The Sewing Girl’s Tale: A Story of Crime and Consequences in Revolutionary America

3 BEEKMAN STREET. THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 5, 1793. DAWN.

The sun that rose for the rest of the world that morning was not the one that rose for Lanah Sawyer. At daybreak, the dark void of the new moon began to block the sun as it crept up over the horizon, casting a shadow over the city. By six o’clock, the eclipse was over—the sun broke free, the moon disappeared, and raking light illuminated the city pretty much the way it did on any other late-summer morning. But even then, all Lanah could see was darkness.

Light suddenly filled the room two hours later, when Harry Bedlow rose from the bed and opened the window shutter. After hours disoriented by the dark, Lanah Sawyer could see that it was broad daylight. This was her first chance to get a good look at her surroundings, but by this point she knew all too well where she was: in a crudely built room at the back of a brothel. Until late the night before, she had been flattered by the attentions of the twenty-six-year-old gentleman. To a seventeen-year-old sewing girl, he had seemed like an unexpectedly fine beau. It wasn’t until they had been less than a block away—now, peering out into the alley, she could almost see the spot where, walking together up Broadway, they had reached the dark, narrow entrance of Ann Street—that she had realized who he really was, where he was trying to take her, and the trouble she was in.

If she had slept at all, it had been fitfully. During the long, moonless night, the darkness had been complete. Several times, she had climbed out of the bed and tried to find a way to escape. But she could see nothing. Feeling her way around the room, her fingers brushing along the rough plank walls, she had found the window. But the shutters were closed, and she couldn’t pry them open. She found the door, too, but it was locked, and she couldn’t figure out how to release the mechanism. Not that she had much time to try. Each time she got up, Harry noticed, got up too, and forced her back to bed. Eventually, she had given up.

Sometime around eight o’clock, Mrs. Carey had opened the door and fetched a three-year-old boy who, it turned out, had slept all night in a boarded-off corner of the room. For them, it was breakfast time.

Harry dressed himself and told Lanah to do the same.

Make haste, he added. I suppose Mrs. Carey wishes us to be gone.

Then he walked out and closed the door. The thin walls of the house did little to muffle the sound of his footsteps, the click of his walking stick, the opening and closing of the door as he stepped out into the street. There were other sounds, too, as Mother Carey, the little boy, the two women who worked in the house, and a young Black servant all went about their business at the start of another day.

It was now shortly after eight. Throughout the night, the small, dark room had been Lanah’s prison. But now that she could leave, now that she was alone, it had become a kind of refuge.

For Harry Bedlow, leaving Mother Carey’s had been easy. Untroubled by concern about Lanah, he could step out into the street without a care. Who was going to think twice about a somewhat disheveled gentleman leaving a bawdy house in the morning? At home were his parents. However pious they were, they had had plenty of time over the years to accustom themselves to his debauchery. Even if people knew precisely what Harry Bedlow had been up to the night before, there was little reason for him to worry about repercussions.

For Lanah, things were different.

Alone, tired, disoriented, unwelcome, Lanah took stock. Her loose, flowing linen shift, which served as underwear, was stained with blood from between her legs. There was nothing she could do about that, and it wouldn’t show. Over it, there were petticoats tied around her waist and stays laced snug. Taking up her calico gown, Lanah assessed the damage: it was torn in a few places, and two or three of the strings that held it together had been ripped off. In that condition, she could not wear it in the street with any decency.

But that was a problem she could solve. Lanah was skilled with a needle and thread, which she carried in a reticule dangling from her wrist or a pocket hidden under her skirts. She worked as a seamstress to help her family make ends meet. As she stitched the gown back together, Lanah took her time. Almost two hours passed.

Finally, she pulled the gown on over her shoulders, tied the strings, and fastened the bodice with straight pins—a reminder that she didn’t have the means to pay for manufactured hooks and eyes. She pulled a broad-brimmed hat onto her head and gloves onto her hands, leaving no skin exposed from her toes to her neck.

Then, she opened the door and ventured into the narrow passageway. One direction led toward the front door, which opened onto Beekman Street. The other direction led toward the back door, through a gated yard, and to the alley that opened out onto Ann Street.

Right there in front of her stood the brothel keeper.

“Deary”—Mother Carey said with jarring familiarity; she had been anticipating the young woman’s departure with an eye toward discretion—“you may go out the back or the front door, as I have looked out and there is nobody in the street.”

A flash of anger overcame Lanah. She responded to the older woman with startling defiance.

Suddenly, it was clear that Lanah Sawyer was not going to let her story end the way either Harry Bedlow or Mother Carey had expected.