In Old Cincinnati, April Fools’ Day Was Too Often Not A Laughing Matter

From Cincinnati Post, April, 1 1904

April Fools’ Day doesn’t seem to get the attention it enjoyed in bygone days and for that we should be grateful. Too often, Cincinnatians discovered that April foolery was anything but humorous.

For example, it was nearly impossible to sound the alarm about any disaster on the first day of April. Such was the case in the Great Molasses Flood on April 1, 1904. Early that morning, a railroad tank car full of molasses sprang a leak at the Harrison Avenue crossing in Brighton. Several railroad workers got drenched with the sticky effluvia while hordes of children scooped up gallons of free molasses in any containers they could find. Henry W. Hamann, who represented that district on Cincinnati City Council, tried to get someone—anyone—at City Hall to respond. According to the Cincinnati Post, all the city officials thought Councilman Hamann was spouting an April Fool yarn and none of them were buying.

Every year, so many false fire alarms were turned in on April 1 by jokesters that many people ignored every fire alarm on that day, sometimes with fatal effects. Mr. and Mrs. Nicholas Brake of 939 Main Street, Covington, were entertaining friends on April 1, 1907, when a neighbor pounded on their door to alert them that their house was on fire. The Brakes ignored the warning because they assumed the neighbor was hoaxing them. Two passing police officers saw the upper stories engulfed in flames and turned in the alarm. With the fire engines roaring down his street, Mr. Brake realized his house really was on fire and that his four boys were asleep in the attic. Although he was able to rescue three of his sons, the youngest, just five years old, died in the flames.

Some girls attending the College of Music, according to the Times-Star [April 2, 1917] failed to report a body floating down the Miami-Erie Canal outside the school because they thought it must be an April Fool prank. When passersby did call attention to the corpse, it turned out to be a middle-aged man who, it was believed, had been afloat for several days.

Similarly, twelve-year-old James Hearn encountered nothing but disbelief when he tried to convince someone at the Newport Turner Gymnasium that someone had drowned in the gym’s swimming pool on April Fools’ Day. According to the Cincinnati Commercial Tribune [April 2, 1914], Hearn approached several older boys, but they dismissed his report as a joke.

“In unison the other lads retorted, ‘Quit your kidding, you can’t April fool us. Wait until after 12 o’clock.’ This was shortly before 9:30 o’clock, young Hearn said.”

On investigation, it was discovered that Ralph Miller, an 18-year-old who had not signed up for activities that night, had snuck into the pool and was found at the bottom of the deep end.

From Cincinnati Post, April 1, 1924

Far too often, the newspapers on April 2 included reports of tragic outcomes from April Fool activities. The Cincinnati Times-Star [April 13, 1908], for example, reported that Cincinnati Police Detective James A. Allen had retrieved one Bert Miles from Louisville, where he had fled after striking Horace Weathers with a brick during “April fool antics.” Weathers died from his injuries and Miles was charged with murder.

An Avondale April Fool jest could easily have turned fatal, according to the Cincinnati Commercial [April 2, 1916]. Jennie Wrenn, a domestic servant in the household of Samuel B. Wolf, 3707 Washington Ave., conjured up a scheme to scare the household cook. At the end of his duties, the cook retired to his bedroom on the third floor. Miss Wrenn threw on some blue overalls, a red sweater and a mask, then climbed out onto the roof. From there, she peered into the cook’s bedroom. Awakened from slumber, he spied what he thought was a burglar and ran downstairs to call the police. Two patrolmen and a sergeant responded and bounded upstairs as the cook described an assailant clambering through the upstairs window. On reaching the third floor, the cops saw someone running down the hallway, ordered them to halt and fired one shot. Unmasking the intruder, the sergeant said, “It’s a girl.” Jennie Wrenn, who had fainted at the pistol’s report, awakened and confessed her misguided jest.

“I wanted to play an April Fool joke on cookie,” she explained.

George Scordulis was sent to the Ohio Penitentiary in 1913 based on shocking and sordid testimony describing how he brutally murdered a woman named Grace Tyler. On the first April Fools’ Day following the sentencing, one of the jurors, George Forbus of Hyde Park, found a sloppily scrawled death threat in his afternoon mail. The anonymous correspondent warned Forbus that he would be punished for sending Scordulis to the penitentiary. Prosecutor Walter M. Locke told the Times-Star [April 2, 1914] that he suspected the threat was intended as a prank but that he “had little sympathy with the sense of humor displayed” and had turned the letter over to the postal authorities for investigation.

Sometimes, April Fool jokes spiraled out of control in the most unpredictable ways. A classic April Fool prank involved a dropped purse or wallet. Any innocent passerby who leaned down to retrieve it discovered an old relic filled with newspaper, or a trick in which an accomplice yanked a thread to pull the prize out of reach. According to the Times-Star [April 1, 1920], Charles Harding, a clerk in Cincinnati’s city purchasing office, acted as if he had just recovered a wallet dropped on the sidewalk. Richard Marthage, walking by, insisted that it was he who had dropped the wallet and that Harding had stolen his property. Police were summoned and, when Harding was able to accurately describe the contents of the wallet and Marthage could not, the latter was hauled off to the hoosegow.

Even official pronouncements were disregarded on the First of April. Cincinnati Mayor Julius Fleischmann ignored the calendar when he issued an edict to Cincinnati’s infamous saloons in 1905. Back then, as an incentive to win “free” drinks, every Queen City saloon featured at least one penny slot machine. Beers cost a nickel, but penny slot winners scored a chit good for a schooner of suds. How common were penny slots in Cincinnati? A popular vaudeville act had two comedians piloting a balloon around a fog-shrouded stage. One asks if the other can see where they are. “No,” the other replies. “I can’t see a thing, but we must be flying over Cincinnati because I can hear all the penny slot machines.”

For various political reasons, Cincinnati eventually opted to outlaw the machines, but when the mayor announced his mandate on April 1, 1905, it took several days before the police could convince the barkeepers that the mayor wasn’t pulling an April Fool’s gag.

April 1, 1915, was shaping up to be a busy day in Cincinnati Municipal Court. Judge William D. Alexander eyed the hefty docket hauled into the courtroom by his bailiff, settled into his chair behind the bench and summoned Prosecutor Denny Ryan to introduce the first case. Ryan complied, and presented the defendant, charged with assault and battery, one William Alexander.

“What is this?” His Honor queried. “April Fool?”

The prosecutor insisted it was merely coincidence that, upon the first of April, Judge Alexander was called upon to decide a case involving someone with a name identical to his own. In fact, Prosecutor Ryan hesitantly admitted there were, in fact, not one but two William Alexanders appearing in Judge Alexander’s courtroom that day. The judge, in the spirit of the day, dismissed both cases.