances: That would be glorious. And honestly, that's probably as likely to be true as anything else. Cause he just kinda…
Caitlin: It's weird though, right? Cause it's like…I don't know how to put this. It's not like they disappeared because we know who they are.
Frances: It's almost as though they become a joint entity.
Caitlin: Yeah. And they don't seem to one: exists outside of each other. And two” they didn't keep records for being journalists.
Frances: Mm-hmm.
Caitlin: They don’t keep good records.
Frances: Apparently the Wall Street Journal…I read that the Wall Street Journal didn't actually keep. Or rather Dow Jones & Company didn't actually keep any records whatsoever until 1900. So the first 20, almost 20 years of the company, they kept no paper records.
Caitlin: That seems bad. That seems like a bad…but, so I'm missing something here because. Basically we’re…the part where I can finish my timeline is when they start the Wall Street Journal, which is about 1899…Or no, sorry, not when they started it. They start when he's doing an editorial column. So he's continuing to write and publish until about 1899. But then I get a blank.
Frances: I actually have one more fact about doubt about Dow and some more stuff about Jones because…he reenters record because he leaves the company.
Caitlin: Wait. Who leaves? Jones?
Frances: Jones.
Caitlin: Oh, what?
Frances: Apparently. So they started as friends, right? They started as good enough friends that Dow could summon Jones from Providence.
Caitlin: Right.
Frances: All the way to New York to live there.
Caitlin: Right.
Frances: By 1899, so some 15 to 20 years later Jones is like: screw you, Mr. Charles Dow. I hate you. Bye. And just leaves the company.
Caitlin: What happened?
Frances: I have no idea, but something that was bad enough between the two of them…It was in every source I've found that referenced this. It was clear that it was because of Dow that Jones left. I don't know what happened. I don't know what beef they got into. I have no idea what was going on between the two of them. And I don't know, Jones' relationship with Bergstressor was at this point either. I don't know where Bergstressor is even. he might still be there. He might be deceased. I don't know what happened to him, but I know Jones leaves.
Caitlin: I do know what happens to Bergstressor.
Frances: Awesome. What happens to Bergstressor?
Caitlin: He lives a very nice life.
Frances: Nice.
Caitlin: Like, I'm not even kidding. He dies much, much later than Dow. I don't know when Jones dies. I'm saving that for you to reveal to me.
Frances: Yeah.
Caitlin: Bergstresser actually doesn't die until 1923.
Frances: He outlives them both.
Caitlin: Okay. So that's weird.
Frances: That's interesting. So maybe being the silent partner was the healthy thing to do.
Caitlin: Right? And also just if you guys are curious, I know we haven't revealed where Dow and Jones are buried, but Bergstresser is actually buried in New Haven, Connecticut
Frances: Uhhuh. Okay. So they're all in different places. Fun.
Caitlin: They are all in different places, but it's like, I don't know. A part of me now wants to go find out more about Bergstresser because he outlives Dow and Jones.
All right. So Jones and Dow have a falling out. Question mark. Question mark. Question mark as to why?
Frances: No clue.
Caitlin: Cool.
Frances: So, so he leaves the company in 99. In 1900, I read that Dow actually gets elected president of the board that runs the Wall Street Journal and/or the Dow Jones Company. I'm not sure which and he serves as president for a hot second.
Caitlin: Yeah. See, this is where things go south. Then we can bump back to me.
Frances: Yeah.
Caitlin: I'm still kind of like curious about this because it doesn't completely line up with what I expected. So Dow is still working and is still publishing until the beginning of 1902. Right? So our timeline here is very specifically, he has started, he is president. He is still publishing. 1902, he starts to have health problems. These health problems are not defined. Hmm. And at this point, Dow and Bergstresser have a conversation and Bergstresser is actually like: I want to retire. I'm done.
Frances: Okay.
Caitlin: Eight months later, Dow is dead.
Frances: Wow.
Caitlin: Yeah. He dies in Brooklyn, which is where he lives with his wife and his stepdaughter. He has a heart attack. He is only 51.
Frances: Wow. That's young.
Caitlin: So how does Jones die?
Frances: This is interesting. So in 1899, he leaves the company. According to the Dow Jones archived on the Way Back Machine website, he ‘retired’ from the company they have since removed that from their website.
Caitlin: What year did they say he retired?
Frances: In 2006 that they said he retired in 1899, in 2006. Their website said that. And then by three years later, their website no longer said that. And now they don't even have a bio or a history on the website. So, but…
Caitlin: Well, that's sus.
Frances: Thank you the way, way back machine for archiving history. So he leaves the company 1899. He continues working on wall street. He continues working for…let's see multiple companies. He worked for John H. Davis & Company. He worked for to Hayton Hayes and he worked for the Daily News Record over the next couple of decades. Actually. So he…
Caitlin: So he finishes at Dow & Jones in 1899.
Frances: Yep.
Caitlin: Okay. So then, I'm building this timeline for everyone, cuz I know this is hard to follow. 1902 Dow begins to have health problems.
Frances: Yes.
Caitlin: Bergstresser wants to retire. Where's Jones?
Frances: Jones is at, I believe at that point, John H Davis & Company. Which is potentially one of their competitors.
Caitlin: Ha! Yes. Love it. Dow did something to piss him off.
Frances: Oh yeah. And he stays there for a little while. Then he moves to Tat & Hays, another of their competitors.
Caitlin: Okay.
Frances: And then eventually ends up at the Daily News Record, which is
Caitlin: Back to journalism.
Frances: Back to journalism and competing with the Wall Street Journal.
Caitlin: What happened?
Frances: No idea. By the time he gets to the Daily News Record, he's writing a financial column that's particularly interested in railroads. Because I guess he was obsessed with railroads.
Caitlin: I mean, okay, sure. Who's not?
Frances: He also traveled to Colorado at some point.
Caitlin: Like I said, you have to go to Colorado to have like this weird pilgrimage. I don't know why. It's the law.
Frances: I'm actually curious to know if he and do traveled to Colorado together.
Caitlin: I wonder if we can find a way to document that.
Frances: So there is an archive in Boulder that keeps some papers with Edward Jones…of Edward Jones's, but I could not get. Obviously into there because Colorado.
Caitlin: So, what you're saying is we need to take a pilgrimage to Colorado
Frances: And discover ourselves or something. Have an epiphany.
Caitlin: I wanna stay at the Stanley hotel. That's nowhere near Boulder, I don't think, but like, I wanna, I wanna go find some ghosts too.
Frances: Okay.
Caitlin: Right. So anyway, so he…Something big has happened here. Dow's dead.
Frances: Something major happened at the paper within what, three years now Dow's dead. Jones is off doing whatever, and he's also still advocating for transparency in journalism, which was apparently like a big thing for him. He wanted companies, sorry, not journalism…in finance. He wanted companies to their financial statements quarterly, I think, or regularly. That was a big thing for him. He was a big advocate for that. He's also becomes friends with over the course of this period…he becomes friends with James AR keen, not the soccer player, uh, the investment broker who handled JP Morgan and William Rockefeller's money.
Caitlin: Hmm.
Frances: He also becomes quote, an intimate friend and of Cyrus Townsend Brady, the anti-feminist adventure writer.
Caitlin: Great. Awesome.
Frances: This guy, this guy…whoof…he’s, he's a rough one. They were very close friends to the point where when Jones actually passed away, Cyrus Brady was asked about it and he said that it came as a great shock to him because they'd planned to Rick tired together as neighbors.
Caitlin: Oh, they were gay…Neighbors, quote unquote,
Frances: And I mean, intimate friendships at this point was like an actual thing, but I don't know if they meant intimate friendship as in capital I, capital F or as just like a very close…I don't know.
Caitlin: I don't care either way, like have sex with who you're gonna have sex with, but like not an anti-feminist. That's the problem that I have.
Frances: Whoo. This guy was rough.
Caitlin: So what year is it that Jones dies and how does he die?
Frances: So it's now 1920.
Caitlin: Okay. So he lives a long time after Dow.
Frances: Yes, he dies. So it's February of 1920. It's February 15th, 1920. And he has a fainting spell, but he recovers and is perfectly fine in that evening and they think nothing of it. It's okay. Whatever.
He goes…they go to bed, he and his wife. And thinking nothing is wrong. She wakes up the next morning to find him unable to breathe. She calls the doctor and he dies before the doctor arrives.
Caitlin: He had a stroke.
Frances: He had a brain hemorrhage.
Caitlin: Oh, shit. Worse.
Frances: I don't know why. I don't know if it was trauma. I don't know if it was a medical problem, him that he was having. But on February 16th, 1920, he dies of a brain hemorrhage.
Caitlin: How old is he?
Frances: He's 64.
Caitlin: That's weird. They both die pretty young.
Frances: Yep. He's 64 years old. His wife lives another, I wanna say 20 some years and dies a couple years after his son in 1941. And that is the not particularly illustrious life of Edward Davis Jones, who is by the way, Edward David Jones, the investment banker.
Caitlin: That's confusing.
Frances: Especially when you're trying to Google Edward D. Jones, or you're trying to research him at archives and nothing is coming up. Cause it's all about the wrong Jones. Extremely annoying.
Caitlin: I'm curious. Do you know what the life expectancy was in the 19th century?
Frances: So life expectancy in the early, early 19 hundreds was I believe relatively low. It was in the, I wanna say mid fifties.
Caitlin: Okay.
Frances: Mid to late fifties. However, I looked this up for the last episode. It was that low because infant mortality was so high.
Caitlin: Hmm.
Frances: I believe it was 30% of children didn't reach the age of five, which would bring down the life expectancy considerably. So yeah.
Caitlin: So it's just interesting to me because, so go back to Berg's stressor. He actually bounced from journalism in 1903. So like something severe happened during this time.
Frances: So in the space of what, four years, all three of them are just like bye and either die or leave.
Caitlin: So Dow is dead. Bergstresser lives till 1923. He is survived by his daughter as well. Who, I mean, basically. Is it total badass herself.
Frances: Cool.
Caitlin: She creates like a number of stamped collections.
Frances: I love that.
Caitlin: The United States air mail. So I kinda wanna talk about her as well.
Frances: I love that.
Caitlin: But something happened. Yeah.
Frances: I would love, love, love, love, love to be a fly on the wall at Wall Street Journal in 1899.
Caitlin: Hmm.
Frances: Maybe it was just a buildup over a significant period of time. That Jones just snapped and was like, I quit. I'm done. I can't deal with you anymore. Or maybe it was a particular thing.
Caitlin: I'm really curious. I really wanna know mm-hmm well, so I will tell you, I will conclude this: Charles Dow is currently buried at north burial ground in Providence, Rhode Island, which is dead. Set it in the middle of the city with a beautiful view of interstate 95.
Frances: It is.
Caitlin: Which is actually also, if you guys like a fun fact, the cemetery where we conceived the idea for this podcast.
Frances: Also true.
Caitlin: So where’s…which I do wanna say it's interesting to me and I don't, I haven't able to find this answer and I would love to know if anyone does. Jones…Jones is gone. Dow dies in New York.
Frances: Mm-hmm
Caitlin: He's originally from Connecticut.
Frances: Mm-hmm
Caitlin: He gets buried in Providence.
Frances: That’s..that’s…I would love to know why that is.
Caitlin: Right. Like why? Like his wife is from New York as well. Like why are you here?
Frances: Yes.
Caitlin: So when…where is Jones? Where is Jones's body?
Frances: So Jones is actually buried back home in Worcester, obviously…maybe his wife or, or his family…his body gets brought back to Worcester and he’s buried at Hope Cemetery with his parents.
Caitlin: Where is his, his intimate friend buried? I wonder
Frances: He's buried at Sleepy hollow Cemetery in Westchester, New York.
Caitlin: All right. So one thing, one fun fact I wanna leave to you cuz would this podcast be this podcast at this point without tying us back to Boston? When Dow dies, he had already sold some of his shares to this person, but in March, 1903, Clarence W. Barron purchased Dow Jones & Company for $130,000.
Frances: That's a lot of money back then.
Caitlin: And do you know what his career was?
Frances: Oh, no. What?
Caitlin: He was a journalist.
Frances: Of course he was.
Caitlin: so I didn't expect half the things that I learned with this. One…I'm trying to recap this all in my head. One: I don't understand why Dow was buried in Providence.
Frances: Oh yeah.
Caitlin: Two: I don't understand what the fight was that had them all fall out.
Frances: Mm-hmm
Caitlin: Three: was Jones in some kind of weird thrupple? Cuz I'm here for it. Four, they all seemed to die decently young. Was it the stress? Oh, and then five. Why can't we find out the answers to some of these questions?
Frances: I would love to know also why the companies that these journalists ran didn't keep records, right? Or didn't keep records that are publicly accessible in the year 2022.
Caitlin: It's weird. It's like this becomes like this is supposed to be a podcast that discusses the dead and bringing their stories back to life. But it looks like some people wanna keep these stories buried.
Frances: And this is a story that never…never a hundred percent died.
Caitlin: No, I'm so fascinated. Maybe we'll have to do a part two. Once we can get into some archives after we purchase a single stock.
Frances: Absolutely.
Caitlin: Like, I mean, I do own a single Disney stock, maybe that like, that can be some clout, someone out there impressed by that? Let me know. I'd really appreciate it, but with that, please remember to check our social media, to see pictures of these graves
Frances: And the gentleman as well. And they're amazing mustaches.
Caitlin: Yeah, absolutely. I wish I could grow a mustache. I really do, actually. I think I'd look weird, but anyway. I also just wanna say, thank you so much to John for suggesting this topic. Please feel free to reach out to us that there is someone that you're interested in. We are both going to be traveling more to find graves so we can break out of the new England area. But I mean, this is fascinating. I found a mystery that I didn't expect to find. And who knows? Hopefully if you're listening this podcast, you can go to our like 200th episode, which is Frances’s and My pilgrimage to Colorado. But with that go invest either in something financial, your time, or in a walk through the cemetery. And we'll see you there.
OUTRO MUSIC
Caitlin: Grave Escapes is hosted, written and produced by Caitlin Howle and Francesgrace Ferland and is produced and edited by Jesse D. Crichton. The music is melancholy after sound by Kai Engel. Follow us on social media to see images of today's graves and more about us. Our social handle is Grave Escapes. For a transcript, show notes, and land acknowledgement, visit us online at www.graveescapes.com We'll see you in the cemetery.
Frances: We’d like to acknowledge that Edward Jones is buried on the traditional lands of the Nipmuc peoples and that Charles Dow is buried on the traditional lands of the Wampanoag, Pokanoket, and Narragansett peoples, which is also where we recorded this podcast. Here in the Northeast and all across the country, native peoples are still here and thriving. For more information about indigenous history, we’ve added a link in the show notes to An Indigenous People’s History of the United States as a place to begin. For ways to support native leaders and communities, we’ve added links to both the North American Indian Center of Boston and Native Land Conservancy.
