Notes for: Mary ("Polly") Housman

From: angela d'aiuto [adaiutoa at yahoo.com]
Sent: Saturday, April 19, 2003
Subject: Bodine family- Mary Polly Bodine Houseman

The Bodine family is buried at the Dutch Reformed Church, 54 Port Richmond Ave, Staten Island, NY 10302 - Mary Polly Bodine Houseman actually, and the church is currently applying to National Registry status. Also the home and office of her unsuccessful prosecutor of Lot C. Clark has been nominated for landmarking, but is endangered of being demolished by a local Baptist Church.

The cemetary also has Dutch records and the Messerau family is buried there as well.

I enjoyed your website,
Angela D'Aiuto- Community Development Coordinator
Northfield Community LDC

From Charlotte Hix's article in the NYG&B Record, April 2009:

"Polly Bodine’s Death," Staten Islander, 30 July 1892. "Polly Bodine, the Veiled Woman and Her Three Trials for the Housman Murder," The Era Magazine, Staten Island Institute for the Arts and Sciences, 14(1904):332. This article states that her only son was an inmate of the Sailors House at Snug Harbor. Her daughter was with her when she died in the night while she slept. John Steers, an old-time undertaker of West Brighton, called with a hearse and a single carriage early on the morning of July 28 and took away old Polly’s corpse. The son and daughter were the only mourners. Records of Polly Bodine’s funeral were examined at the funeral home. She was buried in Fairview Cemetery, a mile or more from West Brighton, in a plain coffin that cost $25. Polly’s only son died in December 1894 at Sailors Snug Harbor and her daughter was deceased by 1904. Dorothy Valentine Smith, Staten Island, Gateway to New York (Philadelphia: Chilton Book Co., 1970), 143, states that Mary H. Bodine was given a proper religious service.